Epiphany 2024, part 2

Most years I start with my youngest and work my way up through her big brother and finally to my wife. This year I decided to reverse that and start with my wife and work my way backward. Her gift and word were a little heavy, and I didn't want to end on that note!

This year I also get some help from a friend and got some cards printed up. Each card has as a background an image I found of The Magi, then printed over that, their name, their "word", and a related Scripture. I'm no graphic designer, but I'm really happy with how they came out! I think I'm going to keep doing it in future years!

This year my wife has been in a battle with breast cancer. At the stage we caught it, it is a winnable fight, and we're in a good place now, but the treatments are no fun. They are time-consuming, and uncomfortable to the point of sometimes being painful. She had a surgery which left her flat on her back on the couch for several weeks, doctor's orders not to move unless she absolutely had to. Her word was "Second Chance". I reminded her that if we hadn't gotten treatment from some amazing doctors and medical technicians using tools that didn't even exist 5, 10, 15 years ago, she would be dead right now. I told her to consider this her reset button. This is the "turn it off and back on again" reboot. This is her video game "extra life". Now is her chance to do things she never did before, because "before" is over with and "second chance" is now. The gift I gave her was a beautiful pewter "ticket" like you see in the picture (it's actually a photo of two of them so you can see the front and the back) by an Etsy artist named Cynthia Webb. I left a message with my order telling her that this was for a gift and I was hoping the USPS would be quick about it, and in the package she included a sweet reply telling me she hoped it made it on time! (It did!) Click on the picture and take a look at her work! It's pretty fantastic stuff!

The Scripture I included for my wife is from Psalm 40:1-3 (I had to leave out part of it to fit it on the card, but the missing part applies too): “I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry... He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD.”

By the way... my daughter protested " 'Second Chance' is two words!" Of course it is, but a "word" can also mean more than one word. "I will take care of this problem, you have my word" - "I'm angry with that guy, I'm going to have a word with him!" ...or how about this one: we call the Bible the "Word of God". The sense I'm using it in, though, is in the "word of prophecy" sense. I do not have the ministry of a prophet of God, but I believe that as the father I have a similar ministry to my own family. So that's why I use the word "word" even when it's multiple words.

My son spent the last part of this year working at a pretty great job he got in order to pay off some school bills and get back on track for college. The word I had for him was "Focus". I wanted him to remember that even though he had a pretty decent job that he's working at right now, his college is to prep him for something even more amazing to come later! I actually gave him two Scriptures, Proverbs 16:9 and Hebrews 12:1-2: “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” and “Let us strip off every weight that slows us down... and let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” I gave him the cool nautical-style telescope at left (it's mostly for show and not as much to use, although it does actually work). The inscription on the telescope says “Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams/Live the Life You Have Imagined.” I told him not to ignore the people God puts right next to him in this season, but also do not lose sight on the longer-term vision for his future.

Things were a little different for my daughter. For my wife and my son, the "word" almost felt obvious. For my daughter, it took a little more prayer this year. As a dad it would be easy enough to just make up something, but I deeply feel that it is important that whatever I give and say to them for Epiphany every year is inspired by God for that year. Finally something dropped into my heart for her: "Friends". Honestly, I don't even know exactly what that means to her, but I told her that what I felt in my heart was that she seems to have an easy time at making friends - people at school seem to know who she is and think favorably about her. Maybe there are kids who don't like her, but so far I haven't met anyone who seems to be uncomfortable talking to me, like a teenager is when they have to talk to the dad of someone they don't care for. I told her that I think she needs to not be apprehensive about making friends with people. Open up and be a friend when someone needs a friend. I gave her John 15:12-13: “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I don't think, though, that the application of that Scripture ends with literally giving up your life for someone, as in getting hit by a train while you're pushing someone else off the tracks. I think that "laying down your life for your friends" might mean just laying down your cell phone when someone needs to talk, or laying down a book you're enjoying to enjoy the human being right next to you. When she was opening up the twin necklaces you see above, I made sure she understood that I wasn't trying to call her names - I just knew that she would think it was hilarious (she did). I told her she was welcome to keep both necklaces if she wanted to, but I was hoping she would actually give one of them to a friend!

I hope reading this has inspired you to do something like this for your own family. You don't have to be the dad... you can be the mom, or a grandparent, or you can even be a brother or sister and seek the Lord for a word for someone. You might just be a friend, and the Holy Spirit might inspire you to share with someone. A small gift, a physical object, can hold meaning in the way that just words might not... it's why prophets in the Old Testament (and even the New Testament) used physical objects to communicate a message. It's also why we send greeting cards at Christmas and birthdays, and why we give flowers and candy on Valentine's Day. I always try to link to the things I pick out in case you want to share them as well, but please, her from the Lord on your own! The word He gives you is the Word that is needed by exactly that person at exactly that moment!

Epiphany 2024, part 1

Something felt special about our Epiphany celebration this year. I felt like God was giving me something extra special to share with my family, and I was actually pretty excited about it!

I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, but typically I'll briefly share something with them from the Word that has to do with the Christmas season. This year I had been thinking about sheep. It turns out there are a lot of stories about the Christmas sheep - that the shepherds were special sacrificial sheep shepherds, that they actually would swaddle the baby sheep and put them in mangers to keep them spotless at birth, that the place where Mary and Joseph and Jesus were was the place where the sacrificial sheep were born, that sort of stuff. It's pretty fascinating, and it turns out that most of it is fictional with no credible evidence, Biblical or historical, to back it up. There is nothing significant that we know about the shepherds other than that they were shepherds - guys with jobs, maybe families, just regular Joes.

There is also little or no evidence for another thing I've heard - that shepherds were some kind of reviled lower class. King David was a shepherd, which would likely have elevated the profession already, and Jesus had no problem calling Himself a "good shepherd" - which, if there were negative connotations to the profession, would have changed the whole spin of that declaration.

But isn't it interesting that Jesus saw the people, who were being led poorly by the religious establishment, as "sheep without a shepherd", and extending the metaphor of the people as sheep and the leaders as shepherds, He called Himself "the good shepherd". Which sounds pretty pastoral to us, but keep in mind that for the very best of the actual sheep in that culture, being the best was essentially a death sentence! The spotless and perfect of sheep were to be sacrificed.

The crazy amazing thing is that the "good shepherd" in this case loved the sheep, but He did not halt the sacrifices. Instead, he became a sheep, and allowed Himself to be sacrificed instead! The "Lamb of God" was given up for us, took away our sins, and freed us from the sentence of death. What a plot twist!

Well, I was going to tell you all about the gifts I gave the family this year, but this post is already long enough. Stay tuned for part 2!

Five Golden Rings!

Happy Fifth Day of Christmas! And when it's the fifth day of Christmas, you know what that means... only one week until Epiphany! Take a look at my first post about it to see why it's a big deal for me. If you want to join in the fun, you've got seven shopping days left!

Epiphany 2023

Wow, time flies! January 6th was over a week ago... we had our little traditional home-grown Epiphany celebration, and I haven't talked about what my family received. I try to talk about this every year, not because I want to have something to talk about, but because I hope to inspire others to do something similar for their families. I've seen it become very meaningful to my wife and kids.

This year I gave my daughter a mustard seed coin similar to the one on the right. She is in 9th grade this year, just starting high school, and she is also a pretty fantastic musician, able to play several instruments at performance level and noodle around on several more. I felt like she needed to know not only that faith in God is a seed that can cause great things to grow, but that the seed of practice and hard work that you put into school assignments and practicing music can grow into something amazing as well! It's difficult to see in the picture, but there is an actual mustard seed in the middle of the coin. The one I gave her is I believe something like an inch in diameter, and it came with a card something like this one. (It may actually be the same one, but I didn't get it from Amazon.)

I did, however, give my son something I found on Amazon! This spring, after a short break, he's getting back into college to finish up a degree in biological sciences. I got him this keychain to remind him that he has great things in his future, and his family is always behind him as he works toward his goals. You can see the keychain has several charms that are science related. Interestingly, one of my wife's nephews gave him a gift of a keychain several days later - this keychain is music-themed (it may be this one). My son is also a terrific musician, a trumpet player and he is also teaching himself to play electric bass. I told him it seems like God is telling him that there are two sides to his personality, the scientific and the artistic, and he needs to nourish both of them to grow into the person God has made and called him to be!

I'm a big book guy. If you ever need to give me a gift, a book is a pretty good bet (in fact, my wife got me this book by Bono of U2 for Christmas, and I've been loving reading it!) She, on the other hand, is not much of a book reader. Fortunately, the book I gave her is not a book to read... it's a book to write! Last year she started writing a memoir, telling stories of her life that she has told over and over to friends. When she told me she was doing that, immediately I knew she needed to do it and finish it. It's in her mental DNA to talk about her past, and when she told me she was writing a biography I knew that anointing was for that purpose. You know, when God has a nail that needs striking, He makes a hammer - I believe the thing you gravitate to naturally (outside of sin, of course!) is the thing you do well because it's the purpose God created you for. She worked pretty hard on it for a while, but then she lost her way a little bit. This book has page after blank, lined page, and at the top of every page is a question to answer about your life. It's the perfect inspiration to get juices flowing to write! I'm hoping she'll use it to get back on track and create a book that will be meaningful and help people!

If you're inspired and you read this in the middle of January when I'm writing it, or in the middle of July or any other time that's nowhere near Epiphany, you have two choices. You can wait for Three Kings Day to roll back around and start a new tradition for your loved ones. OR: you can start your tradition right now! Ask God for ideas of things to give to people that will "stir them up to good works" as it says in Hebrews 10:24. Do it now! Why wait? Then mark your calendar, and do it again next January 6^th! Join me in a new take on an old traditional holiday!

It's the Eleventh!

Guess what today is? RIGHT, it's the eleventh day of Christmas! And you know what that means! NO, not that a bunch of pipers are going to show up on your doorstep piping away! That's just a song, silly!

BUT: the twelve days of Christmas are not just a song. In many church traditions, the Christmas season is indeed celebrated over a twelve day stretch starting on December 25th and ending on January 5th.

January 6th, then, is the real day after Christmas. In those church traditions, it is a holiday named "Epiphany" or "Three Kings Day". For those who have lost their scorecard: Bible scholars tell us that the "three kings" or the "magi" that came to give their gifts to Jesus almost certainly did not arrive when Jesus was a newborn lying in a manger. In fact, Jesus was likely a year or two old by the time they made it there. The most clear evidence of this is that in the Gospel of Matthew, King Herod (who wanted to eliminate the competition of a new king) questioned the magi about when they had seen the sign of the birth of the Messiah, and then he tried to kill Jesus by killing every baby under the age of two years.

Anyway, in recognition of the fact that the three kings (there were almost certainly a lot more than three of them, too, but that's a different blog post!) showed up some time after Jesus' birth, Three Kings Day comes some time after Christmas Day.

There is a lot of significance to the appearance of the magi for those of us who are not Jewish by birth. They are the first Gentiles recorded to have recognized Jesus as the Messiah. They brought Him gifts that not only financed His family's flight to Egypt (fulfilling prophecy in the process) but recognized that His death one day would be significant (frankincense was used during embalming).

Regular readers will know that years ago, I had the idea to adopt Epiphany as a special tradition in my little family, and I invite you to do the same. As a Christian father, I believe that I have a special responsibility as a priest in my household. My tradition is to spend some time in prayer and ask God to give me ideas for special small gifts for each family member that will have a prophetic significance to them. The gift should be something that will carry them through the upcoming year, hopefully help each of them grow in their faith and grow personally into the kind of person God has made them to one day be.

So, what are you doing still reading this? It's two days until Epiphany! There's still time to join my family in our annual tradition of seeking God for the next year! If you want some inspiration, take a look at the kinds of gifts I've given in past years, and then seek God for what to do for the people God has placed in your life!

Epiphany 2019

A few years ago I instituted a new tradition for my family every year on Epiphany. If your church tradition does not celebrate Epiphany (mine doesn't), the nutshell version is that January 6th is 13 days after Christmas, and some churches take it as a day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men in Bethlehem. Want to know more? Check back to my original post about it, and you can read about how we've celebrated it every year since (except last year, when I forgot to blog about it) in this series of posts.

2018 was an interesting year for me - the launch of The Word Go Project brought to fruition years of preparation of my heart and my skills as a writer and musician. God's been teaching me a lot (I'll be blogging here about the experience in the next few weeks), and there's still a lot to process. Who would have thought an 80s kid would still be "growing up" in 2018? It just shows that there's always work to be done in each of us!

My family has been growing up, too. My son graduated high school and entered college, and my daughter is approaching junior high faster than I expected! As I see them grow and mature, I want to see their faith grow. Every year I try to find gifts that will meet my kids and my wife where they live, and become part of their lives. I hope I've managed the same this year!

Until he grew out of it, I used to read to my son every night before bed. I still do the same for my daughter, who is 11 and kind of on the edge of that (although she's a softie and probably will still want me to read her bedtime stories when she's 21!) so when I saw that Kara Dekker had collaborated with her father Ted on a children's series set in the same reality as her dad's "Circle" books and their offshoots, all of which I love, I knew I had to order it for my daughter. They are called The Dream Traveler's Quest, and you can find out all about them on Ted Dekker's web site. They are cheaper on TedDekker.com, but they are now available at Amazon.com as well.

My son is a fantastic trumpet player who loves music theory, and because he is a musician and also a fan of history, I wanted to share with him a book I got when I was in college, The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers. The edition I am giving him is expanded from the version I had in college, with more composers covered. I also replaced my copy, which had been damaged in some water a while back, and as I read back through it myself, I was also inspired. I think he will love it!

My wife isn't really a big book reader, but this year I felt like I needed to give her something with substance to dig into. What has more substance than Beth Moore, and what is easier to read than a short devotional for every day of the year? The book I selected is Believing God Day by Day. I hope she keeps it by her bedside (or somewhere handy) and spends a few short minutes with it every day this year. I think it will really help her!

I'm expecting amazing, fantastic things out of this year. I expect more music, more devotional podcasts, and maybe even the occasional blog post here, for old time's sake! And I hope these small gifts plant seeds in the hearts of my family that will grow into amazing trees of righteousness in their lives that will help them remain strong in God for years to come!

Epiphany 2016

You know, year after year God has used Epiphany to effect our family in any number of ways. This year, as you will see, the Holy Spirit is clearly trying to tell my wife and me something! Read on for the details.

First off: if you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to review some of my past Epiphany posts. The short version of the story is that for the past five years, every year in my family we have a special tradition on January 6th where my wife and I, as the leadership in our home, give one gift to each family member which we hope will lead each of us to a closer walk with the Lord in the coming year.

In addition to that, every year I try to come up with something interesting to share with my family about the Wise Men, or the history of the church holiday, or whatever. Something relevant and edifying. Well, this year I realized that in my Logos Bible software installation I have access to lectionaries from several denominations, and those lectionaries contain Bible readings specifically chosen for use on any day of the year, especially holidays like Epiphany. I went through all of them to see what they have, and as it turns out, most of them had selected more or less the same Scriptures. And they were awesome.

For those from church traditions (like the one I come from) that don't use this kind of prescribed Scripture readings, generally there will be an "Old Testament" reading, a "Psalms" reading, a "Gospels" reading, and an "Epistles" reading for each date. The ones almost unanimously chosen for this date are:

Old Testament: Isaiah 60:1-6  which is a remarkably vivid prophetic description of a bright light rising and appearing over Israel and people (including kings) bringing caravans of camels laden with gold and frankincense.

Psalms: Psalm 72 in which David (who calls himself "the king" in his psalms) prophetically describes visitors from distant lands bringing gifts to one of his descendants (remember, Jesus was known as the "son of David").

Gospels: Matthew 2:1-12 which is of course the Gospel account of the coming of the Wise Men to see Jesus.

Epistles: Ephesians 3:1-12 The significance of the arrival of the Wise Men is that they were the first who recognized that Jesus was given not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles also (they were not Jewish). In this passage Paul explains that God has called him to share the message of Christ's salvation with the Gentiles as well.

I actually copied all of these passages into a Word document to print out and read to the family - if you'd like to see it or use it, I've shared it here. As in the links above, I used the New Living Translation, specifically because my daughter is still young and I didn't want to confuse or bore her with long Bible passages she couldn't understand.

So after we read through those passages and talked briefly about their significance, we moved on to the presents!

I Can Do All Things 20oz. Sports Bottle

At my daughter's school, they make a point to have all the kids bring water bottles, on the theory that well-hydrated kids make better learners. This year my wife and I spotted a cute sports bottle covered with flowers that has printed on it "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Philippians 4:13". I explained to my daughter that sometimes there are hard things that people ask you to do - like a tough assignment in math class. God can strengthen you to complete that task. Then sometimes there are things that the Holy Spirit speaks into your heart - like showing love to someone who hasn't been nice to you. God can strengthen you to do those hard things too. She took it to school with her the next day - she really loved the multicolored pinwheel of a flower right in the middle!

A Sherlock Holmes Devotional

My son was up next. This past year he expressed some interest in Sherlock Holmes, so when I saw a book called A Sherlock Holmes Devotional I was immediately interested! Basically, the book contains a synopsis of a Sherlock Holmes story, and then a kind of "personal application" kind of thing that goes along with it. When I handed it to him I explained that we chose it for two reasons: first, we thought he would enjoy using it. But second, we wanted him to remember that sometimes you have to search out the things of God, look for clues to find them. When he opened it he immediately started leafing through it with a smile on his face - I hope it makes a big difference for him!

Dream, You Are Never Too Old Framed Art

My wife was next in line. We just moved into a new house this past year, and frankly we haven't had the chance yet to decorate it like she would like for it to be. I took a little bit of a chance (sometimes a woman's sense of taste is really specific) and got her a small piece of framed art with a quotation from C. S. Lewis, "You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream," and a partial quote from Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you to give you a future and a hope." She has often told me about certain choices she made as a girl that she has since regretted, and I felt it in my heart to let her know that it's never too late to pursue the dreams God has placed on your heart. She loved it! She found a perfect place for it as soon as we were done, and we hung it then and there. You can see a picture of it proudly displayed on our wall below:

The "Dream" framed art, proudly displayed in our new house!

His Plans Desktop Reminder

Last of all it was my turn. This year my wife collaborated with my son, and they found a triangular office desk decoration that they liked for me. And it also has Jeremiah 29:11 quoted on it! Seems like maybe the Lord is saying to my family that He's got a plan for us this year, and it's going to be a good thing!

It's really cool to see that God has laid similar things on my heart and on my wife's heart for the upcoming year. If you read my blog post last year, my gift to my wife displayed a verse that says that God would back up her plans (conceived of course from a Godly heart), and this year her gift reassures her that God has His own plans for her. The gift I received last year said that I would be blessed if I put my trust in the Lord, and this year's gift lets me know that God's plans are for good things and not for disaster. How great is that?

Epiphany was on Wednesday this year, and my daughter wanted to bring the Wise Men with her to church. I let her bring the ones from our Little People Nativity set, along with the baby Jesus, but she also brought something else: a chest from her My Little Pony toy castle, containing gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You can see it in the picture at the top of this post!

I write about our Epiphany every year, not to make us seem so cool and spiritual, but because it is a special time for us. I hope you make your own "plans" next year to follow our example with your own family. It's one of my favorite traditions from the holiday season!

"His Plans" on my desk at work

By the way... if you are interested in purchasing a base package of the Logos software I mentioned above - which is REALLY incredible, by the way - get in touch with me so I can give you my email address. If you call them and tell them I referred you, with my email address so they can locate my account, not only will you get 15% off your purchase and some other valuable books for free, but I'll get a credit on my Logos account so I can add some stuff to my library too. Win-win!

One More Gift!

It's the most wonderful time of the year again! No, I don't mean Christmas, although that's the other most wonderful time of the year. I'm talking about a church holiday called Epiphany, which falls on this Wednesday. Epiphany (or "Three Kings Day", or "Dreikönigsfest" if you want to go all crazy about it) is the traditional holiday when Christians celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men in Bethlehem. It is a celebration of the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, which is what the "epiphany" (lower-case) is - when we understood that Jesus was a gift for all of us, not just the Jews. For some more about the Wise Men and their significance, check out the first part of my post about Epiphany from last year.

Several years ago I started a tradition in our home that I hope others will adopt. You can read about the basic idea in the post I wrote the first year we did it, but essentially we (the parents, the leadership of our home) choose one single gift for each member of our family that is chosen specifically to inspire them to draw closer to Jesus in the coming year. We give a gift because the Wise Men brought gifts! The holiday is close enough to Christmas that it still feels like a gift-giving time, but far enough removed that it's easier to remember that this is all about Jesus, not reindeer or fat men in red suits or elves on shelves any of that other fun stuff.

I encourage you to think about what you can give someone on Wednesday that might help them think about Jesus during the next twelve months. We always keep our gifts ver modest - $20 is more or less the limit on cost per gift for us. If you need some ideas, feel free to read back through my posts form past years about what we gave on Epiphanies past. Or just choose one person and give them something small, even handmade - as long as they know that this is about seeking more of Jesus this year. The Wise Men traveled hundreds of dangerous miles through desert wilderness to find Jesus and bring gifts. Maybe our gifts can inspire us to take a journey deeper into our relationship with Him!

Epiphany 2015

My 7-year-old daughter has been asking about "Three Kings Day" ever since Christmas. She's been really excited about it! She really loved what we gave her last year, and she was looking forward to getting something else this year. How great is that, when your kids are excited to receive something which will remind them about Jesus? I was excited too... this is one of my favorite times of the year, when I get to speak things over each member of my family by giving them a special token of was my wife and I see in them. If you haven't yet tried it yourself... you really should!

This year when I sat everybody down (I always insist on sitting on the floor next to the Christmas tree) I wanted to explain a few things about the Magi. First, I read the verses in Matthew that talk about them:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

(Matthew 2:1-2 ESV)

I told them that we don't really know exactly where these "wise men" came from, but some think that they may have come from the region of Babylon, and perhaps they came because they were familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. I read them this:

Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time.

(Daniel 9:25 ESV)

This is from a prophecy given to Daniel in Babylon. The "weeks" are actually weeks of years, not days. The angel was telling Daniel exactly when the Messiah was going to be born! A man of wisdom in ancient Babylon would certainly be familiar with the writings of Daniel, who was one of the wisest advisers any Babylonian king had ever had. Maybe they were looking at their watches and wondering when it was going to happen!

Then I read this:

I see him, but not now;
   I behold him, but not near:
a star shall come out of Jacob,
   and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
it shall crush the forehead of Moab
   and break down all the sons of Sheth.

(Numbers 24:17 ESV)

These were words given to a Gentile prophet named Balaam that talk about a future human person, but compare him to a "scepter" (meaning, he will be a king) and also a "star". This was widely considered a prophecy of the Messiah in those times. Assuming that these learned Gentiles knew about Daniel's prophecies and also about this one by Balaam, and assuming they had done the math and realized that Daniel's timing had elapsed, when they saw a "star" in the sky, of course they were going to go where it led them!

After explaining all of this, I told them that there are two things the Magi did that are what we want our Epiphany gifts to inspire us to.

1. The Magi knew the Word of God. They didn't have all of it that we have now, but they knew the parts of it that they had. We want our family to know the Word.
2. They searched for Jesus. They physically went looking for Him! We don't go anywhere physically now, of course, and Jesus has promised He is always with us. But we want our family to seek out ways to draw closer to Him.

With all of that out of the way, we went on to the gifts!


First, my daughter opened her gift. Last year we gave her a storybook, and she and I read through all of the stories several times in the months after we gave it to her. After going through it a couple of times we went on to other storybooks, but my wife (who tucks the kids in at night) told me that our little girl still keeps the book by her bed, and every night before she goes to sleep she reads one of the Bible verses. We decided to get her a book called Little Miss Grace Promise Book which has several Bible verses on each page, so she would never run out! We also bought her a bookmark to keep her place (the book has a ribbon bookmark built in, but we loved the one we found). She was so excited! She even took it to show her grandma later that night.

Next it was my son's turn. This year he entered high school, and not only is he taking his studies very seriously, but he is taking his music very seriously. He plays trumpet, and he is among the best in the school band, even as a freshman. My wife and I are both musicians also, and we know that one of the worst enemies any musician has is his own self-doubt. We gave him a little token, roughly the size of a quarter, that he can carry around with him. It says "No Doubt" on it, and has a Scripture on the back to remind him to never doubt God, and never doubt himself. (I don't have a link for the token, but here's a keyring with the same design.)


Later, after we had all opened our gifts, my son said "Why is it that the best gifts are always so tiny?" It may sound like irony to someone who doesn't know him, but he was being very serious. That little token apparently meant a lot to him!

Next, I gave my wife her gift. Like many women, she loves roses, and I gave her this mug, which just inside the rim where you can hardly help but see it when you take a sip has a Scripture that I hope she reads hundreds of times this year.

Finally, for the first time, this year I received a gift too! My wife had bought me the hugest coffee cup I have ever owned. It's a 20-oz mug, and it has a Scripture on the back of it (where you see it when you pick it up to drink). Because of things I've mentioned to her in recent weeks, she knew this particular verse would be meaningful to me. (If you stay with me in the coming weeks you will get to find out some of what she was thinking of when she bought it.)

(Next to a "normal-sized" cup for scale)

Edit: Looking at this cup every day actually did inspire me to think more about the Word of God. See what I wound up learning months later here and here!

After everyone had received their gifts, we went over to my mom's house - Three Kings Day is also the start of the season leading up to Lent, and where we are from (Louisiana) there is a special kind of cake called "Kings Cake" that you can serve at parties this time of year. She had some ready for us, and we had something ready for her: we had gotten her a little insulated cup with a picture of the kids on it and a little note they had written her. (I didn't take a picture of it.) We had another little mini-party at her house, and that was our celebration!

By the way - I know I always post pictures of our Epiphany gifts here, but that's not done in order to brag. I describe our gifts and post pictures here hoping to inspire you, reader, to take some time to really think about the people in your life and what word from God you would like to speak into their lives. To do this right you really have to put some effort into it, and find something that is both meaningful and useful. If it's not useful, they won't have it out as part of their lives for the next year, and if it isn't meaningful, then it's just more clutter around the house. But if you approach Epiphany gift-giving with thoughtfulness and love, maybe you'll have someone who is still, after a year, reading her storybook every night before bed. Maybe your one little purchase will make a huge difference when they need it. Maybe you can start the new year off with something genuinely special!

Count Down to Epiphany 2015

Saturday my wife and I went out and did our Epiphany shopping.

What is Epiphany, you may ask? (If you haven't been reading this blog for the past few years, that is.)

Epiphany is a traditional holiday also known as "Three Kings Day". It is celebrated in some churches as the day the Wise Men/Magi/Three Kings brought gifts to Jesus and Mary and Joseph. For the past few years in my family, we as parents have taken it as an opportunity to bless our children with some very small gift which we hope will help them grow closer to Christ in the coming year. You can read about what happened in previous years in these blog posts.

Anyway, I wanted to remind my readers that it is coming up this Tuesday. If you have people who are close to you, consider stopping by a Christian bookstore - or any store, really - and picking up a gift for someone. Don't give them something expensive. Give them something meaningful. And it doesn't have to be a Bible, either... be creative. Give it to them on Tuesday, and tell them you hope that whenever they run across it in 2015, it reminds them that God loves them and wants to be close to them, and you love them, too. And be sure and stop by later this week when I tell you about what my wife and I chose for our family!

By the way. You may have noticed that I've been... well, pretty quiet in this blog for the past while. In fact, it's been nearly a year since I've posted anything! To be honest, it was a rough, discouraging 2014 for me, and I've come to think that it was probably mostly my own fault. I'll probably share a little bit of that in the coming weeks. I've started to itch a little bit to share again here, so I hope you'll join me as I continue to pound out my thoughts about God that the Bible and spirituality and music and whatever else comes along that I think might be interesting. Why don't we have a great 2015 together!

Epiphany 2014

Yesterday evening I sat my family down on the floor in our living room, as I have on January 6 each year for the past two. This year my wife knew what was going on (I got her help selecting the gifts!) but my two kids didn't know at first. "Today's a special holiday..." I started, and my 13-year-old son jumped in: "Oh, it's Three Kings Day!" Right he was! And his sudden understanding, appropriately, was an "epiphany" which is the other name for the day. Mostly for my 6-year-old daughter's sake (she's little, so she's going to need to full spiel for at least the next couple of years) but also for my son and wife's sake, I explained again this year that Epiphany or Three Kings Day is a day the traditional church celebrates the arrival of the Magi with gifts for the baby Jesus. I also explained something that hadn't really clicked with me until this year: the Wise Men are the first recorded Gentiles to come to Jesus. The holiday is called "Epiphany" because an epiphany is a revelation, and the arrival of the Wise Men was a revelation that Jesus was for everyone, not just for the Jews. How awesome is that?

My own tradition for the past few years has been to secretly purchase an inexpensive gift ($20 is about the max I spend on each gift) for each family member that I hope will inspire them to think about God more, or learn something about the Bible, or whatever. You can see examples of what I got them in the past two years here and here. The trick is to pick something that will truly speak to the heart of each person. This year was even more special because I invited my wife to pick the gifts for the kids with me. She was an awesome help! Frankly, I'm not sure I would have made the best choice for our daughter without her.

Princess Stories

My little girl opened that gift first. My wife and I had spent a significant amount of time searching and searching through the stuff in the children's section at the Christian bookstore the Saturday before, trying to decide whether to get her a "real" Bible, some kind of Bible story book, or something else. We finally settled on a book called Princess Stories: Real Bible Stories of God's Princesses which is a book of Bible stories specifically of women and girls, told from their perspective. The artwork is very warm and inviting, and the stories are designed to give little girls characters from the Bible that they can think about and look up to. (Not many of them are technically royalty, but the point is that as daughters of The King, every girl and woman who comes to Jesus is a real live princess!) As a bonus, there is either a kitten, a puppy, or a bunny on nearly every page (on some pages you have to settle for a bird or butterfly, but that's OK.) My daughter was so excited to start hearing the stories that she didn't want to wait for bedtime to hear one! She begged to hear the one about the Bible character who has her same name... "Look, my name is right in the book!" she said. I think that counts as a successful choice!

The Story:
Teen Edition

Next, my son opened his gift. Since he is a newly-minted teenager, we thought we would give him something to help him really get a grasp on the "big picture" of the Word of God. I'd seen the "The Story" items when they came out a year or so ago, and I found the idea of formatting the Bible's grand narrative like a modern novel very interesting. The Bible can be so intimidating... it's long, things don't come in the right order, and most people barely know about what happens in a huge hunk of it. "The Story" is a whole series of books and materials focused for specific age groups - there is a The Story for adults, the Teen version we got my son, and even storybook-style versions for grade schoolers and preschoolers. The grander idea is that a church can launch a program where each age group studies the same section of their own The Story edition (there are 31 divisions in each book) every week, and the whole church learns the basics of the whole Bible together. Our church isn't doing the larger program, but hopefully my son will get interested in it using his own copy. He's actually a pretty big reader (when he's not playing one video game or another!) and he was surprisingly enthusiastic when he realized what he was holding. He was actually more excited than I thought he would be. He's a great kid! And my wife is actually so intrigued with the concept that we'll be getting the e-book (adult edition) for her to put on her cell phone so she can read through it as well.

(On a side note, at this writing ChristianBook.com is running a big promotion of "The Story", and they have the materials on deep discount. For example, the $20 adult edition of "The Story" is on sale for $5! Check the sale out at their "What Is The Story?" page.)

Duck Commander
Devotional (Pink)

My wife had forgotten that she always gets a gift too... when I pulled out the gift I got her, she seemed embarrassed that she hadn't thought to get me something! I don't care whether I get a gift or not, but I suspect I will next year! I had gotten her The Duck Commander Devotional, a one-year devotional book written by the stars of the Duck Dynasty TV show, which she is a HUGE fan of. (I got her the girly pink one, of course, but there is a version with a green cover for the studly man in your life.) She was so excited that she almost decided to read the first six entries right away to catch up! I told her it was OK to wait and read those first few entries next January!

My daughter was so pumped about our Epiphany gifts that she immediately decreed that I should have one too, and she got out her art supplies and proceeded to make me the crown you see below. I was actually kind of surprised when she did the whole thing herself over the course of maybe 20-30 minutes, including designing the crown, cutting out all of the pieces, and gluing it all together! The end result is terrific! It's a little small for my big Daddy head, but it fits pretty well on one of my stuffed doggies at work. It will definitely be treasured for years to come!

Make a habit of watching this blog for the next year. Come late December, I'll be reminding my readers that Epiphany is coming up. It's a tradition that has been very meaningful for my family, and I have no intention of ever not doing it. (Heck, when my kids grow up and have their own families, they may be surprised to find something in their mailboxes on January 6!) And even though it's January 7, it's not too late to follow my lead! Stop by the Christian bookstore and pick up some little thing... a bookmark, a toy Bob the Tomato, a music CD. Something to encourage a loved one to draw closer to Christ. It's never a bad day to have the epiphany that Jesus Christ is a gift personally given to you!

My Epiphany crown. And, before you ask: YES, it is

right side up. (She corrected me when I turned it over.)

Wise men STILL seek Him!

Wondering what this is all about? Click for the explanation.

Christmas, Day 2

What do you mean, "Christmas is over for the year"? Of COURSE Christmas isn't over. Yesterday was just the beginning! Don't you know there are twelve days of Christmas?

No, seriously. There are twelve days of Christmas. In Church tradition, December 25th is only the first day of Christmas, the celebration of the day when the child Jesus was born. In fact, the rest of December isn't "Christmas" at all; everything leading up to December 25 is called "Advent", which is where the idea for your chocolate "Advent Calendar" came from. So even if you're not a high-church kind of guy or girl, you can at least thank the Church for giving you an excuse to spend the entire month of December eating chocolate!

So today, December 26, is actually the second day of Christmas. But in lieu of giving and receiving gifts of turtledoves today, the Church calendar asks you to think about Christianity's first recorded martyr, St. Stephen. Today is St. Stephen's Day, and you can find a little information about it here at Wikipedia, if you are so inclined. Switch gears from the seasonal song you've had going on in your head the whole time you've been reading this post so far, and think about the first line of "Good King Wenceslas". Now you know what day the good king is supposed to have looked out on the deep, crisp, even snow and seen a poor man who needed his help.

In our family, we happen to have come up with our own little tradition for the day after all of the ruckus and presents and hubbub... many years we take December 26 as a day to bake a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake and celebrate just a little bit longer. Not only is it a nice way to sort of ramp down from the adrenaline rush that is Christmas in the United States of America, but it's a small way to once again remind ourselves of what we as Christians are supposed to be celebrating. I'm sure there are lots of Christian families out there who have had the same idea and who have the same tradition.

It's not just December 26th that has a special meaning, though. Every day of the twelve actually has a significance in Church liturgy - I've never been part of a denomination that celebrated them, so I've only heard about and read about them. But one that has stuck for me occurs on the day after the twelfth day of Christmas. That holiday is called Epiphany, and it is the celebration of the day when the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem (I blogged about it previously here). Two years ago I started a tradition in my family (and sprung it on my wife as a surprise that first year!) that we would get a small gift for each family member and give it to them on Epiphany, the day the Magi gave gifts to Jesus. This gift is never a video game or toy, though... this gift has to be different. This gift is carefully selected as something that will give that family member a way to focus on Jesus for the entire coming year. In that way, it is an intensely personal gift. It can't be the same thing for each family member; it has to be something selected specifically for their age, gender, and level of understanding of the things of God.

The first year I did this I did not tell my wife what I was doing until I had already done it... it was quite a surprise for everyone, but I thought it was a pretty wonderful experience. The next year she knew about it ahead of time, but I still pretty much handled it myself rather than truly bringing her into the situation (although I've always intended to). This year we've already talked about it briefly; I've got some of the gifts already, but there's more to do. But she'll be selecting the remaining gifts with me this time.

For me, it has been worth the effort every year so far. I hope my gifts have had the intended effect on my family members, but even if they haven't, the act of working so hard to come up with something for each of them to direct them to Jesus has had a profound effect on me. I look forward to it every year. I would definitely encourage any of you to spring the same surprise on someone on January 6 - whether it be a family member, a brother or sister in Christ, or maybe even just someone you know who could use a little encouragement. Jesus said that something done for "the least of these" who need a helping hand is done to Him... let's be wise enough to follow the example of the Wise Men, who brought gifts to Jesus, and truly bring Him our gifts this Epiphany!

---

Music by David Crowder Band to celebrate these "Bonus Days" of Christmas we Christians get to:

Happy Epiphany 2013!

Last year I did something for my family that I hope to carry on for many years to come as a special tradition. You can read about it here, in last year's post, but the gist is that I wanted my family to remember that Jesus truly is the most important thing about the Christmas season, and I wanted to do it in a way that doesn't make me seem like a Santa-hating, killjoy Bible Grinch. I love all of the fun and gifts and music and excitement of Christmas - this year we must have watched fifteen Rankin-Bass Christmas shows! But I also I wanted to find a way to quietly spend some serious time including Jesus in the holiday season.

Epiphany (January 6) is the traditional day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men (or the Magi, depending on who you're talking to about it) in Bethlehem. This year I learned another pretty exotic-sounding name for it: "Dreikönigsfest"! Well, last year I decided that this day, whether it happens to be Epiphany or Dreikönigsfest, would be a time that I found a small gift to give each family member that I thought would benefit them in their walk with Christ for the following year.

This year I started out with my little 5-year-old daughter. Months ago, probably last April or May, I discovered the book Heaven Is for Real and read it, and enjoyed it so much that I picked up the children's picture book version, Heaven Is for Real for Kids, from the library to share with her. She liked the picture book so much that ever since then she's been asking about getting the book from the library again! Today she got her own copy, and I wrote the following inside the cover: "The Bible says if we think about Heaven, it will give us courage! I Thessalonians 4:16-18". Of course, she's too little to know how to look up the Scripture verse yet... she can't even read the inscription (or the book) for herself yet. But one day she'll be able to, and then I hope it will mean something special to her.

For my son I got the brand new book, just released within the past month or two, from an author that he and I have both enjoyed in the past: Matt Mikalatos. If you read this blog often, you may have seen my review of one of his other books, Night of the Living Dead Christian, which is a total scream and which my son, who was eleven years old at the time, read multiple times (despite the fact that it is written for an adult audience, not elementary schoolers). Matt's new book, The Sword of Six Worlds, is a fantasy story Matt wrote for his own kids, and it is targeted at middle school/junior high readers. I wrote inside the front cover: "Know your sword. Use it with compassion. Hebrews 4:12". I actually haven't had a chance yet to read the entire book for myself... I came up with that based on some stuff I read about it online. I hope it's appropriate! Coming up with an actual physical copy of the book turned out to be kind of a challenge - I had to order it from Amazon and then wait until they had copies to ship me. I believe it's by the grace of God that Amazon got some copies in and shipped it just in time to get to me for this weekend. And I know it will be worth the trouble! My son grabbed it and immediately started reading. It even trumped the handheld video game console he got for Christmas! If that isn't a high recommendation for an author, I don't know what is!

My wife was a little bit tougher. There were some things this past year that were hard on her, particularly some things that were going on in the news and in politics, and I wanted her to remember that Jesus' desire was for her to live in peace. Specifically, I wanted to bring John 14:27 to her mind; in that verse Jesus characterizes his peace as a gift He gave to us, and I wanted my gift to her to reflect that gift to her from Jesus. Surprisingly, it was a little difficult to find a gift with that verse on it, but I finally found this glass plaque, which when we got it out was more beautiful (and even a bit larger!) than I expected. She seemed to really like it; she put it in a prominent place in our apartment so she (and all of us, as a matter of fact) will see it often.

You know what? I feel a little self-conscious about this blog post. I don't want it to seem like I'm tooting my own horn. In fact, if I wanted to do some horn tooting, I probably would have spent more money than I did and tried to make myself look like a big shot... if you click the links, you can see that each item, before shipping, cost me less than ten dollars. But what I did want to do is share something with you, friends who read these posts: I felt God telling me to do this very small thing to love my family, to be like a priest to them, to maybe give them a gentle nudge toward the light of Jesus. Maybe to give them an "epiphany" of some kind. The gift I wanted to share with you was the inspiration to maybe do something similar with your family. Hijack my Epiphany gift idea next year (or even this year... delayed a day or two!) if you like. A small gift, inexpensive but inspired by the Holy Spirit, can make an impact that will last all year.

Happy Epiphany 2012 - part 2

On Epiphany I blogged that I had a surprise in store for my family to bring Jesus into focus for them this holiday season (if you need to catch up, click here for that post). When I wrote that blog entry, I had a little bit of a problem to overcome: I wanted to share the post with you on the actual day of Epiphany, but I didn't want to let the cat out of the bag on what I had planned! (My wife does occasionally read my blog, you know!) So I simply mentioned that I had something in mind, but didn't say what it was. I wanted to follow up on that and let you know how it turned out!

The big surprise was simply that I had gone to the Christian bookstore and picked up a small gift for each of my family members. I wanted it to be something they would like, but I wanted it to be something that would have a spiritual significance to them, and I wanted it to be something that would last them a long time. That's a tricky proposition, especially when you're talking about a 4-year-old girl, but I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit was guiding me, because everyone seemed to love what I gave them.

That evening, without telling them what I was going to do, I had everyone sit down on the floor near the Christmas tree, and I explained that Epiphany is the day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men (see my previous post for the whole scoop on that). Then I told them that I've been thinking this season about ways to make sure that we find a way to really focus on Jesus in the middle of all of the racket that's going on this time of year (see this post for more on that!) and that I had gotten each of them something special to remind them of Jesus. Then I began to bring out the gifts, one by one.

How to Study Your Bible, for Kids
By Kay Arthur, Janna Arndt

For my wife, I had bought a small, framed cross, with the words "Trust in Him" written under it; I told her that my hope for her this year is that she would learn even better to trust in God, no matter what is going on. Then I brought out my gift for my 11-year-old son: a book called How To Study Your Bible For Kids by Kay Arthur. Kay Arthur has written a number of successful books on the inductive Bible study method (it's basically what I was always taught, although I didn't know that was what it was called); the book has a storyline and activities and it will be lots of fun for him. And I knew that he truly does care about the Bible and want to know what's in there. Since the book uses the NASB and his regular reading Bible is an NLT (read about his iShine Bible here), I also bought him an inexpensive paperback NASB to use for study times, on the theory that it would be better if he has the translation on hand that the book is written for. I was surprised how excited he was to get it! He loves reading, and I think he's going to have a great time with this book.

My 4-year-old daughter was tricker; I wanted her to have something meaningful, and I didn't want it to be one of those cheap plastic Sunday school prize trinkets up by the register. I settled on something that will last her a little longer: I got her a life-sized velvet cupcake with a surprise inside. She opened the package and was so excited when she saw the cupcake, because she loves cupcakes! It's not instantly apparent that something is inside, so I took it and I said, "You can see this cupcake, right?" She said yes. "If it was a real cupcake, you could taste it, right?" She nodded. "Well, the Word of God says, 'Taste and see that the Lord is good!'" Then I opened it up and showed her the cupcake necklace inside! My wife and I hope to reinforce that Scripture for her every time she wears the necklace until the association is so strong that every time she sees it, she remembers that the Lord is GOOD!

A husband can usually tell he has done a good job when his wife winds up in tears. My wife did! And my kids were excited about their gifts too! We told our little girl that she needs Mama's help with her necklace and that it's only for church and very special occasions until she's older; she's already had the cupcake out this morning, ready to wear it to church! I told my wife that I don't intend to celebrate Epiphany exactly like this every year; I don't want it to turn into another day to anticipate getting some "stuff" and another gift-purchasing burden. But I do want to do something every single year, to remind my kids that Jesus is central to our lives. Santa is gone by December 26th; Jesus is here always!

Happy Epiphany 2012!

Happy Epiphany!

What is Epiphany, you may ask? Well, I didn't know myself until several years ago when a friend who is lay clergy at the Episcopal church downtown told me about their church's annual Epiphany service. I knew that the word "epiphany" means a sudden understanding of something, and I had heard that there was a holiday by the same name, but I didn't know what it was all about. For those of you who are from a church background which does not observe Epiphany, here's how it lays out. Remember everybody's "favorite" Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas"? The one nobody can remember all the words to? Well, it's not just a song! In many religious traditions, there actually are twelve days of Christmas, starting with December 25 and ending on January 5. The next day, January 6, is called Epiphany, and it is traditionally the celebration of the day the Kings from the East arrived to worship Jesus. Interesting that this tradition points out a fact that many Christians are not aware of: the Wise Men almost certainly did not arrive at the manger on the night of Jesus' birth. In fact, not only does the Bible say that the Wise Men arrived at a "house" to see a "child" (not a "stable" to see a "baby"), but it says that Herod, in an attempt to eliminate the new child who threatened his throne, executed male children aged two and younger "according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men." Judging from that evidence, it is possible that the Wise Men arrived as long as two years after Jesus' birth, and that Mary and Joseph had found more suitable lodging by then. The time between Christmas and Epiphany represents the time between Jesus' birth and the arrival of the visitors who had come so far to worship Him.

This Christmas season I did a great deal of thinking about how to make sure that Jesus is an actual part of the celebration, not just the statue in the middle of a scene like the one in the picture above. You can read some previous thoughts of mine here. Especially for children, there is so much emphasis on gifts that I started to wonder if there was a way that we could celebrate the festive season with gifts and trees and lights and eating and family and hustle and bustle, but also take some real time to think about the real Jesus. Then I hit on it: Epiphany! It's long enough after Christmas proper that there is some separation from the craziness, but it is close enough that there is still a connection. The manger is still fresh on our minds. Heck, they're still talking about it in my daughter's preschool class at church.

So I have something special planned for my family tonight. It's small, but hopefully it is going to be very special and personal, and hopefully it will help us all focus clearly, in ways that we comprehend at each of our own ages (which range from 4 to 41), on the amazing story that not only did Jesus Christ miraculously appear on Earth those many centuries ago, but He is present in the person of the Holy Spirit right this minute. Today.

What an epiphany that will be!

Want to find out how it turned out? Check here!