When you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Deut. 8:12f
One of the tragedies of the human condition is our tendency to drift spiritually when things are going well. As the hymn-writer Robert Robertson observed 250 years ago, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.”
Old Business: Last week’s vignette about the monk who blew out the candle – which you can revisit here – garnered two different responses. Some said the joke was lame, “even by ‘Pastor humor’ standards.” Others suggested the story was the “most thoughtful and sublime thing I’ve passed along over the years.” For the record, it wasn’t meant to be funny. Also, last week I referenced a Wall Street Journal article that not everyone could access. It is here.
Quotes Worth ReQuoting:
- “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’” Kurt Vonnegut
- “… the secularization of modern culture ‘has left many searching for the structure and identity that religion once provided.’ Given this spiritual void, author Kima Cargill explains, ‘food cults arguably replace what religion once did by prescribing organized food rules and rituals.’ These are rules and rituals that—whether the diet is vegan or vegetarian, paleo or primal, Mediterranean or South Beach—nurture identities that keep us loyal, insularly focused, and passionate about what we will and, even more significantly, will not eat.’” Mark Galli
Curious: We have more freedoms than ever – we can sculpt our bodies, choose our gender, select our truth and design our faith, and yet, many feel like victims. Similarly, those enrolled at our most elite educational institutions who are understood to be both “the best and brightest,” are also fragile and in need of safe spaces.
A Christmas Thought: Jesus is the only person in history who was able to select his parents. And rather than choosing a couple able to offer privilege, power and wealth, he chose a poor, single adolescent and a confused carpenter.
Cancer: Forty percent of us will be diagnosed with cancer during our lifetime. Treatments are improving – and there are now five times as many cancer survivors as fifty years ago – but we’d do well to prepare for the likelihood that we get cancer. Alec Hill’s new book, Living in Bonus Time: Surviving Cancer, Finding New Purpose, is a helpful resource. BTW, an individual doesn’t get cancer, a family does.
Death and Disney: BTW, many of us have a Disneyesque view of the world – which means there is always a happy ending. In Hill’s new book he notes that Disney himself never allowed the word death to be used in his presence and fervently avoided funerals (including his brother’s). This reminds me of last week’s monk/date vignette and our tendency to simply blow out the candle. As Augustine noted, we are wise to accept that “mortal life is harsh.”
We Have Joined the Race: In the sprint towards having an old and shrinking population, Japan is winning. And though Europe is in second place, the US now fields a team. The CDC notes that our birth rate is the lowest it has been in 32 years and they expect further declines. If current trends continue, in ten years we will have more people over the age of 65 than below it.
A Final Christmas Thought: Before we turn to New Year events, allow me a final Christmas reflection. It is from Dorothy Sayers’ remarks as she accepted her Doctorate of Divinity.
The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man… The plot pivots upon a single character, and the whole action is the answer to a single central problem: What do you think about Christ? The Church’s answer is categorical and uncompromising, and it is this: That Jesus bar Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God “by Whom all things were made.” His body and brain were those of a common man; His personality was the personality of God… He was not a kind of demon pretending to be human; He was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be “like God”—He was God.
Resolutions: It’s the time for resolutions. If you’re looking for motivation, this video of a blind skateboarder may encourage you to take “a vacation from your excuses.” I am more motivated by the thought that practicing spiritual disciplines – e.g., praying, meditating, journaling, long walks, singing spiritual songs, etc. – is like digging a well for your soul, and that the time to start digging is before you are thirsty. (Note: now is a good time to consider the plethora of Bible reading plan apps, such as those available via YouVersion).
Closing Prayer: This New Year’s prayer is from Billy Graham in 2008.
Our Father and our God, as we stand at the beginning of this new year we confess our need of Your presence and Your guidance as we face the future.
We each have our hopes and expectations for the year that is ahead of us—but You alone know what it holds for us, and only You can give us the strength and the wisdom we will need to meet its challenges. So help us to humbly put our hands into Your hand, and to trust You and to seek Your will for our lives during this coming year.
In the midst of life’s uncertainties in the days ahead, assure us of the certainty of Your unchanging love.
In the midst of life’s inevitable disappointments and heartaches, help us to turn to You for the stability and comfort we will need.
In the midst of life’s temptations and the pull of our stubborn self-will, help us not to lose our way but to have the courage to do what is right in Your sight, regardless of the cost.
And in the midst of our daily preoccupations and pursuits, open our eyes to the sorrows and injustices of our hurting world, and help us to respond with compassion and sacrifice to those who are friendless and in need. May our constant prayer be that of the ancient Psalmist: “Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end” (Psalm 119:33).
We pray for our nation and its leaders during these difficult times, and for all those who are seeking to bring peace and justice to our dangerous and troubled world. We pray especially for Your protection on all those who serve in our armed forces, and we thank You for their commitment to defend our freedoms, even at the cost of their own lives. Be with their families also, and assure them of Your love and concern for them.
Bring our divided nation together, and give us a greater vision of what You would have us to be. Your Word reminds us that “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).
As we look back over this past year we thank You for Your goodness to us—far beyond what we have deserved. May we never presume on Your past goodness or forget all Your mercies to us, but may they instead lead us to repentance, and to a new commitment to make You the foundation and center of our lives this year.
And so, our Father, we thank You for the promise and hope of this new year, and we look forward to it with expectancy and faith. This I ask in the name of our Lord and Savior, who by His death and resurrection has given us hope both for this world and the world to come. Amen. Billy Graham