From time to time I direct our attention to various aspects of social and racial injustice, something I don’t really experience since I’m not a minority. Last week, Rodney Stevens, a black writer and life coach born and raised in South Carolina, now living in Columbia, SC, wrote an essay published in the Wall Street Journal. I thought it was instructive, offering hope and perspective. Here is some of what he wrote:

Many of the authors, commentators and journalists who spend all their energy thinking and talking about race today fail to acknowledge how much has improved with regard to race in this country. There are countless successful black Americans today—doctors and lawyers, entrepreneurs and academics, journalists and artists, compassionate politicians and famous Hollywood actors. Their numbers will keep growing as long as we remember six things:

• First, every life mat­ters. Mine is not one cell more or less valu­able than any­one else’s. That this idea has to be de­bated or de­fended is lu­nacy.

• Sec­ond, racism still ex­ists but it is no longer sys­temic. Those who claim that racism is every­where to­day are delu­sional.

• Third, we tend to think too highly of our in­di­vid­u­al­ity. My color, weight, sex and sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion are four of the least in­ter­est­ing things about me. I am a South­erner and love South­ern food. Now that is in­ter­est­ing.

• Fourth, po­lice­men have to be held ac­count­able for their ac­tions, as is be­ing done more and more.

• Fifth, do what law en­force­ment of­fi­cers ask you to do. Ob­vi­ously that won’t solve every prob­lem be­cause po­lice­men are hu­mans, not an­gels. But that’s part of life. Sim­ply do­ing what the peo­ple in blue ask you to do would dras­ti­cally re­duce need­less con­fronta­tions, in­juries and deaths.

• Sixth, if you must talk about race, be gra­cious and re­spect­ful. Dis­cus­sions about it shouldn’t be an­tag­o­nis­tic—one’s race isn’t a choice, af­ter all—but for some rea­son many pop­u­lar fig­ures in­sist on mak­ing the sub­ject as un­pleas­ant as pos­si­ble. – Rodney Stevens, Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2020

I hope that you will take what you need from Rodney’s perspective, but I hope we will all practice the sixth recommendation.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (Colossians 4.6, NIV)

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3.28, NIV)

For some reason (maybe it was the Lord’s leading!), I decided on January 6, 2019, to publish a blog every day. Today marks the end of the second year, the 731st consecutive day of blogging. I read two daily blogs: Seth Godin and Heather Holleman. I recommend them both. Seth, who has written more than 7,000 daily blogs, says that the first thousand are the hardest! So I am nearly 3/4 the way to that milestone.

I wrote on January 31, 2020, that the ideas come day to day. I don’t have a grand plan nor a file of 50 or 100 completed blogs to draw on. The miracle occurs as I just put one foot in front of the other. On January 5, 2020, and again on January 15, 2020, I wrote on the benefit of streaks. The commitment has been good for me: the daily challenge keeps me more alert for ideas from wherever they may come. For example, tomorrow, I’ll share something on race issues from the Wall Street Journal.

I really have no idea what the readership is. Some of you I know; some I don’t. Whoever and wherever you are, thanks for coming along.

And don’t let me have all the fun! Maybe some of you should write a blog or take up some other daily or weekly practice. And it’s no problem that you didn’t decide before January 1! Remember, I started on January 6, 2019.

Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.” (Colossians 4.17, NIV)

And give us our needed bread for the coming day. (Luke 11.3, TPT)

I read this dialog between Jesus and the disciples a little differently this year:

Every time they were gathered together, they asked Jesus, “Lord, is it the time now for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” He answered, “The Father is the one who sets the fixed dates and the times of their fulfillment. You are not permitted to know the timing of all that he has prepared by his own authority. But I promise you this—the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be filled with power. And you will be my messengers to Jerusalem, throughout Judea, the distant provinces —even to the remotest places on earth!” (Acts 1.6 – 8, TPT)

We enter the new year, having gone through the celebration of the birth of Jesus, who came and established the beachhead for the advance of the Kingdom. We had compared Israel waiting for the Messiah to our waiting for COVID-19 deliverance and racial and social justice. Like the disciples wanting to know if Jesus is going to overthrow Rome and bring Israel back to its formal glory, we’re asking, “Is 2021 going to be better? Is life in the U.S. going back to the way it was?” Jesus’ answer to the disciples is clear and it applies to us as well:

I don’t know…but I know this: you’ll receive the Spirit’s power to be my messengers…everywhere! – Jesus, Acts 1.7, 8

COVID or not, we have a job to do. Best we figure out how to do it.

He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24.46, 47, NIV)

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. (Philippians 2.14 – 16, NIV)

Yesterday I introduced “Preparing for 2021” by Larry Warner, in which he challenged us to formulate specific prayers for the World, the Country, the world-wide Church, our community, our local church, our family, and our life.

Then he asks:

• What themes do you see emerging in these prayers?
• How do these prayers/themes align with the greater themes of God’s Kingdom coming, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven?
• What alignment is there with your prayers/themes with God’s heart for justice and concern for the poor, prisoners, the blind, the oppressed, widows and orphans?
• What is one area of injustice that you sense God inviting you to focus your attention on in 2021? 

 Finally, he calls us to action:

• In what ways will you seek to partner with God in answering these prayers?
• What might that look like in terms of the use of your time, your material resources, your level of influence, your social media presence?
• Who is already involved in some of those issues/themes that emerged in your prayers that you can support, learn from, partner with? 

I love his closing sentence – one that encourages us to pursue God first, and from that relationship will come the power for carrying out these prayers and actions: 

May your knowledge of God’s love for you and presence with you/within you continue to deepen and expand in 2021 and be the fuel that powers your life—your love for God and others. – Larry Warner

It reminds me of Paul’s word to the Thessalonians:

So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. (2 Thessalonians 1.11, NLT)

One of June’s favorite authors, Larry Warner, has written something he calls “Preparing for 2021.” In it, he recommends thinking about how we can partner with God in prayer and action for the coming year. Here’s some of what he wrote:  

Here is an aid for your personal preparation for 2021. It is not about losing weight or exercising more but seeking to name and embrace God invitations so you can more fully partner with God and live Jesus in the new year.  

Then he asks the following. (My initial response scriptures are in parentheses. Yours could, of course, be very different.) 

What are your prayers for the World? (1 Timothy 2.1, 2)
What are your prayers for the Country? (2 Chronicles 7.14)
What are your prayers for the worldwide church? (Ephesians 3.14 – 21, Philippians 1.9 – 11)
What are your prayers for your community? (Deuteronomy 15.11)
What are your prayers for your local church? (Ephesians 4.11 – 15)
What are your prayers for your family? (Genesis 18.19, Psalm 112.1, 2)
What are your prayers for your life? (2 Timothy 1.7) 

Tomorrow I’ll continue with Larry’s challenge – how do we assess our prayer intentions?

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5.16, NIV)

That’s what I wrote one year ago. It was a new thing all right! We’ve never had such a year in this country, at least not recently. Someone wrote during 2020, “Personally, I’m ready for some precedented times. I’m tired of unprecedented times!”

Maybe we need the promise of Jeremiah 29, a promise given to exiles who were experiencing hard times, a promise that required a response:

This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29.10 – 13, NIV)

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked 
or stand in the way that sinners take 
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, 
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, 
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither
— whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1.1 – 3, NIV)

2021 starts tomorrow! Let’s read through the Bible together. Reading the entire Bible in a year is not a requirement, by any means, but it is fun to do from time to time. I haven’t done it in several years, but when I have done it, I’ve used the Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan, now available for download and printing.

As the introduction (above) explains, the plan is designed for success:

• Only 25 readings per month, so there is built-in slack.
• Reading from four places ensures that there is always something “interesting” to read.
• Three of the four readings are short so it’s easy to catch up if you happen to get behind.

I recommend that after you read, you pick one verse or thought from your reading and use it to meditate as part of your daily time with God. This journal, which teaches “Read, Reflect, Respond, Record” may help.

I’m anticipating that most of next year’s blogs will come from these readings. Join me! Join the adventure, and let’s see what God has to say to us.

Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not disregard it. Blessed are those who listen to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway. For those who find me find life and receive favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 8.33 – 35, NIV)

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3.16 – 17, NIV)

There are many lessons from the people involved in that first Christmas, as we’ve written here since Thanksgiving. Here’s a different one from my friend Henry Brown now living in Hilton Head, SC. He sent me this devotion, which I don’t think I can improve on. (I can’t improve on this one, but I can write my own…as you can, also. Please do! He uses a “Listen, Think, Go” format. Mine is “Read, Reflect, Respond, Record.” I’ll have something to say about that tomorrow.)

Now, to the devotion Henry sent me:

Listen

Then Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen since I haven’t had sexual relations with a man?” The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God’s Son. Look, even in her old age, your relative Elizabeth has conceived a son. This woman who was labeled ‘unable to conceive’ is now six months pregnant. Nothing is impossible for God.” Then Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be with me just as you have said.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:34 – 38)

Think

Have you felt like nothing good comes from you? Sometimes we feel like we are unable to bring forth any goals or follow through with plans. Perhaps you have never experienced that your life has a meaning or purpose. This may be how Elizabeth felt as a childless woman in her old age, in a patriarchal society that measured a woman’s worth by her ability to bear children.

Today’s Scripture brings us guidance on what we can expect when the work of the Holy Spirit starts in our lives. Instead of feeling “unable to conceive” anything, God is sending support through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will come and empower us, allowing us to live with purpose and able to conceive any goal.

What are you disappointed by? Do you want to experience the ability to achieve? Whatever it might be, know that nothing is impossible through God. – Israel Loachamin

Go

Where shepherds lately knelt, and kept the angel’s word,
I come in half belief, a pilgrim strangely stirred;
But there is room and welcome there for me,
but there is room and welcome there for me.
Can I, will I, forget how Love was born and burned
its way into my heart unasked, unforced, unearned,
to die, to live, and not alone for me, 
to die, to live, and not alone for me?
from “Where Shepherds Lately Knelt” by Jaroslav J. Vajda (1986)

Not one promise from God is empty of power, for nothing is impossible with God! (Luke 1.37, TPT)

It’s a few days after Christmas…do you have what Eric, our youth pastor, called “Monday after Christmas syndrome”? As in, Christmas is exciting (also exhausting!); then we have to get on with life.

Eric suggested that Mary and Joseph must have experienced that, too. There’s a lot of excitement in having a baby, even more so when the birth is announced by angels, and you have middle-of-the-night visits from shepherds. Then, life with a new-born sets in. If you’ve had kids, you know.

We can be thankful that Mary and Joseph were faithful to their calling. They did the hard work of raising a baby, out of the limelight, without nannies and servants. They would have had to live just like the rest of us, doing the next right thing.

On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” (Luke 2.21 – 224, NIV)

When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him. (Luke 2.39 – 40, NIV)

Continuing our theme of Jesus’ birth as an act of war, I want to talk about one of the most difficult songs I ever played on the piano. When I was a senior at Clemson University, I accompanied the Clemson Glee Club, and we did Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols. Carol #6 has the innocuous title “This Little Babe.” Here’s what John Stonestreet at Breakpoint had to say about it:

Now arguably, the most-loved carol [in Ceremony of Carols] is “This Little Babe.” Despite the sentimental-sounding title, the text is anything but. It’s about a battle between the Babe of Bethlehem and Satan himself.

The text, written by Robert Southwell, a Catholic priest, who was hung, drawn, and quartered by Queen Elizabeth I, reads “This little Babe so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake, Though he himself for cold do shake; For in his weak unarmed wise, the gates of hell he will surprise.”

Jeff Spurgeon of New York’s classical music station, WQXR, wrote that he finds himself “surprised” and “deeply moved” every time he hears Britten’s setting of “This Little Babe.” In Southwell’s words and Britten’s music, the battle between good and evil is won by “a baby born in obscure poverty” and that battle is depicted “not by a huge orchestra and massive voices, but by a harp and a choir of children.” And that’s Christmas in a nutshell. John Stonestreet, December 23, 2020.

What made the song hard to play was that my part had a repeating rhythmic theme to it – no problem – and the choir part had a repeating rhythmic theme as well…but the two patterns didn’t match! As I’ve reflected on it this week, maybe Britten intended the two parts to be at war with each other symbolizing the war the song talks about.

If you’re not familiar with the song, please take 97 seconds to listen to it. Yep. 97 seconds. It’s VERY fast. Here is a lovely rendition done by, as Stonestreet quoted Spurgeon above, a harp and a choir of children. Here are the words:

This little Babe so few days old
is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
all hell doth at his presence quake
though he himself for cold do shake;
for in this weak unarmèd wise
the gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
his naked breast stands for a shield;
his battering shot are babish cries,
his arrows looks of weeping eyes,
his martial ensigns Cold and Need
and feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitchèd in a stall,
his bulwark but a broken wall;
the crib his trench, haystacks his stakes;
of shepherds he his muster makes;
and thus, as sure his foe to wound,
the angels’ trump alarum sound.

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight,
stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib is surest ward,
this little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
then flit not from this heavenly Boy!

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2.10 – 12, ESV)

She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon… And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. (Revelation 12.2 – 4, ESV)

…The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3.8, ESV)