ONLY GOD DETERMINES SUCCESS by Pastor Poppie Paul

There is something about Christmas that makes us think about what we have, and do not have.  I know it should not work this way, but I think it does.  Maybe it is shopping for people we love.  People we would really like to bless.  But looking into our empty bank accounts.  Maybe it is working on our house, or trying to fix a car that unexpectedly broke something really expensive.  Maybe it is the burning desire to help our kids beat the pressure of life, business, and house hunting.

Maybe it is simply evaluating where we are in life.  What have we done?  What do we have?  What have we built, or saved?  What are our prospects for the future?  What legacy will we leave?  How much longer do we have to truly accomplish things and make a difference?

Or maybe we begin to reflect on the Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda's.  What could I have done differently?  What should I have done differently?  What would I do if I could go back and have a do over?  This road can lead us into a very dark and unproductive place.

In the midst of those Christmas thoughts I encountered a C. S. Lewis quote that reduced me to thankful tears.  I pray it does for your heart what it did for mine!

“It is not your business to succeed, but to do right.

When you have done so the rest lies with God. ... 

Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves

as a higher tribunal than Him."

All of us want to be the person who wins.  We want to run the ball into the end zone for the touchdown that wins the game.  We want to sink the three pointer that puts us into the finals.  I want to be remembered as the farmer who brought in the record harvest, not the guy who always smelled like manure in early spring.  But God isn't going to judge us by the magnitude of the harvest if our call and gifting is turning the soil and spreading the dung.  In fact, if the plowing does not get done, and if the manure does not get thrown, there will never be a great harvest!

The writer to the Hebrews adds to the case by declaring...   All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.  Hebrews 11:39 (NLT)   Imagine having great faith, a great reputation, a record of obedience and tremendous effort for God, and yet your legacy ended on the 20 yard line!  You struggled, toiled, were successful, yet never saw the finish line.

I am massively encouraged by Lewis and Hebrews.  My job is to do my very best.  My job is to do what is right with all the strength and persistence God Almighty gives me.  My job is to plow the field and spread the manure even if I never taste one bite of the harvest.  And when I have run as fast and hard as I possibly can, exhausting every shred of energy in my body, mind, and soul, then I must accept that "the rest lies with God."  

I must remember, as Ralph Neighbour told me in a raised voice,

"Your problem is that your not God." 

So this Christmas ask yourself only one question.  Have you done, to the very best of your ability, what you, before God, believe to be right?  If you have, then be at peace and rest in the results that God brings!  Otherwise, you have taken away His right to judge, and placed that responsibility on your own shoulders.  A place it never belonged!

I love you all,

and pray that God richly blesses each and every one of you

with all you need for life and living

out of the abundance of His grace and mercy!

In Jesus name,

Amen  

God's Gift of Family

 God did not create us alone.  We all arrive on this earth into a family. Just as each of us is unique, each family is also unique--different blends of ages, genders, personalities, relationships.  Extended families are part of the glue that builds societies.  


Families include a variety of relationships, not all predictable by bloodlines. Besides the obvious parent/child and sibling relationships, some of them closer than others, there are the extended connections--aunts, uncles, cousins, even in-laws.  Cousins are often special--close enough to share events and relatives, but often with different experiences of the  shared relatives, which makes for great conversations.  

In the Christmas story, it is interesting that the angel that came to Mary told her about Elizabeth's miracle, and that Mary's reaction to the news was to go be part of it. It's very possible that because Elizabeth had not had children of her own that she had already "adopted" this younger cousin to build a special relationship with.  Being an only girl in my own family, I was blessed to have an aunt and a sister-in-law who had only boys take me under their wings, and several childless friends of my parents became "honorary aunts."

If you look at this story carefully,  we notice that Elizabeth was six months along in her pregancy when Mary came and stayed for three months, so it is possible that Mary was there when John was born--or that she slipped out at that time to not call attention to herself.  

We do see that family gathered to celebrate this birth.  This is part of the way families are created--there are landmark events that gather folks to share and touch base with each other; births, marriages, deaths.  Jesus' first miracle was at a wedding, at Cana of Galilee.  We don't know whose wedding, but Mary was close enough to the host family to be concerned about the wine situation. We see Jesus often connecting people in family-type gatherings, and many of the stories He told are about weddings and banquets.  The last family-type event we see Jesus involved with was Lazarus' death--which He turned from a funeral to a miracle. 

As Christmas approaches, let us remember that not only did God give us the gift of His Son (and note that He describes Jesus in a "family" context) but also an opportunity for us to connect and share with our own families--immediate family, extended families, our church families, our communities, and layered all the way out to God's extended family around the world.