Choose Joy (Friday Devotional)

 

Rejoice always…

- 1 Thessalonians 5:16

Our Christmas lights at home are not set on any sort of automatic, mechanized timer. What that means is that every evening, I must make the conscious decision to step outside and plug them in. If I fail to do so—if I forget or I get too busy or I just don’t feel like it—then there’s no light.

Given that Christmas lights are a visible sign of the joy of Christmas, something about that feels appropriately symbolic to me. After all, there are occasions—even during the most wonderful time of the year—when you don’t feel particularly joyful. Life has a way of surrounding you with darkness, of making you feel like joy doesn’t meet the moment.

But if you don’t choose joy, then the darkness simply wins. Darkness isn’t driven out just because we wish for it to be so; it is driven out when we shine the light of Jesus. And doing so, make no mistake, is a choice.

So especially as Christmas approaches, let me encourage and challenge you: choose joy. In a world of cynics, be the earnest one. In a world of complainers, be the encourager. In a world of doomsayers, be the one celebrating the good. There’s plenty of darkness to go around—in Jesus’ name, be the one who chooses to shine a light.

Peace for Today (Friday Devotional)

 

He shall judge between the nations
    and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into tpruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
    neither shall they learn war any more.

- Isaiah 2:4

The other day, I was playing with my 2-year old son Isaac—letting him chase me, throwing him up in the air, that kind of thing. At a certain point, I said to him, “Ikey, come tackle me!”

He paused for a second to process what he’d heard, then rushed toward me with his arms out. But when he lunged at me, it wasn’t to knock me down. He had clearly misunderstood what I’d said—instead of tackling me, he was tickling me.

On this week of Advent, when we reflect on the peace given to us in Christ and we look forward to the day when it will cover all creation, that little misunderstanding reminded me of a prophecy from Isaiah, where he promised that someday people “shall beat their sword into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” The vision is of a time when destruction gives way to production, when weapons of violence become tools for flourishing. Who knows, in that day maybe we’ll even see tackling become tickling.

We will not see that kind of world in its fullness until Christ’s return, when all things are made new. But for those who are in Christ, our calling is to live as citizens of that kingdom now—to be peacemakers in a world still dominated by conflict. It takes faith to do so, to strive for brotherhood when the more convenient path is domination. The world values battlefield victories more than it does treaties.

But for believers in Jesus, the world’s values are irrelevant—we are aliens here; our home is somewhere else entirely. So in faith, look for opportunities to extend kindness when your flesh would rather use force. After all, the world could use a little less tackling and a little more tickling.

Hope for Tomorrow (Friday Devotional)

 

Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

- Proverbs 23:18

After they’d had a week away from school for the Thanksgiving break, on Monday I checked with my kids to see how their first day back was. My son gave the same indifferent answer he usually does—some variation of “it was fine” that I’m sure will devolve into little more than a grunt by the time he’s a teenager. But my daughter’s answer got my attention: “it was ok, but I think I liked last year better than this year.”

Upon further investigation, her preference basically boiled to which kids were in her class from one year to the next. But nevertheless, I was struck by a seeming absurdity: at the tender age of 6, my daughter was already nostalgic for days gone by!

There is something within all of us, something which tends to grow as we age and to flourish in troublesome times, which pines for yesterday and fears tomorrow. We look at the past with rose-colored glasses, remembering its victories with fondness and discounting its defeats. Alternately, the future’s uncertainty tends to stir a spirit of anxiety rather than opportunity. When pining for greener pastures, we retreat to memory instead of looking forward to what’s next.

But as Advent reminds us, God offers us more than the comfort of the good old days, he brings us assurance of hope for tomorrow. When Jesus came to this world, he brought, as the beloved carol proclaims, “a thrill of hope” for which “a weary world rejoices.” By lowering himself to our level and becoming flesh, God showed his love for us, love which was then borne out on the cross where Jesus died.

Because of Jesus—his birth, life, death, and resurrection from the grave—we are promised that the trials and travails of this life are not all we have to look forward to. God welcomes all who trust his Son into his kingdom, where we experience eternal life and the glories of redemption and restoration. The future is bright indeed!

So don’t cling too tight to the nostalgia of yesterday; don’t convince yourself your best days have passed you by. You may not know what the future brings, but you know who holds it.

November Reading Log

 

Not many books in this month's log, but it was a lot of pages. So here's your quick rundown of what I was reading in November!

FUTURE CHURCH by Will Mancini and Cory Hartman

Regular readers of this monthly log know that I'm picky when it comes to church growth books, and I dislike more of them than I like. Too many are just customer service manuals with Bible verses thrown in; at the other end of the spectrum are expository sermons about evangelism with no practical tips. What I'm drawn to are books that take timeless biblical principles and offer on-the-ground advice on applying those truisms in real churches.

Future Church, thankfully, is one of the good ones. Authors Will Mancini and Cory Hartman begin with the true but hardly original thought that the modern church is overprogrammed but underdiscipled, built to maintain its own activities instead of reach the lost for Jesus. They describe a dichotomy between a "Lower Room" and an "Upper Room," with the former representing the status quo—where success is measured by attendance, offerings, and events—and the latter looking to results based on whether church members are making a difference for Jesus outside the church's walls, both through evangelism and service. The "future church," one built for the 21st century instead of clinging to the 20th, will need to move from the lower room to the upper room in order to fulfill its mission.

The second section of the book lays out seven laws churches need to follow in order to make this happen, all of which are general enough to be applicable in any context but specific enough that they don't feel generic. Each law looks at how churches—even so-called successful churches—operated by default in the 20th century, lays out a mission-based problem with that model, and then offers a different way forward, even when it's countercultural.

Then in the book's final section, the authors offer a way for the church to apply these principles so that the church, instead of being an activity center for converts, becomes a launching pad sending out disciple makers. This section, of course, is the tricky part—not diagnosing problems or inventing solutions, but applying a new model to a previously existing one. It falls to the readers and their congregations to see whether they can make it happen in their churches.

This was my kind of church growth book, one which made me think, got my creative juices flowing, and offered words of inspiration. For readers wanting their church to focus more on mission and less on maintenance, I definitely recommend Future Church.

THE DRAGONLANCE CHRONICLES by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

When I was in middle school, spurred on by both the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and my general nerdiness, I got really into fantasy books. And in those halcyon pre-Internet (or at least pre-you-can-Google-anything) days, the only way to learn what fantasy books I liked was to go to the local library, peruse the shelves, and literally judge books by their covers.

The Dragonlance Chronicles had heroes reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings (humans, elves, dwarves, etc.), dragons, and epic battles. At over 1,000 pages, it was huge, just like The Lord of the Rings. And most importantly to preteen Daniel, it was an adult fantasy trilogy—Harry Potter was great and all, but I was ready for the grownup stuff. I devoured it in just a few weeks before moving on to the novels of Terry Goodkind (pretty good, then ok, then terrible) and George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (which I personally think would make an excellent TV show. Somebody should try that.)

Lately, inspired by several BookTokers I follow, I decided I wanted to get back into fantasy, but wanted to start start small—no Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson series that would take years to get through. So I went back to what I knew and picked up an anniversary edition of The Dragonlance Chronicles for the first time in 20+ years. Maybe, I thought, you can go home again.

My main takeaway: this is a good series for a middle schooler. Having originated as a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, the series is big on action but never leaves the shallow end when it comes to characterization, plot, or prose. That made it a great story to read on the bus ride to school, especially in the days before smart phones, when a book was the only entertainment available. But for an adult, it gets a little tiresome and formulaic.

I should probably lay out the plot for you, but I'll make it easier on myself. Think of a fantasy trope, any trope. Got one? Ok, then yes, The Dragonlance Chronicles has what you're thinking of. Epic war between good vs. evil? Yep. Magical objects the heroes quest after? You got it. Realms populated exclusively and conveniently by one magical race? Uh huh.

It's not original and it's not deep, but it is usually fun. The writing is breezy, the characters are likeable, and the authors never make you work hard to understand what's happening. So if what you want is the fantasy equivalent of a network procedural show—something to help you relax and unwind after a long day—then this is a good place to turn. If you want high art, keep looking.

ESSENTIAL IRON MAN VOL. 1-2 by Stan Lee, Archie Goodwin, Don Heck, Gene Colan, et al.

Since 2008, Iron Man has been the face of the Marvel Universe. Everybody knows about billionaire playboy Tony Stark and his wondrous suit of armor, and the conventional wisdom is that he's the straw that stirs the drink when it comes to all things Marvel. But for 40+ years, Iron Man was a B-list superhero, better known as a mainstay on the Avengers than for his own adventures.

Nevertheless, those early adventures are worth reading for an amateur comics historian such as myself, so this month I dove headlong into the first two of the five Essential volumes which collect the Silver and Bronze Age stories of Tony Stark and friends. The first 60 stories came in 10-12 page increments in Tales of Suspense, a two-fer comic he shared with Captain America's solo adventures before both characters received their own full-length titles in 1968. Art duties were primarily handled by Marvel journeymen Don Heck and Gene Colan (though comics legend Steve Ditko was the one who freed the hero from his original bulky suit and put him in sleeker red-and-gold armor.)

The early Iron Man stories are products of their time, and come close to being outright propaganda for the Cold War's military-industrial complex. Tony Stark is a proud weapons manufacturer for the U.S., and virtually all of his early villains are Communist agents of the Soviet Union or China. Most stories revolve around a new costumed villain trying to sabotage one of Stark's factories, only to be thwarted by his "bodyguard" Iron Man. Secretary Pepper Potts and driver Happy Hogan, the primary members of the book's supporting cast, give the book both some screwball comedy elements and a love triangle, of which Stark is (of course) the third point.

At least in these first two volumes, the Tales of Suspense stories are superior to those in the full-length Iron Man book thanks to a storytelling pace that is quick, bordering on exhausting. With only 12 pages to work with, there's no time to waste! Plus, while Stan Lee is the primary writer for the Tales of Suspense stories, Archie Goodwin became the scribe once Iron Man got his own book—and while he's fine, there's a reason you've heard of the former and not the latter.

All in all, this is a fun but middling start for a hero who no one in 1962 could have suspected would become a global phenomenon. More to come next month as I tackle volume 3!