When I consider my own temperament, I often question why God chooses to use seemingly difficult dispositions to accomplish his plan. Well, we may never have the answer to that question this side of heaven, but there is good news! The fathers and mothers of the faith were human too—personality flaws and all.
Carried Along
A blog about real life through the lens of Christ
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Recently, my devotions have had me reading in 1 John. The truth? This book has always been a tough one for me. Tough verses such as, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” (3:6), or how about “If anyone says, ’I love God’, and hates his brother, he is a liar” (3:20), and “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (2:15). Ouch. I’ll admit it. I prefer other verses that don’t remind me of my glaring depravity. 1 John does that again and again.
The verses I focused on recently were in chapter 3, regarding love. Love is a nice topic, right? It seems like, while there are many things we can disagree on, love seems pretty safe. Not in 1 John. Just like the other chapters, 1 John calls us out on loving God’s way, not ours. We like to love who we want when we want. As Matthew 5 explains, “. . . love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . . If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that. . . . Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect” (5:44-48). Whew! Can’t we just talk about the love I’m comfortable with-namely, loving when it’s convenient? Why is gospel love so demanding?
If I’m honest, love is a challenge for me right now. Yes, I am starting to feel less shocked, less angry, than I did during the time of intense lockdown, unrest, and political divide, but the residue of those intense emotions-many I’m not proud of-is still there, smudging my attitude and actions. Most of the time it’s too hard to think about, so I just keep my feelings bottled up-anger at those who disagree with me on how COVID is being handled, the protests, the election, and politics in general. I am still pouting about the activities I can’t participate in, the trips I can’t take, the unidentifiable weight I feel.
In short, I have a lot of repenting to do. And while many of the sins I need to repent of I’m not even aware of. What I do know, is that I feel that tightening in my chest, that knot in my stomach, when people say things I don’t like, and until I confess my sins of hate-yes, I said it, hate-for those who I feel have restricted or are restricting the life I want to live, I cannot love, not Biblically.
So, as society continues to open up-a recovery of sorts-my prayer is that God will soften my heart, let me see all of the sin I am still holding onto from this past year, help me repent-however feebly- and lead me to love, not those that are easy to love, but those who I feel are opposing me and everything I believe in. Only then, can I begin to show the kind of sacrificial love Christ showed, the love he intends.
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Winter was late in my neck of the woods this year. Well into January, we could walk, bike, hike, even golf-unprecedented, especially for January. And then it hit-winter. Not the gradual kind with temps in the 30s and snow to start, but a 40 degree drop in temps and almost a foot snow, all of a sudden. This week we ventured out into temps as low as -10 to go to school and participate in as much “normalcy” as we could while praying our cars would start and not leave us stranded.
On top of this shock, I had a bad week. I made such mistakes as leaving my car light on all night, requiring my husband to jump my car in -15 temps. Needless to say, the limitations of the severe weather and my serious personal weaknesses left me feeling, well, like a true failure. I want to be in control of my activities, my actions, etc. . . . And this week. . . I haven’t been.
Just as the weather comes in seasons-even if they are wonky at times-life comes in seasons too. This week I could barely function. My plans were limited by circumstance and my own personal shortcomings. And God foresaw all of it. What’s funny? I’m certain his carefully orchestrated purposes were carried out while I stumbled through each day.
As Ecclesiastes 3 states, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal. . . “, and time to be revisit the reality of my weakness. For while I know such truths as “. . . apart from me you can do nothing . . . “ (John 15:4-5), “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21), and “ . . . you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears and for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14), I still feel that I am only valuable when I am “productive”-accomplishing what I deem necessary for that day, week, or month. When I am not productive, like this week, I feel uncertain, revealing my true inclination to rely on myself more than God more often than not.
One of my favorite books I came across in my 20’s was a devotional-now out of print- that used Amy Carmichael’s writings as a source. One of her illustrations talked of the “winter” seasons of our lives, the “bare” seasons when it felt like we were bearing nothing, especially not fruit. A woman who spent 20 years bed-ridden surely had the right to talk of such seasons-she knew that feeling better than most.
While I cannot find this book- I have lent my copies and cannot by another- I recently came across a quote of hers from If stating, “Trust me to poor My love through thee, as minute succeeds minute. And if thou shouldst be conscious of anything hindering that flow, do not hurt My love by going away from Me in discouragement for nothing can hurt so much as that . . . Trust me to turn My hand upon thee and thoroughly to remove the boulder that has choked thy riverbed, and take away all the sand that has silted up the channel. I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. I will perfect that which concerneth thee” (If).
Wow. What a way to illustrate Philippians 1:6. I am so grateful that God’s plans are not thwarted by “boulders”-even if I put them there in my own weakness.
Lord, help me faithfully accept the seasons you bring, good and bad, knowing that even in the seemingly fruitless frozen tundra, you, not me, are responsible for bringing “it (the good work you are doing in me) to completion at the day Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
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I just happened to overhear the news, the way I often learn of happenings in our school. The decision is final, there will be no #prom this year, again. Now, we have been fortunate. We are in school, and will have some sort of graduation, but this senior class, just like last year’s, won’t be dressing up, buying corsages, worrying about who to go with, something most of us took for granted. It’s funny how much we are creatures of habit-more than we realize. That’s one gift COVID has given us, one of a few, the opportunity to actually follow the admonishment given in James 4 warning us, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’-yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring” (James 4:13-14).
We’ve heard this verse before-our life is but a mist, “Dust in the Wind” as Kansas would put it. We know we are not supposed to assume any plans but are instead instructed to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4: 15). Now, our grandparents who grew up during the depression, they knew how to comply with this strange command. They were not guaranteed a job, food, travel, the survival of an infant, recovery from illness, and while we are not truly guaranteed any of these things, many of us have taken them for granted, until now.
In the past year, our circumstances have changed. We have feared disease like we never thought we would in this lifetime, and some of us have suffered illness and lost loved ones. We have cancelled vacations, and hesitated to reschedule them not knowing how open or hospitable our desired destination will be. We have actually cancelled worship services, VBS, and Sunday School, activities which have operated rain or shine for years. The list could go on and on.
And as inconvenient as it is to be in the dark about the outlook of the next year, God is as happy as a father whose teenage son lost his cell phone, or better yet all technology, wrecked his car, and is forced to interact with the family again, maybe even play a game of chess. We now must do what we should have been doing all along, tread carefully and prayerfully day by day, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8) instead of plowing headlong into every expected activity, without even consulting the Lord about his agenda for us in these unprecedented times.
The Proverb which states, “The heart of a man plans his way, but the lord establishes his steps” (16:9), has always been true-but now, thanks to COVID, it has come to life before our eyes-whether we appreciate it or not.
So, instead of mourning the security of our predictable lives, may we “always be of good courage” knowing that we who don’t know the future must trust in the one who holds it in his hands. For how often have we truly had our eyes opened to our true position of “groaning” mentioned in 2 Corinthians 5, our longing for our Heavenly home, “ . . . a house not made with hands”? What a gift to know that God has “prepared us for this very thing” knowing that it is good to mourn the separation we have from Christ until we finally reach our “heavenly dwelling”. For only when we realize our true desperation, often dulled by the business of life, can we “walk by faith, not by sight” as we long for our only true home.
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It’s finals week in my world. And as I’m frantically writing tests and grading final assignments, my students are, well, stressed. Of course, any motivated teen is stressed about doing well on the final and maintaining their desired GPA, but this year is different. What are they stressed about? Well, I guess the first question is, what are any of us feeling during these trying times? Whether we admit it or not, we are all asking the same questions:
What is this next year going to be like?
Should I plan anything?
Is it a good idea to travel right now?
When can I resume regular social activities?
Or better yet, will things return to normal, ever?
After an especially grueling week in my College Writing class, it dawned on me exactly how much extra stress my students are under. The level of uncertainty they are dealing with during their senior year is unprecedented, barring generations who graduated during the Vietnam Conflict or related situations, of course. Graduation, prom, sports events, summer jobs, college-none of it is for certain. And the general state of the country? That hasn’t looked too promising for a while now.
I’ll admit. I am the number one advocate of as much normalcy as possible. I want schools open, businesses running, people working, regular worship services, all of it. And I have operated that way as much as possible in the recent months, but as much as I march on like a reliable steam engine, the truth is, I’m tired, really tired. I don’t say it, but I’m under duress. It is as if I have been in one long winter, cold, dark, oppressive. A winter that won’t seem to end.
I’m done pretending. I want to maintain what normal life I can, but I need to admit how I feel. And I know I’m not the only one. The stress of this year is taking its toll. So, what do we do now? Now when circumstances might change, but we’re not exactly sure when or if or how. Fortunately, God is in the business of rest. Not the kind of rest after the source of stress is already eliminated, but the rest that happens in the middle of the storm, when the waves are still crashing in, disrupting plans and lives, rest for the truly weary.
I’m always comforted by the Psalms. They remind me that I’m not the only one who feels overwhelmed, weak, helpless. During an inquiry into Psalms about rest I found the following:
“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he (God) gives his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2),
And,
“In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8),
Or,
“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way . . .” (Psalm 37:7)
And of course,
“Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:1).
There is rest in God. There is rest for our weary souls. Right now. Even in such unpredictable times. It is time. Time for me to admit my exhaustion, and seek the kind of rest only God can give. What better source to turn to than the God that gives peace “not as the world gives” (John 14:27), but the kind “which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).
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What a year #2020 has been!
As I leave #2020 behind, may I also discard:
Unhealthy Fear
Please take my fear of physical disease and the myriad of circumstances I cannot control
Grant me instead, a reverent fear of you alone
The one whose love cannot be hindered “Though the mountains be shaken and the hills removed. . . ” (Isaiah 54:10)
Crippling Despair
In your mercy, grant me the wisdom to “lift my eyes to the hills” (Psalm 21:1) instead of focusing on the upheaval, around me, ideological and political alike
For despite the many dismal images of hopelessness this year has produced
You continue to promise, “I know the plans I have for you declared the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:1)
Worldly Enmity
Lord, please remind me that my enemies are not made of “flesh and blood”
Even as I am daily bombarded with contrasting points of view
May I resolve to “know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2)
For even when the world around me seems shaky, you have declared, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways . . . (my word) will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire . . . “ (Isaiah 55: 9,11)
Lord, grant me the wisdom to “throw off everything that hinders” and “run with perseverance the race” (Hebrews 12: 1) marked out for me as I hope in you alone, the Lord of 2020, 2021, and all eternity
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I don’t know about you, but we had an extraordinarily quiet Christmas this year. For the past several years, Christmas vacation was filled with cousins playing, skiing, endless noise and activity. For us, and many others, this year was different. Not only do we have less family around but less activities in general. Now, quiet isn’t all bad. I’ll admit, it is nice to breathe and actually have a vacation, but as I looked into my son’s longing eyes, not sure what to do with all of this free time after Christmas, I revisited the true grief I sometimes feel when I recall my own childhood Christmases.
Now, I realize that many do not have good Christmas memories. While many have harsh remembrances of discord, divorce, or alcohol abuse, my childhood Christmases were truly magical: our basement packed with cousins on the floor and the fold out couch, my one cousin who roused us all at 3 am every year to say that Santa had come, filling two rows at the movie theater on Christmas night, late night games of spades, marathon shopping for sales, and not a moment of discord, even with 9 cousins in one house. Those times were really little pieces of heaven in a fallen world.
But as we all know, nothing lasts forever this side of eternity. Grandparents pass away, cousins grow up and have families of their own, people move, and sadly, families grow apart, and apparently, pandemics can rise up unexpectedly. I have always been excessively nostalgic, never wanting anything to change. But no matter how I want things to stay the same, they don’t. Why else would Moses tell us, “ He (God) will never leave you or forsake you . . “ (Deuteronomy 31:8) or Malachi report, “I the Lord do not change: therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6), or Paul promise “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8)? Apart from God, nothing stays the same.
Especially in 2020, we are painfully aware of the constant state of change. As a person who tends toward depression, change is painful, a burden I wish I didn’t have to bear. Recently, however, I heard an illustration that changed my perspective, and I finally saw the redemptive message in the darkness of nostalgia. My friend’s daughter was called home from her friend’s house. She came home bummed out saying, “I wish I could stay and play forever.” My friend told her, “We were created for good things to last forever, but because of sin, we can only have small glimpses of heaven. One day we can enjoy eternal joy in heaven forever.” Wow. After spending a few minutes wondering if I had ever imparted even close to that kind of wisdom to my own children, I slowly began to realize how God can use my nostalgia to draw me to him instead of pull me into despair.
Maybe this feeling of wanting great heaven-like moments to stay the same are a picture of what God intended for us in the first place. Maybe we are meant to long for the Eden-like relationships characterized by complete vulnerability with God and others. Maybe when those brief moments of closeness and harmony are disrupted or come to an end, God is reminding us that this world is not our home, that we are to mourn the absence of that intimacy and expectantly long for our true home in eternity with him.
I don’t know about you, but I am ready to end my love-hate relationship with nostalgia, treating it as this heavy load I am doomed to bear. For so many of us, our lives are so comfortable, so easy and predictable, we often forget to mourn this broken world and long for the reconciliation only heaven holds. So, this year, when we aren’t quite so comfortable, when our lives are much less predictable, may we joyfully cling to Jesus’ words, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14: 1-3).
Lord, forgive me for wallowing when my excessive nostalgia wants circumstances to stay the same. Please use my nostalgic thoughts to point me to your life-giving promises of reconciliation and eternity with you.
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It really is hard to believe. Who could have believed the barrage of change we have seen since last Christmas? Sure, we knew it might be a bit crazy with an unknown virus and a U.S. election. But a pandemic? Countries and states shutdown? Protests, violence and destruction? It’s still a bit much to take in. Not to mention, it’s not over. Much of the change we have experienced is here to say, for the foreseeable future anyway. Many of us still can’t to work, go to school, worship, or travel normally. Our lives have been greatly disrupted. The world is truly upside down.
While a lot of us are still reeling from the shock of the torrent of change, some of us are starting to ask the question: What now? What does God want from me now? So, what does God want from us in a world that upside down? Great news! He has an upside down gospel that fits a time exactly like this.
Now, if you’re like me, you may be saying, “Sure. I know that God is hasn’t left me, but what am I supposed to do? I am scared. My children, my relatives, and our acquaintances are scared. We don’t know how to function or move on. We’re not even sure when or if this insecurity of the unknown will ever end. And even if a vaccine is found, and the political climate quiets, how do we even begin to re-enter this ‘post-COVID’ world?”
It really is so easy for us to forget that the savior who has been with us in our mostly predictable lives in the recent past did not live a “mostly comfortable” life or come to save a “mostly comfortable” people. Distraught, empty, and at our wits end? That’s right down his alley.
Just a glimpse of Jesus’ life reminds us of the difficult time Jesus lived in. Who was he? An average member of an oppressed minority group from a nothing town who was placed in a feeding trough at birth. In fact, Philip was asked in John 1:46, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Not only that, but he and his family were refugees, running from a tyrannical ruler who wanted him dead.
And whom did God choose to announce his birth to first? The rich and powerful? The religious leaders in the temple? Not at all. He announced it to Shepherds. Uneducated and of humble position, they heard the news first.
What about his welcome? Well, it might have been a little more prestigious if his announcer hadn’t been his unruly hippy of a cousin wearing camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:1:1-17).
And the list goes on. He broke Sabbath rules, created a cabinet of lowly, uneducated laborers, and associated with religiously unclean characters. Corrupt tax collectors, promiscuous women, cripples, children, and those who had nothing to give; that is who he brought his kingdom to.
As for the religiously upright? He never fit in with them.
Because of his humble status, the upright among his own people were not only disappointed in him, but scorned him as well. How did they react to him? Try these:
“ . . . and when they saw Him, they implored him to leave their region” (Matthew 8:34).
“ . . . Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him” (Mark 6:3).
“And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things” (Luke 4:28).
“ . . . and they got up and drove him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff” (Luke 4:29).
“But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:25).
“He came to his own, and those who were His own did not receive him” (John 1:11).
“And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left” (Luke 23:33).
In upside down times like these, fraught with fear, uncertainty, and even despair, may we truly see Jesus. Not the Jesus we have been fitting into our comfortable, predictable lives, but the savior whose life was always upside down, always the opposite of what those who had it together wanted. He is the King of Kings, but few in his time saw him that way. If anyone knows about uncertain times, it is Jesus. So, as 2020 comes to an end and the uncertainty rages on, may we rejoice in him, the one who triumphed in uncertain times and reminded doubters then and now, “I have said these things to you, that in me you have peace. In the world you WILL have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
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We hear it every year. That song reminding us of those in third world countries, Africa, to be specific, who don’t have any of the material reminders of Christmas that we have. Recorded by singer Bono, with a focus on a particular famine in Ethiopia in 1984 and recorded in 2004 and 2014 for other causes, it has lines like “Where the only water flowing/Is the bitter sting of tears” and “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time/The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life”. While highly criticized for several reasons, the song does propose a good question: In the midst of the busy consumerism of Christmas, do we think of others, those who are concerned about surviving instead of a Christmas tree and what’s under it?
I really hadn’t paid much attention to the song, not until a few years ago. I can still see remember the road I was driving up when it came on, just another Christmas song on the radio, when it dawned on me: actually, the question is misdirected, by 180 degrees to be exact. The question isn’t do those in need, who are truly hungry, know it’s Christmas, but do we, as Americans even “see” the true meaning of Christmas anymore? In places like Ethiopia, whose population is reported to be 62% Christian (in 2007), there is much higher chance of people recognizing the true meaning of Christmas than in America, where the same percentage, 65%, claimed to be Christian in 2019. Why?
Well, the answer is obvious, staring at us through store windows filled with the most desired new video game console, speaking to us out of our TV offering more Christmas movies, and consumer ads, than we could possibly watch, all of which purposely avoid anything to do with the actual meaning of Christmas. Now, I know very little about Christmas in Africa, but in my estimation, Africa’s Christmas, like many other third world countries, is much smaller, largely observed by true believers, focused on the birth of Christ. In America, the holiday is out of control, an overwhelming holiday that’s 95% secular. Here, we are encouraged to “believe” in some ethereal idea based on, well, I’m not exactly sure what it’s based on, a fictional man in a red suit and a feeling of goodwill and happiness we are supposed conjure up from deep within ourselves, I guess. And if we don’t celebrate this “Christless” holiday, we are Scrooges, killjoys who are denying this obscure spirit we desperately need to experience the baseless “joy” of the season.
About 10 years ago, my English students were completing a holiday analogy practice. Out of 15 students, only one knew that Christmas was based on a birth. In a world where Christianity is considered antiquated and stuffy, an astonishing number of Americans, especially the younger generation, don’t really know what the true meaning of Christmas is. At the same time, an astronomical number of 5th graders in my son’s class still believe in Santa, ardently. Even he is surprised at the vigilance with which this myth is carried out by his friends’ parents.
So, do those in need know it’s Christmas? Many of them, yes, probably more than in America. I can guarantee that while they don’t have snow, large displays, or pumpkin lattes, the believers in many countries with less comforts are celebrating birth of Christ with much less distraction than we are. Sure, we know the true meaning. We attend Christmas Eve services, along with the countless soul-numbing Christmas songs, movies and activities we partake in, determined to encourage joyous celebration without mentioning the baby born, the only true “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6-7).
2020 has been challenging year to say the least. And many are feeling less festive this year than usual. Travel is risky, festivities are scaled down or cancelled altogether. Many are only attending church online. Christmas just doesn’t feel the same. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe in mourning our usual holiday activities, we will actually remember the true reason to celebrate. Maybe we will have time to truly see the baby in the manger, scorned by the world for our sake. And maybe, just maybe, we will appreciate the message of the angels who proclaimed, “Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).
This is the gift of 2020, a year filled with fear and unrest. What gift? The gift of a need for him, the time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. So, may we be more like those brothers and sisters who don’t have the abundance we enjoy. May we have their appreciation for the one, the only one, who can truly bring peace to our hearts and the Earth as a whole.
Carried Along 