Laziness: My Sin

I care...just not enough to act.


I belief...just not enough to create change in my actions.

These two sentences sum up what I have been struggling with the past month.  You may have noticed that I have not been on here much/at all.  The reasons are many and varying.  However, the root issue is pausing for self-examination.  I was quickly working to grow this blog into something special, but realized that with all the posts, I was not changing personally at all.

My wife gave birth to our first son 6 weeks ago, and I was confronted with major holes in my spiritual life that I didn't know existed.  Issues of patience, anger, know-it-all-ness, and many other issues.  I realized that for all the advice I give on spiritual issues, I am not putting much into practice in my life.

A week ago I told a youth that his biggest spiritual problem was laziness.  It hit me the next day:  I set that example for him.  I was lazy spiritually.  I love the learning, I love the excitement of spiritual moments, but I disappear when it comes time to set into the long haul of running the race of Christ with endurance.

So today I set back into this blog with a new goal.  I write not to share insight with you, but to seek sound biblical advice and practice for my life.  I will share things that are helping me in areas of my life, and I will ask for your advice as well.

I have new goals in my life, please allow me to share them.  They are all, in some way, spiritual in my mind.

1. Set to the daily task of praying both conversationally and intercession-ally.
2. Set aside a disciplined time of Scripture study, memorization, and reading.
3. Speaking kind and uplifting words without sarcasm.
4. Eliminate television and other media from my life that would not live up to my teaching standards.
5. Read more.
6. Seek ways to serve the community.

These are my goals.  I am not wanting to take baby steps.  I believe that God sent Christ to totally recreate me into what he always intended me to be, and so I am going to be sharing radical steps that I am taking in the next several days.  Laziness is no longer something I can tolerate of myself.

Will you pray for me?  Will you encourage me and give me advice as I seek it?   

How I Killed Christmas

The liberals have not killed Christmas.

Nope, it wasn't the atheists either.


It was me.

Maybe it was you too.

I killed Christmas.

Christmas, a time for joyful celebration of God's provision, his purpose, and his power.  Christmas, a time for quiet reflection on Jesus' humble human birth, Mary's service to God, Joseph's patience, Shepherds worship, kings submission.  Christmas--the time that calls us to anticipate Jesus presence in our lives afresh.

Dead at the very hands of those who call it sacred.

I lived in denial for years.  I wouldn't do this.  I am a Christian, I want to keep the Christ in Christmas.  It was certainly someone else's agenda.  Not me.  No.

Yet I stand guilty.

Every moment my heart beat green with greed...

Every gift I gave with personal gain in mind...

Every time I uttered "Merry Christmas" while acting just like the Christless masses.

Death, by destroying the true purpose of Christmas.



Dear Christians, please listen to my plea.  This Christmas, let's not blame anyone for taking Christmas or destroying it.  Let's bring it back.  Join me.  Not by bemoaning our loss.

Not by yelling louder or posting about Christmas on Facebook, Twitter, or even Google+.

I suggest doing what Jesus did--loving to the point that you come into someone's life, and make it better.  Bring hope, mercy, forgiveness, and love.

Don't just read the Christmas story to your kids this year, put it into practice in your life.

"The Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us"

Leave The Pregnant Woman Outside?

They finished their travels just in time to begin their journey.

Water-breaking and searching for a place to stay, I find this one aspect of the Christmas story so...

sickening.

"they wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, for there was no room for them in the inn."

Really?  Who leaves the woman outside while she is in labor!?  Heartless?

Let's not say anything about this inn-owner that we don't know.  We don't know that he offered them to stay in a stable.  We don't even know there was a stable.  Just a manger--a trough.

Straw for sheep and salvation for sons of men.

Perhaps it wasn't that there was no room...perhaps it is that there was no room for them in the inn.

This was Joseph's ancestral home, surely he had family there.  Surely there was someone that could be called a relative, a friend.  Surely this small town would have had room somewhere.

But I bet word travels fast about unmarried pregnant women in small towns in the religious Jewish countryside.

Perhaps the calling of God for these two young people was more difficult than we think.  Maybe they were cut off from friend and family.  Outcasts for sins they did not commit.  Maybe there was room in the inn, just not for them.

I don't know.

All I do know is that God often reveals himself in strange and unexpected ways.  Far too often my heart is wide open, but I shut it fast in fear or judgement only to find that I left the Savior out in the cold.