Tommy Mann

One of the hardest aspects of the Christian life can be waiting on the Lord. We live in a culture that gets everything it wants immediately. We even complain if our fast food doesn’t come quickly enough, and we want the Lord to answer our prayers just as quickly. But if we go back a few thousand years—long before instant grits and minute rice—we still see people who were impatient with God. Many times the men were guilty of taking matters into their own hands, while four women in particular stand out as being patient prayers. They were not perfect, but when it came down to it, they kept their trust in the Lord. They are Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah. All four of these women had the same plight: bareness. In their culture it was humiliating for a woman to not be able to provide a child for her husband, and in any culture it is at the very least saddening. And so these women each continued to pray that God would send them a child, and the Lord eventually blessed them with childr...

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and that means that it is time for Christmas music. Most people love Christmas music. For many of us, we have heard the same songs over and over for years, and many of those songs, like the ones from Bing Crosby, have been around for generations. Some songs have been redone while others are timeless classics. I’ve never eaten a chestnut that roasted on an open fire, attended a Christmas party hop, or enjoyed a figgy pudding, but that has never stopped me from enjoying those songs. There is something about Christmas music that can put a smile on anyone’s face, even if it only comes from remembering the glories of Christmases long, long ago. As much as I enjoy songs about the most wonderful time of the year, especially during a white Christmas, I still prefer songs about the first noel, the ones that sing about the birth of Christ. I wanted to share some of my favorite lyrics about the first Christmas and the birth of Jesus. God Rest Ye M...