My most significant childhood memory of Advent is the year it smelled like our Advent wreath had been peed on. You read that correctly. Let me set the stage for you. Each year – early December or late November – the church I grew up in would have a time set aside for families to make Advent wreaths. Some lovely church people would cut the vegetation, likely from some overgrown church bushes, stuff them into black trash bags, and buy...

The first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel are some of the most familiar in scripture. They are typically read every year throughout the Christmas season, and the family classic A Charlie Brown Christmas features a large chunk of chapter 2 read in its entirety by Linus. For most of us, we’ve heard this story a bunch of times. Yet one of my favorite things about the Bible is that there are countless layers to practically any part of God’s Word....

This Christmas, choose joy. Sometimes the choice is an exultation.  Sometimes the choice is a declaration.

Zachary is my six-year-old. His life is full of joy. In fact, during this otherwise difficult season, he is more full of joy than usual.

His life would usually be pretty busy with end-of-year events and being dragged to swim and dance gatherings for his siblings. But this year, much of this has been canceled in light of the community spread of the virus.

So, he has...

Of all the things God could have accomplished, becoming an infant is most fascinating to me. The Lord Almighty, El Shaddai, King of kings and Lord of lords, majestic, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, I AM transformed into a baby. Does this blow your mind like it does mine?

Transformation seems to be a normal theme in scripture. There’s all kinds of transformations taking place…formless and void turned into a universe, empty jars overflowing with life-giving oil, a dry wilderness morphing into streams...