The word "witness" reminded me of the words of Jesus to those who had gathered around Him on the mountain at His ascension: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8 NIV) These are His final words as Luke gives them, which are different than those recorded by Matthew, but no less meaningful. Matthew's report carries the assurance of Jesus' presence with all of His people until He returns in glory, while Luke's account concerns the fact that there is work to do, and we need to be going about doing it!

To be a witness is to testify to what one has seen and what one knows to be true; it can also be about what one believes to be true, based on other experiences that one has had. Those disciples were witnesses to the resurrection, having stood in the presence of Christ Himself. Following His death and return to life, they went and proclaimed that to the world.

We are not able to say that we are witnesses to that event, in that we were all born almost two thousand years after the fact, but we can witness to the saving and grace-filled power of Christ that is alive and at work within us and around us today! We testify to the promises of love that Jesus sealed for us in the cross and in the empty tomb, and how we have felt His peace within us when we have searched for it and prayed for it. We testify to how we have seen His love change others when they opened themselves to His embrace. We are witnesses to both good and evil in our world every day, and we need to keep our eyes open to see what God is doing in even the worst of circumstances!

Christmas is coming. It's a time to witness to love and grace coming into the world. It's a time to witness about light shining in darkness. It's a time to witness about compassion and companionship, and about people being more important than possessions. We can't witness about Jesus being born on December 25th (which is a date from tradition, not the text itself!), but what matters is that we testify to our belief that He was born! For in being born, in being "Emmanuel" — God with us — all the difference in the world has been made!

Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, though we have not seen You in the flesh, we have felt You in our hearts and seen Your movement in our lives through the actions of Your Holy Spirit. When we are called to testify about You, may our lips and our lives glorify You, and our hands and feet show Your strength and Your purpose alive within us. Amen.

Scoring is in four categories: time of day, distance travelled, speed, and smoothness. If I drive at high-risk times of day (such as rush hour), my score will be lower for that trip. If I drive a long distance, the proportional risk of damaging my vehicle apparently goes up, so my score goes down. If I go faster than the speed limit, again, the result is a lower score. And if I'm a herky-jerky driver, always stomping on the gas or the brake … well, you know where this is going!

Truth be told, when I have the app operating, I do adjust my driving style. I am more conscious of when I need to step on the brake for a smooth stop, and a slower pace means that I'm less danger to other drivers around me. However, I have never received a score of 100 on a drive. I've had as high as 98 for a trip to the grocery store, but never 100.

Why not? Well, where I live, there are several hills where, for whatever reason, the speed limit tends to be lower on the down slopes. If I'm not riding the brake, I'm above the limit, and ding! goes my score. If I ride my brake too much, the car jerks, and ding! goes my score. Certain yellow lights are short in my town, and if they catch me at cruising speed (especially the one going out of town), I have to either commit (and usually speed up) or stomp on the brake. Which ding would I like? If I have to cross traffic with a left turn, I wait for an opening, then zip in, and I get a ding for fast acceleration and a sharp turn.

As for my wife, who uses a few kilometres of a freeway at rush hour to get to and from work, her score melts away like snow in July!

We just can't help "sinning" against the app's requirements. We will never get the full twenty-five-percent saving. We will get something, but not all that is potentially available to us!

I thought about this when I recently read this verse:

Matthew 5:20 – For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (NIV)

Jesus is saying that these men spend the whole of their lives, every waking hour (and many with things in place for while they sleep), trying to adhere to the law of Moses, and still their righteousness is not enough to get them into heaven. To earn your way in on your own merits, you'd have to be even better/more righteous than they are! In other words, adjust your way of living all you want, but you still can't make it on your own.

Romans 3:23 has this condemnation: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 6:23 starts the same way: "For the wages of sin is death…". As sinners, we can't make it. We can't do it. We'll never be good enough. But Paul goes on to say, "… but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Salvation isn't something that we earn through how we behave; it's something that we're given through Jesus — through His cross and open tomb!

As long as we try to "adjust" ourselves, we will never be perfect. If we surrender ourselves to Christ, however, we will be made perfect in His eyes and through His touch, and the reward is simply out of this world! Join me in praying:

Prayer: Lord, I do want to be more like the vision that You have for me, but I know that I can't make it happen on my own. It's not up to me; it's up to You. Adjust me to what I must become in Your eyes, and help me to find peace and contentment in that surrender. Amen.

My youngest son was born about a week after my ordination; at the end of this summer, he will be legally able to vote! I look in the mirror and see grey starting to creep into my hair, and I realize that I'm no longer a "child", except to my own mother! To retort to the popular country song, I'm now both old enough to know better and old enough to care!

Now, the question is, has God got me in the place where I was supposed to be by this age? I mean, I consider some of the astonishing things that others have done in their youth. Craig Kielburger became a social activist at the age of 12. Malala Yousafzai was 15 when a Taliban militiaman shot her in the head because she was encouraging other girls in Afghanistan to get an education; she survived, and in 2014 (aged 17), she became the youngest-ever Nobel Laureate, sharing the Peace Prize with another youth education activist from India. When Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, the ensuing kerfuffle provoked a 26-year-old pastor to take up the charge for equal rights for all people in the United States, regardless of colour, religion, or creed. That youthful pastor's name was Martin Luther King, Jr.

Did I miss something?

Did I miss something that I was being called to, telling myself and God, "I'm too young to do anything like that?"

Maybe.

And now, at 44, sore knees and all, am I too old to start something?

Definitely not!

Abraham was 75 when he was called to follow the Lord. Zechariah was supposedly in his 60s when he was told that his wife would bear a son who would be the herald for the Messiah. Julia Child was 49 when she published her first cookbook. C.S. Lewis was 51 when The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe came out, which was yet another Christian allegory. And Lois Prater was 81 when she opened the King's Garden orphanage in the Philippines.

We're never too young.

We're never too old.

God can always be doing something with us right now, wherever we are.

Prayer: Loving God, help us to stop putting roadblocks in the way of Your plans, and to stop listening to our own excuses as to why we can't follow the path that You have laid out for us. If all that we have and are comes from You and should be used for the welfare of Your world, then show us how we can use it for You. After all, an old plum is a prune, an old grape is a raisin, and old grape juice can be good wine. Age is a state of mind, and nothing compared to Your glory. Amen.