Gift Giving

So I know that Gifts is not what Christmas is all about but...

The cool thing about shopping for gifts brings out a character that we tend to put on the backshelf during the rest of the year.  GIVING.

I must be honest and say that christmas shopping can be stressful, due to crowds of people, or the fact that you just don't know what to get "so-and-so" for chirstmas.... maybe just a gift card.

But the effort to sit and think of others and what they like, and what they ARE like, brings the side effects of compassion and putting others first.  And while this is still focusing on gift giving, there is a particular story that I love during this time of year called "The Gift of the Magi"

Its a story of giving a gift that sacrifices one's own best to give to the other.

In a sense, GOD did that for us.  Continue to dwell on others, and to think about the FATHER's love for us and what HE gave.

childlike setting for Christmas

The Lord has always encouraged us to have faith like a child... Trust and Obey
He also tells us to grow with a discerning heart and a strong faith. 

Before I would know the Saviour, I put a lot of effort and excitement towards Christmas, leaving out the oatmeal cookies and coffee for Santa, waking up early the next morning to see what he brought.  As I started a new life in Christ, some things at Christmas weren't lining up.

I had to grow into a discerning heart very quickly... I challenge you to set your traditions and faith before you, and establish them into your family to the best you can to Glorify Christ....

But as a grown up now, I still get excited, and wake up EXTREMELY EARLY, and feel like a kid at heard during this time.

Here are a few recommendations for you and/or your children to help explain Christmas and where it all started. :D

How Many Kings

This Song is so good to ponder on.

When the COLD comes

Just the other day it snowed here in Texas, enough to cover the windshield of the car, and then melted when the sun came up.  We rejoiced in it though it doesn't compare to what I experience in Moscow, RU.

THAT WAS SNOW!! :)

Something interesting about snow that some don't think about is the fact that it works as an insulator, or a blanket.  While the winter may seem like a harsh one, the snow that comes with it is a protector for the ground from the freezing temporatures.

walking area near Kremlin (Moscow,RU) early spring

In Russia, while the fall had not yet seen snow, the city workers rushed around to get bulbs planted in the ground...then when the snow came and blanketed them from the major cold, spring would come and the Tulips with their vibrant colors would burst forth through the snow while it was still melting!

You know where I'm going with this?

The Lord sends times like this in your life to make you bundle up in His stillness and be protected and close to Him, and strengthened and then burst forth with all your colors when "spring" comes.

Under The Christmas Tree

As a kid I loved spending my time gazing at the Christmas  tree and occasionally laying under the tree looking up into it with all the twinkling lights. 

Time disappeared
Cares disappeared
Space around disappeared

All there was was me and those lights
Some would stay their same strength of glow, while others dances to "Angels We Have Heard on High", and some just twinkled like stars in the wintry night.

And my imagination would have me travel through different worlds of thought.

At one point I would imagine what it would be like in a sleigh ride through the countryside with snowmen waving at me and passing by carolers...

Then I would imagine being at the North Pole in Santa's workshop with all the elves and the laughter and the magical reindeer

And I remembered the little figurine manger we would set up and imagined myself there in the barn with the baby... and with the wise men traveling...and the angels singing in the sky...and I have to catch my breathe ..because this is a mystery and a wonder I know not of ..yet... but it seems so beautiful.

And as a child I continued to imagine all these things each year, until one year I started going to church and hear about this story that was REAL.. the birth of a Savior,...and my focal point became more and more clear when I would gaze upon the lights of the tree. And my heart for imagination would take me soaring with the lights.. really trying to picture the glory that the shepherds saw that AWESOME NIGHT!

O Come (Poem inspired by classic Hymn: O Come, O Come Immanuel)

O Come Sweet Saviour
O Come Immanuel
come live among us
God WITH us
come please come

my heart is beating with the rhythm of history

It beats
like a song building up to the climax of the greatest thing
that you will bring
and I will sing

and REJOICE!
for my choice
will be YOU forevermore.


By: Jamie Cook

The Standard: Truth and Compassion

Some friends and I were discussing in a bible study about the difference between the TOLERANCE and the VALIDATION of other religions (with the thinking that what you believe is the TRUTH).

I say we should set the standard, while leaving room for compassion.

The next question is... WHAT IS THE STANDARD?
The answer to that is found in that book on the shelf with dust on it that says "Bible" or the one that we hold in our hand but rarely open.  That is the Standard.  When we read it and read it some more, we will find the standard, the TRUTH.

The second thing you have are events in your life that whisper, and sing, and shout out WHO GOD IS.

With those two things hand-in-hand how could I deny HIM?  But still people do. So now we go back to the question at the beginning:  What's the difference between tolerance and validation of other religions?

While having the responsibility to set the standard (expressing the VALIDATION of TRUTH), Compassion is mandatory to TOLERATE other "proclaimed truths"  I have to say when I hear the word tolerate it makes me think of myself as being lazy and simply leaving them alone and saying "its okay to worship your gods too", but COMPASSION changes everything.  Compassion reaches out with the earnest heart for sharing the TRUTH while exercising PATIENCE.

I was sharing with my friends with a picture example:

picture by Jamie Cook

You have a man standing in the distance and he is to choose his wife from a crowd of ladies.  If the one lady destroyed all the others around her, the man would have no other choice but to choose her, but if she displays her elegance and beautiful and captivating manners and moral standings and her inner strength and light, then she will outshine all the others in the crowd, and therefore she will be chosen from him seeing the truth.

We should be like that woman in the crowd.. to show others (the gentleman and women) what true beauty is, then we are showing the other ladies (other religions) the WAY without destroying, and winning over the man (the lost) without force.