I’ve been reading a really fantastic book by Roy Hession called We Would See Jesus. It’s a sequel of sorts to The Calvary Road, another book I highly recommend.

In We Would See Jesus, Roy talks about the name of God, Yahweh and how when God tells Moses to tell His people that I AM has sent you. I AM WHO I AM. So very complete in and of itself. It doesn’t need any outside help, but stands on its own. Like Yahweh.

But the really neat part is where I come in.

In my sinful state, Yahweh says , I AM your righteousness.

In my times of feeling like nobody cares, Yahweh says, I AM your banner.

In my weakness, Yahweh says, I AM your strength.

It amazes me to think that Yahweh doesn’t come with answers to give me or solutions to my problems. He IS my answer. He IS my solution. When I come to Him in my need and in my sin, He becomes my Remedy.

I think tonight I fell into some old pity-party woe is me habits because someone didn’t respond to my facebook post. Or several someones. I know, I know. How juvenile can I get? Apparently, very.

But my Yahweh is my Comfort and my Solace. He is my Reminder of Hope. He is my Hope.

And the ultimate is that the name Jesus comes from the Hebrew Yahushua, which means pretty much I AM your salvation. I AM your deliverance. I AM the one who can take all your sins and failures and fiascos and shortcomings and weaknesses and awkwardness upon myself, pay with my life for your wrongdoing, and give you Me to live inside you and be Your perfection.

I guess I can  never outgrow my need for Jesus. I will never get to the place where I am able to be strong on my own. I will have to settle for being the one who boasts in my weakness because every time Yahweh shows up and His strength is made perfect in my very weakness.

Facebook can be very humbling at times when no one responds to my status updates or blogs or posts. It reminds me that I am not nearly as special and great as I like to think I am. But when I can get over myself, I can find that Jesus, my Yahweh, is my Everything.

Even if only one person reads this, I am not going to be depressed. Ok, maybe a little. But once I get over it, I will trust that my Yahweh will use me in a way that causes not admiration for me, but a deep yearning for Him.

After all, that’s what’s really important.

I was thinking about what Mike Glenn talked about tonight at Kairos. He spoke about Simeon and Anna. Both had dreams of their own that were shattered and unfulfilled, but the one dream both had in common came true for both of them. They both saw their Salvation with their own eyes.

Simeon was an old man who held on to God’s promise past all reasonable expectations of how long he should wait. He was stubborn in his belief that God’s word was true, that he would see the Messiah with his own two eyes before he died. Everything else he held onto, he lost, but that one dream he would not let go. The payoff was him seeing and holding infant Jesus in his arms.

Anna was a widow who had spent a lifetime learning true worship. Her days and nights were spent at the temple, praying and praising God. She too waited long past when most people would have given up and given in to see her Hope, Jesus.

I want to be like those two. I want to hold fast to God. I want to be like Jacob, who wrestled with God and would not let go until God blessed him. I want to be stubborn and tenacious in my faith, pursuing God through seasons of plenty and seasons of want, though blessing and famine, no matter what. I want to be able to come to the point where if I have to choose, I choose to let my other dreams die and hold fast to God’s promise of Himself.

“My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace, nor even blessing. but Himself, my God” (Roy Hession).

May that be your prayer as well as mine. May our witness to the world be that we loved God wholeheartedly and loved each other in the same way.

I could add my own comments about this beautiful hymn, but I think I will let it speak for itself. There’s a reason it has lasted all these years.

“O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.”
May brighter, fairer be.

“Look what the Lord has done for me! My people were ashamed of me, but now the Lord has taken away that shame” (Luke 1:25).

Elizabeth, wife of Zacharias, was defined by her inability to have children. That was her shame that she carried for years and how people referred to her. How many of us are defined by our shame? It could be infertility. It could be  verbal, physical, or sexual abuse from our childhood. It could be a secret sin we’ve struggled with. Whatever the case, we have felt shame and disgrace.

But just at the right time, when hope seemed so very past tense, Jesus came. He came into the world not with pomp and circumstance, but in a lowly and humble manner. He came to identify with us in our shame, to take that shame, and ultimately to bear that shame with our sins and failures on the cross.

He removed from us the name Ashamed. He has given us new names. He calls us Beloved, for we are more loved by God than we could possibly imagine or contain.  He calls us Beautiful, for He has taken the ugliness of our wounds and scars and covered them over with His grace. He calls us Blessed, for we have been given the victory over the past that haunted us and the events that formerly shaped our worlds.

Just as Elizabeth had given up on her dreams by the point Gabriel visited Zacharias and told him the news, so had we. Our hopes were crushed, our dreams turned to dust, and our faith gone. But no longer.

When our faces are turned upward in worship, we are no longer covered with shame. We are covered by the glory of Jesus. We are wrapped in grace and mercy. We never again will bear reproach.

Thank you, Jesus for turning my shame into something glorious and beautiful. Eternity is not long enough for me to ever tell you what that means to me.

As usual, I have my list of people to buy presents for. Parents, sister, brother-in-law, nephews, grandmother, friends, etc. The list goes on. But what about the Child in the manger? The one who became the Messiah and Savior? What will I give Him this year? What would He want from me? After all, it is His birthday we’re celebrating.

I think more than any talent or activity, He wants my heart. He wants me to love who He loves, to hate what He hates for what it does to the people He loves. He wants my heart to break for the things that break His heart. He wants every ounce of my passion and emotion to burn for Him and Him only.

Also, I think He wants me to be able to recognize Him in His various guises. He may be that person sitting by themselves at Kairos or the homeless lady pushing a shopping cart down Broadway. He may the AIDS patient spending Christmas alone in a hospital room or a mother grieving over the children she will never have. Wherever the least of these are, He’s there.

He wants me to not just recognize Him there, but to feed Him, clothe Him, minister to Him, cry with Him, and spend time with Him. When we give even a cup of cold water in His name to one of the outcast and broken, we are giving it to Jesus.

He wants me to be Him to those around me. He wants others to see Jesus in me and not pat me on the back or say how great and wonderful I am, but how glorious and awesome is this Jesus! After all, the only beautiful part of me is Jesus in me, shining through me, and loving others with my hands, my feet, and my heart.

That’s what I want to give Jesus for His birthday: me.

I found out the hard way that sometimes blessings come through brokenness and restoration comes in the form of loving rebuke. I found out some things about myself that I didn’t like. I found out that I was quite frankly being a bit of an idiot in an area of my life.

I am socially awkward at best. I know that. But I apparently come on too strong without meaning to when I am trying to get to know a girl. My intentions are friendship, but I think I try too hard. No, I know I try too hard. So that’s out in the open. I had a friend tonight who gently rebuked me on that, for which I am eternally grateful and indebted.

Sometimes, the sin is not necessarily in transgressing God’s laws or in overt rebellion againt God, but it is a failure to be weak enough to let God do all and be all in and through me. When I think I can somehow manipulate or contort my way in a situation, it means I am not trusting God nearly enough.

And sometimes when I am wronged or hurt, I have to recognize that my own angry reaction to that hurt is just as sinful. Roy Hession says that the wrong action is like the splinter in my friend’s eye, but my unloving reaction is like a beam in my own eye. I can only be convicted of my own sin and must first confess my fault and take it to the cross and leave it there.

This blog feels like a complete mess, but that’s what I feel like. A beautifully broken, holy mess that God loves. I am a work in progress, but I am also the one Jesus loves.

Jesus, thank you for brokenness, for without it I can never truly be made whole.

Amen.

Chris August has a song called No Far Away. The gist of the song is that God is never far away, no matter where we end up in life. And whenever we try to run from God, we end up running to God instead. Whether I’m climbing spiritual heights or bunking in hell, God is there. I like that God is near. The same God who came near to us as an infant is never more than a whisper away.

I am left without words after another fantastic night of fellowship. I have friends who take me as I am and love me that way. My family loves me, and I consider this group to be part of my family now. I think I am beginning to really grasp true authentic biblical koinonia (greek for fellowship) where the Jesus in others meets the Jesus in me.

I love the fact that my cat brings me presents. She left me a freshly-killed Christmas sock today in her food bowl. Either that or it’s a supplication to the food bowl gods for more food.

If you are open to God and all He has for you, life becomes a series of surprises. You never know where or how He will lead, only that He has never and will never steer you wrong. That I know for sure. If you have your eyes open and are really awake to the mysteries, you will see God all around you and His handiwork in every part of your life.

Jesus, you are my everything. You love me through so many ways and so many people. You can take a goober like me and make me a vessel to pour out your love to the world. That never fails to boggle my mind. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!