Why Resolutions are Important and Needed!

Resolutions are like anchors for a ship. The anchors are used to prevent a ship from crashing into dangerous reefs and obstacles. They are instruments providing safety and security. Making resolutions for the New Year can become anchoring statements--words of absolute resolve--palpitations of your inner desires--spoken, made public and concise.When I look back on my life--almost every good thing that has happened to me, has resulted of formulating these anchor resolutions. Once I resolved to buy a "little cabin the the woods." When we did buy the cabin tucked in the North Carolina mountains--that cabin became the respite my soul was literally dying for--it also became the prototype for Potter's Inn--as we know it today. I made other resolutions in years past about my weight; my fractured relationships and my marriage. Some have become so life transforming that I now shutter to think of what my life would have become--had I not found anchor resolutions to give me hope, resolve and a clear way to move through choppy seas and seasons of my life. They became for me, more than something I was tethered to. Rather, my resolutions became guiding strands which gave me light in the midst of stormy times and a way to walk through whatever chaos I was finding myself in at that moment.People drift. People crash and people sink. I've done all three of this---or should I say, I've run onto dry ground; my boat has taken on massive water and I have been in despair. To prevent the unthinkable for us, work on some simple statements which will give you a course to follow; safety from drifting off course and protection from sinking.Here are 6 resolutions you might want to consider working with---making them your own as your move into the New Year. 

1. Do something about forgiveness. For most of us there are remnants of messy, broken and severed relationships. The lack of forgiveness can take root in us causing us inner stress, mental anguish and relational isolation. Who is the one person you want to move towards to forgive? How can you do extend forgiveness.
2. Do something about your pace of life and stress level. Most of us feel victims to our clocks and calendars. We resign to surviving as if we can do nothing about the running on empty feeling we experience. By choosing to move more slowly---how can you resolve to do this: give intervals between meetings; allow yourself grace time on each side of your commute rather than giving the bare minimum. The real question I've found that most of us rarely ask ourselves is this: What can I do today that will be life giving.
3. Give yourself self-compassion. For those of us in caring professions, we care for others without giving care to ourselves. For business leaders, navigating the whitewater of money, success and the fear of going under---what would self-compassion look like? For the pastor and missionary; counselor and teacher---what can you do each week to give yourself mercy, grace and love? Remember this, those who give must be given to....
4. Pay attention to your Spiritual Life. The spiritual life is not a program to be managed. It is an organic, wide-open journey where we become awake, aware and active in our walk with God . What can you do to attempt to wake up and walk more aware this year?
5. Embracing the care of your body. Our bodies are the address of our soul. The care of our soul is directly linked to the care of our body. Rather than set big, unattainable, unrealistic and unachievable goals, mark a path where you can realize a movement in your body care like this: Rather than make a "D" in my body care, I want to achieve a "B". Only a few of us will ever get an "A" here. I'm certainly not one of those. But making a "B" is to live with this: I feel good about how I am treating my body. Good is better than poor.
6. Unplug from technology. I've found in working with leaders in the marketplace and ministry that being wired has become the #1 threat to their resilience. They are slaved; tethered to little machines. Make a resolution to unplug on day a week. Here's a link to help with this offered through our ministry, Potter's Inn: Get the UNPLUG Challenge here!

 Let me take this final opportunity to thank those of you who have stood with Gwen and me this past year in the support of Potter's Inn. Potter's Inn for many, has become an anchor ministry for many around the world. Your gifts and support make this anchor to happen for people. It's been a year of expansion and our margins have run thin. But by your help, we will finish this year strong and in the black--ready to offer an anchor to many who are tossed about on the stormy seas of life. May God bless us! May God hold us! May God have mercy upon us all!Happy New Year---and may this be so! Steve

Unplug

We are so wired! We are always "on" and always "available." We are co-dependent on our iphones and ipads. We can't live with them. We certainly can't live without them. The result: We're glued, veering off and into pseudo-community--thinking our connections on social media will be "there" for us when we're thrown a curve ball in life.We have been seduced into thinking that the meaning of life comes from what we "see" and how we "hear" from. It all makes us numb to our heart where we feel a void in our soul. Rather than feeling more guilt; more shame and kicking the ant-hills where all the cyber ants will surely scatter, I've designed a challenge.It's called: [tweetthis]Un-Plug. For one day a week, turn off your phones; get your head out of your apps and open yourself up to the great adventure of life. [/tweetthis]Rather than scroll through meaningless pages, consider the following:

• Turn off all technology for one full day (That's a full 24 hour span of going off the grid and going dark).
• Take a walk.
• Invite someone for lunch or dinner.
• Read a good book to stir you up and make you feel things long forgotten.
• Visit a museum or a park.
• Light a candle and say some prayers.
• Sit quietly with yourself--by yourself.
• Play some soft music.
• Meet a friend--perhaps long lost and have coffee.
• Play a game with your family or friends.

Get the Unplug Card, download, then Sign it. Place it in a prominent place in your home so you don't forget!It's really a simple step to help us re-order and re-claim our lives.The poet and spiritual writer, John O'Donohue writes:"Though your destination is not yet clear, you can trust the promise of this opening; Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning--that is at one with your life's desire. Awaken your spirit to adventure. Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk; Soon you will be hoe in a new rhythm, for your soul senses the world that awaits you."Listen to me: What have you got to lose? There is so much in this life for us---and that we can enjoy--even in hard and fragile times! The UNPLUG challenge is for all of us!In the New Year, I'm going to recommend one book a month for you to start reading for your spiritual growth and to deepen your roots! It's all to help grow your soul in the New Year.For January, I am recommending my own: Embracing Soul Care. (This is a link to Amazon where Amazon will donate back to Potter's Inn). This is a great book to read devotionally as the chapters are short, to the point and with great application. There are three stirring questions for you to explore as you read the chapters. This can be easily enjoyed alone; with your spouse or over coffee with some friends. You can read more about Embracing Soul Care here: Read more about Embracing Soul Care and order through Potter's Inn! If you order Embracing Soul Care through Potter's Inn-- you benefit the entire ministry of all we do! Blessings in the New Beginning as we seek to get Unplugged! Steve  

Understanding Your Limits: Saying No In Order To Say Yes Grace for the Christmas Season

THE TRUTH SETS YOU FREEI love the words of Jesus when he told his followers “The truth will set you free.”[1] Freedom comes by embracing the truth, not by holding onto lies, illusions and myths.It’s interesting to note that the Apostle Paul wrote two different books to the same group of followers of Jesus in a city named Corinth in the Greek Isles. In the second book, we see an older, more mature Paul talk about living within limits. In 2 Corinthians 10:13, Paul explains his understanding of living life within the limits God has set for us. He writes about not over-extending ourselves.“But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. The Message puts it this way:“We aren’t making outrageous claims here. We’re sticking to the limits of what God has set for us.”A limit requires a basic understanding of where you should invest yourself and where you should refrain. A limit is understanding what writer Wendell Berry calls “your carrying capacity; knowing your own “bandwidth.” How much can you work? And not how long can you work, but how long SHOULD you work? And it’s not just about work. Limits are important to understand regarding most aspects of our lives. How much should we exercise, eat, sleep, play, use technology? How much can you carry before something is dropped?Read the rest of Steve's article on the Conversations Journal site HERE...

Pondering Means Not Hurrying

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2: 19In a single verse, we are privy to what Mary actually did—after she was told that she was going to have a baby and that her baby would have a sacred role in God’s plan for humanity.We see in Mary’s response an action that is beautiful, humble and meaningful. She doesn’t rush around telling her closest friends what has happened. She doesn’t make a plan. She doesn’t fret, worry or let her nerves get the best of her.Mary’s heart reveals two needed postures in today’s frenzied world with 24/7 news in the ever-ready, always on world we live in today. Mary “treasures” the information she has been given. Then, Mary “ponders” it.To treasure and ponder both the seen and unseen things of our lives grounds us. By treasuring and pondering truth, we develop and grow a contemplative soul—a soul that ponders the invisible; a soul that responds rather than reacts and a soul that is anchored in a bigger picture of life than just the urgent, pressing and hurry.[tweetthis]There are five components needed to grow a contemplative soul.[/tweetthis] These five components have been the foundation for Gwen and me in our life in our sabbatical and post-sabbatical. 

1. We need silence. In today’s world of outer noise and inner confusion, silence helps us find our heart. It’s only 18” between our head and our heart but that journey is said to be one of the longest journeys in the world. Silence helps us de-clutter our minds; center our hearts and work through the mental congestion where it seems there is always a sort of committee meeting happening in our minds. Silence is necessary to grow a pondering heart. Without silence, we are told that it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Every day, seek to spend 10-20 minutes in silence. Start with 10 and grow your time to be more like 20. Most spiritual masters encourage us to spend 20 minutes in quiet---learning to treasure the Presence of God in our midst. There what’s unimportant in our lives grows smaller while what is really important becomes larger and Great. By far, the very best book I've read on silence this past year is Martin Laird's "Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation."

2. We need Solitude. Solitude is not just being alone. It is understanding the movement of beginning alone and entering the realization that you are not alone—really. You are in God’s presence. As Mary spent time “pondering” her aloneness was transformed in hearing again and again what the Angel actually told her. She relished in that experience. We can relish in ours. When we learn how to “do” solitude, we are entering a movement on which all spiritual mothers and fathers would agree: Without solitude, we cannot find our heart or True self. Solitude grounds us from the applause of people, the scaffolding of position and power and helps us leave the tyranny of the urgent to connect with the Ground of our Being. I'd highly recommend, Henri Nouwan's The Way of the Heart to help you grasp the classic understanding of solitude.

3. We pray. I’ve found that prayer is the great stumbling block for most people who follow Jesus. We either don’t pray at all or our prayers are more quick rescue pleas from some situation we are hoping to avoid. Prayer is conversation. It is dialogue not monologue. It is a two way, reciprocal conversation where we speak and God speaks. The Ancients said, “God’s first language is silence” and if all we hear is silence from God in our prayers then we posture ourselves to experience a sort of Grand Silence—a quiet that assuages our aches and fears. The silence brings us to Presence. As we “ponder” and “treasure” we articulate what is stirring. We give words to the wordless feelings we experience. We connect. We sit in our connection. The book that rocked my world this past year on prayer is Cynthia Bourgeault's Inner Awakening.

4. We become slow. There is an art of slowing that our culture is missing today where everything is fast and instant. The cult of speed causes us to move so fast that we speed by Heaven in our midst. No one who lives with “hurry” as a mantra has time to “ponder” and “treasure” and thus, we miss the richness of a feeding that can be ours. Walk slowly. Move slowly. Be attentive to your taste buds rather than scarfing down our food where there is barely time to taste or “taste and see that the Lord is good.” For more on slowing please read: The Jesus Life by Stephen W. Smith. There are chapters describing the way of the table and the rhythm of life that helps one foster a contemplative heart.

5. We experience consolation. A person who nourishes a heart to “ponder” and “treasure” is a person who learns where the source of consolation really is and how consolation works in the soul of a person. Ignatius of Loyola said that if a person spent time every day to notice how they were consoled by the love and grace of God every single day for three months, they would never, ever be the same again. This is the practice of examining your day---and tracing back through the seen and unseen events of your day and noticing how God was seeking to console you—the way a mother would console a fretting child. Does he do it through beauty? Does God do it through a conversation or something you notice? And the opposite is also true: how did you experience the desolation of God’s seeming absence? Where did it seem that you were totally on your own with God no where in sight? Jim Manny's book is a classic on this!

  As we enter these days of Christmas an in anticipation of the New Year--- Mary can become a teacher for us—a mentor we need to become less busy and deeper in our hearts!  

Preparing for a New Beginning with a New Year

Most of the Biblical writers chose and wrote about an image that was easy to understand to help us fathom the spiritual life. The image of the potter working on the clay is a timeless and powerful description of our lives. The Bible is clear: We are the clay and God is the Potter. Over time and in time, the hands of the Potter work on our clay. This is the story of our spiritual formation.Yet, since we live in modern times and buy our mugs at one store and our bowls at another, we find it challenging to really grasp the meaning of this life-giving process. One aspect of a potter working on clay is appropriate for us to think through as we anticipate the coming of a New Year.The wheel of the potter goes around and around many times in the process of working on the bowl. Every turn is a new opportunity for the bowl to transform. It’s never just one turn or one experience or one touch of the Potter’s hands. There is never just one time or one chance or a single opportunity for the bowl to come out right. No, the wheel of the potter turns round and round—many times—to become the desired object.A New Year is a New Turn on the Potter's Wheel[tweetthis]Every New Year begins the opportunity for us to begin again. What didn’t work this past year now has the chance for transformation[/tweetthis]—our diet, job, a broken relationship, a wound inflicted by a friend, a event we thought was catastrophic—all has a new opportunity in the New Year. This is grace at work in each of us in that the New Year brings another turn of the Potter’s wheel to shape things right.As we prepare for the New Year, I wanted to offer five challenges that you may find helpful to implement.

1. Read only the “Red Letters of the Gospels.” At the lowest time in my life, I went to a monastery in California for a massive re-working of my clay pot-like life. There I met with Dallas Willard, a very popular author and teacher. I felt flat lined in my work. Gwen and I were very thin in our marriage and there was much inner upheaval happening in me. I wasn’t doing well. I wasn’t well. I felt dead spiritually. There, Dallas offered me words that changed my life. He said, “Steve, to come back to life, read only the red letters—the very words of Jesus—for an entire year. There, I bought a “red letter edition of the Bible”—which I still use today and began to just read the very words of Jesus. In the New Year, make a commitment to “experiment” with this challenge and read only the Red Letters of Jesus. Stick in the Gospels and read his words, his stories and about his life. It will change you! I tell about this life-changing conversation with Dallas Willard in The Lazarus Life (now available in Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, Norwegian and more!)

2. Choose to live in Rhythm. From the beginning of time, God has offered us a life-giving way to live. It is to foster a rhythm of life that we engage and then dis-engage. We work for six days. Then, we take a day to cease. The violation of rhythm is the number one reason why people’s lives are in such a state of disarray. We are over-commited and over-extended. Rhythm is the life giving answer for us. In the New Year, choose to cease technology; cease work; cease striving; cease email and voice mail; cease anything that drains you of life. On your Sabbath—do that which will bring you life: walk, hike, read a book, listen to music, worship, meet with life-giving friends for a Sabbath meal and enjoy.Life is fragile and we are such busy people. Sabbath becomes a gift that sustains our joy; insulates us from both outer and inner violence and allows us to thrive—not just survive.In the New Year, plan on living in rhythm and see what changes might happen in you and around you. I recommend you read The Jesus Life to help you with this concept!

3. Invest in your life. Everyone who gives MUST be given to! We have so many hoses coming out of us which tend to fill up others around us. We want to fill our spouse. We want to fill our children. We want to fill our colleagues. We want to be responsible citizens. But where is the hose that comes into you which nourishes, feeds and pours life back into you? One of the great ways we can invest in our own life is by taking one day a month as a Personal Soul Care Day. Take one day a month and on that day—do what brings you life: Read a few chapters of a spiritual life giving book; Take a long walk. Sit in quiet and silence for one hour. Listen to some music or a podcast. Exercise rigoursly. Take a nap. Before you know it, the day is filled with all life giving activities. Further, plan on an extended retreat for a weekend or a few days. Take a look at what Potter’s Inn offers or your own church and invest yourself so that you can grow!

4. Take your body off the shelf and care for yourself. For far too long, I put my body on “auto-pilot” believing that my body would simply serve me. But I was a hard task master on my body. I neglected the physical care I needed because I did not connect the dot in my heart and mind that body care is soul care. When I care for my body I am doing a very, important spiritual work. In the New Year make some easy-to-do commitments. Choose to walk every day. Choose to eat to live not live to eat. By changing our paradigms of how we look at health, we can really CHANGE ourselves; our outlook on life. Everything is connected and as we take the time to care for our bodies, we are really practicing the care of our own souls. The bottom line here is to choose every day to practice body care. I recommend your read my own awakening into this fascinating aspect of our lives by reading Soul Custody: Choosing to Care for the One and Only You.

5. Mark Your Time with Rituals. As modern, busy people, one of the effects of living so fast and swift is that all of our time is blurred. We have no markers that define sacred time, family time, work time and relationship time. Everything is blurred. We’re always on and always available. A simple ritual helps to mark time and avoids the collapse of time and space. A ritual is a simple visual "marking" that makes a space; a time; an event as very important---not just like all other times.
   • Mark one day a week as your Sabbath by the lighting of a candle.
   • Mark meal time as sacred time. Don’t talk about work. Light a candle and ask those you are sharing a meal with to share “What’s the beautiful thing that has happened in your day today and What is the brutal thing that has happened in your day.
   • Mark your calendar now for a day a month for the care of your soul. Prioritize this day above all others and don’t cheat yourself by living in the left-over time, simply taking bits and pieces of left-over time.
   • Mark time every day with your spouse or friend to practice what the ancients called the, “Daily Examen.” A simple 5 minute conversation where you review your day outloud looking for the fingerprints of God; looking at specific moments in your way where you experienced the God’s consolation and moments where you felt utterly abandoned (desolation). This simple exercise can help close the gap in a marriage and in working teams.
   • Mark a room or a chair as YOUR space to meet with God. Set up a place in your home where you can go to be alone or have some quiet. Hang a picture. Place some objects on your desk that become a sort of portal for you to view deeper; into the heart of God.
     • I recommend that you read The Jesus Life as there is an entire chapter devoted to the topics of rituals.

If you're interested in a workbook/Bible study on the Potter and the clay--the process of spiritual formation, please consider Soul Shaping. It's ideal for individual and group use and is our go-to book to help people understand their story of formation and how a person really changes. This is ideal for a church wide or small group study in the New Year.Order Steve's books here through Potter's Inn and help support the ministry of Potter's Inn all around the world! Here's our bookstore!

Taking a Good Look at the Way we are Living or Not Living

“Let’s take a good look at the way we’re living and reorder our lives under God.”—Jeremiah, the prophet, 600 BC in Lamentations 3:41 in the MessageI’m convinced beyond any possible doubt, that we are in a time where all of us—from every nation and from every religion will, indeed, have to take a look at the way we are living and to do some reconfiguration.The world is fragile. Politics are a beyond a mess. Violence makes us feel thin, fragile and vulnerable. Our over crowded lives only seem to compete with an inner dissonance that reminds us in the twilight hours of night that something is really wrong.So, how do we quit lamenting our situation and cultivate some sense of change that is actually doable and that will work? This is the question I want to invite you to sit with and reflect upon right now!Pay Attention to Your LifeTo take a good look at the way one is living in the present requires some evaluation. We need to wake up and pay attention--not just to the world--but first to ourselves!

• How are you feeling about how your life is going right now?
• Do you feel as if there is a leak in your soul or a major hemorrhage? Or how would you describe the state of your soul if you lift of the hood of your life and look down within the real you?
• What do you want your life to look like? Envision the life you long to live and write a few sentences that excavate your yearnings.

Our big temptation is to skim through this page, skimming for anything new or any riveting insight we think we already didn’t possess. It simply takes time to reflect like the way I’m asking you. With time being one of our most precious commodities in life, we have to realize that if change and transformation is going to take place in the world, in the church or in my family, it simply MUST begin with me. No one else will live our lives for us. Taking the time to evaluate what is out of order is the first step to a re-ordered life. If you charge off and put a band-aid on some leak, no change will happen. Temporary change is what we are all suspicious of and we all know there are things that simply need attention. To Re-Order one's life begins by thinking through categories of our life.We eat an elephant one bit at a time. There's really no other way to do it. It's the same with understanding how to "do" change.Few of us can start completely over in life from a blank page. Real change is done on a cellular level. That is how cancer is destroyed—one cell at a time. To re-order one’s life means to simply choose a few categories that you feel need change:

• Your physical health: what area of your health do you want change in?
• Your sense of community and relationships: Who is your primary community? Who is the person you would call at 2am when something is wrong?
• Your job: Are you making more bricks with less straw in your vocation? Is your work your old Egypt or is there a land you want to explore in your vocation.
• Your emotional viability: What emotion describes your life best right now: anger, grief, joy, hope, sadness, contentment, satisfaction, well-being?
• Your giving back or paying it forward: To whom are you extending your hand to “step up” or “step in” or influencing in some way?

Choose a category and simply choose to be gentle with yourself. Yes, that’s right: gentle. This is not a call for 180% turn arounds. That philosophy rarely works. Lest you are too quick to think that 180% turn about is what Jesus commands, it took the original followers and repentors years before they got it right. Think about it this way: what if you could envision a quarter turn in your life in the next year. What if you could envision not just the goal you ‘d like to achieve but simpler: What if you could improve one of your categories by 25%? That is like getting a "B" rather than a "D" on your test! Who wouldn't want that? Only if we knew how....I’ve chosen this way of transformation. I’ve embraced my body and my health in a life changing way in the past two years. I’ve lost 65 pounds. I”ve gained the support of a few folks who are in the know to help me and I chose to begin. This next year, I’m wanting to go further. I want to lose even more weight. But looking at the American Table of how much a man my age and height SHOULD weigh seemed to always shut me down before I started. When I embraced a more gentle way of transformation I began to see the change I wanted. But deep change begins way down inside. True transformation is simply not modifying your behavior. It is transforming the way we think about the category we want to see change.I’d like to encourage you to begin thinking about this NOW---and not wait until a New Year dawns. Change starts when we start to think about what needs to change not when we simply draw a line in the sand. Change whispers to us long before we actually decide to quit something or start something. We must learn to listen to the whisper and the Whisperer! To re-order one’s life requires listening to the One who truly knows the way we should walk. We need a clarion voice which resounds within us that is truth, light and good. Every time we light a candle, we light it in the hope that the One who is Truth, Light and Good is going to dispel our darkness. How we so need this today.When the prophet Jeremiah spoke these words about re-ordering our lives, \he had to face the music of dissonance and discord. He courageously stood up and said, “Some things are really wrong. The issue begins at home. Face this and let’s change both ourselves and the course of history before it’s too late.” and awaken those who could hear him to walk in a different cadence; to march to the beat of a different drum and to start the long journey in a new direction. He was a prophet and in today’s world, we need to listen to the voices of those who see the way forward and to heed the call to do something.[tweetthis]Re-ordering one’s life is true salvation.[/tweetthis] People who try to rescue folks who are drowning are often pulled down and drown also. Before we can save the planet, church or fix a massive problem, we need to begin with our self. One cellular layer at a time; one life at a time; one category at a time.I'd highly and strongly encourage you to get my book, Inside Job: Doing the Work within the Work and read it. Get the workbook and give yourself the time to do your inside Job. Get it here! We're doing FREE Shipping now and it will arrive before Christmas. Gift some copies as real gifts!

How Much is Enough?

Just as the Children of Israel began their long, arduous journey into the Wilderness, so we find ourselves in our own wilderness. We, like they, have left a life or hardship and are headed towards a land we believe is better—a land God is drawing us into.But how do we survive whatever wilderness we find ourselves in right now? We may feel emotionally lost; relationally poor, vocationally searching, politically off course; materially starving and spiritually challenged. It truly does not take long for us to realize our own wilderness—whether individually; in church, workplace or nationally.There's no better time that right now in Advent and preparing for Christmas to sit with these thoughts.In the midst of such a whirlwind, how do we move forward, onward, upward to a place that is at last for us NOT wilderness? The Children of Israel needed guidance and guidance was provided. We need guidance too because the surest form of any kind of wilderness is to realize that you really are lost, alone and tired.God’s provision for them is the same for us today. God provided manna and quail and God provided this food for body and soul every single day—except for one day. The people were told, every day, there will be “enough.”The word “enough” is what tripped them up and it is the same word that trips us up. What is enough? Should we hoard so that we can live in a false security—an illusion of provision by stockpiling? [tweetthis]The seduction of safety---the illusions of what really is enough is what keeps people getting back on the hamster wheel. It is what keeps people in fifth gear. It is what really is wilderness.[/tweetthis]The fear of not having enough makes us not only hoard but it motivates us to foster an erroneous view of what security really looks like and feels like. We hoard more than money these days. We hoard adventure, pleasure, spiritual experiences, and even relationships. We will hoard anything and anyone that gives us the sense of security that only God can give.The Children of Israel were told three things:

1. You’ll be given what you need for each day.
2. Don’t hoard the manna.
3. You must not gather—work—or strive to do anything on the Sabbath.

What if our guidance right now--no matter what our wilderness might be is the same guidance as the Children of Israel:

• Trust in God's provision every single day.
• Don't hoard gifts, parties, experiences and people. Don't hoard food either!
• Rest this Advent and Christmas rather than being devoured by the wilderness of Christmas

 These three paradigms shape who we can navigate any wilderness and any time in life. Believing that God is indeed good and will not withhold from us, the children of today is core. We trust God at his word. And this sense of trust allows us to loosen our grip and our energy to do more; work harder and whip the wind up around us to give the appearance that we are the ones making all this happen.We are provided for in life by a God who loves us. This second realization allows us to let life be and take off the urgency that we often feel that we are the ones who have to produce and that life is up to us. This is really a form of atheism. It is at best a form of deism that says, “There may be a God up there somewhere. I don’t know. So I’ll live my life as if there really isn’t a God—and live like everything is up to me.The third foundation truth given to the Children of Israel in their own wilderness, is what I believe to be the core truth,so needed today. We, like they need rest. We need a time of ceasing every six days to be--- and not to do. We are not to gather. We are not to hoard. We are not to produce. We are simply to rest.At the core of Sabbath is the submission to a greater design to life that we see today with all of the striving, hurry and scurry. We rest. We live in the realization that we have enough—enough for THIS day and that God has indeed provided what we have. We celebrate that life is not up to us—that God has given us a gift of a sustainable rhythm where we can work but we also can recover.In this rhythm, we work and move through wilderness….and we celebrate the light of God’s blessings. We enjoy the fruit of our work---we see our own weekly harvest. We feast in a way that requires no work—no striving.Many years later, a person gave even more insight about the temptation to work obsessively and to hoard all we make. It is written, “Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind” (Ecc. 4:6).The real question here is what is enough and what is really “Better”.This is the question for Sabbath. This is the question over coffee with a friend or over dinner with your family. This is the question of our soul and it has been asked for a very long time and answered in many, many different ways.How will you answer these questions?Would time---giving an "experience" be a BETTER gift to someone that more stuff?What does the person you want to gift at Christmas really need as oppose to really want?How could you give a Sabbath to someone you love? What might that look like?