Just a couple bits of information and an inspiring quote today:

• This coming week I’ll be in Colorado Springs teaching in the YWAM Discipleship Training School. I’m excited also that my buddy Clay, (from Sarajevo), will be joining me there.

• The photo below is from a little informal birthday gathering last week. I don’t own much in the way of property, (mostly books), but these friends are eternal treasures. I actually plan on spending ages in heaven with these characters.

• Three people in the past week have asked me if I’ve thought about writing a book. One of them even told me he’d finance the project. I’ve never really thought I was clever enough for that sort of thing, unless maybe it was along the lines of The Kingdom of God for Dummies. Maybe it would sell a few copies to some humble souls who – because of their humility – would already know a lot about the kingdom. Still… it has me thinking.

• This from E. Stanley Jones: “Seek first the kingdom of God and all things will be added to you, including yourself. You will no longer be an echo – you will be a voice. You will no longer merely copy, you will create.”

Lionel Whiston was a dapper eighty-some year old saint when I met him thirty years ago. He was one of those uncommon individuals who had a gift for pulling people in, drawing them out, and sending them off with a gift. And he preached mighty good sermons, too. But the thing I remember most about Lionel was the gift he gave me that day: a happy revelation that old age was nothing to fear. If I could age like him, then each birthday would celebrate another year of becoming more like Jesus.

That’s my hope. Bill Gothard says that “The fear of old age is the false assumption that I still have many years of life ahead of me.” Only God knows the number of my days, but for this day I’m setting my hope on aging like Lionel, with my ear snuggled ever closer to the heartbeat of Jesus.

It’s been about six weeks since I read The Shack. And last count I’d given away seventeen copies of it to friends. So for me to plug this book is a no-brainer. If you’re anything like me, it’ll blow the lid off your concept of the Trinity, illuminate the profound beauty of the Godhead, and carry your love of the Father to new heights.

Eugene Peterson, (The Message), says “This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”   I can’t remember ever seeing so many people being so deeply impacted by a book other than the Bible.  So if you’re looking for something worthwhile to read…

The centerpiece of civilization and the hope of Adam’s race is a child born in a manger. What a wondrous world.

I’ve had a sweet Christmas with family and friends in Maryland. The fingers are healing nicely, as well as the chest cold that’s kept me close to my Mom’s house for most of the week. The thought that keeps returning to me is the idea that the incarnation of the God-man Jesus brings meaning to all of life, from Christmas cards and pumpkin pies to Salvation Army ringers and good movies. God has entered our world and – by his presence – made all of it holy.

It’s an amazing place to live when once we’re able to see it.

It’s always humbling to be at the receiving end of so many prayers. Just thirty hours after my accident with the garage door, God restored my fingers enough to go through with Sunday evening’s concert. The fingers were still a little sensitive and weak. But He made up the difference as He always does.

“My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak.”
II Corinthians 12:9

In the end, it was a warm family time together with the church.   Formality was out, and the joy was in  sharing our imperfect lives and gifts in the fellowship of the Spirit.  Thanks for the prayers!  Tomorrow (Wednesday), I head home to Maryland for a week or so. Hope we get some snow.

Today I smashed the hang out of my fingers. I creamed ’em like a fool when I tried to lower a garage door by sticking my fingers into the handy little crack between the panels. So when the door came down, the crack closed, and I was left with the three middle fingers of each hand stuck in the door while I yelled, danced and pleaded for someone to help. Now my digits are traumatized with bruised and bleeding fingernails on each hand, and I’m typing this entry very gently, favoring certain fingers like a dog with a wounded leg.

The bummer is, tomorrow night I have a special Christmas performance. So I’ve enlisted some prayer warriors, and I’m believing for God to heal me up enough to go through with it. It’s really amazing how often things like this happen to me before a concert. It makes me feel like there’s some kind of spiritual assignment against me playing in public.

I was thinking about this today, wondering why people connect with my music in the first place. It’s definitely not my technique. You can find people all over the county who effortlessly play circles around me, executing flawless passages and dazzling arpeggios. The only thing I can figure out is, maybe it’s my passion. I have a tendency of losing myself in the music and forgetting about the world around me. And people seem to like that. We love passion because we’re created in the image of a passionate God. Yet our lives can be so incredibly mundane. So when an audience hears someone get lost in some foggy Neverland, and then emerge on the other end beating the keyboard black and blue, they respond.

Sometimes I get choked up, or even cry right in the middle of a piece. Other times I’ve played hard enough to leave a trail of blood on the keyboard. (And sometimes I make loud, bombastic mistakes that cause the audience to squirm and twist in their seats). Of course this can be embarrassing, but if I live in fear of tenderness, or even of large, monstrous mistakes, everything will come across sounding tentative and tame. And neither life nor music was meant to be played that way.