incarnation

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.

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!

And The Star Stopped

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“And so they left, and on their way they saw the same star they had seen in the east. When they saw it, how happy they were, what joy was theirs! It went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was” Matthew 2:9, 10 GNB).

I never thought about that part of the story. I’ve heard all my life about those wise men who travelled so far to see this baby Jesus. I knew they had a star to guide them.

But I never thought about how they knew when to stop looking and start worshipping.

Most people chased hopes like the cartoon of the rabbit chasing a carrot that is always dangling in front of him, just out of reach. Yet that silly old rabbit keeps chasing.

I’ve chased after my share of hopes, did a lot of running, and never got any closer to realizing them than when I started. Sometimes, I got to a place where I could see my hopes but couldn’t find a way to actually get there.

But the beautiful part of the story of Christmas is that true hope and true joy are always accessible to the ones searching for them. They can not only be found, but embraced and cherished and celebrated every single day.

Hope is not wishful thinking. It is a reality so certain that it is as good as done. In other words, it is a future event so guaranteed that it can be spoken of in past tense.

May you rediscover hope this Advent season. Or may you find it for the first time.

Not only is it available, Jesus Himself offers it to whomever will simply reach out and take it.

Will you? Will I?

I hope so.

Another Beautiful Advent Prayer

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“Lord Jesus,

Master of both the light and the darkness, send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.

We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.

We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us.

We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom.

We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.

We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.

To you we say, ‘Come Lord Jesus!’

Amen”

PS We who have felt abandonment, rejection, alienation, loneliness, and being forgotten yearn for Immanuel, God with us, to come among us and remind us of our worth in the eyes of our Abba and Heavenly Father.

Amen.

Advent Is For You

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Maybe you know the feeling.

Maybe a certain someone at work is friendly to everyone else but you.

Maybe you’ve set your heart on someone only to have that feeling go unreturned and maybe even unackowledged.

Maybe you feel alone in a crowd, unwanted and invisible.

Maybe you’ve even felt that the world would be better off without you in it.

Maybe you feel like no one will ever choose you, that no one will ever desire you, that no one will love you in the way you’ve always dreamed of being loved.

Advent says differently.

Advent says God saw you at your worst and thought you were worth saving.

Advent says God loved you so much and couldn’t bear to be without you to the point that He put on human skin to be born in the lowliest way to the lowliest people to show that no one is beneath His grace.

Advent says that God’s love for you is more than academic and theoretical. That love led Him from a manger to a cross, where His death once and for all gave your life meaning and purpose and value. He really did think you were to die for.

In the next 13 days, it’s always good to remember those we love and choose gifts that represent how much the people in our lives mean to us.

But don’t forget the best gift is already given. The best gift came wrapped in cloth, delivered in a dirty animal feeding trough, born to die so that you who are dead may know what it means to come alive to God and everything good.

What is my gift in return? Me. What is your gift? You.

Not your good works. Not your best intentions. Not your trophies and awards.

You. Right where you are, just as you are, warts and scars and all.

Like 2,000 years ago in a little barn, all God is looking for is a place to start.

An Advent Prayer I Love

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advent-prayer-service-

I found this when I was scrolling through some old notes I had posted on Facebook. And by old, I mean from 2010.

This one caught my attention, not just because it’s from one of my favorite authors of all time, but because it is such a beautiful prayer for this Advent season. I hope it blesses you as it has blessed me every time I’ve read it:

“O Lord, how hard it is to accept your way. You come to me as a small, powerless child born away from home. You live for me as a stranger in your own land. You die for me as a criminal outside the walls of the city, rejected by your own people, misunderstood by your friends, and feeling abandoned by your God.

As I prepare to celebrate your birth, I am trying to feel loved, accepted, and at home in this world, and I am trying to overcome the feelings of alienation and separation which continue to assail me. But I wonder now if my deep sense of homelessness does not bring me closer to you than my occasional feelings of belonging. Where do I truly celebrate your birth: in a cozy home or in an unfamiliar house, among welcoming friends or among unknown strangers, with feelings of well-being or with feelings of loneliness?

I do not have to run away from those experiences that are closest to yours. Just as you do not belong to this world, so I do not belong to this world. Every time I feel this way I have an occasion to be grateful and to embrace you better and taste more fully your joy and peace.

Come, Lord Jesus, and be with me where I feel poorest. I trust that this is the place where you will find your manger and bring your light. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Amen” (Henri Nouwen)

Following a Star and a Promise

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wise-men

I’m prefacing this by stating that I don’t know a whole lot about these wise men of biblical fame. I mean, where did they come from? Were there just three or were there more who accidentally happened to bring the same gifts? (I’m sure that would have been awkward even then).

I do know they came from a great distance based solely on a single star in the sky and the promise of a Messiah, an Anointed One.

I do know it probably took them a few years to make the journey from home to Bethlehem. I also know they didn’t arrive at the location of Jesus’ birth, but probably a year or two later when the family was settled in a home.

I wonder what it was like for them to travel out into a foreign country with nothing concrete to go on except that solitary star and an ancient promise.

I feel like that sometimes. Maybe you do, too.

You’ve stepped outside of everything that’s familiar with only the promises and the presence of Jesus to guide you. You don’t know exactly where you are going or what you will find when you get there, other than that Jesus will be there.

I imagine it would have been so very easy for the wise men to get sidetracked and tempted to settle for a  comfortable oasis along the way. Or maybe a small village where the locals are friendly and the food is good.

I’m certain that the daily ritual of camping for the night, packing it all up, and setting out again got old quick. I get bored on a car trip that lasts more than 5 hours. I can’t imagine 2 or 3 years of constant travelling.

History shows that they were faithful to the journey’s end. They were faithful to the promise, faithful to keep it sacred and safe from men like Herod who wanted to destroy it.

I’m hoping that you and I will be just as diligent and faithful on our own journeys. May you and I find the Christ not only awaiting us at the end of the road, but feel His presence along the way as well.

 

I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie

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As you probably already know from reading earlier posts, I have quite the collection of Bibles. I don’t mean on my iPhone or iPad, either (although I do have TWO Bible apps with a plethora of translations between them). I mean actual Bibles.

I have a 1611 facsimile of the King James Bible. I also have at least one of the following: American Standard Version, New American Standard, Revised Standard Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New King James Version, English Standard Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Amplified Bible, New English Bible, The Message, and The Voice.

I ran out of breath just typing that.

I have lots of Bibles that look pretty and make me look all spiritual and impressive when I tote them under my arm. Not all of them at once, mind you. I only carry one at the time. Two tops.

But for all that, how much of a Bible do I carry inside me? How well do I know this Bible I profess to love, that I boldly proclaim as inerrant, perfect, God-breathed?

And if people are reading my life like the only Bible they will ever read, what kind of message are they getting? Is it that God only loves good little children? Is it that God loves the same causes I do and is against everything I’m against? Is is that you have to jump through all the right hoops and say all the right magic words to get God’s approval?

Or is it that I (like you and everyone else alive) am a broken person living in a broken world, hopelessly lost and estranged from God? Is it how that very God took on skin like mine and came to live among people like me to show me the way Home? To be the way Home?

I don’t have a neat and tidy ending for this post. I don’t have a funny story to close on. I do have the feeling that with all these Bibles, I should know a lot more about THE Bible than I do.

I also know that God is faithful and patient. He wants me to know Him far more than I do most of the time. And He’s very persistent.

I’m praying for a deep hunger and thirst for God’s Word. I want to crave it, to live it, to breathe it, to cherish it, to make it as much s part of me as my own skin.

“Deep within me I have hidden Your word so that I will never sin against You. . . . Your word is a lamp for my steps; it lights the path before me” (Psalm 119:11,105).

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Just About Everything About Your Nativity is Wrong (But Not Everything)

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lego nativity scene

Disclaimer: if you love your nativity scene and don’t want anybody messing with it, you might want to stop reading here. Just FYI. Otherwise, keep goin’. Fun times are ahead.

First of all, the wise men were not at the birth scene. According to Matthew, they didn’t arrive until Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were living in a house and Jesus was probably 2 years old. Already, your nativity scene is getting less crowded.

Also, there was no mean inn-keeper (sorry to burst your bubble, all of you whose dramatic career consisted of playing this one character in the church Christmas pageant). There was probably no inn, either. According to what I’ve learned, the Greek word used for inn in Luke 2 is probably better rendered as “guest room” and was most likely in back of the ancestral home where the family beast of burden would normally stay.

That means there weren’t animals at the birth scene. Again, not 100% for certain, but more than likely not. I don’t know if any little boy showed up and serenaded the Christ child with a drum solo, but it’s doubtful.

As far as the wise men are concerned, there’s no indication in Scripture that there were three of them. Just because there were three gifts doesn’t mean that there were three of them. And they may or may not have been named Gaspar, Melchior,  and Balthasar. For all we know, they could have been named Larry, Curly, and Moe.

The one thing that’s right about your nativity scene is that Jesus is there. The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us. God took on human skin and became Immanuel– “God with us.” The Almighty became an embryo and the Creator became a helpless infant boy.

So you can keep that part of your nativity scene. You can even add in snow if the spirit leads. But remember that Jesus was probably born in spring, not December, so there was likely no snow that night. I just burst yet another bubble of yours. You’re welcome.

God’s YES

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“Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete” (2 Cor. 1:20-22).

So many people think that Christians are all about what and who we’re against. And honestly, we  haven’t done a very good job in dispelling that sentiment. We’re sometimes too eager to condemn the sin and not nearly as willing to love the sinner.

But I have to look at a guy like Adam Lanza and say with all honesty, “That could have been me. But for the grace of God and different circumstances, that could have been me.”

That scares me and comforts me at the same time.

It scares me because it means that I’m not nearly as good as I sometimes think I am. It means that I am just as in need of a Savior now as ever and just as prone to wander from the One I love as ever.

But it comforts me because God has promised to stick with me through everything. He’s stamped his YES on me through Christ and nothing will ever change that.

I think we would do better to show love instead of judgment. We’d do better to reach out to those in trouble instead of later saying thing like “I could have told you that boy would end up like this. I could see it coming a mile away,”

While we were yet sinners, while we were at our most unlovable worst, Christ died for us. He reconciled us to God and now gives us a chance to be a part of reconciling others, too.

I don’t know about you, but I want people to know what and who I’m for. More importantly, I really want people to know that God is for me and for them and has a new start for anyone who’s willing to take him up on it.

That’s all.