HOPE

I am up early this morning, my high blood sugar woke me up. It's been a good few days. Christmas time is sure a busy time. I think some times we get so busy we forget the true meaning of Christmas. It's been nice being here in Alaska, I don't have to plan or organize any thing really so am I really enjoying Christmas time this year. For me this Christmas is a time of Hope! Which it should always be, but I have time to think and meditate on this idea. My hope comes from Jesus Christ. Christ did not just come on the scene as a baby in the Bible. He appeared to people as the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. That fourth guy in the fiery furnace was Jesus. Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord whom is Jesus. And in John 1 it says that Jacob wrested with an Angel and I believe that Angel to be Jesus. But this time he came as a humble baby. And grew up a humble man. He was fully God and fully man. Feeling the pains that we feel and feeling the struggle with sin. He paid the ultimate price as God as He hung on the cross for our sins. There is Hope in Jesus. When we follow Him He adopts us in His family. He cam as a baby to give us new life. This is what Christmas means to me. In the past I have got so caught up in every thing else and have forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.

Hope is a good thing for a guy like me to be focusing on. We all need hope or we just start loosing the point of life. Hope gives me goals and direction. Some times I feel like I don't matter. What do I have to offer any more is in my head way to much. But if I walk as Jesus did then that's a pretty good start. Every day I have an option, am I going to use the tools God has given me or am I just going to walk through the day and fall back into old habits and attitudes. I have learned for me I have to get my butt to an AA meeting every day. It gives me Hope as I look at the twelve steps and hear how others are doing these things one day at a time. I want every thing fixed now. And I want to be doing something amazing reaching peoples lives today. But I know that my recovery is one day at a time. And if I really look at my day I do help people as much as I can. Most of my life I did not think God was using me unless I was in full time ministry. Well, as a Jesus follower I am always in full time ministry if I am willing to do what every God asks me to do, even if I think its a small thing.

My idea of a Jesus follower has changed a lot the last couple of years. A lot of us have our ideas of what a "Christian" should look like and do. And a lot of it comes from outside appearances. We think we have to look good and say and not say certain things. As I go through the gospels Jesus was not sitting around the synagogs He was out with the "bad" people. Well, people like me. He reached out to the people that no one else would reach out to. He loved the people that the religious folks would have nothing to do with.

This is a huge thing that AA as taught me since I have been working the program is to love people as they are not as I want them to be. I put myself in a relgous box that I could not live up to. When I got to AA I found that out. When I keep working the steps I find out who God wants me to be. It took me to shatter that neat little box I was living in and really allow God to work in my life!

Hope! That's my focus this month. And if I stick with Jesus and stick close to the fellowship I will understand more every day what that word means!