Tag: Jesus

Choosing Words that Heal

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proverbs 12

As a girl, my dream height was 5 feet 8 inches.

I didn’t quite make it.

When I eventually made it to oh, about 5 feet 6 inches, though, I thought that was a nice, comfortable height, not tall, but not short either.

Then in my early 20’s, a doctor measured me for the first time in years.

Turns out I’m only 5 feet 4-1/2 inches.

That rocked my world a bit. That’s short.  Not extremely short.  But short.  It’s not tall or even a comfortable in-between.

I walked in and out of that doctor’s office exactly the same, but my perception of myself changed, and it felt a little disheartening.

Now, I have one daughter built long and lean and another daughter built more like me.

This is difficult.

My daughter complains about her lack of height all the time.  How she’s the shortest.  How EVERYONE in her WHOLE class is taller than she is.

I’ve navigated this body image issue for years, but it’s a tempestuous journey.

I ask her—So, you’re built like your mom.  Is that terrible?

I remind her she’ll grow.  It just takes time.

I tell her God made her beautiful, just right, totally lovely.

But this is the tender part of her soul, the soft-skinned place where Satan wreaks havoc and she’s easily bruised.

Any hint whatsoever about her size sends her into a 5-minute diatribe and withers her spirit.

A friend tells me what she said to her own daughter and I hold onto these words of wisdom until just the right moment.

It’s at church.  My daughter launches into another session of, “What’s wrong with me and why am I so short?”

I step in close, look into her eyes and say the words I’ve been storing up:  “The best things come in small packages. Diamonds come in the tiniest of boxes and yet they are a treasure.”

She blinks in surprise.  She never expected those words, this new thought to take hold of her heart.  It changes everything.

I haven’t mocked her or ignored her. I haven’t reasoned and rationalized.

I’ve cradled the most tender part of her soul in my hands and shown gentleness and unfailing love.

This is what we need to give and to receive from those we love most: our husbands, our children, the dearest friends whose secrets weaknesses we’re privileged enough to see.

They entrust us with their messes, weaknesses and failures.

We know their most honest struggles and their most common sins.

We know when the gray hairs arrive and when the scale numbers rise.

We know the flaws and the blemishes.

We know them at their grumpiest and saddest.

We know the things they dislike most about themselves and the things they wish other won’t see.

In fits of rage and bursts of anger, right in the most intense point of conflict, we have to choose:  Use our knowledge as a weapon and wound them where they are most sensitive….or lay it aside, choosing to protect the most tender parts of their soul.

Proverbs says:

Rash language cuts and maims,
    but there is healing in the words of the wise (Proverbs 12:18 MSG).

Our words can wound or they can heal.

Let us be healers.

We are the ones who can say: I  see you.  I love you.  I think you’re beautiful.

Jesus made that choice.

He was abrupt and forthright when necessary, confronting pharisees and those who lacked faith with blunt firmness.

But when he cradled a broken heart in the palm of His hand, it’s what He doesn’t say that is striking.

A sinful woman washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and anointed Him with ointment from her alabaster box.

The pharisees criticized.  Jesus could have done the same.  Instead, he defends her, saying:

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little (Luke 7:47).

Her sins—her many sins—are forgiven.  He didn’t list them.  He didn’t drag them out for public examination.  He  protected her honor and gave her dignity.

He did the same for the woman caught in adultery and dragged out for public stoning.  She was likely thrown onto the ground naked, exposed, humiliated.

Jesus saw the weakest, most vulnerable moment of her life.

Instead of capitalizing on it and sermonizing about her sins, he covered her shame with His gentleness and grace:

Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more (John 8:11).

When we entrust our hearts to Jesus, weak as they are, sinful as we are, He covers us with His gentle grace and unconditional love.

He sees the ugliest parts of our soul and says, “I love you.  I forgive you.  You are beautiful to me.”

How can we show this gentleness to those we love?

So we worship with abandon

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psalm 150

I can hear my son dancing in his carseat as I drive the minivan around town.

He dances with a particular sense of abandon, throwing his whole body into his head-banging, side to side, forward and back.   He snaps his elbows out and pulls his hands to his chest and then kicks his feet.

When he breaks into dancing at home, he does a combination of skipping/leaping/running in circles that is breathlessly exciting.

He is into it.

I know he’s dancing wildly back there in the minivan (as wildly as one can dance when strapped into a 5-point harness car seat), so I pull down my rear-view mirror for a moment to see what he’s doing.

He immediately freezes in mid-boogie and looks away trying not to catch my gaze.

All of that joyful movement stops in an instant and gives way to bashful embarrassment.

My son is a secret dancer.

Even though I never criticize him for it, he has this innate pulling back, an automatic embarrassment that we never overcome no matter how many times I tell him: “It’s okay to dance.”

I wonder if we also are secret-dancers, secret-worshipers, holding back, hiding away, not wanting to look too wild or too ‘into it.’

Like Nicodemus, maybe we clothe our time with Jesus in darkness and privacy.

Even among other Christians, we might pull back.  Don’t get too serious.  Don’t worship too passionately.  Don’t change your priorities too much.  Don’t talk about God too often.  Don’t let the Bible actually change you.

Jesus has a way, though, of busting through all of the layers of propriety and face-saving, people-pleasing, status-quo-following.

No matter how hard we may try at times to stuff our faith into acceptable packages of behavior, God can stir us to abandon.

In Luke 7, Jesus watched as a widow followed the casket of her only son while wailing with sorrow.  Seeing her pain, Jesus responded with compassion, touched the coffin and commanded that her precious son rise up from the dead.

The son sat up and started talking.

We’re told that “they were all filled with awe and praised God.  ‘A great prophet has appeared among us,’ they said. ‘God has come to help his people.’ This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country (Luke 7:16-17 NIV).

The Message describes the scene:

They all realized they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them. They were quietly worshipful—and then noisily grateful, calling out among themselves, “God is back, looking to the needs of his people!” The news of Jesus spread all through the country (Luke 7:16-17 MSG).

God’s presence, always with us, should awaken the sense that we’re in a “place of holy mystery.”  Yes, God is at work here and we are amazed!

We may begin ‘quietly worshipful,’ but then we can’t hold it in!  We praise God!  We are ‘noisily grateful!”  We tell everyone what Jesus has done.

Just like these worshipers, we shout: “Praise God, He is at work among us!  Praise God, I’ve seen His hand and He’s real, our God is real!!  Praise God, He has not abandoned us, but He is looking after the needs of His people!!”

We all have these moments when we can choose to dance and sing about all that God has done or remain hidden in the shadows as night-time Jesus-seekers too frightened of popular opinion for all-out discipleship.

This was Nicodemus’s choice. He came in the darkness to ask Jesus just what being “born again” really meant.

But later, after Jesus died,  it wasn’t the disciples or the women at the cross who arranged for his burial.

Instead, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for Jesus’ body.  He was “a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders” (John 19:38).

And who was with him?  None other than Nicodemus, who brought about 75 pounds of lotions and spices to anoint Jesus’ body.  Together, they wrapped their Savior with linen and placed him in a garden tomb (John 19:38-42).

Two secret worshipers, frightened of others’ opinions, ashamed to go public with their faith, now honored Jesus with reverent awe and unhidden love.

Suddenly, religious position, public opinion, and power didn’t matter very much.

Jesus had abandoned all for them, so they worshiped with abandon.

Jesus abandoned everything for us also, so we can also worship with abandon!

God is with us!  Jesus is risen!  He is real!  He is at work among us!

 

 

My job at the zoo

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john 16-33

Here’s my primary job at the zoo as a mom.

Sure, I help break up fights over who will hold the map.

I plan our itinerary so we don’t bounce from the lions on the one end of the zoo, to the goats on the other end of the zoo, back to the giraffes way back where the lions are.  No, we will see the exhibits one at a time and in order!

I make sure no little hands slip into the fences and no children wander off in search of wild animals.

I decline to pay for every souvenir, snack, and photo booth that we see.

I take pictures of children giggling at the baby monkeys.

But mostly I do this—I point so that whoever my youngest child is at the time can actually find the animal in the tank or grass or exhibit or whatever.

I’ve been doing this for years.

See the lizard? 

No.

See, right there.  Look where I’m pointing.  See?

No.

See that leaf?  The big one right there?  Look under that.  See the lizard?

No.

Every so often, we struggle to find the tiger or the bear, but mostly it’s these camouflaging reptiles and miniature frogs that have us standing at the cage for more than five minutes squinting our eyes, pointing our fingers, and eventually giving up.

Not this time, though.

I’ve been taking kids to the zoo for years, but a few weeks ago I took my two-year-old and discovered he has super-sight.  My son can spot a hidden reptile or amphibian the moment he walks up to the glass.

Snake. Lizard. Frog.  He points and says the name like this is the easiest exercise on the planet.

Hiding under foliage?  Doesn’t matter.

Blending in with the pebbles?  Not a problem.

Hanging from a tree at the top of the cage?  Can’t fool him.

He sees what is hard to see and notices what is hard to notice.

I need vision like that.  I need spiritual super-sight.

Sometimes I’m searching through my circumstances and situations for the peace God promises.

Still, I can’t see it, not through the murky glass, not with my limited vision.

I need God to give me eyes that see His peace, even when it’s hidden, even when I don’t have answers, even when trouble looms, even when the waiting lingers and the uncertainty remains, even when I need the impossible.

Sheila Walsh writes:

In the last major conversation Jesus had with His closest friends, He spoke about peace–but not as we might have expected Him to (5 Minutes With Jesus).

We’d expect perhaps to find peace in the moments of calm or peace in the seasons of blessing.

We have peace when we’re at rest or peace when our relationships are happy and healthy, no one’s mad at us, we’re financially stable and physically well.

Isn’t that when peace comes?

Yet, Jesus told the disciples,

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace (John 16:33a ESV).

What things had He said to them?  Had He been talking about heaven, miracles, salvation, grace?

Not at all.

In John 15 and 16, Jesus tells his dearest friends about sorrow and His imminent death, about persecution and martyrdom, and how the world will hate them and harm them.

Then He gives them hope.

Then He promises them peace.

We seek peace in answered prayers, resolved situations, the end of conflicts or the arrival of provision.

We seek it in chocolate, bubble baths, getaways, and running away.

But peace isn’t found there.  Peace is found in Jesus Himself right where are in the middle of the pain, before the answers and the fixes and the resolution.

He told the disciples “in me you may have peace.”

Peace isn’t found in a position or a provision; it’s found in a Person.

Jesus is constant, unchanging.

He is faithful.

He is able.

He is compassionate and abundant in His love.

We can rest in Him, deeply rest.  We can entrust our lives to Him, every care and concern, every worry that keeps our thoughts churning at night as the clock ticks down hour after hour.

Jesus finished the promise to the disciples that night:

“In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b ESV).

This is our courage.  Our reason to ‘take heart’ and have hope!  He has already overcome our every enemy and our every battle.

So, we look to Him and we ask for His vision right here when peace seems hidden and hope hard to see, when we’re staring at circumstances and not seeing the light for all the darkness.

Lord, help me see you!  Help me not lose sight of who you are.

 

 

 

When you pray for a dog, but don’t get one

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psalm 55

My oldest daughter started asking for a dog when she was about two years old.

She’s progressed since then.  Mention something about a dog nowadays and she’ll launch into a five-point presentation complete with rebuttals and killer facts about the benefits of dog ownership.

As a preschooler, though, her tactics were simpler. She’d ask for a dog and we’d say ‘no.’

She’d ask why.

Finally my husband told her our house was too small, so she one-upped him.

She started praying for a bigger house.

She then informed us that in heaven when she got her mansion from Jesus, she’d have a dog.

So there.

Despite her persistence (and initial cuteness), we still own a cat.

I’ve been wrestling with this lately, how God tells us to ask for specific requests in prayer and to have faith and believe.

He tells us to persist and persevere, to fast, and to command mountains to move.

So, just like my daughter, I’m coming relentlessly before the throne room of God, asking Him to be faithful to His Word, to His promises and His character.

But just like my daughter, I still don’t have a ‘dog.’  The prayers remain unanswered.

Prayer is messy.

We can quote about it and preach about it. We can buy prayer journals and set up prayer file systems.  We can read books on prayer and go to seminars on prayer, talk about prayer and study about prayer.

But prayer doesn’t fit into a box and you can’t cram it into a system that works every time.

Some prayers are answered quickly.  Other prayers linger without explanation.

Psalm 37:7 tells me:

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him (NIV).

So, when I start praying aloud in my minivan or praying face down on my bedroom carpet, I ask the tough question: Am I waiting patiently?

Should I stop praying and just leave this be?

Yet, Jesus told about the persistent widow who nagged that unrighteous judge every single day until he finally listened to her.

Jesus teaches me to pray with tenacious, stubborn faith that will not give up or let go until God completes the work, even if He does so in His own way and in His own timing.

Luke 18 says

Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart (Luke 18:1 NASB).

No one would lose heart if prayer were easy.

We lose heart because we’ve put everything within us into our prayer.  We’re crying out for mercy like the blind beggars on the side of the road, desperate for Jesus’ attention.

It’s loud.  It’s obnoxious.  We’re passionately needy and struggling without answers.

Sometimes we work out these intricate theological side-steps like ‘God answers our prayers when we pray in faith, but only if we are praying according to His will, which we can only know if we have His heart and we’re abiding in Him, so if our prayers aren’t answered maybe we’re just praying wrong.’

What helps me in these moments, though, isn’t to tie perfectly neat bows onto perfectly messy problems.

Here in the trenches where prayer is war and I’m worn-out weary and battle-fatigued, what I really want to know is this:  Jesus wrestled in prayer, too.

Philip Yancey wrote:

Where was it that Jesus sweat great drops of blood? Not in Pilate’s Hall, nor on his way to Golgotha. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane.  There he ‘offered up prayers and petitions and with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death.’ (Prayer)

Jesus demonstrates that the purpose of prayer isn’t getting a particular answer, it’s the relationship prayer creates: An honest one.

Because sometimes God says ‘no.’  And sometimes God says ‘not yet,’ but He invites us to pray and to ask and to seek so that we know Him.

Prayer is deeply relational and supremely complex.  It is the intimate, honest laying down of my heart and finding His heart, submitting my plans to His plans and my ways to His ways.

In that garden, Jesus didn’t hold back from God or keep silent or make vague requests for blessing.

He labored for hours in prayer, sweating blood, crying out with tears.

This is what I need, not easy answers or trite formulas.

I need to know that Jesus understands.  I need to know I’m not alone in this.

Paul says:

Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Romans 8:34 ESV

With great compassion and comprehension, Jesus intercedes for me.  My prayers are never prayed alone.

And my prayers can’t be too honest or too passionate for the Savior who knows me, who loves me and who has wrestled on His own knees in prayer and continues to pray for me even now.

Want to know what the Bible says about praying?  Here are 50 Bible verses on prayer to get you started.

 

Our Jesus Style

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colossians 3-8b

My son screams in the morning when I take off his fire truck pajamas and put on his dinosaur shirt.

Does he want the shirt with the train?  The dump truck and excavator?  The monkey?

No. What he really wants is to stay in his fire truck pajamas all day.

At the end of the day, though, long after I’ve wrestled him into actual clothes, he screams again when I try to take off his dinosaur shirt and put back on the fire truck pajamas.

Now he wants to wear the dinosaur to bed.

Toddler wardrobe wars.

I’ve done this four times with four kids.

I had the daughter who went several years of her life only wearing dresses and skirts and never ever wearing pants.

I had the daughter who only wore pink and purple and didn’t like any other colors, but who also still refuses to wear dresses or skirts.

Then there was my compliant child.  She would say, ‘no’ and take off running when I held up a shirt she didn’t like.

When I found this half-naked toddler in the house, the shirt would be completely missing and she’d appear innocent.

I searched her room, the dresser, every hiding place without result.  No shirt.

Then I went to throw something away and saw it peeking out of the trash can.

She skipped the tantrums and went right for putting clothes she didn’t like in the garbage.

I wonder what would happen if we were as careful about the attitudes, beliefs, and heart conditions we clothe ourselves in every morning.  Maybe we should be that picky.

It’s a favorite metaphor of the apostles, reminding us to peel off the old clothes of flesh, lust and sin and to purposefully put on a brand new outfit everyday.

We are to clothe ourselves in Christ.

Paul described it this way:

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices  and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator . . .

 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:8-14, NIV).

In other words, take it off, take it all off: The anger, the bad attitude and grumpiness, the bad language, the lies.  All of those pesky remnants of our pre-salvation self have to go.

We stare at the closet and choose the new clothes we’ll wear each day with great care, pulling on clothes of compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and most of all love.

Add in to that mix the favorite outfit of Peter:

“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another” (1 Peter 5:5)

The bottom line, for Paul is that we should, “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14, NIV).

Unfortunately, our old fleshly selves have a way of sneaking their way back into our closets.

We think we’ve restyled only to snap in anger during the morning rush.

How did that discarded sin find it’s way into our wardrobe again?  More importantly, how did we end up wearing it today?

We aren’t picky enough about the spiritual clothes we don every day.  When we’re not paying attention and when we’re not being careful, we find we’re  wearing the dirty rags of old habits and familiar sins.

We have to make the conscious choice, the prayerful choice, the one where we ask Christ to robe us in His righteousness.

We can choose to wear Jesus each day.

Reject the clothing of the old self and instead pull on love and step into compassion.  Spice things up with a scarf of kindness and a jacket of forgiveness.  Wear our own favorite shoes of humility and gentleness.

It’s our Jesus style, it’s Christ shining through us, making HIs presence in our lives unmistakable.

Originally posted November 8, 2011

For the times you want to hide

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psalm 139-1

My daughter tried a stealth move.

I set my cup down on the floor next to the sofa where I was sitting.

She crawled over and paused.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her glance my way without fully turning her head, just flitting her eyes up to see if I was watching.

The she made her move.  She swooped down, sucked on the straw and gulped down my drink.

And….

She grimaced.  Her whole body bounced back as she crawled to the other side of the room with a combination look of utter confusion and a little disgust.

She didn’t know I’ve been drinking green tea instead of Cherry Coke recently.

“Didn’t expect that, did ya?” I teased her and she laughs because she knows she deserved that little shock to her palate.

Since then, she’s been asking me, “Mom is that water in your cup or is it the other stuff?”

She was surprised by what she found in my tumbler that day, and she doesn’t want it to happen again.

Her little encounter with my green tea has me thinking:

Others might be surprised by what’s within us sometimes.

We might be surprised by what’s within us sometimes, too.

We think we’ll find fresh water, and it’s something gross instead.

We think it’ll be a delight, and instead it’s disgust.

Not God, though.  God is never surprised by what He finds within our hearts and lives.

He knows.

Psalm 139:1 says:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  (ESV).

Some part of me wants to hide from that.

God, please don’t see the worst in me. 

I don’t want Him to see the mixed motives or the idolatry, the way I fight with perfectionism and feeling not-enough.

I don’t want Him to see me lose my temper or get annoyed or feel like giving up.

I want to bury that jealousy or coveting and hope he doesn’t notice the bump in my backyard.

I want to cover over the mistakes and mess-ups or fatigue or worry, the bad moments and the bad days.

If God sees my worst, surely He’ll give up on me.  He’ll use someone better, call someone purer, bless someone holier, because I’m such a broken vessel.

Then I think of Nathanael.

When Jesus called out to Peter, James, John and Andrew, they were hauling nets along the sea, just another day of work.  He said, “Follow me,” and they dropped the fishing gear and stepped into discipleship.

Jesus called Matthew and immediately the tax collector hopped up from his papers and pencils and followed.

It’s such a beautiful calling.  It’s the calling of the willing and the obedient, the receptive and ready.

Then there’s Nathanael.

When Philip saw Nathanael that day, he told his friend all about how they had found the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

Nathaniel mocked the thought.  It was a joke, surely.  He asked:

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” John 1:46 ESV

It wasn’t a beautiful moment of faith or instant belief.  He didn’t seem receptive or ready.  He was doubtful and disdainful.

Then Jesus came along, saw Nathanael and said:

“Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:47-49 ESV).

How do you know me?

That’s what Nathanael asked.

Then, realizing that Jesus did in fact see into his very heart, Nathanael confessed faith.  He worshiped.

He followed Christ and became one of the 12 disciples of Jesus.

Even now, the Armenian church claims Nathanael as their founder.  Church tradition says he preached as far as India and was martyred there.

He became sold out for Jesus.

But here’s what I love.

Jesus knew everything about him right from the beginning, the skeptical side, his mocking jest with Philip, and still called him and commissioned him.

There are days when I’m surprised myself at the sin still clogging up my heart.

But not Jesus.

And then that shame ensnares me.  I think I need to clean myself up and fix myself and get to work on my sin problem before God could bless any offering I bring.

But that’s not what God says.

That’s not what Jesus does.

Jesus bids us come and follow here and now, just as we are, not as we ought to be.

He loves me now, the imperfect me, the me that wants to be like Jesus but isn’t there yet.

Jesus doesn’t know you and reject you or set you aside.

He knows you.

And He loves you.

He knows you.

And He calls you.

 

This is Mine. God said.

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Ephesians 1

“Mine.”

My son drags his dark blue towel through the living room.  It’s not even bath night, so I’m not quite sure what inspired him to stake this claim.

But he pulls it along behind him and then holds it out so I can see his territory.

“Mine.”

And then to punctuate the point, he points to the “A” I sewed onto the towel and says, “A. Andrew’s towel.”

Now, sometimes he has this whole “mine” thing mixed up.

He says, “mine” as he snatches books out of his sisters’ hands, and their blankets, and their toys, and their toothbrushes and hairbrushes, and their jackets and hats, and their shoes.

If you listen to him some days, you’d think the whole world was his personal possession.

He’s territorial like that, more than any of my girls ever were.  He stakes claims.  He demands rights.

And he holds onto what he thinks is his with a He-Man grip and a warrior’s willingness to defend his belongings by any means necessary.

When you’re two years old, you just want what you want, I suppose.

So, I teach him.  I take stands against the tiny tyrant within him.  I defend his sisters from his raids through their stuff, and when he finds something that is his, I’m quick to agree, and then teach him to share.

Yet, while I’m working to expand his vision of the world, to remind him that others matter and we can’t just trample all over them (or bite them or hit them or pull their hair), and to be gentle, and to be giving and generous….I’m also feeling a different kind of soul-challenge myself.

I wonder if I have that same warrior within to defend what Christ says is mine.

Or do I too often let the world and let others and let Satan and let my own insecurities and fears snatch away what God has given me?

In Ephesians, I read:

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3 ESV).

Paul tells us what belongs to us in Christ, because of Jesus, not because we’ve earned it or worked hard to receive it.

Louie Giglio lays it all out in his book, The Comeback:

In Ephesians, the phrase ‘in Christ’ is used 10 times in the first 14 verses. That is,

You’re blessed in Christ.  You’re redeemed in Christ.  You have forgiveness of sins in Christ.  You were chosen in Christ to be holy and blameless. You have every spiritual blessing in Christ. You were included in Christ. You’ve been made aware of the plans of God in Christ. In Christ you’ve been sealed with the Holy Spirit.  In Christ you’ve been loved.  In Christ is where the hope comes (bold emphasis is mine).

God says all of this belongs to us when we are in Christ.

And yet I can live defeated and depleted.

I harp on my sins and mistakes, I beat myself up with what I did wrong.

That typo.  That stupid thing I said.  I should have called her and I forgot.  I lost my temper. I’m not a good enough wife.  I wasn’t gentle with my kids.  I was foolish with my time.  I haven’t prayed enough.  I’m not a good enough Christian.  I didn’t exercise today.  I haven’t been making my kids practice the piano.  I’m not a good enough mom.  I missed notes on the piano.  What I wrote isn’t as good as what she wrote.   A friend is depending on me and I’m sure I’m letting her down.  I forgot to send the card that I meant to send and even bought and wrote but just haven’t put in the mailbox.  I’m not a good enough friend.  I should spend more time in Bible study. I should spend less time on social media.  On the other hand, I’m not doing enough on social media as a writer.  I should drink more water and less everything else.   I wanted to do that project on Pinterest with my kids and I didn’t.  I’m just not good enough.

That could be just half an hour in my head.

I should.  I need to.  I didn’t. 

I failed.

God says in Christ I’m forgiven.

He says in Christ I’m loved.

Ephesians says in Christ, I’m chosen and made holy, blameless.

In Christ, I can live with hope instead of hopelessness.

In Christ, I am redeemed.  In Christ, I am blessed.

So I need to start claiming what’s mine and living in what’s mine and defending what’s mine instead of living without.

“This is Mine.  Heather’s.”

God says this belongs to me.

 

Digging out the minivan

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luke3I got stuck in the slushy mess.

Driving out yesterday was a cinch.  After a mass of snow and ice hit our area over the weekend, we now had temperatures in the 50s.  It was warm, bright and sunny and we needed to get out of the house.

The snow was no longer snow.  The ice no longer ice.  It was a slushy concoction and when we walked in it, our feet sucked down into the wet.

So, we inched out of our driveway and headed to freedom at the library and the grocery store!

But by the time we got home, the slush had melted even more.  It was like quicksand now, and we were sitting in a huge minivan loaded down with one mom, four kids and a week’s worth of groceries from Wal-Mart.

So, my minivan just slurped right down into it the moment I drove into the mess.

I unloaded the children.

I unloaded the groceries.

And I grabbed a shovel to dig out the slush from around the tires.

It didn’t take much to get the van moving again, (it’s only snow after all), but then we just sunk right down into the slush again every few inches.

Finally, I realized what this was truly going to take.  I was going to need to dig a path for each tire until no more melted snow and ice remained anywhere my tires needed to go.

I had to prepare the way.

So that’s what I did.  I shoveled the melted mush out of the way and drove just as smoothly as could be back into the grooves of an already worn path.

That’s what John the Baptist told the curious crowd gathered by the water to hear him preach:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight‘ (Luke 3:4 ESV)

In her book, Jesus, The One and Only, Beth Moore says:

The original Greek word for ‘paths’ is the word tribos, which means ‘a beaten pathway.’ In a personal way God wants us to prepare a path.

This isn’t a path that’s just stumbled upon; it’s one that’s beaten out and formed with purposeful intentionality.

What would that mean for me?

If I stood on the bank of the river and heard this wild-looking prophet telling me to make a beaten pathway in my life for the Lord, what would I need to do?

I’d need to dig out the slush and the mire, the mess and the grime.  I’d need to clear it all out of the way so my heart was ready for God to come in power and might to do a new work in me.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that grace and righteousness depend on me shoveling out sin with my own two hands gripping the shovel.

But it does mean I need to be yielded and ready for the work God wants to do.

I can’t hold on to my plans.

I can’t cling to my agendas.

I can’t try to hide sin in the corners of my heart.

 

Preparing a way for the Lord means listening and not shutting Him out.

It means offering up my heart to Him and asking the Holy Spirit that question that I can be oh-so-hesitant to ask:  “What do you need to change in me to make me more like Jesus?  I offer you my heart and I ask you to do the work.”

I know what that means.  It’s risky.  It’s dangerous.

He could try to teach me patience.

He could put difficult people in my life to teach me how to love more truly.

He could bump into my perfect plans and replace them with His own.

In my flesh and in all my selfishness, what I want is what I want:  My expectations, My hopes, My thoughts.

But what I want truly, deeply, more than anything else is for God to transform me, to take off those rough edges and mold my heart so people see Jesus in me.

So I yield.

I pick up the shovel.

I ask God to prepare my heart for the work He wants to do in me and through me.   Beat out a straight path in my life.  Wear it right down, Lord, so I’m ready for what you want to do.

I join Him in the task, knowing that I want Jesus, just Jesus, always Jesus more than anything else.

 

 

He makes all things new (and new is what we really need)

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christmas12

I found a $1 treasure at a summer yard sale, an oak step stool to solve my problem.

My kids had been scaling the counters to reach cups and bowls from the cabinets, a heart-stopping feat if ever there was one.

They carried the bathroom stool out to the kitchen and left it there where it didn’t belong.  It was a step stool in demand, actually.  Every time we needed the stool, it was inevitably hopelessly lost in whatever room in the house we didn’t think to look.

I spotted that “new-to-us” wooden stool in that yard sale and my heart skipped happy beats of victory and accomplishment.  With just a simple coat of paint, I’d have a sturdy new stool that belonged in the kitchen, kept my kids off the counters, and matched my home décor.

Score!

The first time it wobbled, we dismissed it as our own clumsiness.  That’s easy to do in our house.

But the offending stool failed us again and again, causing bruises, bumps, scrapes, tears and accusations.

I gave lessons to my kids on how to keep from smashing your head on the kitchen counter. Surely, they simply needed to know “How to Stand on the Stool” and “How Not to Stand on the Stool.”

The problem, though, wasn’t our technique. The stool itself was faulty in a way a coat of paint couldn’t cover. It was treacherous and off-balance.

Finally, I admitted defeat and threw it out with the morning garbage before I added an emergency room visit to my daily agenda.

My refurbishing failure reminded me that Christ doesn’t just make things over, He doesn’t just make things pretty, He makes all things new.

More than that white covering of snow that sparkles in the moonlight and hides the wilted grass and un-raked leaves, Christmas offers us a fresh start.

But do we believe it? Do we treat ‘newness’ as little more than cosmetic refurbishing? A coat of paint, perhaps, and God sends us on our merry way with a façade of Christian niceties covering over a truly treacherous human condition?

Scripture is radical in its promise:

 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).

 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26 NIV)

God’s work in us isn’t just life with a Christian ‘varnish.’ He promises to remove the diseased and petrified heart that plagues our life with sin and transplant in us a new heart of flesh, a heart where His Spirit dwells.

It’s complete.  It’s not refurbishing a $1 step stool and hoping you don’t gash your head open when you use it.  It’s not ‘settling’ for a little bit of God in a big pile of mess.

More than this.  Oh, so much more.

It isn’t God handing us a 12-step instruction sheet with complicated diagrams and a paint kit and telling us to go make a new heart.

That’s the law.  That’s us trying to get it all right.  Trying to be perfect.  Trying to reach heaven on our own tip-toes (maybe with a faulty step-stool).

That’s us landing on the ground again, worn and weary, exhausted from trying so hard to stop the wobbling, the failure, the mess the brokenness.

That’s us trying to hold it all together and still finding that it falls all apart.

But Christmas is God come down; not us reaching up high enough to touch Him. Christmas is God’s gift, God at work, God-with-grace, God-with us.

Too often, we make it all about us.  What we have to do to make Christmas perfect.  What we have to accomplish in our homes and in our hearts: The projects, the parties, the get-togethers, the programs, the traditions, the attempts to pack more meaning into something so deep-down meaningful.

And we almost miss it.  For all the to-do, we almost miss this:

Christmas is about Him.

He will take us as we are and He will make us new.  It’s all in His big hands, big enough to hold us all together, big enough to heal, strong enough to carry us right on through.

Originally published 12/15/2014

We Bring All the Pieces to Him

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christmas-perfection

The first crash of that shattering glass hit and it was just the day after Thanksgiving.  We were only one day into the Christmas season and only about 1 hour into Operation Decorate the House.

‘Twas an accident of course.

The penguin soap dispenser hit that floor and ended in a puddle of hand soap and broken glass.

That’s decorating with kids.

Accidents happen, you know.

An hour later, another crash.  Our box of special, keepsake, treasured ornaments hit the floor and a daughter cried with remorse.

Still, a little sweeping, a little mopping, a little gluing, a little comforting and we slipped back into the decorating groove, crooning along with Bing Crosby to White Christmas.

Stuff is stuff.  Things break (especially when you’re clumsy like me, especially when you have four kids like us).

Look at our Christmas tree from afar and it still has that glow of perfect.

Look up close and you’ll see the ballerina’s feet are glued on, Noah’s ark is missing a dolphin leaping up out of the ocean waters, and the three kings no longer carry a sign: “Wise Men Still Seek Him.”

Brokenness can still be beautiful when we look with eyes of grace.

But when we squint up close to critique and criticize….when we look right past the glory and seek out the flaws…..suddenly that’s all we see.

Perfectionism is a bully.

It muscles in and takes over our perceptions.

It demands that we see only brokenness and faults.

It insists that we remain chained to the past, obsessing over mistakes, battering us over past sin, beating us up with shame.

Lysa TerKeurst writes:

My imperfections will never override God’s promises (The Best Yes).

The promise of Christmas is “God with us.”  The promise is that when we were farthest from Him, He came to us.

The promise is that we didn’t have to get it right on our own or check the boxes of the law until we’d met some prerequisite to grace.

We didn’t come worthy.

We came needy.

And He came down.

Our imperfections never negated the promise of Emmanuel’s presence.  Not then.  Not now.

He still promises us this, “And surely I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:20 NIV).

He is with us always, but not to leave us there in the brokenness.

Sometimes we stop right there at this thought: “Beauty in the brokenness.  We’re all a mess in need of a Messiah.”

Sometimes we stop right there and, dare I say it, glory in the broken?  We cling to our mess instead of releasing it to Him.

But the glory is in the Healer.  The glory is in the redemption.  The glory is in the One who puts His own pure robe of righteousness over our shaky shoulders.

He doesn’t leave us naked and ashamed.  He “has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10 NIV).

We’ll never be perfect in our own striving and strength.  True.  But we don’t have to remain stuck there in the mud.  He grips us with the hand of grace and pulls us out of that pit so we can move forward with Him.

Those disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection didn’t have it all right.  They didn’t have perfect understanding.  Their belief was delicately trembling and about to topple their whole foundation of faith.

They thought Jesus had been the Messiah, yet He had died.  These rumors from ‘crazy women’ about an empty tomb left them confused and alarmed.

But Jesus walked alongside without them recognizing him, going back to the beginning, telling the story start to finish.

When He was about to leave, “they urged him strongly, ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’ So he went in to stay with them.”

There at the dinner table, He broke the bread and their eyes opened wide to the truth: This was Jesus.  This was God in their midst.

God’s presence doesn’t depend on my perfection.

God’s presence doesn’t demand perfect understanding or faith without fail.

But if I want God’s presence, then I have to invite Him in, urge Him strongly, “stay with me…..”

He can only make us whole when we trust Him with the pieces, all of them:

God made my life complete
    when I placed all the pieces before him. Psalm 18:20 MSG

We bring all the pieces.  We don’t hold any back.

We lay them at His feet, not running away or hiding from Him.  We come into His presence, broken as we are, and He makes us whole and holy, and He stays with us.

Originally published 12/10/2014