“Today we are going to draw a picture,” Timmy’s kindergarten teacher announced.

Good, Timmy thought. He liked to draw pictures. He could draw lions and tigers and trains and boats. He took out his crayons and began to draw.

But the teacher said, “Wait, it’s not time to begin.” She paused until everyone looked ready. “Now,” she said, “we are going to draw flowers.”

Good, Timmy thought. He began to draw beautiful flowers with his orange and pink and blue crayons.

But the teacher said, “Wait.” She drew a picture of a flower on the blackboard. It was red with a green stem. “There,” she said, “now you may begin.”

Timmy looked at his teacher’s flower. He liked his better, but he didn’t say anything. He just turned his paper over and made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red with a green stem.

A few days later the teacher said, “Today we are going to make something with clay.”

Good, Timmy thought. He could make all kinds of things with clay—snakes and snowmen and elephants and mice. He began to pinch and pull his ball of clay.

But the teacher said, “Wait, I’ll show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make a dish.

So Timmy rolled his clay into a ball, flattened it, and made a dish like the teacher’s.

Timmy learned to wait and watch and make things just like the teacher’s. And pretty soon he stopped making creations of his own.


Then one day Timmy’s family moved to another city, and Timmy started at a new school. On his first day, Timmy’s new teacher said, “Today we are going to draw a picture.”

Good, Timmy thought. And he waited for the teacher to tell him what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room. When she came to Timmy, she said, “Don’t you want to draw a picture?”

“Yes,” said Timmy. “What are we going to draw?”

“Well, I don’t know until you draw it,” the teacher said.

“How should I make it?” he asked.

“Why, any way you like.”

“And any color?”

“Any color,” the teacher said. “If everyone drew the same thing in the same color, how would I know who made what?”

“I don’t know,” said Timmy. And he began to draw a flower. It was red with a green stem.

When Timmy was very young, he was robbed of his creativity. His teacher told him that there was only one way to draw a flower or shape a lump of clay.

You may be more like Timmy than you realize. You have the potential to draw outside the lines, to be creative, to use your talents and gifts in a remarkable and unique way, but the world has told you that you can’t do it.

The world we live in conditions us at an early age to believe that we all have to look the same, act the same, and think the same. The world tells us that we must walk in lock-step with them, through the seasons, through whatever it is. And we often blindly follow along. So, when we(I mean society, not the church) ring in the new year, we have to be at a party, dancing, drinking and waiting for that magical moment when one year rolls into the next. Next comes the month of love, and you are supposed to give out cards and candies with printing on them and be especially sweet to your special love. Then later on, when it’s time to party at Carnival, society says, go ahead, be vulgar and crude. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you do it in the name of fun. And if you’re a bit inebriated and do some really wild things…well, that’s just part of it. After all, this is your last chance before Lent and you have to be all spiritual for awhile.

Then there’s Easter, and we all pause to remember Christ rising from the tomb and we dare to imagine if God’s grace might cover us for all the stupid things we did at Carnival. But once that slips behind us, there’s a call to be a little wild at Spring break, and who are we to argue? Then it’s be nice to mom day. So we run buy cards and chocolate and some nice gift. When those hot summer days come, the world says, especially to the young…stay out late and explore. Do what you want, because after all, it’s summer. And many even in the church, follow that call. And in the middle of that, we stop and have a be nice to dad day. When society says that it is time to be patriotic, then we stand at attention and chant the pledge of allegiance and watch fireworks. Next we go back to school with little to look forward to except remembering those who work and remembering those who died in battle. When the season calls for halloween, society says buy candy and dress up, and do a few devilish tricks or be downright rotten and show a little of your dark side. And then, a few weeks later, when the calendar says be thankful, we gather and kill the fatted turkey, and talk about how thankful we are for all of God’s bounties…or at least for our own hard work that put all of the money in the bank and the food on the table.

And finally, we come to the Christmas season, and the norm is to act a little nicer, be a little more generous, let a few more things go that ordinarily we would nail people for, and of course, buy, buy, buy, so that our loved ones and significant people on our list will know that we love them, or at least would consider it a major faux pax if we were to not get them something. And then we start the cycle over again. And the scary thing is, the church is not far behind the rest of society in these things. What am I saying, that we shouldn’t celebrate holidays? Not at all. But we must recognize that we, like Timmy, have been programmed by society. And often, we go through the holidays and do everything the world does and never stop to think that we have been called to more. And when Jesus calls us to be different, we find it difficult, if not impossible, to respond to his call.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). If we are going to live the miracle of Christmas all year, that is, live in the joy of Jesus all year, we have got to allow Jesus control of our lives and break out of the mold the world is trying to squeeze us into.

History Shaped in a Cradle

The year was 1809. The international scene was tumultuous. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria; blood was flowing freely. Nobody then cared about babies. But the world was overlooking some terribly significant births.

For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He was destined to become one of England’s finest statesman. That same year, Alfred Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. The child would one day greatly affect the literary world in a marked manner.

On the American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And not far away in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe began his eventful, albeit tragic, life. It was also in that same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert. And that same year produced the cries of a newborn infant in a rugged log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. The baby’s name? Abraham Lincoln.

If there had been news broadcasts at that time, I’m certain these words would have been heard: “The destiny of the world is being shaped on an Austrian battlefield today.” But history was actually being shaped in the cradles of England and America. Similarly, everyone thought taxation was the big news—when Jesus was born. But a young Jewish woman cradled the biggest news of all: the birth of the Saviour.

Isn’t it amazing that we have gotten so good at determining what is important and what is insignificant? We are masters of deciding, in a split second, what really matters. And isn’t it equally amazing that oftentimes we are dead wrong in our assessment?

We ascribe worth to the worthless and demean things that are truly of value. We value cash in our pockets more than the homeless man on the street all the while saying that we believe in the sanctity of human life. We devalue what we don't like or don't understand and we place a higher value on what we wish we had.

If the Baby in the manger teaches us anything it is to assess our own value systems. He left the wealth of heaven to come to a sinful, fallen world. He valued YOU and me more than life itself. Now that's some value!!

The Quiet

Quiet reigns on campus this morning as Christmas break officially started yesterday. Soft Christmas Carols are playing in my office as I sit and wonder just where this year has gone.

It has gone unbelievably fast and will soon be only a memory with its events recorded in our personal history books. And yet, we find ourselves here again. Christmas. All the lights, the commercialism, the clogged parking lots, the TV commercials calling us to buy, buy, buy. And with relatives coming, or with us traveling to see others, we long for it to be a Hallmark Christmas and hope that our family can stay away from any hot button topics. And all of that simply adds stress to the season. And as if that weren't enough, we still have 4 more gifts to buy and a few more holiday parties to attend.

We have certainly learned how to celebrate haven't we? We take a good thing and add others expectations along with our own expectations, and pile them high and deep...and then collapse under the weight of them.

But perhaps this year, maybe just for a short while, we should ponder that it just might be possible that the Christmas season should actually be more about the Quiet. Perhaps we should say, "Be still my soul and ponder the richness of life." Ponder the things that have happened this year that have brought joy, or perhaps the things that have brought pain, yet pain that was beneficial for your own growth.


Perhaps you and I should make it a point to rediscover the Quiet. Take a few moments to sit quietly outside on a clear night and just drink in the view of the stars. Or get up early and make a cup of your favorite hot beverage and sit staring out the window and just be quiet. And ponder. And along with all of your other ponderings, ponder this: There is a God who loves you beyond words. He loved you so much that He chose to come in the form of a Baby. To the quiet of a barn stall. With animals as the only observers.

It is almost unimaginable. Almost. But try. In the Quiet.

Merry Christmas everyone!