A Christmas Story

There are many memorable moments during the Christmas season. FYI, that season begins around Thanksgiving and continues through New Years (and is the reason why you can start to listen to Christmas music in November and leave lights up till January), but I digress.

This year I had the opportunity to participate in Angel Tree again directly. Angel Tree is a ministry that allows parents in prison to send presents to their kids. Churches often facilitate this ministry by having individuals purchase and deliver the gifts to the kids for the parent in prison.

Some years ago when I was helping to lead the student ministry at Saylorville Church, we participated almost every year. It was amazing to take a bunch of students into homes and hand deliver these gifts. It was a profound experience that never leaves you.
So when the coordinator of the ministry at our church mentioned that she needed someone to deliver some gifts to family near our house, I jumped at the opportunity.

Not knowing the situation I was hesitant to bring our younger children as I didn't want them to be disruptive but I wanted to share the experience with one of my kids. In the end, I ended up taking my nine-year-old son.

The home was only a couple minutes from ours, and we had planned to be there around 5:30 in the evening. You would think I would be familiar with my city, but I missed the entrance to the place and had to turn around. While we were making our way back, I received a text from the mom of the child asking if we were still planning on coming. It was 5:31. 

In that one text, I could see a long line of broken promises this mother has had to explain. Having already told her little boy that he was getting presents, she was nervous about being forgotten yet again. I immediately texted back to let her know that we had just arrived.

As we got out of the van, there was a peaceful silence in the night that only seems to happen around Christmas. While the air was cold, and we could see our breath, the soft glow of twinkling lights around the neighborhood spoke a warm welcome. We walked up to the building, and I handed my son the gifts to carry as I looked for the correct number on the apartment doors.

When we knocked and walked in, an overly excited six-year-old boy greeted us and couldn't wait to show us his tree, his stocking, the stocking for his baby brother and other things he had made.
I made small talk with his mother as he excitedly opened his gifts.
A couple of times I stole a glance at Jace who was taking it all in. There was a look of wonder on his face I'm not sure if I've seen before.

It was all over pretty quickly. I told them about our church, invited them to visit and left a very excited boy playing with his new toys.

As we walked back out to our van to go home, my son took my hand, looked up and said. "That was a lot of fun." I smiled back at him and nodded.

It was already a memorable moment for us both, but when we pulled into the garage, Jace piped up from the back seat and perfectly explained the spirit of Christmas. "Dad, I don't know why but that just made my heart really happy. It felt really good." 

I knew why. It's because giving always feels better than getting. I mentioned that, looked down at him and smiled.

“It makes my heart feel good too buddy."

This was first published on joshbyers.com/blog/2017/12/a-christmas-story

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash


Idolatry and Anger Management

Its really not a big surprise this realization that I'm an idolator but rather what I've come to idolize. I'm a father of two awesome kids. They are an incredible gift and I'm reminded every day to cherish life through their wonder, innocence, questions and love.

I love them to death and can't imagine life without them and yet that I fear is the problem. Because even in my desperate love for them I find myself angry at them more often than I want to admit.

I'm a fairly laid back person and as I've examined my life the only times I get worked up to a vocal level is when I'm playing and watching sports or when my kids do something I don't approve of. I've noticed recently that it doesn't take much for me to get angry with them. One minute we'll be playing and having fun and the next second I'll be yelling because one of them didn't obey what I said right away. It frightens me sometimes to hear myself and I'm frightened by the image that I know I'm implanting within them.

Most people would say that I need to "manage my anger." I need to count to ten, walk away, take an anger management class or do something to change my behavior. But I believe it goes much deeper than that.

I want more than anything for my kids to love me. I want them to look back on their childhood and believe they had the best dad in the world. I want them to run to me. I want them to always look to me, to need me, to respect me. This is the desire of my heart.

And while all of these are good things, I've turned them into idols.

Abraham saved from his Idolatry 

This all became crystal clear to me as I read through Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods. In the first chapter he recounts the story of Abraham and how God gave him the ultimate desire of his heart - a son. Most people are familiar with the story and know that when Abraham's son Isaac reached a certain age God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, to give him up and back to God.

As a father the idea of this makes me sick and I could never imagine being asked to do this let alone going through with it. The moral ideas presented actually are a big stumbling block to a lot of people and is one of the reasons skeptics say they could never believe in or follow the God of Christianity.

But as Keller points out it was not unloving for God to ask Abraham to do this. I know, it sounds absolutely crazy but when you read and think all the way through it makes perfect sense.

One of the reasons it was not irrational for Abraham to participate was because in that culture the life of firstborn son belonged to God. The firstborn represented the family and because of the sinfulness of mankind and specifically the family, the life of the firstborn son was considered forfeit. God had a right to the life of every family because of their sinfulness. Because God is holy sin cannot be tolerated in his presence and if He is to have a relationship with human beings there has to be some form of atonement for the sin. This was be realized in the sacrifice of Abraham's firstborn son. Because he represented the family his death would cover their sins.

So how could Abraham do this? As Abraham walked his son up that mountain he believed that God was holy and that he owed Him a sacrifice but he also believed in God's grace and believed that God would provide a way for his son to live. This is why in Genesis 22:5 he told his servants that "we will come back to you." And in this Keller says:

Abraham was not just exercising blind faith. He was not saying, "This is crazy, this is murder, but I'm going to do it anyway." Instead he was saying, "I know God is both holy and gracious. I don't know how He is going to be both but I know He will."

If he had not believed he was in debt to a holy God, he would have been too angry to go. But if he had also not believed that God was a God of grace, he would have been too crushed and hopeless to go.

The story continues with God stopping Abraham from sacrificing his son and God providing a ram in his place.

As Abraham walked back down that mountain with his son he understood that God had been testing his love and Abraham was able to see that he treasured God more than his firstborn son.

If God had not stepped into Abraham’s life and had him go through this very difficult time Abraham would have most likely ended up idolizing his son and would have ultimately ended up destroying his life because of his idolatry.

Many years later God had his own Son walk up these same mountains and sacrifice his own life as a substitute for the sins of every family in the world.

When God saw Abraham’s sacrifice He said “...you love me because you been willing to give me the most precious thing in your life.” But how much more was God’s love to us when He gave us his Son Jesus?

When I look at the cross and see what God did for me and all that He gave me I am in need of nothing else. I need Jesus. I need the cross. I need nothing else.

my Anger is Because of my Idolatry 

So what does this have to do with idolizing my kids and managing my anger?

I’m realizing that I treasure their response to me more than anything. If they do not respect me and talk to me in a honoring way I feel that I am not getting what I deserve.

This is pride taking over my heart. I feel I’m entitled to this and if I don’t get it my life is not complete.

When I get angry, I’m not really angry with my kids, I’m angry at the love I have not received. Its my selfishness that is driving my response.

I need to realize all the love I need has been provided by Jesus at the cross. When I understand this I don’t need the love of my kids and I can respond to them with love and correction rather than selfishness and anger.