Christmas Time's A'Comin' (Friday Devotional)

 

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

- Matthew 5:16

If you’ve been to a department store in the last week or two, you’ve undoubtedly seen it: with Halloween behind us, our commercial overlords have decided that Christmas is upon us. The wreaths and the trees are out, the holiday sales are being advertised, and it won’t be long before you start hearing carols in every public place you go.

For many years, I was firmly in the camp saying you’re not allowed to start celebrating Christmas until after Thanksgiving—we never put up lights until Black Friday, we rarely decorated before December 1, and I didn’t want to hear the jingle of one silver bell until Santa had made his appearance at the end of the Macy’s parade. The church calendar, for what it’s worth, agrees with that take—the earliest date Advent can ever begin is November 27.

But I confess that I’ve softened on my stance over the years. I no longer sneer when I see somebody’s Christmas lights in November. I’m less of a Grinch about holiday displays being put up in stores “too early.” I may have even dusted off my Christmas playlist earlier this week.

My change in attitude boils down to something simple: our world needs more than a month devoted to hope, peace, joy, and love. The holidays are a time when we largely set aside the cares and concerns that occupy us the rest of the year and trade them for hospitality and gratitude, extended time with family, and the stories and songs that bring us closer to God. More and more, it seems like Christmas serves as a temporary antidote to the poisons that have infected our culture—it’s a time when we collectively decide to care about others, give of ourselves, and believe in God’s promises.

It seems a shame that such a season only lasts for, well, a season. But for believers, it doesn’t have to.

Whether you’re singing carols now or you wouldn’t dare until November 28, you can bring joy to the world. Whether your decorations are already out or they’re still boxed up in the attic, you can show the world what hope looks like. Whether your Christmas shopping is already done or you haven’t started, you can give of yourself.

We see a lot of selfishness, bitterness, and cynicism in the world every day, and you don’t have to wait until December to offer a countercultural gospel witness. You may want to wait a few more weeks to put your Christmas lights up—but you can be a light today.

Forever (Friday Devotional)

 

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven…I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it; God has done this so that all should stand in awe before him 

- Ecclesiastes 3:1, 14

For weeks, my wife Lindsey had been giving the side eye to my favorite pair of blue jeans. Their fadedness had gone from fashionable to embarrassing. There were telltale bulges in the pockets where my phone and wallet always rested. Most notably, there was a rip in one of the back pockets.

Nevertheless, when she told me it was time to retire those jeans, I resisted. They were my most comfortable pair, and they fit me better than any others I had. They were also my most expensive pair (though admittedly not by much…my budget veers closer to Old Navy than to Gucci.) I wasn’t ready to part with them yet.

Then on Halloween, my kids and their cousins were playing wiffleball in the front yard and I joined in. After smacking a sharp line drive into the neighbor’s yard, I hustled around the bases and slid across our makeshift home plate, only to feel something give on my backside. I stood up and patted the back of my jeans—sure enough, that little rip had tripled in size.

And with that, my favorite pair of jeans was finally relegated to “yardwork clothes,” no longer suitable for wearing out in public. At long last, their time had come.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes, the writer reminds us of something we all know deep down, even if we don’t always like to think about it—nothing in this life lasts forever. Everything we are blessed to receive and cursed to endure is seasonal, here today and gone tomorrow. Your health and your wealth, your gains and your pains, none of it—for better and for worse—goes with you when you die.

But where the experiences of this life are all transient, God is eternal. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And the work he does stands forever.

That ought to affect your priorities. Life is full of immediate concerns, but you must remember that there is a difference between what’s immediate and what’s important. Spiritual issues can feel secondary sometimes, but they are what endures when the affairs of this world are a distant memory. Prayer is not something to be put off, and worship is not something you do only when it’s convenient for your schedule—these are the things that truly matter.

Nothing in this life lasts forever, not even your best pair of jeans. So invest in what lasts forever—not the things of earth, but the glories of heaven.

October Reading Log

Lots of reading this past month, and I enjoyed pretty much all of it! Take a look!

THE LONG LONELINESS by Dorothy Day

Some believe that activism is incompatible with religious faith, that it is the refuge of secular dreamers who have no hope in a life beyond this one. Some believe that activists are shiftless layabouts, happy to protest and post on social media, but unwilling to sacrifice for their cause or put in an honest day's work.

Such critics have obviously never heard of Dorothy Day. A social activist and devout Catholic, she spent her life feeding the poor, advocating for better working conditions, and protesting against war and injustice through her newspaper, The Catholic Worker. She was unapologetically radical, yet just as committed to her Catholic faith as she was to her activism. She believed—and showed through her life's work—that caring for the needy and making the world a more just place was a divine command, not a mere option.

The Long Loneliness is her memoir, the story of how she came to faith as a bohemian social worker and how she and her colleagues advocated for the poor even as they served them. The title refers to the yearning she said all people feel for meaning and community, one which cannot be met by worldly pursuits—what evangelicals sometimes refer to as a "God-shaped hole in your heart." She describes again and again how her faith informed her activism, and how without it she would have lost hope long ago.

Day's writing is vivid and personal, and you cannot help but admire her commitment as you read her story. She is one of the finest examples of practicing what you preach that I could ever imagine, willing to go to lengths that few others would for the sake of the gospel as she understood it. Dorothy Day has been an official candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church since 1997, and after reading her memoir, it's easy to understand why. There are many in our world today who give activism a bad name, including many Christians—but she is the example of all that an activist can be.

THE LAST OF HIS KIND by Andy McCullough

On September 18, Clayton Kershaw, the legendary Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, announced his retirement. That same day, I put a hold at my local library for this biography. My hope was that I'd manage to finish it before the Dodgers were eliminated from the postseason and Kershaw threw his last pitch, which I managed to pull off thanks to the Dodgers' run back to the World Series.

Clayton Kershaw, one of the greatest starting pitchers I've ever seen, holds a special place in the hearts of Major League Baseball fans. Part of it is his singular run with the Dodgers, one of of baseball's premier franchises—due to both his talent and his association with that team, Kershaw has long been painted as the spiritual successor to Sandy Koufax. Part of it is the Shakespearean nature of his career—few pitchers have ever been so great in the regular season, yet Kershaw repeatedly and inexplicably flamed out in the postseason; his is a tale of both triumph and tragedy. And part of it, as this biography's title indicates, is that Kershaw seems to stand in for a bygone style of pitching, where the starter was expected to put the team on his back and carry them to victory.

All of this is covered with sensitivity, detail, and insight by The Athletic's Andy McCullough, who served for years as that publication's beat writer for the Dodgers. McCullough takes readers through Kershaw's early days in the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas, his rise to greatness with the Dodgers, and all the successes and failures that followed. Along the way, McCullough gives us a look into what makes Kershaw, who is infamously exacting about his routine, tick.

In one sense, the books succeeds in letting readers know what Kershaw's all about: his family for 4 days, and then maniacally focusing on his craft every 5th day. But in another sense, the book preserves the mystique that makes Kershaw feel like an athlete from another time, before social media and the 24/7 news cycle made pro athletes feel just like anybody else. Kershaw, like Koufax before him, feels like baseball royalty, even as he insists otherwise.

Having admired Kershaw for his entire career, I enjoyed reliving his career through this biography. It's a worthy read for anybody else who has done the same. 

THE SHINING by Stephen King

Stephen King's most famous book (thanks in no small part to Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation) is at one level a pretty simple haunted house story—family moves into an isolated Colorado hotel for the winter only to slowly discover that they are not as alone as they thought. But, like the Overlook Hotel, there is more to The Shining than meets the eye, and it's the complexity beneath the surface that makes the book, well, shine.

The Shining centers on the Torrance family—father Jack, mother Wendy, and 8-year-old son Danny—who move into the Overlook after Jack, an aspiring writer, takes a job as the hotel's caretaker for the winter season, when the hotel is closed. The reader soon learns that Jack is a recovering alcoholic who recently lost his job as a professor after angrily assaulting a student. Wendy sees encouraging signs from her husband, but worries the isolation of the hotel will drive her husband back to the bottle. Danny, similarly to King's first protagonist, the titular Carrie White, has a vague but unmistakable supernatural power, "the shining," psychic abilities which give him insight into the future and enable him to telepathically communicate with others who possess his power.

The book traces exactly what Wendy fears, Jack's gradual mental breakdown, which is aided by the supernatural horrors of the Overlook. In a way that is never fully explained, the hotel is alive with the spirits of previous guests and staff, all of whom want to bring the Torrances—and especially Danny—into their fold. By the end of the book, a murderous Jack, fully possessed by the spirits of the hotel, is trying to murder his wife and child, who must reckon with both him and the horrors of the Overlook.

While the thrills of the last 100 pages are what the book is best known for—epitomized by Kubrick's image of Jack's maniacal face bursting through a door as his wife cowers on the other side—it is the slow build that makes the book such a compelling horror story. Jack's descent into madness, Wendy's anxiety, and Danny's innocent confusion make for a potent emotional soup, one that's perfect for a horror story. The knowledge that Jack's breakdown is partly biographical—King was battling drug and alcohol addiction while writing The Shining—only adds to the emotional depth.

The Shining is a classic for a reason, arguably King's scariest book (though Pet Sematary and Misery would like a word.) A great way to ring in spooky season...now I need to go rewatch the movie!

TONIGHT IN JUNGLELAND by Peter Ames Carlin

Born to Run is not only one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums of all time, it's my personal favorite. So when music journalist Peter Ames Carlin, who had previously written a biography of Bruce Springsteen, built upon that book with one about the writing of the Boss's most beloved album, I had to check it out.

Tonight in Jungleland is a blow-by-blow account of the writing and recording of that album, stressing how it was a make-or-break effort for Springsteen after the two commercially disappointing records that preceded it and how Bruce in turn put everything he had into its production. Loosely, each chapter is devoted to one of the songs on the album, though Carlin plays fast and loose with the timeline in order to provide background information. It's all written by someone with an obvious affection for the album and a talent for describing and explaining its impact.

This is far from essential reading for any but the most devoted Springsteen fans, but it made for a good way to unwind at the end of each day. Paired with Deliver Me From Nowhere, the film that came out last week about the making of the Nebraska album, I had the Boss on the brain and on the radio at the end of October, and likely will for days to come.

ADVENTURE IN GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK by Aaron Johnson

The latest entry into the National Park Mystery Series sees Jake, Amber, and Wes make their way to the Grand Canyon, where they encounter some new dangers and see their friendship tested as they continue solving the mysteries left behind by Jake's grandfather.

This book sees two new developments in the series. The first is a tension between the heroes, as Jake finds himself growing increasingly jealous of Amber, who always seems to have the right answer before he does. It's classic adolescent dynamics, and was written well by author Aaron Johnson. The second is the addition of both a new ally and some new enemies, both of which escalate the danger that Jake, Amber, and Wes face.

While I admit that this book did have me wondering whether the series' formula can stretch for a planned 10 books—I'm starting to find it a little repetitive—my kids didn't seem to mind any perceived flaws. National parks, danger, humor, and mystery are all to be found in ample supply in this series. On to Zion National Park for the fourth installment!

AVENGERS BY JONATHAN HICKMAN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION VOL. 1-5

I've written before about my love-hate relationship with Jonathan Hickman. He is a very smart writer, he knows it, and he wants you to know it too. As such, his specialty is crafting complex story arcs that leave you bewildered at times, only for—theoretically—it all to make sense in the end. Sometimes that formula works nearly to perfection, like his run on Fantastic Four or his X-Men relaunch, House of X and Powers of X. Other times, his style feels more like an exercise in intellectual vanity. Unfortunately, his multiyear run on two Avengers titles feels like the latter.

The overarching story of both titles is that the multiverse is collapsing, leading Tony Stark to come up with two solutions. The first, public solution is to expand the Avengers, building a roster that will be able to not just defeat supervillains, but ultimately prevent Armageddon. The second, secret solution is for him and his fellow members of the Illuminati—a cabal of Marvel's most brilliant and powerful minds—to prevent "incursions" of other worlds into ours by any means necessary, up to and including destroying those other worlds. The eventual failure of both plans leads, ultimately, to Secret Wars, the Hickman-led reboot of the Marvel Universe.

Smack dab in the middle of all of this is "Infinity," a summer event that sees the heroes of Earth team up with Marvel's various cosmic empires (the Kree, Skrulls, Shi'ar, etc.) to take on both a new extraterrestrial threat and the forces of Thanos. This event, though written by Hickman, reeks of an editorial mandate, stalling Hickman's momentum only to be practically forgotten once it comes to an end. A yet, by virtue of its relative simplicity, it was probably my favorite part of the run!

As with so many Hickman stories, the concepts are mind-blowing and there are some really cool moments. But there were also far too many times where I had no idea what I was reading, and where I wasn't certain it was all going to pay off in the end. To that second point, it sort of does, because Secret Wars is pretty great. But I'm not sure we needed 7 years of stories to end the world...especially if I was going to be confused for 4 of them. If you love Hickman—and make no mistake, he's very popular—you'll love this run. But if you don't, well, get ready for a very Hickman-y experience.

Costumes (Friday Devotional)

 

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

- Psalm 139:1-4

In neighborhoods across the country, tonight you’ll hear the same cry at every doorstep: “Trick or treat!” Smiling adults will drop fun-sized candy bars into plastic orange buckets. Parents will find their entire vocabularies reduced to two exclamations, “slow down!” and “remember to say thank you!” And most importantly, every child (not to mention plenty of teenagers and adults) will be wearing a costume.

That’s part of the fun of Halloween, of course. Whether you opt for something scary like a vampire or a werewolf, something corporate and recognizable like a Minion or one of the Avengers, or you go with one of those punny getups that you have to explain—see, I’m wearing a beret and holding a piece of bread; I’m French toast—everybody gets to spend the evening pretending to be something they’re not.

Of course, Halloween isn’t the only time we do that. Not really. When you’re at your wit’s end and the cashier asks how you’re doing, you smile and say, “Doing great.” When you want to make a good impression on someone, you laugh at their jokes even when they’re not that funny. When you show up to church on Sunday morning, you wear nicer clothes than you did on Saturday and match it with better manners and a brighter smile. Costumes and make believe, it seems, aren’t reserved for October 31.

But eventually you want to take your costume off and be yourself. You want someone who knows you fully, not just the version of yourself that you present in public. So there’s relief in knowing that the Lord knows you as no one else does—just as there is no hiding from God, there is no fooling him either. He sees you as you truly are—and he loves you anyway.

Costumes can be fun, but the truth is liberating. What a blessing to know that God sees past our disguises to the people he created in his image. And what joy to know that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to save the person you pretend to be—he did it to save you.

Bouncing Down the Road (Friday Devotional)

 

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

- Psalm 46:13

A couple days ago, I was driving up Centerville Road when I spotted something out of the ordinary in front of me. It was a large, red, inflatable ball—the kind you see for $5 in a cage at Walmart—bouncing down the road. Maybe it had been in the bed of somebody’s pickup truck and had bounced out, maybe it had been thrown out the window of a passing car like litter, who knows? But there it went, bouncing down the 6-lane road.

It was never a hazard for me—I was in the left lane and it was in the right—but I watched the ball from the moment it caught my attention until long after I drove past it. I was waiting for something—for the moment a car hit the ball head-on and popped it. But as far as I know, that ball just kept bouncing down the street. The last I saw, it was still bouncing down Centerville Road.

Something about that bouncing red ball felt metaphorical to me, felt like life. All of us are, in a sense, like that ball. Every day we do the basic things we know how to do—we go to work, we spend time with friends, we do our chores, we eat, we sleep. We bounce down the road.

But for most of us, there is a persistent feeling of insecurity. What if I get laid off? What if my friends move away? What if the doctor tells me I have cancer? All it takes is one big event, one head-on collision, and life as you know it could come to an end. We need something to make us feel safe, something to make us feel less afraid in a fearful world.

In Psalm 46, the writer speaks of God as a “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The psalmist doesn’t live in some pie-in-the-sky fiction where bad things never happen to good people; he has seen enough life to know that things can get dangerous quickly.

But “though the earth should change”—whether through natural disaster, manmade crisis, or any sort of peril—the psalmist says he will not fear. He knows the Lord is with him, so ultimately he is secure.

Life can make you feel like you’re a fragile inflatable ball bouncing down a busy road, just moments away from being run down. But the Bible tells you who to trust in your fear and insecurity—not your own strength and wisdom, but the Lord’s. Keep bouncing, and trust God to get you where you need to be.

All's Fair (Friday Devotional)

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 

- 1 Corinthians 12:14-15

This weekend marks the conclusion of a favorite annual tradition for families across our region, including mine: the State Fair of Texas. Every year, more than 2 million Texans—and, at least for one weekend, visitors north of the Red River—make their way to Dallas’ Fair Park to eat, play games, eat, ride rides, eat, see shows, and eat some more.

There are probably certain parts of the fair you enjoy every time you go—for us, no trip is complete without a Fletcher’s corny dog, a stroll through the livestock barn, and a quick perusal of the new cars in the Automobile Building. Then again, there are other aspects of the fair you may have never tried. Maybe you skip the games at the midway, or steer clear of the Ferris wheel. Maybe—<shudder>—you pack your own lunch so you won’t have to pay for fair food.

But whether you do it all or simply grab your corny dog and go, I think you’ll agree, the State Fair is more than just the activities you partake in. It’s crowds gathering around Big Tex for selfies, even if you don’t take any yourself. It’s live music playing on the main stage, even if you don’t know the band’s name. It’s the thousands of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes—the ones for you and the ones for others. Some parts appeal to you more than others, but every bit of it matters.

So it is with the church, where individual differences and distinctions come together in the unity of the Spirit. The Bible teaches us that all believers are empowered with different spiritual gifts—everything from wisdom to hospitality to teaching—for the common good. Similarly, the church has always been made up of both men and women, young and old, rich and poor.

Such diversity can be challenging, and so the temptation is to divide ourselves into more homogenous groupings in the name of ‘relatability.’ But the danger in doing so—in always surrounding believers with people just like them—is that you rob people of the kind of church Jesus created.

The truth is that every person has something to contribute to the church; every individual member matters to the body. Your brother in Christ possesses gifts you don’t have, and you have something to offer that your sister in Christ doesn’t. We need everyone to carry out the mission our Lord has given us.

Like the offerings at the fair, you don’t have to appreciate or even understand every ministry of your church. Some will appeal to you and others won’t resonate. But praise God for all those using their gifts to make your church a vibrant, multifaceted family of faith.

Made New (Friday Devotional)

 

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

- Romans 6:4

Netflix used to be best known for sending DVDs through the mail. Amazon once exclusively sold books. YouTube originally started as a dating website. And before it was marketed as modeling clay for children, Play-Doh was initially sold as a cleaner to remove coal residue from wallpaper.

All these companies, for various reasons, reinvented themselves over time. They found new purpose, a new way to exist in the world—and because of their imagination and their willingness to change, they saw growth they had never imagined.

When the Bible describes life in Christ, it explains it as just such a conversion—not a slight modification of behavior, but a total transformation. Believers in Jesus are baptized in water, and that immersion symbolizes a spiritual death and resurrection—when we emerge from the waters of baptism, we do so as new creations. Even as Jesus was raised from the dead, we are raised to new life in Christ.

Longtime disciples of Jesus need that reminder: there is supposed to be a marked difference between your life before you were saved and your life after you come to faith. Salvation is not something you tack onto an existing lifestyle, but something that changes everything.

If secular corporations can be transformed, surely the same can be true for God’s children. May we be known not for minor modifications, but for total transformation.