Happy New Year!

If you were promised everything you wanted in 2014- success in your weight loss resolution, finding your husband/wife or having a perfect year with your spouse, having perfectly behaved children, being able to eat anything and gain no weight, build all the muscle mass you could imagine, no one would get sick or die, win the lottery, get a promotion, buy a house, anything…. you name it… but God was not with you this year would you want it?

It is a hard question- especially at this time as we set resolutions and goals for how we are going to have a better year- or be a better me this year.  What is more important- things going well or God's presence, even if that means things aren't peachy?

Remember those hard moments, the ones you mess up, where you fall short and realize you can’t do it on your own.  Those are precious because you weren't meant to- when you realize you can't you become aware that you need God because no matter how much you try you can’t take on this year, this month, this week, this day, even this hour without him. We would burn out.

Exodus 33:15-17:

Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."

Stable Heart (belated Christmas post)

I want a Stable heart. I mean everyone wants a healthy, stable heart- but I am talking Stable heart… the Stable Jesus was born in that first Christmas night.  One of my favorite Christmas songs is “No Room (The Innkeeper)” by Todd Agnew- link to lyrics: http://www.newreleasetuesday.com/lyricsdetail.php?lyrics_id=13570. It is sung from the viewpoint of the innkeeper that Christmas night, being busy and having too much going on in her/his life to have to make room for this couple.

Being busy and running around- getting gifts, going to parties, wrapping presents, baking cookies, watching movies, play practices, you name it.  There is so much going on and it seems like time just flies by in December.  This must have been how the innkeeper was feeling.  ‘There is so much to do and focus on- I can’t pay attention to this couple and their child to be.’ This is why I want a “Stable” heart and not the “Inn” heart. I don’t want to have a heart at Christmas that is so distracted and caught up in doing things that I miss Jesus when he is right in front of my face. The inn was doing great business at that time, I am sure it would have been decorated all fancy for Christmas in modern times, yet it missed out.  The stable was not clean, it had animals, it wasn’t glamorous but it was open and available for Christ to come that night.

I want a Stable heart, not caught up in the season so much that it misses Christmas, but one that is ready to receive.