Christmas: What I Didn't Get and What I Want

I didn't get it then. Why we would light those candles every week leading up to Christmas. Why, when gifts were waiting to be opened, some even conspicuously peeking out from stockings, we had to listen to my dad read Luke Chapter two. We had woken up, lined ourselves in the hallway youngest to oldest, not allowed to simply tear into our gifts as we imagined other children did. No, we must wait for that infamous Christmas morning picture of the five of us standing there in the hallway in our pajamas, puffy-eyed and messy-haired, feeling as though every delay of our delight was a cruel torture. Why did our family have to be so weird?

And then, to finally be allowed into the living room, sit down in front of the hearth next to our stockings and “hearth gifts” (in addition to our stockings, we each received one gift from our parents which we called a “hearth gift” because of where it was placed. Creative, I know), only to wait more. This was the part of the morning where my dad would read the Christmas story and pray a prayer that seemed like it would never end. I remember even as a child feeling vaguely guilty that I really didn't care about listening to the story at all. I knew that it had some importance, but it could wait, couldn't it?

I didn't get it then.

And I don't know if I get it fully now. But I'm learning, I think. I definitely have learned that the euphoria of new gifts wears off quite quickly. I know that usually when I'm expecting Christmas (or anything else, for that matter) to satisfy some deep longing in my heart, I am usually disappointed. I felt things deeply as a child and I remember the feeling of hollowness that would sometimes engulf me as I cleaned up all the wrapping paper in the living room and took my little pile of gifts to my room. Even then I felt the ache for something more.

The words of a Jon Foreman song keep coming to mind:

My mind is dull and shattered
From these years of buy and sell
My mind has seen the glory
Of this hollow, modern shell
Sex is a grand production
But I'm bored with that as well
Ahh-ahh-ahh
Lord save me from myself.

Now I get what my parents were trying to do, in their small but intentional way. They were pointing us to something more. And maybe those traditions and all the waiting weren't just for the child-versions of ourselves. Maybe they were planting seeds in our little hearts so that one day, when we were older, we would remember. One day the story that often bored us as children would come back to us and stop us in our tracks and it would hit us. Wait, God came to us? To earth? God. Came. To. Earth. And maybe we would look at the child-versions of ourselves and see that in many ways, we haven't changed all that much. That we still grasp for things and for the ever elusive ideal circumstances or accomplishments that will make our life just right. That we still struggle to wait and to quiet our hearts before a holy God. That we still struggle to be satisfied with the gift of Jesus right before us, often coveting gifts that are not ours or wanting to tear into others before the proper time.

And I find myself saying, “Lord, save me from myself.”

And He does. And He did. Because He came and is Immanuel, God with us. Because He died for us and rose again and said that His kingdom, a new way of life with Him as King, is here, And He is still with us. And He said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. And when we do the things He said to do, like love our enemies, feed the hungry, visit the sick and lonely, move towards the people who irritate us, and choose forgiveness over bitterness, we find abundance breaking into our hollowness. We find life. And we don't have to dread December 26^th because we know that He'll be with us then too, and we don't have to live at the mercy of the highs and lows of our calendar or our emotions because we are secure as His children, living in His kingdom, and finding the rest that He offers as we learn from Him.

Jesus, You were the real gift all along. Thank you for being patient with me all these years when I've wanted things more than you. Thank you that life in your kingdom is the life that truly satisfies. Save me from myself, and teach me how to truly live.

Today's List

To Do: Give Thanks

For...
hot soup on cold days
hands to work
the warmth of a mug in my hands
disappointments that turn eyes to the One who is faithful
being asked out on a date by my best friend
friends to journey through life with
talking to strangers in stores
the anticipation of Advent...
and the living, straining, learning and loving until that final Advent
when all that's wrong will be made right

Thoughts on Thankfulness

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who
orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God.
Psalm 50:23

I know I said in my last blog post that next time I would write more on living reflectively, and I do want to get back to that, but the topic of thankfulness has been impressed upon me so much lately that I wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

This thought came to me this morning as I was getting ready for the day: Don't wait to feel thankful to say thank you. I suppose we can (and we do) wait if we choose to, but for many of us, that would mean waiting a very long time. And I don't mean saying a half-hearted thank you merely out of habit because we were taught that it's proper manners to do so. I mean, deep, heartfelt gratitude offered ultimately to God, but also spilling over into the lives of all we encounter.

Thankfulness is cultivated in the every day, mundane details of our lives. Though there are reasons to give thanks all around us, sometimes certain seasons may require a little extra mining of our circumstances to trace the hand of God and see his goodness abounding. We must train our eyes and hearts to see. There are myriads of distractions to keep us from learning to do this, and by distractions I don't simply mean things that make us look another direction, but detrimental things that keep us from being thankful--things like envy and comparison. Always, always there will be someone who has more or better things than us. And alway, always there will be people who appear to be happier, smarter, prettier/ handsomer and who seem to have better relationships with their spouses, more well behaved children, and the list goes on. If we make whatever other people have or appear to have, the standard for thankfulness in our lives, we will forever be drowning in a sea of discontentment. Our hearts are so prone to envy in others what we do not have, so prone to complaining, negativity, and discontentment, that these other weeds will quickly choke out any seeds of thankfulness and joy in our hearts. There's a reason the hymn writer wrote, "Tune my heart to sing Thy praise." Our hearts all too easily get out of tune. Again, if we wait for them to magically tune themselves, we will be waiting a very long time. Meanwhile, our hearts will become so overgrown by envy and negativity that despair will easily overtake us, and like the writer of Ecclesiastes, we will have difficulty seeing meaning in anything. "All is vanity!" we will cry.

So, like the hymn writer, we must pray, "Tune my heart, Lord! I know I have reason to praise you, but all I feel is the heavy weight of life bearing down upon me. All I see is the evil and injustice of this world, and it seems like everything I desire, you give to others and not to me. Help me, Lord! My heart is out of tune; tune it once again to give you praise." And then we wait. But we don't wait passively. We begin to give thanks--for anything and everything that comes to mind. We do our part to tune our hearts, even as it may feel forced, and we wait for him to transform us from grumblers into the most thankful people we know. And it is in thankfulness that we will meet him, for how can we truly walk in fellowship with our Father when we are blinded to his goodness and love because of our ungrateful spirits? How can we follow a Savior who became a servant and emptied himself for our sakes if we constantly feel entitled to life on our terms? Oh, friends, I want to know him and follow him and I know I can't do it with the baggage of ungratefulness, envy, and discontentment. He is worthy of my worship, awe, and deepest, most profound thanks. Would you join me in this fierce fight to be a thankful people?

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

Hosea 6:3

Living Reflectively...Because it's Me, Not Time that Goes Too Fast

I started this blog because I wanted an outlet to write and because I think that living reflectively is very important. In other words, I believe it's important to step back from the every day routine of life and examine things a bit, to think about why we do certain things and how we can do them better, to think about and see the beauty around us. I have deep respect for people who live their lives with intentionality, who plot their days with an eye for a greater goal than merely getting through them, who have eyes to see beautiful and significant things taking place around them, even when those things show up masked as the mundane and everyday. And I am realizing that as much as I want to be this kind of person, I am often not willing to take the time and effort necessary to live reflectively. Lately, planning a wedding has consumed much of my thoughts and I am finding myself feeling fragmented. So, for my own benefit and hopefully for yours as well, here is a list of a few reasons why living reflectively is a valuable discipline:

1. It helps us love our neighbor better (Matthew 22-37-40) because we are taking the time to reflect upon our actions and how they affect others.

2. It helps us to know (and thereby love) God and ourselves better. John Calvin once said, "You cannot know God unless you know yourself. You cannot know yourself unless you know God." We cannot do either of these well if we are constantly "plugged in" to our various forms of media or packing our our days so full we have no time to be alone or to be still.

3. It helps us to be more thankful and cheerful people (especially if we are reflecting upon the ways God has blessed us).

4. It helps us to streamline the focus of our lives by enabling us to see where we may be becoming scattered or spreading ourselves too thin. If you agree with Jesus that greatness is measured not by productivity but service, and that helping others follow Him is the mission He left us to fulfill, then you are free to say no to many things...but it also means that you may need to say yes where you have been saying no. We often hear that we need to have boundaries and learn to say no and this is true. We can't do everything and be everywhere at once. But at the same time, yes is not our enemy; the issue is, what are we saying yes to? How we answer that question determines the course of our lives.

I realize that not everyone has the time to regularly sit down and reflect. I think of my sister and her twenty-month-old daughter who is extremely active; a successful day for her is one in which my niece hasn't busted her lip or almost drowned in the bathtub. For people like my sister, living reflectively may take more creativity and effort. But living this way isn't just about having specific times that we sit and think about life. Ultimately, I think reflective living should be exactly that: a way of living, something that becomes as natural as breathing and that colors how we move through our days. So, next post I will explore a bit about what it looks like to live reflectively as we go about our daily routines. Until then, why not take a few minutes to try this little exercise...

Before going to sleep, take a few minutes to think through your day. Where did you see God moving? What can you thank Him for, big or small? Sometimes I use my dry erase board to list everything I can think of that happened in my day that I can thank God for (Psalm 92:1-2) The advantage to this is that the next morning I can wake up and be reminded of His goodness when I see my list. Try to avoid listing general things like food and family and really think about more specific things in that particular day that you are thankful for. If it is food or family, what about them are you thankful for...was it your favorite meal? Did something happen that made you especially grateful to have your spouse to talk to? Think in particulars...once you start going it may be difficult to stop!

Talking Through Nets

I heard about Amy before I ever met her. I was going to China for the summer with a group of college students and one night, while eating fish tacos, my college mentor told me about how she had talked to her on the phone. Amy was a student at a school in New York and was involved in the same campus ministry that I was a part of, and after her mentor talked to mine, Amy somehow decided to join our missions team.

In many ways we were unlikely friends. We voted for different people in the presidential election; I often accepted the status quo, while she questioned and wasn't afraid to argue her point; I was the farthest thing from a planner, while she mapped out her days and set daily, weekly, and yearly goals. She thrived on being with people while I thrived on being alone. She had an amazing vocabulary and would say things like, “Tell me about your context,” when she was getting to know someone. And she really wanted to know people.

Our first night in China we stayed in Beijing and while the rest of our group laughed and took silly pictures in the hallways, something happened between Amy and me. She would later say that I took off my “mask." I don't even remember exactly what we talked about, but I was honest and open with her about some of my struggles and fears, and in turn, she felt the freedom to be the same with me.

We didn't choose to be roommates, but when we arrived at the city we would live in for the summer we discovered that the person we stayed with that first night was to be our roommate for the next seven weeks. So, in a room with two bunk beds and a bathroom with a “squatty potty,” as we affectionately called it, we wove the stories of our lives together. There's something about international travel and mission trips in particular. They have a way of bringing out in a person all the things that they like to keep hidden, that seem manageable back home in the comfort and familiarity of every day life. But combine jet lag, unusual foods, people who were strangers before but who you now refer to as family, language barriers, and the challenges of cross-cultural ministry, and your issues start demanding your attention like your three-year-old on the candy aisle.

One of the quirky things about our rooms at the school was that our beds were surrounded by netting, presumably to keep you from being bitten by mosquitoes while you slept, although I don't remember mosquitoes being much of a problem at night or during the day. So, at night, Amy and I would talk and pray and sometimes cry with each other through the nets separating our beds. Sometimes one of us would get very serious and say, “I feel like something's come between us, only to bust out laughing at the silliness of joke at the net's expense.

Amy said that I taught her so much about what it means to love and I think she taught me what it means to be loved. I went into that summer with heavy burdens and questions about life and while I often felt so unlovable and strange in my own skin, Amy accepted me in a way I don't think I had ever quite experienced. She saw potential and beauty where I saw only fear and failure. I felt stuck with where I was in life, and being the planner that she was, she encouraged me to write a sketch of what my ideal self would look like to help me envision what my life--what I could be like if I chose to move beyond my doubt and self-pity. When I returned home, she listened to my hopeful excitement over the phone as I shared with her about meeting a guy I thought could be the one, and she listened and cried with me when my hopes were dashed and my heart was so raw I thought the pain would never subside. She validated my feelings and patiently walked with me when I thought I was going crazy.

Amy and I lost touch. She graduated and began working for Teach America and somehow more and more time began to elapse between our phone conversations. But I still think about Amy and am inspired by her drink-the-marrorw-of-life-attitude. I think about how she questioned and wrestled with big global issues...and how she wrestled with her own. I think about how she lived with an intentionality that was new and fresh and challenging to the way I had been living. But mostly what I think about is our late-night talks through a mosquito net, our hearts being knit together, never to be exactly as they were before.

I have found that some friends are forever friends, and others are for-a-season-friends. Sometimes this is sad to me because I want to hold on to all of those precious people and precious moments. But I realize too that those moments were what propelled me into this moment and that to stay where I was before would be to live with the growing pains and never know the growth on the other side. Maybe our paths will cross again and my friendship with Amy will pick up where it left off. Or maybe we were always meant to be for-a-season-friends, both of us sent by God to call attention to His beauty in each other's broken souls, His love still echoing in the sounds of laughter, prayers, and tears.

Back to the Basics

Do you ever feel like your starting to walk with Jesus all over again? I know He has always been with me throughout my life, but there are times when I have paused and realized that, in the midst of my busyness, or even in my spiritual activities, I have been missing him. Or, as I have realized lately, I have been living with little consciousness of his Kingdom priorities.

How easy it is to skim the surface of life without entering into what we were created for, all along, our hearts vaguely aware that something's not quite right.

How easy it is to hear sermon after sermon and never be changed, our hearts overgrown with calluses from conviction not heeded, from notes taken and never reviewed, from plans made and not followed through.

How easy it is to read a book and forget what it says.

I recall hearing someone once say that "knowledge without application programs us to inactivity."

I have taken in so much knowledge, but applied so little.

Having grown up in a Christian home and spent time with people from all different denominational persuasions, at times I have been downright confused about what I believe and what the Bible actually says. I have also acquired bits of knowledge (not necessarily thorough) about many theological issues and topics of the Bible. Knowledge is wonderful and even essential, but the problem with knowing things is that sometimes we can think we have mastered them simply because we know that they are true. Oh, patience...I know I'm supposed to be patient. Worry? Yeah, worry is pointless and Jesus tells us not to worry anyway.

I've recently pared down my wardrobe. Although I still have much more than I need, getting rid of some of the extra items in my closet has been a freeing experience. Having less options and clutter simplifies my life.

I think I need to ask myself what "extras" have found there way into my thinking that aren't even true, necessary, or consistent with life in the Kingdom of God? Has God's Word truly gripped and permeated my life?

I know that I am not starting to walk with Jesus all over again. He has been with me all along, patiently teaching me and guiding me. But perhaps it's time for some good old fashioned spring (or summer) cleaning where my heart is concerned. Perhaps it's a good time to do a little inventory of the things I have been believing and pare them down to what Scripture says, specifically to the way Jesus has taught me to live, and then to do it. Knowledge without application programs us to inactivity.

This might be a good place to start...

He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

Worship of the Broken

I lurk in the shadows around you.

I fill your mind up with doubt.

As soon as you think I’ve left you,I’m already coming back out.
Too paralyzed to move, yet feeling the urge to run,

A concoction I’ve perfected so you won’t get anything done.
In your rest you’re filled with commotion.

While you work you’re craving to rest…
Hello, my name is Depression, and this is the work I do best.

Do you ever feel this way? I know I do (that's why I wrote it). I know there are often much more serious consequences to depression than what I have described, and I am sure many more people suffer from them than we realize. However, the more mild version that I've written about is probably experienced in varying degrees and for different amounts of time by many people. Depression makes silent sufferers out of those who deal with it because pride, fear, and whatever else makes us want to hide how we feel. When we are prone towards depression (or just going through a bout of it) simple daily activities can be overwhelming, but I believe, in the midst of depression, that those same activities can become acts of faith. Getting up and drinking a cup of coffee. Going on a walk. Sitting on the front porch to soak up some vitamin D. These are all ways that we can "fight the good fight of faith." Depression wants to keep us still, locked into a routine that is lifeless. When we refuse to stay in bed or on the couch (no matter how overwhelming the pull is to stay there) and to say instead, “I’m going to get up and face this day,” I truly believe that the Lord accepts this as worship. He loves us in our darkest moments, and He would love us still if we remained in bed or on the couch, but by getting up we are choosing to “walk by faith and not by sight” (or feelings). What we see seems impossible. The list of tasks to be accomplished overwhelms us. It seems safer to stay where we are. But choosing to put one foot in front of the other, even with the smallest mustard seed of faith in our hearts--the kind that may only be able to say, “Lord, I am weak. I can’t do this on my own. You’re going to have to help me through this day”--this kind of faith attracts the heart of God. Oh, sister and brother, He is so much more willing to hear our prayers than we are to pray! One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Psalm 103:13-14:

As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who

fear him. For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

In a similar way, Jesus told his disciples that the kingdom of heaven is for those who are "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3).

Our struggles are no surprise to the Lord. I think we need to regularly remind ourselves of his character in order to awaken faith in our hearts and motivate us to ask for his help. He postures himself (the Psalms say he inclines his ear) to hear our cries and to accept out our simplest acts of worship.