O Holy Night

Christmas is coming up quick-like-a-bunny!  It is hard to think that in 13 days the day on the calendar will have arrived.  I think most of us would agree that Christmas is far more than a day, its a season, maybe a mindset, it could even be a way of life.  

In the hectic activity of being a commuting grad student, going to work, processing the "stuff" in my life, and just doing daily life things it seems as though I have somehow been missing Christmas.  This past week I was able to slow down a little when we read over the lyrics of a Christmas carol in class.  The busy side of me was able to become still as we slowly absorbed the words and content of "O Holy Night."  

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,

It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.

Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!

O night divine, the night when Christ was born;

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,

With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.

O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,

Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.

The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;

In all our trials born to be our friends.

He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,

Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.

And in his name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

With all our hearts we praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,

His power and glory ever more proclaim!

I hope you read this song through (sometimes I tend to skip over lyrics rather than read them fully).  Take a moment to think about this.  Here is a message of Jesus.  Why He came.  The love He has for us.  The need we have for Him and the ways He meets us where we are.  

In class we took time to look at a few of the themes we picked up in this song.  

Did you catch that Jesus has come to free us from bondage?  Each one of us is broken and imperfect.  A lot of us strive so hard to put on our masks of "okayness" and we present an image of having it all together-which I think stems from our strong desire to actually have our life together.  Who does?  Really?  We can be a heartbroken people with lives of struggle and pain and no one is immune.  The unhealthy patterns, the ways we cope, the sin struggles...all that holds us in slavery is exactly what God can overcome in our life.  

What else?

One person in class mentioned the stars in the lyrics.  She said that if you looked at that as a personification we are stars.  As we are people devoted to God and being transformed by Him we are able to shine more brightly for Him.  How has your redemption allowed you to celebrate Jesus?  Are you shining for Him?  

One thing that I absolutely loved was the recognition of our worth.  Read slowly:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth. 

Long lay the world in sin and error pining...  Is that you?  Screwing up, feeling pain, second-guessing your choices?  Yes, we are a broken people yearning for a Savior.  And then we read that he appeared and we are given worth, we are given His Spirit.  His Presence in us gives us full value.  

You may be relishing this season with its joy and traditions and merriment.  You may be dreading the expectations and lack of a "postcard perfect" family and time of celebration.  But isn't Christmas far more than either of those?  Christmas is a celebration of our Savior arriving on the scene, to set us free and give us worth.  Hold on to that, and like the shepherds, hear the message: 

"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."  Luke 2:10-11

One more thing...  Read this keeping Jesus in mind:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for he captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.  Isaiah 61:1-3

Rejoice...a Savior has been born for you...

So Much To Learn

One thing that I think about is how much I learn.  Even as I read about and think about how to live by faith, how to trust God, I get the opportunity to prove it over and over again.

The very things I find myself telling people are the very things I have to tell myself.  Tonight, with various cares about current circumstance, and with things to come, I am telling myself this:
I can learn to shut the mouth of the lion.
I can either listen to the lies, the accusations, the fears, and the defeat of the enemy.  Or I can listen to truth, to hope, to the faithful words of a God that loves me perfectly and dearly.

Last week in Theology the professor made the statement that all sin answers the question "Is God Enough?" with a "no."  Tonight I am reminded of that as I feel the anxiety of what will happen in my future circles my mind.  I can tell you that in asking that question tonight it keeps me from being productive, it keeps me from resting securely in the knowledge that God has a plan for me and that he is faithful to bring it about.  The thoughts and worries keep me from answering assuredly "Yes, God IS enough."  And when I look at that, I see so clearly the danger of not taking my thoughts captive.

Right now I get the opportunity to put things into practice I hear about and study.  I will choose this day whom I will serve.  Today I choose to say "yes" to God.  Today I will let God work on my transformation by yielding to him.  Today I am choosing faith in and with God and choosing to go "through" the journey.  Where I am weak, he is strong.

In my abandoning myself to God, I learn to shut the mouth of that lion.  I don't learn this out of my own ability, but through the truth that God gives me.
"Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith....And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast."  1 Peter 5:8-10

I Never Would Have Thought....

This will have to be a shorty post since I'm crazy tired this evening.  But even as exhausted as I am I wanted to pause for a brief moment to share something I've recently processed.

This is one of those hectic and overly busy seasons in my life...  Some people are aware of that, and others are not.  This week I've been thinking about how much I've got on my plate: school, work, church, homework, chaplaining at the hospital, meeting, planning, researching, studying....and on it goes.  I don't think I really have "spare time" anymore.  I may take some time, but in my saying "yes" to that moment I've literally had to say "no" to something else.

This is probably the first time in my life I've had this experience to this degree.  I, my friends, am what you might call "Spread Too Thin."  I go and I do and I think and I read and I process and I write and I work and I school and there's just not enough to go around.  Earlier as I was realizing this, I was sad and frustrated because I could just see all these great things that I could do--if I had more time.  I could see how much better that project would be--if I had more time.  I wanted to talk to people in greater depth and length--but I didn't have time.  And short of taking something off my plate I can't do these truly wonderful things that my heart would love to engage in (yes, I even enjoy those theo classes that whup me!).

And this week I made this realization:  Always in my past one of the major lies Satan has had a heyday with in my life is that in order for me to "be enough" I had to be perfect.  I had to achieve.  I had to do.  And I had to do well.  Right now I cannot feasibly do much of anything "well."  The beauty of this is that even now, when I cannot possibly do the things in my life to the degree I want to do, God is still right here with me.  Loving me.  Giving me grace.  Teaching me to rely on His truth.  Helping my faith grow.  Right here in the middle of one-time-lie territory, I can see that my heart is catching up with my head when I hear God say "I love you right where you are at."  Not where I want to be or where I think I should be, or even where my profs, friends, boss, acquaintances think I should be.

I can't do it all.
I'm not perfect.
And like never before I KNOW God loves me.
And I know God loves me despite my shortcomings.
A lie has been conquered...

Part of me wonders if this journey I'm on was created for this very reason.  I could drop a class.  Or I could stop sleeping.  I could quit interacting with people.  Instead, I've had to do the best I can with the resources I have.  A message from my Bible study this week is that people set out to change their circumstances, God sets out to change us...  My circumstances won't be changing for a while, but I can see very clearly this week how God has changed me.

I certainly don't think this way of living is something I would honor God with were I to live this way all the time.  But as I said, its a season.

There's a small part of me that quietly whispers "you're disappointing that person.  You're falling so short in your studies.  You should be doing so much more in that ministry.  You should be doing...more...."  And someday soon I will.  But even as I think about disappoint people I wonder if perhaps this is a season for their own growth journey.  I am confident that where I fall short, God will provide.  The whispers of lies and shame are drowned out by God's voice saying he loves me right here, right now.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  -Jesus
2 Corinthians 12:9

Pearls from Larry

Chapter 15: BUT LIFE OUGHT TO WORK
I'm drowning
in my own lake of despair.
I'm choking,
my hands wrapped around my neck.
I'm dying.
Quickly my soul leaves, slowly my
body withers.
It isn't suicide,
I consider it homicide.
The world you created has led to my death.
-poem by Rachel Joy Scott, shot in the Columbine High School shootings

"We assume life is supposed to work in ways that make us feel the way we want to feel, the way we intuitively and irresistibly sense we were designed to feel.
We further assume that if there is a God, His job is to do what we cannot do to make life work as we want..."


COUNTING ON GOD
If you believe life is supposed to work well enough for people to feel good, you would have been alarmed by a struggle you could not explain.  You might have encouraged her to trust in the God who loved her to make her dreams come true. If she couldn't respond to that encouragement, you might have referred her to counseling.
But suppose you were convinced of a very different understanding of life.  Suppose you believe God is not committed to making our lives work well enough for us to feel good.  What would you say then?  Perhaps something like this:
"Rachel, your pain is legitimate.  You've discovered the part of your soul that longs for what this world will never provide.  Your integrity has burdened you with the severe mercy of realizing that nothing in this world provides true joy.
"You've come to a fork in the road.  One path beckons you with the promise that life can work well, and God exists to see to it that things go well enough for you to feel pretty good.
"The other path, the narrow one that not many choose, invites you to live in a disappointing world where good dreams will shatter and you will sometimes feel empty and alone, sometimes so empty and alone that it will seem like death.  But this path promises the eventual discovery of a consuming desire within you for God and, far better, the thrilling discovery of His consuming desire to be intimate with you.
"After many dark nights, you will taste the joy of that intimacy.  You will not be able to describe it, but you will feel alive, hopeful, solid, even in the middle of continued anguish over hard circumstances.
"Abandon yourself to God.  He will seem at times cruelly unresponsive, callously indifferent.  You will be tempted to manage life on your own, to do whatever you can to feel better.
"But if you're quiet, you will hear both His voice and yours leading you to the narrow path."
In our deceived culture, we must grasp the truth of what God is now doing in our lives or we will miss the joy of Christianity.  God is not cooperating with us to make life work so we can feel now all that He has created us to feel.  But many people think He is.  They think that's His job.
There are two problems with that view:  One, better circumstances, whether winning the lottery or saving your marriage, can never produce the joy we were designed to experience.  Only an intimate relationship with Perfect Love can provide that joy.  Two, in this life, we can never feel what God intended us to feel, at least not in full measure.  To be completely happy, we must experience perfect intimacy with Perfect Love and every "second-thing" blessing that Perfect Love can provide.  In this life, we have neither.  God will provide both, but not till heaven.

It's hard to hear, but it is important to know that God is not committed to supporting our ministries, to preventing our divorces, to preserving our health, to straightening out our kids, to providing a livable income, to ending famine, to protecting us from agonizing problems that generate in our souls an experience that feels like death.

We cannot count on God to arrange what happens in our lives in ways that will make us feel good.

We can count on God to patiently remove all the obstacles to our enjoyment of Him.  He is committed to our joy, and we can depend on Him to give us enought of a taste of that joy and enough hope that the best is still ahead to keep us going in spite of how much pain continues to plague our hearts.

God's intense desire is to intimately relate with us.  For His desire to be realized, He must remove the obstacle within us that, more than any other, stands in the way of intimacy with Him. That obstacle is this:

When we feel bad, when our internal experience as we live in this world is different from and less than what we know we were created to feel, we assume there is no higher value than to change that experience. We therefore devote our central energies to feeling better and to justifying whatever does the job.

The belief that there's no higher good than feeling better now, and the top priority urge to feel better now--these represent the single biggest obstacle to our enjoying God's Presence.  The Bible calls it the flesh.

(Excerpt from Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb, pages 142-144.)

Cricket.... Cricket...

Hello to the three people that know I have a blog ;)
I haven't been writing recently, but I've been thinking.  Processing away, my friends!  Processing through some rough and tough stuff, the not so "happy" things, the where-am-I-with-God things...  And while I've got many things I'm thinking, some of them I doubt I'll be posting.
In the meantime, here's a little taste of goodness that I hope you'll enjoy as I do:

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.... Let your love, God, shape my life with salvation, exactly as you promised. Ephesians 1:11+ Psalm 119:41 (The Message)