Feeling Christmas

This Christmas...

If we feel honored yet suddenly controversial,
let us bear reproach with Mary.

If we feel shocked and betrayed,
let us toss and turn with Joseph.

If we feel the approval of God but the disdain of man,
let us faint with Mary's parents.

If we feel perfect peace and elation at home but unsettled and out of place around our peers,
let us waddle--with a cane--with Elizabeth.

If we feel chastised yet filled with praise, but unable to express it,
let us learn to listen with Zechariah.

If we feel weary and overburdened and put upon,
let us groan with Mary's donkey.

If we feel like we're late to a party we weren't invited to, and our neediness is met with indifference, even contempt,
let us join Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem.

If we feel that we must have planned poorly or misunderstood God's direction, and thus failed our children or caused our family unnecessary suffering,
let us join Joseph and Mary in the stable.

If we feel jerked into an emergency situation for which we are utterly inadequate and completely alone--hour after hour through the long, dark night--soothing, rubbing, babbling platitudes we will to be true, agonizing with and for a loved one--a dependent, simply doing in the moment while shutting out past and present, giving out of emptiness, stretched impossibly beyond the breaking point,
let us join Joseph helping Mary deliver a baby in a stable.

If we feel the elation of surviving an ordeal we never would have chosen for ourselves,
let us consider the One Who deliberately and calculatingly chose to be...

socially unacceptable
"unplanned" and considered illegitimate
poor, cold, hungry, uncomfortable
unwelcome
ignored
hunted and attemptedly slaughtered
a refugee
a nobody
a letdown
called an impostor, liar, devil
flattered and used, hated and slandered
plotted against
betrayed, arrested, condemned
whipped, mocked, spat upon
crucified

...for you. for me. for us.

If we feel the pinch of the narrow road--so much less traveled--
let us remember that it is the only way that leads to Life,
and step into rank beside--surprise!--all of God's especially-favoreds: Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, all those crazy prophets, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul.

Jesus.

If we feel anything,
let us feel awe.

Safer in the storm

We think once the storm is past, that we can breath a sign of relief: We are safe.

But in fact, we are less safe. For it is self-sufficiency and complacency and prayerlessness that are the true danger, the real enemy, not the storm.

It's thinking we are safe and don't need God's help that puts our souls in peril.

Persevere, not interfere

I just caught myself saying in my heart, regarding God's work and promise, "It's not happening fast enough for me." And alarm bells from the Holy Spirit went off in my head: that's what Sarah was thinking when she told Abraham to get a son through Hagar.

"I know God made us a promise, Abraham, but it's not happening fast enough. It must be my fault. [As if I, a mere mortal, could thwart the plan and decree of God.] We thought He meant a son through me, but maybe He didn't. Maybe we misunderstood. [As if His Holy Spirit doesn't help us--yea, make sure--that we understand when we need to, when we really want to.] Take Hagar."

And look at the untold regional and global unrest and terror that that interference has wrought from day one up to the present headlines.

Lord, I submit to Your timing. Enable me to believe You and to persevere, not interfere.

A second chance, to believe

My beloved children, you rejected the chance to believe Me when life was perfect, in that pristine Garden I dreamed up for you.

So now you must learn to believe Me when life is far, far from perfect.

But how precious it will be, when you reflect that
blood-stained,
hard-bought,
refined-in-fire
                     faith back to Me.

When you can say with Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."

"Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith..."

"It is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God..."

"For now we see through a glass dimly, but then face to Face..."