It may have been around for awhile now, but I just saw it and have to say it is one of my ALL TIME favorite spots. Kudos to the agency that created it!

Luke 2:19
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Even as I write this, my neighbors are packing up Christmas and shoving it into a corner of their attic. Granted, Christmas has officially been over less than 10 hours, but God forbid we’d keep the lights up any longer than necessary. After all, we have been listening to Christmas music in stores since August, haven’t we? Isn’t it funny what a rush we’re in to bypass Thanksgiving so that we can get to Christmas, and yet we can’t pack it all away fast enough when it’s over? I mean, non-Christian radio stations played Christmas music longer after Christmas than one of the Christian stations I listen to from time to time!

Of course, I get that we can’t leave Christmas up all year (although I do know someone who pushed their artificial tree in the corner and covers it with a sheet for quick access the next year!), but I think we can probably learn something from Mary. You remember her, right? She was the wonderfully willing and obedient 13-15 year old girl that was the first to have to pack away Christmas. Jesus was born, the star had faded away, the family get-together was over, and she was left with that “it’s all over” feeling that many of us have at this time of year. Our verse even says that she, too, kind of packed it all up and stored it away. But there is one key difference between the young mother of Jesus and most of us today…

She didn’t forget. That word “pondered” is an interesting one. It literally means to converse with oneself, often in a heated, debating way. So, here is a young lady packing all the things she experienced in that first Christmas up and then talking through with herself what she had just witnessed. The long journey, the shepherd’s visit and excited story about a night sky lit up with a glowing choir, the faithfulness of Joseph’s love in the face of overwhelming confusion. And of course, the baby. That beautiful baby Savior who, even at His earliest breath in a manger, wasn’t afraid of the mess that so often surrounds us in this life. I can see her, can’t you? Holding Him in her arms, lips moving without sound as she recalls the moments. Sometimes laughing, sometimes wiping a tear from her eyes.

Pondering is like that. Sometimes we like what we remember, and sometimes we don’t. I’m sure that your life in 2009 was much like what Mary experienced (well, maybe without the mega-watt choir!). There were great moments, hard moments, times when your eyes danced in laughter and others when they bowed in pain. Our job now, as we pack it all up and put in back in it’s place, is to remember, reflect, relive the faithfulness that God showed when no one else did.

Treasure what you saw, ponder it as you pack it away, and be amazed at Who He is…again, and again, and again.

Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

This past week-end, a lot of people (including my three children) woke up disappointed around our area. Seems that big ‘ol wintry mix of a storm that was supposed to come our way didn’t, and instead we got to see images of surrounding areas with anywhere from 6 inches to almost 2 feet worth of newly-fallen goodness. We should be used to this by now, because this is typical for where we live. It seems every year there is a major snowfall and it misses us by the smallest of distances, but this disappointment was made more severe by the build up on the news throughout the days before, and that’s where the crux of this Evotion comes from.

The weather guessers on our local stations use winter weather as a tool. They shoot short 30-second teasers about possible winter weather in the area and lead off the newscast with some zinger about how “it looks like there could be some white stuff headed our way, but we’ll get you the detailed 5-day forecast in 10 minutes.” They milk this stuff for all it’s worth, and then, when they unveil the 5-day forecast, they’ll show a map that projects snowfall in the mountains of North Carolina, which are 2-3 hours away from us. It always makes me wonder if the people living in the mountains watch the Charlotte channels. I would guess they’ve got there own weather guessers, right?

Sorry, I’m bitter. More to the point of the verse above, though, is the fact that weather guessers seem to have a disease that we’d better not catch in the church. They OVER-PROMISE AND UNDER-DELIVER. They’ll use the hope that we all have of a white Christmas against us, and so they’ll promise the possibility of one even if the likelihood of it is less than a snowball’s chance in, well, somewhere really, really, hot. As a result, people tend to not believe what they hear the weather guessers say. I’m one of them, and so when they tease me with the possibility of the “Storm of ’09” next week-end, I’m more likely not going to rush to the store for bread and water because it’s the same old song and dance. Over-promising and under-delivering makes the heart sick, and at some point, people take their hearts and go somewhere else.

Apparently, if you look at church attendance data, people are doing just that. Having heard the faith preached like a weather guesser vying for a rating’s increase, they’ve determined that the church just can’t (and never has) deliver the goods. Tired of being disappointed again and again, they’ve chosen to stay away. That’s the natural progression when people take us at our word that the next sermon series will be “the best ever” and they come to find it not even as good as the previous average one.

It’s time to start OVER-DELIVERING, and when we simply give them the truth and grace of God without all the hype of a rabid weather guesser, we will.