An aware person is someone who is sensitive to the experiences and events around him, but also to the experiences and events within him. Consider how tiring it is to watch the news and read the newspapers about all the hardships being suffered, the complexities being unresolved, and the divisions that give rise to conflicts which endanger all. Now consider being able to see the same within yourself. Each person is terribly complex. The good, the bad, the indifferent are all there inside each one. Wars rage, calm occurs, love exudes, bitterness bites, deceit flourishes, truth exists, justice lies next to manipulation and self interest in the same location, all within one person, and so much more.

I look at all the wars that history has recorded and see elements of myself, the good, the bad, and the ugly, as a movie title suggests. In each horror, blessings can be found because humanity is not left completely bereft of hope. February is Black History month, and in Lake City, Olustee Festival, a remembrance of the Civil War. The two events are tied together as some of the struggles fought then are still alive now. The Civil War was a great internal battle in which America fought America. We, as a country could not reconcile our self awareness, our conflicting opinions, our good and bad selves. We acted as though we could separate and negate parts of our selves and refuse pieces of our selves that were living internal parts.

Each of our individual body parts are necessary to the others. The kidneys cannot refuse the liver or the hands refuse the feet. We, as a nation, are built of necessary parts, each are invaluable to the others. The gift is that we are not the same. The liver is not the kidneys. Our nation is beautifully fitted with all the complexities that can create greatness or great destruction, just like an individual. We choose the outcome, the individual and the nation.

The issue then, as now, is that we are individual parts contending against each other. We need a unity that only something greater than the aggregate can supply. We are limited within ourselves to ourselves. God is greater and provides a point and purpose which unifies all the individual parts without stripping any of their uniqueness. God created the body so all parts and organs could work together while being individually amazing. The body was even created to have self healing properties which would balance against imbalance. He does that with individual people. He is working on that with a nation and all nations. We will have great joy when we allow God to rule.

WWII caused almost 77,000,000 deaths with over half of them happening in the countries of Russia and China. America lost 418,500, third from the bottom of the list according to the National WWII Museum. The Civil War cost America about 700,000 lives and continues to be more of a hotbed of emotion. The Civil War was a kind of suicide as we fought ourselves about issues we refused to resolve in better ways. According to the newspapers and popular press, WWII is over, but the Civil War continues to be fought.

We have embraced the Germans and the Japanese since WWII, but still fight each other about the Civil War. There is no hero who is completely good, and no villain who is completely evil. At some level, Hitler, certainly the poster child for evil, cared for Eva Braun, even to the point of marrying her before they both committed suicide. Our heroes, like Douglas MacArthur and George Patton were famously flawed souls as were all the other generals and leaders in WWII and the Civil War. We accept that more easily in WWII than we do in the Civil War personalities.

Life is complex, and people are complex. Media, politicians, and people with personal agendas tend to oversimplify to make their point (as I’ve just done in this statement) instead of realizing that nothing is that simple. Anyone who has a friendship with me will find that there are things in me better overlooked, other things requiring forgiveness, and other things that can be celebrated. Even the overlook, forgive, and celebrate things are not pure in and of themselves. Relationships require work, ask any marriage counselor. America is a marriage of different people into an interactive culture. Choosing blame always leads to division. Division sells newspapers, but it does not heal wounds, but rather intensifies and continues the wounds.

It is said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America. It makes me wonder what values we are serving, God’s or the world’s or our own? I think each church, regardless of culture or race, should send missionaries to other churches and races to display God’s beauty in their presence for all others to see and worship God. I have seen the beauty of God in black and white churches and want everyone to see it. I’ve seen division, isolation, and unforgiveness in black and white churches and know that the Bible doesn’t teach that. Humans are complicated. We need God to help us sort it out.

God makes all His people beautiful, regardless of race or culture. He makes them beautiful in their race and culture, something worth desiring to see and celebrate. He works to heal and redeem all those who are not yet His people. It is His opinion that matters, and His plan is the one which works to heal.

There is a story in the Bible of a woman who was facing destitution. Her husband had been a believer, so she asked the man of God for help. I love this story. You can read it in 2 Kings, Chapter 4.

She was asked what she had available. Her response was only a jar of oil. She was told to gather all the empty vessels she could and pour oil in them. A miracle happened. The jar of oil filled all the empty vessels without running out. The jar only ran out when there were no more empty vessels. The woman was able to pay her debts and live from the proceeds of the oil she sold from the empty vessels she filled. I have seen this story come alive in so many places and so many churches.

It is easy for people to think they have nothing to give, especially in a society which has the attitude that you have to have more to be successful. More is an undefined term, which simply means that whatever you have isn’t enough. Americans are some of the richest people in the world who often live like they aren’t. Our perspective beats on us through money and possessions. One place of wealth, where all men are equal, is the ability to give ourselves, our care, our love, our compassion, our forgiveness, and our consideration.

I have been in the position of being homeless and broke and broken. I was an empty vessel. I was given provision, which was fabulous, especially when I was hungry and the provision was food. I remember going to church homecomings to eat and feast like there was no tomorrow because I didn’t know when I would eat next. I was grateful. However, the greatest gifts were the compassion and caring that brought me back to my feet with the ability to stand. The greatest gifts were the shared lives. Those shared lives still live in me, and I share them with others. I was given the gift of love that continues to give because it changed my life and continues to provide hope to those I meet.

People who don’t think they have much are wrong. They may be just a small jar of oil in their own minds, but they are an endless provision of caring for others, no matter the condition of their own lives. The care they give lives on beyond the time of giving like the oil in the story. There are many empty vessels in our world, people who need to be given love and caring. Provision for the soul lasts much longer than provision for the body. We are richer than we can imagine. God has given us great wealth. That great wealth is available in all of us. I am a small jar of oil.

My dad used to say, “I was told to cheer up because things could be worse, So I cheered up, and they got worse.”  It is easy to feel like you’ve been hit by a tsunami, followed by flooding, then by waiting for the devastations to subside before removing the destruction, all before the rebuild or starting new can begin. 

Trials can be like a slave master. It can limit all you think and feel able to do. It can confine you in the circumstances defined by the trial. The desire to capitulate or surrender can arrive if the pain or sorrow becomes so much that you will do anything, sacrifice anything, to get away from the pain. The surrender can be the time you really do something destructive that will extend the suffering and/or entrench it into a life stronghold. Ask any addict. They will confirm the pattern. Ask anyone who has made a rash decision how they got there, and they will probably confirm the pattern too.

My high school students would occasionally pull me aside for a private conversation. They wanted me to revisit a time of pain and suffering in my life to hear how I survived so they they could be encouraged about their survival. They wanted to be strengthened so they wouldn’t add to the problem. I believed it was wisdom on their part. We are surrounded by witnesses. The greatest witness to me is the Bible.

Some people have turned the Bible into a legal type document like a contractual agreement. That is not the Bible I know. The Bible I know is more of a diary, a story that God tells His children so they can know Him. He fills the Bible with stories of real people and a real God with all the problems, solutions, victories, and losses. He teaches us that He is faithful. The Bible can’t be a contract because there is no way for humanity to live up to a contract with God. It is a life story, the story of God walking with mankind, the good, the bad, and the inbetween.

We can project our beliefs and values into anything, including the Bible. An atheist can read the Bible and tell you it contains the proof that God doesn’t exist. I find that interesting because the atheist is living a life explained in the Bible and preferring the same values that God prefers (except the atheistic beliefs). God is alive. Read the Bible looking for Him and He is faithful to show Himself to you. You will find that the Bible is a living book of revelation, comfort, and guidance. You will find a testimony in it that meets every need.

The new Jurassic Park movie is out, Jurassic Dominion. The good guys are great. The bad guys are terrible. The special effects are top rate, and the dinosaurs are believably done. I began to think. The scientists violated the natural order to recreate the dinosaurs, which go on to flourish and invade all the ecosystems of the world. That is an interesting metaphor.

Humans create things and events which take on a life of their own and create change in lives, systems, and communities. Many science fiction stories focus on how man is creating his own destruction through science or other selfish manipulation of the natural world. Movies tend to reflect the true fears of people. Certainly dinosaur movies can’t even compare to the destruction caused by any human war.

Humans create to satisfy personal needs. Selfish purpose always creates harm to its surrounding community, whether it is creating something or doing something. A scientist clones a sheep which shifts the natural world. A thief changes all those impacted by the theft, including all the community by the danger he creates. It is amplified by the dimension of the crime and/or the injuries or deaths which accompany the crime. Economics spur wars that destroy.

Each thing we create offsets other things by being out of proportion or sync. Humans have a limited vision and are more concerned with the impact on themselves than they are aware of the invading impact of their actions on the wider world. Pollution is a classic example of negative impact we cause.

Compare the impact we cause to creation by God. The Lord creates for all things to fit and work together without any one setting the others out of balance. He creates things with the ability to right themselves if imbalance should occur. We scar. He heals. Even the evolutionists who deny God have to say that life on this planet is constructed of beautifully put together ecosystems that are so complex and amazing in the way they self-sustain and self-heal.

You can see the desires at play when man creates. It is for himself and his own benefit. The Jurassic creatures are created for power, for money, for prestige. We build civilizations and pollute the creation with the left overs and by-products. God creates for the benefit of the other. Each piece is a blessing to the other pieces. The by-products and left overs feed other parts of the ecosystem. He has and does engineer a whole, fit together. We create pieces, disjointed and often antagonistic that pull against or destroy the other pieces. He is thorough. We are piecemeal. He takes in all contingencies. We take in only the desired impact with limited or no awareness of the relative cost or impacts.

The more I look at life, the more I see that God is real and that mankind needs Him. I am grateful that He makes Himself obvious and available.

This has been a tough season for many. Storms and sicknesses have assailed America, and old age leaves no survivors. We are transitory people in a transitory world. The philosophers say you can’t step in the same river twice because the water has changed. Even our earth, one standard of stability, is changing through earthquakes, volcanos and other natural phenomenon that reshapes the very planet we cling to. It would seem that all is in the process of getting lost through change.

The first law of thermodynamics indicates that no energy is gained or lost in a closed system. It just changes forms. The people who say this consider the universe a closed system. Does that mean that all things are getting lost, not lost, or just changed?

I think about those things when I consider the flow of history and the limited season of each person’s life. The constant change of all life might explain why human beings resist change and cling to anything that represents stability. Change is frightening because we find ourselves where we’ve never been, doing things we haven’t exactly done. Not-changing is repetition of what we’ve done in ways we’ve done it and seems to represent security (even though the river philosophers would deny true repetition as possible). Learning requires change. Mastery requires levels of repetition. All learning requires humility, which might easily be explained as knowing you don’t and can’t know it all.

I am curious about some constants that seem to live in human behavior. Values and purpose can be traced from the earliest of our knowledge of humanity. The undergirding behaviors that lie beneath the shifting cultures and philosophies seem to remain constant. Power, wealth, sex, and like values are easily seen in every culture, every race, at every historical time we know about in human history. How can those flimsy things, values, seem so constant when all else is in change?

I believe these are some of the ways we learn to see that God is real. We see that scientists are using all kinds of profoundly intricate and interweaving established processes to understand the world around them, which stands in the face of believing that all life is random. It is the soul, the deeper part of a person, the spiritual aspect of life, which seems to have an equally or greater stability.

The values we struggle with or against deny that we are just physical beings put together to inhabit a planet. There is an awareness of something completely beyond the limits of ourselves related to values and not just things. Everything has a purpose, things and values. We have physicality and spirituality. There is a book that explains this called the Bible. We are created. God is real. Jesus can be verified. In Him, nothing is lost, ever.

What’s the focus?

I was required to take a long list of education classes as a beginning teacher. Many of the professors in the College of Education had written their own books about how hopeless education is in America based on research that indicated that it was unlikely to get any better. I was working with a group of teachers who denied the research and did a good job regardless of the professors’ rhetoric. Professors spoke words, but the teachers reached lives. It was fundamentally different.

I travelled with another teacher I will call G. Germane to take classes toward certification. I was an idealistic student and wanted to grasp every bit of understanding I could get. My questions were typically based on how to apply information to real life situations in the classroom. I found that I was particularly grievous to one teacher who always cut me off curtly and showed me that I was out of place. My friend, Germane, told me what was wrong. He said, “The class is not about the subject, but about the teacher. Your questions dim the spotlight of his rhetoric to focus on the content and function. Audience members are there to applaud, not to question the actor.” I was completely out of phase with the focus of what was happening. I was there for function and the professor was there for performance and publicity.

It is necessary to guard against corrupt people and corrupt teaching. The core focus is the proving ground. Cults become all powerful when the cult leader becomes the gatekeeper to heaven and heavenly rewards (leader or person focus). My professor was that way, but only to a small degree. He only gave grades and sarcastic disdain. Most students cooperated with his vanity as grades required it. Sadly, I must admit and observe that anyone who has a self worth deficiency has sacrificed some level of truth or honor to get approval. The desire to have oneself put on a pedestal for admiration or see oneself in power over others shifts God from the throne. It is one of the fastest ways to see through a false teaching.

Check this idea out. Read the New Testament. Who saw Jesus for who He really was and who didn’t? The people competing with God for control and admiration missed Him completely. The kind of people Jesus describes in Matthew 5 completely see Jesus. Learning to discern the heart of a matter can reveal form or function, God or man, truth or scam. Follow the admiration, power, money trail to find the true focus. Pray for discernment. Choose Jesus.

One of my mother’s favorite phrases was, “This too shall pass.”It was one of those “Just hang on” phrases that moms and dads use to encourage their children not to give up or give in to frustration or despair. Frustration and despair are common currency in all countries, cultures, and individuals. You can see it in all walks of life, all religions and faiths, all levels of success and failure. You might consider that it is planet wide and ocean deep.

Misery, the absence of good, has a brother who is fatalism. Fatalism sings back up to misery’s lead, telling you that misery will never go away. You get sick with the flu, pinned to the bed, and it seems that it will never go away, until it does. Misery attacks health and circumstances. Fatalism attacks expectations and perception. They can be very formidable as a tag team wrestling partnership. They can seem pretty huge when you are the skinny kid standing across the ring facing them alone. The alone part is the biggest deceit.

You are not alone. Misery and fatalism will try to talk you into self-isolating, running into a private cave, a private hell. Lies. There are people around you, even the annoying ones, who want you to get better, even when they don’t know how to say it. There are prayer partners and hundreds who have written books about facing the same issues you face. You are surrounded by movies, books, testimonies, preachers and so many more who have suffered and won, suffered and grown, suffered and become deeper persons – the kind you automatically go to for help.

I was going through a rough patch and was convinced I was helpless and powerless. I pray more when I’m distressed, which is sad to say, but true. I landed on a series of questions posed by the Lord. “Without any change in your situation can you — Love Me, be loved by Me, and love others like I do?” The questions began to cause a shift from helpless to helpful, from powerless to empowered. No distress in life or circumstance can separate me from God’s love or His life, which I can both experience and share. I can have hope and faith during a time of misery. I don’t have to wait until it’s over to be strong. I’m not alone for the Father is with me, speaking words of hope, of faith, and of love. He has surrounded each of us with a cloud of witnesses, easily accessible.

As mom said, “This (misery) too shall pass.” However, joy and hope can be continuous and without end. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””
John 16:33 ESV

Who will catch you when you fall? Anyone who has had a great adrenaline rush knows what follows. The entire person goes into a slump when the adrenaline is burned out or used up. It is like the body has used all its resources during the adrenaline rush and has absolutely nothing left after. It is the sudden drop from feast to famine in a few heartbeats.

Other things can create the same high/low pattern. I saw students come in to class so hyper you couldn’t settle them down. They fell asleep midway through the class, a pattern called the sugar blues. Sugar and other things that make a person high can leave them blue at the other end. Addictions are created to keep the blues away and keep the high going. Anything can be used, even video games, for a person to try to control their own highs and lows with their own ability. I’m sure that is why the Bible teaches so much about idols, things people use to control their own lives or the lives of their surroundings. Godless gods.

That’s a long introduction to ask you how you are dealing with the day after Christmas? How long before the fresh paint of new wears off and drudgery returns? Is Christmas a high/low experience or another day of deep loving among friends and family? The difference seems to be tied to a frightening word called “humility.” You can’t love or be loved without humility. Humility truly experiences the worth of the other in the relationship and shows that value in thoughts, words, actions, and feelings.

Marriages can be a good metaphor. We are in a time where divorces outnumber marriages, but there are some marriages that last a joyful lifetime. The difference is in the values of the people involved. Lifelong marriages are like Christmas every day. Even hardships become miracles of growth and depth. The weaknesses of the partners becomes the strength of the relationship. It is just like Jesus said, “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV. These successful marriages require a God who is God who is stronger than two people trying to be god. Love requires humility which breaks the addiction of people serving themselves.

I hope and pray that your Christmas will be a joy all year long. I pray that the love you give and receive will overcome all the highs and lows of life. I pray that the Joy of Jesus empowers you to find joy in all of your life, even your mistakes He has to clean up.

Sometimes people see things through a tight lens when the possibility of a long lens or wide lens would take in more. Santa is like that for me. He has become a hero because Jesus has used this man’s testimony through seventeen centuries to teach the world about heaven and heavenly values.

Santa started as a loving Christian in about 300 AD. His parents died and left him wealthy. His generosity became his fame. His acts of faith and faithfulness, especially toward children and sailors, had the Catholic church proclaim him a saint so his testimony would not be lost and would continue to inspire others.

He became associated with Christmas giving and was known through many cultures and many diverse costumes as the epitome of Christmas. Germans gave him a name which translates to “Christ Kind.” Yet, he was kicked out of the church by protestants who did not want anything to do with Catholic saints, changing him to Father Christmas and other secular titles. His mission didn’t change or his message, whether in the church or out.

Santa came to America through the Dutch and Germans. We settled on the Dutch name, translated as Santa Claus. He has lots of historical involvements with many places, even Jacksonville, Florida a long time ago, being named for St. Nicholas. Lincoln even considered Santa Claus an advantage to the union during the Civil War. He has been an ever present representation of Jesus’s life and values.

Santa took on a particularly hard challenge during the early 1800s. Christmas was an unruly time of drunkenness. American leadership wanted the season to become family friendly, especially as children were beginning to be recognized as their own stage of life and in need of protection. Santa was made for that job. He was one of the main influences that brought Christmas back in to the home for children and families.

Santa’s next feat was evangelism to the church. Santa helped the church bring Christmas carols and Christmas traditions into their celebrations and Sunday Schools to reach families with the message and life of Jesus. He went from Christian to bishop to saint to secular to church evangelist representing the heavenly qualities of Jesus life the entire time. And this is just the tip of a seventeen centuries long story.

We know the qualities of heavenly values through the fruit of the Holy Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 ESV Jesus has used the testimony of Nicholas the Bishop across cultures, across nations, even nations at war with each other, to teach His message to all persons, believers and unbelievers for centuries. Amazing. Jesus loves us and works to reach out to us continually in ways beyond our imagining and through people who might surprise us. Celebrate Jesus this Christmas. He loves you more than you can know.