My Heart in Pieces

There is something so profound and deeply sorrowful about coming face to face with yourself. When God puts a mirror in front of you, it’s never condemning, but it is heartbreaking. With the most lovingly spoken words he breaks us – not to tear us down, but so that he can build something new in place of the old. He is the Restorer, the Renewer, the Builder, the Maker. When he convicts us and lets us see, bit by bit, our sins and shortcomings and areas-to-be-worked-on, he does it with love. There is no condemnation in his gentle revelation, no judgment or guilt tripping. But that, of course, makes it all the more heartbreaking. Because when you see your sins in front of you as if they are laid out on a table, you are suddenly so aware of the sorrow you’ve inflicted, of the nails Jesus took for you on the cross because of these things, these things in front of you; and yet God does not strike us with lightning or accuse us. He simply says, “Be done with these things so that I can transform you and give you my peace and love.”

We will never be perfect. We will keep on sinning. We will keep on having to repent. But God’s love is truly unending and unconditional; not the way in which we understand those words, but in their true meaning, in their infinite sense. He is God. Let him break your heart so he can form a new one in its place.

Mountains and Valleys

One of the hardest things about being a Christian is the constant alternation between having amazing times with God and experiencing His presence, and the everyday, mundane realities of life. No matter how clearly I felt His spirit around me, I still have to wash the dishes and do my Greek work. None of that goes away, but sometimes we wish it would so that we could just spend forever in His presence. The solution? We are meant to spend every moment in His presence, but we are meant to be carriers of His presence into the world so that others can also see Him.

God does use manifestations of angels or fire or other things to show non-Christians His power and love, and many have come to Christ because of direct encounters with God. But most of the time, He uses us. We are the salt and the light (Matthew 5:13-16), and His spirit is in us (Acts 2:1-4). In our times with Him, God fills us with His glory and power and authority and love and peace and mercy and grace, not just for ourselves, but so that we can carry His presence to our friends, family, and acquaintances. Think of the peace that often fills you when you speak with another Christian, even for a short time; that is God using that person to give His peace to you. And when we are with non-Christians, He uses us to show them His light, love, power, and grace.

We shouldn’t think of our incredible, breathtaking experiences with God and our daily, “mundane” realities as being separate. God wants to infuse His glory into our daily lives, so that we are drawing on His strength and peace to do even the most base things in our day. Think about it: the areas where you know you are weak, you automatically draw on His strength because you know you can’t do it alone, and God always comes through. What if we also drew on His strength in areas where we are already doing well?

Think of how the fruits of that thing would multiply and of how amazingly His glory would be displayed in our lives if we did this. Give everything to Him, every tiny detail of the day, every dish you have to wash, every assignment you have to do. Let His name be glorified even in the small details of our lives. Let go and watch how He glorifies His name through the things you consider to be boring or pointless. Just try it and see. What do you have to lose?

Look Up and See

I am writing this post while feeling upset. Not angry with people, but angry with lies, and angry with fear, and angry with things that oppose the truth.

When people hear the name of Jesus, they think Christianity, those people who like to throw the word sin around, those intolerant, narrow-minded ignoramuses. They are distracted by us, His followers, mere humans who still sin and who will never be perfect and will never, no matter how hard we try, be completely Christ-like. They are especially distracted by His “followers” who are in fact not even close to representations of who He is, of the love He gives, of the life He promises.

But I wish, I wish with all my heart that people would look past us. Look past the people you see wearing their crosses. Look past the flaws in their lives. Religion is a human construct, but this, this relationship – this is God-initiated, God-created reality. This is REAL. We are not playing some game and trying to outdo each other with good works and with “people we’ve converted.” Only the Holy Spirit can “convert” anyone anyway, so that’s a moot point.

What does the world think we are doing? I speak to an unseen God – and yes, He speaks to me. I feel His presence. I experience His love. I see His hand in everything, and the peace I have comes not from myself or because I meditate for half an hour everyday. This. Is. REAL. This is real. We are not playing dress up. My soul praises my King, because He loves me. My heart’s desire is to follow Him – not to emulate a character in a book, or to emulate a historical figure, but to actively FOLLOW the living, breathing, alive-this-very-moment Jesus Christ. He is alive. He is ALIVE. He is alive this very moment, not dead and lying in some far-away tomb, leaving us to our own devices. My Savior lives.

Why don’t you look at Him? See the splendor of His majesty; see the love in His eyes. Why won’t you look at Him? Lift up your heads, turn your eyes upward and LOOK at the King of Kings. He is alive, He is real, and His love for you is real. It’s not even about the religion – it was never about the religion. It’s about Jesus. He is ALIVE. Look up and see.

He is indescribable; He is uncontainable; He is all powerful; He is beautiful; He is love; He is King; He is Lord; He is healer; He is Savior; He is ALIVE.

Imperfection

Imperfection;

my thorny crown.

He wore it, undeserved;

it belongs to me.

Darkness;

my slave driver.

I run and flee,

to no avail.

Where is right or wrong?

Where is the promised dawn?

The white swords,

angelic hordes?

I wait for Him;

my soul gives out.

I long for Him;

no hope is found.

I feel alone,

a plight unknown;

where is He,

My Savior King?

Imperfection.

I cannot find

my way to light;

lost and wandering.

The world bears down,

its rotten crown

too heavy

for me to carry.

I cannot see,

I cannot feel.

No words, no sound;

come to me now.

Take me, break me,

mold and shape me;

in Your hands alone

do I find peace.

Christmas: Jesus Christ or Pagan Festival?

More and more Christians are not celebrating Christmas. There are many reasons for this, among them that it’s not really the date of Jesus’ birth, that it is a pagan festival**, and that it has been over commercialized and watered down to a story about a fat man in a suit who eats your cookies, breaks into your house to bring you presents if you were nice, or breaks into your house to give you lumps of coal if you were naughty (seriously, why bother?). No, it’s not the real date of Jesus’ birth. Yes, the traditions of Christmas (including the tree) have their roots in a pagan celebration. Yes, it has been over commercialized and is all about Santa for most of the world.

Does that mean I will stop celebrating the birth my Christ, my Savior and King? Absolutely not. Things like Christmas have no meaning other than what we attach to them. When I celebrate Christmas,  I am certainly not taking part in a near-idolization of some dude in the North Pole (although I see no harm in the guy…I, too, used to write him letters when I was small). I am celebrating the birthday of my Lord and King, the day he came to earth as a man to live out his life with the full knowledge that he was going to die for us. For me. So that I can be free. So that we can know his love eternal, and be freed from sin and death.

The tree and the presents and the day are nice traditions, not directly Bible-based, but not meaningless either. Christ gave us his life; giving presents is a beautiful way to honor that first, great gift. If he were still physically here on earth, we would be giving him birthday presents just like anyone else, so instead we give to one another. We spend time with one another and fellowship with each other, both with believers and non-believers. We rest and do things we enjoy. So far, none of this is contrary to the Bible. Where it all goes wrong is when any of these things become an obsession and/or more important than remembering why we are celebrating. The stress, the present frenzy, and the overeating are not glorifying to God, nor are they Biblical.

I think that there is something to be said about the world celebrating Christmas. It is called CHRISTmas, not Paganmas or Solsticemas. People of all faiths and backgrounds and races and cultures celebrate Christmas, and whether or not they believe in Jesus, I think that this is kind of spectacular. It would be a gigantic ironical shame if the rest of the world kept celebrating and we, His own, blood-bought people, ceased to do so.

Happy birthday, Jesus. May the angels and all the earth sing your praises even louder.

**One of the reasons why Christmas was moved to fall on the same date as the pagan festival is so that Christians, who were being heavily persecuted, could celebrate the birth of Christ without being afraid of being discovered. Their celebrations went unmarked, since everyone else was celebrating too. Not a bad reason, in my opinion.