When the message you give is for you.

I was blessed to bring a message on Sunday to a little country church near my home. Something in John 5 had really convicted me about Christmas and what we, as Christians are looking forward to. Sometimes, I think this time of year, we're looking forward to looking back. We demonstrate that in a lot of ways by the traditions we keep, and I wondered if maybe we keep them too tightly. I had finished up the sermon on Saturday night and I was feeling pretty good about life. My Utes still had a chance at the PAC12 championship game (they're in!) and I felt good about the message. I was deliviering a pot of soup to some sick friends and was driving down the Cape Arago Highway here when I got convicted about traditions: What about candy canes, Dale? Ouch! I have this "thing" about candy canes. Red and white ones are not good enough. I need red, white, and green Kencraft candy canes (before them, they were called Ike's candy canes). But they don't make them anymore. They had once been plentiful but for the early part of the 2010s they got harder and harder to find, and I'd pay a lot for them from specialty stores or drive 40 miles to the factory (one way) to buy them. Because they were tradtion. MY tradition. Last year, I found red, white, and green candy canes and bought them but they were not the same. And it bugged me. So much so that every year since the factory went out of business, I keep googling them in the hopes that they'll be resurrected. Including this year. You could add to this the efforts to fix the small parts on my train they don't make anymore, a live Christmas tree, and the list goes on and on. So I'm letting go of traditions. And not just candy canes. My son put up a fake tree for us this year. The train is good enough for me. A new cookie gets added to cookie boxes and new candy flavors too. We will do some things the same. Some will be different, and a lot of stuff will not be as usual. I think the idea is that my focus was more on the that, than it was on the One who came down to save us. At our staff meeting this morning, I asked 3 pastors if they had ever been convicted by their own message. The lead pastor told me that if there's a thing in your life and it's part of your message, you get to live out your message during the week. I found out over the last few days just how much truth there was in what he said. Focus now is a bit higher than eye level, and I'm looking forward to not just remembering Christmas, but looking forward to something Jesus told us to do....being ready for Him to come back!