Holiday and Housekeeping

At our house, Thanksgiving marks either the last bit of sanity before the mania of Christmas or the inception of a marathon that will not conclude until the snows of January. Either way, from now until 2022 nothing will be normal.

I hope the series on spiritual disciplines landed close to home. It occurred to me during my second or third article that I should compile the series into a bound volume, which I’m doing now. I will let you know once the pages are stitched together. The working title of the book is, Rigorous Grace.

I would like to promise that the book will be ready by Christmas—so you can purchase copies for your family, even to the fifth and sixth cousins three-times removed on your estranged uncle’s side of the tree (smile). But, it’s too early for promises.

Seth Godin wrote this morning, “Human beings aren’t information processing machines. We’re not hyper-rational or predictable. Instead, we find joy and possibility in stories, in connection and yes, in tension and status roles as well.”

I share this quote to convey how I think about our literary relationship: writer and reader digesting important concepts. When I write to you, I don’t think of the article as a stand-alone piece, although all will, but as a vibrant exchange that fuels our progress together and perpetuates our relationship.

We are living a story, developing a story. It’s our story together.

The logic of what we do via this blog is not hyper-rational. What I choose to write about is not really predictable—the spiritual disciplines series being an exception. But I strive to make our relationship pertinent, relevant, and I always want to hone our exchange to create a sharp edge that cuts through the fog and confusion of society.

And, wow! Is there ever a fog.

I met with a group of college and young adults last week. It was a discussion format and the predominant topic was the chaos in which they live.

To reference one statistic, did you know that historically those among us who question their gender has been 0.01 percent, the majority of whom are boys? But since the media and Progressives have begun their attack on gender, there has been a decade-to-decade increase of over 4,400 percent—just in teenage girls seeking gender treatments.

I read a stat like that, or simply peruse the headlines, and there is almost a panic I feel. As the subtitle of my book Swagger declares, we simply must keep our wits about us.

I won’t recount the entirety of my response to the younger people with whom I met, but I did exhort them to dismiss the notion that they were outgunned, living in unprecedented times, or are ill-equipped for the world. I hear these worries all the time, but I’m not buying them, for the simple reason that they hint at being in a time and place for which God has not prepared us.

For this to be true, God would have to fail in His faithfulness. That’s not possible.

Together, the story we are living is filled with the friction of how our heavenly Father desires to live in and through us and how we trust Him each day. As the days in which we live degenerate into division, confusion—even chaos—darkness, and derangement, the constant for us is that our hope is in Jesus Christ.

How He leads, how the Spirit guides and comforts, and how we struggle to free ourselves from the world’s tentacles is the life of faith.

As we explored in the practice of the spiritual disciplines, our heart’s cry, the reason for our being, and the desire that drives us is to know Jesus Christ. In thinking about this, Paul says, “I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

Now is a great time to live in faith—that is, to labor in the power of the Spirit to align what you do, with who you are, and where you live.

To my mind, when I write and you read, we are pressing on. We are laying hold of. We are celebrating that Jesus has laid hold of us. We are living in the light and life of Jesus. This is our story.

How this story unfolds is the consistent topic of our conversation and literary relationship.

When you invest financial contributions in our relationship via Lifetime.org, there is reciprocity. When you pray, when you encourage, when you share, or pass along an article or resource, there is reciprocity.

Together, we are sharing life. Together, we are considering how to engage a world that is twisting and writhing more than we are used to. Together, we are forming a story of what it looks like when Christ lives through us.

Now, the boss of me—that would be, me—is giving me that look that says there is a book to compile and edit before Christmas. Believe me, we don’t want to irritate the boss. So, I’m off to don my editor’s hat.

Before I go, I hope and pray you and your family have a tremendous Thanksgiving. We have much to be grateful for and it is fantastic that we have a national day to celebrate just that.