Keith & I scheduled today to spend together getting a Christmas tree, bringing it home & decorating it. We drag the tree in from his pick up, stand it up & I start rummaging through my boxes of decorations & no lights. Then I remembered. I threw them out with the tree last year.
I don’t know exactly how to say this but I love love love getting ready for Christmas, love the house all lit up & decorated. Love Christmas Day. Love it all. But by the 26th (I’d prefer 10 PM on the 25th), I’m like, get that tree outta my house. Keith flees to the deer lease.
There’s 2 inches of dead pine needles on the floor by then, limbs sagging, ornaments falling. I get myself good & worked up in a fury & drag that thing to the curb like it’s done me wrong. So today I remember I didn’t bother taking the lights off of it last year & maybe I repent.
I’ll let you know on the 26th.
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“And the second son [Joseph] named Ephraim and said, ‘God has made me fruitful in the land of affliction.’” Gen 41:52
Fruitfulness. I grow more and more convinced this is the aim. This IS the blessing. This side of the veil in this land of thorn and thistle, this IS the point.
“My Father,” Jesus said, “is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.”
Increasingly through the years this has become my primary prayer for my kids, grandkids, my husband, for my extended family, loved ones, friends & for Living Proof:
“Lord, make us immensely fruitful for Your great glory.” You may be yawning. Nothing new to see here. But I ask you to appreciate with me what this kind of outlook toward the goal of our earthly lives does for us. Fruitfulness is not dependent on things going well.
Genesis 40:23 “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.”
Joseph’s falsely accused, imprisoned. Pharaoh’s cupbearer gets thrown into the same dungeon. Has a dream. God gives Joseph the interpretation: Pharaoh will reinstate the cupbearer in 3 days. Happens.
An unforgettable turn of events. Only, ironically, it’s exactly that: forgotten. After interpreting the cupbearer’s dream, Joseph had said, “When all goes well for you, remember I was with you. Please show kindness to me by mentioning me to Pharaoh & get me out of this prison.”
Two years pass. By our reckoning, that’s 730 days. 730 unseen sunrises & sunsets. 17520 hours to toss in the night & brood in the day, cells of bitterness multiplying like cancer in your bones.
Genesis 40:14 is careful to tell us Joseph wanted out. We often imagine that those
I’ve repeatedly asked this question in good faith in direct messages to various SBC leaders & have yet to receive a clear, concise, consistent answer. Please, for those of us seeking to understand, define CRT in, say, 4 sentences. Is preaching against racism “any version” of it?
It seems to me that “any version” of it is troublingly subjective. Again, I am asking this in good faith. How on earth will long standing racism ever be rooted out of the SBC when anyone who speaks boldly of our history can be accused and perhaps dismissed for a “version” of CRT?
And please, do not send me a link to another article. I don’t want another article. I am asking sincerely for a definition from the SBC I served for 40 years. I want to understand what CRT is and the greater danger it poses than the one before us with systemic injustice. Help me.
—1905
Lyricist Civilla D. Martin
Composer Charles H. Gabriel
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not 1 of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”
These are days when, for any number of reasons, we could give way to such discouragement. Days when we sorrow both over all that has changed and all that seems to never change. When the quiet falls upon me and my heart sinks low, I sit in it for a while with Jesus & then I sing.
Well, I’ve come to Genesis 37 which means one thing: the Joseph saga begins. I half dread it and I’ll tell you why. No matter how many times I read it, Joseph’s gonna do the same thing. He’s gonna tell his brothers his dreams & he’s gonna wear that dang coat to go check on them.
Here’s what I’d like to say this morning: you don’t have to go tell every (proverbial or actual) dream or vision God gives you. Particularly to people who already resent you. Don’t be a smarty pants. Some things are better left between you and God. Journal them. Or tell them
privately and prayerfully to a mentor. For starters, you may have accidentally made it up, misunderstood or misinterpreted God’s leadership. Or there may have been too many jalapeños in your salsa the night before. For seconders, if God grants you a speck of insight that you may
My Bible reading this morning was Genesis 35. Jacob & his large family have made their long trek back to Canaan. They’re between Bethel & Ephrath when Rachel goes into a brutal labor. She lives only long enough for the baby to be born &, with her last breath, names him Ben-oni.
The name means “Son of My Sorrow.” The sentence ends with these words: “but his father called him Benjamin.” (Son of the Right Hand) Benjamin has a unique place among the children of Jacob for 2 reasons: He was the only one born in Canaan; he was the only one named by his father.
All the others were named by their mothers. There are numerous possibilities for the name change but the most obvious explanation is the most stirring. Jacob knew the power of a name-change. After all, had God not renamed him Israel? The patriarch had answered all his life to a