Searching

There is NO Santa, and there is NO Christmas

Bob Fulton Asking, Reflecting, Searching 1 Comment

So today I decided to do some research.  Those of you who know me would also know that I am a shoot from the hip guy.   Too often I live my life in the “Fire, Ready, Aim-Mode.”  My target today, Santa and Merry Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong… I know Santa….. I have been Santa.  At least for a moment or two.

santabob

And certainly I have celebrated Christmas.  Much of the world has opened a present during the Christmas season.  Presents are also opened under the guise of the Holiday Season.  But you catch my drift.

christmascamps

But today I have taken aim on Santa and Christmas.  And I decided to do it as a believer.  Yes I am a believer in Jesus Christ.  Yes I have been involved in a relationship with Him for over 50 years.  But it is during the Christmas season, “the reason for the season” that I am often most troubled.

I am going to assume you have asked “Why?,” at this moment.  And if you haven’t I will ask it for you.  It is the reason for the reasoning.

It appears to me, Christmas tends to offend many people.  Too much shopping, so much pressure, cards received from folks you did not send to, people exceeding the $20 gift limit during secret Santa, what is the proper denomination on a Starbucks gift card, the family holiday portrait, who to invite to Christmas dinner, how to pay off the credit cards.  These are just a few.

But the reoccurring problem, year after year, and decade after decade, it now seems, is to whom may I wish a “Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays?”

Seriously!  How the heck is this an issue.  Believers and Non, fighting over 2 words.  I am going to tell you I know what I say.  I don’t think about it.  I just do what I do.  And this too, I know, not one person has EVER become a Christian in my 50 years of journey because they heard me say Merry Christmas.  I don’t believe that one Christian has denounced their faith because and Atheist wished them Happy Holidays.

As for Santa, little kids will outgrow their belief in the Jolly man.  Why?  Because he is a fictional character of course.  Santa is not a life changing kind of guy, unless you are a kid.  Everyone learns the truth about Santa some day, one day in life.  There is an awakening.  And then Christmas or the Holiday continue, it become the seasonal truth.

By the way, I have never outgrown my belief in Jesus.  My faith, My choice, My truth.

For those of you who may not know.  There is a resource out there called “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.”  The short version of what this is.  A summary in alphabetical order of EVERY word in EVERY book in the Bible, connected to its original Hebrew or Greek roots.  Yes every “a” or “an” or “the” is listed and connected to the verse in which it is found.  So you can imagine there are pages of connections to the little words.  And fewer references to words like Methuselah or Boaz or Asher.  And then there are words that don’t appear in the Bible at all.

There is NO Santa.  There is NO Christmas.  Never once do these words appear in the Bible.  Old Testament or New.

There are however appearances for the word “division.”   Division, or dividing, is both and action and a spirit.  Division is sometimes necessary, but quite often it is just outright evil.

Romans 16:17-18  (NIV)

17 I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.

So my encouragement to you is to choose carefully how you decide to divide.  I have chosen not to care whether you wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, or nothing at all.  That is your choice.  I know what mine is.

I pray to Unite.  And I pray that you may know Love, Light, and Truth.  God is Love.  God is Light.  God is Truth.

May the real “Reason for the Season” a time of birth, new life, reaching out, traveling and touching, invade and engulf your life.   Or you fill in the blanks.

But if you choose to divide…. I say with confidence… it has NOTHING to do with Christmas.

 

Are you Pro-Choice….

Bob Fulton Challenging, Searching Leave a comment

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could. . . .”     Robert Frost

I hear the arguments.  I feel the passion, and know the venom.  It is visceral and it is getting more intense every day.  Or so it seems to me.  It is often so ugly.  Seemingly sane people quickly become just the opposite.

I don’t think I know a person that is without a side on the question… “Are YOU pro-choice?” And I expect in this approaching election year in the United States that I will hear this question asked multiple times.  Probably Every day.  EVERY FRICKEN DAY!!

Are you pro-choice?

Someone will  preach or teach or beseech or overreach.

Someone will hate or relate or debate or instate.

Some will hide, some will chide.

Certainly someone will get hurt.

Because all too often I only want to hear or do what I want to hear or do.

So in the shadow of this questioning.  I boldly make this statement.  I am pro-choice because God is pro-choice.

I don’t mind if you don’t believe in God… that is your choice.  I do believe in Him, that is my choice.  I don’t mind if you stop reading now… that is your choice.  I will continue to write… that is my choice.

I am pro-choice because God is PRO-CHOICE.    God has always been for choices.  It is in choices that freedom flourishes.  Believers can choose to believe.  Atheists are free to say no.  I hear all the time, people exclaim “this is a free country, I can choose what I want to choose.”  Well let me say, if ever there was an argument for this country being created in the image of the glory of God, for me it is resident in that very freedom to choose.  Freedom of choice,  pro-choice, is among the most Godly and holy of my life experiences.

What I find to be the forgotten factor.  There are consequences to both good and bad choices.  People who are not necessarily believers use politically correct labels…. like Karma. But call it whatever you would like to call it… Call it nothing at all… Call it the Truth… Call it a lie… What you call it is your choice.

I can’t pretend that what I choose is not without consequences.  I have spent decades chasing and honing and narrowing down what I believe.  I have spent decades making good and bad choices.  I have made both types of choices in the past day I am certain.

Consequences are the fruit of our decisions.  Plant an apple seed, I expect an apple tree.  Plant an apple seed, will I wonder where the oranges are.    Spend your day angry…. guess what fruit you will bear.

You can call it coincidence.  You can say it is a random occurrence.  If you wonder why things are as they have become…. well just continue to wonder.  I don’t necessarily have an answer that can address a one pointed question.  I can’t explain why some things are what they have become.  “It is what it is.”  This is the harvest of my generation..  But is it really?  Could it be that it is what it is as a RESULT of a Choice?   Could my obesity be the result of my bad food and exercise choices?  Or is it what it is because of a bad gene pool?  “Damn, where did all this fat come from?”

And so I return to look at the choices I have made.  Choices made freely, most often without care, frequently without advice of friends.  Some made habitually, some learned and repeated, some learned and ignored, all are choices.  God guaranteed my my ability and right to choose.  And so it is written…..

“The Choice of Life or Death  Deuteronomy 30:18-20”
…I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

Yup… you got the Power in the Choice.  Choose Blessing or curse, receive life or death.  God is so Pro-choice.  Some things with God are indeed a mystery.  What I believe he sets before me is to make choices that will bring glory and a life abundant.

God is Pro-choice!

Choose Life! So choose life in order that you may live…

The God I know is Pro-Life.

It is what it is.

Do you understand the difference?  Do you understand the challenge?