I am not a coffee drinker, but I enjoy meeting with those who do. I always get a “steamer”. For the unaware, this is the child’s drink in a place of grown-up beverages!

As I sat there, three young women walked in. I glanced up only to see if it were my friend and would have gone back to my own business, but something caught my attention. As they turned toward the counter to consider their order, I noticed some writing on the back of one of their shirts. It was a quote. I started to jot it down, but decided it would be easier and less conspicuous if I simply took a picture of it. I pulled out my iPhone and then paused briefly and wondered if there was something wrong about taking a picture of someone else’s shirt without permission. But since I couldn’t recall any particular Scripture against it and since I thought it would be a little awkward to ask, I rationalized the whole thing by explaining to myself that I was just taking a shot of the inside of Starbucks and her quote was simply a part of the scene.

So, here it is.

“EMANCIPATE YOURSELVES FROM MENTAL SLAVERY. NONE BUT OURSELVES CAN FREE OUR MINDS.”

This is a quote from the famous Jamaican reggae artist, Bob Marley (1945-1981), promoter of the Rastafari religious movement.

Now, maybe I am getting to be too sensitive to the “it’s all about me” mantra that pervades our culture, but this is a sample of the broad thinking that springs from it.

Basically, it goes like this: the source of freedom…and health…and happiness…and truth, all lie within me.

This is what Maslow taught, and we as a culture have most certainly learned and bought, that the ultimate goal in life is to self-actualize, follow my heart, do my own thing, get my own way.

(By the way, do you realize that we have no clinical, scientific data that supports Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Amazing, isn’t it? This is taught everywhere as the a priori truth about man and yet it has no supporting evidence!)

We have learned that we are pretty much the center of the universe.

It is really all about me.

Now, although a two-year old believes this is real, the mature adult should actually dispose of this idea, for the reality of life quickly reveals the contrary to you…

…or at least it used to.

To some extent, much around us today is trying to convince us to stay in that infantile state of thinking.

Advertising says it.

The Government says it.

My sinful nature says it…every minute!

That is why students at UC-Berkley rioted last week, ransacking property and setting things on fire. Why? Because the school was going to raise their tuition and reduce their benefits.

That is why the Greeks were rioting last week. Why? Because the government had spent itself into near bankruptcy and was forced to reduce the amount of stuff it poured into the citizen’s feed-trough.

That is why we in the U.S. continue to clamor for more pods in our trough as well.

Why?

Because it is all about us!

Eventually, the “all about me” will meet with stark reality.

The two-year-old, hopefully, has the discipline of his parents to make sure he learns the lesson early…before he goes down in the flames of life.

Unfortunately, when the citizenry act like infants, the nonsense ceases only when there are no more goodies left to put under our tree.

Margaret Thatcher once said: “Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money.”

How true.

Unfortunately, this week may see us take another HUGE step down that road.

If I believe that freedom and happiness and truth all begin and end with me, then I will define right and wrong based upon what brings me the greatest happiness and pleasure. That is not only infantile, but deadly.

It doesn’t free, it enslaves.

I love being around these young students. They are bright, energetic, love the Lord, and are eager to learn and grow.

But I’m here because I’m concerned about the mine fields that lay ahead and want to be a part in helping them successfully navigate them.

During today’s lesson, I listed seven “vulnerabilities” that I believe characterize our current college-bound students. I asked the class if these were valid from their observations of their peers and they confirmed they were “right on”.

Here they are:
–deeply persuaded by relativism and tolerance
–tilt heavily toward skepticism
–highly sexualized by the media and gender confused (i.e. men don’t know what it means to be a man, etc.)
–a deep hunger for significance and highly swayed by peers
–severe internal doubts about the most basic apologetic issues (i.e. the problem of evil)
–increasingly biblically illiterate
–compartmentalize their Christianity
–unaware of most of the above

I am concerned about these because the university campus is uniquely prepared to exploit each of these vulnerabilities. The classroom often provides a direct or indirect hostility towards biblical truth and campus life offers the means to compromise on one’s ethical values. Slipping in one guarantees a slippage in the other. I have heard over and over again from college students about how this back and forth spiral often ends up in a horrible pit.

But it doesn’t have to be this way and I am so thankful for programs like Impact 360 that are helping to change that. Whenever I come here, I am renewed in my excitement for this next generation.

Tonight, I got pulled into an interesting game called “Murder! Murder!” It’s a little like the board game “Clue” but played with real players.

As a detective, I flopped!

They had me baffled. But it was loads of fun and part of the endearing process that will make me sad to leave.

Uwe is a pianist and makes his living teaching piano. Germany is their native country. But they are now living in Tennessee.

Why?

Because not long ago, they had to flee their beloved homeland and seek asylum here.

That may seem strange to the ears, because none of us would think that anyone would need to “flee” from Germany. But the Romeike family did—because they really had no other choice.

You see, Uwe and Hanne became convicted that they should be teaching their children—at home. The German state believes that IT should be teaching Germany’s children—and that was to take place only at the government’s authorized schools.

This obviously represents a serious conflict.

And when one comes in conflict with the power of the state, one usually loses.

That came to a head on a relatively quiet morning while the Romeikes were still in bed. The doorbell rang and Uwe looked out the window only to see, to his horror, the police and their vans. He knew why they were there, but never really believed it would happen.

Up until then, for the few families that had chosen to home-school, the German government had primarily treated it as a misdemeanor, with a small fine. But now, maybe because of a perception that the home-schooling thing might spread, the state began to turn up the heat.

That heat has gotten so strong, that today German moms and dads are losing full custody of their children and spending 3 months in jail. It still gives me the chills to recall little Josua telling me what it was like when the police were yanking them away from their mother and shutting them up in the van. He was crying. They were all crying.

This is the awesome power that the state can bring upon its citizens when it chooses to take more and more ground. Whether that ground is within the family or within the church or within the sphere of labor, it is a social war that the state intends to win and few things can stand in its way.

One of those “few things” happens to be the courage of those who are willing to stand for righteousness, no matter what the cost.

The Romeikes have paid dearly. Others in Germany are paying even more.

Let’s pray they persevere and emerge victorious.

The law in Germany is deep-seated. It maintains that it has the complete authority over the formal education of children—a position that hasn’t changed much since it was first enacted by the Third Reich in 1938.

Many home-schoolers in the United States have battled against a similar view found here. But over the last 30 years, they have regained the freedom that families in this country enjoyed for nearly three hundred years before our views of the civil government started to change and we began to see the state more and more as our savior.

We are engaged in this battle today on all fronts. Not only from a power-hungry state, but from the world, the enemy and the flesh—which has a voracious appetite to take more and more ground in our heart and mind and soul.

Remain vigilant and courageous. Freedom requires them both.

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is not for the faint of heart.

The spoils of war are too precious to lose.

[The details of this story will be presented in our first Cross Examine show due to air later this year. Pray for us!]

One of the stories that I used to read to them was “McBroom’s Zoo”. If you’ve never read it, it would be impossible to explain. However, a piece of it has to do with a tornado that ripped through the McBroom’s tomato patch and ended up covering everything with catsup.

To some extent, I relived that story today.

It started out very innocently (as all of these things I get into usually do). I love soup and for my lunch I decided I would make some tomato soup. I put it in a glass mixing bowl, added the water & milk, put it in the microwave oven and prepared to push the buttons to magically convert cold into hot. That was exactly when the phone rang. It was a good friend who had some serious questions and so my mind immediately went to his situation.

Now, unfortunately, the male mind (or my mind) is fairly single track. So, not having the multi-tasking female brain, I simply punched the “three” button three times thinking that would get me 3 minutes and 33 seconds—close enough to the 3 ½ minutes listed on the can as proper heating time.

As you may have already guessed, that’s not what happened. Whatever I pushed and however many times I pushed, ended up instructing my microwave to heat for something more like 3 days, 3 hours and 3 minutes—something closer to the realm reserved for roasting a medium sized hippopotamus.

Anyway, I walked away concentrating on the phone call and came back just before the tomato soup reached critical mass and entered the nuclear fusion stage. My first confused thought was toying with why the microwave was still running. My second thought was whether or not I really wanted to open the door. I hesitated because I couldn’t see through the dark red film that now coated the little window.

When I did open the door, it wasn’t a pretty sight. There was catsup as far as the eye could see. It covered the entire inside of the microwave…the door, the window, the light, the glass plate…everything. But it looked like very old catsup, kinda like the stuff that doesn’t get wiped off of an old catsup bottle in a restaurant that you probably shouldn’t be eating in.

All of that, however, didn’t make me lose my appetite. I was still hungry, so I wondered if there was anything left in the bowl.

There was, but what was left didn’t look much like tomato soup. I remembered that I had covered the bowl with a paper towel. Smart. That was to keep the tomato soup from splattering the inside of the microwave.

But the paper towel had obviously become saturated with the pre-fusion liquid and as the paper on the rim of the bowl caught fire, the middle section dropped into the red molten sea. I’m not a chemical engineer, so I couldn’t begin to understand the molecular transformation that obviously then took place as the paper towel and the tomato lava became chemically one.

But one they did become.

I just couldn’t figure out what that “one” was.

I’m also not a physician, but my first thought was that it looked like a spleen.

Stories quickly ran through my mind of how people had unwittingly created things through their mistakes and accidents.

It looked like an organ.

But since I don’t believe in evolution, I discarded any notion that it might possibly be alive.

Whatever it was, I decided that it most certainly wasn’t going into my mouth and so I fed it to the disposal.

An hour later, I finally had the bowl, the plate, and the microwave looking close to what they did before I started “cooking”.

I celebrated by having a bowl of Trix.

That was much safer.

Isn’t it amazing how sometimes the simplest of things in our lives end up becoming so convoluted and complicated?

I want to thank all of you for your prayers and comments, for your notes and calls and letters and everything that you have done in response to my last blog, which was almost a month ago. I think I needed the time off.

Much has transpired, but nothing has really changed. There have been more moments of profound sadness and a lot of deep sighing. But I know, because you have told me and refreshed in my mind, the absolute truth and comfort found in God’s love and care. I also realize how many of you are going through these same kinds of trials. I wish that I had the time and capacity to respond to each of you. But, lacking that, let me express how much your responses have meant to me.

There is within me an increased wonder and awe at the profound unity and love throughout the body of Christ.

Thank you for expressing that.

But, we only live in the present, do we not?

First, my very, very, dear sweet uncle passed away. He was a WWII vet, earned two bronze stars. He adored my Dad who cared for him when they were all abandoned at early ages. My uncle spent the rest of his life singing the praises of my Dad, as we all did. But the reality was that my uncle was one of those rare jewels of a man as well. I will miss him terribly.

Secondly, we have been hit with several family issues: one daughter is facing a very long deployment of her husband and other daughter facing serious issues with their children.

We, personally, are walking through another heart-breaking event with our “prodigal” son—our youngest. I know there are many who struggle with this and I hope that our new TV show, Cross Examine, will deal with it within the first few episodes. There are so many emotional and physical issues associated with a prodigal, some rather severe. There are strong feelings of guilt, bewilderment, frustration, hopelessness, anger, disappointment, sorrow…betrayal. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, another event occurs and they all come back. Even when they aren’t triggered by an “event”, your wandering son or daughter is never really far from your thoughts and it can break into your heart and mind and emotions without so much as a warning knock.

They just surge back and hit you like an unexpected ocean wave.

The issue isn’t minor. Beyond them walking away from the faith, I know some parents who are not allowed to see their grandchildren; others who are totally ignored or openly hated; others who are constantly faced with a child who won’t take responsibility in their own life and continually preys upon them for a “bail out”. For many, like us, it means the great family days like Thanksgiving and Christmas have an emptiness to them when the prodigal is conspicuously absent…their gifts sit under the tree unopened.

This issue seems to be almost at epidemic levels in our culture today.

On top of this, and for this I know you will say “big deal”, but it seems as if everything “electronic” around me has decided to rebel as well. I’ve had ugly computer problems, virus problems, internet problems (hence my “absence” for so long). One day was spent getting the furnace replaced. Another day was spent restoring files that had been trashed. Days on the phone trying to get someone with horrible English to understand my problems and trying to get it straightened out.

These are comedies when you see them in a movie but tragedies when you are the one doing the battle!

There is some good news, however! I “wowed” my physical therapist and he declared me to be back at “full strength” as far as my torn calf muscle is concerned. I still have a lot of swelling and so they think I also severed my plantaris tendon. That will take a long time before it no longer bleeds and produces fluid. He didn’t clear me to “sprint” just yet, so playing ultimate Frisbee with the new students (they arrived a few days ago) will have to wait.

Now, I know this is just a bunch of trivial personal stuff and there are a whole host of problems out there that are way, way bigger than any of these. My mind continually goes to the disaster that the Haitians have faced and are continuing to face. Pray for them.

Pray for our nation!

However, we are not like those who have no hope. There is a Larger Story, a Grand Story, that we are a part of. It helps us understand that God is working out our little stories in light of that ultimate story.

On a particularly difficult night for my daughter and her husband, we took them out for dinner and looked together at these verses from 1 Peter 4:12-13:

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

Are you going through “fiery trials”? The Lord is not far away. He knows every detail and every pain. But if you are His child, you can count on the fact that He is going to work this all out for good.

Trust Him.

Believe me, eventually the joy and peace will return!

It was a natural question, considering the pathway our discussion had taken. Man has a strong tendency to squeeze God out of his life. For the believer, this is still true. We end up compartmentalizing our Christianity into a smaller and smaller slice of life, until it pretty much only applies to the time we spend at church on Sunday mornings. For the extremely faithful, that may also include Sunday and Wednesday evenings, and possibly a morning or evening devotion. But, unfortunately, for much of the Body of Christ today, that is where it ends. Once we leave the “God Zone” of our life, we walk into the rest of the world as if He doesn’t exist or, at least, doesn’t speak or care. This was this conviction that led to the creation of the Truth Project and my burning desire to be a small part of seeing all of that change. The truth of God is not only relevant in every area of life, but it is critical…critical to understand the design of God so that we can walk in accordance with that blueprint; critical so that we can understand why things around us are in a mess or why they are a blessing; critical so that we can be the light and salt in a world that desperately needs the children of God to stand and say either “this is the path of blessing” or “this is the path of tragedy”—in an attractively, winsome way, of course.

If we care about the plight of people, not only eternally, but also caring for them in this world and desiring to see everything glorify the Lord, then we must know how things ought to be or we will never know the right prescription to offer.

So, we were talking about all of this when Juli then asked: “But how does a parent tell truth to their children without coming across as dogmatic or dictatorial?”

The million dollar question.

Why? Because this generation has bought so deeply the notion of tolerance, that they are spring-loaded against absolute truth claims. We are long past a generation of kids that simply say “Yes, maam” when mama says thus and so. They are internally geared to reject the simple declaration of truth.

Now, it’s not as if teenagers haven’t been like this ever since Cain killed Abel! But there is a deeper rejection today of absolute truth. More than ever? I don’t know. But I do know this: I see it all the time…even in some of our very best Christian college students.

That is why, more than ever, it is critical to help our children see the connection between a truth claim and reality.

This requires homework.

This requires effort, preparation.

If your son or daughter is struggling against some truth, you will need to go beyond the easy part of just saying “that’s wrong…this is right” and expect them to say “Yes, sir! Wow! Thank you for the guidance!”

I saw this illustrated in a great way several years ago. I had taken my youngest son to a father-son camp, J. R. Ranch, for some “bonding” time. One of the activities they provided for us was a skeet shoot, where dad and son entered into a competition against the other dads and sons to see who could get the highest total of “skeet hits”. But before we were handed the shotgun, the man running the show (I’ll call him John) gave us a safety lesson. He told us the “truth” about the danger of guns and how to use them properly. I noticed some of the boys fidgeting and looking around. I wondered if they were taking to heart what John was saying. It was important to me, because these teenagers with their pants hanging half-way off of their hips were about to hold a loaded shotgun and I wasn’t going to be very far away.

It was then that this savvy guy made the connection between his “truth” claims and reality. On a tree stump a few feet away sat a watermelon. Someone, I assume John, had painted a smiley face on it, turning the watermelon into what looked like a great big head. He then said something like this: “In case you weren’t really listening to my talk about the danger of this shotgun, let’s assume that watermelon is the face of one of the dads or sons standing around you when you start your shooting. He made a little joke about how the face was smiling because you were such a terrible shot!” He continued to talk about this watermelon such that we began to see it as a real person…part of our group. He even began calling it by a name he had given “him”. We were paying attention now and laughing. He continued: “Maybe you get a little caught up in the excitement of shooting a shotgun for the first time in your life and get a little careless or maybe start fooling around and you happen to swing the gun towards one of them.” He then swung the shotgun toward the watermelon and from the hip, pulled the trigger.

The watermelon exploded.

Green rind and seeds and red watermelon pulp flew everywhere. I think some of it even splattered on a few of us.

There was an initial gasp when it happened, then a deathly silence as we all got the point. The “truth” claims he had been making about the dangers of a loaded shotgun were deeply imprinted upon everyone of us.

I felt much safer after this as each boy took the gun and held it with great respect and fear…which is exactly what he wanted in each of us.

Connecting the dots between the truth claims of God and the reality of life around us is a critical part of teaching…whether you are a parent or a pastor or a school teacher.

Jesus did this constantly…from fig trees to parables. God did it with Jonah…from a storm to a big fish to a worm and a broom tree. They, of course, are the master teachers. We should follow their example!

My old 1828 Webster Dictionary defines the word “bribe” this way:
“A price, reward, gift or favor bestowed or promised with a view to pervert the judgment, or corrupt the conduct of a judge, witness or other person. A bribe is a consideration given or promised to a person to induce him to decide a cause, give testimony, or perform some act contrary to what he knows to be truth, justice or rectitude.”

And the definition for “bribery” is:
“The act or practice of giving or taking rewards for corrupt practices; the act of paying or receiving a reward for a false judgment, or testimony, or for the performance of that which is known to be illegal, or unjust. It is applied both to him who gives, and to him who receives the compensation, but appropriately to the giver.”

One of the big things that caused me nausea when I was in Washington was the “bribery” that went on there—on both sides of the aisle. Cutting “deals”…you vote for my bill and I’ll vote for yours, or putting “pork” in a bill to get someone to vote for it. There are a thousand ways to “bribe” in Washington and it made me ill.

So, the recent example isn’t new, but it certainly is quite egregious. It has been called the “Nebraska Compromise” and the “Nebraska Kickback”, but it is essentially about a $100 million deal for Nebraska folks at the expense of the other 49 states. The Nebraska senator wasn’t going to support the bill until, well, a deal came along he just couldn’t refuse.

The details really aren’t that important. In reality, the Senate Healthcare legislation includes special goodies for Louisiana, Massachusetts, Vermont, Florida and even Montana. All of these were inserted in order to get the needed 60 votes. One of the key leaders in the Senate, when confronted on all of this stated: “That’s what this legislation’s all about, it’s the art of compromise.”

Well, it is compromise. But when compromise involves “paying or receiving a reward for a false judgment” or “deciding a cause”, my dictionary calls it bribery–regardless of which party is paying or receiving.

It is a stench that should be recognized for what it is and completely and thoroughly scrubbed out of our government. It perverts the judgment and discernment of those in authority and leads to unwise and unjust decisions. Legislation should be passed or killed based upon the merits of the bill itself, not based upon the benefits one receives to support it.

We would prosecute this kind of bribery in any business in the United States. Why not in Congress?

I am troubled by the premise of your new show that in stories filled with pain and pathology—things just aren’t working very well—it is most likely because of defying God’s design and when things are going well it is most likely because of an alignment “with” God’s design. In my understanding this is not biblical at all. I only have to think of the Biblical account of Job whose life was filled with much pain and yet he did not defy God.? Am I missing something?

I really appreciate the comment and whenever someone says “that’s unbiblical” we need to take it seriously and examine what we’re doing.

So, let’s do that.

It is true that there are times when calamity strikes and it has nothing to do with sin or defying God. Gus rightly points to Job and the situation that he was in. He could have also pointed to the man born blind in John 9, where Jesus said that his blindness was not because of his sin or his parent’s sin, but so “that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

There is another interesting one in Luke 13 where Jesus clearly states that eighteen people, who lost their lives when a tower collapsed, didn’t die because they were greater sinners than anyone else. Jesus then makes the point that we are ALL sinners but not every disaster is the result of that sin.

These passages are ones that should prevent us from arrogantly declaring that a calamity like Katrina was a judgment of God because of Mardi Gras or earthquakes or fires in California are judgments upon Hollywood.

On the other hand, we should not let these passages overshadow the vast majority of the Scripture that tells us there are consequences for our actions. We see that from the very beginning with Adam and Eve. Abel’s blood cried up to God because of Cain’s evil act. God confused the language of the people at the Tower of Babel because of their sin. The Philistines in Ashdod and then Ekron were afflicted with tumors and death because they wrongly possessed the Ark of the Covenant.

And this was the whole point of the visual lesson that God played out for the children of Israel when He had them assemble before Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim after they entered the Promised Land. The priests then called out the blessings and curses that would come as the result of following God or denying Him.

The vast majority of the book of Proverbs is filled with this “blessings” and “curses” motif: the sluggard’s house is in disarray because of his laziness, however wealth comes to the diligent; when the righteous rule the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan; scorners set the city aflame, but wise men turn away anger; and on and on it goes.

This has nothing to do with salvation, which is not by works, but by the grace of God alone. It does, however, have everything to do with the stark reality that there are real consequences for defying and denying God and His Design. Are there consequences today because of a breakdown in the family? Yes! Are there consequences today because we have distorted God’s design for the State or the Church or in the business world? For sure!

Our purpose in this new show will be to look at the situations in life around us and ask these kinds of questions.

So, we will assume, for example, that the Scripture is right when it says in Ecclessiastes 8:11: “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.” And, therefore, if we look at our culture and find that the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong AND sentences for a crime are not quickly carried out, we are going to offer the distinct possibility that there may be a connection between the two. Or, if we find an amazing story of how a young man’s life has been turned around (a blessing) because of the personal involvement of a Christian family after years of institutional attempts failed, we will ask the question “why?”…and try to help people understand God’s design for caring for the needy versus man’s ideas.

So, thanks for the comment. I hope this helps clarify what we are going to try to do.

P.S. Someone wondered if the “Scars of Life” story were real. The answer is no. I originally wrote this over 20 years ago for Easter, but modified it last week to be a Christmas story. Thanks for plowing through it!

[Thanks, Rod, for the correction. The reference to Mark 13 should be Luke 13]

But something kept him there.

Michael lived in the city with his mother, a widow. However, there was something horribly different about this widow. She was severely disfigured in the face, arms and hands. Most of her fingers were reduced to one or two joints, or missing entirely. Michael was her only child. Every day, she toiled in a factory to provide the bare necessesities for the two of them. She had difficulty making her daily quotas because of her handicap—especially her hands. But she never complained, in fact she always openly rejoiced that she had such a good job that provided for her son and herself to live. She was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, an example of unconditional love to everyone. But Michael, as he grew, became more and more ashamed of his mother. He would not bring his friends or his dates home. He did his best to keep her out of his public life. And he totally rejected the faith that she had and the characteristics that she carried.

But she never stopped loving him. In fact, that was why she was working late that Christmas Eve. She had asked, again, for more overtime. If she could just get a few more hours in, then she could make the extra money she needed to pay for the one gift she wanted to give Michael. It wasn’t much, she knew that. But she had been working extra long hours to save enough to make the last payment. The shop was going to close soon, and she was struggling to get this last item assembled. It wasn’t easy, but she was thankful for an employer who allowed her to work, even though it took her much longer to assemble an item compared to the others.

It wasn’t her haste that evening or anything that she did wrong. It just happened. Something in the machine broke and then it seemed everything came undone and metal parts started flying everywhere. The medics, when they arrived, didn’t know which was more horrifying, the fresh wounds or the old ones. By the time they reached the hospital, they were surprised she was still alive. She was moving in and out of consciousness, mumbling weakly to one of the paramedics, “Michael’s present! Michael’s present!”

When he got the call, Michael was with his girlfriend. How they found him, he never really figured out. “Your mom has been in a terrible accident and you better get to the hospital now!” There was an initial sense of panic and fear, then a kind of numbness as he rode the bus to the hospital. Now, as the hours droned on, it was more of a selfish feeling, wondering what would happen to him.

The Christmas ornaments and the blinking lights around the nurse’s station seemed so out place here. He couldn’t stand it any longer and he had just decided that he was going to leave when a familiar figure stepped off the elevator and stopped to talk to the head nurse.

His grandfather.

Michael really like him. He felt bad that after he had settled into his teenage “moodiness” he wouldn’t let his grandfather in anymore. They used to have a lot of fun together. A wave of guilt swept over him as his grandfather sat down next to him and put his arm around him. Michael wanted to give in and hug him, but that would have been some strange admission of being wrong for the last several years. So he remained stiff. His grandfather wasn’t pushy so he just gave him a quick squeeze, said “I’m sorry” and then pulled his arm back and sat silently next to him.

It dawned on Michael that he should be saying the same thing to his grandfather. After all, it was his daughter that was lying in the operating room down the hall—a daughter he fiercely loved. As long as Michael could remember, his grandfather had showed that over and over again—how much he cared for this terribly disfigured “baby girl” as he called her. Now, all of a sudden, he looked really old, sitting there with his farmer hands folded together. Michael wondered how in the world his old truck had made the trip into the city. He really should say something to him. But he didn’t. That would be…well, somehow out of character for him now. If he had just left earlier! Now he was stuck.

The silence seemed to last forever. And then Michael heard that familiar clearing of the throat and knew his grandfather was about to speak. He always did that before he wanted to say something important.

And now was no exception.

“Michael”, he said, “I am going to break a promise that I made to your mother many years ago. She had asked me to never tell you the story of how she became so disfigured. But because my daughter, your mother, may soon die, I feel that I must tell you this story. Your mother was burned in a tragic fire many years ago—actually 12 years ago this very night. That was when your father was alive and it was in that fire that he lost his life. It was Christmas Eve and there was a captivating fire in the fireplace. A little boy was playing there and suddenly pulled a burning stick out of the fire and began to swing it around to see the “rings” he could make in the air. Before his father could stop him, an ember fell on his hand and caused him to let go of the stick. It flew into the curtains and they quickly caught on fire. The flames were very close to the Christmas tree and in an instant, it virtually exploded into an inferno. The little boy ran into his room while his father desperately attempted to put out the flames. But, it was all in vain, for only a few seconds later, the fire engulfed the entire room. The last words your father said were: ‘Get the boy!’ Your mother ran into the little boy’s room and wrapped him in a thick blanket and then ran through the flaming house toward the front door. The blanket caught on fire and the flames began to eat her arms and hands and face. But she did not drop the precious life that she carried and by the time she reached the outside, her face was literally on fire. But, the boy was safe. Michael, that was you. You were that little boy. The scars your mother carries are the scars that gave you life.”

Well, a different kind of fire erupted inside Michael as his grandfather spoke. It made his face hot and his eyes began to burn. His throat seemed to begin to constrict into a convulsion that was going to strangle him if he didn’t let it go. When he did, it was like all the tight springs within him unwound at once and the heaviness that pressed down upon him like bricks fell away to the floor. It was a moment of surrender. He wept and wept…. and he began to pray…aloud, unashamed.

Praying for his mom, praying for forgiveness, praying for a miracle.

Well, Christmas is all about miracles. And a bunch of them happened that Christmas Eve in an old city hospital. Michael’s mother survived. The doctors could only shake their heads at what had happened.

And on Christmas morning, there was a great reunion: Michael and his now beautiful mother. You see, a greater miracle had occurred that night. It was the miracle of a new birth. Not the baby Jesus, but the new Michael. He was never again ashamed of her disfigured face. And her crippled hands became precious to him. He proudly introduced her as his “mom”.

And another thing, even more miraculous, Michael began to become just like her. The love she had for others became his love and the love she had for her Savior, became his deep love as well.

No one noticed the shopkeeper when he entered the room. He just stood there holding a gift. Michael’s mother finally saw him and then exclaimed, “Michael’s present! Oh, thank you!” He handed the gift to Michael, who then sadly turned to his mom and confessed that he had not gotten her anything. “Oh, no, my son!” she said. “You have given me the best present you could have possibly ever given me.” She then lifted a scarred arm and a deformed hand out to Michael. He reached out and took it and held it in his hands, caressed it softly and then kissed it. “I love you, Mom.”

Of all the gifts that can be given, true love is surely the greatest.

- - -

Someday, by God’s Grace, I pray that we would come to realize just how precious the love and scars of Jesus really are. He endured the beating and scourging for us. And He willingly suffered the cross for our sake. His scars truly are the scars of life—eternal life.

That is why, on a Christmas many, many years ago, a baby was born in a manger—so that years later, he would become scarred for you and for me.

Christmas isn’t just about the cradle; it’s also about the cross.

And the love behind the scars.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isa 53:5

A fictional Christmas story by Del Tackett

Evidently, it turns out that your little Foo-Foo has a greater carbon impact on the planet than SUVs like my Black Beauty (not a horse—my shiny black pickup truck). Twice as much, as a matter of fact! A cat adds the same carbon as driving a small compact for a year. Even your hamster should be wearing a carbon-guilty look. (This is a picture of my daughter’s dog, Tashia. A tiny, miniature Daschund. And yet, covertly, a disgusting CO2 factory!)

But it is the response that has me fascinated. Folks who are Global Warming fanatics are angered that someone would insinuate that they should have to belly up to the sacrificial bar with their pets.

In a recent AFP article by Toussaint and Hecker, a woman who is obviously trying to save the planet in other ways offered this protest:
“Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don’t eat meat, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?”

Isn’t this interesting? Many have been shouting “Down with your SUV!” and yet aren’t willing to give up Old Yeller or Fi Fi or Samantha. They may argue that people get attached to dogs or cats or hamsters, but who gets attached to an old gas guzzling SUV? Well, I do. My Black Beauty has given me incredible moments of joy and has alleviated my loneliness as well (better than a cat could, I think).

So, if you gave up your SUV for a dog-sled thinking you were saving the planet, turns out you’re wrong! Assuming you have the small-sized 4 DP dog sled (that’s four dog power), what you really have is a fleet of 8 SUVs—enough to possibly raise the temperature in my back yard enough to melt the ice dams on my roof!

Now, I actually don’t believe the Global Warming Crisis hype, so I’m not too worried if you have a team of dogs pulling your sled or you live with seven cats (whew!). I’m actually of the opinion that the temperature fluctuates naturally and, if anything, we may need more CO2 in the world. Trees and plants inhale that stuff and I wouldn’t want them to suffocate.

So please, don’t eat your dog…or your cat (I can’t imagine that!)

***Employed!
After exactly three months of being unemployed, I started work Monday for Coral Ridge Ministries. We will be creating a new television show that will help viewers “connect the dots” between what is going on around us (through a story) and a biblical worldview. Our premise is that if a story is filled with pain and pathology—things just aren’t working very well—it is most likely because of defying God’s design. If the story is one of blessing and seems to be working well, then it is most likely because of an alignment “with” God’s design.

I’m excited about this. Construction on the new set will begin soon and we are scheduled to film the first show mid-February.

If you have stories that illustrate the “blessings or curses” of following or denying God’s design, send them in and we may travel there and film it.

***Gastrocnemius status.
(If you don’t know what your gastrocnemius is, you missed my earlier blog).
Thank you for your prayers and notes of concern. It is healing quite well and today I actually was able to walk a little. Not only that, but I drove Black Beauty ALONE this afternoon (women and children stay inside!). The swelling and bruising is almost gone and it is starting to look somewhat like a normal leg again.

I visit the PT next week for my first real therapy session. (Some one wrote in that their son called the PT a Physical Terrorist!)

The hardest part is when people ask me what happened. When I tell them I tore my calf muscle playing football, they give me that “what-in-the-world-is-someone-your-age-playing-football” look. I just smile and say, “I’ll be back on the field in a few months!” Ha! I have to get ready for Ultimate Frisbee with the students this spring!

***Merry Christmas!
Although I am writing a Christmas story for my next blog, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

May the One who brought joy to Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the angels and ultimately to the whole world on a night long ago, fill you with that same joy this Christmas and forever.