On Vacation

So, I am on vacation! YEE HAW!! I am spending the week in Illinois, mostly at my in-laws! Today, my father-in-law and I went out to the shooting range and shot some trap. We are going to try and get us a few pheasant on Wednesday. Christmas Celebration @ bro-in-law's place tomorrow.

Basically my vacation is as follows: Sleep, Eat (mmmm...) Read, (brought 4 books), Hunt, Play with Kids!

SO, what do YOU do when you have the week off?

Scared?

So, a few months ago my two children began to have this irrational and totally uncalled for fear of foxes. (Thank you Dora the Explorer and Swiper the Fox!) They didn't want to go upstairs without a body guard! (umm...me!) I tried repeatedly to explain to them that there were no foxes in the house, and that they couldn't get in anyway.

Well, those lovely persuasions didn't work, in fact, nothing did! Until one day, I got a bright idea and told them that, "Even if there were foxes in the house, Daddy was big enough and strong enough to protect them." They smiled up at me and asked me what I would do if a fox was in the house. I told them I would grab him by the tail, swing him over my head and toss him out the door. They aren't really afraid of them anymore. Not because I convinced them there fear was misplaced, I just gave them a better place to put their trust.

You know, the world is a scary place. It is full of foxes. Some of those really do have sharp teeth and rabies, but most of our foxes are worries and fears of our own design. I could tell you till I am blue in the face that you need not worry about this or that. But instead, I just want to remind you that you have a Father big enough to see you through the worst of foxes.

By the way, cool ending to this story: My son wants to be strong enough now. When we have our prayer time in the morning, he asks me to pray that he will be strong enough to toss out those foxes.

Hungry?

Yesterday @ our worship & celebration event @ DCC, we sang a cool song I had kinda forgot about called, "Hungry". It was a sweet reminder of Jesus' words about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. (see Matthew 5:6)

Well, it was good to sing, but later in the day I had one of those, "Wow, its real!" moments. You see, we had a cool session of Small Group Leader Training, and I came home. When I walked in the door, two different smells hit me: Some of Roseann's homemade bread, and the pot of chicken & rice soup on the stove! You have experienced what happened next: my mouth watered, my stomach rumbled, and I was sure I hadn't eaten in at least four days. (actually like 4 hours! LOL)

But the next thought knocked my socks off: "Do I really hunger and long after intimacy with God like that?" Do I feel incomplete, a desperate longing when I haven't been with Him that day? To be completely honest with you, often times my personal time with God becomes a chore to complete, not a feast to enjoy. I desperately want to be there. I want to be hungry.

One Man Changes History

So, I just went to Chapel @ Countryside Christian School in Cambridge. Now, I am sitting in Denny's with a cup of coffee, and getting a little work done. Now, I am not a habitual eavesdropper, but the guy 2 tables behind me is talking very loudly and this is the point he is making:

If Bill Clinton had controlled himself in the Monica Lewinski situation, Al Gore would have won the 2000 election in a landslide, the Iraq war would never have begun, and all the lives & money spent there would have been saved. Whether you agree with that or not, what he concluded with was right on. He said, "Isn't it amazing that one man can change the face of the world's history?"

He was absolutely right about that! Isn't that what we remember every Christmas? The one man (who was also God) who was born into human history and who changed everything. What seemed like an ordinary birth, in an insignificant town, in an unlikely stable made the angels sing, the shepherds celebrate, and the wise men travel. The ordinary birth that brought an extraordinary salvation to men. Merry Christmas.

Billy