Christmas Thoughts

Hello blog, my name is Mark. Sorry I've neglected you lately. I don't know if it's that I haven't felt inspired or if I've been too busy or what. But I'm here now. You are the place I can put my thoughts into words. Maybe that's it...I haven't been thinking. No, that's not it either.


This Christmas season has been good for us at the church. It has been sweet. We have 2 services this weekend. In the recent past we haven't been here for Christmas but in FL with family. Since Christmas is on Sunday, I thought it would be good to stick around and worship here. I am excited about both the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. Christmas Eve is going to be contemplative as we go from the Manger to the Cross and share Communion together. Christmas Day is going to be celebrative as we talk about the gifts of Christmas. If you're in the Moberly area, join us at Carpenter Street Baptist Church at 6 pm on Christmas Eve and 10 am on Christmas morning.

One of the names for Jesus that is in the forefront in this season is Emmanuel...God with us. This is a very significant name and very precious to me. God...the Creator of the Universe, the Almighty One, the Giver of Life came to earth. Don't ask me to explain the Incarnation because I can't. It is beyond my brain's capacity. But I believe with all my heart that God in His perfect way and perfect time entered this world one not so silent night through a virgin. The Creator became the Created. He became one of us. Why? Because of His immeasurable love for us. Emmanuel...God with us. He is not God ahead of us pulling us toward Him. He is not God behind us pushing us toward Him. He is not God above us lording Himself over us and taunting us with His greatness compared to our insignificance. He is not God below us begging us to give Him our leftovers. He is God with us. God beside us. Listening, guiding, sharing, caring, loving, comforting, befriending, walking and living life with us. But this amazing companionship is not automatic. Just like accepting and unwrapping our Christmas presents, we have to accept Him and His gift of salvation. It is given to us unconditionally just like the gifts we give each other...out of His great love. 

4 Words That Change Everything

I haven't posted in a while...longest I've gone without posting since I began this thing and what I'm posting today isn't original, but it is good and it speaks to where I am. 

There are very few words that transcend circumstances. There are very few words that go beyond social, economic and marital status. There are very few words that hit all of us in the same way, at the same time and with the same potential for impact and change. But these 4 words do:

“I am with you.”

God is with us. Not distant. Not removed, but close. Not uncaring, but empathetic. Not far off, but living inside us. He is with us.

To the single mom working 2 jobs and still coming up short every month: I AM with you.

To the one filled with anxiety and worry in this moment right now: I AM with you.

To the unemployed: I AM with you.

To the one that hates the way their body looks and how they feel when they look in the mirror: I AM with you.

To the person that has no idea what their purpose or passion in life is: I AM with you.

To failure and the mess up that can’t see how they could ever recover from their mistake: I AM with you.

To the person that finds their value and identity in their career success: I AM with you.

To the insecure and unsure walking through life desperate for acceptance: I AM with you.

To the fake and the phony that has everyone believing that their life is more together than it really is: I AM with you.

To the depressed and the downhearted; the person that feels their is no light at the end of the tunnel: I AM with you.

To the single person that has a huge desire to get married and often feels loneliness and pain: I AM with you.

To the married person that wonders how their marriage drifted to such a lonely and painful place: I AM with you.

To the angry and resentful that have been rocked by hardship and hurt: I AM with you.

To the abused and the broken that have wondered why no one stepped in to stop the abuse: I AM with you.

To the isolated and lonely; the ones that feel left out and on the fringe: I AM with you.

To the ones that appear that they have everything, yet feel like all they have means nothing: I AM with you.

I AM with you. It is a game changer for all of us today.

Copied from thomrainer.com blog.

Just Thinking

The sun hasn't started coming up yet but the darkness has broken and you can see the outline of the NC mountains and the "smoke" that makes them the Smokeys. It's quiet and peaceful. Won't stay this way long. Within a few hours the kids will wake up and the activity will begin. Another vacation day with family. This is day 4. Yesterday was fun. We went to church as a family. I think each of us experienced something different during that hour. We went out for lunch...ate too much. Came back to the vacation house and had a lazy afternoon. We had an impromptu family worship time. Each of the kids shared something musical. It was truly great that they would share their talents with us. Each of them volunteering, no one was forced. Dad shared devotionally on how we are here to connect with each other. To help each other with the ultimate goal of helping them secure a place in heaven. We sang In Christ Alone and Dad ended by reading Phil. 4:8, Kayla's favorite verse. It was tearful but good. Then we played a musical game together and laughed and had a great time. After the game we had supper - a buffet of leftovers or whatever you could find. We had conversations about life and death and grief and life. We watched Toy Story 3 and laughed and cried during the ending, least I did. Silly Pixar sentementalism. This is all part of the eternal life that we experience together. It's not just about the hereafter...it's what we do with what we have here too.

My Days Are Numbered

Mark 16,891 (so far)

Kayla 6,751 

Alicia 6,337

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)

How many days do I have left? I don’t know. No one does, except God. He knows the exact number of years, days, hours and seconds that I will occupy my address on Planet Earth; the exact moment that my death will occur.

Now that may not seem like a cheery thought to you, and in fact, most people would find that sobering, at best, and frightening, at worst. I find comfort and security in knowing that God has my life so ordered that I will neither die a day sooner nor live a day longer than what has already been recorded in his book. You see, life and death are far above my understanding, so I will happily let Father God take care of that department, thank you very much.

So if I truly and correctly understand this profound truth, then I am freed from the fear of death to fully live the life that God has planned for me. I can enjoy an intimate walk with the One who is intimately involved in each minor detail of my day (Psalm 139:1-4), who never lets me out of his sight (Psalm 139:5-8), whose fatherly hand guides my every move (Psalm 139:9-10), and who is never limited or intimidated by my circumstances (Psalm 139:11-12). In fact, God is so involved in my life that he was even there at the moment my mother and father conceived me in love, and while I was in the womb, he masterminded even the most smallest details of my formation.

God knows me! He knows everything about me. He planned me, built me, watches over me, can steer me back on track when I wander from his purpose (Psalm 139:23-24), can be completely trusted to keep me safe until the Divinely allotted numbers of days ordained have expired and then take me to the next life that he has prepared for me. And he has done such an amazingly great job with this life I can’t even begin to imagine what’s on tap for the next!

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand” (Psalm 13:6), but it won’t keep me from enjoying this day and praising the One who is in charge of it!

For Granted

Jeromy is home. He is glad to be home. There is something about home to be missed. As I was lying in bed this morning with Jeromy cuddled beside me, it occurred to me that even with all we've been through, I take things, important things, for granted. You would think that I'd be more observant. That I would long to make the most of every moment. That I would desire to create memorable times that can be replayed over and over in my mind. But instead I have my routine. Much of my routine is focused on me. Ok, so just because I'm putting this down on paper, well on world wide web paper, it doesn't mean that this revelation is going to change my reality. I know it should. Acknowledgement is the first step, right? This applies to so many facets of life; not just our physical but our spiritual as well. We observed the Lord's Supper last Sunday. "As often as you do this..." we are supposed to what? "REMEMBER." Do we just recall the price of ultimate love 4 times a year and at Easter? We take Christ for granted. We take God for granted. His grace, His mercy, His love, His EVERYTHING. Everything we do should be done in view of what He has done for us. If we did that then, everything we did would be to His glory and for His glory. Through so many of the songs we sing we declare our dependence upon and our unending love for Christ. But do we mean our words or are they just rote? Is there such a thing as robotic devotion? Have we become no more than a higher version of C3PO giving a head nod to our Creator but no heart behind it? A friend of mine posted just last week that she was tired of settling. I believe I am getting to that point, too, but, what does it mean? I don't change well. And therein lies the problem. I'm the one trying to do the changing instead of giving all my life to God and letting Him change me from the inside out. There is a foundation, a strong foundation, laid there in the depths of my heart almost 40 years. There has been some construction built on that foundation where God has begun building His kingdom in my life. I know that this walk is a life long journey. Shouldn't I be farther along though? So...now these thoughts are out. Now what? And the journey continues...