Thanksgiving 2013.

A wonderful feature of Thanksgiving is that like it or not, somewhere along the way someone will put the question to you, "What are you Thankful for?"  And whether it is posed as snarky, condecending or completely sincere, and whether those who answer realize the significance, the question itself ties us back to a concept that is made full in the light of Christ.  People may question many things, but rarely do they question the fact that they should be Thankful...it is built into their operating system.  Thanksgiving is both a remnant of our original design and built into the fabric of religion itself.  However without understanding who God is, What Christ has done and What the Spirit awakens within us, we will never enjoy Thanksgiving to it's fullest.  Our efforts to be thankful fall short.  We end up counting blessings, making lists, sometimes forcing ourselves to dig out something to be thankful for.  But we all have moments of being truly thankful, joyed in such a way that we cannot help but fall to our knees and say "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!"  In this way, Thanksgiving reveals its true and proper nature:  Worship.  It is worship that we are built for, and only when we choose the rightful object of worship do we get our true joy.  Thanks be to God.

Those that don't have Christ may still, of course, be very thankful.  But we miss the real joy if we cannot tie our thankfulness back to the original source.  All thankful joy falls short and is fleeting when it is whispered moment to moment instead of bellowing through all of eternity.

As I have surrendered myself to Jesus, more and more he awakens in me the original intentions of what I was built for:  Worship, Compassion, Joy, Beauty, Justice and Thanksgiving.  It is this new Thanksgiving that I am thankful for this year (and forever), the mere possibility of feeling this emotion.  While I may have recognized the shadow of these emotions before Jesus, it is only now that I am getting the glimpse of the fullness that is available to me.  Jesus came to give sight to the blind, to give sound to the deaf,  and to make the lame walk.  And in this way he has also resurrected in us a living Thanksgiving.

Matthew 11:4
4Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see:5The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy^b are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Prayer of the New Born.

Being Reborn in Christ seems like it is metaphor, but I can’t think of anything more literal; first in the sense of being new again, but also and no less dramatic is the sense that we don’t really know anything. Once Christ has saved us we are wiped clean and just like a new babe, the possibilities are inconceivable. However, we are nearly helpless as new Christians, and yet we are completely anxious and eager to be involved. Even though we have the light of Christ, we are still quite self-absorbed and quite immature. And like a baby’s first coo’s and grunts we begin to pray. We don’t really know how though. We make our lists and offer our counsel to God on the things he should do. We may even feel like prosperity is our right, like mothers milk. We get all excited at all the new things that have come to light in this world, we are eager to speak to God. A new baby is also eager to communicate. We get excited at all we want to express, but because we lack the patience and knowledge, both the born and the re-born can only cry, scream and babble.

It’s necessary though. Patience is required of all parties involved. The eternal God is eternally patient. Prayer is the basic communication with God. He must teach us to speak before we can talk. Before that, we must be able to hear his voice. Like a mother whispering to her child, it is never complicated. Good communication never need be complicated. He must give us words, repeated, given context and meaning before we can begin to know what to ask for. In the beginning, we only know that we want, but not necessarily what we want. Thus our first prayer is really the only prayer we will ever need. It’s a prayer that gives birth to all other prayer. We cry out, finally knowing that what we need and what we want are the same thing. My Daughter cries, “DA!” wanting her earthly father. Someday, that cry will be her first real prayer, “Father!” wanting her heavenly father.

Though life and maturity complicates, the principles don’t really stray from this cry. Answered prayer is not God moving around heaven and earth (not that he couldn’t) to accommodate my righteous requests. Answered prayer is God moving me around to place me in a prime spot to witness what he is doing in my life and the world around me. Clearly I’ll only get a glimpse and more often than not real change is only visible in retrospect. (Switching metaphors now) Answered prayer is knowing the Shepard’s voice and NOT resisting, but submitting to the Shepard’s will. He moves me with a touch or a call into the flow that will lead all of us where we need to be: to the shade when it is too hot, to water when I thirst, and to the very best areas to graze when I am hungry. If I wander he will pursue me. Contentment comes not from ignorance, but from knowing and yet submitting. Answered prayer is not getting what I want, but trusting in what God wants for me, through the drought, through the storm and out among the wolves. If I am lost, I cry out to the only one who saves.

1 Corinthians 3:2
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

1 Peter 2:2
 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—

John 10:25
25Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me,26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all^c; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.30I and the Father are one.” 

Unshakable

When I hear the Truth,

It rings in my Soul:

Reverberating, echoing, sustaining

Those things within me that are right,

And true

And from God.

The intensity of the truth shatters:

All that is false within me,

All that has no substance,

Until only the unshakable remains!

Image.

Think for a moment about what you are worth.  We all wrestle mightily with self-evaluation and valuation.  It is a miserable trek into dark places that cause us to tally up our deeds and mis-deeds to come up with a figure.  It is an insatiable need for approval that causes us to poke and prod at loved ones to determine how much they love us.  It is an empty retort when we answer our own shallow question, "Am I a good person?"  And it is a magnifying glass and a mirror that a dark voice encourages us to hold through all of this.

But God delights in us.  The God of Eternity came to be with his creation, he came to be with Adam and Eve.  He was so delighted with what he had made, that even from just a portion of those initial lives, God was willing to endure the thousands of generations of wickedness that followed.  And he didn't love these generations less, but more!  A promise is made, and God made a plan based on the fullness of his Love.  Mankind would grow, yet not unchecked.  The God of history would burn and shape his people, reaping and sowing season after season and though the weeds overcome his precious grain, he remains sovereign.  We, the promise and the grain, curse God for the pain of existence without even acknowledging the Mercy contained within this notion: it is by His Love is that we exist at all.  (There is an untold, unknowable version of Creation in which God is so hurt by his creation that he wipes it out completely, insuring Order and Justice at the cost of Love and Free-Will.)

It is this decision from which we should determine our value:  That God so Loved the World, that he gave his only Son.  He gave himself for that which He himself had created.  And like a priceless work of Art, we have value not because of our composition, but because of our composer.  He made something so valuable that only he himself could pay the cost to own it.  It is the inward search for value that prevents us from being near our God.  But it is our inherent, if unrealized value that prevents our destruction.  If only we could see how much he loves us, we would cease to consider ourselves at all and take our rightful place absorbed in his presence.  And whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have eternal life. 

Seasons.

Two Seasons. 

Why should I long for the bitterness of Winter?

Why should I resent days filled with unending sunshine?

The Leisure of Summer wears down my resolve,

With warm days,

The bounty of nature,

And the spirit of the carefree.

Who am I to reject these blessings?

Yet the length of the day mocks my sloth.

Like a fungus growing in the damp heat, summer incubates my wickedness.

The impure in me festers in my leisure and boredom.


I ache for Winter to strip me down and to remove my comfort.

Oh God put me to work,

In days that lack enough sunlight to complete the task at hand.

Bring me before you,

Branches: bare and weak,

Ground: cold and hard,

Through the weakness of my dying limbs,

It is only you God that I can reach for.


In the hardest of winters,

Then I know who my master is and who is my sun.

When I have nothing, I know who to turn to.

Clung.

If you have a lot, it’s hard to imagine having to let go of any of it. Even if you have a little, it’s hard to part with anything. But you may be compelled to be less materialistic. Yet even if you manage to let yourself part with “things”, it’s hard to be quiet about it. If you should manage to let go of a great many things, it is a struggle to remember the reason you needed to let go. We struggle to let go of the things that give us security and identity. We hang on to our possessions for more reasons than are evident in the original purchase. And even if we manage to benevolently give it all away, we then find ourselves taking up the identity of the one who benevolently gave it all away. Nobility comes not from doing the right thing, but doing the right thing without drawing attention to it. At either extreme: indulgence or destitution, we find the end of ourselves. Our reaction in this is significant. Will we feel righteous, guilty, condemned or repentant? One puffs up, one sulks, one buries himself and the last runs humbly toward freedom. Contentment in any scenario has to do with letting go of our very selves and attaching our very selves to something greater.

Now instead of letting go, imagine you are clinging to something. Have you ever been so terrified and excited on a ride that your only thought is to get back to safety? Could you imagine riding bareback on a wild horse, with no thought of anything but to just hold on as tight as you can? Have you ever hugged someone with such intensity that you think you might become one with that other person? When you were a child, can you remember being lost? And do you also remember the relief of being found? Can you imagine losing a child, and what you’d give to get them back, and how tightly you would hold them if you could have them in your arms again?

In these descriptions we have the beginning of understanding what it means to give ourselves to Christ. If Jesus is real, and I believe with all my heart and all of my reasoning that he is, then it makes complete sense to surrender to him, to give up our very selves because we trust that there is something bigger at work. The reason Jesus Christ stands out as radical and different amongst belief systems is that in Christ we have God saying, “It is done.” There is nothing we can do to earn our way, do better, try harder, overcome more…it is precisely that salvation is not in our own efforts but born out of his Love for us that makes it so real and amazing and hard and wonderful. We will always come to the end of ourselves. When we do, in life, we find a uniquely significant moment to give ourselves to Jesus. And when we come to the end of ourselves in death we may find ourselves still clinging to some baggage. We may have put our identity in our home or our children or our success or our desire to be the victim or desire to have control over others, money, sex, self-righteousness. All of these things prevent us from truly clinging to the power and the glory that is our God, Jesus. I’ve heard it said, “Heaven is only heaven because Jesus is there.” This makes sense to me. In all things he is everything, so in Heaven this everything would be expressed to the fullest. Heaven then is standing at that final terminal, getting your first full view of the awesome glory of God and then shedding everything to be with him, holding on so tight, with such reckless abandon that you forget yourself and become one with him. This is why the glimpses of Heaven, of Jesus that we have in the here-and-now move us so. They are the whispers of the magnificence of the here-after.

Oceans.

The grace of God is a vast ocean. Completely absorbing and impossible to contain. It is also completely terrifying. As we stand on the shore trying to behold all of it, all of Gods goodness, we are overwhelmed. But it is a good thing, so easy to enter and yet we skim the shore, dabbling but never entering, dipping toes feeling a glimpse of freedom but thinking that getting in is sure death. To surrender to the ocean is to die. To give in to God is to die to ourselves. We construct our vessels of sin, boats to "protect " us from grace. Our sin separates us from God. These boats we build are elaborate buoys of justification, self-deception, greed, shame, pride, and lust. Some are rowboats and some are barges or yachts. All of us cling to our sin...that very thing that keeps us from receiving the vastness of Gods goodness that is waiting just over the bow. If only we would let go and trust in the salvation that waits for us. We gasp and fear the ocean and we quiver in our boats, not realizing that we have been fish flopping on the decks all along...aching to be released.

Selfish...

As troubling as it is when we get a glimpse of just how selfish we are, we should be encouraged.  We should be encouraged because the same force that reveals this ugliness to us is the one that beckons us to change, to not let it be so.  As frustrating as this growth is, we should be all the more joyful that it is there.

Marvelous...

We marvel at ourselves. We take our flashlight out in the midst of the blinding noon day sun and proclaim, “Look how far I can see!” Then night comes and our little light isn’t nearly enough. We curse God for the dark. We despair. We fail to remember, hope for or pray for the dawn. But morning comes anyway, not because we deserve it, but because God is Good. Light pierces the darkness again and finally we marvel at God and we call out to that future time when he will light up eternity and darkness will be no more. Until then I pray for humility and dependency on what the day brings. With hope I’ll endure the night knowing that Joy comes in the morning.

Plucked String

Like a plucked string,

That shudders and vibrates and hums,

The Universe Sings!

The Sun Shouts in its fury to be heard.

But it cannot be heard and silently yields warmth

Into God’s perfection.

It cannot be heard amongst the overwhelming rejoicing

Of every atom in creation.



I stand,

Ears ringing,

Eyes wet,

Arms open,

Silently shouting with the Universe,

Praising God with his own Glory.

I give all, and yet I am not weakened,

Instead I am the better for it.

I shudder and vibrate and hum



I stand,

Ears ringing,

Eyes wet,

Arms raised,

Heart full with pounding Joy.

I am swallowed by the enormity of God.

Knowing, somehow that he loves me.