Steve Sikes Blog  

Last week I was walking down the hallway of a local nursing home and was (apparently) recognized by an older lady in a wheel chair not quite ten yards away.  Once she caught my eye, she quickly began motoring toward me with a toothless smile and an announcing voice, “It’s Santa Clause everybody!  Santa Clause is here!”

When she stopped at my feet and grinned up at me, I couldn’t think of anything else to say, but – “Have you been a good girl this year?” 
She gleefully nodded her head up and down and seconded it with a “yes” and merrily wheeled on down the hall.  The entire event took less than a minute but my nine-day contemplation has yielded the following truths:

1. I look like Santa Clause (SC).  There is no doubt about it.  Plus, I was carrying a sack of goodies to one of the residents!

2. I may look like SC but I assure you – I’m not SC!  Identification by recognition is NOT always 100% accurate.  Dental records, fingerprints, and DNA can prove my identity.

3. My given name is Stephen Charles (SC).  Having the first and middle initials “SC” is just coincidental in this matter.  My parents live in Nebraska (NE), not the North Pole (NP).

This experience has led me to think more about when neighbors and strangers observe me, what do they see?  Who do they think I look / act like?  More importantly, do I leave behind the fingerprint of Jesus wherever I go…the Spirit-living and Christ-likeness fingerprint of Jesus?  Now that’s an SC worth dying for!

“Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).”

God is good! 

Mr. Steve

One of my favorite books as a 10 – 12 year-old was, “The Tide in the Attic” by Aleid Van Rhijn; a story about the Wielemaker family and their struggle for survival during the Dutch floods of 1953.

I remember Mom reading this book to all of us kids (nine brothers and sisters—at the time) one summer.  With her rich alto voice and “so believable” sound inflections, Mom made Rhijn’s story come alive!  I was enthralled!  So much so that Mom gave me this “family heirloom” for my own when I was in my mid-twenties.  I picked the book up again this week, in between my studies of Ecclesiastes and Isaiah, and found it leading me to a spiritual truth rediscovered: reclamation.

Rhijn defines and describes land “reclamation” in his manuscript’s appendix as follows: “Holland is a low-lying country; its official name, the Netherlands, makes that clear.  Near the coast, a very large part of the country is below sea-level.  It consists of areas which the Dutch have reclaimed from the sea.  The process still continues.  Large man-made dams, called dikes, keep out the water and must constantly be looked after.  A Frenchman once said: ‘God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland.’  You can see what he meant.”

Imagine pushing back against the North Sea and winning!  Land reclamation from an almost all-encompassing body of water seems impossible, yet it has and is being done. 
“The motto for Zeeland, one of the Dutch provinces, has become the motto of every Dutchman: “Luctor et emergo – I struggle and I conquer.”
Imagine pushing back against sin and the evil one and winning – through Jesus Christ!  I struggle and Jesus conquers!

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2).”

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME AND ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD! 

Mr. Steve