A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and start to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.  They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured it into the jar.  He shook the jar lightly.   The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.  The students laughed.

‘Now,’ said the professor, as the laughter subsided, ’I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.  The golf balls are the important things – God, Family, Children, Health, Friends, and favorite passions.  Things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the things that matter like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else —  The small stuff.

‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued,
‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

So…

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play with your children.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.

There will always be time to clean the house and fix the dripping tap.

‘Take care of the golf balls first — the things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled.
‘I’m glad ! You asked’.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.’

In the song posted below, Matthew 6:33 is the first stanza. Matthew 4:4 is the second one. and the last one is Matthew 7:7.  These verses highlight the priority we should set as followers of  Christ.

“Do Your Best” is the motto of Cub Scouts.  It is a good motto for all to follow.  Take a moment to read this little story.  As the new year begins, let’s reflect on what kind of house we have built and see if we need to remodel in 2010.

The Carpenter’s Story

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. “This is your house,” he said, “My gift to you.”

What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.

And so it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, re-acting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best efforts.  Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. 

If we had realized, we would have done it differently.

Think of yourself as the carpenter, and your life is your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely!  It is the only life you will ever build.  Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity.

The plaque on the wall says, “Life is a do-it-yourself project.”

-Author Uknown

This is the so true, isn’t it?

Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

One of my favorite Christmas stories is one read by Paul Harvey. It is a modern Parable about the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, the one true Messiah.

The Man and the Birds by Paul Harvey

“Unable to trace its proper parentage, I have designated this as my Christmas Story of the Man and the Birds.

You know, THE Christmas Story, the God born a man in a manger and all that escapes some moderns, mostly, I think, because they seek complex answers to their questions and this one is so utterly simple. So for the cynics and the skeptics and the unconvinced I submit a modern parable.

Now the man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

“I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another, and then another.  Sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window.

But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window. Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow.

He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, the scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn. And then, he realized, that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

“If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm … to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

My favorite Christmas Monologue comes from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Linus tells us “what Christmas is all about.”

If you watched the whole show, you would see that what Charlie Brown was really missing was feeling loved and accepted by those around him. He went to his mailbox and found no Christmas cards. He wasn’t invited to Christmas parties, and when he came back with his pitiful little Christmas tree, his schoolmates laughed at him and called him names. But Linus put it back into perspective with his little monologue posted above. It inspired a new hope in Charlie Brown. He went out into the night to decorate the little tree. But this time the crowd of friends followed. They saw Charlie Brown’s attempt to decorate the tree and took pity. They all pitched in and showed real love. The little tree and Charlie Brown were blessed by their act of love and friendship.

Our Sunday School class recently discussed 1 Corinthians 13. This is commonly called the “love” chapter. It sums up what Christ did in the incarnation and why he went to the cross to pay our price for the sin in our lives. As I look at our sin-broken world, I see the importance of Agape style of love in 1 Corinthians 13. In John 13:34-35, Jesus gave his disciples the command to love one another like he loved them. In fact, that was to be their distinguishing characteristic… LOVE.

Sadly, in too many churches, this is not the case. In too many of the lives of those who claim to know Christ as their Savior and Lord, we do not see Agape love described in 1 Corinthians 13. It is for this reason Christians are often lampooned as self-righteous and judgmental on television. It is the reason we are not successful in reaching the lost for Christ.

Imagine how the world would be impacted this Christmas if all who claimed a relationship with Christ, followed 1 Corinthians 13! Christians would impact the world in ways beyond belief. It was that kind of love that finally came upon old Ebenezer Scrooge and caused him to change his heart at Christmastime.

The Christmas season can be a very stressful time. Many of us get so caught up in the fray of the holiday season that we lose sight of what we celebrate. The time pressures and the financial strain distracts us and if we are not careful, we will miss the true meaning of Christmas.

I heard a story on the radio of a woman who was out Christmas shopping with her two children….

After many hours of looking at row after row of toys and everything else imaginable. And after hours of hearing both her children asking for everything they saw on those many shelves, she finally made it to the elevator with her two kids.

She was feeling what so many of us feel during the holiday season time of the year. Overwhelming pressure to go to every party, every housewarming, taste all the holiday food and treats, getting that perfect gift for every single person on our shopping list, making sure we don’t forget anyone on our card list, and the pressure of making sure we respond to everyone who sent us a card.

Finally the elevator doors opened and there was already a crowd in the car. She pushed her way into the car and dragged her two kids in with her and all the bags of stuff. When the doors closed she couldn’t take it anymore and stated, “Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be found, strung up and shot.”

From the back of the car everyone heard a quiet calm voice respond, “Don’t worry we already crucified him.” For the rest of the trip down the elevator it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

Don’t forget this year to keep the One who started this whole Christmas thing in your every thought, deed, purchase, and word. If we all did it, just think of how different this whole world would be.  — Author Unknown

May this ADVENT season prepare our hearts to receive the true gift of Christmas.