Merry Christmas...

And a happy new year...

There are pictures of the beauty and grace of Christmas all throughout this story.

www.thelittlegreenfamily.blogspot.com

Allow their story to change your perspective and soak up your prayers tomorrow morning.

"Being rooted is the most marvelous thing of all: how the same thing is both a standing still and a moving. It is like using the standing still as if it were a wing for the heart to fly upward because of its stability in the Good."

"Where there is no love, let us put love. And so, by your power, draw love out."

This guy would be the best teacher in the world.
Why?
Not because he makes sense, but because he cares.
He loves everything. He literally might actually love everything. I don't get it. I don't understand him. But I feel his care for the world.
We don't have to understand each other. As a matter of fact, there is no chance that, in this world, we ever will.
But we do have to care about each other.
He is curious about the world and excited about life. So much so, that I watched this entire video.

"Christ's twofold coming:
The one when he comes day after day to stir our consciences.
The other when we will have to give an account of everything we have done.
He comes to us now in order that his future coming might find us prepared."
-Radbertus

"Now I'm going to..."
What if I said that in my mind before everything I said and did for one day?
How would stating the facts change the facts?
Could I do it?
What would I learn about me?

I'll let you know how it goes.
I'll be trying on Christmas day.

Fall.
I like it when I can connect a season with a specific memory or feeling.
It makes me more aware and observant in the season to follow.
That happened this past fall.
So what will winter bring?
Like Flannery says, "everything that rises must converge."
As leaves fell, I saw the best in people rise. And I'm very glad that one day there will be an eternal convergence.

Lauren and I went to the botanical gardens in Atlanta a few weeks ago and witnessed the beginning and ending of life. We were cold and shivering, and the gardens seemed to shiver along with us. Here are a few of the warmer sights.




The world I'm in and the world in me is falling.
This is happening around you and me all the time.
That's the world we sit on.
However, there can be so much beauty in the breakdown.

"What have you done in the past five years that you love?"
-Casey Giessen

Write them down.
Then use those things as a guide for the next five.

Cynicism has never fixed anything.

I watched football turn into the gospel last night.

Sports analysts said they had never seen anything like it.
They were using words like "magical" and "unexplainable" and "redefining."
"There has never been a player like this in the history of the game."
"In my thirty years of being involved with this league, I have never seen anything like it."
Talk of completion percentage and quarterback ratings turned into talk about character and "something bigger than football."
I watched ten or twelve different commentators reference their "loss of words" as they tried to piece together how Tim Tebow and the Broncos could possibly come back to win another game.
"That just shouldn't have been able to happen. Time was running out. He'd gone 3 for 16 in the first three quarters. He isn't an efficient passer."
The rigid professionalism was gone from their voices and mannerism. Their gigantic neckties loosened for a few minutes as they became just as human as you and me. The script was gone.

They "just don't get how it happened."

And that is the best part.
Everyone is just a part of something bigger.
We all run out of explanations at some point.
We all realize we are finite and susceptible to unknowns.
Tim Tebow and the Broncos are showing us that the numbers and facts don't matter.
Perfect form only goes so far when things can "just happen."
I don't know if they knew it, but ESPN stopped covering football and started covering humanity.
Boomer and the boys were throwing all the statistics and traditions to the wind and saying, "We believe."
"Maybe there is a different way to win."
We all (even the guys on TV wearing fancy suits) have to admit that there is an unknown force out there that can make anything happen.
Some of us are just still wondering what to call it when we see it.

Packers vs. Broncos Super Bowl?

Pray for one thing for one person for the rest of this year.

Who is your person?
What do you want most for them?
What are the motivations of your prayer?

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy."

Paddling back to the house.

If the Bible was my only guide, what would my career look like?

I haven't been thinking about this for very long, but here are a few requirements I have found so far:
-loose the bonds of wickedness
-undo the straps of the yoke (the law)
-let the oppressed free
-break every burden
-share with the hungry
-bring the homeless into your house
-clothe the naked
-don't run from your fellow humanity's needs
-don't point the finger
-don't speak wickedness
-pour yourself out for the hungry
-satisfy the desires of the afflicted
-call the Sabbath a holy delight
-don't seek your own pleasures
-don't talk idly
-work hard so you can give more away
-rescue those who are being taken away to death
-it is better to be poor and have integrity
-be skillful in your work
-a stingy man will be poor
-it is best to be neither poor or rich
-speak for those who are silent
-defend the rights of the poor
-there is nothing better than to eat, drink, and enjoy your work in honor of God
-God has already done the work
-dreams can bring vanity
-always pay what you promise
-never loan with interest
-whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all you have
-bring justice to the fatherless
-allow yourself to be sent by God
-stand as a signal of the glory of God
-wait well
-opportunities build upon each other
-if you live for the love of pleasures you will lose your family
-say, "The Lord has redeemed."
-bring good news
-publish peace and salvation
-do not hold back and you will be spread abroad
-God's plans are different and higher

"To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through your attitude:
You are beautiful.
You are important.
I trust you.
You can trust yourself.
To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life; the light that is shining in them."