Live Free with Josh Howerton - The Gift of Now | Ep. 231 | Monday, December 25, 2023

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

Today is a gift. Instead of dwelling on your past or moving too quickly onto the next thing, pause and enjoy the moment God is giving you right now. Use Mary as your example: ponder the amazing things that are happening in your life and treasure them in your heart. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, Merry Christmas, everybody. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. My name is Mike, and I hope this day will be super special for you

and that you get to hang with family or friends, and you would savor the reality that God loves you so much that He came to be with you. I'd like spending some time this week for a few minutes every day just talking about moments. Before we move on to exchanging size 32 for size 36, and we started vacuuming pine needles and throwing out expired eggnog and recycling.

wrapping paper and bows, I like for us just to sit here for just a little while in the wonder of this season. You ever had one of those things that happened to you and you say, man, now this, this is a moment. This is a moment I never want to forget. You know what you want to take like a

snapshot, freeze frame picture in your mind so you'll never forget it? Man, I've had a bunch of moments like that in my life. When I was thinking about the other day, I had a buddy of mine that got us in to play some pickup games in the Chicago Bulls practice facility. the NBA was going through a lockout or something back then,

and so it was open, and he worked for Nike and got us in there. So we went in and shot around, and I got to hang up all my stuff in Michael Jordan's locker. It was awesome. I sat there thinking, man, we got the same hair care products. And the shower heads at the NBA locker room are so tall. They're like 16 feet tall. And by the time the water got down to me was hails. And he hit me in the head.

It was so hard. But that was one of those times. I thought, man, this is a moment. The weddings of our kids, they were all just freeze-frame moments, especially walking my daughter down the aisle. Man, that was a moment. The birth of our kids was a moment. The birth of our grandkids, all those were just freeze-framed moments.

I was thinking about how one day I was driving in my truck with my grandson, Jack, and he was, I think he was four years old, and he was sitting in the car seat in the back of the truck, not in the bed of the truck. He was sitting on a double-cab part of the truck, and had the radio tune to a country station. And a group called Lady A was singing their most popular song, and I noticed that Jack knew every word.

And he was singing every note on pitch. He's in the back of my truck singing, It's a quarter after one. I'm a little drunk, and I need you now. I'm driving around with a wasted four-year-old. He just knew every word of that song. It was just one of those moments I'll never forget. In fact, I'm trying to learn how to savor more moments.

Someone sent me this on a coffee mug one day. yesterday is history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why they call it the present. Some of you got to watch little kids opening presents this Christmas season, and it's so fun to watch them tear into it. But have you noticed that little kids, they always go to the biggest one first, right? And they're ripping into it. But they have this uncanny ability to look at the one right in front of them. At the same time, they got one eye on what their brother or sister is opening, right?

And the next one that they're going to open. They have this uncanny ability to do that. And I think we carry that on into adulthood. We got one eye on what everybody else is getting, and we got another eye on what's going to happen tomorrow. We got one eye on what happened in the past, and we missed the present right in front of us. Yesterday's history.

Tomorrow's a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why they call it the present. So I'm trying to learn how to unwrap it and to live in it. And I've been learning about moments from a young girl at the center of this season. Her name is Mary, and she was chosen to give birth to Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, the Lamb of God, who would eventually take away the sins of the world. And I love this little obscure verse

kind of tucked away in the back of the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2. There's all this absolute chaos, the craziness of what's happening all around her, she's got the uncertainty of her future, a cave that's full of strangers and smelly animals, and her baby is lying in an animal food trough, and it says this.

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them, inner heart. And that's what we're going to do this week here on the Daily Drive. And today, I hope that you will treasure and ponder. Treasure those around you, ponder the love that you share. Thank God for the amazing gift of life and worship the one who grew up to give us life. Like the angel told the shepherds, this is good news that will cause great joy for all the people. And I hope you have a day of great joy today. I'll see you back tomorrow. For more biblical teaching and worship,

join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.com.

dot church slash daily drive.