Dear Grandchildren:

Wow! 2015 is almost history. How are you doing? Has this year been a good year for you? Are you looking at 2016 with hope and confidence? I’m sure Kyle and Jaclyn are looking forward to 2016! And I’m sure Zac and Katie enjoyed 2015. Congratulations to both couples.

Grandma and I took in a great show this week called Woodlawn — it’s a true story about people who lived what they believed. Many of them attended or were involved with a high school in Alabama, the first school to allow an African American student to play on the football team. It took place during the early 1970’s during the Jesus revolution—the same time we both came to Christ.

The show does a great job communicating that God uses people for his purpose where they are planted. The key is we need to be willing to live out our assignment by his grace and power. If you can see the movie, I believe you would enjoy it and its powerful spiritual message.

Later that evening, Grandma shared an important point with me: the real focus of our life in Christ should be on others. When we are truly interested in others and what they have to say, then we will bless God.

She is so right. Who is the person we think about the most? Yes! Ourselves! So it’s natural to carry that over into our relationships. I want others to hear what I have to say instead of really listening to what others are saying. I think she was talking to me!

Ephesians 2:10 states: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Wow! That tells me you are not your handiwork. Your life is not your project. Your life is God’s project. When God created you, he had a plan for your life; therefore, he knows what you were intended to be. 

Getting back to the movie, toward the end, you could see the result of what God intended. His purposes were evident in the lives of his people and it didn’t matter what the final score of the game was. His true focus was his people and what they were becoming in him.

His people are his handiwork. And as a human being, there’s no greater feeling than knowing you’re living out his purposes in your life.

In closing, I realized again there is a God and it’s not me. The Bible states this is the beginning of wisdom. At first, it seems like this is bad news because I would like to run the world or at least run my own life. But once I think about it, this idea turns out to be very good news.

It means that someone far greater and more competent is running the show. It is his job to be God, and it’s my job to learn how to allow him to direct my life. And of course to remember that I am his handiwork.

Looking forward to seeing most of you during the holidays.

We love you,

Grandpa