The greatest struggle of the average pastor in America is with discouragement and sometimes flat-out depression. The source of his discouragement may be the stress of the ministry and the absence of elders who are walking with him in it. Or the feeling that he is not equipped to take care of a flock. Or that he or his wife or children are struggling with their own sins that they believe they have to keep hidden in order to maintain the facade of a “nearly perfect family.” Or the source may be financial stress.
Alistair Begg gave a talk at a pastors’ conference years ago entitled, “Dealing With the Blues.” His subject was ministerial depression, and the auditorium was packed with discouraged pastors and elders. After the session, elders from one church asked to talk with Alistair in private. “Our problem is not with the pastor, but his wife,” they said. “She is deeply depressed and we have tried everything, but nothing has helped. What should we do?” Pastor Begg said, “Increase your pastor’s annual salary by $5,000.” The elders were shocked and had no response. Later, one of the members of the church who had heard about this conversation found Alistair and said, “You don’t know how right on target you were. Our pastor’s wife has never been able to buy new shoes for her children, and the elders wear it as a badge of honor that the pastor’s family has to scrape together pennies to make ends meet. They believe they are helping them trust God. They think they are helping the pastor never to become a lover of money by making sure he doesn’t have any money to love.”
I heard about another pastor who was thrilled when a couple of families in his country church started giving him milk and eggs every week. Until he found out that the cost of the gifts was being deducted from his salary.
Paul addressed this issue of remuneration for pastors a number of times. He said to the church in Corinth, “If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?” To the church in Galatia, Paul wrote, “Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches.”
Part of the problem is disobedience to the Scriptures with regard to providing for pastors. But there is a deeper problem with disobedience to the Word with regard to giving to the church. The average church in America operates on a 10/90 basis. Ten percent of the people give 90 percent of the money so the church can operate, the pastor and the elders can feed and equip the people (100 percent of them), the lights can stay on, and the missionaries can do their work. Let me ask you something: What percentage of people in churches in America make the payment on their car, which provides them with physical transportation, in the same way they give to the church, which provides them with spiritual nourishment and development? I would guess that most do not.
The few who do pay their bills that way end up losing their cars or their homes. Now, if we pay our bills 100 percent of the time because we feel an obligation to do so and we want to continue to enjoy the material things that those bills represent, how much more should we cheerfully give to the church where we are fed spiritual truth?
Does your pastor or his wife have the blues?
Latest Entries »
Who says the Bible does not help us deal with every issue of life? Those who deny this truth simply have not read the Bible themselves or have rejected the book, hoping this will somehow make them less accountable to it and its Author.
The Bible speaks clearly on the question “Who is to care for widows?” which is a practical concern for every generation in every place. The widow has always been one of the most vulnerable in society. It may be true that the American widow has the safety net of the government and its programs to help provide for her, and it is certainly true that the American widow has more disposable income than nearly all of her global counterparts. That doesn’t change the truth of Scripture, however, which clearly lays the responsibility for widows at the feet of the family, first, and then the church.
The family is responsible to care for its own widows. It is the children and grandchildren who are to provide for their elderly relatives, not the government. This was so ingrained in the cultures of the first century that Greek law demanded that sons and daughters were not only morally, but also legally, bound to support their parents. Aristotle had written three centuries before, “Anyone who refused that duty lost his civil rights.” He said, “It is more honorable to help the authors of our being, even before ourselves.” William Barclay writes, “As Aristotle saw it, a man must himself starve before he would see his parents starve.” Maybe this helps us understand why the Apostle Paul would say that anyone who does not provide for his own “has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Even the pagans took care of their parents in their old age.
It is interesting to me that when Jesus is confronted by a weeping widow who has lost her only son in Nain, he did not simply comfort her and then tell the government or the local gathering of believers to take care of this lady. Instead, Jesus raised her dead son to life. He “awoke” the one who could care for his widowed mother. Jesus stopped the funeral procession and said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” May I suggest that is what needs to happen in families all across our land that are dead to their responsibility to care for their aging parents and grandparents? They need to be resurrected, brought back to life, have their eyes opened to see their charge to care for the “authors of their being.” What if our parents provide for themselves financially, like many in this generation have done? We still must honor them by keeping in touch and caring for them emotionally.
When does the church step in, then? The Bible teaches us that the church provides for “widows indeed,” those who have been left all alone, without family or financial provision from any other source. They also must be “godly widows,” those who trust in God alone. The widow who lives for pleasure and “is dead while she lives,” Paul says, is not the responsibility of the church. Paul suggests that this widow be left to her sin in hopes that she will repent.
The Bible speaks to every issue of life, including the question of who cares for widows. The family and the church that follow this clear instruction will be blessed. So will a nation that is racing headlong toward involuntary euthanasia and other “final solutions” for the elderly. May God help us.
So, you want to be a leader? There’s no better leadership checkup than what Paul wrote to Timothy: “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” Leadership is not a function of age or ability, according to the Scriptures, but a function of character. You want to be a leader? Don’t tell me about your SAT score or your internships or the offices you have held and the influence you have wielded. Tell me about your character. Better yet, show it to me. Be an example.
In your speech. Remember, Paul is writing this letter to a young pastor, a man who speaks every day as part of his job. I feel Timothy’s pain, and yours as well, if you are one of those who only opens his mouth to switch feet. Those who lead must be good examples with their tongues, whether they are running for office, leading a church or business, or doing anything else that puts them out front.
In your conduct. You can fool some of the people some of the time, Lincoln famously said. That’s true with speech. But your conduct, how you behave, will eventually show who you really are. Good leaders don’t say one thing in public and do the opposite in private. Not if they want to be useful to God and man.
In your love. It is possible to say all the right things and do all the right things … for the wrong reason. That’s why the Bible teaches that even if I give all my goods to feed the poor and my body to be burned as a martyr, but I do it to somehow win favor with God, not because I love God and mankind, “I am nothing.” Sobering words those who lead must heed.
In your spirit. This word in Paul’s instruction may refer to the Holy Spirit or to man’s spirit, or even to the way we say someone “has a good spirit about him,” a genuine fellow. I consider those three intertwined like a threefold cord.
In faith. This is the missing ingredient for many leaders whose hope and confidence is in their own intellect or ability. Chris runs a family conference center in New Hampshire. Once, someone gave them a few packages of English muffins, and with 11 children in the family, they disappeared quickly. One child complained, saying she wished they had more. So, Chris said to his children, “The muffins came from God, right? Let’s stop right now and ask the Lord for English muffins.” They stopped the meal and prayed. Within a week, a miracle occurred: Six hundred packages of English muffins arrived at their door. “We gave them away,” Chris said. The English muffins really started pouring in then; some weeks there were 1,200 packages delivered. Chris said, “It was great to see God provide for us so we could share with others. We have to have the God-factor with our finances.”
In purity. Paul started with the tongue, and ended with the thought life and the heart motives. The sins of lust, greed, and pride are much harder to see, and we can become masters at keeping them covered up. That’s why we each need people who are willing to ask us the hard questions so we cannot hide in the darkness. How many “good leaders” have been derailed by their hidden sins brought into the light?
You want to be a leader? Do a check-up with these truths from God’s Word.
I had the privilege to meet in St. Louis last weekend with 17 men from around the country. We flew or drove there from places as far away as Gresham, Ore., Ovid, N.Y., and Lake Wales, Fla. We are fathers and grandfathers, pastors and conference speakers, lawyers and entrepreneurs, writers and researchers, life coaches and salesmen. We gathered in a hotel conference room for three days to talk about what God is doing in our lives, to share our successes and our failures and to encourage one another. Here are a few favorite words of wisdom I heard, along with a great story.
“Too much Christian ministry goes undone because instead of reaching some, we are waiting for the opportunity to reach all.” Stop waiting and start reaching the few, or the one.
“You cannot be healed from that which you hide.” Does that need any explanation? Stop hiding and step into the light; that’s where hope resides and is waiting for you.
“The heart is made for hope, so whoever offers the most hope gets the heart.” Maybe that’s why the Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” One application is for parents: Are we offering hope to our children?
If there was a theme for the gathering, I would have to say it was this: “It is not about me. To live is Christ.” That message was shared with tears, as men confessed failures and struggles, and asked for prayer support. That message was also shared with exciting stories of how God is working in our lives, our families and our jobs for his own glory. We celebrated together the sovereignty of our loving God. This story illustrates it as well as any I have ever heard.
A missionary was traveling in rural Kenya, taking a truck filled with valuable equipment through a territory known for thieves. There were five people in the truck, including two nationals who were part of the Masai tribe. The truck started making noises in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch black of night. Then it threw a rod, and the five were stranded. The missionary said that he thought he knew someone who could come and fix the truck, but it would take him two days to bring the man back. “The rest of you stay with the truck and protect the supplies,” he said, and he was gone. The four pitched a tent, ate a late supper and fell asleep. In the middle of the night, they were awakened by a blood curdling scream. A lion had grabbed the tent with his paws on either side of the head of one of the Kenyans, and was trying to drag him out through the canvas. The tent held firm and the other team members were able to scare the lion away. The next night the team constructed a perimeter around the tent and truck with brush and built a good fire. Again, they were awakened by a scream in the middle of the night as a lion was stalking one of the men who had gone outside the camp to relieve himself. The others ran at the lion with firebrands and were able to rescue their terrified and embarrassed companion. The next day, the missionary returned with his friend, the mechanic, whose jaw dropped when he saw where the truck had broken down.
“You are camping in the middle of the lion’s den in this area,” he said. “If you weren’t, you’d be dead. Robbers would have killed you for your valuables.”
Our hope is in Christ alone.
Why do we applaud and want to be like the famous athlete? Or the famous musician? Perhaps because he or she is the best; excellence in any arena is a magnet. The question is, how did the athlete or the musician get to be the best? Discipline. A master violinist held the audience breathless with his music. When the concert was over, a young man approached the aged musician and said, “I would give my whole life to be able to play like you do.” The violinist replied, “I have given my whole life to play like I do.” Discipline.
What do we do when we want to lose weight or get in shape? We find some kind of plan to follow and we follow it. I want to complete a marathon in four weeks, so I have been on a training plan for the past 14 weeks. Last Saturday, I had to run 20 miles. If I had tried to run 20 miles 13 weeks ago, I would have ended up in the hospital. Or, more likely, I would have quit before I got close to the 20-mile mark and decided that I just could not run a marathon. But the training program works; I have been trained by the day-by-day routine of it. Running 395 miles in the first 13 weeks, combined with a huge helping of the grace of God, enabled me to run 20 miles at one time. Discipline. It works for the athlete and for the musician. It also works for those who desire to grow in godliness, which is why the Bible is filled with commands for the Christian to labor and work hard in the spiritual disciplines. But there is often a problem with our thinking here.
We understand what discipline means when it comes to bodily exercise. But what if your pastor says that you need to read the Bible every day and you need to pray every day? You might protest and say, “That’s legalism!” That seems to be the mantra of many Christians today, a label they apply to anything anyone tells them they have to do. Can we come out from behind that mask once and for all? Kent Hughes says, “Legalism is self-centered, but discipline is God-centered. The legalistic heart says, ‘I will do this thing to gain merit with God.’ The disciplined heart says, ‘I will do this thing because I love God and want to please him.’ Paul knew this difference well, and he never gave an inch to legalists, even while challenging young Timothy to ‘train (himself) for godliness.’”
There is no shortcut. I was thinking this week about a good friend, Jeff, who just ran a marathon a few weeks ago, and how nice it would be if I could just get the benefit of his hard work without any effort myself. You know, Jeff does the training, and I get the conditioned heart and lungs and legs. Or what if my son Jesse lifted the weights, and I got the muscles? Sorry, friend, but it doesn’t work that way, in either physical fitness or spiritual fitness. That’s why Paul said, “Train yourself.” You have to read your Bible for yourself and study it and obey what it says. You have to pray.
I wouldn’t mind being a master musician or a world-class athlete. But those things are for this life only. “Godliness,” on the other hand, “is profitable for all things,” both for this life and the one to come. That sounds like a can’t-lose proposition.
Go ahead and train yourself for godliness.
I really like John Rosemond’s column in the Times-News, and generally I agree with him. This past week, however, I think his answer was off target. The question from concerned parents was what to do about their 17-year-old daughter and her boyfriend. The letter said the daughter is an honor student, and is not a risk-taker, “except with boys.” She and her current boyfriend are chafing under her parents’ rule that they cannot be alone together, and she has been caught texting her boyfriend about “sneaking out in cars to be alone.”
Mr. Rosemond starts his response by saying, “Your question, however brief, absolutely drips with evidence that the two of you are guilty of world-class micromanagement.” He then goes on to define “micromanagement” and its effects, “deceit, disloyalty, conflict and communication problems.” Rosemond says that these young people are engaging in three of the four of those effects and the final one, disloyalty, will surely follow if the parents continue in their destructive behavior of micromanagement.
Mr. Rosemond seems to ignore the towering clue in the parents’ question, that their daughter tends to be a risk-taker with boys. They know their daughter; Mr. Rosemond does not. He casts that aside and seems to imply that the parents are incompetent because they want to maintain standards of behavior with their daughter for her own protection. Mr. Rosemond admits that young children need tight reins on their behavior, and I agree that as our children grow, those reins need to be loosened, in direct proportion to the wisdom and responsibility our children display. Rosemond even agrees that “some teens, because they have demonstrated a serious inability to make good decisions, may need to be micromanaged.” But then he goes on to say, “the very teen who needs it is not going to submit to it. A teen who does not need it is not going to submit to it, either. Therefore, micromanagement does not work with teens. Period.”
Wow. I know Mark Twain quipped, “When a child turns 12 you should put him in a barrel, nail the lid down and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug the hole.” That view of parenting teens would be on one end of the scale. Mr. Rosemond’s counsel sounds dangerously close to the other extreme, where one might suggest, “Teenagers are going to do what they want to do, no matter what we tell them and no matter how we have trained them. So, let’s take our hands off, let them go, and pray for the best.” I would suggest there is a healthy middle ground between an authoritarian and a laissez-faire style of parenting. I would call it “loving accountability.”
Every teen needs adults, particularly parents, who will hold him accountable, raise the standards, help him grow up “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Every adult needs that as well. I meet with four men weekly, early in the morning before work, and the meeting has one purpose: loving accountability. We ask each other questions like, “Have you led your family consistently in devotions this week?” “Have you been with a woman this week in a way that could be viewed as compromising?” “Have you viewed any sexually explicit material?”
Are we men “micromanaging” each other? No, we are acknowledging before God that left to ourselves we cannot be trusted, that our hearts are deceptive, that we desperately need men who will help us with “loving accountability.”
Loving accountability. Even a 17-year-old honor student needs that from her parents.
I like to go back through my journal at year-end to see what I learned (and probably have already forgotten), in hopes that some of it might stick. I offer these ideas from 2011 for your enjoyment and, maybe, for your edification.
“God makes people grow up.” I was at Jerry and Frances’ house in early January, and their artificial Christmas tree was standing in the corner of the living room, stripped of its lights and ornaments. I joked about how it looked a lot better when it was clothed and asked what the plan was. Jerry said, “We’re rooting it,” and we laughed. But here’s a question for you: If you put an artificial tree in a tree stand and pour water in there, maybe even add some fertilizer, how long will it take for the tree to grow roots? Right, it never will. The tree looks like the real thing, but it can never be the real thing. It is the same with anyone who is not connected to Jesus Christ by faith. He or she may look like the real thing, like there is real life there and real fruit. But only God can make a believer (or a tree). Salvation is all of God. Sanctification is, too. He makes trees grow. He makes believers grow. Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
“The Lord is my Shepherd.” On Feb. 1 last year, Nate and Tara met with me and Cindy to ask what we thought about their family moving to Colombia, South America, for a lifetime call. It excited me to see God working in this family to uproot them from what was comfortable for them, and comfortable for us, and move them where he needed them more. It also prompted me to pray again, as I have hundreds of times, “Lord, don’t let me stay where it is comfortable one second longer than I am supposed to. And don’t let me move away from the place You have planted me one second earlier than I am supposed to.” My mind went to Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.”
“Give yourself away.” I was listening to a sermon by CJ Mahaney this year and was reminded of the passage in 1 Thessalonians 2:8 where Paul says, “So affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us.” My prayer was, and is, “O God, teach me more and more how to give myself away like Paul did.”
Some of you may feel like you have blown it this past year. I know I do in many ways. I was encouraged as I read these words from Andree Seu, one of my favorite columnists in World magazine. She was writing about a familiar passage in the Psalms that begins, “This is the day that the Lord has made.” Seu wrote, “Not the day that is past, but this day. A command follows: ‘Let us rejoice and be glad in it.’ Thus we do not miss the boat that’s here while mourning the boat that’s sailed.”
Like me, you may have missed your share of boats in 2011. Let’s make sure we get on board the one that is in the dock today.
As we stand at the door of 2012, I would like to offer some random thoughts that may encourage you, make you smile, or even give you a nudge in a healthy direction.
Someone sent me this from a church in another state: “We do not allow children between the ages of three months and fifth grade in the adult worship service.” Note: It is not a preference there, it is the law! The message went on to explain that adults will “worship better” without distractions. Two questions: When did training our children to worship with us become a distraction? I thought it was a privilege and a responsibility. Secondly, when did “personal comfort” become our highest goal at church?
Since we are on the subject of our children, let me encourage you Dads to hug your children every day. Tell your sons, especially, that you are proud of them. Their souls will bear that imprint throughout their lives.
Read a good book aloud to your children. And for heaven’s sake, be animated about it! Use different voices for the characters and enjoy the experience. You will be amazed at the blessings this brings to your family.
If you are having trouble with boomerangers (adult children moving back in with you), you might laugh when you hear Paul Shanklin’s song, “Can’t Fit the Cradle.” It is set to the tune of the classic Harry Chapin song, but the chorus goes, “Well, he can’t fit the cradle and he sleeps ‘til noon. The boy’s 42 and he don’t have a clue. When you gonna leave son?” ‘I don’t know when. We’ll have a good time til then, Dad, we’ll have a good time til then.’” At the end of the song, the boy finally gets married again and moves out. The Dad sings, “And as they drove away, it occurred to me, the boy had a front door key, yeah, he still had a front door key!”
Get involved in a good church. What defines a “good church?” Read Paul’s letters and see for yourself. I would say at minimum a good church believes the Bible is the word of God and the leadership lives what they profess. But there is much more than that. You don’t know what you are missing if you have never been committed to a life-changing fellowship of believers. Find a good one and get involved there. For those of you who go to church, this story will make you smile. Three small children announced one evening that they were going to “play church.” Their parents were pleased and proud at the same time, but had to eat humble pie when the children started running around in a panic, pretending to get dressed and yelling, “Hurry up!” “It’s time for church!” “We have five minutes!” “We’ll be late!”
Get involved in missions. You can give money to an organization like the New Directions, or have them come to your church for a “Pack-a-thon.” Call Scott Hahn at 336-227-1273 for details of how you can help feed children in the Third World for a whole year. You can go on a short-term missions trip. You can pray for the persecuted church around the world (go to persecution.com for information). The needs and opportunities are endless.
Exercise. Paul said, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” Don’t listen to the “no-exercise” pundit who said “If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.”
Practice gratefulness. No explanation necessary.
Have a happy and blessed new year!
The wise men brought expensive gifts to the Christ child. The shepherds just brought wonder. But it is from the shepherds that we can all learn a life-altering lesson. Look at how they obeyed the messenger sent from God. The shepherds said, after hearing from the angel that the Savior had been born, Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. What do we know about the shepherds’ obedience from this passage?
First, it was corporate; the shepherds obeyed together. They exhorted one another to obey the Lord. Are you hanging around people who are in the habit of obeying God’s Word? Or would you say your closest companions are those who mock the Bible, or at best simply ignore it? The first group is harder to find, but well worth your diligent search.
Second, the obedience of the shepherds was immediate; they said, “let us now go,” and then they left where they were to go to the place the angel had told them about. The shepherds hurried to obey God even though there were lots of reasons not to; the bleating of the sheep all around gave them a perfect reason to delay. But they left the temporal to find the eternal.
Do you obey God with that much abandon? There is delight and surprise waiting for those who will make haste and obey God’s word.
Third, the obedience of the shepherds was grounded. It took faith for these men to leave their sheep and go into the city looking for a baby in a feeding trough. But it was not presumption; God had revealed it to them. Is the faith that guides your life moment by moment grounded in what God has clearly said? Don’t hide behind the cloak of, “I cannot understand the Bible.” I like how Mark Twain said it: “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
If you just obey the parts of the Bible that you do understand, and “the main things are the plain things,” your life will be turned upside down, I promise. The shepherds understood exactly what God was telling them to do, and they simply obeyed.
Fourth, the obedience of the shepherds was rewarded. And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in the manger. We don’t know how long it took them to find the right baby. There may have been other babies in Bethlehem that night that were wrapped in swaddling cloths, but according to the angel there would only be one lying in a manger, a feeding trough. I can imagine the shepherds going door to door saying, “Uh, hello. Yes, well, we are looking for a baby. I mean, it’s a special baby. Well, uh … ma’am, do you have a baby in a feeding trough?” Perhaps the Bethlehem police were called out a few times, we don’t know. But the shepherds persisted. No matter how long it took, they did not stop until they found him. This is such an important biblical principle. In Jeremiah we read, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” And in Isaiah, “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”
My prayer is that you and your household would seek and find the Savior this Christmas. He is not in Bethlehem now, but as close as your surrendered heart.
Dave Barry wrote several years ago about the increase of political correctness we find in our culture surrounding Christmas: “To avoid offending anybody, the schools dropped religion altogether and started singing about the weather. At my son’s school, they now hold the winter program in February and sing increasingly non-memorable songs such as ‘Winter Wonderland,’ ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and, this is a real song, ‘Suzy Snowflake,’ all of which is pretty funny because we live in Miami. A visitor from another planet would assume that the children belonged to the Church of Meteorology.”
I don’t know about “Suzy Snowflake,” but I do know that when angels appeared 2,000 years ago to poor shepherds on a Judean hillside, they weren’t there to talk about the weather.
Luke tells us that the shepherds were outside, watching their sheep, and an angel appeared to them. Let me ask you: What would you do if an angel showed up at your workplace? I am not talking about your wife, men. And I know what some of you women are thinking, too. I am sure my wife’s first thought at hearing this question would be, “An angel shows up at my workplace, the house, every day when he gets home from work.” Thanks, darling, I love you, too. This was an angel from heaven, however, not a redeemed sinner from earth. The shepherds went from calm to terrified in an instant. The Bible says they were “greatly afraid.” J.B. Phillips translates it, “terror-stricken.” Luke was a historian, and was not given to exaggeration. If anything, he understated the case. The shepherds were terrified and part of the reason was that the angel just appeared, out of nowhere, without warning. Maybe that’s why the first thing the angel said was “Do not be afraid,” nearly every time he showed up.
God turns the great fear of the shepherds into the greater joy of the shepherds. How? How do you go from fear to joy? By hearing and believing good news. Think of a person waiting for the doctor to come in with the test results. He has been diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer. Now the surgery and the treatments have been done, and test results will reveal the truth. The patient is filled with fear as he waits to hear from the doctor. He goes from great fear to greater joy instantly when he hears the good news: “your cancer is gone.” The angel says, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy … for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
Heaven has come down, God’s Glory has come to earth. Great fear has been replaced by greater joy because of the greatest news the world has ever heard. The bad news for healed cancer patients is that they are still going to die. The good news for redeemed sinners is that though we die, we will live again because of the news the angels proclaimed on a Judean hillside two millennia ago.
You can sing about the weather this Christmas if you like. Since God is the weatherman, only He can “let it snow.” I would rather join in the angels’ song, translated by Charles Wesley this way: “Hark the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King; peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled! Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies; With the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem! Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King.”
