Families of Christmas - The Family that Turns to Each Other

A personal, pre-Christmas devotional video you might enjoy today!



Blessings and prayers,

Julie



© 2015, Joy Media Productions. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com

In Oblivion

But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. 

Micah 5:2 NASB

I’m fascinated (and sometimes perplexed) by what goes viral on social media. Maybe it’s a cute baby (or puppy) doing something darling. Other times it’s something troubling done by someone who should know better. Seldom, though, is it an everyday, daily task common to womankind.

Getting up before dawn to trudge out in the snow so we can make the commuter train and get to work on time. Tossing a load of clothes into the washer or running the vacuum when everything in our body screams to be on the couch snoozing. Preparing a meal for our family when we’d like—just this once—to be served instead of serving. Unless something remarkable happens during these daily comings and goings, not one person takes notice of our sacrifices in these monotonous events.

Laboring in oblivion is where most of us spend our days. Keeping a roof over the heads of our loved ones; being sure they’re fed and clothed and well-stocked in necessities. That’s where our energy tanks get drained to the dregs.

I see that kind of dailyness when I read Micah’s now-famous prophecy about Bethlehem. It’s a snapshot of tens of thousands of daily days.

But you Bethlehem …

An insignificant place, a community of dozens (maybe hundreds) of families keeping flocks fed, baking small cakes of bread in stone ovens, sweeping dust from rocky floors in dark cave-like dwellings, trying to eek a living out of sandy ground.

Too small to be noticed. Too inconsequential to warrant a second glace from outsiders.

But you Bethlehem …

Even so, for centuries this unassuming place sheltered the remnants of David’s kingly line. For it was to this tiny place that a young man with that royal birthright (see Matthew 1’s genealogy) and his pregnant bride would be called to return – to his family home for generations. And so would begin a sequence of events that would rock the planet from that generation through ours and beyond.

But you Bethlehem … you will shelter the King of kings.

This striking turn of events makes me wonder what eternal significance is taking place in the inconsequential events of our dailyest days? What person are we impacting for the kingdom of God—simply by a touch on a shoulder, an understanding smile, or a word of comfort? What post on our social media account will encourage a distant friend to keep pressing on for one more day?

But you Bethlehem … but you [fill in your name here] …

Though your day be small and insignificant … though you toil in oblivion … though your life seems spent in a million meaningless tasks. Even so, be assured that God sees you and has reserved something remarkable for you. It just may be hiding in a very small package in the Judean countryside of your life.

Blessings and prayers,
Julie

 © 2015, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com

Together

freeimages.com darinkita http://www.freeimages.com/photo/hug-1430510

That I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. (Romans 1:12 NASB) 

Ya gotta love social media. Any time of day or night you can find a friend ready to chat. And there’s always someone clicking “like” or adding an emoji to your latest whim post—for example, a selfie of you chowing down on a midnight snack raided from the fridge. It’s good fun, often downright hilarious.

We call this connecting, and really it is that. I’ve reconnected with college friends, stayed in touch with colleagues writing in far-flung locales, even “met” new friends who share love for books, music, or ministries I value.

I think the consummate letter writer, the apostle Paul, would’ve loved social media—probably for its immediacy, if not its substantive content.

“Hashtag: #PrayerNeed – being dragged before Caesar; pray now.”

“Hashtag: #HouseArrest – could use a cloak; deliver to prison cell.”

“Hashtag: #ReadingList – new scrolls needed; have read everything here.”

Letters (albeit slightly longer than the Twitter character limit) were his way of staying connected through his travels, incarcerations, trials, and tribulations. But, apparently, corresponding wasn’t as satisfying to Paul as face to face contact. So, many times in his letters, he’d write statements like, “I long to come to you,” “I hope to be with you,” “Come, if you can, before winter,” “If the Lord wills, I will see you soon.”

There’s something about a hug, a handshake, a meeting of the eyes in person. According to his letter to the Romans, being together with beloved believers was encouraging—for him and for them. Why? He gave us a clear answer in Romans 1:12: a special measure of faith is transferred only by person-to-person, immediate contact. His faith drew strength from seeing their faith in action—up close. The arrangement was reciprocal—their faith drew strength from seeing his faith in action.

We need each other—yes, in a cyber-world brand of connection, but in one-on-one connection, as well. We need the human sensory contact of touch, to supplement sight and sound. Nothing uplifts us like a friend’s embrace. On a spiritual plane, too, my faith needs yours to grow; and your faith needs mine. I guess God was on point when He observed early in the human story—it’s not good for man (or, we might add, woman) to be alone. Without human contact in the real world, it would indeed be a lonely planet.

Blessings and prayers, 
Julie 

 © 2015, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com

Now I Lay Me Down … to Stare at the Ceiling

Treasured Friend, 

If you care to listen, I am prepared to recite, by memory, the complete TV listing for midnight through five a.m. – weekday and weekend, satellite and over-the-air, network and local. I know which (few) channels are safe to leave yammering in the background in the unlikely event that I drift off for a few moments of sweet slumber. I also can posit with a fair degree of accuracy the percentage by which the number of commercials for sleep aids, space-age mattresses, and CPAP equipment multiplies exponentially during that time slot. Those and cancer-center ads.

Ask me how I know. Ask me how I know you know.

You tell me if it’s our age, our stage of life, or our frenetic place in history that makes insomnia epidemic to our generation.

I succumbed while my dad was in the cancer ward. Late-night updates from his nurses or calls from him begging us to come, quick, to intercede with the medical team became routine during those months. Sleep patterns changed—and I learned that now, as when I was a co-ed, I can survive long-term on mere snatches of stolen shut-eye.

Mom succumbed when we brought Dad home between bouts—and she rose several times a night to check on him. What she didn’t know was that I’d rise several times a night to check on her, checking on Dad.

Even since Dad transferred on up to heaven, Mom and I have continued to keep the night watch. Sometimes together. More often each alone with her own troubling thoughts.

Recently, I began wondering whether any old-time Bible folks ever battled this malady. After a search of Bible passages, I’m here to tell you that they did. It seems the torture techniques of our mortal enemy haven’t changed over the millennia. Since we have to find a way to cope, I’d bet we could learn a fair bit from how those folks handled the terrors of the interminable hours between sunset and dawn.

Both Job and the Psalmists chronicled many instances of lying awake on their beds. Worse, yet, King David got himself (and Bathsheba and a slew of supporting players) into heaps of trouble because of his sleeplessness.

By contrast, Jesus had no trouble snatching forty winks in the stern of a boat that was rockin’ and rollin’ in a dynamite storm. Because Jesus trusted His Father’s loving care, He slept peacefully in the middle of the chaos. The disciples, not so much. When they woke Him, Jesus cut to the heart of their panic and ours: “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40, NASB). He nailed ’em. And He nailed me. You too?

I suppose the reason those hours drag on for us is our fears loom larger in the dark, at the exact moment when deprivation of light makes our faith shrivel. Joseph Bayly, grieving the loss of three sons, wrote this challenge: “Don’t forget in the darkness what you learned in the light.” What is it that we’re supposed to have learned in the light? The Psalmist, after begging God to listen to his panicked prayer, gives us a faith-building answer:

But know that the LORD has set apart the godly man for Himself;

The LORD hears when I call to Him.

Tremble, and do not sin;

Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. …

In peace I will both lie down and sleep,

For You alone, O LORD, make me to dwell in safety (Psalm 4:3-4, 8 NASB).

To paraphrase, here’s what he called to mind to calm his worried, wide-awake mind:

God knows me.

God listens to me.

My safety (and that of my loved ones) isn’t in my hands. It’s in the hands of the God Who knows me, loves me, and hears my prayer.

So, then, I can lie still on my bed. I can even dare to sleep.

It seems simplistic—unless you’ve learned in the light of many years that God can be trusted. The loving God of the Old and New Testaments always was faithful to His people—and He never changes.

I don’t know whether this will help us actually sleep, but it can keep us from flailing through the post-midnight hours, fearing the lurking shadows.

I’m willing to give it a try. Let me know if you going to try it too.

Blessings and prayers, Julie

© 2015, Julie-Allyson Ieron. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, email: orders@joymediaservices.com