Really

I am surrounded by so many friends and family right now who are deeply struggling in this season which is supposed to look like a Hallmark commercial.  And rarely does.

It is not that we need to lower the bar of expectations for what God can do, or turn the definition of God's steadfast hope --on which we can stake our lives-- into a glimmery facade of wishful thinking.

Really, O God?  This too?

The coming of our Savior did not appear either as most expected, no gilded ribbons, glowing candles, the appropriate entry of royalty.  Not as a mighty king who would conquer the Romans, but coming as a tiny baby born in a cold stable in backwater Bethlehem.  Not a king who called for personal power, but a king who called for personal repentance.  Not a religion, but a relationship.

And except for a few shepherds and three wise men who lived some distance away, most missed the great light show that announced His arrival, the unveiling of the gospel, the manifestation of God's faithfulness.

The words have not lost their luster.  The awe is still there.  Even now.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night.
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
                       and they were filled with fear.
And the angel said to them,
"Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy
             that will be for all the people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David
                      a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths
                               and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel
a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
"Glory to God in the highest,
   and on earth peace, good will among men."

                                          Luke 2. 8-14

And in that lowly stable among farm animals,
Mary went from  "Really, O God?"
        to "O God, really!"

As it is repeated some 62 times in the book of Ezekiel,
just in case that we miss it,
             "... that you may know that I am the LORD."

And that would be us.

It is not that things are out of control,
    but out of my control,
                  and fully in His.

Things may not look exactly as we want them,
                   or on our schedule,
        but God is at work 
                        even in this,
more profoundly
         that we can ever know.

"Trust Me in this."

...so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till He has mercy upon us.
                                Psalm 123. 2

Perhaps until we see His mercy
         already surrounding us
in dimensions deeper
                    than our myopic vision.

And God says,  "Really."

There is something different here

The first winter that I knew my friend Claire, we went weekly to the grocery together.  I had a car available as my husband took the train to work. She lived within reasonably walking distance of the store, but bitter cold descended early that year, the Chicago kind of cold that literally sucks the oxygen out of your lungs.  God had strategically placed someone on my path with a specific need. And so, I became the designated driver on our weekly jaunt to get groceries.

As in community with other believers, we all in some way bring something to the table, so to speak.  Each week, we squished three carseats door to door for her two kids and my baby girl in the backseat of my little Subaru.  It helped her to have a ride.  But she blessed me so much more.  She showed me what life looks like, covered lavishly by the gospel.

I absorbed a lot of wisdom that winter, probably unbeknownst to her, things that I still remember about what spiritual life looks like and how it is radically played out in our lives.  Most likely, she remembers none of our conversations.  But I do. You never know what will stick in a person's heart.

In December of that year, in the midst of Advent, I came with my daughter to pick her up for our weekly grocery outing.  There was something very different in what I found.

A table stood front and center just inside the front door of her apartment.  Her nativity set was displayed on it, the first thing I saw as I entered her home, so prominent that I had to skirt around it to come into the apartment.

She saw my perplexed look.  Why would she put the nativity there?

"I want it to be the very first thing someone notices when they come into our home," she said. "There is something different here.  We celebrate Christmas, but the nativity is not a decoration.  It is the very core of Christmas.  I want it to be the first thing people see."

And so, through the years hence, our little nativity is the first thing we set up and in a place where it is first seen.  We celebrate Christmas in all of its glory, but it is not about the decorations and brightly wrapped packages, not about Santa appearing, but Jesus coming.

I noticed this year that the gospel had invaded even unlikely places.  I had placed little nativity sets that we had accumulated like little reminders in unexpected moments of my day, little figurines in glass and wood and plastic, that don't just tell a familiar story, but remind me what all this is about.

In the dining room:

In the kitchen:

And right in front of me on my desk:

As if Jesus is saying, "Don't make it hard for others to find Me."

And she gave birth
    to her firstborn son
and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths
and laid Him in a manger,
because there was no place for them
                  in the inn.

                   Luke 2. 7

A Christ-follower should have the brightest house on the block,
in more ways
               than a string of lights.

Joy to the world
           The Lord has come.

There is something very different here.
    And that would be Jesus.

Let every heart prepare Him room.

#GivingTuesday

My email inbox was flooded this morning with requests from every non-profit organization that has my digital address.  I was overwhelmed as by so many preschoolers crying in loud voices "ME!"  Some even promised "Change lives forever!" and even "Double your gift!"  So many opportunities popped up to benefit others, right on the tail of Black Friday and Cyber Monday when I even saw an advertisement proclaiming in big letters, "Gift yourself."

As I just finished reading Jesus Among Secular Gods by Ravi Zacharias and Vince Vitale, it was intriguing to me that in our secular culture of survival of the fittest there is still honor in providing for those less fortunate.  And even among those who deny God, benevolence is still highly regarded.

And where does that inexplicable sense of compassion and highest regard for self-sacrifice come from?  Not from evolutionary philosophy.

The Biblical worldview is seamlessly woven with giving and generosity and the dignity of every person, evident from cover to cover in the Scriptures, evident from transformed life to transformed life.  Giving is not a designated day, but a daily response.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast;  it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way;  it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrong doing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  (1 Corinthians 13. 4-7)

God calls us to be generous, but not just financially, not just to give in the form of a check to an organization, but how to live.  A very different worldview emerges, not based on performance but on grace itself.

There are those who seek to increase gratitude by looking everyday for the gifts that we have been granted.  Indeed, we are surrounded.  But what if we also sought out daily opportunities to bless others, how to love our neighbors -- those all around us -- as we have been loved.  Those little divine appointments with those on our path are not so insignificant at all. 

...remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts 20. 35)   That is not just an action, but a heart condition.  Our way of seeing the world is attached to our hearts.

God is love.  We are able to love because He first loved us. (1 John 4. 19)

It is the way God intended this world to operate.

...blessed is he
        who is generous to the poor.

                       Proverbs 14. 21

On a lot of different levels.

A daily practice, a daily Presence

Sometimes a swell of thankfulness rises up for the good we see and hear and feel all around us. But in the tough times, the hard circumstances, the tears, it is the patterns of daily gratefulness that emerge from within that hold us fast even when, even when. 

Thanksgiving is not an event, but a daily abiding in the LORD, impervious to how, in our own eyes, we judge what is good and what is not.

Because as we sing in church: 

God is good all the time,

All the time God is good.

Even beyond recognition or understanding or before the redeeming comes into focus.

Learning to be thankful FOR the daily blessings of God enables us to be grateful IN, when we see no explanation and cannot possibly understand.

Gratefulness is a pattern of seeing life differently, a pattern of seeing God in all things and trusting Him in it.  

Even in the hard stuff.

I have rested this year in the mercies of God, in times His strength beyond what I have ever known.

O give thanks to the LORD,

       for He is good;

for His steadfast love

        endures forever.

                Psalm 113. 1

Happy Thanksgiving, my friend.

Just on the other side

In 2011, at just 28 years old, Jennifer Pharr Davis attempted both the absurd and ridiculous.  She set out that summer to establish the fastest record time for men and women hiking the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine.

As noble as that sounded, shortly into her epic hike, incredibly averaging about 47 miles a day, reality set in.  She was exhausted, cold, wet, and suffered painful shin splints.  She crept along until the next road crossing where her husband Brew met her with supplies.  "I'm done," she said.

"That's fine," he said.  "Just not right now.  If you still want to quit by the next road crossing tomorrow, I'll take you home.  But you can't quit now."

So she kept on hiking, knowing that in the matter of several hours, the pain would be over, and she could go home.

But something happened in those succeeding hours.  She felt just a little teeny bit better.  Just enough to keep going another day.  And then another.

Her story was not over yet.  She completed the entire trail in 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes, a record unsurpassed for the next four years.

One step and then another.

Last weekend, I ran a familiar trail in the woods that starts with a five mile ascent that always seems to go on f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  It was fiercely cold.  It was all uphill.  And yes, it was hard, each gravel crunching step, each winding turn in the road followed yet by another.  "Just get to the other side of this bend," I convinced myself.

Even though I didn't quite know where I was, I knew it was not a random journey.  As in any responding to the Lord, I was not just going somewhere, but God is going somewhere with this.  Even the really hard stuff does not lay beyond His redeeming.  There is another side to this.

We've all been there on one road or another.

Despair will get you nowhere fast.
       Or I can choose to trust Him.
                                  Even in this.
And pretty much throughout the entire Bible,
cover to cover,
God tells His people,
                      "Don't quit now."

O LORD,
show me Your path,
Your way through.

God is
going somewhere with this.

And as I came around what I was hoping the final bend in that steep rutted road, dusty and dreary, suddenly spectacular beauty surrounded me, the sunlight streaming through the woods like the glory of God, and golden leaves were intricately imprinted on a sacred sky of deepest blue.

If I had quit and turned around, I would have missed the awe.


For Your steadfast love is great above the heavens;
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
                                   Psalm 108. 4


It took that momentary affliction of running uphill for me
to not just acknowledge God,
or even believe,
         but to know Him more.

Somehow,
    the hard stuff always leads to that.
God redeems the impossible
     in ways we never expect.

The view is not just at the top,
      not just on the good days
when the breeze is warm and favorable,
          but when I want to quit.

...let us run with endurance
       the race that is set before us,
       looking to Jesus....

                         Hebrews 12. 1-2

Even on the uphills,
following God
    even in what

    may make no sense at all,

                    to us,

God is going someplace

                     with this.

Even in this mess,

even in this seeming failure,

even in the bleakest wilderness,

                 God is.

Your story is not over yet.