It’s Christmas — Christ-Day.  You may or may not realize this but Christ is not Jesus last name.  Christ was a word in Jesus day which referred to the ONE, the anointed one, the legendary one, the one of prophecy, the ONE King.  Sometimes we forget the incredible honor that we have on this side of Christmas.  We know the name of the Christ.  His name is Jesus.  We know the name.

Let me ask you, do you love his name?  You know some people will tatoo the name of the person they love on their arm… like “MOM.”  What do you do if you put “JULIE” but then end up marrying “AMY?”  When you were young — and in love — you might have doodled some guy’ss name all over your notebooks.  When my daughters were in High Schol, I would try to look through their notebooks to see if there were any doodled names — so  I could keep my eye out for that guy!

Did  you ever doodle the name of Jesus in your notebook?

But then as you got older you found that loving someone might mean defending their name.  Maybe you had a brother or sister that you thot you hated, until you heard someone use their name in vain…saying something bad about them, and then the stuff inside your heart just overflowed…and you wanted to do battle for their name!

Did you ever go to battle for Jesus’ name?  Did you ever look up and gently ask someone to stop using Jesus name as a swear word?

And then one day you fell in love…this was it, the person you were going to marry… and we learned when we fell in love that we might love some one so much that we would make their name our own name.    Or maybe you went out and found — like so many families at Calvary — a child that you would love so much that you would adopt them and bring them home, and give them your name.

If you are a follower of Jesus, you’ve been given his name.  Do you love his name?

William Hinson tells about going as a student to hear Martin Niemoller,  a man who had spent time in a Nazi concentration camp, but a man who loved the name he had been given… loved the name of Jesus…He says, “I remember after he spoke, the reporters  went away in disgust, saying, “All those months in a concentration camp and all the guy can talk about is Jesus.”

Is that all we talk about? Not in some push-my-religion-on-others kind of way, but have you have found yourself in a season when you just couldn’t stop talking about Jesus?  Seems like that should occur even more at Christmas? Do I love the name of Jesus?

This is the one Christmas message, “The Christ has come and his name is Jesus.” Paul was a man who understood the one message,he said things like,

I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  (I Corinthians 2:2)
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ…  (Philippians 3:8-9)
I am afraid that somehow you might be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.  (2 Corinthians 11:3)

This Christmas season, take some time to evaluate the state of  your devotion to Christ.  Maybe some things need to be cut out of your life.  Maybe some habits need to be awaited.  We cannot — with integrity — say that we want to get this Christmas right, and then spend all of our time pondering, everything but Christ.

My prayer is that we will have a Christ-saturated season.

“Be Still and Know that I am God.”  Psalm 46:10

Usually when we think of the word stillness, we think of quiet — peace and quiet. Stillness is a lack of noise, and sometimes we do need times of solitude and silence.  Some of my best Christmas moments have been “silent moments.”  But the Psalmist is not saying, “Be quiet and know that I am God.”  The hebrew word here simply means stop or cease. Cease striving.  Cease hurrying.

Sometimes it seems like the Christmas season is so full of striving, isn’t it?  Yet what it should be is a time to cease striving, a time to be still and know God, to know that He is God and I am not.  I find myself lately with a deepening hunger to just know him.  Last year I was watching the new Narnia movie and there was a scene in it where Lucy comes face to face with Aslan — not a major scene, but it moved me — and it caught my breath and tears came to my eyes. I think if I was alone they would’ve been sobs, and I just thought where did that come from?  I sensed God saying. “You miss me.”

God has given me a somewhat driven-nature.  I want to achieve.  I want to accomplish.  I want to see our region transformed by Christ for God.  But occasionally I hear this voice from God in my heart saying, “But what if all you get is me.”

That’s what I want for Christmas.  It’s what I hope for you.

Just ran across this blog post from Mark Batterson, made me think so I decided to pass it on to you.

I have a core conviction. Actually, it’s more than that. It was a word from the Lord. I’ll never forget the Holy Spirit whispering this to me in a pup tent in Awash National Park (Ethiopia) at the end of an unforgettable day that included a game drive. I heard the Still Small Voice loud and clear: “Don’t accumulate possessions. Accumulate experiences.”   That has become a guiding theme in my life.  So here’s my random thought. And I think this is for someone. Don’t just give possessions that will rust and break and end up in a toy box. Give the gift of experience. Not sure how that translates into your context. But it might be worth investing money in an experience versus another possession.

This is a good Christmas word.  If God has blessed you with the means, don’t waste your means on more stuff.  Invest in an experience, invest in a future memory with your family, a son or daughter, your wife, a good friend.  Make a bucket list.

I think this is one of the reasons that I love taking my family on short-term missions trips.  Yes it is about serving.  But if you have ever gone on a mission trip, you have heard multiple times, I received so much more than I gave. I think one of the things we received is an experience the effects of which have the potential to last far longer than the soon to be obselote Xbox 720.

Now you don’t have to go to Myanmar, or Estonia, or Rwanda, or the Dominican Republic for an experience.  Go sledding at Slab Cabin with your son or daughter.  Take a road trip to visit the Holocaust Museum in DC.  Take a train ride to Chicago and back.  Do the local adopt-a-family deal and spend a few hours shopping, wrapping, and praying for a family in our community.  Take some cinnamon rolls to someone in a nursing home.  Ride the gliders at Julian.

And any experience you share — I think it doubles the effect.  Imagine that first Christmas, it was full of amazing experiences.  This Christmas give someone an experience.

Thanks to Doris who passed on one of those e-mails, I got a huge laugh today.  I suppose I could have titled this, “Why Kids Need Parents.” But I think, “Why We Need Kids” is more appropriate.  We need kids because no matter how annoyed, concerned, worried, or frustrated we get, they can still make us laugh.  They keep us on our toys.  They challenge us to take a risk.  They remind us that we probably shouldn’t take ourselves so seriously.  They are able to bring such joy to our hearts.  There are no Christmas pictures in this post, but isn’t kid-joy part of what Christmas is all about.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, this post is one of my longest, but it will read quickly.  Look and laugh.

I’m not much of a golfer.  In the few times that I’ve played, I score by keeping track of how many balls I lost, vs how many I found.  Best game I ever had, I spent about 20 minutes by the water hazard — ended up playing a 4 under par.  Which in my world means I ended up with more balls than I started with.

But like most of you, I have enjoyed watching Tiger Woods golf.  And hopefully like many of you I have been saddened to watch him self-destruct — though the self-destruct button was hit some time ago.  I’m praying for his kids, his wife, and him.

But this post is less about Tiger and more about Phil Mickelson.  If you watch golf, you know Phil.  He is a perennial second place finisher.  I started thinking about Phil when I read Dan Wetzel’s blog.  He writes these words,

There’s more to it than that for Mickelson though, and I’ll be the first to offer my apology to him for it. The guy has been ridiculed for years for supposedly lacking the same commitment to winning that Tiger Woods displayed.  Tiger was the guy who worked out relentlessly. Phil was the one who didn’t always look good in a golf shirt. Tiger was the one whose mental approach was paced by an unwavering focus. Phil was the guy from San Diego with the goofy smile on his face.  Tiger was the one who often prepared and practiced 24/7. Phil was a guy who might leave the course and get in on dessert.  Tiger was the one that cared so much about victory that nothing, absolutely nothing would get in the way. Phil spent too much time interacting with the fans and playing with his kids.

It’s such an easy question to answer that I hesitate to ask it, but it’s my blog so I will.  I wonder if Phil’s wife Amy is glad that Phil cares a little less about victory and more about playing with his kids?  In fact in May of this year when the Mickelson’s found out that Amy had breast cancer, Phil put golf on hold so that he could be with and support his wife.

Guys — the four or five of you who read this — the bottom line is that each of us have two arenas where success matters, work and home.  If you succeed at work, but you fail at home, you will come to the end of your days not only missing all that God had for you, but also filled with regrets.  It’s not enough to succeed at work, home is just as important.  Authentic men value both.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on Cheating.  The idea is that we all have to cheat somewhere in order to make it through life.  I’m not talking about unethical cheating like cheating on a test, but something or someone in your life is going to get cheated of your time.  You can’t answer every demand.  You can’t satisfy every voice.  You have limits. You are finite.

Who are you choosing to cheat?  Somebody – something is going to feel cheated.  One of the first questions of friendship is Who am I going to cheat out of my time? You can’t be anyone’s friend if you don’t cheat someone or something.  I for one am glad that Phil has cheated his golf game.  I hope Tiger follows suit.

Sir Francis Drake was an interesting man.  Born sometime between 1541-1543, to English working class parents, his father was a farmer who later became a pastor.  Early in his life he was involved in the slave trade, but there is also some evidence that he also befriended escaped slaves.  He spent some time as a pirate, but on a trip around the world — one of the first — he also held daily religious services.  He was a fearsome captain for England against the Spanish, but he was also known for his kindness to opponents who had surrendered to him in battle.

Like many of us, I would guess he was a flawed man in need of grace, who had a heart to pursue God.  I’m not an historian, you’ll have to study his life to know him better — but in all these things over the course of the years he gained a reputation as a bold adventurer.

This prayer was found — by me by a post from Eric Hart — but found originally in his diary written on the night before one of those great sailing adventures he embarked upon.  I love the prayer.  It’s called

Disturb Me O Lord.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storm will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push us in the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ.

Amen

We’ve started getting Christmas cards.  I remember one year we got our first Christmas card before Thanksgiving.  My first thought was somebody is either seriously under-challenged — like you need more to do — or seriously, over-organized — like you probably even bought this cards on sale last year. 

But my second thought was, “Wow that’s kind of cool.  I made it on somebody’s Christmas card list.  See here’s what people do when they are sending Christmas cards:  First they evaluate their relational world.   Then they form a list, the people they want to encourage and bless by sending a card, people with whom they have a friendship, or want to start a friendship all make the list.  So when you receive one of those Christmas cards,  that means that you made somebody’s list — someone’s friendship list

So every time you get a Christmas card — even if it’s mass produced and has nothing more than a name — tell God thank you for friends.

BUT LET ME TAKE IT ANOTHER STEP:  before you put that card in the Christmas card basket. i want you to hold it for just a moment and say this, “Christmas means that I’m on God’s friendship list.”  If you have opened your heart up to Jesus, then he considers you his friend.  In John 15:12-17 Jesus said,

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.  You are my friends… If you follow my ways… no longer do I call you servants, but I call you my friend.

You are on God’s friendship list.  Do you know what that means? The best human friend you have is flawed.  We try but we don’t always measure up.  But if you are on God’s friendship list, you have a friend who will never fail.  You have a friend who will tell you the truth but never reject you.  You have a friend who will always understand, who will always have time, who will come alongside you when you feel overwhelmed.

Some of you are heading into this Christmas season…and you feel overwhelmed.  For a variety of reasons you think that there is no way that you will get this Christmas right.  Because you have been unfriended by death, or divorce, or a misunderstanding, or a hurt.  Every time you get or send or just look at a Christmas card, remember, you are not alone.  You are on God’s friendship list.  That’s what Christmas is all about.

This is my last UNfriend post, after all 7 is a good complete number.  Though I think next week I’ll start a BEfriend series.  So here is my last thought on what unfriends us.  I guess it could easily be a post how to befriend someone…but since this is still an unfriend post.  I’ll look at it from the negative.

I think one of the things that unfriends us, one of the things that disconnects or at least magnifies the disconnection opportunities is our inability to laugh.  We take ourselves so seriously.  Jesus once said, “…anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.  (Luke 18:17)  Kids don’t take themselves so seriously… we take ourselves and our hurts, and our stuff so seriously.  Be willing to laugh with others – even when they are laughing at you!

Take God seriously, yourself – not so much.  A few posts ago I commented on the fact that loneliness is like a virus.  Well laughter is also infectious.  Even The sound of roaring laughter is far more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or sneeze. When laughter is shared, it creates a bond and defuses an unfriend moment.

Bottom Line:  Taking yourself too seriously, never being willing to play, always pushing pause on the laugh track – it’s like a sign that says “please unfriend me.” So grab a friend and push play on the video below, perhaps a great illustration of Luke 18:17.  But grab someone in the other room and watch because laughing with others is way more fun than laughing alone.

(Thanks to Nancy for alerting me to the laughter!)

What is the price of a friend? Apparently — for some — a little bit less than 1/10 the cost of a Whopper. In January of this year, Whopper conducted an “Unfriend” Whopper Campaign. Anybody willing to unfriend 10 people on Facebook would get a free whopper.

They wouldn’t just take your word for it. They developed a facebook application called the WHOPPER® Sacrifice application. Usually the unfriend process on Facebook can be somewhat anonymous, not so with the Whopper Sacrifice application. The unfriend would get a notification letting them know that they and 9 others had been sacrificed for a Whopper.

By the way, I looked, the application has been shut down by Facebook. But not before 23,390 Whoppers had been exchanged for 233,906 friends. (You gotta feel bad for that guy who sacrificed six friends and didn’t get a Whopper!)

So how would you feel if you were unfriended on Facebook, for two bites of a Whopper? I know…it depends. How close was the friendship? Did you do the same thing to 10 others? Do you love Whoppers? Do you ever use Facebook?

So here’s the minor point — every day we make value-based choices. The time we are willing to invest in a person, the decisions we make about being with or not being with a person, all speak to the value we put on friends.  Some will trade a marriage for a moment.  Others trade family for jobs.  Perhaps you found someone willing to trade a friend for a reputation.  It’s about values.

Here’s the major point — in the end I can’t control whether or not someone unfriends me for a Whopper. All I can control is what kind of friend I am. Which means the best question is not how many friends do I have, but what kind of a friend am I becoming.

Even if I am the victim of a whopper unfriending, I don’t want to be an unfriend.

So when it comes to unfriending someone on facebook, it’s a pretty simply thing. Search their name. Click and button. They are no longer your friend.

The ways we unfriend in real-non-social-media ways are more varied. Sometimes our unfriend methods take great effort and leave even great pain. Sometimes they are unintentional, sometimes they require a great deal of thought. Some of them are obvious. Some are more subtle.

Tiger Woods hit the unfriend button when he decided to have an affair. Hines Ward hit the unfriend button when he called Ben a coward without knowing the full story. Notre Dame hit the unfriend button for their football coach. A lie can hit the unfriend button. So can busyness. Unintentional hurts can hit it as can a judgmental spirit. Pride has its finger on the button almost all the time and from the other side, depression can hit the unfriend button in a time when befriending is so needed.

So how do we re-connect after an unfriending experience? Forgiveness, which sometimes looks like mercy and sometimes looks like grace is a great reconnector. Giving others the benefit of the doubt can create a be-friend scenario.

Loneliness is viral. So is grace. How do you unfriend and reconnect?