“I’s Rich Now.”

“Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars,” said Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Jim had been a slave. Now he was free. He knew the worth of that freedom. It made him rich. Do I value my freedom that much?

I Have Called You Friends

I lost a dear friend to cancer last week. Dale Young and I were stand partners in orchestra. I admired his ability to lead. He had confidence to play out when I was scared to make a sound. I played better because he was at my side.

But that’s not the reason I’m going to miss him. I miss him because he was my friend. We had our own set of private jokes about pencils, parentheses and notes we wished we could play. His smile and friendliness blessed me. His sense of humor made rehearsing until 10:00 pm bearable.

I valued Dale for who he was, not for what he accomplished in life or how he played violin. I wonder if that’s the true message of death.

As a Christian, I am confident I will go to heaven when I die, not because of anything I’ve done, but because Christ paid the price for me on the cross. But I don’t look forward to death. There are too many things I want to do first. Many of these are things I want to do for God.

Death is God’s way of telling me He doesn’t value me for the things I can do for Him on earth. He values me for who I am. And someday He wants to enjoy me in heaven. Just my presence. Not my acts of service. As Jesus said in John 15:15, “No longer do I call you servants…but I have called you friends.”

Creation and "Cosmos"

My Sunday afternoon multitasking involved listening to an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s series, “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” while I copied bowings into my orchestra music.

I expected to disagree with Tyson on his view of young-earth creationists. There is scientific evidence on both sides of the argument. Things aren’t as simple and obvious as many people claim.

But I was amazed how much I agreed with  a scene late in the episode. I would have shouted, “Amen!" if that were appropriate while watching "Cosmos." The scene is an animation of the astronomer William Herschel walking on the beach with his son, John, and discussing William’s friend, John Michell.

“He held that some stars are invisible,” said William. “They really exist, but we shall never see them. Dark stars, Michell called them.”

“With all due repsect, father, surely your friend was mistaken. If no one can see them, then how can we possible know they exist?”

“Did you see the man who left those footprints, John?”

“Why, no, father, I did not.”

“But do you know that he exists?”

Dark stars, now called black holes, leave footprints in the cosmos. Their gravitational pull is so great that light cannot escape. They are invisible. We detect them by watching the evidence of their gravitational pull on other things in the universe.

Sometimes the most powerful things in the universe are invisible. God is my Black Hole. I cannot see Him, but I have seen His footprints in the cosmos, in history and in my life. His pull is so great that once I got close to Him, my life was absorbed by Him. And I shall never regret it.

Feeling Like Zechariah

I prepared a Sunday school lesson that I never got to teach. I lost my voice. The ironic part is that the lesson was about Zechariah.

Zechariah faithfully served God in the temple, but he yearned for that one gift God hadn’t given him – a son. The angel Gabriel appeared to him and said his prayer was heard. His wife would have a son. But Zechariah, like so many of us, argued with God. “This can’t be,” he said. “We’re too old.” Since Zechariah didn’t believe, he lost his voice. He couldn’t speak for nine months until his son was born.

Someone else in the Christmas story was silent even longer. That Someone was God. When the ink dried on Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, God chose silence for 400 years. Why? We don’t know. Maybe He realized that we weren’t ready for what He had to say.

Our God is patient. He waited. And waited. And when the time was right, He didn’t shout from afar. He sent His Son to earth. The Word became flesh.

I’m frustrated with my inability to speak right now. I would love to have my voice back for Christmas. I wonder if God was frustrated with His silence, longing for the day when we would be ready to hear Him.

Are you troubled by the silence of God this Christmas? Has He withheld the one thing you yearn for? Take comfort in the Christmas story. God is still there. His heart longs for you; and when the time is right, He will break His silence.

The Gift Certainty

The “holly, jolly” is missing in my Christmas this year. My friend’s daughter died in a car accident last week. In the midst of tragedy, jingle bells, lights and Christmas cookies don’t mean much. But God’s story of Christmas offers comfort to my soul.

This Christmas, I am clinging to Luke’s preface to the Christmas story, those verses we don’t usually read. “It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed” (Luke 1:3-4 NKJV).

Many today think that we cannot know with certainty what happens after death. I disagree. We can know because Christianity is not a moral philosophy or a theory about spirituality. It is a statement that certain things happened at a certain time in a certain place. These are facts that can be checked.

Either Jesus lived, died and rose again like the Bible says; or He did not. If He did, we can be certain about life after death. “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19 NKJV). If He did not, Christianity is worthless.

My purpose today is not to blog about the amazing historic accuracy of Luke’s gospel. Others have done that. (Click here for one site.) I’m just saying that I’m glad for Christmas because God took on flesh and entered the world so that I can be certain there is life beyond this world.

When I tell my friend that her daughter is happy in heaven, I’m not engaging in wishful thinking. I am speaking the truth with a capital T.

Flip-flops and Thanksgiving

A friend of mine gave me flip-flops this summer. They fit well. They’re comfortable. I love the pattern on them with its splashes of red. But that's not why I love the flip-flops. I love them because Mariana gave them to me. It’s not the what. It’s the who.

This Thanksgiving as we list what we’re thankful for, let’s remember whom we are thanking. I don’t need these things around me to be happy, but my life would be empty without the God who gave me the things.

Is Life Sacred?

Our hearts broke after the shooting in Newtown, CT. Whatever our religious convictions, we all seem to believe that human life is precious. Dare I use the Christian term sacred?

We tried to show support for the hurting. We flew our flags at half-staff. We posted pictures on Facebook. But do we have the courage to face the harder questions?

On December 26, Justice Sotomayor denied Hobby Lobby’s application for an injunction against part of the birth-control mandate in HHS. The Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby, are evangelical Christians and refuse to provide health insurance that covers the morning-after pill.

The Greens, like the rest of us, believe that life is precious. The only question is when life begins. Does life begin at conception as the Greens claim? Or 22 days later when the child’s heart beats with his own blood? How about week 6 when brain waves are detectable or week 8 when fingerprints begin to form? Maybe the unborn child is fully human in week 12 when he can finally suck his thumb. (See "Fetal Development" for more facts and pictures of unborn children.)

This is a fair discussion to have. You may disagree with the Green’s conclusion that life begins at conception, but I think we should all agree on one thing. The Greens have an honest conviction that the morning-after pill takes a human life. In the wake of the Newtown shooting, we should respect the Greens for standing by their convictions.

Does the government really need to fine them up to $1.3 million per day in January? Don’t we care more about life than that?

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

Before you were born I set you apart…” Jeremiah 1:5 (NIV)