Rodent Regatta

The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:1-7 New Revised Standard Version

Regular readers here know that I often post things to a category labeled ”faith.” Those entries will continue in 2004. You’ll continue to see links to on line debates and discussions of faith as a source of personal strength. You’ll also continue to see discussions of the faith-heritage of this nation and its founders. The majority of the signers of the Constitution were men of faith.

Here’s what it can mean for an individual. Here’s how others may use share their faith in 2004.

Those who know me well know just how unhappy I’ve been during most of 2003. The struggles have been long, arduous and many-faceted. Health, confusion, direction and resiliency – or absences of one or more of these – have presented most of the challenges this past year.

With this year’s Christmas gifts came some of the greatest gifts of all. They were wishes for my return to a happier place and time. Those wishes made my Christmas. They also prepare me for a completely new outlook in 2004.

Look for changes in the coming months!

For all who read here, I want to thank you for the tips, support and encouragement that come from writing here and interacting with you. May the new year see you prosper and thrive as in no prior year!

Here’s a single link that will take you into all eight parts of The Real Live Preacher’s variation called The Christmas Story Uncut.

This is simply too amazing to risk losing to link rot. Instead, I’m quoting it here, in full, with attribution to Marvin Olasky for initially pointing it out and PCA News for running it.

Dear Friend,

Is there a good, non-commercial reason for this holiday madness? Is this annual multi-billion dollar global celebration just a quaint urban legend that clever businessmen have turned into the longest-running, most successful marketing gambit in the history of merchandizing? Or could there be something to this story that won’t die in spite of millions of man-hours over two millennia devoted to killing it?

Here is the logline for this Christmas screenplay:

A God infinite in all his attributes who is three persons in one, who created everything in the universe out of nothing, sends one member of that trinity to earth as a baby born to a young virgin in squalid conditions, fulfilling a 700-year-old prophecy (Isaiah 7:14). It’s a fantastic tale.

Baby Jesus grew up and became a vagabond rabbi with nothing more than the clothes on his back, healing the sick and the lame and resuscitating the dead before thousands of witnesses, promising an eternal life of inexpressible bliss for folks who believed he was who he said he wasGod (John 10:24-30). Yet he made no attempt to save himself from a horrible execution instigated by jealous co-religionists. Then, as if willfully shattering any hope of verisimilitude, the final chapter ends like the first began, with an unfathomable event for those who don’t think beyond human possibilities. Jesus came up out of the grave alive and was seen by hundreds of people before he rose magically up through the clouds, promising to prepare a place in heaven for the faithful and return one day. Is that a mind-boggling plot or what? Certainly no human mind could conceive such a narrative, and that may well be the best evidence indicating a divine origin.

What it is, is a love story: ”For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). The theme is love conquers all, even unrequited love, when the lover and prime mover is God. That is why it is called the gospel”good news” indeed. It seems timelier than ever now with hate in such high fashion.

Preposterous, you say? Is it possible for eleven men, Jesus’ closest followers, to stick to such an outrageous story”he rose from dead”at the cost of unspeakable persecution and grisly death, if it was a lie? Millions of people who believed the story through the centuries have met the same fate for refusing to mouth a denial. America’s founders risked life and limb in a hostile wilderness to establish a city on a hill based on the precepts of this story. Half died the first winter but the greatest, freest, most bountiful nation on earth grew from that faith-filled beginning. This story certainly has legs.

So here are the options available to you this Christmas season. You can believe this story and, in the words of its protagonist, spend eternity with God in heaven, or you can ignore it, laugh at it, or ridicule it and run the risk of eternal torment in a fiery place called hell. There is a third option: You can make a note in your Daytimer to give it some serious thought some time in the New Yearand set Uncle Screwtape up with a chance to claim another soul with his favorite strategyprocrastination.

Might not the veracity of this story, the longest running best seller ever written, be worth looking into now? And while you’re at it, why not read the source material rather than best selling fiction that profanely distorts the original story? Stop by most any bookstore on your way out of the mall and buy a Bible. If God really is, as stated in that book, it’s the best news the human mind could ever absorb. If it’s a fable consisting of several authors’ fantasies over many centuries that just happens to fit together, what have you lost by reading a great literary work? But if 200 plus prophecies over a millennium were truly fulfilled by a man called Jesus, the Son of God, as recorded in the Bible, denying or ignoring its reality places you in grave peril, my friend.

I suggest you start reading with an eyewitness account by Jesus’ best friend, John: ”[He] became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

It’s your choice to read and then consider his invitation. Jesus says the consequences are eternal. I am convinced to the depths of my soul that he speaks the greatest truth ever told.

With gratitude to God for his love and your friendship and a fervent desire to spend eternity with you both,

I am sincerely yours,

JD Wetterling

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JD Wetterling is resident manager of Ridge Haven, the PCA Conference Center and Retreat in North Carolina.

For more articles like this go to PCA News.