Almost Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Sleigh bells, silver bells, jingle bells, shopping, baking, Elf movie parties, White Elephant parties, Christmas carols, Santa Claus and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls...Christmas!  Who doesn't love Christmas?  And if even Scrooge and the Grinch can warm up to Christmas, anyone can.  For most of us, when we were younger, it never came soon enough.  Even now, I still realize how soon it is and simultaneously realize how long I still have to wait.

You may be familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.  (If not, you now have books to read over Christmas break!)  In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Tumnus the Faun tells Lucy Pevensie that the White Witch has made it always winter and never Christmas.  All of Narnia had been waiting for Christmas for 100 years.

That is a long time, by the way.  It may feel like 100 years until Christmas, but remember: we never have to wait more than 365 days for Christmas.  I don't like waiting, especially not for a whole century!

Anyway, Narnia was eternally cold and dark and wet and unpleasant.  There were no Christmas lights, carols, or cookie exchanges.  Just winter, snow, and icicles.  It was under the White Witch's control, and no one liked it.  Aslan was away.  It seemed as if winter would last forever.

Honestly though, it doesn't sound so different from our world today.  Where I live, we get about two inches of snow every three years.  It is hovering in the 40 and 50 degrees.  So it isn't  that it's cold all the time.  It is the fact that our world is not like it should be.  Disease, disaster, and death are rampant.  I don't think you could live under a rock and not get some idea of how bad it is.

Winter is cold and harsh and bleak, an apt metaphor for our world today.  And, whether or not Jesus was actually born in the winter season, he came into a winter world as a vulnerable baby.  And that was Christmas.  Israel had been waiting for Christmas for a long time (longer than even Narnia, by the way), and it had finally come...in a stable in Bethlehem.

But it is still winter.  The depravity of mankind seems worse than ever.  Christ's short 33 years on earth didn't seem to have changed much.  Certainly, those of us who have put our trust in Him have had our lives changed, even if the world's condition hasn't, by hope.

Hope.  That is what Narnia--and we--must cling to during this dark and dismal winter. Christmas is coming.  All the bad in this world--the flu, death, human trafficking, cancer, heartbreak--is going to be washed away.  Christmas will come and the world will be made new.  Winter trees will blossom, snow-covered fields will be thick with grass, frozen rivers will burst forth, and the sun will shine.  But more than than, Jesus will be here.  Emmanuel.  God with us.

And all the suffering, all the pain, all the cruelty, all the heartbreak, all the death...it will be gone.  More than that, it will be glorified in you.  Hold on to that precious promise.  Winter is almost over.  Aslan (Jesus) is on the move.  Christmas is coming.

Merry Christmas!

Shifting Sand

Two weeks ago, I discovered that one of the pillars in my life is about to follow God's call to ministry and move away.  When she told us, I was shocked and devastated.  How would life go on?  Her life and ministry has affected me in more ways than I can count, and I know there will be a gaping hole in my heart when she leaves.  I am so happy for her to be able to follow her passion, but personally, I'm miserable. 

I tossed and turned in bed that night, unable to sleep with so much on my mind.  But now I realize that, if God is calling her away, He will provide for those of us left behind.  He has the best in mind...for ALL of us.  He has amazing plans for her in her new ministry.  And He has amazing plans for the rest of us.  Not that we aren't going to miss her like CRAZY!  We will.

This is a good reminder that we are not walking by sight.  I cannot see around the bend of the path to where God will provide for us.  I worry about how normal life can continue.

But I have to trust that Christ is a solid rock for me to stand on.  Really, while depending on others is a natural and necessary part of life, we can't forget that Christ is our solid ground and all other ground is sinking sand.  Even those "pillars" in our life we never dreamed we could (or would ever have to!) live without are nothing if not grounded on Christ; and even if they are, they are still human, still make mistakes, still let you down, and still move away...even if they don't mean to.

It is so hard to see in the dark.  There are twists and turns ahead, and I know there are going to be many hard days when we just don't know how we will function.  She has headed up so many things, and now it is up to us to lead them...and we don't feel like we are strong enough to take over.  But we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

For those who are reeling from devastating news, these words may seem like empty promises, nice things to say that ought to make us feel better but really don't.  We know they should.  We know the Holy Comforter is with us.  But sometimes it doesn't seem like enough.

So I encourage you to look back.  Try to identify at least one time in which you thought your world was falling apart--this will be easy for some of you and harder for others and that's okay.  Then fast-forward a little.  Look at how God got you through, even if you didn't see it at the time.  I've done this and it is amazing how He has taken care of me.  You may be familiar with the Footprints in the Sand Poem.  I feel like it communicates so clearly how we get so lost in our troubles that we don't see Christ carrying us. 

It isn't easy to see things like this when life doesn't go our way or totally takes a nosedive.  Although our dearly-loved friend and leader has yet to leave us, we know that day is coming and it is going to hurt.  A lot.  But ultimately, I take comfort in God's promise that He will never leave us or forsake us, that He will provide when it seems there is no one to help us, that He will be with us.  Because when God promises us something, He always fulfills.

Surrender

Our church recently held a conference over a weekend about Living in Grace.  It was a very thought-provoking conference with an excellent speaker, but something in the lecture (and thankfully also in the outline!) stuck out at me.  I still think about it almost every day, and not much is able to so totally capture my attention and thoughts for so long. 

Friday night’s session focused on God’s unlimited and perfect love for us.  Saturday evening, it covered surrender.  I was having trouble paying attention, but when our speaker read this quote, my attention riveted to it as I found it on the outline in my lap.  Here’s the quote:

Surrender is believing that Jesus does not love me because I am good. In fact, as pleased as God is with obedience, my goodness can be nothing but self-centered outward compliance, based on personal resolve and determination.

I paid rapt attention after that, trying to take in as much information as I could.  Why?

Because those two sentences scared me.

Again, why?

It’s as if those lines were written for me.  I know, and have even said before, that obeying God’s laws in thought and action brings me happiness and satisfaction.  After all, if God’s commandments are the instruction manual for humanity, then everything will be better when we follow it.  I have a good deal of self-control, and I can pretty much make myself do or not do whatever I want. 

So basically, I have mastered “outward compliance” with my “personal resolve and determination”.  And by “outward”, it doesn’t just mean what we do; it means even our attitudes and thoughts and desires that are “good”.   All of those things are really outward things anyway, compared to the depths of the soul.  If my heart has not truly given up trying to be good to allow Christ to work in my heart, then any obedience is just me trying to make myself worthy of the salvation God freely gives. 

So, for about two weeks, I felt pretty down.  Anything I do eventually comes back to me trying to be good, when “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). 

Hopeless and helpless.  That was how I felt.  Not that I thought I wasn’t saved, but I just felt like I was disappointing God.  And for me, disappointing anyone is the end of the world, even if it’s someone whose opinion I don’t really care about.  If I thought that I had disappointed God, I would be crushed.

Then I looked at the first sentence again:  “Surrender is believing that Jesus does not love me because I am good.”  That reminded me of something from Friday night:

“There is nothing you can do today that will cause God to love you more.

  There is nothing you do today that will cause God to love you less.”

God’s love for me is so complete, so unlimited, so perfect that it cannot possibly grow.  How can something be longer than eternity?  Or how can there be more of something that is infinite?  How can anything be deeper than bottomless?  Or how can it be larger than something limitless? 

I’m not going to lie.  I still don’t have the whole surrender concept figured out.  But what’s better is that I know that it’s okay.  God still and always loves me…totally, completely, perfectly, eternally loves me.  And He loves you too.

[Quotes taken from Living in Grace by Paul Kooistra]

The Worry Challenge

I’m sure that if I asked everyone who has ever worried needlessly about a problem that didn’t yet exist to get on a boat, we would worry about the boat sinking.  And I know I would be the first one on.  I am extremely talented at making myself almost sick over things that really aren’t worth it.  I mean, these are things that won’t matter in a year, a month, even a week sometimes.  Even if they do affect my life beyond a week or two, I always get on the other side of whatever it was and wonder why I was so nervous. 

I will say that nerves before a performance, a test, or whatever else can be helpful.  They keep us awake and help our bodies concentrate on the task at hand (ever noticed that you don’t feel like eating before a performance but are starving afterward?  That’s why.)  If I’m a little nervous, I usually do well.  But if I’m so nervous that my entire body is shaking, it makes it hard to function.

And I honestly have no advice on how to keep from getting worried.  If you were expecting that, you might as well stop reading now (but please don't!).

Recently, I read a devotional about worry and resting peacefully in Christ, and I realized (again) that worrying is not only pointless but an expression of doubt in God. 

Stop and think about what that means.  When we worry, we essentially tell the Creator of the Universe that we don’t think He can handle our problem and are going to take matters into our own hands.  Of course, we know that He is powerful enough to do what we need Him to do, but we don’t trust Him enough to totally lay matters in His hands.  We’re afraid that His will for us in this situation won’t line up with the way we want things to go.

I think that worrying is a lot like being a “backseat driver”.  Not familiar with that term?  Get in the back seat of a car and tell the driver whenever there is a red light, a car coming up on the left, a change in the speed limit, and whatever else you think the driver needs to know, and you’ll find out.  Better yet, if you can legally drive, instruct someone else to do it to you.  For those of you who can’t drive, I’ll just tell you that it gets pretty obnoxious. 

The reason that it’s annoying is because the driver has, 99% of the time, already seen whatever it is the “backseat driver” is trying to tell him.  And if he hasn’t, he’ll see it soon enough to deal with the problem.  The driver is fully competent, and he won’t appreciate someone trying to tell him how to drive.

God has a complete and perfect plan for our lives.  He knows where it’s going and He knows how to get you there.   He doesn’t need you to sit in the back seat biting your nails and worrying about everything that seems to be going wrong.  He wants you to sit back and trust that He knows what He’s doing so that you can just spend time getting to know Him.  So trust Him.  He’s got this.  How do I know?  Well, He said so.  Check out Matthew 6:25-34 (ESV) and hear what Jesus has to say about worry.

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? ²⁸ And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

If you are seeking God’s kingdom and following His call on your life, you will never have to worry about anything. 

Easier said than done though, right?  But I want to challenge all of us, myself included, to try to let go of at least one thing this week.  I’m not saying not to go grocery shopping or not to do laundry or take precautions during a thunderstorm or anything like that; those things are means God uses to provide for us.  I’m talking about something you have no control over.  Think about things in your life that you cannot by any amount of worrying affect in the least.  I could probably find ten by scanning news headlines.  And let’s give it to God.  Let God, who has the whole world in His hands, take care of us as He has already promised us.  This is just a guess, but if we could learn to let go, I think we would have much more peace.  And that sounds like something that’s worth not worrying about.

Not by Sight

"For we walk by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7)

Quick question.  Has anyone tried to go anywhere with your eyes closed?  How far did you get?  How many times did you run into the wall or counter?

Maybe, if you tried it at home where you are familiar with your surroundings, just maybe you got from your bedroom to the kitchen.  Maybe.  But how would you have done if it had been in a house you'd never been in?  What if it had been in a huge corn maze?  Not so easy, is it?

A lot of times, we read this verse and see that "not by sight" bit and wonder whether we are ever going to be able to close our eyes and let go of our control over our lives.  After all, our lives often feel a little like a giant corn maze with infinite twists and turns, with walls too high to see over, and no ability to retrace our steps.  It's hard enough with our eyes open, isn't it?  How could we possibly navigate with our eyes shut!

But here's what we forget: "by faith".  Does anyone really and totally grasp what that means?  I know I can't.  However, I can guess.

In the corn maze example, all I said to imagine was to close your eyes and try to find your way through.  I didn't include the rest of the scenario: once you close your eyes, the creator of the corn maze will come and take your hand and guide you through the best paths, helping you through the slick muddy spots and keeping you from getting lost in an endless loop until he finally leads you home.

"That sure sounds nice," you might think, "but I'm too afraid that if I close my eyes he will take me somewhere I don't want to go and then if something goes wrong I will have lost control."

Even if you don't think that, I do.  I like to have control.  I want to make sure it is done right.  I barely let someone do my hair for me!  It's hard to let go.  I'll let go of the things I can't control anyway, but everything else...just don't touch it!

But here's the thing: I have never had control over anything.  I like to think I do.  I like to act like I do.  But ultimately, I don't have any more control over my next breath than I do over the weather in Australia.  

I want to use this blog to explore living by faith and not by sight in practical ways.  But by practical I also mean radical.  Because the Christian life is radically different from the life the world expects us to live. Learning to live this way will be a life-long journey, and I know I won't be there anytime soon.  But I want to start now.

Will you join me?