Not worth fighting for....

I sit in a coffee shop; I listen to the music of a softly played piano coming in over the speakers; I watch people come and go, their footprints an invisible pathway into a thousand doors, a thousand conversations, a thousand roads... These roads trail into lives, into stories of lives that will never be told to the world at large but irrevocably shape us all.  One set of footprints follows a man with long, gray hair, big boots, rough hands.  He sits alone.  He reads.  He crosses his arms and hunches over as though he might somehow protect himself from prying eyes that would trace back along his path to an empty house echoing an empty heart.  Another set follows a young couple, rings on their fingers so fresh their skin has yet to take the shape of the promises they made.  They laugh.  They scroll through their smartphones.  They sit in confident conversation, sunlight streaming into large windows, a whisper of the hope they have as they start this journey together.  Theirs is not the only story.  

As I watch these stories... I wonder what pasts shape the people I see.  I wonder what the future holds and how much that unknown past will shape the future they allow themselves to have.  I wonder how many of them walk this road unsure of their own value, unknowing of how precious and unique and priceless they are.  I wonder how many of them fit these statistics:

50% of American youth will experience the divorce of their parents.

40% of American youth will grow up without a father figure.

How many of them walk this life overshadowed by fatherlessness, whether conciously or unconciously attempting to fill a void that should have been brimming over with love and affirmation?  How many of them unconciously believe the lie: your own father didn't think you were worth fighting for, so why should anyone else?  

But we all have a Father who thought we were fighting for.  We all have a Father whose face isn't turned away, His back the only fading memory we have of what should have been a breaker against the storms of our lives.  We have a Father who doesn't look at us with disappointment or shame or rejection on His face.  Rather, our Father looks at us with compassion, with love, with hope, with sorrow for us and the pain we are experiencing.  This Father is a Father of courage, who in the face of hardship didn't pack His bags to walk out, but to storm into our lives.  In the midst of Hell, He chased after us as we stood in a howling storm, screaming to be heard above the tempest.  As the hurricane grew in power, He cast Himself over us, shutting out the wind and the rain and the debris, taking the abuse, taking the pain, taking the death that storm intended for us.  

And in the silence afterward, in the brokenness of His body that continued to sheild us even in death... His eyes opened, and they looked into ours...and there was not accusation and blame.  There was... there IS... LIFE everlasting and LOVE neverending and HOPE never failing and PURPOSE and MEANING and BEAUTY and all those things we believed life could be when we were young and small and soft and sheltered.

Who is this Father, who would give up all things that we may have all things?  Who is this Father who will never deny us, never walk away, never quit, never be content to leave us where we are and wash His hands of us?

He is known in His Son... the Son who sheltered us in the storm.  The Son who looks on us with His Father's eyes... our Father's eyes.  His son, Jesus the Christ.  Jesus the Messiah.  Jesus, our Immanuel.  Jesus, the Light of the World.  Jesus, the Son of God.  Jesus, the Son of man.  Jesus, the Lion of Judah.  Jesus, the Beginning and the End.  Jesus, the Alpha and Omega.  Jesus, the First and the Last.  Jesus... who has made Himself known to us so we could know His Father.  Our Father.  The Creator of the Universe and the lover of our souls.

"God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." - 1 John 4:9-10(NRSV) 

Life is darkness....

"Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

- Genesis 1:2(NIV)

Formless... empty... darkness... When I read these words, the thought that comes to mind is: isn't this the human condition?  Let's look at each word:

Formless: without a clear or definite shape and structure.  Isn't this often what life feels like?  You get up in the morning earlier than you want, try to wake up before you get to work or school, spend all day trying to learn something new or be effective at your chosen activity, try not to upset your friends or coworkers or teachers or coaches or bosses, finish school or work and go to the next activity until you finally get to go home, where you have to try to maintain your relationship with a family you may not entirely get along with, and if you're a student you STILL have school to do in the form of hated homework before you can go to bed to start the process over tomorrow.  In the middle of all this process, as you're trying to be the best worker or student or athlete or musician or performer of WHATEVER you do... you may find yourself wondering what the purpose of it all is.  What is really the purpose and meaning of your life?  It all seems to just be BUSY, without any direction.

This may lead you to the sense that life is EMPTY: having no value or purpose.  You may think, "I do all this stuff, but what does it really do?  Is all of life just to work to eat, so I can work and eat and work and eat until I eventually retire and die???"  The author of Ecclesiastes frames our thoughts well when he laments in chapter 2, verse 17:

"So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.  All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." 

Ultimately, though, I think the thing that tatters the corners of our thoughts and eats away at our hearts is the tiny, little voice in the back of our mind that whispers so convincingly, "Life is darkness.  There is nothing but darkness inside of you and other people."  And we find ourselves believing it, being filled to vomiting with darkness, because we see darkness all around us.  We see friends contemplate suicide and can't help but admit we've been there, classmates cut their bodies because they don't want to die but they can't deal with the pain inside anymore, we fight with our parents to the point we wish we didn't know them, our so-called friends whisper lies behind our backs or spit disrespect right in our faces, our parents walk out on their marriage and shatter our families, our boyfriends or girlfriends promise us love but leave us empty or just plain leave, our coaches or conductors or teachers or bosses abuse us emotionally no matter how hard we work to earn their approval, friends and family are eaten from the inside by cancer... and that's just in our personal lives.  Then we look into the world and see starvation, the threat of nuclear war, children shot in schools, girls raped at parties, children molested... and how can we see anything but darkness?  It clouds everything with despair.

But what happened next in creation, in the very next verse, in fact?  Genesis 1:3(NIV):

"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

The first thing God did to a formless, dark, and empty nothingness... was to infuse it with light.  What does that sound like?

"the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned."

- Matthew 4:16(NIV)

or

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

- John 1:14(NIV)

or

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'”

- John 8:12(NIV)

Just as the spoken WORD of God into the EMPTINESS before creation brought LIGHT and LIFE... so did Jesus ("the Word of God") when He came bursting into our world as an infant in that cave in Bethlehem.  So does Jesus when He comes bursting into your heart and life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now... that doesn't mean there won't be hardship in your life.  As the world descended into sin under the influence of Satan, despite the light that God had given to it, so you will face trouble in your life, even as you walk in faith:

"Be alert and of sober mind.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."

- 1 Peter 5:8(NIV)

But in your suffering, remember the following verses 9&10(NIV):

"Resist him [the devil], standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

The darkness, remember... is only part of the story, and a temporary part at that.  The ending is "eternal glory."

"Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth,' for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ^"He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!' Then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.'"

- Revelation 21:1-5(NIV)

A nod to the month: Knowing Love

For Americans, February is the month of love.  However, in a culture where love seems so quickly labeled and disposed of, I want to dig through the pile of candied hearts and remember what God intended love to be.

1 John 3:16a(NIV) states, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

If we want to find out what real love is, we need to look at who Christ is and how He loved.  We need to not only look at His death, which is overwhelming for anyone to think about, but before that, before even His birth as a man.  To begin to understand His love, we need to understand our beginnings, when with mere words, God brought life rushing forth from nothingness.  In this time of humanity’s dawn, it was through Jesus that all things were made (John 1:3).  Imagine that power, that authority, to send whole galaxies spiraling out of the darkness, to light the cradles of stars in the expanse, to send the waters of the earth rushing forth in their millions of gallons, to rear mountains up from the plains with a crack and roar… to weave together the form of man from particles of dust, and with a breath give life through his nostrils. 

Now imagine what it was for him to become a human being.  Imagine lying aside the power to shape the universe and then coming screaming into the world in the cold of the night, into the care of two flawed human beings who did not even have the authority to protect their children from the sword of their government.  Imagine going from the object of worship, to the object of scorn: the questionably conceived child of a teenager from a region of the world that caused others to wonder, “Can anything good come from there?”(John 1:46a)  He would later be called a lunatic, a blasphemer, and even Satan, himself.  Eventually, the very people to whom He had been for centuries promised… would turn Him over to the government they hated to be brutally beaten and hung on a tree to die… a significant act, as in Jewish society a man killed this way was “cursed by God” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

And yet, as Jesus hung dying on the cross, carrying the sins of all mankind personally, alienated from God and tortured physically, Luke records Jesus saying in chapter 23, verse 34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Love, then… is more than a feeling of passion.  It is treating others better than they deserve.  It is acting lovingly, even when it is not felt.

The worst could be worse...

" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. " - Romans 8:28(NIV)

Reading this passage, we know that as Christians... we have a pretty sweet gig.  No matter how bad things get, no matter how impossible our lives may seem or how horrible everything around us may appear... the miraculous is moving beneath the surface of things.  God is not stagnant or off somewhere beyond our comprehension, but He is present right in those situations, twisting the work of the devil into an image of beauty, taking evil and forcing it to serve the good of God's people.  It's actually really humbling to thing about, isn't it?  The God of the UNIVERSE, the maker of EVERYTHING, the knower of ALL THINGS... is personally invested in your individual life.  He's looking at that horrible thing coming down the road and making it into something that will make you into someone that blesses everyone around them.

Now... imagine if that wasn't the case.  Stop and think about those horrible situations, the ones you're afraid to face, the ones you can't imagine having to go through again.  Imagine the divorce...the car accident...the broken heart...the shattered dream...the stolen innocence... without God.  Imagine those situations left as they are, untouched by an all-good, all-poweful God whose whole existence is bent on protecting and loving you.  When I look at my own history under those terms, I can't even imagine what I would be like, now.  The change would be so drastic that it's impossible for me to comprehend.  I can tell you right now I wouldn't be married, or have finished college, or have married parents, or be in church work, or...or...

That is what Hell is like.

"They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might"

-1 Thessalonians 1:9(NIV)

Scary thought, huh?  A lot more scary than the "eternal fire" and the little red dude with a pitchfork and mustache.  I don't know about you, but physical agony is a lot less scary than having to go through all the psychological and emotional suffering the world puts us through without God as a filter.

That is not the future you face with Jesus.

Matthew 5:8(NIV) reads:

"Blessed are the pure in heart,

    for they will see God."

When Christ reigns in your life, you are "the pure in heart."  When you are given faith in Christ, all the things that corrupt your heart are GONE.  In a moment, in a flash, they are no more.  All that's left is the pure, unbroken heart that Christ gives you, no matter the mistakes you may regret.

And that means... you will never stand outside the presence of God.  You will never face a time where God is not constantly involved in all that happens to you, changing things to serve your good and the good of al Christians.

You will never be unnoticed.

You will never be unvalued.

You will NEVER be not good enough.

The fullness we hunger for....

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." 

- Matthew 5:6(NIV)

Reading this verse can only be understood in the context of the previous three beattitudes:

1. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:3(NIV)
2. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."- Matthew 5:4(NIV)
3. "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." - Matthew 5:5(NIV)

As we walk through life and see how broken the world is, as we, ourselves, are broken by the cruelties and horrors human beings commit against one another, as we look into our own hearts and see how often we fail to be the good sort of person we would like to be... we recognize that we, and the world, are incapable of creating paradise on earth.  We are entirely unable to intrinsically and permanently change this world... or ourselves.

The word "righteousness" in Matthew 5:6, is not the same kind of understanding of the word "righteousness" that we have in the English language.  The English understanding of this word makes righteousness a quality that we create within ourselves.  I choose to have good moral character.  I choose to do the right thing.  The English understanding is "self-righteousness," where good behavior is entirely dependent on me.  But wait... don't the previous three beattitudes fly in the face of this definition?  They say we, and the world, are entirely corrupt and unable to change things for the better. 

They do indeed, but the Greek understanding of this little, yet significant, word... has a very different implication.  "Righteousness," from a Biblical understanding... has nothing to do with you.  Righteousness is a characteristic which can only describe the total goodness, justice, and mercy that God, Himself, embodies.  It is, in a word, perfection.  To truly be righteous is to stand before this completely perfect being, who is God, and be absolutely blameless.  God would be unable to find a single fault or character flaw in one who was righteous.

Wow... what a daunting prospect.  When I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself, I don't see a person who would withstand that test.  I see a person who consistently fails to treat others with the respect they deserve, to love others as Christ loved them, to the point of death.  I see a person who never lives up to the standards they have set for themselves, no matter how much they desire to.

Yet what does the second half of verse 6 say?  

"They will be filled."  

And Colossians 2:9(NLT) states:

"For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.^"

And Ephesians 3:16-19(NIV) states:

"I pray...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

When we "know this love that surpasses knowledge," which is all that Jesus is and has done... we are filled fully with the righteousness we "hunger and thirst" for.  When God looks at us, He does not see the failings and darkness and filth of our less-than-perfect ways of living... He sees perfection: the perfection purchased by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It is not something we do... but something that Jesus did.

So, rest in peace... and remember this:

"Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." 

- Ephesians 1:4-5(NLT)

Do not lose heart...

In light of all that happened last week in America, namely, the shootings in Connecticut that resulted in the deaths of young children and their teachers, a lot of questions have been asked.  Are American gun laws not strict enough?  Are they too strict?  Is the issue even about gun control?  Is the issue how the mentally handicapped are cared for in this country?  Is the issue the creation of an overly-aggressive culture from video games and movies?  How can we make schools safer?.... The list goes on and on.  Ultimately, can we ever have the "right" answers?  People have been killing each other for centuries, for millennium!  It started in Exodus 4 when Cain murdered his brother, Abel, in the fields, or you could say it technically started even before that, when Eve and Adam first allowed themselves to be tempted by Satan all the way back in Genesis 3, right at the dawn of humanity.  That day they began to die as they passed out of the Garden of Eden, their genes and flesh and all the world condemned to the slow decay of time.  Long before those children in Connecticut were even born, children all over the world were dying in unsafe workhouses, being prostituted on the streets before they were even ten, forced into military service, and murdered at birth because of physical imperfections or disabilities.  Ancient (and not-so-ancient) societies used to believe that every thing about a country, even its people, became spoils of war in victory.  Women became toys, children became target practice, men became slaves.  Entire cultures of people have been wiped out of the histories of the world.  Families have been destroyed.

We have progressed since then... or so we claim.  Yet the same things still happen.  Children are still murdered, are still trafficked into the sex trade, are still worked to death, are still forced into military service, are still murdered before they have a chance to live.  Women and men are still treated as less-than-human, both in the ways they always have been... and in the more "refined" ways of civilized society.  How many of us have been annoyed to arrive at a store and find it closed?  How many of us have snapped waiting in line and seeing a cashier just up and leave?  How many of us have looked down on people in "labor" positions because they "don't have a 'real' job?"  Have we really changed at all?  Or we just make more of an effort to hide what humanity has always been: morally bankrupt.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." -Matthew 5:5(NIV)

What does being "meek" have to do with all that I have just said?  Being meek here isn't talking about being a pushover, about letting people say and do whatever they want to us because we're "nice Christians."  No.  Being meek here means moving on from what we talked about last week in my entry "That is our comfort...", where we talked about how easy it is to recognize that we living in a sick world and mourn it.  This passage is about the next step... and perhaps the most difficult: recognizing we are completely unable to change the way the world is.  Meekness - humbleness - is recognizing that we are just as corrupt as the world and are in no position to be able to change this overwhelming wickedness.  We couldn't even save twenty children in our own backyard.  Yes, we may reduce the deaths... but we will never be able to stop the evil in this world from rearing its ugly head in some other way.  It will always come back, each time more tricky than before... each time spreading through us like a cancer.

You may disagree, but think of every Utopian society man has tried to create: the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, the Republic of China, the Democratic Republic of Korea, the Roman Empire, the British Empire, the United States of America... Each one of these nations had a view, in their own way, that they were bringing on a better order than had ever been known before.  Yet... has anything really changed since the sun rose on any one of these nations?  No.

So where do we turn?  How can we go on knowing that ultimately, all our efforts to create a perfect world are meaningless in ending the overall existence of evil?

 ^"I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, 'Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.'  And the one sitting on the throne said, 'Look, I am making everything new!'" 

 - Revelation 21:3-5a(NLT)

When Christ returns... the existence of evil will end.  All these things that cause us to mourn, that remind us of how powerless we are alone... will be overthrown.  God, Himself, will live with us... and will heal the world from what it has become.  That is the earth we have to inherit, not this broken husk on which we now place our feet. SO:

"Do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:16b-18(NIV)

That is our comfort....

My bachelor's degree is in international studies, a degree that incorporates geography, anthropology, economics, politics and history to understand regions of the world and why they are the way they are.  When I studied this field, I particularly found myself drawn to the study of human rights, including how they are abused around the world and what the international community does (or doesn't do) to avert human rights abuses.  Let me tell you, this is not the most encouraging field of study.  There were mornings were I wondered if it was worth getting out of bed because there was so much wrong with the world and no body seemed willing or able to fix it.  I felt depressed for a week after writing a paper about how rape is used as a weapon of genocide and ethnic cleansing across the world.  What baffled me was how people get to where they can perpetrate these kind of horrors on another human being... and how could it be that they could continue to do it with the full knowledge of a world that had developed documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  For example, the government of Burma/Myanmar has been systematically murdering ethnic minorities in its country for sixty years, hundreds of thousands have died... and yet nothing changes.

This brings me to the second beatitude in Matthew 5:4(NIV):

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

If you have ever looked around the world and realized that it is utterly broken - and mankind is entirely to blame for it - you have mourned.  How can it not be?  There was a ten-year old girl that was abducted, sexually assaulted, and dismembered this year in my area.  Every day, women in this country are trafficked illegally into the sex trade in this country and in countries all over the world.  Thousands of teens and children commit suicide every year.  Every year, people in this country trample each other to death or assault one another for nothing more than the chance to get ahead of another person for a Black Friday sale at a store the day after they celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday focused on giving thanks for all the blessings in their lives.  In America, fifty percent of marriages end in divorce.  The average age someone is first exposed to pornography is eleven.

This world is sick.

It is easy to believe everything is hopeless; that this is just the way the world is and there is no escape from it.  Yet Matthew 5:4 says we are blessed when we mourn, for we "will be comforted."  What comfort can possibly outweigh all this?

"For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.  And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.  He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds." - Titus 2:11-14(NLT)

This world... this life... is not all there is.  There is a God who was not content to linger in heaven without a care for His fallen creation.  He acted.  He invaded this "evil world" as a man and "gave his life to free us."  And now... we who have been set free can look forward to the day when all evil will be ended when Jesus Christ will return... and until then, we know that God continues to fight for this world - through us.  Through we who believe, He works to bring the light of Christ into the lives of others, changing the world one soul at a time.  So yes, this world is sick, but there is also this:

This world has hope: Jesus.

That is our comfort.

The poor have it all....

In teaching circles, it seems like common knowledge that if you teach something, you learn it much more thoroughly than you ever have before.  I had heard this saying even before I was a church worker, but now that I have spent a few years writing Bible studies and teaching children, youth, and adults... I understand how true this is.  It is especially true of teaching something like the Word of God, which is called "living and active" in Hebrews 4:12(NIV).  You can learn a particular story and passage a dozen times, and still turn around to read it one day and have a whole new understanding of what you read that revolutionizes the way you think or act.  This is not to say the meaning changes, but knowing the words of the Bible is like knowing a person: even if you've known them for your whole life, they can still surprise you.

Recently, I taught a study on the Beatitudes, which are the first part of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," and are recorded in Matthew 5:1-12.  I had read through the Beatitudes probably a million times, had sat through several bible studies on them, and had even written the study that I taught.  Yet, as I discussed the Beatitudes with the youth mentors who would teach the study to their small group of youth, and as I taught it to my youth small group... the significance of this passage overwhelmed me again.

This passage is a description of Christian living, or at least... of what Christian living should look like as we are transformed more and more by the love of Christ and motivated by the Holy Spirit to live out that transformation in the lives of others.  I would love to explore all of them today, but I think over the next few weeks I will explore them in chunks and how I have understood them in my life.

The first Beatitude is:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:3(NIV) 

What a contradiction this first verse seems!  The "poor in spirit" receives "the kingdom of heaven"?!  But I think it is no contradiction at all, but fits beautifully with the message of Christ.  Romans 3:23(NIV) states, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  We are all "poor in spirit" because we have all done things for which we are ashamed, and we have all looked at the world and thought "This is wrong."  We know that we are not as we should be, and it is clear every day that the world is not as it should be.  

Yet, in this moment, God does not leave us in the shame of recognizing our own failings or the despair that the world is corrupt and broken.  In the same verse where we are called "poor in spirit," God offers this undeserved gift, "theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  In Luke 17:20-21, we learn the "Kingdom of God" is Jesus himself, for when Jesus is asked "When will the Kingdom of God come?", He replies, "the Kingdom of God is already among you," indicating Himself there speaking with them!  So when we, in our brokenness, are offered the "kingdom of God," we are offered Christ, Himself!  In that moment when we recognize how many mistakes we make and how horrible this world is, how completely contrary everything in life is to an absolutely perfect God... this same perfect God steps in and offers life! 

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." - Jesus (John 10:10b)

Nothing to be thankful for....

So you think you have nothing to be thankful for?  It's that time of year again when Americans are filling their kitchens with turkey, mashed potatoes, pies, cranberry sauce, and any other number of holiday food traditions associated with Thanksgiving.  Social media sites are loaded with anecdotes about thankfulness, with people using the twenty-some-odd day build up to the fourth Thursday in November to list, each day, one person or thing in their lives they are grateful for.  If you're one of those, who even in the cheery light of this season cannot seem to discover one thing to bring a smile to your face in the midst of your circumstances... it probably becomes tiresome.  There is probably a point where everybody else's overwhelming thankfulness twists into overwhelming vanity about their own happy circumstances.  "Look how great my life is!" they seem to say.  All you can think of may be "Good for you and la-tee-da!  My life sucks!"

I would challenge you that no matter your circumstances, your life is chock full of blessing.

There it is; the gauntlet is on the ground.  How can I possibly making such a sweeping statement when, you're right, I may not know you personally or be acquainted with those things that keep you up at night or too-readily pursue you into dismal dreams?  I can say this with confidence because of Ecclesiastes 3:11, a passage I have often quoted, which states:

"God has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."(emphasis mine)

"God has made everything beautiful in its time."  I've looked at the Hebrew in which this was written.  Everything has no caveats, no exceptions.  It literally means what it says: God has made ALL THINGS beautiful.  Why is it past tense?  Because God does not function inside our understanding of time.  For Him, all things that have ever been or ever will be have been simultaneously known to Him since before the dawn of time.  He Sees your misery and despair when people reject you again and again and again and you can't figure out why.  He Sees your frustration and grief when you fail at the same things over and over again and can't seem to change them or yourself.  He's there in the house with you when your mother or your father or your siblings don't love you the way they should and leave you broken inside.

But how can those things be beautiful; what can possibly undo what has been done?  That's a difficult question, you're absolutely right.  If we sat down together and you told me your circumstances... I probably wouldn't be able to give you a precise answer to what exactly about your particular circumstance is beautiful.  It would probably tear my heart apart to hear what you're going through, to know how much you are hurting.  But I can tell you this, we "cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."  God is so much bigger and so much more powerful and so much more loving and caring and wise than all the wisdom and all the knowledge of all humanity has ever been or ever will be.  We cannot grasp even a teaspoon of all that He is up to in the story of all humanity or even in your single life.  But He is up to something.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28 (NIV)

In those horrible circumstances, God has promised to work, to be present, to turn those things that seem beyond redemption into something beautiful... something for your good and maybe the good of others far beyond yourself.  Trust this promise, and all the promises, God has made.  He is faithful to them; to you.  This is the God who created all things in all the universe and then gave it to you to rule over (Psalm 8.)  This is the God who did not spare His son, Jesus, but sent Him to this world to die the most gruesome, torturous death of the time period, in order to have a relationship with you (John 3:17).

My friend... whoever you are, whatever circumstances you are in... you have so much to be grateful for.  

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge." - Ephesians 3:17b-19a(NIV) 

Scent of death...

For me, it always happens when I'm out and about around sunset/twilight, especially on a cool, fall evening with just the slightest bit of a breeze that falls short of chilling you.  The sunlight reaches little fingers of orange gold around the edges of my sunglasses, the mountains are turning blue with evening, everything is starting to still as creatures of the day settle down and creatures of the night haven't yet emerged.  Trees with changing leaves seem to glow in the final light of day.  In that moment... everything seems poised in perfect stillness, and I think of this passage, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made" (Romans 1:20).  What does this mean?  Those beautiful fall leaves, that golden orange sunlight on my face, those blue mountains, that clean breeze... all of it... shouts, "GOD IS REAL!!!  HE IS HERE, IN THIS MOMENT!! AND HE IS WONDERFUL AND POWERFUL AND PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL AND THE SOURCE OF THE ONLY PEACE YOU CAN EVER KNOW!!"

All of this amazing world around us knows who its creator is, but you know what's funny?  The one thing in all creation that God most wants to know and love Him... is the one thing in all creation He allows to reject Him.  Human beings.  In John 3:16(NIV), we read, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."  God loved the world enough to come to send Jesus to die for us while we were "enemies of God" (Romans 5:10).  Yet, at the dawn of creation, He gave us a choice to follow Him or ourselves with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He gave us everything - even His heart - and then gave us a choice... knowing what our choice would be.  We chose to follow ourselves, and every horrible and awful thing that has happened since is a result of this choice.

With the coming of Christ, though, there was a shift... a change.  All who believe in Christ "have eternal life" (John 3:16) and have been "reconciled to [God] through the death of his son" (Romans 5:10).  But with this comes something else:

"If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." - Jesus in John 15:19(NIV)

In other words, as Paul puts it in 1 Peter 2:11(NIV), we are "aliens and strangers in the world."  In light of this, another thought comes to mind: if we are "aliens and strangers" and "the world hates you" because  Jesus has "chosen [us] out of the world"... why do we expect things of this life to go smoothly?  We are  hated by this world.  2 Corinthians 2:16&17 says we are literally the "scent of death" to "those who are perishing."  When horrible things happen to us, and we turn to God and demand an explanation... we are asking Him a question He has already answered: the world is against us.  Every single dark and awful situation we face reminds us that this world is not our home.  It reminds us we don't belong here.

So, when these horrible things happen, remember that you are an unwelcome alien here, and call to mind this passage from Hebrews 12:1b-3:

"Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

The LORD is near....

In John 9:1-3, the disciples are walking along with Jesus when they see a man that was born blind.  They ask Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  They asked this because, in Jewish tradition, physical illness was considered a punishment from God for wrongdoing.  Not only was physical illness, but any sort of calamity or even poverty was considered a mark of God's displeasure with you.  What is Jesus' reply?

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."

Now, I said it was a Jewish tradition to view calamity as a mark of judgement from God... but if we're honest with ourselves, do we really act like we don't believe the same thing?  How many times have awful things happened, especially to good people, and we have turned to this question to God, "Why, God?!  What did we do to deserve this?"

Yet look at this passage.  This young man was born into a society that viewed disability as a punishment from God.  The moment he drew breath, the moment his parents realized what he "lacked," their world was changed.  Everyone would have treated them differently because that blindness meant somewhere along the line, either the parents or the kid must have done something to deserve what had happened.  It's like how AIDS patients were treated when the disease first became known: like plague carriers, like even being near them would risk you contracting their disease.  The neighbors were thinking, "God's angry at them.  I don't want Him to get the idea I have anything to do with people like that!"  Even the disciples, following in the footsteps of Jesus, who spent all his time with socially outcast people, were quick to assume someone was at fault for this man's blindness.  

What Jesus says, though, is telling.  God did not make this man blind because of sin.  He was just simply, born blind.  But God allowed this to happen in order that this man would have a personal, saving encounter with Jesus Christ.  This man may never have met Jesus or believed in Him had He not  been blind.  But through Jesus' healing of his eyes in John 9:6-7, this man came so See who Jesus is, as he said in John 9:32-33(NIV), "Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”  A brief period of trouble allowed this blind man to meet Jesus Christ Himself, and be forever changed by it.

So in trouble, remember that it is not God's punishment coming down on you for what you have done.  Romans 8:1(NIV) says, "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."  In fact, when you face hardship of any kind, remember Psalm 34:18(NIV), "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."  This word "near" in Hebrew can be translated "near in place," "near in  time," or "near in personal relationship."  Not only is God actually present with you as you struggle... His heart and all His concern is focused upon you.  He is not punishing you... He is carrying you through.

Isaiah 46:3-4(NIV) says:

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob,

    all you who remain of the house of Israel,

you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,

    and have carried since your birth.

⁴ 

Even to your old age and gray hairs

    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

    I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

Though you may not genetically of the "house of Jacob," Galatians 3:29(NIV) says, "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."  Jacob and Israel were both descendants of Abraham, and so God's promise in this passage applies to you.  So read it, rather:

“Listen to me, O house of God,

    all you whom Christ has saved,

you whom I have upheld since you were conceived,

    and have carried since your birth.

⁴ 

Even to your old age and gray hairs

    I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

    I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

Wind of life....

Colorado... I was blessed to grow up there, and not just anywhere, but at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.  Morning bus rides to school in winter meant a view of snow-covered mountains turned pink or purple by the rising sun.  Driving home from after-school activities as a high school student meant cresting a rolling foothill to see cumulus clouds sitting just above rugged peaks, rays of sun shooting between the clouds as though the gates of heaven were opening and the hidden brilliance behind the pearly gates was spilling out.  Spring drives through the country meant rolling fields of golden, fallow fields of cut corn alternating with the green carpet of new sprigs of corn, all sweeping up to indigo mountains that exploded upward into snow-capped peaks towering into skies so deep a blue you thought you might be able to dive into them.

Most people would also mention cold, snowy winters.  Mornings where you wake up and underneath the layer of snow on your windshield is a layer of ice you have to spend nearly twenty minutes scraping away.  It meant driving through the mountains to witness pine trees frosted overnight by snow, each needle now individually coated in white as through it had sprouted little, white hairs.

Paired with this is brutal summers in the high nineties with next to no humidity.  Hills once purple with June grass turn brown.  Green fields turn to the dusky yellow of dried-out corn husks, the vegetation actually crunching underfoot, the ground cracking, dust rising at every footstep.  You can't drink enough water, and being at high altitude, it only takes ten minutes of sun to turn you into a lobster.

One feature of Colorado a lot of people don't seem to remember, though... is the wind.  Colorado has powerful winds that rip down off the peaks from the clouds above them and tear across the plains in gusts as powerful as the winds of category 1 hurricanes.  The strongest wind gust in Colorado history was 147mph, the speed of the winds in a category 4 hurricane.  I have seen flag poles bent in half, semi trucks pushed over, cars flipped, and in a humorous instance, a rooster flipped over on his back and blown head-first across a yard.  It's a common practice of Coloradans everywhere to come home from work and walk down the street to find where the wind has taken their trashcan on trash day.

Where am I going in all this talk of wind?  Today, I read Acts 2:1-13.  It accounts the day of Pentecost, when the disciples were given the Holy Spirit.  As they were sitting in the house, Luke records in verse 2 that when the Holy Spirit came, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting."

As a girl, my bedroom was on the west side of the house.  For those who have never lived on Colorado's east slope: that's the side of the house facing the mountains.  When wind storms came up, it was a very noisy room to be in, especially unfortunate at night when you're a light sleeper.  Reading verse 2 of this passage took me back to that memory of wind in Colorado: of the incredible noise and power of wind.  In the summers in Colorado, wind takes camp fires or the spark of a cigarette and turns them into uncontrollable wildfires that consume everything in their path.  Doubt me?  Just look up the Waldo Canyon Fire, the High Park Fire, or the Hayman Fire.  They are devastating occurrences, and are feared in Colorado the way hurricanes are in the South.

Yet these winds are nothing to the winds of God.  The first record of the wind of God we have is in Genesis 2:7(ESV), when God "breathed into [Adam's] nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."  The wind from God brought life itself.  And from the very beginning, it implied an intimacy with the creation of man that God gave to no other being.  For in this passage, the Hebrew used to discuss God breathing into Adam implies the concept of God literally taking Adam into His arms, holding him close, and breathing life into his empty frame.  All the rest of creation was made with a single command.  But for Adam, God set Him apart, immediately showed a tenderness and concern for humanity that He showed to no other creature in creation.

And with Eve, God showed no less partiality.  For, just as Adam was created in a completely unique way from all other creatures... so Eve was created in a completely unique way, even from Adam.  While Adam God "formed...from the dust of the ground" (Genesis 2:7a), with Eve, God, "took one of the man's ribs [and] made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man" (Genesis 2:12-22).  Just as God was "hands on" in the creation of Adam, so He was with Eve.  However, unlike Adam, Eve was crafted from living tissue.  Through this, God distinguished humanity, both man and woman, from all creation.  From the dawn of time, He has told us "You are unique.  You are special.  I made you with not just my word, but the very work of my hands and the breath of my body."

Therefore, in Acts, when the wind blew through the house... it was a reminder of that "chosenness" which began at creation... and was heralding an even greater intimacy: God, Himself, living within us.  Not only do we breath with the breath of God, but at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to live within the Apostles.  Through their preaching of the Gospel that day, the Holy Spirit also came to live in the hearts of 3000 people who became Christians from hearing the Message.  God spoke life at creation, and He spoke again through His Apostles to bring eternal life into the hearts of believers.

But it didn't end there.

Today... thousands of years from that morning when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles as "tongues of fire," we, too, carry within us that same Spirit.  And when we speak the Truth of the Gospel, we are speaking the same life into peoples hearts that was first breathed into mankind from the very mouth of God on the sixth day of creation.

Job so far....

Since I'm starting this blog after having started my study of the Word, I'm going to backtrack slightly to explain what is going on with Job.  Job was an incredibly faithful man of God, about whom God said in Job 1:8b(ESV), "there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil."  Satan contended that Job was only faithful because God had made him wealthy and successful in all he did, with blessings in his family, as well.  To prove that Job was faithful to God out of love, God allowed Satan to attack Job's wealth and family.

Now, to comprehend how wealthy Job was, let me lay it out for you.  Job had:

• 7,000 sheep 
• 3,000 camels
• 500 yoke of oxen (that's 1000 oxen)
• 500 female donkeys
• "very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people in the east." - Job 1:3b
• 7 sons (remember, sons were considered a sign of blessing from God, so for him to have a lot was a big deal in that society)
• 3 daughters
• If Job owned all these creatures, imagine how many people it would take to run that kind of property and just how much property and money it would take to sustain that many creatures!  After all, the rough estimate is that someone should have about one acre per six sheep today, so we could say Job would have needed at least 1166 acres just for his sheep!

When Satan began his attack on Job, the following happened all on the same day (Job 1:13-19):

1. Sabeans attacked and stole all of Job's oxen and donkeys and only one servant escaped to tell him.
2. Fire fell from heaven and killed all of Job's sheep and servants, except for the one who escaped to tell Job.
3. The Chaldeans attacked and took all of Job's camels and only one servant escaped to tell him.
4. His sons and daughters were all feasting together in the oldest son's house when a powerful wind came up and brought the house to the ground, killing everyone inside except the one servant that brought him the news.

So in one day, Job lost all his family but his wife, and all of the livestock that brought him so much wealth, plus nearly all of the servants who helped him sustain his property.  But according to Job 1:22b(ESV) "Job did not sin or charge God with wrong."

God was very proud of Job in all this, saying to Satan in Job 2:3b(ESV) "He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason."  However, Satan contended Job was only faithful because God had protected him from any personal, physical harm.  Therefore, still confident in Job, God allowed Satan to do anything to him, except that he must "spare his life." (Job 2:6b)  The result of this was Job being struck with physical illness in the form of "loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head." (Job 2:7b)

At this point, I cannot imagine myself being able to hold up in faith.  Yet in Job 2:9-10(ESV), "Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.' But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips."