gifts

Ever Giving Lord

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“Our Lord Jesus is ever giving, and does not for a solitary instant withdraw His hand. As long as there is a vessel of grace not yet full to the brim, the oil shall not be stayed. He is a sun ever-shining; He is manna always falling round the camp; He is a rock in the desert, ever sending out streams of life from his smitten side; the rain of his grace is always dropping; the river of his bounty is ever-flowing, and the well-spring of his love is constantly overflowing” (Charles Spurgeon).

I remember a famous writer once said that you can never outgive God. I’ve never forgotten those words in all the years since I first read them. I’m finding them to be more and more true the older I get.

That’s the way God works. You go to serve in a homeless ministry or in a greeting capacity at a local church and end up getting way more blessed in return. It helps to remember that absolutely everything we own and all of our abilities we use to give were first gifts from God. We can never give anything back to God or to anyone else that God didn’t give to us first.

Sometimes, I think the only thing we offer God that’s ours is us. Our surrender. Our willingness. Our obedience. But even those are responses to the overflow of God’s love toward us, like us offering God a thimble of love from the ocean He washes over us.

But God is ever merciful and ever giving. He never ceases to give and bless and overwhelm His people with good things. They may not always look like blessings at first glance, but those with eyes of faith know.

Thank You, Lord, for every single blessing and gift — especially the small ones that I take for granted every day. I could never in a billion years come close to paying back or matching Your gifts to me. May I be a conduit for Your blessings to flow through me to others so that they can know You and know the joy of Your blessings. Amen.

Don’t Miss This Chapter

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Personally, I’d rather skip to the good part. That’s the danger of the DVR age where you can record stuff off of the television and skip all the commercials and boring parts. We think that somehow God owes it to us to remove us from the boring or painful parts of life and take us directly to the good stuff.

But the boring and painful parts are where we learn and grow and become the people who are ready for the good stuff. I’ve heard and I truly believe that if God gave us everything we wanted right now (even if it was all good and godly things), it would destroy us.

Part of God’s timing is getting the thing we’re about to receive ready. Part is getting us ready to receive it. Both are necessary. Also, we learn to appreciate the good more when we’re in a season of bad. Or just in a season of not as good.

Sometimes, God uses this life to remind us not to settle down here. We need to be reminded that this is not our forever home. The world as it is is a beautiful but broken place, and we are wonderfully made but also broken people living in it. Until both are fixed, it’s not fit for eternity.

So God uses the parts I’d rather skip to teach me. He uses the parts that at the time make no sense to prune me and mold me and shape me into someone who looks and sounds and acts a whole lot like Jesus. He takes those seemingly never-ending boring parts to cultivate in us a spirit of patience and longsuffering and joy and peace that we would not otherwise learn if life were all fun and games and good parts.

Our part isn’t to figure out what God is doing or to try to manipulate Him into skipping the parts we don’t like. His part is to make us like Jesus and into people who are ready to receive what He’s prepared for us from the foundation of the world. Our part is to trust and obey.

Gratitude on Thanksgiving Eve

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I know it’s not officially a thing, but Happy Thanksgiving Eve, everyone! I figure if Christmas can have a Christmas Eve, then Thanksgiving should as well. It’s time Turkey Day got some love after years of being overshadowed by all the glitz and glamor of Christmas.

But on this particular Thanksgiving, I want to take time to focus on gratitude. Even as my temp job came to an end yesterday, I am still thankful. I know that people out there around the world would love to have one of my bad days where I still slept in a warm bed with a roof over my head and a full stomach. They’d love to have access to clean drinkable water while I can’t decide between brands of sparking water.

It’s impossible to give thanks and be envious or entitled in the same breath. You can’t actually do both. You will either live in a world of resentment and bitterness over what you don’t have that you think you deserve, or you will live in a world where anything good is a gift from God not to be taken for granted.

If I’m honest, I know what I am apart from the grace of God. I know I deserve nothing good from the hand of God. I also know I have been the recipient of grace upon grace. Even the next breath is a gift that I don’t deserve but that I will receive gladly. That is not me beating myself up. It’s me admitting that I am a member of the human race that is fallen and is unable to save itself and needs Jesus.

If I took the time to list out all the gifts I’m grateful for from the biggest to the smallest, I imagine I could spend the rest of my life writing it all down. I could even take the rest of eternity coming up with more reasons for gratitude. I think that even forever in heaven all our thanks will fall short of naming all the goodness of God to us or uncovering all that He truly is.

But I can say thank you. I can live in gratitude. I can remember that people all over the world would love to have my bad days that would be better than their best days. I can pray for them and pray that God can use me and my little gifts possibly to make an impact in their world as I continue to pour out thanksgiving.

Nothing Else Will Do

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I’m excited. My church is weeks away from moving to a permanent campus where everything will be brand new and shiny. I’m reminded of the metaphor Jesus used about believers being a city on a hill, because this new location is literally sitting on a hill over looking the intersection.

I’m super hyped, but I’m also smart enough to know that the honeymoon won’t last. More accurately, I’ve hopefully learned by now through lots of times where I got excited only to see the enthusiasm fade and normalcy fade in.

I can remember all those Christmas gifts that I was thrilled to get. I remember how I felt, but looking back, I can’t remember the specific gifts any more. They lost their luster and faded from my memory. Some of them even ended up in garage sales a few years later.

That’s how it goes with anything I set my heart on this side of eternity. Anything less than God won’t fill that God-shaped yearning in me. Or as C. S. Lewis put it, anything that isn’t eternal is eternally out of date and obsolete.

I look forward to our move-in date in late May. I hope I will always be grateful for this gracious gift on God’s part. But I know that at some point, it will be just a building. More than likely, it will require maintenance and updating and repairs. And at some point, it will be no more.

But what it represents and what our church is all about (and every true Bible-believing church is all about) won’t ever fade or get stolen or moth-eaten or rust. The hope of God-with-us revealed in Jesus will only get better and more wonderful and more glorious over time, past time, and into eternity.

Merry Christmas Adam

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Everyone knows that tomorrow is Christmas Eve. But does everyone also know that today is Christmas Adam, which precedes Christmas Eve. Celebrate in style with a McRib at McDonald’s!

Actually, all those dreams I’ve had of a white Christmas this year are being replaced by the reality of thunderstorms and tornado watches. In this case, the line “Hail, the Son of Righteousness” is quite literally coming true in some places with actual hail.

I’m hoping and praying that all my Nashville friends out there are safe and sound in the midst of tornado warnings.

I’m also praying that in the midst of the shopping frenzy, people will remember that what counts most aren’t the gifts under the tree as much as the Gift lying in a manger.

I confess that for me it’s a time to watch all the classic movies like Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, and White Christmas and to listen to my vast collection of Christmas music.

Still, it’s also a time for me to reflect and remember the birth that changed history as we know it. There would be no Golgotha and no Resurrection without a Bethlehem. There could be no Risen Savior with Scarred Hands and Feet with out a Child Wrapped in Swaddling Cloths and Lying in a Manger.

Maybe I’m like a broken record when it comes to Christmas, but I don’t care. I do love Christmas. Yes, for the nostalgia and warm fuzzies, but also for the way in which the impossible became glorious reality in the form of Emmanuel, God with us.

So be sure to have all your presents bought and wrapped. Have plenty of eggnog and cheer. But don’t forget to leave room on your schedule and in your heart for the babe born to be a sacrifice for you and me.

And God bless us, everyone!

 

Awakenings and The Gift of Being Alive

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awakenings-DI-3

“Leonard Lowe: We’ve got to tell everybody. We’ve got to remind them. We’ve got to remind them how good it is.

Dr. Sayer: How good what is, Leonard?

Leonard Lowe: Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It’s all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They’ve forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!” (Awakenings, 1990).

First of all, when did this movie get to be 25 years old? Where was I? Why wasn’t I consulted about this occurrence?

I do so love this movie. It reminds me of what a gift being alive is. It reminds me of the blessings of all those things that I daily take for granted that so many people don’t get to experience– waking up, breathing in fresh air, having the freedom to go and do as I please, being able to worship God freely.

The saying goes that every day may not be a good day, but there is good in every day. No matter how hard-pressed or stressed you are, you can still find the good if you look for it. Even in the midst of incredible loss and grief, there are blessings waiting to be found.

You have to train your eye. If you expect bad to happen, that’s all you’ll see. If you expect good, you’ll find it. You project onto others what you see in yourself (I learned that in one of my Psychology classes way back in my Union University days).

The best way is to look for God in every situation. You’ll find Him and you’ll also see whatever you’re going through in the best possible light.

As a friend of mine always says at the end of his blogs, just you think about that.

AWAKENINGS-1990_portrait_w858

What’s In Your Hands, Kairos-Style

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Mike Glenn spoke about a boy with some bread and fish. Actually, he spoke about the parable of the feeding of the 5,000 from Mark 6, but that story wouldn’t have been possible without that boy who had the five loaves of bread and two fishes. Ok, Jesus probably could have conjured up a feast out of nothing, but he chose to use the obedience of this one little boy to bless a hungry multitude.

In the end, the too few with the too little had fed the too many with too much left at the end (as Dr. Glenn put it). What started out as as the dollar menu special from Captain D’s ended up with twelve baskets of leftovers, one for each disciple.

That said, I have to ask myself one question. Maybe this question is for you: what do you have in your hands?

Maybe to us it doesn’t seem like much. Maybe it seems like practically nothing. When you’re dealing with anywhere from 17,000-20,000 people (including the 5,000 men that Mark mentions in the story), two fish and five loaves of bread aren’t going to go very far.

Maybe what you have in terms of talents, gifts, passions, and desires seems very inadequate for God to use. But then, God’s not interested in your abilities and talents and much as your availabilities and willingness to serve.

Jesus took those twelve uneducated disciples and poured His life into them. In the end, they were twelve who went out and turned the world upside down (or more accurately, turned an already upside down world right-side up again).

Who knows what God can do with that paltry offering you hold in your two hands? Who knows the far-reaching impact of your small sacrifices, far beyond anything you can imagine or will probably ever know, to reach people you never dreamed of reaching and touch far more lives than you ever thought possible.

So when God comes calling, and He will, open up your hands and give Him what you have. Then be prepared to be amazed at what He does with it.

 

Lessons from The Bishop’s Wife

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bishops-wife1

I wonder how many of us are already overwhelmed by the prospect of buying all those Christmas gifts. Maybe you’re stressing about what to give that certain person who is so hard to buy for. Or maybe you don’t know how you’ll manage to find the time to buy and wrap all those presents and still manage to get everything else done.

I think I have an idea.

Maybe the gift you really need to be concerned about is the main gift you’ll ever give. As the main character in the movie The Bishop’s Wife says, “We’ve remembered everybody except one — that child born in a manger so long ago.” What will we give Him?

Talk about hard to buy for! This child, Jesus, already owns it all. The cattle on a thousand hills? Already got it. All the gold in Fort Knox? Already His.

So what can you give Jesus this year?

Maybe the best present you can give is to be present to Jesus. Maybe the best gift you can give is you. Not your time or your money or your best intentions, but you.

In other words, what Jesus wants more than anything from you this Christmas is your surrendered heart. What He desires is every part of you– the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it.

The good news is that no matter how badly you’ve screwed your life up, Jesus still wants it. No matter how much of a mess you’ve made of you, Jesus still wants you, just as you are right now. Not as you could be, but as you are in this very moment.

The better news (or maybe even the best news of all) is that Jesus takes you as you are but refuses to leave you that way. He promised to help you become every bit of who He made you to be. And it’s never too late in this lifetime to be all that God made you to be.

So that’s one less present you have to worry about, right?

I Absolutely Refuse to Refer to Wednesday as Hump Day Anymore

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Funny-Camel-25

There. I got your attention, didn’t I?

I don’t have any moral or religious objections to the phrase “hump day” or even that  talking camel. I just think the whole joke’s been overdone a tad. And by a tad, I mean a gazillion times too many.

My Wednesday was just fine. How was yours?

It rained where I was. Not a downpour, but a pleasant soft-falling rain that always soothes and calms me. Except when I have to drive in it. Or more accurately, when I have to drive amongst all those others who absolutely cannot drive in the rain.

Wednesday means that the work week is halfway over. Wednesday means that only two more days remain until that blessed event called Friday and the start of the weekend.

I’m thankful for Wednesdays and not just because of being halfway to Friday. I’m thankful that I woke up this morning and that I have a job and that I still have a God who loves me in spite of my plethora of quirks and failings and broken promises.

I’m thankful for the rain that will bring growth and new life. And hopefully less humidity.

I’m thankful because I know that I already have exceeded the amount of blessings that I truly deserve. I far exceeded that a long time ago.

How many blessings do I truly deserve? None. But how many do I get in spite of that? Too many to count. Too many that I take for granted and don’t even see.

If God told me my bag of blessings was empty and I had used them all up, I’d be okay with that. If God never did one more thing for me, He’d still have been way, way better to me than I ever could have hoped or deserved. In a million lifetimes.

I call that a good Wednesday.

 

The Face of God

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mosaic
I get emails from the Henri Nouwen Society with daily meditations on them. I thought today’s was especially good and reminded me of a blog I’d written a few years back. This one’s better.

I love the imagery and the idea that every believer carries the image of God, but only collectively can the true imago dei of God be seen and truly appreciated.

“A mosaic consists of thousands of little stones. Some are blue, some are green, some are yellow, some are gold. When we bring our faces close to the mosaic, we can admire the beauty of each stone. But as we step back from it, we can see that all these little stones reveal to us a beautiful picture, telling a story none of these stones can tell by itself.

“That is what our life in community is about. Each of us is like a little stone, but together we reveal the face of God to the world.  Nobody can say: ‘I make God visible.’  But others who see us together can say: ‘They make God visible.’ Community is where humility and glory touch.”

I think that says it all. People do see God in us individually, but people see God best when we are living in community. That’s where our unique gifts, talents, passions, and abilities come together to form something that collectively is more than the sum of its parts. That’s the Church.

So think about that the next time you’re gathered together with believers. You’re not just a group of people, but a work of art– a mosaic– displaying the great worth and glory of God.