The history of the early church is one of a community transformed by the power of the gospel such that they impacted their entire society.  Their story was one of martyrdom and a refusal to pay homage to the emperor as divine.  In addition, the story of God coming in flesh to die so that they might live changed the very way that they lived.  No longer would they only take care of their own poor and marginalized, but they began to take care of the poor and marginalized in the wider society.  No doubt, it is these stories of boldness in the face of persecution and sacrifice for “the least of these” that helped Christianity to spread like wild fire and eventually become the official religion of the Roman Empire.

While there are still many stories that resonate with a wider world today of the power of the gospel to transform a life from Bethany Hamilton of shark bite fame to the quarterback Tim Tebow, this is unfortunately not the narrative that gets the most attention.  Far too often, the story that gets the most attention is that of evangelical leaders trying to influence the political process by anointing “their candidate” or the entire Christian community being treated as simply one of several influential voting blocks in the Republican Party.    If that is not the front page story of the day, then it often is the misguided pastor calling for the burning of the Koran or living in such lavish wealth that it makes a mockery of the very gospel story they proclaim.

This week, I have been reading the book I Am Second which is a powerful collection of life change stories that demonstrate an often overlooked principle of the means of the gospel to actually change lives.  Built into the early church was the concept of Confession and Repentance.  This concept was so powerful that it led to the confessional becoming a distinctive feature of the Roman Catholic Church.  As a body of believers, we need a safe place to be able to tell our stories of failure and brokenness and to admit our desperate need of a savior.  I am convinced that in the evangelical church today, this is often best accomplished in a small accountability group that more often than not is gender specific.  When this is not a possibility, the friendship and listening ear of one committed Christian for another is the place that God often uses as the starting point for a new direction in someone’s life.  This relationship of compassionate, grace filled accountability provides room for safe confrontation of the sin that exists in all of our lives and for repentance to become the norm.

As I look to the future, I long for a church whose public testimony is that of a body of people so committed to the gospel that we once again are known as those that care for the “least of these” not because we are more altruistic than those around us, but because we know deep in our core that we ourselves are the least of these that Jesus came to save.  May God use the power of confession and repentance in our lives to draw us into a deeper relationship with him that ultimately results in new stories that change the very arc of narrative that the media chooses publish.   What a world this would be if the church were known once again for martyrs in the face of persecution, a people who refused to bow to the “divinity” of our modern day capitalistic Caesars and who cared so much for the poor and marginalized that it transformed the very world that we live in.  It is possible, but only if we start with a posture of confession and repentance and mutual accountability.

Having just spent a week with some of the most talented and committed professionals in the independent Christian retail arena, I have a bit of a different perspective.  These folks have chosen to ignore the nay-sayers, don’t listen to the prevailing media choristers and have taken a different path.  To a person, they are operating brick and mortar stores that matter to their local communities and provide an oasis of peace in a world of chaos.

Fundamentally, they understand that selling Christian resources is about the potential for life transformation and not simply a money making venture.  In some cases, these brave merchants have taken other jobs outside their bookstores in order to keep the doors open and maintain viable ministry locations in the commercial heart of their towns.  In other cases, their presence in the community has granted them access to the movers and shakers that influence the very future of their city.

What unites them is a deep commitment to the reality that what they do every day is not simply Christian retailing.  At the most basic level they are in the business of:

Inspiration,

Hope,

Encouragement,

Peace,

Friendship,

Celebration

and as one person I met said,

“Helping people feel closer to God.”

That is a business that is not only relevant, but worth doing every day with joy and excitement.  What a reason to get up in the morning with a smile on your face knowing that you have the potential to impact someones life for eternity each and every day.

I hope that in the years to come, there will be a new set of voices pointing to the vital nature of these light houses on main street.  I know that I will certainly be one of them, no matter how bad I sing.

Jim Cymbala, senior pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church, is one of my favorite authors and it has been a while since his last book.  His best selling book, Fresh Wind Fresh Fire had a major impact in the evangelical world at the time that it was released and in my life.  How powerful it was to read about a church that made their midweek prayer service the highlight of their ministry and the power of the gospel to return Jim’s prodigal daughter to him.  This book, Spirit Rising, promises to be a balanced treatment on the Holy Spirit in a world that sometimes rejects the gifts of the spirit as valid for today or overindulges in unbiblical emotional extremism.  I have always appreciated Jim’s commitment to the word of God, his love for reading widely and especially his appreciation of classic authors who still have much to say to this generation.  I look forward to learning what he has to say about the vital role of the third person of the trinity in our lives today.

The Gospel Story Bible by Marty Machowski is a highly anticipated new children’s storybook Bible by New Growth Press.  Marty is the Family Life Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church, a Sovereign Grace Ministries church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania.  This wonderful new book which I have had a chance to look at is reminiscent of the Jesus Storybook Bible with more content and probably geared to a slightly older child.  The illustrations are really captivating and the concept of connecting the story of the gospel to many of the key stories and people of the Old and New Testaments ties the whole book together.  By showing how each story ultimately points to Jesus, Marty has written a book that really may answer the question, “Can a Bedtime Story Actually Change Your Life?”

The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson is one that has just come out and is already making several of the “must read” lists by key evangelical bloggers and magazine writers.  Mark is the writer of one of my favorite books, In A Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day.  He is the pastor of the very innovative National Community Church in Washington D.C. and a great writer.  This book promises to challenge my prayer life as he writes about understanding the impossibly big dreams God is calling me to and how I can draw a prayer circle around it.  The story begins with Honi, a legendary Jewish figure from 1 BC, whose faith and prayer saved the generation before Jesus by calling upon the God of heaven and earth to provide rain in time of near- fatal drought. Honi drew a circle in the desert sand, took his place, and called upon God to let it rain. And rain it did! As someone who has lots of impossible dreams and needs a kick start to effective prayer in 2012, this promises to be an important book in my life this year.

What is the Mission of the Church? by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert is a book that came out last fall and is on my list because I like Kevin’s books and because I am curious about the controversy surrounding it.  Kevin is one of the prominent new reformed writers that have been making significant inroads in evangelical circles with books like Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys That Should Be and Don’t Call it a Comeback.  This books deals with the tension in the current evangelical church world between the role of the church in social justice and preaching the gospel.  This is an issue that has touched the church as far back as the fundamentalist/ modernist controversies of the 1920′s and is still a challenge for us today.  I am particularly interested in seeing how he deals with the reality of being both proclamational and incarnational in a world that often criticizes the church for being “one big mouth” as Rick Warren has been quoted as saying rather than the body of Christ with many parts and many roles.

Why Jesus? by Ravi Zacharias is coming out at just the right time from my perspective.  As our world continues to value tolerance and customized spirituality, many people seem to want to pick and chose what they believe about Jesus.  Ravi Zacharias is one of the smartest evangelicals alive today and yet is able to write in such a way that the average person can understand what he is saying.  I suspect that what he writes about in this new book will be a challenge to both believers and non believers just like Jesus was himself.  Every time I read the gospels, I am astounded at how little I really know about Jesus and how different His message is from what is often presented by those that want to water down what He actually said.  I look to forward rediscovering “His Truth” for myself one more time just as I did when I first read Mere Christianity and discovered a faith that was worth dying for.

I Am Second by Doug Bender and Dave Sterret caught my attention from the title alone and incredibly compelling cover art.  The book uses compelling real life stories about the dramatic changes that have taken place in people’s lives as they have learned to “get off the throne” and put Jesus first in their lives.  In a day and age when books like Your Best Life Now seem to push us in the direction of thinking that life really is all about us and what we can become, this book should provide a refreshing change of pace.  It follows in the recent tradition of books like Same Kind of Different as Me and Radical in presenting a powerful new narrative for living the Christian life and one that seems far more Biblical from where I sit. The book is supported by a great website www.iamsecond.com that provides videos of the people featured in the book and seeks to launch a new movement of Christians who want to put Jesus first in their lives.

Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll is one that I debated about including in this list because of the controversy that is currently brewing about their explicit discussion about married sexuality and other topics.  Mark is no stranger to controversy and has been known to be outspoken, raw and very direct in his preaching.  His church, Mars Hill in Seattle, has grown significantly over the years and has wide influence in a variety of evangelical circles these days including through the The Gospel Coalition.   What caught my eye about this book was the way that several reviewers have pointed to Mark and Grace’s honesty about their struggles and their emphasis on friendship as a key to the success and sustainability of their marriage over the years.  I am always interested in reading books that can strengthen and encourage strong Christian marriages, but I am also wary of books that create this much “buzz” for what are potentially divisive reasons.  As with all books, I will read it with the Bible as my filter and my eyes open to discern what the Lord wants me to hear and what I should ignore.

Keep Your Head Up by Anthony Bradley promises to be an important contribution to the ongoing conversation about the role of the church in the African American community.  “The black community is in trouble,” writes Bradley. Systemic issues are perpetuating a chronic plague on not only African-American society, but the black church in particular.  Continuing the renowned “Cosby Conversation,” first started in 2007 by Bill Cosby and Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Bradley has assembled a team of pastors, scholars, and leaders to address specific issues within the black community. Bradley’s new book features contributions from himself, Vincent Bacote, Ralph C. Watkins, Eric M. Mason, Anthony Carter, Craig Mitchell, and others.  Keep Your Head Up covers a variety of topics, including victim mentality, hip-hop, masculinity, and the prosperity gospel.

Family Shepherds by Voddie Baucham, Jr. is a book that I need to read and one that I suspect will affect me for years to come.  As the father of two teenage boys, I am always looking for good books on parenting and family life.  What excites me about this book is the premise that it will provide practical guidance on equipping me and the men that read it to be leaders in our homes in a fresh new way.  I am sure that I am like many Christian fathers that find it easy to be distracted by the cares and pressures of this world and who desire to be better dads.  Hopefully this book will spur me from simply doing research to doing the hard work of leading my family as the shepherd that God calls me to be.

1.  CBA’s Next 2012 in Atlanta – After several years of not sponsoring an event in January, CBA (the Christian Bookseller’s Association) is hosting a wonderful new event at the beginning of the year.  For many years, CBA sponsored a variety of events from industry leadership gatherings to trade shows in January.  Next 2012 reflects some of the new thinking and leadership of the trade association as the focus is on training, partnership and industry growth and development.  It will take place in partnership with the Atlanta Gift Mart and the CTAI’s (Christian Trade Association International) trade show.  The emphasis for the retailers that attend is cost effective training from both industry experts like Bob Negen and many practitioners from within the Christian retail and publishing world.  I look forward to seeing this event take place on an annual basis from here forward as a means of renewed fellowship and encouragement as we jump start our new year together.

2. Liberia Re-Launch – after fifteen years of prayer, waiting and preparation, CLC is planning the re-launch of a bookstore ministry in Monrovia in 2012.  We had a vibrant resource center in this capital city for 48 years prior to 1996 and had to temporarily suspend operations due to the resurgence of civil war and the looting and destruction of the bookstore itself.  I had the the privilege of doing a a research trip in 2008 and will be returning in February with several ministry colleagues to make significant strides to finding the right location and begin the paperwork process with the government.  Many moving pieces need to come together for this dream to become a reality and as always we are taking a leap of faith and depending on God’s unlimited resources.

3. CLC’s International Council in Panama – this event brings together the national leaders from the CLC ministries all over the world once every four years.  It will be my second time to attend and I look forward to renewed friendship, fellowship and passion for the work that God has called us to in making evangelical Christian literature available to all nations.  In 2008 it was held in Thailand and was a time of focusing on “seizing the day”.  So much has happened in our world and ministry since then and we will once again seek the face of God for his direction in our lives.  What a blessing it will be to mingle and and worship with such a diverse group of committed believers.

4. Stuart and Jill Briscoe – we will have the joy of publishing two new books by the Briscoe’s in 2012.  The first one, Holiness without the Halo, comes out this Spring and a book by Jill will be coming out in the fall.  This renowned couple have been writing and speaking around the world for many years and this will be our first publishing venture with them.  What  blessing it has been for us to extend the legacy of classic writers like Watchman Nee and Corrie ten Boom over the years and now we get to do the same with new authors like the Bricoes and Warren Wiersbe.  As a special added bonus, Stuart will be our conference speaker in April and we will be hosting some public speaking engagements for him around the same time.

5.  Retail Store on the Move – after twenty years of being located in the Market Square shopping center in Chestnut Hill, our flagship retail store in Philadelphia will be moving back to the mall that it had been in previously at Cedarbrook Plaza in Wyndmoor.  This move will allow our team to re-envision what a Christian resource center should look like in the context of the world that we live in today and how it can thrive again.  With a smaller rental burden and higher traffic, this new location should provide an exciting new place to extend our impact in the greater Philadelphia community.

6.  Dynamic New Content – our publishing team is producing some of the most significant new books that we have ever worked on in 2012.  As mentioned above, we have two books coming out by the Briscoes and we will also have our fourth books coming out from Michael Catt (pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church and Executive Producer of the movies Fireproof and Courageous) and Warren Wiersbe.  In addition we are publishing a book with national renowned author and singer Renee Bondi and a high impact book, All or Nothing Discipleship by the writing team of Derek Cooper and Ed Cyzewski.  All our books will be coming out in print and digital (e-book) formats simultaneously and some will be translated and published in other languages by CLC teams in various parts of the world.

7.  Collateral Benefit – as is often the case, when disruptive new technologies like e-books arrive, both challenges and opportunities occur.  For our ministry we have been dealing with the implications of reduced print book sales and the increase in e-books sales at the same time.  One collateral benefit that we are just beginning to appreciate is the number of quality used print books that are now being donated in ever higher volumes to our Christian Book Link program.  As some people are converting to reading all of their books digitally, they are now more willing than ever to see their print book libraries put to good use.  We are able to recycle these books into needy countries like Liberia, India, Kenya and many others.  We will also have a much larger selection of quality used books to offer in our retail stores in the years to come.  We hope to send out several containers of these Christian Book Link books to CLC locations in developing countries during 2012 and will use some of them as a part of the restart of the CLC work in Liberia.

8. Live Events - as the result of renewed partnerships and the synergy developed over the past few years with key churches in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area, CLC will be hosting several new and ongoing live events in 2012.  This spring we will sponsor our first ever women’s conference in partnership with America’s Keswick and continue a new public forum for CLC authors in partnership with WEC International called Conversations at the Castle.  In addition, we will be hosting VBS workshops, author signings, and training workshops throughout the year.  At the end of the year we will host an event to honor pastors and our annual donor banquet.

9.  BAM Partnerships – the concept of Business and Mission is “all the rage” in the missions community these days.  As mission agencies seek to re-envision their purpose for the twenty-first century, more and more are embracing the kingdom impact of doing business as mission.  CLC, of course, has been a BAM agency for over 70 years now, long before the concept was at all popular or widely accepted.  As a result of this renewed interest in doing BAM, I look forward to new partnerships with other mission agencies as we seek ways to utilize CLC’s worldwide asset base and deploy the next generation of missionaries.

10.  Urbana 2012 – the year will close with one of the most important events in the world of missions.  This gathering of college students in St. Louis (previously in Urbana, IL) has been used by God over the decades to draw hundreds and thousands of young people to commit to both short term and career service as missionaries.  It was at this event many years ago, that I first felt God tugging at my own heart to consider what He might do through me if I surrendered to His will for my life.  Little did I know that it would mean joining CLC several years later.  There is no better way to end the year and prepare for 2013 than at the candle lighting service and sharing communion with thousands of enthusiastic world changers.

This past year there was terrible flooding in Thailand affecting hundreds of thousands of people and shutting down factories and even entire industries for a period of time.  The flooding took place from July through December and is estimated to have killed over 600 people and disrupted the lives of millions.

In the face of this massive tragedy, there is not much that one small group of people can do, but that did not deter our team in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.  This team had recently seen God bless them with a new larger and better located bookstore and have been providing Christian resources from this new strategically placed outlet.  This past summer, a CLC USA intern, Scott Miller was privileged to serve with them.

When national tragedies like this occur, our teams will sometimes stop what they are doing and provide relief assistance for a period of time as was done in Myanmar after the Cyclone Nargis or in Indonesia ofter the Tsunami some years ago.  In this case, our team did not stop what they were doing in the store, but decided to help anyway.

Air Asia had agreed to ship aid down to Bangkok for free, and with Yongyut’s (the CLC Bookstore manager) good relationship with the governor of Bangkok, they were able to send ready-to-eat food packs down to the neediest areas.  CLC Chiang Mai had two different opportunities to send much needed food care packs down to Bangkok to help with the flood victims.  The first time, the team hired someone to cook and pack the food, and then they shipped it down by airplane.  The second time they cooked the food themselves, and packed it into 2,650 foam cartons and shipped it down to Bangkok to be eaten the same day.  To get this done in time, the team worked all night as the food was taken at 4:30AM.  The food was purchased by donated funds, and CLC was very grateful to all those who felt led to give for this relief effort.

One of the team members reflecting on this afterward said,

“It is in times like these that we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and we rejoice that He blessed us with the opportunity to serve in this way.”

Here are some pictures of their efforts:

Food being prepped.

Volunteers working together to get the food ready.

Paula, Yongyut’s wife, preparing food in the middle of the night

Team Leader, Yongyut, with the food on the way to Bangkok

As I got older, the inevitable happened.  No, not the discovery that Santa Claus was not a real person (my parents never spent a lot of time making that case), but that this basic belief was not shared by everyone else.  Apparently a lot of people did not see the hand of God the way that I did and thought that many of the things that I thought were so miraculous had other explanations.  Creation apparently could be explained by the Big Bang Theory combined with some version of evolution.  God’s provision was really the result of creative communication and the generosity of my parent’s friends.  Worst of all, some of the people in the church circles we were affiliated with began to make a strong case that all the miracles that had occurred in the Bible were for then and not for now.  For a teenager with a lot of questions, this was disconcerting at best and faith shattering at worst.  On top of all this, those that talked about miracles the most, especially certain TV preachers, began to be exposed for the frauds that they were.

With that in perspective, I became a young adult with more than a lot of questions about miracles and a lot of doubt to boot.  At times it seemed safer to be a skeptic on the issue rather than a proponent of things that I did not understand, nor could I explain.  That all changed in the summer of 1995, eight weeks after my first child, Kenny, was born.  Deb and I were excited to be parents and I could not help being overjoyed that my firstborn was a boy.  What we did not know was that due to his inability to feed properly, he was slowly getting dehydrated.  When we took him to the doctor, we were immediately taken to the hospital and the nurse whisked him out of our arms to put him on an IV drip.  Little did we know how close to death he was and that it would take two weeks for him to recover.  There were many moments of fear and questioning God in those days as he could not seem to gain weight or begin to thrive.  To this day, we have never received an explanation for why he began to get better or what had caused this all to take place in the first place.  In both cases, we chose to attribute it to God and his mysterious ways.

The miracle in this story, however, is not just that Kenny got better.  We know that God could have taken him from us and that we would have had to wrestle with what that would have meant.  At the same time as we were dealing with birth of our firstborn, we were also in the process of applying to be missionaries.  I had felt the tug in my life to consider this radical realignment of our careers and life circumstances before Deb.  In fact, she was quite resistant and did not feel that she had any sense of “calling” to become a missionary.  We knew that this impasse had to be resolved before we could be effective in serving together as would be required by the organization that we were considering working with.  God used these terrifying and exhausting days in the hospital to get Deb’s attention.  Shortly after Kenny was released from the hospital, Deb shared the news with me that she now knew that God had given her a specific purpose for serving with me in CLC as missionaries.  From that day forward, I chose not to be a skeptic and to embrace the reality that God was still at work in our world and that His ways of working were indeed miraculous.  While I do recognize that God often uses human beings to accomplish his purposes and that He orchestrates everything in our world to function by the laws of nature that He created, I also know that He enjoys confounding us in ways that have no rational explanation.

This Christmas, I am looking forward to celebrating the miracle of a Holy God who created planets and galaxies who also chose to send his own son in the form of a baby to be born so that he could die.  There is no greater miracle and no better reason for me to fall down in worship to this incomprehensibly wonderful King.

As I got to the intersection of 7^th and Vine Street and was preparing to make the left turn, a huge truck pulled up on my right (in the wrong lane to make a left turn) and the driver looked down at me from his cab indicating that he wanted to get in front of me when the light changed.  Seeing how big the truck was and not being in a hurry, I signaled that I would let him in.  Little did I know how momentous that decision would be.

The truck did get in front of me and attempted to make the left turn, but got stuck in the process.  Not seeing that he had gotten stuck until it was too late, I had followed him at what I thought was a safe distance.  As I began to make the left turn myself, I saw that he was stuck and wondered what he was going to do and how long it was going to take.  Suddenly, as traffic behind him cleared, he started going backwards and sideways at the same time (his cab was moving in a different direction than the truck bed itself) and it was all headed toward me.  For a moment it seemed as if the world was moving in slow motion as the truck kept coming, I started honking and it looked like I was going to be crushed under the truck bed.

The truck did not stop despite my honking and broke the side mirror on the van I was driving as it was about to impact the entire side of the van with me a few inches away from what seemed like certain injury or death.  At the very moment, a man that I had not seen at all appeared out of nowhere and ran up along the side of the truck shouting for the driver to stop and banging on the truck.  To my great relief, the driver heard him and stopped at that very moment while other people were getting out of cars and rushing up to see what had happened.

As I drove away from the scene, shaking and wondering how it was possible that only my mirror had been damaged and that I had not been hurt, I thanked the Lord for his protection.  Suddenly, I realized that I may have been saved by one of the very people that I ignore on a regular basis and occasionally get aggravated at.

The place that the truck got stuck was in a very busy intersection that is not really safe for pedestrians to cross.  Several roads and two highways intersect at this very point and therefore it would be unusual for anyone but panhandlers or a homeless person to have been anywhere nearby.  As I thought about the person who saved me, I do not know anything about him except that he was not very well dressed and appeared out of nowhere.  Whoever he was, he was certainly an angel in human form, that God used to protect me and I am grateful.

On Friday, I stopped into the Chestnut Hill store late in the day to see if I could lend a hand for a few moments and ended up staying for a few hours.  As I was putting some books on a shelf and welcoming people as they entered the front door, a woman came in who looked frantic.  She grabbed me by the arm, marched me down the Bible aisle and proceeded to tell me that she had not read the Bible in a long time.  Her eyes conveyed her desperation with life and she went on to tell me that her son had died not long ago and that she was not living the life that she knew she should be.  Determined to get a Bible that she could read and understand, she had come into our store and I was the person God had appointed for her to meet.

We spent a while together looking for the right Bible and then a simple Bible dictionary so that she could really understand more of the words and concepts that she was reading.  As we were talking, I felt led to offer to pray for her and she seemed glad.  At that very moment, her mother (who had prompted her trip to our store in the first place) came in and spent some time helping her select other items for her other child and some friends.  Before she left the store, we stopped and prayed and as I was doing so, I realized that maybe in some small way, I had been an angel in human form for a woman who felt far from God but was drawing near to Him again, not knowing that He had never moved at all.

Instead, I turn to something far more mundane but rather important in my life.  After 43 years of being able to read without help, it now seems that my eyes need some assistance.  I am not sure exactly when I noticed it, but over the last few months, the words on the pages I was reading got blurrier and my eyes got tired.  So off to the eye doctor I went and was prescribed a set of reading glasses.  Apparently, I can still see distances just fine for now.

The first night that I came home with the glasses, I was a little nervous to use them and felt pretty strange putting them on.  Then I looked at the pages in my book.  What a “spec”tacular result, no pun intended.  The words almost jumped off the page and reminded me of the first time I saw HDTV.  The best part was that my eyes no longer got tired so quickly and I hardly noticed that an hour had passed.  I now look forward to reading at night again before I go to bed as has been my habit for many years.

Being able to focus is something that does not always come easy.  Most of us need some help in being able to see the reality that we face.  Even as I was enjoying this Thanksgiving week, I had the privilege of seeing it through the eyes of a non American who shared the holiday with my family and I.  How interesting it is when we put on another set of lenses and look at the same situation from another perspective.  While I was reminiscing about how much I enjoyed this particularly non commercial holiday – no Thanksgiving presents were exchanged in my household or greeting cards sent – it was gently pointed out to me that the Black Friday is an ironically all too commercial event that seems to crowd out this holiday more and more each year.

As I was singing songs of Thanksgiving this past week and listening to stories about the pilgrims, I was also struck by how this event that we celebrate is not even seen the same way by all Americans.  Many of my African American friends have had to remind me from time to time that they were not a part of that first celebration and came to America in very different circumstances.  While we celebrate the friendships the pilgrims established with Native Americans that first Thanksgiving that allowed them to have the food and crops they enjoyed, many Native Americans do not view the arrival of Europeans in America as something to be so joyful about.  Today we are able to celebrate the holiday as one diverse nation made up of many peoples, but we certainly all view it in different ways.

As I think about the most important person in all of history whose birth we celebrate next month, it seems that there are  some really strange viewpoints that are being purported about who He was and what His birth really meant.  Some see Him as a good person who brought a message of hope and peace, but was certainly something less than God.  Others see Him as a divisive Jewish prophet that started a religion which has misled people for thousands of years.  As I hear the cacophony of voices that try to describe who Jesus is, I am so glad that I have the lenses of God’s word to allow me to see Him for who He really is.  Just like Peter, I can say with full assurance – You are the Messiah.

For a long time, I think I have misunderstood the concept of abundance as simply having too much.  It seemed selfish to pray for a life of abundance like it says in John 10:10 where Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. So much of my definition of abundance has been wrapped up in the western materialistic perspective of the world that I felt selfish even wanting that kind of life.  If abundance means stuff, then I have plenty and thinking about it too much just makes me covet what I do not have yet.

Somehow though, I don’t think that this is what the Bible is talking about and this week, I realized how closely tied abundance is to contentment and joy.  A life of true abundance seems to look a lot less about stuff and a lot more about people the older I get; and in that category God has blessed me beyond measure.  If Jesus came to give me life when I was dead, then every day that I live is because of Him.  The people in my life that He has placed there can be abundant sources of contentment and joy if I see them through His eyes.

So as we head into Thanksgiving, I am grateful for:

• A wife who loves me unconditionally
• Sons who stretch my faith and remind me daily of the sacrifices my earthly and heavenly fathers have made for me
• Parents who support me through thick and thin
• Siblings who love Jesus and are teaching their kids to love Him too
• Parents-in-law who faithfully pray for and support our family
• C0-workers in over 50 countries of the world that live sacrificially so the kingdom will be extended in their part of the world
• Men that hold me accountable in my small group
• A Pastor who preaches the word in a way that is bold and effective
• A church family that that cares about me and my family more than just on Sunday
• Friends that lend a listening ear, even when I ramble on
• Fellow leaders in ministry who long to see Jesus’ return and are living their lives in daily expectation.

Most importantly, I am supremely grateful that an incomprehensibly holy, just and loving God would devise a plan to send his one and only son to die and be my savior so that I might live and live more abundantly.  By God’s definition I truly am a rich man and growing wealthier by the day.  May I have eyes to see this when I am tempted to complain about some perceived lack of material possessions or thing I wished I had.

Life can often be like that.  Just this weekend, I lost my sanity for a few moments and agreed to a bike ride with some of the guys at our mens retreat.  Little did I know that it was 17 miles round trip and would take the entire afternoon.  I had been promised a view of New York City if I was willing to endure the ride.  Most of the guys I rode with came fully prepared in bright yellow jackets (they didn’t tell me we would be riding in the street at night for part of the way) and Spandex (reason enough to reconsider ever doing this again), but a couple of us simply wore what we came to the retreat in.  At the half way point we stopped at an overlook at Fort Hancock and for a few brief moments the pain was almost worth it.   I didn’t realize that beaches in New Jersey, especially that close to New York City were so big and frankly so clean.  The view was breathtaking and as I rode the agonizing 8.5 miles back, I could not help but think that God was doing some pretty awesome work with the sunset that we observed.

I think that for the most part I want my life to be like the weather in southern California, 72 and sunny all the time.  Having just been there, it’s easy to forget that the people who live there also endure periodic earthquakes, nightmarish traffic and housing prices that just want to make you say OUCH.  I want my kids to be respectful, my wife to be responsive to my every need and my relationships to be meaningful with no conflict.  If you are thinking that I really losing my sanity with that last sentence, you are probably right – but it is what I want if I am really honest.  The reality of my life, however, is that God seems to work the best when I am at my weakest.  Just like the leaves, I have to die for Him to get the glory from the fleeting beauty that can sometimes occur when there is full surrender to His will.

As I look back on the moments of deepest growth in my life, they are often connected to moments of greatest pain and challenge.  Getting a college degree did not happen without a lot of hard work, finding a spouse did not happen without a willingness to relinquish the freedom of my youth and becoming a parent meant signing up for a lifetime of conflict and concern.  When I answered God’s call to become a missionary in my late 20′s, I knew that it would mean giving up the career that I had been pursuing to that point.  I had no idea that it would also mean the stripping away of all roles of authority so that I could sit at the feet of a 65 year old woman and be mentored for over a year in the art of bookselling and the ministry of touching peoples lives through the life changing power of words on a page.   They say that hindsight is 20/20, I am not so sure.  What I do know is that I can now say – WORTH IT  – at the top of my lungs.

One day when I get to heaven, the most awesome thing about God is that when he looks at me, he will be able to say WORTH IT at the top of his lungs, not because he sees something special in me, but because He will not see me at all, just the the amazing beauty of the sacrifice of the death of His one and only son.  That will be more beautiful than any leaf He has ever created.