Presby-Musings

My kids have an Advent calendar that counts down the days to Christmas.  Each day they uncover and position magnetic figures and symbols from the Nativity on to a board with the image of a stable.   Over the past few years we've adopted the practice of ceremoniously uncovering the Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve and triumphantly placing him at the center of the scene.   And every year in that moment we get the chance to re-emphasize to our kids that Light is shining in the darkness, and that, in spite of the hard things they hear and see in the world around them, the darkness doesn't get to win.   I know my boys want to believe me when I tell them about the Light.  They aren't oblivious to the news of the world, and to sadness and death.  But they hold out hope for a better world with imagination and love.   Children can carry hope in their hearts much more fiercely than the rest of us.  And they pay attention to the thi...

Recently, I discovered a great mental exercise that John Maxwell included in his book Developing the Leaders Around You .  In this exercise, which is designed to help you identify your dreams, you ask yourself two question:  "If I had________________," I would_________________."   If you had unlimited time, money, information, anything you asked for, what would you do?   Whatever your answer is to the second question is what you're dreaming for your life, Maxwell asserts.   The genius behind this kind of exercise is that once you start thinking about the possibility  of your dream, you start to wonder if you might either already have all of the resources you need to achieve it or at least a way to acquire them.   I got to thinking about how this applies to our journey with Jesus, and the struggles we often have to imagine a world that has not yet been made right.   I'm afraid more than a few of us Jesus-followers spend a lot of time won...