Christmas

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Luke 2:11

Praise God that his son was born!  

Merry Christmas!!

It is Christmas week and if your place is anything like our house it is buzzing with excitement!  The tree has been up for about a month and fully decorated.  Stockings are hung, and our kids are jumping with joy.  

We know that our kids are excited to see what presents they might be getting if any.  

When you think back to when you were a kid what do you remember about Christmas. 

Of course, I remember the gifts! My family loved to play jokes.  There was this one Christmas I took my stocking down and was “neatly” going through it (as all kids neatly go through their stockings).  

Then when I got to the bottom there was a package of girl’s underwear!  Dad said, “Oh is there something we need to know Danny??????”  Then after seeing the shock on my face he said, “I guess Santa must have got you and your cousins mixed up!”

I also remember the Christmas eve candlelight service.  Going to the church sitting with our extended family. Singing songs and listening to the story of Christ’s birth.  It was so much fun when they would turn out the lights and take one lit candle to show Christ’s spirit.  

I remember how dark the church was.  

Then as we would all light our candles from the original the church would get lighter, and lighter, and lighter. Until we could see so well that we could sing songs out of the hymnal.

The last thing that I loved about Christmas was the lights.  Living in rural Colorado where you get to see a house about every ½ mile there weren’t a lot of lights to see.  Lol  

We had this one neighbor, Russell Kennedy.  Every year he would go above and beyond for Christmas lights.  He took his horse shed and turned it into a manger scene. Then he also took an old grain elevator and put deer on top of it and a sleigh behind it so it looked like they were flying out of the field. Oh, I can’t forget the tractor.  He took his old tricycle tractor and added Christmas lights.  The wheels looked like they were turning and the outline of the tractor was lit up.

As I got older he added to his creation by having presents falling out of the sleigh and Santa chasing after it.  Then the next year he added a cowboy riding a horse trying to rope the sleigh to save Christmas.  

This year as you give gifts, I encourage you to think about the gifts God gave us. 

The gift of forgiveness (Matthew 9:6).  The gift of making man ruler over the sabbath (Matthew 12:8).  The gift of knowledge and clarification (Mark 7:9).

When you go to church or watch a Christmas movie with your loved ones, think about the blessing that God has given you.  The gifts of time together, the joy, the laughter.  

Lastly when you see Christmas lights think about how your faith lights up the world. The same way Christ lights up the world.  Let your Faith shine all year for the world to see.

Prayer

Lord God today we come to you to say thank you.  Thank you for giving us your son.  Thank you for giving us the knowledge and wisdom that we have.  Thank you for helping us to truly understand that when we show our faith to the world we can help others come closer to us as well.  God, we are so grateful that you are a part of our lives.  Please help us to show your love to the world! 

Amen

Will you pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel

For all military personal serving our country and their families

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world

Prayer

Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts.  We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us.  We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us.  And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.

We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name

Amen

A Little More

 The other day I got a call from one of our clients.

I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.

“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”

My smile immediately vanished.

I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.

So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?” 

To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.

They gave me the details.

My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.

But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.

My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.

I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.

so……

I made sure not to smile when I made the call.  I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!

That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.

Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!

Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal.  I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad. 

Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.

The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.

No problem.  Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.

Well……..

After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.

Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.

I told him that I would NOT make any promises.

But my team went to work!

Guess what????

We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.

My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.

Here’s the point of all this.

When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.

That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.

Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol

Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!

Dan Greer