It's The Christmas Season

Who needs to be told that? We have been here again and again. For me, I can recall a Christmas 75 years ago when my Grandpa Noah gave me small wooden blocks as a namesake Christmas gift. No matter if I was only 2 years and 7 months old.

But what is new this Christmas? It is the old story still alive- that God did something extraordinary to make his real love known to mankind. A big deal in a small package. An everyday event for someone, yet one of a kind- His Son.

From this small wonder as a person who changed the world forever. Who made possible a different life for the billions of mankind. Who showed a new way of life for everyone; and made that life possible.

Who now has millions of followers proclaiming that LIFE. In world that is partly hiding in darkness, a darkness of ignorance, deception, and weird celebrations, totally unrelated to THAT EVENT.

We who know what Christmas is all about can choose how we celebrate in this season, and throughout the year. Every day is Christmas to us, Jesus coming into the world to save the world through us who know.

Are we angels (messengers) who sing, explain, and worship, or are we shepherds who come and see and return to our world, never to be heard from again? Or wise men who worship and return and no doubt are changed forever, declaring the wonder they saw?

Yes, its the Christmas season. And what that means is up to each of us. Caught busy ness, it is still up to us what it means to us. 

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                                                      A Call To Pray

An aerial view of a refugee camp in the Middle East is etched in my mind from a recent news report. It reminds me of a cemetery. There are over 3 million Syrian refugees, and nearly 2 million persons in Iraq, displaced from the conflict just this year. It is not hard to imagine the plight of these who inhabit those tents, in row after row. Day by day they are confined there by their circumstance, dependent on someone to supply food for survival while adults wonder when they can move back- or forward to a secure place. They may have little hope or vision for their next step. Children with parents- parents if they are lucky to even have a mother, perhaps usually hungry and sometimes sick or starving. It seems they would become despondent as they wait and wait, often with little food for survival. I suppose some are dying as this drags on and on. Meanwhile fighting among groups vying for power perpetuates this misery. No one is winning- everyone is losing. No one has any answers for the problem. Perhaps the most we can do is PRAY.

• Pray for those trying to sustain life from the UN and Relief efforts- for supplies to sustain life, and for protection to get help to the needy.
• Pray for God to reveal himself as still a God love, and give comfort for all the helpless and despondent.
• Pray for Christians to be there to share the Gospel for those who are losing confidence in the religion that is failing them, who may have visions of Jesus and a Savior for them.
• Pray for God to hasten the day of the conflict to end, that the evil plans of the warring parties will fail again and again until they give up.
• Pray for a revelation of Jesus to the whole Islamic religion, that Jesus may be seen as more than a prophet, and really the Savior of the world.
• Pray that our country will not make things worse, but that Christians here would stand up for the needs of the desperate ones who are waiting...
• For God to be a God of justice and righteousness and bring down evil rulers and warriors and raise just governments.