Alright, I’ve waited till December to post this because I know how many Scrooges there are out there that seem to go into muscle spasms if they hear Christmas music in November. Here are a couple of new (at least to me) Christmas albums that I’ve picked up this year that I am really enjoying:
The Best of Ho! Ho! Hoey! – Gary Hoey
Glory in the Highest – Shane and Shane
I was able to hear a few songs of the Fray’s new album last April as they were recording it. One of the songs, which is now their first single off the album, actually brought me to tears as I heard them play it. It is a song called “You Found Me” and describes a scenario where the singer runs into God in the street and what he says to him. I immediately connected with this song and I’m so glad it is now out on recording. The album isn’t available yet but you can download the song I’m referring to by clicking here.
If you’ve ever had a hard time connecting with “happy” worship music and longed for something that expressed the pain and struggle of life, you’ll love this.
In 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared the last thursday in November as a national holiday, he did so with the following proclamation:
“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.
Know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subject to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.
But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at the sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.â€
A. Lincoln, October 3, 1863
It seems that we could afford a little thankfulness today. I know that my family will be especially grateful this holiday season because of the arrival of little Gavin to our home. I also love the fact that Thanksgiving comes before Christmas every year. It would seem that after Christmas it might be easier to be thankful for what we have, but hopefully the things that we should approach God with thankfulness for can’t be bought at a store. Wow, that last line kind of sounded like a Hallmark card. What is fatherhood doing to me??? Happy Thanksgiving.
I was sent an “artist’s rendering” of Gavin in future years if he lives up to his middle name. As you may or may not know, Mattingly comes from my favorite Yankee’s player when I was a kid…Don Mattingly. I’ve included a picture of Don Mattingly followed by the “artist’s rendering” of Gavin in years to come. Seems he’ll turn out to be one good-looking guy!
“A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.” (John 16:21)
And so it is with great pleasure that I can introduce Gavin Mattingly Jernigan into the world. We’ve finally had him home a few days now and our life is getting back into some type of normal. He is a little tanker, born 9 lbs and 8 oz on Tuesday evening at 7:18pm. He has been the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.
I’m reading the book, A Tale of Three Kings, in preparation for speaking at Central’s high school winter retreat in January. It’s a story about Saul, David, and Absalom. He talks about the prep time that David had after being annointed the next king but before actually becoming king. The frustration and testing that David experienced is something all of us can relate to at times.
“He [Saul] breathes in the lungs and beats in the breast of all of us. There is only one way to get rid of him. He must be annihilated. You may not find this to be a compliment, but at least now you know why God put you under someone who just might be King Saul. David the sheepherder would have grown up to become King Saul II, except that God cut away the Saul inside David’s heart. That operation, by the way, took years and was a brutalizing experience that almost killed the patient. And what were the scalpel and tongs God used to remove this inner Saul? God used the outer Saul.” – Gene Edwards
We all have moments of frustration with people in our lives and usually we focus on them and their flaws. If you are in any type of leadership role for your job, you can no doubt think of decisions that have been made that you disagreed with and you probably had your own biased take as to why that was a bad decision. But maybe God is actually removing those things we hate in us through them? I know I’ve got some Saul in me. So I think I’ll focus on that instead of others.
