Humor: Top 5 Christian alternatives to Groundhog Day

Christians always complain about the evil that comes along with Halloween. There is another holiday, however, that subtly offers believers a false gospel - Groundhog Day. Sure, the little, chubby land beaver looks cute, but lurking behind those beady eyes lies a sinister plot to undermine the Christian faith.

Who controls our weather and the lengths of our seasons? It is most assuredly not Mother Nature, a groundhog named Phil, a beaver named Bill or a hedgehog named Sonic. It is God, Himself.

Why would we stoop so low as to believe some animal popping his head out of his hole and seeing his shadow or not will predict our future weather? The appropriate response to seeing an animal stick his head out of his home is to shoot it and cook it, preferably deep fried.

We should be concentrating at least some of our made-up holiday to counteract an ingrained secular holiday energy on Groundhog Day. We've got to make sure that our children don't one day bow down to a golden groundhog erected by the mayor of Punxsutawney, PA. With that tragic future image in mind, here are the top 5 Christian alternatives to Groundhog Day.

Do we need more than the Holy Spirit & our Bible for theology?

It sounds so godly. Why would the Christian need anything more than the Holy Spirit living inside and God's word to direct his theological studies?

After all, God is the Author of the Bible. Now, as a believer, He is dwelling inside of you. That should give you everything that you need. To say anything else would be to diminish God, His word and His work in your life. Right?

Despite the pious sound of the sentiment, it is the height of arrogance and ungodly pride to declare that you need nothing more than the the Holy Spirit and the Bible for theology. Why? You are forgetting you.

The repentance that earns death

A parent can always tell.

There are those moments when one (or more likely - both) of my sons have done something wrong and the words, "I'm sorry, Daddy" come out of their mouth, but I know the unspoken part of that sentence. What they really mean is "I'm sorry I got caught, Daddy."

There are times when they are genuinely remorseful for disobeying. There are other times, however, when they know they are going to get disciplined and they are only sorry about the soon coming punishment. A parent can always tell the difference.

Even more so, God the Father recognizes when we truly regret committing a sin and when we are only truly sorry that punishment is taking place. Pharaoh thought he could fool God to end the punishment. But God knew and Pharaoh would pay dearly for his false repentance.

Sometimes God has to shut us up

For some infants, it takes a lot of time and effort to develop the ability to talk consistently. For some children and adults, it takes a lot of time and effort to develop the ability to stop talking constantly.

Simon Peter was like that. He had no problem blurting out his opinion. Sometimes, it earned him praise. "Simon son of Jonah, you are blessed because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father in heaven." Other times, it earned him rebuke. “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns, but man’s.” You can find both of those in Matthew 16.

Still, Peter did not learn His lesson. In Matthew 17, Jesus takes Peter, James and John with Him up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration. These three see Jesus suddenly changed into His glorified body and having a conversation with Moses and Elijah.

It was such a special moment. Elijah was seeing the face of the One who took him to heaven in a chariot of fire. Moses was able to see the Prophet he had foretold about and stand, for the first time, in the Promised Land. More importantly, the Son of God is standing on this mountain in all His glory. James and John were stunned, speechless and absorbed in the moment. Peter? Well, Peter just had to say something.

The drama of deliverance

It is a classic storytelling technique. Virtually every story, no matter the form, regardless of the characters, contains it - the crisis. Everything has gone from bad to worse. Every possible solution has been tried and failed, now matters are even worse than they were.

Stories have this because it builds tensions and draws the audience into the situation, into the lives of the characters. Without the crisis, there is no real drama, no tension, no excitement. Stories have to have this to keep our attention. But what about life?

You want your life to be different, don't you? We love the tension in a story, but, for most of us, we'd rather our live not have that kind of excitement. It would be much more preferable, in our minds, for our lives to just steadily get better and better with no deviation.

Our lives, however, are often like the stories we enjoy. We are the characters who are experiencing the tragic circumstances. We are the role players looking on as friends and family endure heartache.

Fictional stories with a crisis attracts us because we somewhat recognize, in our own lives, the circumstances. Those stories resonate and inspire us because the crisis is somehow averted. Evil is surprisingly thwarted at the last possible second.

"It is always darkest before the dawn" may not be scientifically correct, but it sure does feel real. We can look back over those symbolic "nights" in our lives and find the tinges of gray that come through and how the small glimmers of yellow began crawling through before we recognized them. But that's all after the fact.

What about right now? How does that help me in the crisis I'm going through now? The Israelites thought it had went from bad to worse, with no hope of deliverance, but dawn was breaking through - they just had to recognize it.

Humor: Top 5 Hidden Third Stanzas to Classic Hymns

Growing up in a small Southern Baptist church, I didn't know there were such things as "third stanzas." To ask, "What's the third verse?" was like asking, "What shape is the color blue?" At the very least, trying to find it was like a Bigfoot hunt. There were rumors floating around, but no one had any solid information on where these legendary third stanzas were hiding.

It was not until college, when I met my future wife, who is from a different denominational tradition, that I ever heard the music minister say anything but "First, second and last verses." We started to sing the third verse and I had no idea what to do. I felt like if I sang along I would be denying my Baptist faith. It was tantamount to expressing my support for infant baptism. If I were Catholic, I would have left that church and went straight to confession.

Since that time, I've done my due diligence and research, discovering there is a reason why Baptists have long hid from the third verse of these classic songs. They teach things that no Baptist could ever agree with or even hear, much less sing as worship. Here are the top 5 hidden third verses of classic hymns.

The unknown solution to your problem

Recently, my wife and I began to watch Doctor Who, the latest incarnation of the BBC sci-fi phenomenon. Trouble seems to gravitate toward the Doctor, as each episode finds him in a death-defying situation, along with whomever his traveling companion may be for that episode.

As we were watching one episode, the Doctor was trapped on a window washing elevator, as the bad guy was cutting the cables. Every possible avenue of escape was being cut off, so I said, "What are you going to do now Doctor?" Because I'm strange, I talk to the TV.

All the ways I could think of to get off the dangling cart had been tried and failed. I had no idea what has going to do ... then he did something totally random that I hadn't thought of. It's a standard plot device of television shows. It creates and sustains suspense for the hero to be in a seemingly hopeless situation and then - a solution comes out of nowhere.

Have you seen that in your own life? Are you waiting for a solution right now? That seemed to be the case for the Israelites leading up to their exodus from Egypt. All of the "normal" ways had been cut off, but God still had His plan. His unknown solution was a fugitive hiding out in the mountains tending sheep. To paraphrase a line from countless TV shows: "It was so crazy, it just might work."

Turning God into a snack machine savior

Have you ever lived off of a snack machine?

I'm not talking about actually surviving some post-apocalyptic Earth where you find yourself unable to cook, so you have to loot the snack machines in a frantic effort to stave off starvation. I'm hoping that's not something you've actually endured.

But you know those days at school or work where you missed breakfast or you had to work through lunch? That snack machine is sitting temptingly in the break room. All you have to do is put the correct amount of money in, push the right sequence of buttons and you get what you want.

Recently, our pastor used this as a perfect illustration for many evangelicals' attitude toward God. We have created God in the image of a snack machine.