Raising our Ebenezer

     Happy almost New Year!  Sorry yesterday was so long, but just one more thought on Ebenezer and remembering as we prepare to launch into 2013.
     I Samuel 7 recounts the story behind the Ebenezer stone.  I'm telling you, the Bible is full of great stuff!  But a bit of background leading up to the events of chapter 7:  the Israelites have forgotten God, forgotten His faithfulness, and started to wander spiritually.  Sound like anybody you know sometimes?  As a result of their pride and unfaithfulness, they have suffered a disastrous defeat by their enemies, the Philistines.  That defeat, which also ultimately resulted in the deaths of their prophet Eli and his sons, as well as the devastating capture of the Ark of the Covenant, occurred at a place named Ebenezer.   What a horrific disaster for the nation.
      But here they are in I Samuel 7,  and the prophet Samuel tells them to repent, to return to the Lord and to remember His past faithfulness to them.  They do, and then God gives them a resounding victory over the Philistines.  As a result of all this, v.12 tell us: "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, 'Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.'"
     How I love that!  As I mentioned yesterday, Ebenezer means "stone of help," and it was a stone of remembrance to help jog faulty memories of God's forever faithfulness in the past.  But Samuel named their stone of remembrance for the very place where Israel had suffered her most disastrous defeat!  It as if he was reminding the Israelites both of their past folly and failure, but also of God's amazing grace and goodness and forgiveness even in the face of all their mess-ups!
      His grace shines brightest in the darkness of our sin.  His power is made perfect in our weakness. (2Cor.12:9)  O how I thank Him for His grace and forgiveness for all my sin... but also for His power and love and restoration and redemption that is manifested even more strongly in our weakness and failure.
      No one is beyond His power to forgive and redeem.  No situation is hopeless with Him.  He can take our Ebenezer's of defeat and turn them into Ebenezer's of joy.  Because they are our Ebenezer of remembering Him who paid it all for us on the cross--took our sin and gave us His righteousness.  Isn't that just how God works: He takes ALL things--sorrow and gladness, tragedy and triumph, weakness and strength--and works them for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. (Rom.5:8)
      And so we raise our Ebenezer and remember, at the close of this old year, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us," and far into the distant horizon of forever, we know and trust He will help us till we reach our heavenly home.  He will help us, love us, sustain us, strengthen us, hold us, encourage us, guide us in the new year ahead.
     How I love the words to the beautiful hymn, "Come Thou Fount."  May they be our prayer in 2113:

Come Thou Fount of every blessing

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace

Streams of mercy never ceasing

Call for songs of loudest praise

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above

I'll praise the mount I'm fixed upon it

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer

Hither by Thy help I come

And I hope by Thy good pleasure

Safely to arrive at home

Jesus sought me when a stranger

Wondering from the fold of God

He, to rescue me from danger

Interposed His precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I'm constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness like a fetter, 

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,

Prone to leave the God i love

Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

     I'll never sing this song the same way again--for now I will be raising my Ebenezer in my heart--and remember and know "hither by Thy help I come."  All by His help.  All by His grace.  All for His glory.

    Yes, Lord, that is me--prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love--but take my heart and seal it, seal it throughout this coming year and bind it to Yours until that day You take me home.  

     Might this be our prayer as we walk with Him daily in the 8,760 hours of this year ahead that He is giving us.  One day at a time.  One hour at a time.  One minute at a time.  To God be the glory.

Hitherto!

     Our Ebenezer.
     Ebenezer means "stone of help," and a very dear friend, Beth Page, gave us this one when Janie was in the ICU at the hospital in Greenville.  At that point, things were still pretty dire.  Still in a coma.  Still no evidence of when or if or how she might ever wake up.  Still battling fevers and lung problems. Still no earthly idea what the future would hold or look like for her or for us.
      But the words on our Ebenezer said it all: "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." (I Sam.7:12)  For He had--every step of the way.  Helped us, sustained us, encouraged us, provided for us.  Sent us dear friends and family who took incredible care of us and kept us going and even laughing.  Sent us amazing nurses and doctors and hospital staff who cared for Janie in every way imaginable.  And just kept sending us Himself.  Relentlessly sending us Himself.
     Yes, He helped us and helped us and helped us in too many ways to recount.  Thank You, Father. Might we never forget.
     And that is what an Ebenezer is all about.  It's a stone of remembrance--a marker to help remember God's faithfulness in the past. Don't we all need them?  We tend to forget so quickly, and when we forget, we tend to grow discouraged or disgruntled.  We begin to fret and worry or even panic.  Because we forget who God is, what He has done, and what He can do.  It's why we have to keep reminding ourselves of His faithfulness to us in the past.  It's why we have to keep thanking Him for His gifts in the present.  It's why we have to keep going to Him in His Word to hear what He has to say to us for each new day before us.
     And when we remember and thank Him for His faithfulness, His grace, His goodness, His gifts, well, then, we find ourselves able to breathe again.  It's as if those talons of fear or doubt or sorrow loosen their fierce grip on our hearts, and we suddenly find ourselves able to breathe deeply into His love for us.  Remembering releases the pain... and gratitude grows the trust.
     Just yesterday I read these words from the great  Charles Spurgeon on this very verse.  God is something, isn't He?  Hope they encourage you as much as they did me:
     
     "The word "hitherto" seems like a hand pointing in the direction of the past. Twenty years or seventy, and yet, "hitherto the Lord hath helped!" Through poverty, through wealth, through sickness, through health, at home, abroad, on the land, on the sea, in honour, in dishonour, in perplexity, in joy, in trial, in triumph, in prayer, in temptation, "hitherto hath the Lord helped us!" We delight to look down a long avenue of trees. It is delightful to gaze from end to end of the long vista, a sort of verdant temple, with its branching pillars and its arches of leaves; even so look down the long aisles of your years, at the green boughs of mercy overhead, and the strong pillars of lovingkindness and faithfulness which bear up your joys. Are there no birds in yonder branches singing? Surely there must be many, and they all sing of mercy received "hitherto."
      But the word also points forward. For when a man gets up to a certain mark and writes "hitherto," he is not yet at the end, there is still a distance to be traversed. More trials, more joys; more temptations, more triumphs; more prayers, more answers; more toils, more strength; more fights, more victories; and then come sickness, old age, disease, death. Is it over now? No! there is more yet-awakening in Jesus' likeness, thrones, harps, songs, psalms, white raiment, the face of Jesus, the society of saints, the glory of God, the fulness of eternity, the infinity of bliss. O be of good courage, believer, and with grateful confidence raise thy "Ebenezer," for--
     He who hath helped thee hitherto will help thee all thy journey through.
     When read in heaven's light how glorious and marvellous a prospect will thy "hitherto" unfold to thy grateful eye!"

     Good stuff!  Raise your Ebenezer and remember... and in remembering, be thankful for the past and trusting for the future.  On the cusp of this new year, remember:  He who has helped us hitherto will not fail us now... or ever.
     To our forever and ever faithful God be all the glory.

Remembering

     Well, the New Year is almost upon us.  Hard to believe, isn't it, that another year has come and gone?  And for many of us, what a year it has been.  Full of great joys but also great sorrows.  A year of challenges we could not have imagined... but also a year of graces we had not anticipated.  We have experienced God's relentless strength in the hardest of times as well as His utterly undeserved mercy and favor.
     So much of our year has been shaped by Janie's accident, and you know what, I think that is a good thing.  Because I never want to forget.  I never want to forget God's tender but powerful presence in that ICU with us.  I never want to forget those moments in the middle of the night when all was darkness save the lights of machines keeping her alive, and all was quiet save the constant beep and buzz and occasional alarm of ventilator and myriad monitors.  Because God was in that room.  So real, so palpably present, I felt I could reach out and touch Him.
     But I didn't need to... because He continually had His arms wrapped around me... and around our daughter... and around my husband... and around our family... and around all who entered that room.  He was there.  He was real.  And He was powerful and awesome and big... and yet so gentle, so sustaining, so constant.  No, I don't ever want to forget.
     Nor do I want to forget the miracle He wrought in Janie's healing.  From hopeless to "prisoners of hope."  From still and helpless and unconscious and unable to do one thing in this world for herself... to walking and talking and laughing and eating and going to school and celebrating Christmas with all our family.  From death to life.
     That's what God can do.  That is the God we serve.  May we never ever forget that He can do the impossible.  And that He is the God who rolls away stones.  Stones not only of sickness, but stones of addiction and depression and exhaustion and separation and desperation.  He can heal relationships as well as bodies and souls.
     And in those hard moments where the healing does not come in this life... well, then He is still more than enough.  He is the One who came and entered our hard, dark world and who fully knows and understands all our sorrows and fears and unmet desires.  He is with us in them... right there.  Just as He was with us in that ICU.  And He is moving and redeeming even when we cannot see evidence of it.  Just as He was healing Janie in His own good time... even as she slept unconscious and unaware.
     She had her healing on this side of heaven.  We will all have times where that healing, that ultimate restoration may not come till the other side.  But in that gap, we trust.  That is our faith.  That even when we cannot see or feel or understand...  God does. God is there.  God is working.  God has a plan.  And somehow, someway, it will all be ultimately glorious.
      We can know and believe that... because after the horror of the cross came the joy of the empty tomb.  The stone was rolled away, and we serve a resurrected Lord.  From the absolute worst the world could ever imagine, God brought the joyous best we could never begin to dream even in our wildest dreams.
     So wherever you are right now--whether in the storm or the calm or the gap between, remember His faithfulness to you in the past. Stop and recount those blessings, those times of help, those gifts of His sustaining presence.  And then choose to trust Him with the future.  He has totally got it.  Totally.
     Hope you don't mind if I continue on this theme a bit more the next day or two.  As my family often complains, I never seem to be at a lack for words!  Sorry.  But there's an Ebenezer we to discuss, Lord wiling.  Till then, to God be the glory... for all He has done, for all He is doing, and for all He will do.

Preach the gospel

     I can't remember where on earth I first heard this, but I was reminded today that we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every single day.  When it comes to hearing the gospel, there's such a temptation for believers to think, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all that.  I'm already saved.  Been there.  Done that. Tell me something I don't know."  We think we're ready to move on, but we should never leave behind a life-changing amazement, wonder, and gratitude in and for the gospel.  
     As C.J. Mahaney writes, "the first and most important thing you can do--always--is simply to make sure the gospel is at the very center of your life... What is it that can make the gospel of God and His grace more deeply and consistently amazing to us?  In our busy lives, how can we more often be gripped by gratitude and enflamed by passion for the Savior... and cast off lukewarmness and dullness in our spiritual experience?  For me, grace is never more amazing than when I'm looking intensely at the cross, and I believe the same will be true for every child of God. There's nothing more overpowering and captivating to the soul than to climb Calvary's mountain with childlike attentiveness and wonder, with all the distractions and wrong assumptions cleared away."
     It's all about the cross.  That's the essence of the gospel. And the gospel is the essence of joyful lives.
     Isn't it so easy, however, to get off-track?  We desire to do better and be better--nothing wrong with that... unless it's striving.  Striving in our strength.  Assuming that somehow it's all up to me to become a better person, a more worthy child of God.  And before we know it, we're discouraged and frustrated and exhausted.  Not to mention generally unpleasant to be around, I'm sure.
     Because the simple truth is: it's not up to us.  It's all up to Christ.  It's ALL about what HE did for us on the cross and about daily accepting the glorious truth of His atoning work to save us from our sin and from ourselves and from our impossible standards.  We simply cannot earn it or deserve it or try harder for it.  Nor can our children nor any of our loved ones.  And when we try to measure them by our unattainable standards, they will fall as absolutely flat as we do.  What a burden to place upon those we love.
     But when we cease striving and instead preach the gospel to ourselves, we're reminded that it's His grace that saves us and sustains us and enables us.  His grace frees us from ourselves.  His grace saves us not only from our enslavement to sin but our enslavement to performance.  And in the freedom of recognizing that we can never "measure up," but that Christ paid the price we could never ever pay, we are freed to love Him more fully, obey Him more gratefully, and serve Him more joyously.
     Maybe you didn't need reminding... but I did.  I do... every single day.
     When I fail and feel like a failure, I can say, "Ahh, but for this we have Jesus."  When I mess up with my children or struggle with some frustrating habit... "but for this we have Jesus."  When I forget His grace or His mercy or His goodness and start to feel entitled or demanding, I stop and recall the scandalous gospel: Jesus, Almighty Glorious God, died on a cross for my sin, my selfishness, my pride, my greed, my envy.  And all that hateful, ugliness has been fully paid for and dealt with by my sinless Savior.  How can I live with anything other than overwhelming gratitude for the grace that has been bestowed upon me?  
     Preach the gospel to yourself today.  And while you're at it, remind yourself that the same gospel saves and frees those you love.  Might the glory of His grace overwhelm us this day... and every day.
    To God be the glory.
   
   

One more look back

Amidst the mayhem of trying to clean up today, just thought I'd include a few happy memories from Christmas Day at my sister-in-law and brother's house:

     A few good men... looking terribly handsome in their red vests!  (The crowns were from the group kazoo play-along.  You cannot imagine what Christmas carols sound like when played by a bunch of kazoos.  Well actually, don't even try to imagine it.)
     And then, of course, there's another exceptionally good looking fellow in a red Christmas sweater.  His adoring sisters are beside him:

     Can't leave out the God-is-good-dessert-table.  Seriously, if you could have seen all the cakes and cookies and pies, you'd be saying the same thing--"Praise God!"

     And have to include just one shot of a few of the kazoo players (we were gathered in a big circle).  If you notice a confused look on some of the faces, that would be due to... uh... confusion.  We may not have produced beautiful music, but we had a blast!

      It's just good to remember the blessings.  Thank You, Lord Jesus.  You are the whole reason for the celebration.  You are the Source and Joy of our songs.  Forgive us for so quickly forgetting You in our relentless quest to get it all done... or now, to get it all cleaned up!
     "Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of woe, only His great, eternal love made my Savior go."  (Henry Barraclough)  Happy birthday, Lord Jesus.  Help us to take the wonder and joy of Your coming  at Bethlehem with us into the coming year.  We don't know what the next 12 months will hold, but as long as You hold this world together, well then, we know You will hold us together as well.  Not somehow, but triumphantly.   To God be the glory.

A new perspective

     Whew.
     That just about sums it up.  Whew.
     For the first time in several days, I'm actually relaxed and sitting quietly with Moses, both of us enjoying a little quiet time with the Lord.  He's a very spiritual dog.  Right now, the rain pours down outside, and Moses happily lolls on his back, all four feet up in the air.  His favorite, most relaxed position.  It's as if he realizes life has suddenly calmed down, the pressure seems to have evaporated, and he can finally exhale along with the rest of us.
     I really love Christmas, and for most of the glorious Advent season, I felt joy and wonder and gratitude.  Even in the midst of much travail and tragedy in the world, God kept reminding me that He is our hope and that such sorrow is why He came.  That darkness is why He sent His indefatigable Light.
     But the last couple of days--that final push to the finish line--I suddenly recognized how far behind I was and life shifted into warp speed.  I'm not a Star Trekkie, but that moment when the Enterprise suddenly zipped into overdrive and zoomed past all the stars, well, that pretty much reflected my final exhausting push in the hours before Christmas.  Doesn't lead to unassailable joy, that's for sure.   Forgive me, Father.
    There's so much build up to Christmas that when the glorious day is finally and suddenly over, you feel somewhat dazed.  Maybe even a bit empty.  Yesterday was so much fun for us--all our extended family together to celebrate.  Lots of eating (praise God), lots of laughing and talking, lots of kazoo playing (a relatively new family tradition that I won't explain right now), and lots of singing accompanied by my amazing niece's violin playing.  Thank You, Lord, for the gift of Christmas spent with those we love.
     But, well, then there's the day after... when all I seem to see is mess and piles and dirty clothes and empty boxes and food and more food.  And obscene amounts of Christmas decorations that all need to be put away.  Mercy, how on earth will we ever get it all done?  Just thinking about this Herculean task makes me want to go take a nap.  Actually, just contemplating it makes me want to cry.  Good grief.
     So, that's why old Moses and I decided it was time to take a break and go talk to the Lord about it.  And as always, He changes everything.
     "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.  Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.  For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." (Col.3:1-3)
     Time to stop looking around and start looking up.
     Time to remember it's not about all the stuff but all about the Savior.
     Time to ask God to give me His heavenly perspective rather than my earth-bound view.  For that makes all the difference.  My world may be a chaotic mess... but He is still in complete control, reigning on high, and redeeming and restoring the world and His people.  Where we see problems... He sees potential.  Where we feel weak... then He is strong.  And when we get to the end of ourselves and our strength and our joy... well, then that's when He can really begin to go to work and do the supernatural in our hearts and in our hopes.   I think He just loves to take utter messes and make impossibly beautiful music.
     So, for everyone struggling with a "day after..." mentality, why don't you take a few minutes to allow God to give you an attitude adjustment.  There's nothing like trading in your moribund perspective for His heavenly one.  He's waiting and ready.  To God be the glory.
   

Begun

     Waiting.  Waiting for the coming of the Messiah.  Almost here.
     Well, waiting... but working like a Trojan while waiting.  I was way behind this year.  As opposed to all the other years when I had it all together... yeah, right.  But, I must say, this year has been particularly disorganized.  I know we have a good excuse, but still, that inner Type A just keeps shouting, "Come on!  Get it done!  Who are you forgetting!  Hurry!"
      And so, finally, I sit before the tree, faithful old Moses at my feet, and I read the familiar, beautiful old words once again: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."  Once again, I'm awed by the wonder of it all: God moved into our neighborhood.  Our messy, disorganized, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyful neighborhood.
      He now lives here.  The Sovereign Almighty Lord.  Right here.  With us.  And He's never moving out of the neighborhood.  Even when I have a crummy attitude or am ungrateful or undeserving or utterly unbecoming.  He's staying right here.  I know.... because when He moved in on Christmas, He made it a permanent, done deal at Calvary.  Thank You thank You thank You, Lord Jesus.
     So Merry Christmas.  Just thought I'd include something beautiful I read from the book, Touching Wonder by John Blasé:
        "I AM.  I am the Mighty One.  Even though I AM beyond time, I have been and will be in all times: tomorrow, the now, even long ago.
     Humans have been shouting their question for millennia: Why in God's name won't You show up?  They say it when the moment seems to demand a force to do good: If you are God, then do something. But to show up in those moments would be to come in your name, not Mine.  My ways are not your ways.
     It was no different on the night in question.  The weary world pleaded for power.  I chose weakness.
     I had shaped Mary in her mother's womb, fashioned her from nothing into something.  I had crafted her frame so as to support the weight of her life.  Her days had been prepared before she lived even one.  I had gone before her, been behind, and on all sides.  I am the Mighty One.  And I was with her then as she writhe Love to live.
     She was brave.  Only Joseph by her side, a cramped place to give birth, noise everywhere.  And more.  As she screamed out in pain, the Deceiver stood ready to devour My Son.  The heavens shook with war.  Michael and his angels reeled.  Mighty One, do something!
     I AM.
     I had given My word: You'll give birth to your babies in pain. Mary held fast to hers: Let it be to me.   And so it was.
     Joseph thought Mary pushed.  The truth is, she shook and rocked on exhausted knees as I held her by My strong right arm and the brightness grew until she could bear no more.  Time pulled eternity from the womb of a girl, and bloodstained Love spilled on the hay.
     Bravely done, My child.  It is only just beginning."

     Thank You, Father, for sending the Son.  It has begun.  Your invasion of enemy-occupied territory by Love.  To God be the glory.

Friends, cradle and cross

      In an often hard, dark world, sometimes, God just blows us away.  Reminds us that He is there.  That He is sovereign.  That He is all-powerful.  And that He can do anything... absolutely anything.
     "For," as the angel Gabriel declared to Mary, "nothing will be impossible with God." (Lk.2:37)
     A couple of us moms and daughters got together yesterday for some lunch and a cookie exchange.  None of us quite knew what we were doing when it came to the cookie exchange part, but we had a blast anyway.  And it all turned out well in the end since we all got lots of variations of chocolate cookies.  So much chocolate, so little time.   Life is good.
     But this story goes back a ways.  The second night of Janie's stay in ICU in the hospital at Greenville, while she was still unconscious and the prognosis looked bleak, these three moms came for a visit late one evening.  We all sat with Janie in her room and talked to her as she lay there--she so still and unresponsive.  Then these sweet friends  took me out for a quick dinner at a nearby pizza spot.  The gift of friendship, of the community of faith the Lord gives us is simply incalculable.  And this gift of so many dear friends stepping in the gap with us and for us happened over and over again over those weeks and months.  Thank You, Father.
     I will never forget that night with my buddies.  In my raw weakness and worry, they strengthened me and reminded me that others were praying. So many others praying.  How can we ever begin to adequately thank them?  Such power in prayer.  Such peace in knowing others are praying even when we have no words or ability to pray.  We could feel those prayers.  We were buoyed by those prayers and knew that we were not alone.  Emmanuel was with us--God with us, forever and ever.  But also Emmanuel in the flesh--through His beautiful Body, the Body of the Christ.  That Body that extended across this globe to include folks who had never met us... but who prayed.  Thank You thank You thank You, Father.
     And so, yesterday, we moms and daughters got together again, four months later to the day... this time to rejoice in the goodness of a God who can do anything.  And who did the miraculous with our daughter.  And again, all I can say is thank You, Father.
     Even as I write these words, I know there are so many others who have not seemed to receive God's miraculous intervention.  Their loved one was not healed.  Their beloved child died.  Their relationship was not restored.  Their desperately longed-for answer was not forthcoming.  And we ask why?  Why is one healed and the other not?
     There are no simple answers... not this side of heaven.  One day we will see and know and understand all things fully.  On that glorious day, our faith will be made sight.  But until then... in those empty spaces, we choose trust.
      Trust in the One Who did not spare His only Son.  The One who had all power to save His Son... but did not, because of His infinite love for us. "He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" (Rom.8:32)
     When we wonder, we look to the cross.  When we doubt God's love, we look to the cross.  When we question and struggle, we look to the cross.  We cannot understand why some and not others... we can simply thank Him and give Him glory for those moments of divine intervention, but choose to continue trusting and clinging to His cross in those times when we still await His answers.  Trusting in the love that sent His only beloved Son to the cradle and refused to spare Him from the cross.  And trusting even when we cannot see a way through the darkness,  He who demonstrated such infinite love for us, is The Way... and He has His way for us.
     So this Christmas, might we continue to look to the cross.  Might the gruesome, glorious shadow of His cross fall across our every celebration of the Baby Savior in the manger.  And give us joy.
     As Ann Voscamp writes, "If there is no cross in my Christmas, then my Christmas has lost Christ, and what is the manger if it is not for the Messiah, the One who saves us with His scars?  This Babe who lays in a wooden manger, who came to lie on a wooden cross, He is healing all wounds."
     Thank You for healing our wounds... some physical, but all spiritual.  Thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your cradle and Your cross.   To God be the glory.

A waiting world

     There is so much sorrow and suffering and waiting intermingled in the Christmas story.  Zechariah and Elizabeth, righteous and faithful to God, yet old and childless.  Elizabeth is barren we are told, surely a source of great grief to her in that culture where a woman's whole worth was tied up in her ability to bear children.  All those baby boys killed in Bethlehem, at the order of the fiendish Herod.  So many weeping, desolate parents.
     And in the temple, when Mary and Joseph bring the baby Jesus for the rite of purification, there is old Simeon, also righteous and devout.  He has been waiting all his life for the "consolation of Israel" and has been promised by God that he will not die until he has seen the "Lord's Christ," the Messiah.  I loved the explanation of what that meant.  To wait on the consolation of Israel meant "the hope that God would come to rescue and comfort His people."  Rescue His people in this enemy-occupied nation.  Rescue and comfort His people who have not heard from God for over 400 long years.
    And now Anna, the prophetess.  She too is at the temple.  She, too, has been waiting, waiting, waiting.  So much waiting in the Christmas story.  Married for just 7 years, she has been a widow for 84 long years and has spent her life in the temple worshipping, fasting, and praying.  I wonder what people thought of her?  A woman, always at the temple, always praying and fasting. Did they think her a bit crazy?  Did they give her a wide berth?  No telling.  But there she was, worshipping and alone.  Alone and waiting.
     But when both Simeon and Anna see Jesus, everything changes, for they both recognize that God has sent His Consolation.  The Consolation of Israel has come.  God has sent the long awaited "hope" of God's rescue and comfort.  Finally.  After all that waiting.
      In the Greek, the word for consolation is "paraklesis" which means "comfort."  That word sounded so familiar to me, and then I remembered the word for the Holy Spirit: "parakletos" which, of course, means the "Comforter, the Counselor, the Helper."   He has given us His hope, His comfort, His rescue, His help in the Holy Spirit.  We, like Simeon and Anna, have found our hope and consolation and comfort and help.  If Jesus is our Lord and Savior, then He, our parakletos, is always with us.  Always.
     Luke 2:38 tells us, "And coming up at that very hour, she [Anna] began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem."   How I pray that is our response to what God has done and is doing through the Gift of Jesus this Christmas.  Giving thanks--in the big and the small, in the good and even in the hard.  Giving thanks even in the waiting and the bewildering.  Knowing that He--our Consolation, our Hope, our Helper, our Comfort--has come and is with us... even in those places of darkness and loneliness and wilderness of our lives.
     And might we "speak of Him to all" who are "waiting."  All who still wait for redemption and consolation.  In a dark world, Lord, help us to be shine Your Light.  Your comfort.  Your love.  Might we be conduits of Your Consolation even as You have comforted us.
     I have to include the words to a Christmas song we just heard this year and that is now one of our very favorites.  It's by Brandon Heath and is called, "The night before Christmas."  Please try to listen to it on iTunes if you can.  Here are the words, and they describe the world that Jesus, the Consolation, the Hope, the Helper, the Rescuer and Redeemer, entered:

Empty manger, perfect stranger, about to be born.
Into darkness, sadness, desperate madness, creation so torn.
We were so lost on earth, no peace, no worth. 
no way to escape. 
In fear, no faith, no hope, no grace ,and no light
but that was the night before Christmas.
Warm hay, cold sweat, a mother, not yet.
Praying godspeed the dawn. 
She looks to her man, holding her hand. They wonder how long. 
And the shepherds, wise men come to find them, and bow to a king. 
One star above shining on love, so bright it lit up the night before Christmas.
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com

CHORUS:
And the world didnt know mercy was meek and so mild.
And the world didnt know that truth was as pure as a child.
The night before Christmas.
The night before Christmas.
And the world didnt know, redemption was sweet and so strong. And the world didnt know salvation was writing a song. 
The night before christmas.
The night before christmas. 
The night before christmas. 
Empty manger, perfect stranger, about to be born.

     That was the waiting world into which He came.  That is the world into which He still comes.  A place of "darkness, sadness, desperate madness, creation so torn... fear, no faith, no hope, no grace, no light."  
    "But that was the night before Christmas."  
    Praise God for sending us His Son, our Savior.  Our Comforter and Helper. Our Rescuer and Redeemer.  Our Hope. To God be the glory.

The best and the worst... with Him

     Favorite part of my day yesterday: the joy of watching four young 9 to 11 year old boys pick out presents for their families at Target yesterday.  Like everybody under the sun right now, I had little time and even less energy.  But when my youngest son asked me to take these four neighborhood buddies to Target to buy presents, well, thank the Lord I heeded that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit (and not the jarring, clamoring voice of me!) and, after a moment's hesitation, said, "Okay, sure."   

     Seeing those boys running around Target, comparing prices, trying desperately to get the most bang for their buck while at the same time trying to find a gift that the recipient would love, well, as the ad says, "Priceless."  I loved seeing the pride on their faces as they showed me some of their gifts.  Especially loved Miles showing me the shiny red and silver ornament for his mom with a big "E" on it. This after carefully explaining that he was torn since he could get a set of 3 pairs of earrings for $4.99, but he didn't think his mom would like those as much.  Good call, Miles.  She'll treasure that ornament on your tree till the day she dies.  

     My son picked out some more practical gifts--like 3 packages of Diet Cokes for his big sister for $11.  Man, that one blew his budget, for sure, but they sure do look festive under the tree with big red bows.  For his other sister: candy and a kind of lip balm she loves.  He was stunned the lip balm cost $4.99 for such a small package.  But she'll love it.  Candy for his brothers--just what we all need at Christmas... but by then he was about out of cash.  

     One of my favorite moments of the trip: when Edward was loading up his bags into his shopping cart and looked up at all his buddies, and smiling broadly said, "I feel like a mom."  

     I also love that the boys decided to have a "Christmas candy exchange" for each other.  No self-interest involved in that at all, I'm sure.  They each were assigned a different boy and picked out a particular type of candy that this fellow liked.  Again,  I'm sure with absolutely no prodding.  Edward: "First I picked out jelly beans for Bo, because someone told me he liked them, but then I had to return it since I found out that wasn't right.  So now I got him a kind he likes."  (I can't remember what it was--there was such a surfeit of  candy being bandied about, I lost track.)  

     Apparently, the boys decided rather than wait for Christmas to give each other their sweet treats, they would go ahead and exchange gifts as soon as we got home, so "we'd have something to eat while we wrapped presents."  Excellent idea.  I think I might go get a Milky Way right now.  

      They had a wrapping extravaganza in our living room... candy consumed, much laughter and discussion, and wads and wads of wrapping paper and tape thrown around to cover these presents of love.  What a joy to see our son's under our tree.   So for all this, thank You Lord Jesus.  Help us not to miss these moments.  

      I do have to add my least favorite part of the day: searching futilely for 2 and a half HOURS for the beautiful hand knit scarves for my nieces and daughters that I had purchased and hidden well over a month ago.  They were GONE, VANISHED, and I truly thought I was going to lose my mind.  I can feel the frustration and frenzy rise again even now.  Why, I kept asking myself, would anyone with the memory of gnat, hide presents all over the place?  Why do I do this every year--hide presents, only to find them a year and a half after Christmas?   Unbelievable.  

      But here's my 2nd most favorite part of the day: when my husband, after looking for less than 10 minutes found them hidden in the bathtub (one we never use, by the way.  We do take baths and showers, in case you were worried.).  What a great idea I apparently had to put them there.  Too bad I couldn't remember.  Good grief.

     So there you have it--the best and the worst.  Nothing profound, but just a day of gifts from the Father.  A day of living for Him and with Him and rejoicing that because of Christmas, we will never ever be without Him--Emmanuel.  "God with us."  In the good and the bad and everything in-between. 

     To God, our Emmanuel, forever with us and for us, be all the glory.

The God who plays... and saves

     Just pondering the words from, who else, my hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
          "'Mighty God' (Isa.9:6) is the name of this child.  The child in the manger is none other than God Himself.  Nothing greater can be said: God became a child.  In the Jesus child of Mary lives the Almighty God.  Wait a minute!  Don't speak; stop thinking!  Stand still before this statement!  God became a child!  Here He is, poor like us, miserable and helpless like us, a person of flesh and blood like us, our brother.  And yet He is God; He is might.  Where is divinity, where is the might of the child?  In the divine love in which He became like us.  His poverty in the manger is His might.  In the might of love He overcomes the chasm between God and humankind, He overcomes sin and death, He forgives sin and awakens from the dead.  Kneel down before this miserable manger, before this child of poor people, and repeat in faith the stammering words of the prophet: 'Mighty God!' and He will be your God and your might."
     I just can't seem to get over this... but then we should never ever get over the astounding, history-altering wonder of this: God and man.  But no, not just man--tiny, helpless infant.  And not just infant--but born in poverty, obscurity and filth.  I wonder,  as heaven peered over the this dusty blue ball spinning in space, what shock must have registered?   Angelic beings witnessed the Mighty One, the Alpha and Omega,  the omnipotent Creator and Sustainer Whom they had worshipped for millennia, being born as a human--a limited, finite, weak human.  Creator became creature.  To go to such unimaginable depths... for those He had created.  Who could comprehend?
     And yet this frail, dependent, poverty-stricken, tiny baby is the One before Whom we kneel and declare, "Mighty God, Savior, Redeemer!"  As Bonhoeffer declares, we daily need to stop, cease from our endless doing and rushing, to hush--and then kneel--before this "miserable" but glorious manger that housed our Mighty God-Infant.  Just like us... but so infinitely much more.  Fully Man to understand all our struggles and temptations and sorrows and dreams.  Yet fully God to take upon Himself our sins and redeem and save us.
     The other day, I came up on our porch where we have a beautiful, old nativity and this is what I saw:

I had to laugh--our boys' basketball, fresh from a rousing game, I'm sure--resting at the feet of the little Boy-Savior.  How appropriate.  And Mary looks as if she is pointing at the ball as if to say, "That is what He will be--a regular Boy who plays with balls.  But also a Redeemer who came to save all those boys and girls who play."
      And all I could do was say, "Thank You for Father for sending us boys and girls.  But most of all, thank You for giving us the perfect God-Baby-Boy-Man-Savior."  Help us to kneel in grateful wonder.
     To God be the glory.

Which Voice?

     I think it was all those urgent emails that did me in.
     "Last day for free shipping!"  "Only 4 more hours for 40% off!" "One more chance--order by 3 p.m. for 2 day shipping!"  "This is it!  Last day!"
     Yep, I really think the emails were the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  Unlike the wise men traveling all those long miles on those camels just to see and worship the King, I fell off the camel's back and into the frenzy of hurry and worry.  Suddenly, for a good part of the day, I felt panicked--we'll never get it all done by Christmas!  What was I thinking?  What about my nieces and nephews? I haven't mailed so and so's yet!  O my stars, what about those friends!  What about... okay, I'm stopping right now because I can feel the tension starting to rise.
      I had gone from enjoying the Gift of Christ to worrying about the giving of Christmas.  Not that the giving isn't wonderful.  It is.  But not if we throw away our joy and peace and love in the process. As Richard Evans writes in one our favorite Christmas children's books, "In your hurry to keep Christmas, you have forgotten Christmas."  Forgive me Father.  
     Instead of what have I crossed off my list, I need to be asking, what can I do to encourage someone?  Instead of how much have I done, it needs to be how much can I love?  Instead of where can I buy those gifts, I need to ask where can I share the Light of Christ in a dark world?
      And you know, the reason I fell off the camel?  Because I was listening to the wrong voices.  I read this morning in Matthew 2 about the wise men who had come to Jerusalem looking for the King.  Another king summons them, Herod, and tells them to "go search diligently for the child, and when you have found Him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship Him." (Mt.2:8)  Of course, Herod lied.  Jealous, spiteful, violent, he only wanted to find and kill that rival infant King.  But the wise men don't know that at the time.
     But here's what verse 9 says, "After listening to the king, they went on their way.  And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was."
     They listened to the king... but they followed the star.
     And that star led them straight to the Baby-Savior.  The following verses in Matthew tell of their great joy, their glorious worship, and their gifts for this King.  And then they listen not to the lying voice of Herod but to the voice of God warning them in a dream, and they "departed to their own country by another way." (v.12)
     It's so easy to listen to the wrong voices, isn't it?  The voices that say, "Hurry!  Worry!  Rush!  Not enough!  Get busy!"  But the voice of God says, "Come to Me all, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Mt.11:28)  Refuse to heed the voices of darkness that tell you to despair, to fear, to strive, to lose hope.  Instead, listen to His voice: "Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness." (Ps.112:4) and "The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:5)
     The voice that proclaims "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."
     Today, when those voices start to tempt you to rush or worry or doubt or even despair, refuse to listen.  And instead choose to listen to the voice of the One who made you, who loves you, and who died to save you.  He is your Light in the darkness.
     Like the wise men, might we listen not to the voices of the world but to our Almighty King... and follow the star.  To God be the glory.

Scandalous Love

     Read this from Dietrich Bonhoeffer this morning:
        "The Bible is full of the proclamation that the great miracle has happened as an act of God, without any human doing... What happened?  God had seen the misery of the world and had come Himself in order to help.  Now He was there, not as a mighty One, but in the obscurity of humanity, where there is sinfulness, weakness, wretchedness, and misery in the world.  That is where God goes, and there He lets Himself be found by everyone.  And this proclamation moves through the world anew, year after year, and again this year also comes to us...  The world that Christ comes to save is our fallen and lost world.  None other."
     And I might add--none other Savior.  None greater.   None wiser.  None kinder.  None holier.  None more omniscient or omnipotent.  None who can save to the uttermost.  And none with more love.  One of my favorite verses, as Jesus prepared to leave His disciples and head to the cross: "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." (John 13:1)  Loved them--and us--to the end of His mission at Calvary.  Loves us to the end of our lives.  And loves us stretching into eternity where His love will never end.
     But it all began here--at a rude wooden manger.  The road to Calvary beginning at a crib.  The Mighty One come, as Bonhoeffer says, "in the obscurity of humanity, where there is sinfulness, weakness, wretchedness, and misery... and there lets Himself be found by everyone."
     That is where God goes--to Newtown, to gravesides, to homeless shelters, to prisons, to places of addiction and despair and defeat.  And to us... to each of us wherever we may be.
    What a plan for redemption.  The incarnation, Frederick Buechner writes, is "a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers... Until we too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it, we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken."
     O Lord, might we be scandalized by Your coming in such an utterly unbecoming, undesirable, uncomfortable manner!  Move us beyond our happy complacency with the Christmas story and give us new eyes to fathom the infinite distant You traveled to enter this dark planet as one of us... yet also fully God.  If we could but glimpse what You did, how much You relinquished, how far You came down to meet us at that manger, we would fall to our knees in stunned and overwhelming gratitude.
     Because all of it--the manger, the angels, the shepherds, the wisemen,  every single part of the story that we all know and cherish--all of it is because of love.  Divine love.  Your love.  Your infinite, indefatigable, astounding love for us.  The love that led inexorably from Bethlehem as a baby to Calvary as a Savior.
     "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end."
     We'll never reach the end of Your love.
      Thank You, Lord Jesus.  Might we respond to Your scandalous love with grateful, trusting hearts.  To God be the glory.

Home for Christmas

     13 years ago this month on December 12,  my wonderful Mama went home to be with the Lord.  It was sudden and totally unexpected so that first Christmas still seems bathed in an unearthly wash of numbness, sorrow... and yet hope.  Hope because in losing a loved one so close to the holidays, you can't help but reflect upon the simple fact: this is why He came.  He came to defeat the power of death and to conquer the sorrowful effects of this sin-scarred world upon His sometimes lost and lonely children.
     He came for children who lose their mamas.  And for parents who lose their children.  He came for the desperate and the despairing.  He came for us all--even in our indifference and ingratitude.   He entered this beautiful, but often broken planet, to redeem and restore.
     I so well remember looking up at the stars at night during those days and weeks after Mama's death and thinking, "Wonder what she is seeing right now?  These stars set in the black canopy of night, so beautiful and mysterious--she's finally seeing them as they really are.  She's viewing them from a whole new and perfect vantage point.  She's fully understanding.  And it must be glorious beyond words."
     And then I would thank the Lord that "Mama is truly home for Christmas."  Christmas in heaven.  Wow.  What must that be like?   To find home as it's always meant to be.  That true, deeper home we always seem to long for and never quite find.  Christmas in His Home, our real Home.
      Well, that is what I have been thinking about the last few days.  With very dear friends who have lost a loved one and with the unimaginable losses at Newtown, I keep pondering, "Lord, what are they seeing in heaven right now?  What wonders are they experiencing?  O to be truly home for Christmas!"
     It may not ease the pain much if you have lost someone near and dear to your heart, but somehow it has helped me the past few days to consider the glorious reality of where those children are now and the unimaginable wonders they are experiencing at this very moment.  Forever beyond all violence and restlessness and failure and suffering and sadness.
     Seeing Jesus face to face.
     Truly home for Christmas.
     Finally, finally, faith made sight.
     O glorious day.
     Lord, help those of us remaining here, in this "enemy-occupied territory," to recall even as we grieve, that this is why You came.  And that is why they are there... truly home for Christmas.  With You.  To God be the glory.
   
  

Simply worship

     One of our favorite nativity sets: old, beloved, and battered--one of the wisemen has lost half his crown, the sheep is missing part of his leg, and the shepherd's staff has seen better days.  But that's why we love this nativity--a bit bruised from the battles of life, kind of like each of us, but still brightly reflecting the wonder and glory of the night that changed everything.  As a child, I can remember carefully removing the nativity from an old shoe box, each piece wrapped in wadded up pieces of tissue paper.  Somehow Christmas had not officially begun until the smooth ivory-colored wood pieces had found their place on the coffee table at our house.  Even now, as I take out each figure, that childhood sense of wonder and joy return to me, and for just a moment,  I'm an excited 10 year old.
     But it's funny, as many years as I've put out this beautiful old nativity--first as a child growing up and now as a mom with children of my own--I'd never noticed before that every figure is worshipping the newborn King.  In fact, nearly all the characters, including the little cherub, are kneeling in adoration.  And the few that are not kneeling have their heads bowed or their hands lifted in prayer.  How on earth had I missed that before?  Busyness and preoccupation, I suppose.
     I couldn't help but think, that's what it all boils down to at Christmas, isn't it?  Not rushing around, buying the perfect presents for everyone on your list or having the ideal Southern Living decorations at home or any of the other hoopla or pressure that we put upon ourselves every year.  Nope, it's really all about worshipping the newborn King.  How can we help but have any other response to such extravagant love, such extraordinary sacrifice other than knees to the earth and thanksgiving from the heart?
     So often we get all caught up in what we think God expects from us or needs from us or demands from us.  But Christmas is not about what we can do for God... it's all about what God has done for us. Not about our goodness but about His greatness and grace.  Not about our performance but about His Perfect Love enfleshed in an infant Savior.
      The only response to such unwarranted, extravagant grace in the bestowing of the Greatest Gift is simply to accept it with humble gratitude, and then, like those figures in our nativity, to fall to our knees in adoration of our Baby-Savior.  What else can we do?   We don't deserve it.  We certainly can't earn it.
     We simply worship.  In light of the One who is so infinitely much, so overwhelmingly abundant, so "exceedingly more than all we ask or imagine," we don't work; we worship. O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
     Today, each day, might we worship and rejoice... for He is more than enough.  To God, the Baby-Savior and Redeemer, be all the glory.

Our Suffering Sovereign

     From today's Daily Light:  "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.  Jesus wept." (John 11:33, 35)
     Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead... and yet He wept.  Wept over the suffering, the sorrow, the scarring that sin had so devastatingly wrought upon this planet and upon His people that He loved and came to save.  And so the Almighty Lion of Judah with all power and all knowledge, wept salty tears along with those He came to redeem.
     We have a God who knows and cries with us.  But Who also has the power to resurrect and redeem and restore even the most horrific evil.  Somehow.
     I have no words for the unspeakable tragedy and evil of yesterday's shooting.  So many innocents.  So many tears.  O Lord Jesus, please come.  Please enter into this horror.  Please help us.. help them.  We can't even begin to ask why.  We just have to pray, please come.
     These are John Piper's words that ministered to me this dark, bewildering morning.  I pray they will to you as well: "How does Jesus come to Newtown?"

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize . . . but one who in every respect has been tested as we are. (Hebrews 4:15)

"Mass murder is why Jesus came into the world the way he did. What kind of Savior do we need when our hearts are shredded by brutal loss?

We need a suffering Savior. We need a Savior who has tasted the cup of horror we are being forced to drink.

And that is how he came. He knew what this world needed. Not a comedian. Not a sports hero. Not a movie star. Not a political genius. Not a doctor. Not even a pastor. The world needed what no mere man could be.

The world needed a suffering Sovereign. Mere suffering would not do. Mere sovereignty would not do. The one is not strong enough to save; the other is not weak enough to sympathize.

So he came as who he was: the compassionate King. The crushed Conqueror. The lamb-like Lion. The suffering Sovereign.

Now he comes to Newtown, Connecticut.

• Perfected through suffering. (Hebrews 2:10)
• Hated by the proud. (John 7:7)
• Demonized by the strong. (Matthew 9:34)
• Willingly poor. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
• A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)
• Planning to be crushed. (Isaiah 53:5)
• Despised and rejected. (Isaiah 53:3)
• Ready to be wounded. (Isaiah 53:5)
• Submissive like a lamb led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7)
• Enduring anguish. (Isaiah 53:11)
• Poured out in death. (Isaiah 53:12)
• Risen to help. (Romans 14:7–9)

The God who draws near to Newtown is the suffering, sympathetic God-man, Jesus Christ. No one else can feel what he has felt. No one else can love like he can love. No one else can heal like he can heal. No one else can save like he can save."

       Piper adds at the end: "May God make us tender emissaries of the Suffering Sovereign." Yes, Father.   To God--our Suffering Sovereign, our Savior--be the glory.  

---

Enemy-occupied territory

     Really brutal day yesterday.  Folks dealing with desperately ill loved ones and other hard struggles.  And many of us are feeling overwhelmed with grief and sorrow over a death in a family we all dearly love.  I struggle to even write these words, so profound is the sadness.
     And I'm reminded that this is not our home.
     And that this is why He came... into this "enemy-occupied territory."
     C.S.Lewis writes: "Enemy-occupied territory--that is what this world is.  Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."  We daily seek to sabotage the wicked work of our brutal enemy who seeks only to kill, steal, and destroy.
      Days like these it may seem that our relentless foe is winning.  But he is not.  He may win some skirmishes.  He may break our hearts and hollow out our dreams.  But he will never win the ultimate war.  Never.  His doom is sure, for the King has landed and is, even now, taking back His creation.
      Please forgive me for sharing a bit of what we wrote just recently in our Christmas letter:

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all of the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.  You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rest.’” (Lk 2:8-14) 

When Janie was still in a coma in the ICU, a dear friend of ours, David Dwight, sent us an explanation from a Biblical language scholar about the words “heavenly host” that blew our socks off!  The translation of a “heavenly host” is “far too mild.  The word that the translators have called “host” is unequivocally the word ‘army’ in Greek.  The word is ‘stratia’ and it is always and everywhere translated ‘army.’”  In other words, the Bible tells us that at Jesus’ birth, the sky was filled with a heavenly army, “and what they said to the shepherds was something that feels much more like, ‘Glory to God, this is war, but don’t be afraid.’”

That heavenly army was telling them, and us: “You needn’t be afraid.  God does the battling and will win the big war.  You trust and walk with this Savior-Warrior-Baby, and be at peace that the Lord’s armies are doing the battling and that the victory will be won.  That’s why you can rejoice--the victory will be won.”  

     And that's why we can rejoice even in the midst of heartbreak and confusion and fear and even doubt.  Because our Savior-Warrior-Baby has landed.  We live in enemy-occupied territory...but we are not alone.  The Mighty One is with us and for us.  And He will ultimately win the war, restore this  planet, and redeem all this pain and brokenness.  He will truly make all things new.  No more tears.  No more separation.  No more sorrow.  No more suffering.

     O glorious day!   

     But until great and glorious day, He will give us the strength to fight another day.  One day, one hour, at a time.  To keep pushing back the darkness and doubt and despair with His love and grace and power and provision.  

     Keep fighting, keep trusting... today. Just for today.  And trust the Almighty One to give you enough grace to do it again tomorrow.  For He will.

     You do not fight alone.   We have one another--fellow saboteurs in this vast army of His.   And we have the omnipotent, sovereign, unconquerable King. 

     Yes, the King has landed.  There is no pit too deep, no battle too fierce, no enemy-occupied territory too vast that our Savior-Warrior-Baby is not deeper and stronger and greater still.  
     This is war--but don't be afraid.  To God be the glory.  

     

   

Irrefutable Joy

     From this morning's Daily Light:
"Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." (2Tim2:1)
"Be strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power." (Col.1:11)
"Fight the good fight of faith." (I Tim.6:12)
"Not in any way terrified by your adversaries." (Phil.1:28)

     He is mighty to save.  Our Savior-Warrior-Baby.  I just recently wrote about this in our Christmas letter, and I'll write include some of that in the next day or two.  But right now, in the wee hours of the morning,  we are battling in prayer for a number of dear friends: some with sick children, some struggling with hard issues, some in great darkness, one in the hospital right now with complications in her pregnancy.
     In our darkest moments, others formed that mighty army of prayer warriors for us--that formidable, glorious, and powerful force--and now we join the battle on behalf of those who right at this moment are fighting foes of pain, fear, helplessness, uncertainty, desperate need.
     But they are not alone.  O Lord, help them to feel our prayers.  Help them to feel Your presence, hovering, working, moving, strengthening, enabling.
     Might they hear the distant roar of the mighty Lion of Judah on their behalf.  Even as You fight for them, and we fight on our knees, keep them strong in the battle.
     "Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who are fearful-hearted, 'Be strong, do not fear!  Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you." (Isa.35:3-4)
     Lord Jesus, You came on that silent night over 2000 years ago.  You came to us... in our battles... not just to join our struggles, but to win the war.  You, our Savior-Warrior-Baby, came to fight with us and for us and beside us and behind us.  Lord, there are some right now who may not feel as though they can take another step... last another wearying day... fight for another moment of joy.
     But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote shortly before his imprisonment by the Nazis in World War II: "The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross; that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish, when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it, in fact precisely there; it does not deny grave sin but finds forgiveness precisely in this way; it looks death straight in the eye, but it finds life precisely within it."
      So Father,  thank You for the joy of the cradle and the agony of the cross that secured our salvation.  Thank You for sending Your Son, our Immanuel, God with us--always and forever with us, no matter what we are enduring.  And thank You for fighting for us and with us in our battles.  We will not fear... but trust, even with Your invincible manger and cross-secured joy.  Our irrefutable joy--Jesus.
     To God be the glory.

Stillness... then shine

     I love the early morning--the stillness  of the predawn darkness, the quiet possibility of a new day still before us but the peace of the evening still resting in the air.  I sit before our Christmas tree and smile at the twinkling lights and the ornaments of love scattered over the tree--all those preschool wreaths with the children's pictures inside, the handmade snowflakes and stars, the soccer-playing santa and the angels and the cardinal and the old old round balls and the cocoa cola ornaments.  Each suffused with memories and joy.  Thank You Lord.
     It's just so easy this time of year to forget to slow down for a few minutes and savor it all.  See and remember and savor all that is behind the decorations and the hoopla and the traditions.  When we get caught up in the excitement and sucked into the cauldron of frenzy and busyness, we miss so much. We miss Christ in the midst of our frantic efforts to celebrate Christmas.
     I just read in Luke 2 where Mary, after the shepherds visit, "treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart." (v.19)  That's why we need some stillness and space each day during Advent--to treasure up all God has done in sending us Jesus.  To treasure up and ponder all that He has given us  in His Son and in His extravagant grace in our lives in general.  His gifts of the people we love, the places we love, the daily activities and work we often take for granted but that, deep down, we love.
     If we don't slow down for a few moments and simply sit and savor, we miss them.  Miss Him.  And in missing Him, miss the joy and peace and strength and love He came to give us.  Time spent treasuring and pondering, even for just a few minutes, grounds us in Him for the rest of the day.  I can't think of another way to say it--it's a grounding of joy and peace and strength in Him that carries us through whatever busyness and challenges the day may bring.
     But after those moments of seeing and savoring, God calls us to go back out into our world and shine His Light.  I love that in the very next verse, we are told: "And the shepherds returned,, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them." (v.30)   We have to "return."  We can't just sit by the tree all day and ponder!  God calls us to get out there and reflect His light, share His love, care for His people and His world.  Praising Him and loving His people--being His hands and feet in our jobs, our homes, our schools, our neighborhoods.
     After the stillness, then shine wherever God has placed you.
     We're called to brighten the world with His light and love by giving Him glory, doing all He's called us to do... but with transformed hearts that adore Him within and reflect Him without.
     So today, might you see and savor, treasure and ponder the Gift of Jesus and the gifts of God in your life.  Even if it's just a few minutes of space and stillness.   And then go out there and shine in your world.  Make a difference by reflecting His light and love to a dark and desperate world.
     To God be the glory.