Wait for It...

source: anthonyclavien.wordpress.com

The joy of anticipation. Panting, yearning for what is coming.
Planning a wedding. The months of pregnancy. Studying in anticipation of a career. Saving for a new car.
Who would want to miss the joy of them?

We would, apparently.

What happened to Advent, anyway?
Waiting for Christmas.
Just waiting for it.
I don't know about you, but I can't listen to Christmas carols yet.
Or put up my tree, or decorate my house, or wrap gifts.
Christmas can't come yet. It's not time.
I need to prepare. I need to think, and pray, and remember.

I need to join Mary, who waited nine months for Jesus.
I am the Lord's servant...--Luke 1:38
And Elizabeth, who waited for John.
..the baby leaped in her womb...Luke 1:40
And Zechariah, who waited with her.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us...--Luke 1:69
And Simeon, who waited his whole life.
...you now dismiss your servant in peace, for mine eyes have seen the Savior...Luke 2:29-30
And the Jews, who waited thousands of years.
And He shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace--Isaiah 9:6
And the whole of mankind, who has waited since God's angel barred the gates of paradise with a flaming sword.
I rejoiced because they said to me, We will go up to the house of the Lord--Psalm 122:1

And I can't wait one month?
Really?
Christmas will come. God promised that it will.
But, if I am not careful, I might miss the glory of the wait.
That pause, that inhaled breath, that moment of absolute stillness before the victorious crescendo.
Without it, we diminish the gift.
Stop. Take a breath. Turn off the carols. Turn down the lights.
It has a sound.
Wait for it...

I Made This...

Photo: www.dailymail.co.uk

God made us.
He made us good and clean and in perfect, uninterrupted communion with Himself.
He made us like Himself, with a desire to create.
And, with all that beauty and heritage of glory, what did we make?

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good, and pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.--Genesis 3:6

We made a whole new human being, one who had not existed before.
We made a sinner.

Since then, our entire journey in this life is making our way back again, abandoning what we made and finding what we left behind, what God made.
No wonder it's so hard.
No wonder it feels like I'm ripping off parts of me and discarding them reluctantly along the way.
No wonder it feels like I'm leaving unprotected flesh exposed, stinging all the while with the pain of it.
It feels that way because that's exactly what's happening.

What mankind has built through long centuries, what every voice other than God's tells me is right, what Satan lays on at every opportunity--this is the person God did not make.
My first creation.

But God is still in me. I know He is. Somewhere.
I still bear His Spirit--and the woman He made in Eden, before she asked,
Did God really say....?--(Genesis 3:3)
--before she reached out her hand for that bitter fruit.

I can find that woman again, the one God made, because He wants me to.
...put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.--Ephesians 3:24

The new me...really the old me after all.

What I Am Not Thankful For

Photo: www.mostphotos.com

I know what to do on Thanksgiving.
Count my blessings.
And it's not hard at all.
Life. Faith. Health. Family. Safety...So, so much.
Thank You, God.  Thank You so much.

Wait, God says. 
You are thanking me for the wrong things. 
Try looking at blessings from my point of view.
My blessing isn't comfort and confidence.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.--Matthew 5:3
My blessing isn't happiness.
Blessed are those who mourn--Matthew 5:4
My blessing isn't ability and confidence.
Blessed are the meek.--Matthew 5:5
My blessing isn't plenty and a full belly.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.--Matthew 5:6
My blessing isn't safety and the comfort of friends.
Blessed are those who are persecuted or my sake. --Matthew 5:10

Of course, good things, things I like, come from God, too.
But those things I call good, the comfortable, happy circumstances of my life, look like goodness from my point of view, not God's.
God sees a very different view and, if I truly want to be more like Christ, I need to look at blessings that way, too.
I don't want to be thankful for poverty, hunger, or persecution, but God is. 

So tomorrow, when we bow our heads at a table groaning with plenty, I need to be thankful not only for what is before me, but for what in my life is denied, is sad, is painful.
Thank you God. Thank you for it all.

Before the Tablets

Picture credit:www.fisheaters.com

Most of us know that God gave Moses the tablets of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai.
But that wasn't the only thing God did there.
In fact, it wasn't even the first thing.

Before God gave Moses the Commandments, He gave Moses something to tell the Israelites.
God told Moses to tell His people what He expected of them.
And characteristically, His instructions were short and to the point:
Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.--Exodus 19:5

He told them two things:
Obey me.
Keep your promise to me.
If they did these two things, God would open up the very heavens to them. He would make them His treasured possession. He would make them His. He would make them Holy.

Sure, He gave them the Commandments, but only as exposition of what He'd already said--words that exposed His heart of love and desire for His people.
God doesn't just want us to follow a bunch of rules. 
God wants us to want Him. 
That's the importance of the Commandments.  
 The Commandments are signposts to the heart of God.
And His heart is where He wants us to remain.

God offered to the Israelites a look at His own heart.
And God's offer to the Israelites is made to us, too--through Jesus, who said,
"Come to me...."--Matthew 11:28

That is the offer at the heart of the commandments.
Come to me.
God's commandments, first etched in stone, then the same message written in Scripture and preserved for all ages, are not rules. They are His very arms opened wide in invitation.
Come to me.

What Scars Have to Say

Photo: godrunning.com

Scars.
I still have them. 
Painful reminders of my hurts. Throbbing echoes of hurts I caused.
And they don't go away.
Ever.

Heal me, I plead.
And God hears.
The bleeding stops, the wound closes--
But the scar remains.
Evidence of the hurt. Proof of the guilt.
Why doesn't it all go away?
I ask God: Why doesn't healing come with forgetting?

And God says: This is who you are.
Every hit you've taken, every blow you've given. They are part of you now.
Remember, He says. Remember your nature. Remember your origin:
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness--only wounds and welts and open sores.--Isaiah 1:6
My scars. Who I am. What I have done. What has been done to me.

Nobody gets to leave them behind his side of heaven. Nobody.
Even Christ wore His scars.
He stood in that room with His best friends, bright in His resurrected body. Alive again. Clean, victorious, and healed.
But those hands. That side.
Put your finger here. See my hands.--John 20:27
Still there. All the places of His own mortal wounding. Not smoothed over, not vanished beyond memory. Not comfortable.
But visible, both to Him and anyone who looked close enough.
His wounds, like ours, remained with Him.
Not for re-opening, but as witness. 

Christ's wounds bore witness to His perfection, His godhead.
My wounds bear witness to Christ in me.
My scars still stand ready to accuse, but they can also proclaim victory. 
Look at me, they say.
I have healed. I stand. I live.
I have known pain. I have inflicted it. See this ugliness? This is what it looks like.
Don't look away. You have them, too.

But this is the difference.
Because of Christ, I will not die from them. 

Got Hunger?

Photo: www.thecambodiaherald.com

How many times have we heard it?
"I'm starving. When do we eat?"
More than we can count.
And we've said it ourselves, plenty of times.
"I'm hungry."
Like it's something bad.

Actually, God likes hunger, and wants us hungry.
He does.

But I don't. I prefer satisfaction. I like the easy, comfy feeling of being full.
But, there's a problem with that.
When I'm not hungry, I'm not looking for anything other than what I've already got.
I'm complacent.

Hunger, on the other hand, is uncomfortable.
It makes me feel weak and incomplete.
And I don't like that.

In God's book, however, weakness and discomfort can be good things because they mean we know we need Him.
When I am full, I need nothing and no one.
Hunger, however, is a tool, a gift our bodies bring so that, rather than satisfying ourselves, we can find our satisfaction in God.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled--Matthew 5:6

Next time you have a meal, push away from the table before you're full.
See what it feels like to remain constantly unsatisfied.
See how long it takes before you look around for more.
And then...look to God.
Stay hungry, my friend.

Credit: besttextposts.tumblr.com

But Did He WANT To?

Credit: themasterstable.wordpress.com

Jesus saved us.
It's true, and most of us already know that.
But He was not just God--He was man, too, and I don't know about you, but I don't always want to do what I'm supposed to do.
It occurs to me today that maybe He didn't either.

I will not reject anyone who comes to me because I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me and this is the will of the one who sent me--that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it in the last day.--John 6:37-38

Is it possible that Jesus, as  man, was not always crazy about saving us?
That He did not always want to have mercy on the impenitent, on the ungrateful, on the clueless?
That unwillingness was one of the temptations to which He was subjected when He took on flesh?

Was Jesus sometimes tempted to let us have exactly what we deserve rather than to do as He was commanded? Did He sometimes have to grit His teeth to heal another ungrateful petitioner? To preach to yet another unhearing crowd?
And if He did, is it any wonder that I often feel the same?

I do not always want to love, want to forgive, want to extend my hand in kind patience. Today, I find solace in the possibility that Jesus, human like me, might sometimes have felt the same way. Jesus may have saved us, not because He always wanted to, but simply because His Father commanded Him to.

There is glory in this obedience, I think--to do what we do not want to do, what may not even make sense, simply because our Father in heaven has commanded it.
And, in the process, know that even Jesus did the same.