Dianne and I celebrated the season with stocking stuffers. It was fun , but as you might anticipate, I did not find the chain saw I requested in my sock.

I did, however, receive a tiny book, bound with a spiral, and titled Pocket Guide to Weather Forecasting.

On the second page it says, “Count the number of times a cricket chirps over a 14-second interval and then add 40 to that number to get the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit.”

Who knew?

Two thoughts came to mind when I read this: First, the weather guy on TV—the one with the nice hair and expensive suit—needs to get a cricket. Second, I’m wondering how to get just one cricket among many to chirp for fourteen seconds… unless I find one loner and put him in the house. I think this is a good idea, except that Dianne will think it a bad idea, which probably makes it not a good idea. This destines me to keep looking out the window at the thermometer to figure out what to wear when I could be consulting a cricket if it were not for my wife’s bias against crickets.

In addition to wondering about crickets, I’ve completed the overhaul of Lifetime.org and PrestonGillham.com (PHG). Thanks to the partnership I have with Lazarus Media, both sites are redone and ready for you to take a gander. Woohoo! Not only is what you see on your screen redesigned, i.e., the front-end, but what you don’t see, i.e., the back-end where the coding is located, is also redesigned. This is in hopes cancel culture will be kept at bay and delivery of my articles to you will be more reliable.

Of course, nothing is failsafe, and when it comes to the practical application of the Gospel, no insulation is sufficient to weather consistent attack by the forces of darkness. That PHG is targeted as it is, is a backhanded compliment. If we weren’t sharing together in important matters, we wouldn’t be bothered by the dark forces.

We can wish this weren’t the case—pray that it goes away, with faith, believing—but the reality is, the messages I pen are always focused on Christ-who-is-our life. It doesn’t matter what the enemy of God devises, Scripture declares and history records that not one jot or tittle of the Gospel will be diminished, let alone lost, by whatever forces come against it. Jesus Christ is not threatened by today’s circumstances, no matter how nefarious.

So what must we conclude when our prayers for protection are “unanswered?” In the first place, no prayer is ever not answered. To say this would mean God either didn’t hear or ignored you. Not possible! Thus, we must conclude that Father God is offering us a different perspective. Indeed, His perspective.

When circumstance is relentless, our conviction must be that Father’s goodness to us has intensified. By intensified, I mean how He wishes to develop us, share with us, guide us, take us to a place beyond ourselves, and cause us to view our life as contrary to the obvious, circumstantial, or wishful.

When our Older Brother prayed, “Not my will, but yours,” He landed on the cross. In the moment, it was cataclysmically awful, the gravest day in history, and certainly not a good day. But three days later, it was evident that a horrid day of suffering was the stepping stone to the grandest day in history: the resurrection. But it was intense from Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday.

And so it is with us. Just like our Older Brother, we are in position to trust our heavenly Father during dark days, knowing that Father’s most noble quality is goodness. This confidence, this personal security that we have as His children, empowers us with the Spirit-inspired resolve to lift up our heads, no matter the circumstance, knowing redemption is ours.

In a few days, we will bid 2022 adieu, and when the clock chimes twelve, we will kiss, and turn our hopes to a New Year, a new day, and a fresh start—except the more things change, the more they stay the same. Our politicians will lie to us just as readily on January 1st as they did on December 31st. Our heating oil and gas prices will continue to rise and our grocery bills will continue to escalate. The Fed will slow the economy by putting more people out of work. North Korea will fire more missiles. China will keep stealing, prevaricating, and hedging, and darkened minds will stop at nothing to further afflict our children.

Now, you can hang your head in defeat or you can recognize that throughout Scripture there are two themes running along the scarlet thread of Jesus Christ’s Incarnation (Christmas) into human life.

The first theme is hope. Because of the resurrection, we have every reason to celebrate in hope—hope for tomorrow, hope for eternity, hope that with our regained spiritual wings we take flight with God as our Father.

The second theme is meaning. With Christmas, the singular message is clear: God took on flesh, and in Jesus Christ became approachable. Why? Because you have meaning to the God above all gods—and once embraced, personal meaning is yours.

These two themes are the guiding forces undergirding all of life and humanity. Take away hope and meaning, and you get the kinds of social maladies plaguing Western culture. Insert hope and meaning, and you restore the vision that God has for humanity.

As 2023 loads into the chute, I pledge two things to you: First, I will speak to you as clearly as I can about how your faith applies and is relevant to life. Second, even though it is not always pleasant, I pledge that I will contrast society’s ills against the Gospel’s redemption—for this simple reason: You can’t appreciate the solution if you don’t understand the problem.

In anticipation of all that’s before us, the ministry of Lifetime-PHG is made possible by the financial support of you, my partner in ministry. I invite you to invest in what Father God is doing through Lifetime-PHG. You can do that by following this underlined link or by going to either Lifetime.org or PrestonGillham.com and clicking on the “Invest” button. Your gift is tax deductible and your information is secure with us.

Thank you in advance.

Now, my faith family: I encourage you to finish well what you began a year ago. Do NOT succumb to the drama of the news feeds or let your soul suffer with the dark “reasoning” of those operating independently of God. Lift up your head. You are in Christ. He is in you. You have a future and a hope, and because of this, your life is filled with meaning. Here’s to 2023!

I’ll meet you on the other side. Don’t forget to look around Lifetime.org and PrestonGillham.com and thanks in advance for your financial partnership.