The past few years have been so unpredictable that I’ve had reservations about making any kind of new year resolutions at all. Could it be that I was just making the wrong kinds of resolutions? In any event, I think it’s time to try again.

The Good Lord willin’ and the crik don’t rise, in 2009 I will:

• Read through the entire Bible. The last time I read it cover to cover in one year was in 1999. It’s beyond time to do it again.
• Get my church’s website up and running.
• Run at least one 10k race.
• Complete at least one of the personal software projects I’m working on.
• Backpack the Grand Canyon.

What are your resolutions this year?

While celebrating the birth of my savior is certainly a good thing, the term “Christmas” isn’t inherently biblical. It’s a man-made celebration of a heavenly event, and as such, if the celebration has become meaningless, maybe it’s time to move on. Seriously, how many different times have you heard someone – usually a voice-over artist in a commercial – tell you the “true” meaning of Christmas this year? How many of them have actually gotten it right?

Personally, I feel that this battle has been lost on a cultural level. The work “Christmas” has no real meaning to the majority of Americans today. So what’s the value of constantly fighting to keep it from being censored?

Is it possible that it’s time for a new angle?

My pastor always gives a little introductory thought at the beginning of our church services, before we sing and he transitions into his actual topic of the day. And it was with these thoughts about the Christmas battle already in my mind that I listened in amusement (due to my pastor’s West Virginian style) to him expressing many of the same sentiments in one of his introductions. But he had a solution.

There is an other term used by some Christians to describe the arrival of Christ. In some contries, it is actually still in wide use. It is the word “advent.” It means “The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.”

What is more important than the arrival of our Savior on Earth? My pastor’s suggestion was that we stop using the phrase “merry Christmas” and instead say “blessed Advent!” It’s a wonderful idea, because it both avoids the controversy surrounding the word “Christmas,” and it also gets people’s attention. And, as my pastor put it, once you have their attention and ask what you mean by the phrase, you can hand them the book The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. It’s a perfect one-two punch. :)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say that using the word “Christmas” – or doing what we can to bring Christ back into it – is wrong or completely useless. But when we step back and look at what has been made by God and what has been made by man, it might create a subtle but effective shift in our perspective. We just might find better ways of glorifying God and proclaiming His son’s redeeming work on Earth. And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas… err… the Advent. :)

Have a blessed Advent celebration, everyone!

It is now approaching a quarter of a millennium since our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, which is a long time in human years, but not so long in celestial ones. In the year 1006 A.D. a supernova was observed on earth, the remnants of which are shown in detail in this photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, featured as NASA’s picture of the day. At the time it was the second brightest object in the night sky after the moon, and is estimated that the resulting shock wave has traveled at up to 20 million miles an hour over the last 1000 years.

Via LGF

Thousand Island Lake and Banner Peak

This trip has been incredible in so many ways. God has been teaching me more than I ever expected to learn here, and being in such an awesome setting makes it all the more exciting.