As I was reading through my blogroll this morning I noticed the title of a blog on the side of one - Shrinking the Camel. Immediately my mind sprang to the verse
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Luke 18:24-26
This blog is about “Connecting Spiritual Life with Business Life” but what got me was the great banner picture. Please go and take a look.
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper and gift tags so you know who they are for.
2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial, considered none this year and only using a Jesse Tree, but couldn’t not have one!
3. When do you put up the tree? 1st December as is tradition in our family
4. When do you take the tree down? I usually don’t get much past Boxing Day…it’s over!
5. Do you like egg nog? Used to, but don’t drink milk anymore (and never actually had it on Christmas, it’s more a filling drink for colder times of the year.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I don’t remember.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, it’s a small one that seems to change positions each day! (the kids do that!)
8. Hardest person to buy for? Everyone but the girls…we all have too much and don’t need anything else.
9. Easiest person to buy for? The kids, they often tell me through the year what they want!
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Usually email, (more environmentally friendly) but I found a pack of cards I must have bought sometime and sent a few paper cards this year for the first time in a few years.
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I don’t remember.
12. Favorite Christmas movie(s) “Jesus” by Campus Crusade for Christ (please come back and click on this link after you’ve read the rest of my answers)
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I usually start through the year, pick things up when I’m down in Perth and stash them away.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Is this saying re-gifting? If so, no, I think it’s really rude. If it means given it away to a charity like Good Sammy’s yes, I declutter often and you can’t keep everything forever.
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Christmas day I enjoy the pudding with custard and before Christmas I like to have a candy cane or three. Other than that the ham is probably the only staple that makes it Christmas.
16. Clear or colored Christmas lights? I don’t use lights but enjoy everyone elses when I see them.
17. Favorite Christmas song(s)? Away in a Manger I have loved all my life, but as I’ve gotten older, I like O Holy Night.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? This year everyone is coming to us. Each year we take turns to “do” Christmas. We never traipse about as everyone gets along, there are no big egos competing saying it “has” to be done the same every year and all suffer!
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? No.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? A star.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The commercialization and materialism. That it is about Christ seems to never be highlighted…except on the bloggersphere! Well done guys!
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Last year I was heavy on the blue and gold decorations (on the tree) this year, I’m leaning toward read. My alltime fav is green, red and gold, those colours say Christmas to me.
24. Favorite dinner for Christmas? Dinner is always leftovers, usually if anyone is hungry. This year lunch will be cold meats and salad because of the weather, so we may be more hungry, possibly!
25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Peace and happiness.
26. Do you bake lots of goodies during the holidays? No usually, too hot. My family used to make shortbread traditionally, but it hasn’t seemed to survived. It is one thing I envy the Northern Hemisphere for, it must be nice to be rugged up, eating yummy baked goodies and sipping a hot cuppa.
27. Do you decorate different rooms of your home? The lounge usually has the tree and I put tinsel and pretty bows around the kitchen and entry, the door has a little something, that’s about it.
28. What decorations do you put outside? None. Less to pull down afterwards.
29. How do you spend Christmas Eve? We usually watch the Carols on telly.
30. Is Christmas your favorite holiday? No, I much prefer Easter, Christmas is the run up to that.
I tag whoever wants to participate! You can leave me a comment to let me know that you have answered the questions on your blog then I can read yours and get to know you!
Merry Christmas
Today I was reading my blogroll and came across a sad true story of a security guard who lost his life, doing his job. It was the day after Thanksgiving in America in a Walmart shop where people had been queueing all night to buy heavily discounted items. The guard was trampled to death by people rushing to buy things. These things may have been necessary for some people’s existance, like new white goods or warm clothes. In reality most of the items being bought are probably Christmas gifts for family and friends who really don’t need them or just more things for themselves.
What have we come to that a life can be taken while people are stampeding to buy more?
Its an addiction to stuff that needs to be fed.
Christmas is a time for giving and sharing, but empty meaningless gifts are not what it is about. We should be celebrating and sharing the true gift of Jesus’ birth into this world so that He could save us from greed, envy and every other sin that we have all committed. Believe on the name of Jesus and be saved.
I was just reading through my blog roll and need to point you once again to Pearls and Diamonds…these girls can write in a way I don’t think I ever could. Its about 6 things God has taught them in 2008.
Enjoy.
I’m always on the lookout for good blogs and recently I found a pearler appropriately names Pearls and Diamonds. Today I read this entry, which to me highlights Christmas. Its the reason why we celebrate the birth of a baby 2000 years ago, for this following reason.
Her name was Ellen. She was about fifty-five years old. I will never forget the Saturday morning, over a year ago, that she arrived at the dental clinic to have teeth pulled and met a man she already loved.
Every year, Dr. Don opens up his dental clinic for a “Free Day” as a way of saying thank you to Jesus. Following in the way of the Master, he reaches out to the “sick” on a physical level in order to meet their spiritual needs. While each patient waits to be worked on, a believer is able to come into the room and share the gospel with them.
That Saturday I was privileged to be a gospel sharer.
She was very nearly missed. The morning was almost over, and after having to wait outside for hours, and barely getting in to be worked on, she was waiting quietly in a dental chair. I’d been told everyone in the rooms on that side of the building had already been talked with, but one of the guys came to find me, whispering, “There’s a lady in here who doesn’t have a goodie bag. Do you want to talk to her?”
Meagan and I had no trouble striking up a conversation with her. She was having all the teeth on one side pulled. She considered herself a Baptist. To her, Jesus was her best friend. “He got me here today,” she said, smiling shyly. “I pray to Him all the time.”
I began to probe for divinity. “Why do you pray to Him? Normally, you know, we pray to someone who is divine—a God.”
Confusion clouded her eyes. “I don’t know.”
Did she consider herself a good person? “I try to be.” Can we take a look at some of God’s laws to see if that’s true? “Okay.” Her mild blue eyes were riveted on me as I elicited from her confessions that she was a lying, thieving blasphemer, fallen short of God’s glory.
“If he judges you, will you be innocent or guilty?”
Without hesitation, she answered, “Guilty.” Her concern etched deeply into the lines across her forehead and around her eyes. When I offered hope, her heart reached eagerly for it.
I began to tell her about Jesus—the God who became a man, who became our intercessor with an angry and Holy God. I shared how He came to earth, born of a virgin, born under the Law so that He might redeem those under the Law. How in that hour on the cross, an innocent substitute, He cried out, forsaken by God, bearing the sins of the whole world. I explained how God heard His plea on our behalf and raised Him. “This is why we pray to Jesus,” I finished. Her eyes never left my face. I asked if she knew how to become right with God through Jesus.
“Tell me.”
“Repent, put your faith is Jesus’ ability to save you and tell Him you want to follow Him. Do you want to do that?”No doubt. No hesitation. “Yes.”
My heart dropped out the bottom and I blinked. I’d gotten this far before, even had willing listeners, but when I’d asked that question I’d always heard an excuse. “Later” or “I’ll be okay” or “Let me think about it.”
I swallowed, trying to digest a three-letter word. “You do?” What in the world was I supposed to do next?
“Yes.” She answered again.
What followed was the most beautiful prayer I have heard: stripped of pretense or poetry, she poured out her plea for salvation from the penalty and the power of sin, sang her praise to her Merciful Mediator and owned Him as her Lord. Before she finished, I was on my knees at her side, holding her hand and crying with her, praising the Lord for her salvation. When I stood up, the light of Jesus shone from her eyes.
“Hug me,” she begged.
“I will!”
I handed her the “goodie bag” we’d prepared—the one my friend had noticed she didn’t have yet. I showed her the Bible and found the gospel of John, marked it for her and gave her a highlighter. She held it open, ready to dive in to discover this Savior who had brought her to a dental clinic in Russellville, so that He could save her soul.
“Do you want me to stay and read with you?” I asked.
“No!” was her quick reply. “There’s other people out there! Go tell them!”
Actually, she was the last patient that day to hear the gospel. After the group of gospel sharers finished praying in the waiting room, they asked to be introduced to their new sister.
When we came back into the room, we found her bent over her Bible, blue highlighter in hand and evidence of its use on the pages. She smiled up at me, “It’s good so far.”
In that moment, Ellen was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
The book of Psalms says that God “will beautify the afflicted with salvation.”
As we left the clinic that day, we were all awed by the work of the Lord. Realize, my friends, that Meagan’s and my part in this drama was very little. The Lord had prepared Ellen’s heart for His good news. We were like the farmer who sowed seed and went to bed and the seed sprouted and grew, but he knew not the way. The Lord is preparing the fields—they are ripe for harvest. Since I’ve moved to the Bible belt, I’ve become increasingly aware of the emptiness of religion. I can hardly believe how many “churched” people that I’ve been able to talk with have never even heard the gospel. Beseech the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His fields—beseech Him to send you.
I’ve found the Way of the Master to be a great aid in random evangelism. They have tracts that can be left for others to find, as some of my shy friends have done, or tracts that simply open up the way for a conversation. Or you can make your own! When I visited Lauren for my 18th birthday we created a “survey” and made our own tracts with an outline of the gospel. The angel announced to the shepherds that the good news is for everyone–and the shepherds went home praising God and telling everyone they met of the Savior God had sent. Good news is for sharing!
If you don’t know Jesus as your Lord, please go to this page. Eternal life is the ultimate Christmas gift.
I thought I’d highlight the blogs that I follow - take your time to take a squiz, it’s well worth it.
Homemaking Homestead (Quiverful)
My Kitchen Poetry 2
Naked Soup
Rodney Olsen has been blogging for 5 years.
Today he has told of how he started blogging…check The Journey out.
