Black Friday…?
I know today is called Black Friday but it really should not be…there really was a Black Friday.
I pray that everybody had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends. We had a great day with a lot of good friends.
In light of the official start of the holidays…
I had a friend give me a great little book called Preparing For Christmas by Richard Rohr (Daily Meditations for Advent). I would encourage you to get it and let it guide you threw this very hectic season that our culture calls the ‘holidays.’ It will (as it has me) challenge you to rethink what, why and how you live your life not just during Christmas but all the year long!
Here is a little taste of what Richard unpacks for the Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent…
Read Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.“
I also like the way Eugene Peterson says it in The Message
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.“
…It is safe to say that there is confusion about what is needed for life and what is really important for life… The upwardly mobile in our culture cannot feel good about themselves unless the vacation next year is more luxurious than last year’s, unless the clothes and the house are upgraded, unless the latest gadget is acquired. This keeps us all quite trapped and un-free, and inherently unsatisfied. We are running on a perpetual hamster’s wheel.
Meanwhile, most of God’s people on this earth starve; most of God’s people have to learn to find happiness and learn freedom at a much simpler level. What the Gospel is saying, of course, is that such simplicity is the only place happiness is ever found in the first place. We have moved to a level where we have made happiness and contentment largely impossible. We have created a pseudo-happiness. Largely based in having instead of being. We are so over stimulated that the ordinary no longer delights us. We cannot rest or abide in our naked being in God, as Jesus offers us.
…Every generation needs to hear it and believe this anew, but particularly in our time and culture when even middle-class people have more comforts and securities than did Kings and queens in the times when royalty flourished. We have become human doings more than human beings, and the verb ‘rest.’ As Jesus uses it, is largely foreign to us. Indeed, such rest feels like ‘nothing’ at all, which makes it very hard to sell to people who do not value rest.
Reflect
What in your life, material or not, are you using to fulfill a need that really should be sought from elsewhere?
