Letter to a friend about relationships

Ok, so that letter last night didn't make any sense, and I bet you're even more confused now because you've just received another bunch of flowers. Why? The flowers you got last night and today look beautiful now. Those flowers while fresh bring a sweet fragrance that brings you joy. But in a few days from now without care and water they will shrivel up, wither, and die. So why would I get you such a fleeting, frail, seemingly useless gift? Well let me ask you a few questions. Does the knowledge of the eventual outcome(shriveling and withering) of your flowers make them any less beautiful? Does the eventual rot and decay make the flowers less fragrant or pleasant to receive?

(Some types of)Friendships are like flowers. They require nurturing and care. You have to pay attention to the health of your friendships. If you go to long without watering friendships they will shrivel up and wither away. You will only be gone for a short time, but some friendships you have now require intensive watering to maintained. Some flowers are more thirsty than others! I'm sure you know all of this already, but sometimes when we start to get busy and we don't see people for a while it's easy to forget to water our flowers.

Now flowers are great. They bring a little bit of color and spice to our lives. But most types of flowers have relatively short life spans. Through the seasons our plain of life will have many different types of flowers in our field. Some last longer than others. Their purpose is to bring beauty to our lives. Flowers color our fields and enrich our lives. But a flower will not sustain you. Flowers don't produce fruit. You won't find sustenance or shade from flowers. So what am I saying? I'm saying that you have some fruit trees in your field too. You may even have cacti in your field and other bits of shrubbery. (Proverbs 18:24, 22:24-25, 25:16)

You're going to be away for a good chunk of time and often, time brings perspective. You'll be able to more easily identify the weeds, thistles, and cacti that might be sucking your field dry. Rather than beautifying your field these types of friends/people are sucking the nutrients out of your life. These harmful plants aren't just making your field ugly and sucking your field dry, they are also harming the other plants in your field. These harmful plants stunt the growth of fruit trees and flowers. Sometimes the weeds and thistles grow up quickly and may seem good at the beginning(cause their green, they may cause hope and joy, but this gladness is fleeting) but in the end they reveal themselves to be ugly hoarders that choke the other plants in your field. This time that your going to be away will give you perspective to help you clean up your fields. Root out the harmful plants and spray that anti weed stuff that keeps harmful plants away for a year. (Proverbs 13:19-20, 20:6)

What am I talking about? The Word of God and prayer. Prayer is the spray, but its only potent when its combined with scripture. You know how they have all those cheap imitation brands with the same claims as the good pesticide spray? Well advice from friends, our rationalization, and even other Christian books are like that imitation stuff. At the beginning they look great, weeds are dying and they aren't coming back. But over time all those other things that we substitute for the authentic product perform the way they are supposed to...like a cheap knock off. The good spray may be a little bit more expensive but the effects are long lasting and do the job its supposed to do. The same with prayer and tempering prayer with intensive study of scripture. It takes awhile, it's more costly, but its worth every minute that you spend on it because it works. (Isaiah 55:11, Proverbs 3:32, Romans 5:10)

So what's the point of all this? Just to encourage you. Encourage you to find then nourish the fruit trees in your life. They don't look like much at the beginning. They aren't nearly as colorful or fragrant as flowers. They won't grow anywhere near as fast as the other plants in your life and they require long-term intensive work. But these relationships will be refreshment to you in times of need. They will provide fruitful sustenance in times of famine, sweetness to your lips and brightness to your eyes. During the heat of day they provide shade. In the midst of trial the fruit trees are shelters in the storm. You can set up a hammock between the boughs of fruit trees and just rest . (Proverbs 17:17, 26:7, John 15:13)

While your away clean up your fields. Continue to water the flowers you have, but if some of the flowers have withered when you return don't fret about it. They accomplished the task they were purposed for in a season of your life. There will be other flowers that sprout up in your life. But what you pay attention to are the saplings of fruit trees in your field. Nurture them and protect them. You might already have fruit trees in your field. Those trees require care too. Some times a little pruning is required for new growth. Encourage your friends to grow. And now you must really be wondering, “I'm doing all these things for other people but how the heck I'm a supposed to do all of this if I'm not getting anything?”

Well first off, stay rooted in the Word of God. You to are a tree. You need to keep drawing sustenance from the water of His Word. Make sure that you are in the right soil. Be surrounded with like-minded believers that surround and protect you from encroaching weeds and thistles. Identify the streams of living water that make you prosperous. Recognize the people God has placed in your life that are older, they are fountains of life and will help you grow. If your feeling a little parched, it might be that you need to seek out springs of life. Send your roots out and deep to tap into the waters of life from older Christians that don't just encourage you, but challenge you. You need to be challenged to grow and not become stagnant. You want to produce fruit! How do you become challenged? By welcoming the opportunities God gives you to step out in faith. Welcome the opportunities God gives you to place your trust in Him. Step out in faith and He will reward you all the more. This is how you produce fruit. (Mark 11:12-26, Galatians 5:13-26)

The Greatest Hero that Ever Lived is the Reason for the Season

So, I am on mission and i was sitting in my truck waiting to leave and I was thumbing through some letters that I got in this care package. Right before we left the Chaplain left some Christmas care packages with a bunch of different goodies and a huge stack of cards. Most of the time people don't really take the time to read the letters. Its really easy to just chuck the cards and pilliage the packages for stuff you like or things you need. Most of the time the cards are just very generic cards with short unpersonalized messages, which is still great cause its the thought that counts!

But as I was reading through the letters I kept on encountering phrases like, "Thank you Servicemember for serving our country and making sacrifices. You are a Hero...

Reading that over and over again leter upon letter, it started me thinking about what sacrifices I'm supposed to be making while deployed overseas. Then I think wow, I really haven't given up much. If the definition of a Hero is selfless sacrifice in the service of others with no benefit to self then you know technically no servicemember would qualify cause we do get paid to come over here and in taking the fight to "terror" we are just making our lives at home more safe. If I had to think of someone that fully and totally embodied this idea of hero, it would be Jesus Christ!

Think about it you have an eternal omnipotent being that decided to give up everything to die for people that hate him. Jesus a being so vast and whose very existence is unfathomable by human comprehension. Whose dwelling is a place of such opulence that can not ever be paralled by anything in this universe. Thrones of gold, seas of gems, if we were to ever look upon the throne of God we would have to turn away because we could not stand the radiance. This guy Jesus he's like the king of kings a mega prince. He decided to leave his position and comfort of "home" and decided to come to earth. That's like Bill Gates deciding to leave his mansion and live in a cardboard box next to a grease dumpster. He took on a position where he had no power at all. Can you imagine the creator of the universe going from omnipotence where he controls the life and death of stars, the formation of planets to a manger inside of a musty manure filled cave in a hill billy town called Bethlehem?

Jesus subjected himself to the authority of human parents, the Jewish education system of the time and puberty! That's like Jennifer Garner saying," hey I want to trade the life that I have right now to go back to Junior High when I was a four eyed pimply faced band geek outcast!"

Not only did Jesus knowingly decide to put himself through all this, he came to earth knowing how his life would end. Not just that it would end, but that it must end violently! He came to earth knowing he had to die a painful death to bring freedom to humankind. And he also knew that people would reject him. He knew that people wouldn't know why he came to earth that they wouldn't care that he came to give his life so that people might live life more abundantly. Jesus Christ went from the glory "glory" dreams about having to rags.

If I had to name the greatest hero of all time it would be the one that gave up the most, and that person would be Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gave everything so that everyone might have life!

Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. Jesus Christ is the hero whom we celebrate this Christmas. CHRISTmas is the commemoration of Jesus' sacrifice, his life and grace which he gives to all as a gift.

So Merry Christmas to you all and celebrate this Christmas by following suit celebrating the actions of the worlds greatest hero and honoring His sacrifice.