One of my struggles in recovering from a stroke is the inability to distinguish between listening and hearing. A properly functioning brain knows, for example, how to singularly listen to another person’s voice when having a conversation with them, while only hearing all the surrounding sounds and noises. My brain, as it continues to re-wire itself, wants to actively listen to all the sounds it hears, near and far, which creates overstimulation and chaos in the auditory cortex of my brain’s temporal lobe. What follows that chaos is often not pretty.

[As a side note, I am taking up painting as a form of art therapy; a way to interpret, express, and resolve the chaotic mess that my brain is trying to process.]

Hearing is the passive perception of sounds. Listening is the intentional action of comprehending the sounds heard. Hearing can be done without thinking, thus, it is an inactive word, whereas listening is active, you must think about what you are doing.

Let’s be honest. With all the noise in us and around us, it is difficult to truly listen, even if your brain is functioning properly. It is hard to pay attention to what is, or at least should be, our focus at any particular moment. Not only does the noise and clutter impede us truly listening to the voice of others, isn’t it true that as we “listen” to them, rather than intently processing what we hear, we are sometimes thinking about our response, our answer, our rebuttal.    

Our Father wants us to talk to Him, but as importantly, maybe even more so, He wants us to listen as well. We must first be able to not only hear His voice, but also then listen (discern) to it as well. While it is true that God very rarely “talks” to us as someone else talks to us, in an audible voice, God does speak to us. God speaks to us today in several ways; some of which are through His Word, through His Son Jesus, through nature, through other people, through music, through life circumstances and daily activities, through the Holy Spirit, and through prayer.

To know God’s will, we need to first seek it. To digest what it is God is trying to say to us, we need to actively listen. And to walk with God and live out His plan for our lives, we need to be a responsive listener. In other words, seeking, listening, and doing all go hand in hand.

Psalm 81 is intended to be used in the celebration of one of Israel’s feasts, most likely the Feast of Tabernacles. It begins with a call to worship (vv.1-5) and then in vv.6-16, we find a first-person oracle from God, in which he pleads with Israel to listen to Him so that He can pour out the blessings of the covenant upon them (nation of Israel). We find these words in v.13 – “Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!”

While those words were spoken directly to the nation of Israel, I believe there is a similar plead to us today as well. Scripture is clear that God speaks to those who humble themselves in His presence, who intently listen, and who in response, obey what the Lord has said.

As we prepare to turn the calendar to 2023, I ask you and I ask me – Are you hearing God’s voice? Are you listening to God’s voice? Are you asking God, in order to accurately understand, to help you discern what you have “heard”? And then, how are you responding?

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Well, hard to believe, but 2022 is almost in the history books. The saying goes like this, “Time flies when you are having fun.” If that is true, then I must have had the time of my life these past twelve months, because boy oh boy, did this year fly by. The older I get, the more I realize that time does truly fly by, whether “fun” is involved or not.   

For some of you, this was a year filled with more ups and downs. But for others, you almost wish 2022 never happened. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, as you put the finishing touches on 2022 and begin to think about what paint colors you want to splash upon the canvas in the new year, this is a good time to take an honest assessment of your life.

Questions such as – How am I doing physically? How am I doing emotionally, financially, relationally? Where am I lacking? How am I doing in my walk with God? Where am I putting my trust; is it solely in God or do I find myself placing my trust in earthly things?

A passage of scripture found in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah compares a life of someone who trusts in the Lord with someone who trusts in man and manmade things. Here is what we read in Jeremiah 17:5-8, taken from The Voice Bible translation –

“Cursed is the one who trusts in human strength and the abilities of mere mortals. His very heart strays from the Eternal. He is like a little shrub in the desert that never grows; he will see no good thing come his way. He will live in a desert wasteland, a barren land of salt where no one lives. But blessed is the one who trusts in Me alone; the Eternal will be his confidence. He is like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots beside the stream. It does not fear the heat or even drought. Its leaves stay green and its fruit is dependable, no matter what it faces.”

Putting your complete trust in Jesus will not take away the storms and the droughts. However, putting your trust in Jesus will keep you anchored during the storms and nourished during your droughts. So, as we look to say goodbye to 2022 and start the new year, why not ask God to give you a faith that keeps you nourished both day and night, in the light and the dark, when the skies are sunny or when they are cloudy, and in the good and in the bad.

Go ahead, right now ask God to increase your faith so you can draw nourishment for your roots and be like a tree planted by the water – not fearing when the heat comes, always having green leaves, not worrying about droughts, and always bearing fruit. Right now, the canvas of 2023 is blank, completely bare, so, go ahead, splash your paint on it!

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The deepest part of the ocean is the called the Challenger Deep. It is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench, which is southwest of the United States territorial island of Guam. This trench is approximately 36,000 feet deep, or in other words, slightly less than seven miles, and got its name after the unmanned British Royal Navy vessel HMS Challenger made sound recordings of the depth in 1875. The first manned descent wasn’t until 1960. “Deep” is not a point on the map, but rather, deeps are long trenches on the ocean’s floor.

Now quiet yourself and imagine the extreme expanse of an ocean. I love to stand at the ocean’s shoreline, with the swash (water washing up the beach from a wave break) and backwash (you figure this one out) gentling rolling over my bare feet, sand between my toes, looking out to the horizon. I often wonder how deep the water is at the horizon. And just how far is the horizon anyway? It seems like a long way off.. The distance to the horizon depends upon the height of one’s eyes above the surface.

To determine how far the horizon is for you, use this simple calculation – The square root of [height of your eyes above ground level multiplied by 1.5]. Say what? I am 5-9. My eyes are about 5 inches from the top of my head. Standing barefoot on the shoreline, my eyes are 5-1/3 feet above the ground. 5.33 multiplied by 1.5 is 7.9995. The square root of that number is 2.83. So, for me, the horizon is just under three miles.

The deepest part of the ocean is more than two times as far as I can see. By my way of thinking, that is deep and deeper. Scripture describes God’s love as even being deeper than the deepest part of the ocean and extending well past the horizon’s distance. God’s love is immeasurable.

Immeasurable is different than unmeasurable. Unmeasurable simply means something cannot be measured, for any number of reasons. Simply by looking out over the ocean, the depth of the water at the horizon is unmeasurable by me. On the other hand, immeasurable means something is too immense or boundless to be measured. Its size is just too great.

The apostle Paul, in Ephesians 3:18, describes God’s immeasurable love this way – “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.”

 In the verse that follows, “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God” (v.19).

So, in these last few days leading up to Christmas Day, the arrival of Advent’s expectant waiting, take time to pause, to simply ruminate on God’s immeasurable, immense, unending, amazing love. Love that became a baby. Love that is found in God’s own Son, Jesus (name: God saves) the Christ (title: anointed one). Love that is found in Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Love that is found in Immanuel, God with us.

This will be my last writing until after Christmas. I wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas. May you experience resilient hope, unfailing peace, indescribable joy, unending love, as you are made complete with all fullness of life and power that comes from God’s immeasurable love for you.  

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We live in a world that has gone off the rails, not just spinning faster and faster, but seemingly spinning out of control.  

Think back with me to when you were a kid. Yes, I know. For some of us, that was a long time ago. Even before back in the day. You and your friends rode your banana seat bikes to the school yard. The group’s favorite piece of playground equipment was the merry-go-round. Everyone jumped on and invariably the big kid always yelled “faster!”

Soon it was spinning faster and faster and the centrifugal force was trying to throw you off, but you hung on to the handles ever so tightly. Everything around you became blurry. The coins that you had planned to use to buy an ice cream cone from the apothecary flew out of your pocket and landed somewhere on the ground. When the merry-go-round finally came to a stop you were dizzy, disoriented, and maybe even a little sick in your stomach. But soon you were back on that merry-go-round, once again “going faster!”

Today, do you feel like you are on that merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster, with everything flying out of your pockets, just hoping that when things stop spinning you are not dizzy, disoriented, and sick in your stomach? You collapse in bed, exhausted and worn out, only to find yourself once again back on that dizzying ride tomorrow. Sound familiar?  

Now contrast that out-of-control image with one of a cool-calm-and collected studio potter using a pottery wheel to make something beautiful out of clay, the finished product called a vessel. The potter takes a glob of clay, puts it on the wheel, then uses his or her foot to methodically and carefully spin the wheel, forming the clay with their hands, taking great care to keep just the right wetness and optimal wheel spinning speed, so the clay can be beautifully and artistically formed.

Eventually, a ceramic vessel, maybe even masterpiece, is made. The shaping of the clay using this wheel method is called “throwing” pottery, derived from the Old English word thrawan, meaning to “twist or turn.” (Much of today’s ceramic pieces are mass produced using a jiggering machine.)

During the forming process the wheel is always spinning, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, its speed determined by the potter. And, maybe most importantly, the potter’s hands never leave the clay. If the potter were to ever remove his hands, the clay would fly right off the wheel and be ruined. If the finished vessel does not meet the specifications of the potter, the process starts over again, until the vessel turns out to potter’s liking.

The Bible tells us that God is the potter and we are the clay. In Isaiah 64:8 we read these words; “Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all work in your hand.”

Jeremiah 18:1-4 says this – “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”

So, just what is the takeaway message for us? First, we must remain soft and pliable so God can form and re-form us. Secondly, we can have complete confidence that God, our Master Potter, always has His hands on us, forming and re-forming. And lastly, whether life is spinning methodically or seemingly out of control, trust that God has not, and will not, ever let go!

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Not too long ago, the people used to sell products and services in television commercials were often not easily recognizable faces. But today, and it is certainly true during the Christmas season, many advertisers use “celebrity endorsements” to sell their products and services. The focus seems to have shifted from quality and affordability to using something because of who else uses it (or at least endorses it), thus in some way making those buy those products or services part of the “in” crowd.

While our culture uses the “high” to sell a message, God often uses the “low” to promote and advance His message. Sure, all throughout the pages of scripture there are stories of God using kings, rulers, priests, and famous people to “advertise” His kingdom, but those same pages are also full of accounts of people who held little or no status in society – tax collectors, fishermen, prostitutes, servants, widows, and even shepherds – being used by God in big ways. And if you are a follower of Jesus, while you might have committed your life to Him through the efforts of a well-known person, it is more likely that it occurred when someone not well known by the world invested time and effort into you. That is certainly the case for me.

Today I want to quickly look at one such story of when God used the lowly to share the best news ever told. We will be looking in Luke 2; the story of shepherds being used announce the birth of Jesus. What do we know about shepherds? Shepherds generally came from the base elements of society. They were on the lowest rung of the economic scale and had little of not formal education. Shepherds had no power or influence, they simply tended sheep.  It is also entirely possible that these shepherds who heard the angels singing were illiterate. Shepherds were also totally committed to their flock and would do anything, including risking life and limb, to care for and protect their sheep.

The story line in Luke 2 is that Jesus has been born and about that time an angel appeared to shepherds who were keeping watch over the flocks, simply doing their job. The angel announced that the Messiah has been born. These shepherds were very unlikely candidates to “advertise” this good news. Wouldn’t priests have been more credible since they were the well-known and well-connected religious people of their day? But the story tells us that these shepherds said to each other, “When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us’” (Luke 2:15).

Presumably they each packed an overnight bag (this is not in the biblical account) and hurried off to find the Baby Jesus (this is in the biblical account). Here is what we read, “And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them” (vv.16-18).       

So, here we have lowly shepherds, the bottom feeders of society, being used by God as the first to tell the world of the Messiah’s birth. He spoke through angels to lowly shepherds on a remote hillside outside a tiny Judean village. It didn’t seem a likely way to win the world, but God uses people like you and like me, just average “Joes” and “Janes” to share His good news with the world.

God wants to use you and me to promote His kingdom and His message. We don’t need to be rich and famous, wise and well-educated, or even well-versed in all things religious. We just need to be willing and available! The gift of Christ is the best gift anyone will ever receive. Are you asking God to use you as He used those shepherds 2000 years ago? Will you be a Kingdom promoter?

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I originally wrote this back in 2003 and re-post it every year in the days leading up to Christmas.

We can all describe the classic nativity scene. A baby laying in a manger wrapped in a blanket in a barn surrounded by his parents and animals and shepherds. The barn is dark and dingy, the floor covered with straw and mud. That is a good image but I don’t think it is the real picture.

“and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn”  (Luke 2:7).

The text notes there was no room for Joseph and Mary in the inn. The Greek term for inn is kataluma, translated as guest room or caravansary; which means a place of lodging for traveling strangers. Only two places in the New Testament is the Greek word kataluma used – here in this birth passage and in the Last Supper text (Luke 22:11, and parallel passage Mark 14:14).

What is a manger? A manger is a feeding trough for animals. So, you find feeding troughs in the barn, right? In ancient Middle East cultures animals were not kept in a barn or left outside. The family animals were always kept inside the house, usually in a lower level from the main floor. This helped to protect them from theft, disease, weather. 

What does all this mean? I believe Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem only to find Joseph’s ancestral home full of people. They ended up in the lower level of the house and laid baby Jesus in the feeding trough because there was no room upstairs in the guest rooms. So, if Jesus was not born in a barn or a stable, crowded as it may have been, He was likely instead born in a house. Quite possibly the house Joseph grew up in, or at a minimum one of a relative. He began His life in a “lower room” of a kataluma and ended his earthly ministry in the “upper room” of a kataluma. Coincidence?

I think a very powerful picture is painted. One of the Messiah King being born in a way that all could have access to Him. If He had been born in a castle or temple only the wealthy, the noble, or the religious could have access to Him. Instead, this Savior, born of humble parents in a humble and ordinary setting, offered access to all. He does the same thing today – no matter our circumstances our Savior is willing to enter into our “house” and be born in us.    

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