Yes, it’s hot enough to fry an egg on your door step but it’s never to early to find a speaker for your Christmas event.  Karen Tripp, author, speaker and Bible Study leader has spoken at many Christmas events throughout the years and loves doing it.  Here’s what people are saying…

“Karen Tripp served as the keynote speaker for our women’s Advent candlelight celebration, “Prepare for Jesus.”  Her Christ-centered, heartfelt message on “Receiving the Gift” was an inspiration to all.  Through personal reflection, biblical insight, and humorous anecdotes, Karen helped prepare our hearts to focus on the true meaning of the Advent season, the birth of our Savior.  Many of the women attending shared that her message enriched their celebration of Christmas.” Sharon Shearman Director of Family Ministries, Saint Pauls Lutheran Church, Des Peres

To see Karen’s Christmas topics CLICK HERE. Additional topics are also available at www.ktripp.com under “Workshops”.To speak with Karen directly about your upcoming event call 314-814-0044.

Remember High School?  Regardless of how prepared, organized or responsible you night have been, you had times you needed a hall pass.  What do you do when you need to get a book from your locker or need to email that English paper to the teacher before the end of school?   You go to the teacher that likes you best.  You figure because they like you so much, they’ll give you a hall pass.  All you really want is to get done what you need to get done without any hassles or problems.

There was a time when I felt that Jesus had given me a hall pass through life.  I couldn’t imagine Jesus letting me run into any serious hassles or problems.  This belief ended one day when I was sharing some of my struggles with my Bible Study leader.  I commented “But it’ll be OK, God won’t give me more than I can handle.”  And do you know what she said?  “That’s not the way the verse goes Karen.  The Lord won’t give you more temptation than you can handle.  The verse doesn’t say anything about struggles.”    The verse is 1 Corinthians 10:13  and it goes like this: “ And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”  Although that’s great news about temptation, my Bible Study teacher was right.  It doesn’t say anything about struggles.  Sometimes life brings the unbearable.

The unbearable could be the loss of a child or experiencing uncontrollable pain or even helplessly watching someone you love in pain.  There are definitely things that make you think “God, I can’t take it anymore.”  So where did I get this idea that Jesus would give me a pass on any unbearable struggle?  It wasn’t because I felt privileged.  It was because I felt loved.  It was because of my deep and profound belief in how much Jesus loved me.  Like that favorite teacher that I knew would give me a hall pass, I couldn’t imagine Jesus letting me face the unbearable. But He does.

Maybe facing the possibility of the unbearable builds faith.  After all, how much faith do you need to follow Jesus if you believe you’ll never face the unbearable?   Not much.  Real faith comes from yearning to do God’s will even if that road is tough.  Even if that road is unbearable.

But here is the important thing: Jesus doesn’t want to be the teacher that gives you a hall pass and sends you on your way.  He wants to be the one that places His arm around you and His shield before you and escorts you through the perils of this life.   You see the teacher with the hall pass lets you leave without him.  But with you walk grasping His arm, and  clinging to His every step because you know if you walk into the unbearable, you better have Christ firmly planted at your side.  Faith is not believing your protected from the unbearable but knowing if the unbearable comes, Jesus will bear it with you.

Does the way you think about end times influence the politics of the Middle East?  Before reading Fuse of Armageddon by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer I would have said “Absolutely not.”  Now, I’m not so sure.  Fuse of Armageddon is a high pace thriller set in the Middle East where a Christian fanatic, a Muslim fanatic and a Jewish fanatic, without the other knowing, decide to start a war.  Their motivations? To fulfill what each believes God has ordained to happen in Jerusalem before the end times. Sound crazy but the authors make you see that it’s entirely possible for these three sets of belief, taken to extreme and fueling one another could lead to catastrophe.

In the midst of this onslaught of terrorist insanity is hostage negotiator Mulvaney Quinn who works day in and day out rescuing kidnapped Americans from terrorist all over the Middle East.  His latest assignment is to rescue an American TV preacher being held in the Gaza Strip by a Muslim extremist.  Of course there’s a love interest that needs to have the religious implications of the situation  explained to her as much as I did.    Brouwer is a great novelist in his own right but I was glad to have the clarity of explanation about end times belief that surely came from Haneggraff, the Bible Answer Man.

Somewhere on the internet I saw someone mention that Fuse of Armageddon is a viewpoint of end times that differs from the Left Behind Series.  Resist the temptation to think end times or Middle Eastern politics are too hard to comprehend.  Let this novel give you an excellent plot, fine characters and an insight into an important current going on in the world around you.

http://www.amazon.com/Fuse-Armageddon-Sigmund-Brouwer/dp/1414310250

You know how sometimes a video makes a song mean more to you?  That’s what happened with me and Love is Here by Tenth Avenue North’s song Love is Here.  I’ve always like the song and have often caught myself singing it in and out of the car.  (singing beyond the confines of your car when you sing as off key as I sing, can be dangerous).  Love is not waiting for me to get done with the project or when I have a break or when the kids are asleep.  It’s available now.  Even when I “labor in vain”  or are “broken and shamed”

Come to the waters, you who thirst and you’ll thirst no more.
Come to the Father, you who work and you’ll work no more.
And all you who labor in vain and to the broken and shamed:

Love is here.
Love is now.
Love is pouring from
His hands, from His brows.
Love is near, it satisfies.
Streams of mercy flowing from His side.
Cuz love is here.

Love the message.  But this video makes me see that the message is something that I need proclaimed to me from the roof tops, day in and day out.  The band got up on a roof top to make their point…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sBuajPzBTw

“I wish people who struggle against dark thoughts would risk their hopes on living a good story- by that I mean finding a team of people doing hard work for a noble cause, and joining them.”

Have you ever played  “Hard to Get”?  It’s when you like someone-I mean REALLY like someone- but you don’t want them to know you like them. So what do you do?  You act like you don’t like them.

You walk into a room and instead of running over to the person and saying how happy you are to see them, you turn and talk to someone else.  When they invite you to spend time with them you want to say “yes” but you don’t want to seem too anxious.  You may even leave your calendar open just in case they want to get together but you don’t actually ask them to spend time with you.  If you did, they might think you liked them which you do but you act like you don’t.  Pretty silly huh?

So why do we play hard to get when all we want, is to get got?  Why pretend?  Because we’re afraid.  We are afraid of being hurt.

We’re afraid they won’t like us.

Sometimes, in our own strictly human way, we play hard to get with God.  There’s part of us that all we want is to get closer to God.  We want to bathe ourselves in His love, and walk in His peace and rest assured in His guidance.  We know those close moments with God are the sweetest of our lives and yet when He’s standing before us with open arms, we turn and talk to someone else.  We wrap ourselves up with our kids or our work, or our struggles and leave Jesus standing on the other side of the room, waiting, arms still opened.  That’s playing hard to get with God.  I know because I’ve done it.  There’s been Sundays I’ve felt God inviting me to worship Him and I roll over in bed or read the newspaper.  There’s times He gives me a spectacular sunset to draw me near but I spend the time feeling lonely.

The problem is I place God in a pot with the other folks I know.  Folks that have hurt me, disappointed me or even crushed me.  But God is not “folks”.

We are not in a holding pattern waiting to find out if we are loved and adored by God.  1 John 4:19 tells us “We love because He first loved us”.   Before you ever heard the name of Christ, He loved you.  Before you heard about a Son of God or a Maker of heaven and earth, Jesus loved you.  Before you looked at a Christian and wished you had what they have, Jesus loved you.  Jesus loved you first.

Dying on the cross was His way of showing you that He is here to stick.  You don’t need to hold back to find out if He adores you the way you adore Him.   He does!  He totally adores you!  Every room you walk into, He wants you to run to Him.  Every time you see His goodness He wants you to sing His praises.  And each time you fall down, He wants to be the one to lift you up.  Don’t play hard to get.  He’s waiting.  Let yourself get GOT!

Mikeschair totally hits home with Someone Worth Dying For!   Yes, I would say that the hardest thing to believe on this planet is that I am someone worth dying for.  Think about that literally. Imagine someone coming up to you and offering to die in your place.   Can you imagine saying “Sure, that’d be great.”  I can’t.  And yet Mikeschair sing the thoughts in my mind so clearly and so passionately…”I wanna believe”.  Imagine living each day filled with the wonder of knowing you are so cherished and so adored that Christ freely died for you.

You might be the wife, waiting up at night
You might be the man, struggling to provide
Feeling like it’s hopeless
Maybe you’re the son, who chose a broken road
Maybe you’re the girl, thinking you’ll end up alone
Praying God can you hear me?
Oh God are you listening?

Am I more than flesh and bone?
Am I really something beautiful?
Yeah I wanna believe, I wanna believe that
I’m not just some wandering soul
That you don’t see and you don’t know
Yeah I wanna believe, Jesus help me believe that I
Am someone worth dying for

I am struck by the rich tones and the heart felt emotions that shine in this song.  This is another song that really touches my heart..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhdeQKkIXGc

“When you take little steps, you don’t need God.”

Can you imagine being 5 years old and watching your 7 year old brother being abducted from your bedroom?  Weeks later,  your brother’s body is found.  That’s the beginning of James Scott Bell’s The Whole Truth.  The novel quickly progresses to adulthood.  The 5 year old is now a struggling lawyer with a client in prison who claims to be his dead brother.  As is true to Bell’s style, there are lots of twists and turns that keep the reader guessing but this journey forces you to focus on the impact of family ties and religious belief.

Of course there’s a love interested and a religious fanatic you will love to hate.  But the real meat of the book is the personal struggle of this young lawyer wanting desperately to have a bond with his brother yet deciding what moral standards to sacrifice to have it.  No fluff, just a good deep read.  Enjoy.

http://www.jamesscottbell.com/

If you are looking for a roommate, you should be careful how much information you put into the newspaper ad.  You probably want to tell the size of the place, the fact they’ll have a private bath and the finer qualities of your neighborhood.  But you may not want to mention that you typically leave your shoes lying around the house, or that you commonly have day old cereal bowls on the coffee table.  And you might skip over the fact that you’ve been known to wander the place late at night singing Barry Manilow songs.  Even Manilow fans can’t take his songs at 3 AM.

You see we all have qualities that are hard to live with.  What does that say about your spouse? If there was anyone on the planet that could make a list of reasons NOT to live with you, it would be them.  Do you leave the cap off the toothpaste?  Do you always have to have the last word or do you keep your complaints to yourself and brood around the house?  Are you a bear in the morning or a zombie at night?  Do you forget little things you should remember or do you blow up at little things you should forget?  How long of a list could your spouse make?  At 27 years of marriage, my husband could make one so long he’d have to buy a new hard drive to store it all!  And yet- AND YET- he’s still living with me.  My question is why?  Why does the person that knows the most reasons to never want to live with us stay?

That, my friend, is the reflection of Christ in our marriages.  Christ uses marriages to reveal Himself.  One time, God revealed His true character through the marriage of a prophet Hosea.  God told Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer.  After they were married, she left Him and had another mans child.  And do you know what God told Hosea to do?  He told Hosea to go get Gomer and bring her home.

Now if anyone had a list of reasons not to live with someone, it’s Hosea.  So why did God tell him to go get her?  Because God wants you to know will ALWAYS go get you too even though He has a huge list of reasons to not stick by you.  God knows everything.  He doesn’t just know that you leave the top off the toothpaste.  He knows that you do it on purpose.  He knows your every thought , word, and deed.  And yet- AND YET- He’s still with you.  With your every step, with your every breath.

God’s  never walking away from you, never divorcing you and never neglecting you.  Never.  He has bought you with His Son’s blood and no matter how far you wander away, no matter how long the list of reasons He should let you go, He will bring you home.  Every time.  Every Time.