Merry Christmas Season!  This is the season of anticipation, of remembering that there is always a season of waiting before God’s promises are fulfilled.  Think what it would have been like for the Jewish people who waited and believed for hundreds of years.  Think of Mary, who knew she carried the promise but had to wait nine months under the stressful conditions of being an unwed mother in a time when she could have been killed for that.  In this season we can relate as we wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise to us in our own lives and in Christ’s return.

One of my favorite Christmas carols, Joy To The World, was actually written in anticipation of the return of Christ.  It was written by Isaac Watts, a man of passion for the Lord and a man of principal who endured persecution for living out the the faith he held dear.  He was a man of sorrow and hardship and yet a man who wrote one of the most well known hymns about the joy there is in Jesus.  He found joy, despite his circumstances as he lived for, wrote about and sang of Jesus.

This is how we must live and how we will overcome the adversity we so often find ourselves surrounded by.  It is in worship and devotion that we are able to draw from the wells of salvation that never cease to flow, no matter what the season.  Sometimes we have to dig a little deeper than other times and sometimes there is a very personal season of anticipation as we wait on the Lord. It may feel like it is taking far too long, but take heart. The season of refreshing will come.  The season of promises fulfilled will come. The season of anticipation is a season of being held very closely by the Lord. Rest. A new season will come and with it new joys and trials but for now think of all the ways He has answered before.  He is so faithful.

 Joy to the World

Verse 1

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Verse 2

Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

Verse 3

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Verse 4

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

I was scrolling around on You Tube recently and came across some of my favorite music from my teens.  Some of it made me laugh but a lot of it touched me as much as it did when I first heard it.  I came across DeGarmo and Key‘s music from their album (yes, I said album, as in LP) “Commander Sozo and the Charge of the Light Brigade” and one of my favorite songs “Casual Christian”.  That song was a bit of an anthem for me.  It spoke to me and my desire to really serve Jesus and not just go to church.

I have this very distinct memory of standing at my mom’s sink, looking out the window when something hit me and I started thinking about the huge amounts of people flooding into the local churches every week and it seemed that few of them were really that different from the world around us.  Maybe I was youthful and judgemental and maybe it was just my own personal aversion to the status quo but whatever it was, it caused me to literally cry out to God right there at the kitchen sink and beg Him to not let me become what I saw then as a “regular Christian”.

Still, my prayer is that God never allows me to become complacent and lose touch with what I am called to be as a Christian.  There is always so much more and there are so many people who need us to live lives of radical devotion to Jesus so that we can pour His love out to a lost and dying world. As the world around us shakes it will become more and more obvious that we are not of this world.  We are entering times of great opportunity.  Do not worry about the circumstances but use them and let God use you!

Being in Italy and learning about generations of our family and seeing thousands of years of history really helped my perspective. This little snapshot that we call “now” is relatively insignificant in the big picture of what God is doing and creating. There have been times in the last few years that I’ve thought,”I should’ve raised tomato plants instead of children!” But our adventure helped me get a new vision for family and it helped me throw off the American pseudo-Christian lies of family perfectionism.

You know what I mean, the kind of stuff you get in many Christmas newsletters with photos of perfectly happy children and parents and only glowing reports of everyone’s achievements that make us mere mortals pause for a moment and think that perfect families should be attainable. Or even better, classes at churches that give the impression that raising kids and growing marriages is as simple as growing tomato plants and all you need to do is follow the instructions and you will get perfect families every time!

No, families are not do it yourself kitchen gardens. They are far more complicated than that and loads more fascinating! Families are made up of humans and humans are awesome creations, incredibly frustrating, always unique and never, ever have it all together! We can be free of the lie of perfectionism and lay down the expectations and guilt and condemnation that goes with it. I have seen people go to great extremes to hide their humanness. We have all done it at times. Our flesh is gross but trying to hide it is literally like trying to hide the fact that we have skin! The only thing we can do is face the fact that we are hopelessly human, impossibly imperfect and endlessly loved by a God who is so unafraid of our being human that He became one Himself. His perfect life, death and resurrection are all we need to cover ourselves and the only way to freedom.

If you are like me and have days that you look at your family and yourself and just shake your head and think, “Really, Lord?” then I have good news. You are part of the human race and it’s ok. God already knows how desperately we need Him. He already knew everything that would happen and has made provision to not only forgive and cover us but also to fully redeem everything! Don’t focus too much on the snapshot and never forget that it really isn’t about us. We are playing a small part in a very big, very exciting story that the God of the Universe is writing.

“Lord, Please help me to release my son at each stage in his life so that when he is grown it won’t be so hard to do it all at once.”

It was a brave prayer. It was sincere. Yet, I was nieve. I pictured something much easier and simpler than my reality. I didn’t factor in being paralyzed and I sort of had this idea that I would go before them clearing a path that would be safe and they would just follow. I didn’t consider the fact that my kids might forge their own path heading right off a cliff while they looked back at me saying, “Really Mom, I’m fine. How hard can this be?” as they tumbled right off the edge and all I could do was watch in horror and pray.

I have a few friends watching the same scene. As I prayed for all of us, I knew that God’s response was for us to keep moving forward. To me that is one of the hardest things to do. Ever. I just want to go back, get my (grown) kids, take them by the hand and bring them with me.

Just as I had been thinking about all of this one of my friends called to tell me about a dream she had. She was swimming laps in a pool with her son. Somehow he had gotten a fairly minor injury and was bleeding. He fell behind her and she became really worried. Just as she was about to go back for him, she heard a voice say, “Just keep swimming.”

I love the way God speaks and especially when He says the same thing to several of His children at once. I know God understands how difficult it is to love children, pour your life into them and then release them, especially when their choices put them in harm’s way. He really gets it. He wrote the book on that one! We have to trust Him and know that He has a plan for each of our kids and knows exactly how to reach them no matter how far off the path they may go or how lost they seem at the moment.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love him.”

The story of Ruth and her mother in law Naomi illustrates the mystery of God’s plans for us as individuals and collectively.  Here we have a God fearing family headed by Elimelech.  He was a good man.  He loved his wife Naomi and their two sons.  The economy went bust, there was a terrible famine so Elimelech moved his family to Moab.  As if all of that weren’t enough, Elimelech died leaving Naomi a widow in a foreign country.  Her sons married Moabite women and they lived there another ten years at which point both sons died leaving all three women with no way to support themselves!

Why would God allow this Godly woman to go through tragedy after tragedy?  At one point she even said, “God’s hand has gone out against me.”  She really felt cursed!  I can only imagine what some religious folks would say today!  It would probably be along the lines of, “Have you forgiven your husband for dying?  Have you forgiven God?  Didn’t you pay your tithes?!”

Was Naomi cursed? No!  Quite the opposite is true!  Naomi had found a place so dear to the heart of God that He showed her His great favor.  You may be thinking, “If that’s how God’s favor looks, I’d rather be cursed!”  You probably wouldn’t be alone but you would totally miss it! Of course we all know that God took care of Naomi and her daughter -in- law Ruth through Boaz and that there was even a special baby born named Obed to carry on Elimelech’s name.  That was enough to cause everyone to rejoice at the time but that’s not how the story ends. Not even Naomi knew how the story ended because it’s not over yet.  You see, the scripture tells us that baby Obed grew up and had a son named Jesse who had a son named  David and we know that from David’s line came our Messiah, Jesus.

Naomi’s story isn’t over and what looked like tragic curses, were in reality, the most amazing acts of favor and trust from God.  God knew that Naomi wouldn’t fail Him in the midst of her sorrow. He trusted her with the living story of His Son.  What is your story?  Whatever it is, you can rest assured that if you are seeking God, He is in control of  the outcome of every single circumstance.  The story is much bigger than you and what you can see and it isn’t over. Ever.

When I did finally get my face out of the dirt, I could see that there were quite a few others down there with me. Most were not able to even hold their heads up to see that they were not alone. Some were beginning to look around and realize that they were among others. In some ways, I think, that is exactly where God wanted us, on our faces before Him. I didn’t like the way I got there or the weight of events that kept me there but I am gradually seeing some of the work He has been doing in myself and in the others who have bitten the proverbial dirt.

I’ve always held the belief that no matter what kind of situation I find myself in, I am there to learn something. If God is truly God, and is allowing a situation then I want to gain everything I can from that place. With that in mind, what can we gain from being face down in the dirt?

First of all, God created the dirt and good things grow in dirt. He created man from the dirt. The Bible reminds us that we will all die and return to the dirt and David actually thanked God for remembering that he was merely dust. I’m reminded of a story from the modern missionary to Africa, Heidi Baker. She and the many orphans she and her husband have cared for have often found themselves in desperate situations and have seen many miraculous answers to prayers. When asked why she thinks they have seen so many miracles, she said it was because they had learned to love the presence of God so much that she would rather pray in the dirt floored huts than do anything else.

So the dirt is not really such a bad place to be after all. Heidi reminds us, “Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are the children. Theirs is the Kingdom of God. There’s something about desperation, no backup plan, a child-like spirit.” Sometimes I get anxious for the things that I know only God can provide but instead of having faith, I try to come up with the backup plan. Sometimes I have deceived myself by saying that I am walking by faith when in reality I’m giving lip service to God while trying to figure it out myself. Just about when I think I’ve got it under control, I look up and see that truck coming again! Down I go! I fight being there! I wonder why someone doesn’t see me and help me out. Sometimes it looks as if someone is going to help and they push me back down. I get hurt! I get angry!

Then I get desperate again and remembering how God has met me in these situations before. I relax. I remember the lessons of the dirt. I remember that I cannot meet my own needs (let alone anyone else’s). I remember the lessons of humility and desperation. And I remember Him. As always, He comes. He provides. He comes right in the dirt with me and stays until I have enough strength to get up and move on. I’m finally able to get out of the dirt! He has cleaned me up and I can finally go do something else! Funny thing though, I’m drawn back to the dirt. All the things I thought I was missing while in the dirt just don’t hold my attention and I go back to the dirt and sit next to someone else who is desperate and watch Jesus do for her what He has done for me.

I would never have know how fragile I am and yet how little I need without the truck. I am thankful for the truck. I am content in the dirt because I have Him and if I ever want to see Him, all I have to do is find someone who is desperate in the dirt because He will be right there with them.

Psalm 104:13

For He knows our frame, He (earnestly) remembers and imprints [on His heart] that we are dust.

It quickly became apparent that Josiah was feeling even worse than I.  He sees no reason to keep it to himself when he is sad so we listened to a litany of his woes and had faith that Mexican food would cure his sadness and mine at the same time.  When we got to our frequented establishment we were surprised to see that they now had a singer every Wednesday night.  I thought this could be very good or really annoying, depending on the skill of the musician.

We sat down and Arturo, the singer, proceeded to entertain the patrons.  He wasn’t bad.  We ordered our food and looked up to find Arturo at our table!  He asked if he could sit down with us.  We obliged, as much out of curiosity as anything else.  He complimented us on our family and then said with a thick accent, “Your son is the most amazing thing that has happened in this place in four years.”  Honestly, I was shocked, confused and curious all at once.  He then looked at Josiah and said, “You must listen to me.  God has amazing plans for you.”  He then continued to speak to Josiah about God’s plans for him.  I sat there with tears running down my cheeks thinking, “If you had any idea what this boy has been through…”

Josiah grinned and Arturo went off to dedicate a song to us.  We ate our meal and then Josiah got up and danced to one of Arturo’s songs.  The whole restaurant  was smiling and applauding.  Where there had been sadness and loneliness there was joy and laughter!  Arturo was so pleased that he tipped Josiah!  We waited at length for our check and finally the waiter came to tell us that our bill had already been paid.  On our way out Arturo hugged and kissed us all and asked us to call him so we could get together for prayer!

We left that place completely different from how we entered, not because of the amazing powers of Mexican food, but because of the amazing power of God to bring His Kingdom anywhere His people are willing to let Him.  That is how His true church operates!

Matthew 10:7
⁷And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand!

“I don’t want a kids’ Bible mom,” he quickly announced. “I want a real one.”

“This is a real one,” I contended.

“No.  I don’t want stories.  I want all of the words.”

“This has all of the words,” I insisted.

“Well does it have all the sex and violence and stuff that moms don’t like us to read?”

“Uh…yeah,”  I muttered thinking I didn’t really want to admit that.  So once again, this kid had me thinking outside the box of the conventional.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized how sanitized our thinking about the Bible and even life had become. God is so wise.  He didn’t take out the bad parts!  He left, right there in between creation and His final return, story after story of human frailty and failure.

Right from the start there was Cain killing Able.  Interestingly, God continued to talk to Cain who never even seemed to show much remorse.  Then there was Abraham.  Now he was a true friend of God and man of faith if there ever was one!  He too, though, was shown as a real human with some pretty huge failures.  He lied more than once about his wife and said she was his sister. Without God’s intervention Sarah would have become the wife of a pagan king. Nice!  Then he and Sarah decided that God’s promise wasn’t happening fast enough so Sarah suggested that Abraham have sex with her young servant. What man would turn that down?  Of course we know how that went and how we are all still paying for that bad choice to this day.  Then there is Jacob and Tamar, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and many other kings and their many pagan wives, Gomer and her roamings, women entrapped in adultery, incest in the church of Corinth and the list goes on. I didn’t even touch on the violence!

Here is my point.  God did not gloss over our humanness.  He did not make even those He used mightily seem saintly in our twisted version of  saintliness.  Why did God put all of this in the Bible anyway?  He obviously was not condoning it, nor was He taking it lightly.  What was He doing then and why is all of this in His book?

I have a few ideas on this. One is that He was trying to spare us from thinking that we could be perfect.  Maybe He was trying desperately to keep us from learning the hard way how messed up we really are so that we would just get humble and repent before we made things worse.  Or maybe he knew most of us would have to mess up big time before we really humbled ourselves but He wanted us to know that we were not alone in our humanness once that happened.

I think too that we can clearly see in His word how sin caused a lot of problems even for the “good guys” like Abraham and David.  We see plainly that many people were hurt by their selfish and sinful choices.  Sometimes we don’t see that clearly when we are the ones being selfish and sinful until after it all blows up.  On the other hand, there are times when we so long to avert these kinds of messes that we hide behind religious pride and piety clinging to a false perfectionism (like the Pharisees) that ultimately leads to just as much sin and pain as overtly selfish choices. I know it sounds crazy but I have actually met people who think they can live perfectly now!

If it sounds like the human race is in a catch 22, we are!  If we just live out our sinful thoughts and desires we bring destruction.  If we try to live perfectly and constrain our sinful nature we bring destruction.  That is the point of the cross!  We are hopeless!  We cannot avoid making messes.  Our sin nature cannot be allowed to rule and it cannot be hidden behind masks or held back by our wills. We need the cross.  We have to have the blood of Jesus daily!  We have to take up our cross daily.  We do not have the ability to live a sinless life even after we have been redeemed and made righteous.  We have been saved. We are being saved.  And we will be saved.  There is not one of us who is still here who has arrived.  We are to live holy (set apart) lives but we must not confuse holiness with perfection. We all have blind spots, short comings, and yes, we all still have sin in our lives.  Hopefully (and this, I think, is a very good reason God put the “bad stuff” in the Bible), hopefully, we are being honest with ourselves and with God and realizing how frail and human we are so that we can receive His grace and strength.  We can live a life dead to sin and to our sin nature by allowing the cross to do its work in our life but that work will not be complete this side of Heaven. Knowing this keeps us from either giving into blatant sin but also from falling into the trap of the Pharisees.  I think God was saying this,  ”I love you!  I see everything. I know everything. You cannot be perfect. I am God and you are not and yet I fully accept and love you so just let me be in charge.”

Romans 6

¹What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

²God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?

³Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

⁴Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

⁶Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

⁷For he that is dead is freed from sin.

⁸Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

⁹Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

¹⁰For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.

¹¹Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹²Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

¹³Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

¹⁴For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

¹⁵What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

¹⁶Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

¹⁷But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

¹⁸Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

¹⁹I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

²⁰For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

²¹What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

²²But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

²³For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is simple and it is profound. We were created for one thing and that is to be deeply connected to and in intimate relationship with Jesus.  He is both the God of the universe and the Son of Man who still loves to hang out with sinners. He always has time and is never in a hurry. It seems that when I have those times of deep fellowship, those incredible encounters behind the veil, I am so overcome by His love and how He has forgiven and rescued me that all I can do is weep.  It’s not a sadness but a thankfulness.  In the secret place with Jesus is really the only place that we can clearly see who we are and who He is and that revelation coupled with knowledge of what He has done for me disarms me completely.

It reminds me of the story of Mary Magdelene.  She had seen and heard Jesus before I’m sure and in the light of her own desperate need and the revelation of exactly who He was all she wanted to do was to pour out the best of what she had and kiss his feet (that’s how I feel!).  The men around her scoffed and pointed out that the oil she “wasted” on Jesus could have been sold and given to the poor but really they were just uncomfortable with an expression of such real worship and raw honesty that they themselves were unwilling or unable to enter into.  If we are to be truly in His presence, except for on superficial terms, we cannot hide who we really are.  We cannot hide our human depravity and the many wounds that come along with being human.  When we take that step, we realize that our sins and hurts are met with a love so incredible and by a God so pure that the only sane response is to fall in love with Him and worship at His feet.

That’s how it is every time. Over and over again I fall in love with Him.  I can’t play beautiful music or even sing a song in tune so I weep in His presence and write a few feeble words and long for Him with every fiber of my being when I am not in that place.  Right now, if I could sing, it would be this song.  Enjoy and worship Him.   

^{Luke 7:36-40 NLT}

³⁶ One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat. ³⁷ When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume. ³⁸ Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.

³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”

⁴⁰ Then Jesus answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”

“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.

⁴¹ Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver^[i] to one and 50 pieces to the other. ⁴² But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”

⁴³ Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”

“That’s right,” Jesus said. ⁴⁴ Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair.⁴⁵ You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.

⁴⁷ “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” ⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹ The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”

⁵⁰ And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”