The Good Stuff

Over the past weekend, Penny got a burr under her saddle to decorate the house for Christmas.  Of course, she was spot-on about it being the best and most opportune time to do so, given our pastoral holiday schedule, a.k.a. relative insanity for a month or so.  Thus, in light of the wisdom presented, I settled in for the soon-to-come whirl and wush of activity clothed in evergreen.

Fun was found in every opened box, every tug of evergreen, and every lighting of the tree.  Before long, our home was draped in the beauty of Christmas as only Penny can do, and I began to feel the welcomed warmth of our home during one of my favorite holidays.  I rearranged a little furniture and hung the green on the front of the house, retiring then to the kitchen to join my bride for a quiet conversation of pleasurable review in light of the transformation and the hanging of the mistletoe.

For some reason, Penny walked back into the living room for a moment, and came back reporting a version of peace we had not all-together expected.  I walked in after the report, and found JeeP sitting in the newly placed rocking chair, joyfully within the glow of the lighted tree, reading a favorite Christmas book with an awesome, contented look glowing from his face.

"The good stuff" whirls around us all the time, doesn't it.

James, writing to Christians under unthinkable persecutions, tells them that "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with Whom there is no variation or shifting shadow"(nasb/esv).

Can you imagine any group in our history who could claim a relatively total lack of "good" things in their lives more than the early Christians?!  Yet, James reminds them, encouraging them in their endurance for Christ, that God is pouring out good and perfect gifts upon them from Heaven!

We are in the midst of one of the most difficult economies in generations.

A once "Christian Culture" has shifted to a "Politically Correct" existence... attacking those who might dare stand upon the Truth of the Scriptures with venomous name-calling and vicious outbursts meant to sideline Truth in lieu of anti-Christian ideals.

And yet, we are still yet to scratch the surface of the persecution of our early Christian fathers.

For me, this past weekend, "the good stuff" was playing in the living room, reading in the rocking chair, and re-arranging carefully placed decorations as the lights of Christmas danced in their eyes.

It would have been easy to miss.

It came and went all too quickly.

I don't want to miss even one of them.

Oh, how beautiful the gifts of our Heavenly Father Who loves us!  How magnificent His kindness!  How warm the aspect of His attention!  With Him, indeed, there is no change, no variance, no turning.  In His grace He pours out His love, and as the troubles of this world simply come and go, the love of God goes on forever!

Oh, that my life might be to Him a song of praise, a psalm of thanksgiving, and a novel of adoration!

In the peace of Christ,

Pastor John