Daily Thought #11 - Making God Smile

I have a confession. Last year, I didn't really put much energy into Christmas. Not such a big deal for most of you, but usually I am INTO Christmas. I have boxes of decorations. I didn't touch them. I have a fake tree and a real tree stand. No tree. I bought presents and went to parties and celebrated Christmas on the outside. But inside, I didn't really celebrate it. Maybe I needed a break, I'm not sure. But apparently, to make up for it, I am ready to celebrate early this year. I definitely have already broken out the Christmas carols. Crazy, but true.

This morning, as I was cleaning to the sounds of Christmas carols, one of my least favorite carols of all time came on. The Little Drummer Boy. For those of you who like this song (like my best friend), I apologize. I'm just not a fan. Musically, it leaves a lot to be desired. Lyrically, it leaves a lot to be desired. (Parum-pum-pum-pum? Really?) But as I was listening to it today, I was suddenly struck by the vision of it.

I am a poor boy, too.

I have no gifts to bring

fit to set before a king.

Shall I play my drum for you?

So the little boy plays his drum as best he can and Jesus smiles at him. The gag factor is fairly high (although nothing beats "Christmas Shoes"!). Yet, as I listened to it, honest tears welled up in my eyes. It amazes me how a deep truth can be wrapped up in the imperfect lyrics of a less-than-fantastic song.

The picture is still true. We have no gifts fit to set before a king. We are so poor compared to God! He has everything and we have only ourselves. But our life is our gift for Him. When we live our lives for Him, doing the best we can, He smiles. When our entire goal in life is to honor Him to the best of our limited ability, He receives it. How amazing is that? God could kill any of us in an instant for any number of reasons. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-creating. Everything that exists only exists because He created it. Yet, He desires us to come before Him and to play for Him. It brings Him joy and pleasure.

Sometimes I forget that God is so big. Sometimes I like to think that I have some great talent or idea to offer him. In reality, I am more like a not-so-well-written Christmas song. And my offerings have all the lyrical quality of "parum-pum-pum-pum." But when I play my best for Him, He smiles. He is honored. He loves me. What an amazing thought!

A Natural Rhythm

For a while now, I've been reading about New Monasticism. (When I can squeeze in a few pages of non-school reading, that is!) One of the things which has really struck me is the monastic emphasis (both traditional and new monasticism) on rhythms. Rhythms of prayer. Practicing the presence of God. Rhythms of nature and cycles of the community.

Another reason I've been thinking about this is because my sleep rhythm was all messed up, and I wasn't sleeping well for a few weeks. That got me to thinking, do we have any idea what natural rhythms are anymore? When I say "we," I mean the typical American. We live in an electric-light lit, 24-7 shopping, caffeine-fueled, removed-from-nature world. What the heck is rhythm? Doesn't it seem sometimes like we just constantly move from busyness to busyness, hopefully with a little bit of sleep in between, but at least there's always Red Bull?

God started the creation of the world with a series of rhythms. Night and day. Rest on the 7th day. Beat, beat, rest. Repeat. Then when He gave us the law, He filled it full of rhythms. Sabbath, crop rotation, sacrifice, cleanliness rituals, Jubilee. Endless cycles of 3 and 7. Beat, beat, rest.

Now "Sabbath" is a few minutes at church on Sunday between mowing the lawn and helping the kids with homework and running to Costco. We work night shifts. We stay up late because late at night is the only time we have to do what we want to do.

Not only are we missing the rhythm of our individual lives, we miss the rhythm of a shared community life. We live in isolated homes with pockets of immediate family only. Our community is often scattered, sporadic, or even non-existent. When we do try to be in community, our efforts are often stifled by conflict, misunderstanding, and moving. We have no natural rhythms of prayer or worship or shared meals to bring us alongside those with whom we have conflict.

On the other hand, we often tend to view this lack of rhythm as "freedom." Rhythms may seem dull, meaningless, or just a type of "vain repetition." But as a very wise friend of mine pointed out recently, vain repetition has a lot more to do with our heart than with our actions. Anything we do can become vain repetition if our heart isn't in it. I think we need to rediscover patterns of events in our lives. To develop rhythms of being.

The challenge, then, is to find a rhythm and then to stick to it with a heart that is actively involved. I'm working on trying to figure out personal rhythms for my own life. Rhythms of worship and prayer and quiet. I know that I have a tendency to forget what God has done in my life, so I am working out a rhythm of reading old journal entries to remind myself of where I have been and what God has done for me.

I don't usually ask questions, but is there a rhythm in your own life that you would like to try and set up? What is it and why?

Reflection on an Excavation

It's been a while since I've posted. School and work and life have been keeping me quite busy, I'm afraid. But I'm home sick today so I thought I would try to write a little something.

I've been looking at my journal from this time last year. What a long, long year it has been! My best friend recently described my life as an "excavation." At this time last year I was begging God to transform me, to mold me, to make me as He would have me to be. And so He has been doing. But in order to do that, He has been digging up everything that I used to know and relaying the foundations. It is a laborious, painful, and sometimes overwhelming process.

I look back at the last year and I wonder: would I have chosen to go forward if I had known what the year ahead would bring? Sometimes knowing the future is worse than finding it out daily. Looking back, I can easily say that I don't regret a single thing from this past year. What a thing to say! It has been hard, but it has been good. I am exhausted and confused, sometimes overwhelmed, but I know clearly that I am a much healthier and better person than I was. I have no desire to go back.

On the other hand, I've been struggling in recent weeks with feeling like I'm not going anywhere, not moving toward anything. I'm just living in the mess of an excavation (a remodel, if you will), with no end in sight. I feel quite like a small child on a long journey. I'm cold and I'm tired and I keep asking where we're going and when we're going to get there. I'm cranky. But I know that in the end, I must put my hand in God's and trust that He knows where He is taking me and how to get there. I think this is part of what Jesus meant when He said we must have faith as a child. Not that we can't be tired or cranky, but that we have to be willing to trust in Him even when we can't understand what's happening.

I want to be excited about the next year, but I'm honestly too tired to be excited. Instead, I will settle for being peaceful. Because I know that even if my life continues to be a messy project of foundation laying, eventually a new building will be put in place. And one of God's design. Not a flimsy house of sticks or straw that I built of my own strength, but a sure and firm house, able to withstand the storms because it was built by God. With no regrets!

Daily Thought #10: A Quotation

In his biography of [Dorothy] Day, Robert Coles writes about how she understood working from the bottom to be "Christ's technique." "She was always taking Jesus as seriously as possible," Coles observes. "She was always trying to remember that He was an osbscure carpenter who in His early thirties, did not go talk with emperors and kings and important officials, but with equally obscure people, and thereby persuaded a few fishermen, a few farm people, a few ailing and hard-pressed men and women, that there was reason for them to have great hope." - quoted in New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Thinking About the Spirit

It's been a little while since I posted. I did rather well in August, but since school started, I seem to have lost the motivation. I haven't been void of all ponderings, however. I've been listening to Francis Chan's two books, Crazy Love and Forgotten God on audiobook. They're both very good, but I think I liked Forgotten God much better. Frances asks some amazingly thought provoking questions.

I've really been thinking a lot about the Holy Spirit (the subject of Forgotten God). Francis talks about how we treat the Holy Spirit like a "force" that needs to be harnessed rather than as a person. And about how, if we are fully listening and following the Spirit (which is, of course, God), then it is impossible for us to sin. More Spirit, more obedience to the Spirit, means less sin.

Looking at my life, I know I believe that God talks to me and loves me and guides me, but sometimes I think I forget the amazing gift of the Holy Spirit. God--the God who created the entire universe and everything in it--lives inside me (I Corinthians 6:19). He's there, inside my heart, as my companion, my guide, my comforter, my friend. I am "the temple of the Holy Spirit." He dwells in me. That's a crazy truth! In reality, if you sit down and think about it, it's actually completely mind blowing.

We know that God is completely good, merciful, just, etc. We know that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, etc. (Galatians 5:22-23). If I have God, the Holy Spirit, within my very being, then what am I doing living like I do sometimes?

Surprisingly, I don't find this to be a condemning thought. I'm human, I make mistakes, I've learned bad habits and believed ugly lies and it takes time to re-learn good habits and truth. I don't expect myself to be perfect overnight. Instead, I feel that it is really encouraging. I think sometimes that I get trapped into this well of "I'm a horrible person and just an ugly pit of issues and I'll never get better." But that is a HUGE lie. Because I have the Spirit of the living God inside of me, and anything is possible (Matthew 10:27). No habit or lie is able to beat me, unless I forget that I have God in me.

Sometimes, I like to think that my bad behavior is actually an attack of Satan, et. al. And sometimes it is. But, in actuality, the enemy should have no power over me. If I have God in me, then what on earth am I doing falling to the attacks of the enemy? If Satan has power over me, it is because I have some open door for him to attack me. Paul talks about how we need to be careful not to "give the devil a foothold" (Ephesians 4:27). Sometimes a door is opened through someone hurting me or through my believing a lie. But no matter how the door is opened, I have God in me! "What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open" (Revelation 3:7b). I have the power to overcome any attack in me.

How crazy is this? Do you understand how amazing this is? I (and you, if you invite Him in!) have the Holy Spirit--the actual being of the living God of Heaven--inside you. With Him, all things are possible, whether it is overcoming your own human nature or overcoming the enemy or following the seemingly impossible commands of Christ.

This life is such a journey. Sometimes the road is narrow and steep, sometimes it is a little pleasant and easier. But we will get so hopelessly lost without a guide. And the Guide lives right inside of us, and talks to us, and reveals everything to us! I think I need to remember that a little more often.

[Jesus said] I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. - John 16:12-13a