Seek the Lord challenge

I am aware that I pray often. I pray big prayers, all or nothing prayers, radically change me and the world prayers. I am ambitious in my prayers, after all, I’m talking to God who can do anything. God is not a genie. I also pray small prayers, realistic prayers, and relationship prayers (the best ones because they concentrate on my relationship with the Lord).

However, in the midst of giant prayers, I occasionally become aware that I don’t really want what I’m asking God to give me. I couldn’t handle it if He gave it to me. I’m praying for millions when I can’t handle the modest budget I’ve been given to steward. God works far above and beyond my personal security limits. He is like a parent who knows the true cost and all the ancillary requirements the big prayers require. Ask for the millions because you can buy anything and don’t worry about all the problems and issues it will cause when you get it. Daydreams don’t cost anything, but life does.

I think the Lord hears the truth in my prayers. “Speak to me, but don’t scare me. Tell me stuff that isn’t threatening or that doesn’t require me to do something drastic. Show me stuff, but don’t show me what I’m really like because I couldn’t stand being that disgusted. God you are too big for me. I am terrified and talk to you like a terrified child who wants to pretend he is safe and okay.”

I’m not okay. The Lord is that big and scary. The Lord also knows how small I am and talks to me as a parent does to a small child who isn’t expected to understand the adult world except through time and teaching. His world is too big for me. I can only take small doses.

Jesus, who could have wiped our entire world clean of anything or everything with the snap of His fingers, (Thanos wouldn’t stand a chance against Him) chose to limit Himself for our sake to communicate with us at our level of understanding. 

The true power of Jesus isn’t what he did for us while walking the planet, but the limits He chose to impose upon Himself for our sake.  He translated heaven into human terms, which is still relevant today because of the spiritual truth He is still revealing behind the human face of history and life stories, in scripture, and so many other ways. 

Facing God is a terrible and a wonderful thing. Terrible because He really is that big, that powerful, that totally God. It is wonderful because He loves us enough to work with us where we are, constantly working to draw us into a better place.  His goal for us is always better than our own goal, goals for eternal well being, not just momentary comfort. He is totally trustworthy to deal with people who don’t really understand what it takes to fulfill their prayers or even grasp what they are requesting.. God may have to build a house before he can give someone a room of his own. Only He knows what it will take for each of us.

I’m reading Ezekiel 32 and realize that somehow I distance myself from the Old Testament image of God because of the seeming ruthless punishments He rains down on the disobedient. I disconnect because I don’t want to realize that I am like those people who deserved that. I am so alienated from those punishments to an extent that I can’t even realize that those people got less than they deserved.

How can I reconcile my images of God into one God. The God of the Old Testament (OT) is the God of the New Testament (NT). I have both softened Jesus and hardened God, seeing Jesus as the forgiver when He is also the judge. I see God in the OT as the punisher and not the forgiver He also is. I have separated them because I don’t know how to look at myself in the true scheme of things. My struggle with the image of God is the same as my struggle with my image of myself. I like to see myself as better than I am instead of seeing the truth of what I really am without Jesus.

The OT God is my God, worthy of respect and honor. He is the terrifying truth of what has happened to this world, what sin does, and what outcomes sin produces. He gave many chances, warnings, and opportunities. He rewarded the faithful and worked continuously to build relationship with His people and His individuals. He was a parent to a child who was young, completely immature, and chose rebellion over the parent.

The OT is raw and open and obvious. I can see with great clarity the rebellion of the people. I can see their hatefulness and abuse of God and what He has given them. But I can also see Him crying out to them for repentance so that He can heal them. I see the preachers and prophets laying down the obvious truth of the entire Bible – sin produces death and repentance opens the door to God for life and healing.

The OT is direct as a parent is to a new child. A new child has to know the difference between “no” and “yes.” The message has to be clear or the child will get injured or killed. “Don’t touch the stove,” has to be powerfully reinforced to a child who is only at the doorstep of understanding. “Don’t run out into the street,” has to be commanded with extreme prejudice to a child who has no comprehension of the danger of the mistake. The parent punishes out of the deep desire to protect and keep the child in safety, far from the harms, worse than the punishment, which might truly harm or kill their beautiful child.

The OT God is my God. I don’t understand Him. I fear Him because He commands respect. I know He must be the God I love because all the Old Testament was preparation so Jesus could come and complete the work. I learned the truth of the hot stove through the burns I received. I learn respect for God when I see the true dangers and devastation that sin causes and when I learn to recognize my own nature. Jesus only becomes real in the true context of what life on this planet is really about.

It takes time and training to learn. I learned as a child, but I learned more and better as I aged. How many severe/emphatic warnings does it take for a child to grow to the point of only needing to receive the warning in a word? The OT brought us from spiritual birth and the beginning of spiritual awareness to Jesus. Jesus now takes us the rest of the way. https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.13.11.ESV “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” 1 Corinthians 13:11 ESV

There are many Bible stories that are engaging, encouring, and, sometimes, downright cozy – but not Ezekiel 8. Ezekiel 8 is one of the tough love chapters for me. I need it, but I’m not quick to run to it. 

God is giving Ezekiel a vision of the truth behind the facade of his people. Each image is worse than the one before it, each revealing the truth of their inner life and reality. Ouch. God sees all. Humans seem to have a powerful commitment to image control, but God sees beyond all that into the absolute truth of our condition, beyond even the lies we tell ourselves. (Hard to think about because I’m so convincing. Ask me. I prefer to believe myself.)

One side of that coin is seeing ourselves and remembering ourselves in an unconverted self. I see and know how selfish and self absorbed I am and see that as the truth. That’s not exactly true either. The other side of the coin is that the Lord sees me through the eyes of His sacrifice for me. He views me through His salvation and mercy. I may be bad, but I’m loved, accepted, part of His family, and He continually works to heal and redeem me through His infinite love. 

Now that’s confusing. God can see all of me – the best and worse there is to see in me – and chooses love, compassion, and truth. The truth doesn’t go away. Real is real. I’m always in the need of repentence. It is just that the absolute truth is not the final word. Jesus is the final word. I have accepted Him and His redemption package and am spending the rest of my life opening it and having it therapeutically applied to my life through the unswerving work and faithfulness of the Holy Spirit. 

I know that I’m a people pleaser. I want people to like me. Sometimes I work hard at it because I’m convinced that, if they like me, I can find a reason to like myself. Then, there is Tona. We’ve been married over 45 years. She sees me, the real, the fake, the true. She sees the full mixture, my ability to do things beautifully in the Lord and my ability to be rotten to the core. (That’s a Crabby Appleton reference which only the oldest among you will get. Look up Tom Terrific.) Tona is a true example to me that “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

It seems that I stand in the middle of the conundrum. The truth of my nature and the forgiveness through which the Lord chooses to view me. The two are attached by the unbreakable bond of the love of Christ and His salvation. I know that I don’t understand this completely. I do believe that my back and forth motion between failing and Christ operates as the generator which powers my growth forward through the efforts of the Holy Spirit. 

Quite fankly, gratitude is a big part of the package for me. I look at myself, naked with apple in hand and the bite of it fresh on my lips. I look into the eyes of the Lord and His truth with forgiveness and mercy. I prefer Him. I am thankful for Him. 

This has been a season of many deaths. A former student called and weeped when his dad died. The mother of a former student contacted me because her daughter was dying and died just before I got there. One of the church fathers died, a man who created a sense of home wherever he was because of the love of God in him. There have been so many more – precious people loved by God – to join Him where their celebration can be unbounded by the limits of this world.

I realized that it is time for me to prepare for my own death as my mother had before she died. She planned everything, taking the burden and confusion from us, her children. I created a document, one that would cover everything necessary for my family to go forward.

Most of the work was straight forward: who gets what, who makes the decisions, where are the important records, how to pay the bills, what songs in the funeral, and the list goes on. That’s when I hit the snag. I have spent a lifetime loving my family and being loved by them. How can a practical list of what to do, when and how, ever address that? Not just my family, but all the others the Lord has put in my life.

I began to realize that my funeral plans were upside down. People come to celebrate the life of the one who has died. What about the guy, me, who has died. What if I want to say something to them? I want to reverse my funeral and make it about celebrating all the love God has poured out in my direction through all those amazing saints He brought into my life. I could never thank my family and these saints enough for being God’s emissaries.

There are Bible verses about abiding in the vine, established and firmly attached to Jesus. A vine gets its nutrients as long as it is attached, causing it to grow, stretch out, enjoy the sun and the rain, and live. No attachment means no nutrients, means death of the vine. 

So — how do the nutrients come to keep the vine alive? They come through all those wonderful people who are alive in Jesus. There is another verse about so great a cloud of witnesses. Jesus has filled my life through those beautiful people. Books of testimonies could be written, I could write, about what they have done – just for me, not including all the others they have touched. Now is a time of funeral. I want them to know how much they made a difference, how much of Jesus I saw because of their lives.

Now I hit the wall. As a man who has lived through the words I have, I have none. There is no adequate way to thank the people who God has blessed with His gifts and blessed me with their lives. I wish they could see themselves through my eyes, and they would never have a sad day again. They would see that Jesus has moved and is moving in and through them. They would not be disappointed in any of their failures because they would see that those failures became love and successes in the Lord’s hands. If there was any sorrow in them, it would be like I find now, not enough words to express the joy, the love, the thanksgiving I have for who the Lord is and who they are in the Lord.

Anger challenge

“Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.”

Ecclesiastes 7:9 ESV

Many times I’ve come to crossroads, as we all do. A stirring will occur in my circumstances, typically a crisis type event. Anger is easy because something or someone is going wrong in my situation.  I am so surprised that foul language, no matter how long suppressed, never seems to be far enough away. The shortest distance between peace and rage comes through a feeling of helplessness. Bad words and terrible actions can easily follow.

The stirring could come from anything, a boss, an illness, an unexpected bill, a relationship, or any other kind of setback or hindrance. The issue, whether a what or a who, challenges me. It becomes a battle, which must be fought.

Anger and/or bitterness becomes easy at this point because I perceive the issue as a threat. Threat points me at an adversary and often aims me like a weapon. Anger is a looking-over-my- shoulder, a looking-back moment. I want to attack my adversary instead of hearing and moving in the direction the Lord prefers for me. Anger tends to silence and block the voice of the Lord because it appeals to my most base self.

Following the Lord does not use anger or bitterness to travel. Following the Lord may not change anything in my issue except to free my eyes and my heart. Following the Lord easily acknowledges the failure of this world and my failure in it. However, the Lord gives the direction – to Him and toward the goals He has for me, not to satisfy sour emotions by hurting others in anger or rage.

Say my job is going badly or the management is creating suffering (happened lots). I may be stirred toward a job change, maybe not.  Either way God wants me to go will satisfy my vision and ministry in Him. Staying in a bad job might be a call to fulfill some plan I may not see, but the Lord has for that place. I can be at peace because the event is in the Lord’s hands. Leaving for a new job can be to fulfill the Lord’s plan by moving me in a direction for His purpose. Either way, the decision to come or go is to be based on my relationship with the Lord and not the emotion of the situation. 

The stirring is simply a call to get close and hear the Lord clearly. My concern can become more about what the Lord wants and where He and I are traveling together instead of what a corrupt and broken world is doing to me. 

The shift from situational to Jesus even frees me from my own mistakes by allowing the Lord to grow me in His direction. I become open to the Lord’s correction as I seek Him.  The change in focus rearranges anger and kills bitterness. Godly purpose overcomes hurt with the presence of Jesus and an intentional move toward His joy. My goal is to be stirred toward Jesus. Being stirred and moving to Jesus always creates the best outcomes. “Lord help me not to give in to anger and rage, but into you and your plan.”

My wife and I traveled to Cocoa Beach for a four day, three night vacation. The hotel bill was paid by the company who wanted us to come see their timeshare program. I should have seen the shark fin cutting the surface of the water regarding the Timeshare meeting.

I’m sure timeshare is good for someone because so many people buy them, and some people even have multiple timeshares. The timeshare program doesn’t work for me. The first hour and a half of the meeting was interesting, touring the resort, learning about the company, and all the places we could visit. Beyond that, it was an uphill struggle.

The agent absolutely declared that they were not hard sell, as they led me, many times, right around my “no” to return to their pitch. They weren’t hard sell, but they didn’t understand “no” with an explanation, “no” with an affirmation, “no” with incredulity that we were saying it again, and many other forms of “no” until I demanded to see the manager. Then I was only required to say “no” emphatically, with dramatization and clear facial expression, to the manager and the next person who was supposed to arrange for our hotel credit. All my self image of being courteous was completely exhausted, and I was facing my raw, most irritable self.

We headed out to get some lunch. We had been at the timeshare place for three hours. I was hungry and frustrated. Tona saw a restaurant on an app that looked good. I chanced upon the same one. The confirmation clinched it. We were off to Southern Charm in Cocoa Beach. It truly lived up to its name. The owner welcomed everyone as though he had personally invited them into his home. The food was fabulous.

A woman in the next table overheard some of our comments and started a conversation. She was a Christian with a beautiful relationship with Christ. Tona and I joined her and spent the next hour or two in fellowship. By the time we finished talking, we could have walked on water because we felt so light and cheered up. We found out that she was down because she was facing health issues. Only the Lord would put two frustrated, struggling people together for them to cheer each other up.

We found out that she was riding the bus and hadn’t planned to stop at Southern Charm. She pulled the bus stop wire without thinking. Our meeting had been choreographed. We also found out that her grandfather had my birthday, and her grandmother had Tona’s birthday (same birthdays, but not the same age). There were other of those “divine coincidences,” convincing us that Jesus was working on our attitude and outlook. Our outlooks and perspectives had been completely transformed. I had gone from exhausted irritability to rested and peaceful.

Faith is an eye opener. It allows us to see that we have a loving Father who is always at work for us and our healing. Sometimes He just makes a point of letting us see it so that we don’t forget when we don’t see it. Jesus models what faithfulness and loving kindness really looks like.

This post was started by a note I wrote to a friend about watching his son preach. “It was great to see your son struggling like Jacob did with God and changing in the struggle — not only that — but allowing his struggle with change to manifest Jesus to others. We are the paper on which God writes His words so that others might read of His goodness and life.” 

I have often said that I wish I could introduce others to the Jesus I know because He is generous and merciful and not all the harsh and judgmental things hurt people say. All good things in my life have come through His hands.  He removed the alcohol and many other things which consistently destroyed my life and relationships. He has given me hope in impossible places, impossible places where I put myself and where others put me. He gave me a family, a career, wonderful friends, and so much more. Then I realized — I am the paper on which God writes His words so that others might read of His goodness and life.

If you are reading the words on my life’s pages, what are you seeing? Is my life portraying the goodness of God or the meanness of Harry? I am challenged! My job isn’t to control the world around me, but to be the kind of person that Jesus is working to heal and grow in my life. 

Too sadly I sometimes find that I try to force the world and people around me to behave the way God is trying to teach me to behave, voluntarily. It is not easy for me to open myself to correction. It is much easier to see what others need to do to be the perfect person I wish I was. God says to me “Behave in a loving, truthful, honest, just way, and I respond by telling others to behave that way without hearing the correction intended for me. I apologize to you, my reader, and to all I know, for sometimes being the person I dislike most in the world, demanding of you what was meant for me and not being accountable. 

I think I would like to warn people to wear hard hats around me, as they would around a construction site. You never can tell when a board or brick will fall. Sometimes the tools are left all over the place and become trip hazards, or the support structures for the workers need shoring so they won’t fall. I think maybe I should wear a sign that says something like “If you are looking at me and expecting to see Jesus, you will be disappointed.” Then again — the fact that Jesus hasn’t given up on me and continues to faithfully work on my healing and restoration should be encouraging to any who see me. Maybe that is a sign for the back so I could wear sandwich signs everywhere I go.

Maybe I should say that I know that I’m not living up to anyone’s perfect standards, but Jesus hasn’t quit and neither have I. Maybe I should say that I’m not what I will be, but at least I’m not what I was. There are so many things I wish I could say perfectly but can’t find the right words at the right time. Maybe I should just end with, “I know I’m not perfect, and you aren’t either, but I know that Jesus loves both of us. He has a much better plan for making our lives a better place to live than we have for ourselves. Let’s walk together and find that better life in Jesus.

The newspapers, news, media of all types are full of the corona virus. Panic has ensued around the world. Businesses have dropped their hours, their services, and their employees. Travel has been diminished to a point of locking the world out and us in. The stock marked plummets like a man without a parachute. Stockers and hoarders strip the markets of daily supplies, forcing people to go without necessities in an “every person for themselves” manifestation of selfishness.

We show and easily put on display where our hearts are by our actions. Don’t touch becomes don’t greet. Social distancing becomes alienation and failure to care for one another. Responsibility in handling the possible exposure to an illness becomes an isolation, which contains elements of rejection toward others and dying compassion for other sufferers. Pastors often teach that what is in us will show when we are under stress. Is this wrong — no.

All of us suffer from the limits of humanity and the need for self. It is not that these temptations are in us or part of us, it is how we choose to face them, deal with them. We can see ourselves in scripture and choose to behave the way we wanted our Bible counterparts to behave. God is with us. We are not alone. I say, because I struggle with all of this – “I am not alone!”

The Israelites were amazing people. Their lives were filled with both miracles and terrible challenges. They left Egypt after having been rescued, miraculously by God. Soon they were at the Red Sea in a total panic. The sea before them and the Egyptian army behind, and them sandwiched right in the middle. This same pattern of miracle and crisis, rescue and disaster followed them all the way into the promised land.

The Israelites became panicked every time they hit a disaster and celebrated every time they were rescued. Somehow – they were only okay when their circumstances were okay. That is where they missed the greatest opportunity. They were looking to God for His provision only (His hand instead of His heart – as the preachers say). They had the availability of a profound relationship with God all the time, every moment of every day. They felt they couldn’t live without ________ (fill in the blank {toilet paper}). They didn’t go to God except when they had a profound need. Yet, He was there all the time, available, desiring a deeper relationship with His people.

I see myself like the Israelites in their situations. I want to write a new script. I want to seek God all the time, not just when there is trouble. Recently, before all the virus crazy, I was online looking at my finances. I was happy seeing that I was able to retire because it had seemed impossible for most of my life and career.

Quietly, inside, I felt the nudge of inner revelation. “Do you trust in the nest egg or Me?” I immediately saw that I was looking to my physical circumstances. I began thinking of all the times I was up against the wall and felt like I wouldn’t make it. I could list many of those events here, but you would be reading all day. I arrived at my old age with a nest egg and retirement because He had given it to me. I had survived innumerable catastrophes because He had carried me through so many Red Seas that I should have been convinced that puddles would part when I walked by. It would be a shame to my life and a very generous Lord to fail to trust Him now.

I have as much reason to trust Jesus as the Israelites did after their miraculous deliverance from Egypt and all the other major events of their journey. God has been as involved in my life and the lives of those around me as He was in their lives. I write this post to remind myself that I want to choose Him instead of my situations, just like I wanted the Israelites to do. I want to learn from my mistakes and theirs. God really is faithful.

God can bring a cure to any situation. However, if He does or doesn’t, I want to do what I wanted for the Israelites. I want to walk with Him and love Him because of Who He is and what He has been to me through my life. I want to appreciate Him now because He has spent my lifetime proving His love and faithfulness. As a savior and friend, He won’t fold in this crisis. I don’t want to fold toward Him. I am confident that, no matter what it looks like, I/we have not been abandoned. He is closer than our next prayer. He is still worthy of praise and thanksgiving, no matter how bad it may seem.

I recently went by the church office to joke with my pastor. I told him I was on the way to commit an act of manual labor and wanted him to talk me out of it. What I really wanted was some comfort. I’ve known the Lord a long time, but I still struggle. Sometimes I wonder if I struggle as badly as I did when I was a new believer. I don’t think so. I began my faith walk struggling with whether or not God was real and whether or not Jesus was the savior. Those questions have been answered. The current struggles are about walking forward and growing deeper.

My humanity, me, keeps getting in the way of what could be a beautiful human image of a Christian testimony and life. I’m on planet earth in my human form. Have I missed it? Am I not doing enough? And many questions just like this, many with the answer, “yes.”  God is so great that He turns those failings into comfort for me and others. My redemption becomes my testimony to Him, even though it is created completely out of my shortcomings. I provide the fertilizer. God provides and grows the flowers. God’s image of a testimony is much better. 

Recently the Lord addressed some  of this internal struggle in an image I had during a church service. The image was of God on His throne with all the glorious golden lights emanating out from Him. The light became separated into golden threads, which pierced the gulf between heaven and earth. Each thread wrapped around a believer and was tied into a knot over the believer’s heart, connecting her/him to God. I could see the thoughts and love of God pulsing through the thread and encouraging, strengthening, and giving insight to the believer’s heart. One thing that puzzled me was that, even as the thread pulled the believer ever closer to the final destination of heaven, the believer was unable to hold on to the thread. He was completely dependent on God’s intent, and God’s knot.

I believe that the Lord works with my cooperation and willingness. He uses my decisions to teach me. However, I am so tied to my own thoughts and understanding that it is easy to be on the way to heaven making mistakes all along the way. Somehow, possibly the reason I became a teacher, I want to be able to understand everything and be able to explain everything. I realize that I am often limiting my own growth because God is beyond my understanding. My need to understand is not necessarily wrong, but it can be a hindrance when trust would be the better choice. God is trustworthy.

I talk about my choosing to be a teacher. Actually that is incorrect. I was unable to get a job, and teaching was the only job which came my way. The job was as desperate for someone to fill it as I was to have it. I spent the next several years, after getting the job, doing everything I could to get out of teaching and find another job. I found I was cemented into that job. I eventually realized that God had put me there for a reason, and the job fit my heart better than the jobs I was chasing. Understanding can become a hindrance. God is trustworthy.

I will always be a step behind God’s plan because He is ahead of wherever I go. I am following Him, not the other way around. What I understand today is less than I will understand as I continue to follow Him. The Lord is taking me into the unknown each day, unknown to me, but well known to Him. My hands-free attachment to the thread of heaven is the knowledge that Jesus has done what I could and can not do with my greatest understanding and greatest effort. I trust Him because He has connected me to Himself. He has tied His salvation line to me knowing that I will be making mistakes all my life, for the rest of my life on earth. He has tied His string of salvation to me so I would not get separated or lost, knowing my humanity, but He is divine. Jesus is completely trustworthy. 

I’ve had a request to provide some information about Santa in my blog, so here goes —

Santa was originally a bishop of the Catholic church in Myra, which is now Turkey. He was orphaned at a young age and wealthy through inheritance. St. Nick was quite generous. One of the favorite stories of this time was his throwing gold through a window or dropping it down a chimney to provide a poor man with dowry money for his daughter. The money landed in a stocking hung by the chimney — creating the stocking story and tradition. 

The Catholic tradition requires a variety of miracles and other proofs before a person is considered a Saint. I know of some miraculous stories like saving sailors, but I don’t know all that went in to his becoming “Sainted.” All accounts that I’ve read indicate that he was a Christ-centered man who was extremely generous and concerned with the well-being of others – a model for the rest of us.

He had many adventures through the hands of believers after he died. Italians stole his remains and put them in a church. I believe they still have a tradition of carrying his statue to the sea once a year so he can bless the boats. William the conqueror prayed for him to bless his efforts before leaving France in 1066 to conquer England. Many churches have been dedicated to him through the years. Revolutionary Americans created St. Nicholas leagues as opposed to the St. George leagues of the loyalists in our early years. Jacksonville, Florida was named St. Nicholas Ferry for a while before it became what it is now. John Pintard started the New York historical society in 1804, naming St. Nick the patron saint of the society and of New York.

Washington Irving joined the New York historical society and wrote the Knickerbocker’s History of New York, including the St. Nick character. This was a majory influence on the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” which was published fourteen years later in 1823. 

The early 1800s were a rough time for Christmas in America. St Nick had been kicked out of the church in the 1500s through the efforts of the Puritans. Christmas had become secular. St. Nick and the traditions were still popular and hung around. Americans tended to celebrate Christmas in rowdy ways, which was a growing concern for churches and leaders. Childhood was beginning to be recognized as its own stage of life requiring more protection and consideration. Another book called the Children’s Friend was published in 1821 using St. Nick to teach good vs bad. Good gets presents, and bad gets switches. Irving, Children’s Friend, and “Twas the Night  Before Christmas” held powerful influences in returning Christmas to a family and wholesome celebration. Furthermore, the domestication of Christmas and the Oxford Movement brought caroling and Christmas songs back into the church at large. St. Nick was working for the church, even as a secular character.

Thomas Nast, a Civil War cartoonist who gave us Uncle Sam, the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant, started painting St. Nick in 1863. His first was St. Nick in the stars and stripes. Lincoln believed St. Nick was an advantage to the Union. His last St. Nick image was in 1881. By this time the modern image was nearly complete. In 1931, Coka Cola picked up St. Nick as their endorsement celebrity, making him an internationally recognized figure and solidifying his look around the world. This brought St. Nick/Santa to the modern view we have now. There is a lot more information about Santa on the internet. This was just a brief sketch regarding how we got our current Santa image. Consider the St. Nicholas Center online for more.

My personal experience of Christmas took a while to develop as well. I have the opportunity to be Santa at the Lake City Columbia County Museum. I will be there on the following dates this year: December 14, 20, and 21. Check the paper or lccchistory.com website for details. I wrote about it a year ago and suggest you consider my Christmas testimony: https://harryadventure.com/2018/12/12/a-harrable-about-christmas/