christianity

My Exciting Friday

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Once again, I’m thankful for Friday. I love how Friday always comes around every week, whether it’s been a great or a really bad week.

I didn’t really have much of a plan. I spent part of the evening with family and part of it in front of the iPad watching Netflix. More specifically, the first episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs and Call the Midwife. Both are BBC series, in case you were wondering.

They can’t all be super exciting and thrilling, right? Sometimes, you need a nice quiet evening at home. Even if you are the ultimate life of the party, like me. Or my cat Lucy.

I have no concrete plans for the remainder of the weekend. I am as always open to suggestions and invitations. I will bring chips and corny jokes.

I can’t help thinking of a Good Friday that didn’t seem so good at the time. They had just crucified Jesus. The most unthinkable and unimaginable had actually happened. Jesus, God in the flesh, was dead.

Of course, we know the rest of the story. That’s what makes Good Friday good.

All we did to Jesus couldn’t stop Him. Not even death and a cold grave could hold Him. After all, nothing is stronger than Love. Not hate, not indifference, not death. Nothing.

When Jesus went into that tomb, He took my sins with Him, but when He came out on Sunday, He left them behind with those grave clothes. I love that part.

So it’s not a bad Friday after all.

Cold Rainy Monday Nights

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I don’t mind the rain. I don’t even mind cold and rainy nights. As long as I’m looking at the rain through a well-insulated window from inside.

Actually, I don’t even mind driving in the rain as long as it’s not dark outside. But that’s what I found myself doing tonight when I took my paycheck to my bank’s ATM on a dark, rainy Monday night. At least it was a short drive.

There’s something very peaceful about listening to rain hitting the windows and the roof. Especially if you have one of those antiquated tin roofs. It’s one of my favorite calming sounds.

It helps me to be still and be quiet. It helps calm my anxious thoughts (if I have any) and not be so prone to thinking ahead to the next day or the next week. I think I even pray better when I hear the rain outside.

I know I need to make time for those moments of doing nothing but being intentionally still and quiet and ready to hear God’s voice. It doesn’t have to be all day or even for an hour. It can be fifteen minutes where I don’t have any televisions or radios or iPhones to distract me from what God might be wanting to tell me.

Maybe we can encourage each other to cultivate those quiet moments during the day. I think it would make a huge difference toward getting my mind back toward spiritual things and my eyes refocused on Jesus.

So those are my thoughts on this wet cold Monday evening.

Amour: How Much Do You Love Me?

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I have now seen 11 out of the 12 nominees for the Best Picture Academy Award from last year’s Oscars. Only one more to go!

I watched Amour, a very touching movie about an elderly man taking care of his wife after she’s had two strokes. I say the film was touching; it was also unflinching and hard to watch at times.

Love is like that. It’s not always the storybook ending and happily ever afters. Sometimes, there are parts you wish you could leave out. Sometimes, “I do” means changing diapers and having to feed your loved one as if he or she were an infant again.

Love is hard. When the one you love can no longer return that love, when they no longer have the means of communicating their love back to you, what do you do?

God calls us to love the unlovable as He first loved us when we were unlovable. Sometimes, I can still be unlovable; you can, too. But God still chooses to love us anyway.

Did you get that?

At every moment, God is choosing to love you and to love me, regardless of whether you or I have shown that we deserve such love.

The truth is that nobody deserves God’s love, but we all need it and we can have it if we will only open our clenched fists to receive that waiting love. And God is such a patient Suitor.

Who will you choose to love who doesn’t deserve it? Who will you choose to forgive who deserves to be cut off instead? Who will you give a second chance to who never deserved the first?

One day, the someone needing love and forgiveness and a second chance will be you. It will be me. Our humanity means we will fall, we will fail, we will make a mess of things and people and relationships.

Yep. All that from watching one movie. With subtitles, no less.

I needed the reminder because I have been guilty of casting stones instead of extending grace. You have, too. We’ve all been harsh and judgmental and unforgiving to those who needed mercy and grace and forgiveness.

The question is not if you’ve loved poorly in the past but if you will choose to love well on this day that God has given you. Will you?

Forgiveness and Grace in January

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“Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family” Henri J.M. Nouwen).

Have you royally messed up with a friend (or at least felt like you have)? Have you ever had someone “let you have it,” verbally blasting you with a post or a text?

Maybe you deserved it. Maybe not.

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Or maybe you’re the one who did the telling off. Maybe you got way upset with someone and spoke in pure anger and frustration. Maybe that person deserved it.

I have some questions for you and me.

1) Since when is the life of a believer about giving people what they deserve? Isn’t it supposed to be about giving those in your life the benefit of the doubt and extending grace?

Which leads to my second question:

2) Would I want Jesus treating me as I deserve? Would I even stand a chance?

I know the answers to the second question are: no, not long, and a snowball’s chance in hell.

Maybe I need to drop that stone in my hand and look in the mirror. I may look just like that person I intend to cast that proverbial first stone at. I may not struggle with the same sins, but my sins would make me just as guilty in the eyes of a holy God if not for grace and Jesus.

It’s one thing to call out a person in love when their actions don’t match their professed beliefs. It’s another to blast someone and assume sinful motives, which I’ve done too many times. And in this case, once is one time too many.

You will lose friendships through misundestandings. You will have “friends” who show their true colors when you act in the slightest unloving way or slip in the least. You will have those who will stick with you even when you yourself would have bailed on you.

I’m glad God doesn’t ever give me what I have coming to me or treat me as my sins deserve. Even on my best days, I’d still be in trouble. Because of my favorite word– grace– God looks at my filthy rags of good intentions and best efforts and sees the perfection of Jesus.

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Gosh, I do so love grace!

PS You will need to forgive yourself at some point. All of the above still applies if it’s you needing the forgiveness from yourself.

My Take on Boycotts and Christmas and All That Jazz

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First of all, let me throw out this disclaimer that these comments do not in any way reflect the opinions of WordPress, A&E, The Duck Dynasty, Cracker Barrel, Starbucks, ABC, or any other establishment. They are mine.

With that in mind, let’s get started.

I’m not in any way a fan of boycotts.

I’m not saying every boycott ever is wrong and everyone who prarticipates should get automatically put on Santa’s naughty list and get coal in their stockings. Here’s what I am saying.

I think boycotts communiate what we as believers are against, not what we are for. To me, that’s not what true Christianity is about. It’s not about what we don’t do anymore or what we’ve stopped doing, but what we do– love others and become more like Jesus– because of what Jesus has already done.

Also, if we boycott a particular place of business, what if one of the results is that people lose their jobs? What if one of these is a decent guy who’s only trying to provide for his family. A guy who didn’t get the luxury of choosing a job where the company’s beliefs line up exactly with his own?

Maybe it’s a guy who goes to my church. Or yours. Is that okay? He didn’t do anything wrong other than try to make a living, yet because the company he works for is “evil,” he is out of a job.

What if God had chosen to boycott humanity? What if God had looked down at Sodom and Gomorrah and all the other epic fails of humanity and decided to give up on the whole lot of us and shop elsewhere?

There would be an empty manger in Bethlehem.

There would be no Shepherds telling miraculous stories about angel choirs and teenage virgin mothers.

There would be no crown of thorns, no purple robe, no cross, no Golgatha.

We’d all be lost without any hope.

I’m just throwing out my own opinions. I think that we don’t have to endorse everything that a company does, but we do have to love the people who work there.

I still love what my pastor said. You don’t fight hate with more hate. That’s like going to a fire and fighting it by starting another fire. You don’t fight fire with fire; you fight it with water.

You don’t fight hate with more hate; you fight it with love, because nothing in the whole universe is as strong or lasting as love.

Especially the love of God as revealed in Jesus, born in a manger on Christmas Day.

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A Prayer Before Sleep

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Lord,

I confess that I am selfish and self-centered, like so many of your children. My comfort comes first and I don’t want to be inconvenienced in any way.

Remind me how you gave up all your comforts above to come dwell among us.

Remind me how you chose a poor teenage girl and a backwoods town and a dirty feeding trough to make your entrance into this world. There was nothing comfortable or convenient about Your arrival.

Remind me how the first to hear the good news weren’t royalty or the high-ranking or the well-to-do but some lowly unwashed shepherds out with their flocks. They were your first evangelists, your first preachers, your first missionaries.

Remind me how you gave up Heaven and all the rights associated with it and chose to become nothing, a slave who was faithful and obedient to the point of a tortuous and excruciating death on a cross.

Remind me how it was all for me. It was all for people just like me.

Never let me forget that you went through all that because you would rather go through hell for me than be in Heaven without me.

Tell me again how You are with me, how You will never leave me nor forsake me, how You will finish what you started in me, and how nothing is too hard for You– not even my stubborn streak and my hard-headedness or my hard-heartedness.

Thank you that Advent means you love me where you found me like I was but you refused to leave me that way.

Amen.

Random Thoughts on a December Friday

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I think I mentioned a few posts back that I was tired. I still am. That’s what working 10+ hour days will do to a person. Especially when you’re talking six days a week of those long hours.

The good news is I have a job and I have money. I’m no Donald Trump about to go buy another island, but I can pay my bills and not have to worry about the next meal. That’s what I call blessed.

I haven’t forgotten that half the world’s population lives on $2 a day or less. Most of them will go to bed hungry, malnourished, and sick from water-b0rn illnesses caused by drinking unsafe water. Half the world’s population has never made or received a phone call, something I take for granted on a daily basis. Who am I to complain about working a few extra hours here and there?

When I get tired, I get cranky. Sometimes, I get sarcastic, although I very rarely let those kinds of comments out into the open air. I’d probably have way less friends and even less of a chance of dating than I do now.

I also get way self-absorbed and a little paranoid. I don’t think so much that people are out to get me, but rather they’re out to abandon me at the first opportunity. Fears that seem irrational during the day can seem very real at night. In the same way, thoughts that I would never entertain for a second when I’m well-rested seem to take root when I am exhausted to think clearly.

It’s a good thing God loves me in all my moods and in all my phases of life and through all my ups and downs. His grace covers it all. That same God that meets me where I am and loves me where I am won’t let me stay there. I’m thankful I’m a lot less self-centered and fearful than I used to be.

I get to sleep in tomorrow. It may not seem like such a big deal to you and normally it wouldn’t to me, but when you’ve had to be at work at 6 am for the past three Saturdays, being able to sleep past 8 am is a welcome change.

I love that when I wake up in the morning, God’s mercies will be new and His faithfulness will be just as fresh as that dew on those flowers in the spring. God is good like that.

In One Week

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Yes, sports fans. Christmas Eve is but seven days away. That’s exactly one week.

In other words, if you’re like me and haven’t even started your Christmas shopping, it’s time to get crackin’.

I recommend online shopping and avoiding any malls like the plague. I also recommend partaking of a cheg-nog (chai tea + egg nog) from Starbucks at least once during the week.

And on a side note, I’ll take a “Merry Christmas” or a “Happy Holidays” in stride. I’d rather hear a “Happy Holidays” spoken with warmth and good cheer any day of December over a “Merry Christmas” spoken with belligerence and hostility.

It’s not as much about keeping CHRIST in CHRISTmas as it is keeping His love and joy in your heart and sharing it with everyone, regardless of whether they say the right season’s greetings.

Rant over.

More than anything this Christmas, I want all my family together happy and healthy, to see my friend who’s in town for the holidays at LEAST once, to have more cheg-nogg, and to finally have time to read my new Ann Voskamp book.

I want Jesus to be at home in my heart and for people to want to meet Him after meeting me.

I want one day to be able to sleep in with no alarm set for a 5 am wake-up call.

I want each of you to have a very blessed and merry Christmas AND a happy 2014!

Untitled Blog #1,239

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Yeah, it was a Monday. A 12-hour workday Monday.

Normally, that recipe makes for one grumpy Greg. But not today.

God reminded me that joy is a choice that I must make every single day, even on a cold winter Monday at 6 am.

Thanksgiving means not seeing a long work day ahead but me having a job, not me having an annoying cough that sounds like a car that won’t start but me being awake and alive.

I still have those people I don’t get. One won’t ever speak to me unless I speak to her first and even then she sometimes doesn’t respond. One I’ve pretty much learned to leave alone and pray for from a distance.

But God still can teach me something in every circumstance and use every person I meet as a blessing, a lesson, or a caution.

I’m learning to slow down and appreciate the small moments, the short conversations, the texts, these moments of quiet grace.

I lost my joy for a little while. I took my eyes off of Jesus and got swamped by worry, fear, and lack. I bemoaned all that I didn’t have instead of practicing the art of thanksgiving for all that I do have.

Right now, I’m thankful for friends who still want to know me after I’ve gone a little nutty on them, white chocolate covered oreos, my Jeep, a faithful 13-year old feline, a warm soft bed, and for Jesus. Most of all, for Jesus.

God Loves Even Hot Messes, Right?

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I confess. I am a mess.

Ooo, I was just a poet and didn’t know it.

But I am a mess.

Sometimes, I frighten people with my friendliness. It comes across too strong a little too early. I am an acquired taste, a bit odd and unusual. And sometimes I confuse someone who is friendly and nice to everybody with someone who genuinely wants to be my friend.

In other words, I’m unique.

So are you.

Maybe you’ve tried way too hard to make someone like you or be your friend.

Maybe you’ve wondered why all the people in your life seem gradually withdraw from you and go away after a while. Maybe even family members. Or spouses. The ones closest to you who you thought would always be there.

Here’s the thing. To God, you’re beautiful. To God, you’re a priceless work of art. To God, your worth is more than the very lifeblood of His only Son, all the agony and torture of a painful death on a cross. You matter.

I’ve come to believe the right people will see your mess and stick around anyway.

The right people will call out the good they see in you and help you to see it in yourself. They will help you remember that song in your heart when you’ve forgotten the words.

Even a Van Gogh painting probably looked like a mess when it was still in progress. And that’s what you are, dear friend.

A work in progress. A masterpiece in the making. Heaven’s poetry etched onto lives, as one translation of Ephesians 2:10 puts it.

Don’t despair. Don’t give up or give in to the pressure to be someone else or (perish the very idea) try to be normal.

Take courage, dear heart. God made you to be you. He delights in you being you. He’s even helping you find your truest self, the “youest” you.

Christmas is all about messes. Do you think the manger scene was pristine? Do you think the place where Jesus arrived was a 5-star hotel? It was not.

If Jesus arrived in the middle of a messy manger, then He above anyone understands what messes look like and how to make them clean. Not better, not improved, but new.

Celebrate that you’re you and no one else. One day, you’ll find out that your part in God’s Story might not have been the leading role, but it was vital to the Story and you made a difference in the outcome.

These are just the thoughts of one hot mess directed to all the other hot messes out there.