A Christmas Memory to Share . . .

Yesterday I posted the following fun thing on my Facebook page: Okay, I've done it. The Christmas music started getting played today. Usually it is an after Thanksgiving thing, but I couldn't resist. I tried. I fought it. I know, I need help. But I couldn't hold out any longer! I love this time of year! Thanksgiving is such a beautiful time, and to have Christmas follow it is awesome! Thanks, Lord, for all your goodness in our life and for Your Son who gives us Christmas!

In addition to a bunch of fun comments on my page I received the following email, which touched me (and challenged my heart), and I asked permission to share it. It comes from one of this blog's readers, Amy, who Mary Ann and I have known for years. She came to Christ shortly before I did, both of us tremendously drawn that direction by how God was using Mary Ann in our lives as a witness in both word and life. If you follow this blog you may remember that I talk a little about Amy and a dream I had at her house when Mary Ann and I stayed there in my August 28, 2009 post Happy Birthday to Me.

Amy's email went like this:

So! Talking about Christmas carols on Facebook brought back a wonderful memory. In December of 1992 I was nearly a year old in Christ, but it was my first Christmas as His child. If you recall, I was still living in Fort Collins . . . but was housesitting in Carmel for xxx that December. That's the background; here's the memory: You two (MAZ and EAR) and I were walking around downtown Monterey at night, and there were old-timey carolers (dressed in costume) in the various historical buildings (I think—they might have been strolling and stopping at various places). It was the first time I had really heard the words to the songs. I heard, "Glory to the newborn King" and thought, "Hey, that King is MY Savior!" I heard, "Christ the Lord!" and thought, "Wow, EVERYBODY is calling Him Lord!" On and on. The words that had so automatically come out of my mouth for 38/39 years were now shining and sparkling and proclaiming the glory of God in my heart! And, as Walter Cronkite used to say, "You were there!" Love you both and the girly-girls too.

Thanks, Amy, for reminding us of the joy of our salvation, and the true PERSONAL meaning and richness of the CHRISTmas tradition, and traditions, that sometimes become more tradition and impersonal than living realization. He is OUR King, OUR Lord! I am a new creation, a new man, His child, and He is MY Father in Heaven!

As a pastor I struggle more with Christmas teachings than almost any other teaching because I am so inadequate to capture the majesty and love and wonder and awe of what Christmas means—of Creator coming in to His Creation, subjecting Himself to it, out of love giving Himself for those who have rebelled against Him. Some years back I felt God lead me to turn December over to a month of testimonies in our church on Sunday mornings. Each person I ask to share I ask to prepare with the thought, "Why is my life different because of Immanuel—because God came to earth and is with me?" After all, the ultimate end of Christmas was a people restored to their loving Creator. Christmas is, ultimately, what Amy wrote about and captured so beautifully—I am His, and He is mine, and we are no longer separated but joined for eternity. Lives are, naturally, radically different for that!

I'd love to hear others of your stories or what Christmas means to you. We can all use help keeping the joy of the Good News of the Gospel fresh and alive in our hearts! God bless you all.

P.S. MAZ is Mary Ann Zuzow. EAR is Erick Arthur Reinstedt. MAZ is what many of us who knew Mary Ann before we were married call her.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Hello all! No, I haven't disappeared---I have just been in a very busy season as well as a season of reflection. For those of you who know me well, no, you didn't forget my birthday! You'll understand in a moment.

Not too long ago I found an old Bible that they gave me as a cadet at West Point. It remained very unused until the early 90s when, after many "nudgings" from God that I didn't recognize then but do now, I began a quest to find out about this Christian claim that I had mocked and considered a crutch for weak people afraid to die. After a long season of studying the faith, bugging people with hours of questions, arguing long in to the night, etc., I came to the most critical day of my life. I recently opened this Bible, which I had used during that searching season, and I found the following written in the back, surrounded by penned in stars:

Fri, 28 Aug '92-
Decided to ask Christ/the Lord in to my life. I still don't know he exists, I still have trouble w/ some of the implications---some of the things I'm told I should believe, but I have to take a leap of faith, and turn my life over to him, and hope I soon know and love him

Wow! What a neat thing to read and look back on. I can still remember getting up from my knees in front of the wall heater in my Pacific Grove apartment and wondering if I'd just been the biggest fool and sucker there was.

What a journey it has been from that day! I can remember my early days as a Christian thinking I had so much to offer God---to the day they asked me to pastor the church and I realized, in my fear, that I had come completely to the point where I realized I had nothing to offer God other than my willingness. I remember my early Christian days trying to reconcile evolution and Creation and saying the two could co-exist, to the point where I now know, beyond doubt, that God created the world in six days as His Word declares and to eagerly defending that position. I still remember in my early days wavering on the abortion issue, to today where I believe without wavering that life begins at conception and is worthy of defense.

I remember the hesitation and embarrassment I felt telling some intellectual giants in my life who had been so familiar with my Christian criticisms that I was now a Christian---and now how I love wearing Christian t-shirts and the conversations they generate in Walmarts, grocery stores, etc. I remember being arrogant and proud, and now I feel so insecure at times that it is only who I am in Christ that keeps me going. I remember writing about God with a lower case "h" in "him" (see the entry I typed above from my old Bible)---to now where I am passionate about making it "Him" or "His". (I don't say this legalistically like others have to do that, only as a reflection of how I have changed.)

It has been such a journey---and it has just begun! That day, 17 years ago today, I was born again! My eternal life as God's child began and it will be just that, eternally with Him. I can't thank enough all the people in my life who have been a part of this journey---from the best parents a guy could ask for; to Mary Ann, the most amazing wife I could have ever imagined (one whose faith and love for God were the catalysts for bringing me to Christ and have upheld me many times in the years since); to Bill Holdgridge, our pastor at the time at Calvary Chapel Monterey Bay, whose faith and love for God led him to make the most courageous stand to remind Mary Ann that I wasn't a Christian when she agreed to marry me, and who walked with us and stood with us in the coming hard months as I wrestled myself to the point where I could receive Christ and we could get married; to the people in our little church in Bryson who nurtured and grew me through arrogance to walking in grace; to the friends and family and fellowship I have shared in these recent years pastoring in Bryson and Lockwood---to all who have loved, encouraged, been iron sharpening iron, been friends and family; and to my beautiful girls, Bethany and Abigail, who are, already, blessing me with their love for God and the way He uses them to speak to me even at their young ages.

I could go on and on thanking all those who have seeded in to my life. Some of you reading this have only know me recently, and others of you have known me from before that day 17 years ago. Remember, Amy, that night Mary Ann and I stayed up half the night with you and I kept arguing and arguing with you two and how that night I had that dream where sheer, terrifying evil was coming up from a pit at me and I had to be woken by you guys because I was wimpering like a little puppy?

Like I said, I could go on and on, thanking person after person. I will just say to you all---I love you and while I may let you down, while I may be often wrong, while I may not be the best of friends, I consider myself blessed and privileged to have you in my life and I can't thank you enough for your love and friendship and encouragement.

If I could offer one thing that might help anyone reading this to whom what I wrote in my Bible 17 years ago today sounds really familiar to their heart, I would say that the key for me to going from there to here (and I still have a long way to go!) was that I took that decision seriously and brought my life captive to it. The constant refrain of my thoughts from that day forward---whether in doubt or not---was, "I made the decision that Jesus was who He said He was and I need to make this decision or take this action based on that." I began, even though I still had doubts at times, to read the Bible to see what God had for me, not to see if it was true. As I honored my decision to give my life to God, He honored His Word to draw near to those who draw near to Him and to be found by those who seek Him and He revealed Himself to me in deeper and deeper ways as I lived, simply in a faith that felt blind at the time, in respect to my decision.

So, my final reflection and thanks goes to the One who made me, died for me, and gave me life again. To my God---THE God---Jehovah, God Almighty, King of Kings, Immanuel, Lord, Jesus, I say, "Thank You." You have taken me out of darkness and in to your marvelous light. I love You and only wish I could love You more and serve You better. You are everything. You saw me and knew me before You formed the earth, You knew all my mistakes and rebellions and rejections and blasphemies, and still You formed me and lovingly knit me together in my precious mother's womb---knowing all along that Your own Son, Jesus, would need to come to earth and be murdered for me. You have sealed me in His precious blood, You have given me a righteousness and redemption I could never have afforded, and You have born me again as Your precious child and I will know You and love You and be with You forever. Thank You, from the bottom of my heart.