Call me obsessive compulsive, but I like to celebrate the new.

I remember the distinct smell of new pencils in first grade.  Or the smell of new erasers (“Pink Pearl” was the brand to buy).

Over the years, I've always loved the sheen on a new book cover—and have gone to great lengths to preserve my books.  I want the covers to look new.  Forever.

A particular peeve of my mine is when I loan someone a magazine or book and they bend back the cover on itself.   Or bend page corners as a book mark.

We once bought a new storm door that was installed with its protective plastic shrink wrap.    It looked so nice and the plastic actually seemed to be keeping the door clean, so we (I) decided to leave it on.  A month passed.  A year.  Then another.

When the plastic had grown gray collecting dust and dirt, I was asked (by a very patient wife) to please remove it.  But season after season of heat and humidity had made a glue (or more accurately, goo) out of the thing.   It took hours of scraping with a heat gun to finally clean it all off.

I look at a new life—our granddaughter, Lucy's, for example—and I ponder the fact that apart from typical one-year-old tantrums, her soul is essentially “clean and shiny.”  New, if you will.

But then there are the rest of us.  With some miles on us.  Some dirt on us.  Some I'm-not-new-anymore all over us.  We're covered in gray guilt we cannot scrape off.  Inside, we long for a clean slate. A new slate, even.

Did you know it's yours for the asking?

The Bible says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away.  Behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Here we are at the start of a new year.  Why not get that new life Jesus offers for yourself?  If you've got questions, talk to a friend now at 888-NEED-HIM.  And if you've already received Christ, let's celebrate that through His forgiveness we are made new.  Every day.

Have you ever given a toy that made you laugh?

One week before Christmas, Diana and I launched out into our day-long shopping extravaganza.  We’ve got a lot of “little people” on our list to buy for, so we headed straight for the toy section, where we were captured by the sound of two babies giggling.

My sweet Love—Baby Kisses sat on the shelf blowing kisses and giggling, apparently activated by light or motion.  My sweet Love—Giggling Baby offered her own lovely laughter.

Unable to resist, we plopped one of each into the cart, rolling off in pursuit of the rest of the gifts on our list. But every time we placed something else in the cart, we heard laughter.

In one aisle, we passed a young mom with two kids.  They all heard the giggling—and it brought them a smile.  Rolling down the check-out belt, the dolls giggled—as did our cashier.

By now I referred to the toys as “girls” and actually spoke to them (they giggled back to us as we rolled the cart across the parking lot). Laughed the entire ride home with every bump or turn.

Back home, I was sad to have to finally cover them in wrapping paper. But even after wrapping the girls—I mean dolls—they giggled.  You could actually see the colored paper bulging out the sides as the one attempted to blow kisses.

You know, I’m sure there were times when baby Jesus giggled…which made Mary giggle…which made Joseph giggle. And I wonder—I wonder—if God the Father giggled.  I have no verse or chapter to quote on any of this, mind you. 

Yet I do know this much: The angel declared, “good tidings of great joy which shall be for all people.”   Seems to me joy—and laughter—are never too far apart.

We live in dark times, to be sure.

We do not lack for objects of angst.

But should any of that—or the sum total of that—drown out the joy?  I say, no!

In fact, I think I hear…laughter!

More than half.

That's how much of my monthly paycheck our mortgage cost when Diana and I were first married.  The little two-bedroom ranch was all we could afford and there simply wasn't much left over for things like winter coats.  

As I recall, the early winter was unusually harsh, even by Chicago standards, and I needed a new coat.  What I was wearing was embarrassing to look at it, and insufficient for the three miles a day I walked in the Windy City.   Second hand stores weren't as available then, so we trudged through the mall.

I can still see its crisp outline on the rack —woolen gray and with a black collar.  The coat fit me beautifully.  The price did not.  So we put $10 down in layaway, hoping for a miracle—or at least some extra cash.

The cash never came and Christmas was looming.  I'd scraped a few dollars together for some gifts, but needed more money to buy Diana her present.   The only charge card I owned at the time was for Sears (not accepted at the coat store).

There was only one thing left to do.  Giving up on the coat was tough.  But the $10 redeemed back from layaway came in handy (remember, this was 30 years ago).

Christmas came and Diana and I had a special time, just being together.  After we exchanged gifts, Diana quietly announced there was one more.  I was told to open the living room closet.

You've guessed the story's ending.  But I promise you, you could never guess how profound a moment that was—and is—thirty years later.  Shocking kindness. Extravagant selflessness.

Three decades later, that gray coat is now worn and old.

But as it will always a have place in my heart, it will always have a place in our home.

I'll show it to you, next time you visit.

And Diana, for your many many lavish gifts of love—at Christmas and throughout the years—I say thank you and thank you again.  I love you!

Tough choices. 
Life is full of them.
 
I faced one at the airport in Timisoara, Romania.  We'd finished a major “Global Partners Training” event with about 150 Christian media professionals.  Flying on to Bucharest to visit friends, I now toted a (massive) bright red suitcase that was entirely empty--but not quite big enough to nest my second suitcase.
 
On the trip over, it was loaded with supplies for the conference, all properly distributed.  But now, the airline wanted $75 to transport it to Bucharest.  It would cost another $75 to haul the hollow box home to Chicago.   Given that I'd discovered “Bid Red” in the trash and that it's telescoping handle was no longer in the mood to telescope, it seemed like a no-brainer that I just abandon Big Red.
 
Still, I struggled.  My heart finally yielded to my head and I let the airline counter know that I would be leaving the thing there (no need to bring out the bomb squad!). 
 
Before condemning Big Red to a corner at the airline terminal, I removed every personal tag and double checked its many zippered pockets (something I apparently had never done since I picked the thing out of the garbage).  To my shock, I discovered things I had no idea were inside: the cover of a bike manual, a large folded poster of some Italian soccer team, and (forgive me, sensitive readers) a woman’s undergarment. 
 
Consider that I'd been toting Big Red all over Romania.  The same suitcase had made a trip to Ghana, West Africa a few months earlier.  Who knew I was carrying around all this unwanted stuff?  (Guess I....ur....should be more careful about luggage sitting out on the curb, eh?). 
 
May I ask you a question?  Is it possible you are carrying around stuff you had no idea was actually weighing you down? Stuff that shouldn’t belong to you as a follower of Jesus.   Stuff you've lugged around for a long time, maybe?
 
Jesus asked, “What should it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?”
 
Maybe it's time to get rid of the baggage.
 

To travel internationally is to make mistakes.

Mine are made in every category imaginable: mistakes in language, social etiquette, public decorum—you name it.  I'm sure I've managed to embarrass myself a dozen different ways as I've traveled recently through Turkey, Romania and Ghana.

Navigating airport terminals, I'm intrigued with the incredible difference that a tiny word change can make in the finesse of language and communication.  

For example, flying Turkish airlines to Istanbul, we repeatedly heard cabin announcements as follows: “Ladies and gentlemen and dear kids....”  I loved the “dear kids” reference.  Charming.  Yet it made me think—do we really see our children as “dear”?   Or are they often simply a drain on us?

Flying out of the Bucharest airport, I heard the following message over the P.A. System:  “Passengers are urgently invited to board flight number....”  At first, the announcement struck me as quaint, even cute.  In the U.S, we don't “urgently invite” anyone to do anything.  We would urgently request but not “urgently invite.”

The slight difference is telling.

Peering out the window of Germany's Frankfurt airport, I noodled on all of this. Consider the language of Revelation 3:20—an “announcement” of sorts from Jesus Himself.  “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”

Notice that Jesus makes no demands—here, or anywhere—in Scripture.  He extends the indescribably urgent offer of eternal life—but simply “knocks” at the door. Elsewhere He says “Whoever is thirsty, let him come.”  But again, no demands.

You might say, Jesus “urgently invites.”  But He never demands.  The choice is always ours.

What kind of choices are YOU making about Jesus?