written on His hand...

In the whirlwind of post-it note reminders and long to-do lists… especially in this crazy holiday season… there is this golden rule: If it’s REALLY important, you write it on your hand. Papers get lost in the shuffle or accidently thrown away, but that sharpie on your skin will last as a permanent reminder. {and beware- it might show up on your face at some point if you like to sleep with your hands up by your cheeks at night… just saying…} Things of the utmost importance belong written on our hands…

One of my favorite verses lately has been Isaiah 49:16… It comes from a chapter that speaks of the restoration that God brings, and after it states the fact that God does not forget His people, we read this:

The word engraved literally means tattooed… God has your name tattooed on His hand. Of course it’s a poetic description not intended to be taken literally, but it paints this picture that we are always in God’s sight and close to Him. We are loved and important in His eyes. He remembers us... and I think that’s why I like this verse. It reminds me that I’m never forgotten and always close…

This fits with the theme of this advent season… that God is near us and that He loves us with an extraordinary love that He goes to extremes to show us. Out of this love He sent us Jesus… Immanuel, God with us... who's hands would one day be pierced and nailed to a cross for us.

May we bask in this extravagent love and find peace in the knowledge that we are written on God's hands...

the great pursuit...

Our church is spending this month reflecting on the true Christmas story, the arrival of our Savior, by viewing it through the different perspectives of those who experienced it firsthand. When we think of that momentous night and the events that followed, usually we get a picture that slightly resembles a Hallmark card. We’ve beautified and simplified an event that, in all reality, is hard to wrap our minds around… The infinite, holy creator of the universe stepped into our world… to bind, fix, heal, and reconcile… but He didn’t come with power and pomp, He came as a vulnerable infant during a lonely night in a dirty stable. It probably wasn’t the prettiest of sights as Mary gave life to the Giver of Life. But it happened…

I think we lose sight of the fact that these Bible stories we’ve heard all our lives are real… they happened… and the people in them were real people, with families and jobs and pasts and dreams and insecurities and doubts. So I like this exercise of thinking about events through the lens of how the people there must have felt and what implications these divine moments of God intersecting with their everyday life had on them.

Our pastor started out Sunday by asking- “How many ways to God?”
To which the church answered- “One way… Jesus.” [Hillsong would have been proud!]
But then he asked- “And how many ways to Jesus?”

The answer… as many ways as there are people. Because Jesus is a pursuer of souls, creative and unlimited in the way He accomplishes this. For some like the shepherds, they weren’t even looking for God… they were just living life, doing their thing… and then God shows up in a big miraculous display that they couldn’t deny. Immediately they went to see this Messiah they’d been told about and they were never the same. The Magi on the other hand had spent their whole lives searching for truth and divinity but it always escaped them. On a hunch, following a star, they embarked on a long journey across hundreds and hundreds of miles. The journey came to fruition when they finally entered the presence of Jesus. They too were never the same.

The advent candle this week was Hope. And this is the hope we have- that we have a God who loves us enough to not leave us where we’re at. He goes to any length to bring light into our lives if we would just receive it.

And while God is pursuing us, we are invited to be pursuing Him. It’s ironic that the invitation this season brings was spoken by the one man who missed it completely… King Herod encouraged others to go and carefully search for Christ, to seek Him intently, and then to go tell others about Him without ever accepting the invitation himself. [Matt. 2:8]

May we not miss it too… may we keep that invitation on the forefront of our minds as we make our way through this advent season. May we seek Jesus with everything in us, and may we be blessed when he meets us on our journey in unexpected ways.

advent...

This past Sunday marked the beginning of the Advent season… and I have to be honest- I don’t think I’ve ever really truly paid much attention to the significance of this tradition. Shocker, I know, coming from the pastor’s wife, the one who has worked at churches in some capacity for the past ten years. This year is different though, and I’m finding myself intrigued…

Maybe it’s because this year I’m removed from the busyness and chaos of being “church staff”- the many hours of planning events, services, activities and then having to actually attend said events, services, and activities… there’s been a space created that I’ve missed for a long time… a space of reflection and quietness as we prepare for Christmas…

Really, though, I think my intrigue of Advent stems from something I read recently. Words that described the heart of the season, but also echoed the heart of my own life season… there’s a parallel that drew me in…

“Advent is about waiting, anticipating, yearning. Advent is the question, the pleading... Advent says the baby is coming, but he isn't here yet, that hope is on its way, but the yearning is still very real... Advent allows us to tell the truth about what we're grieving, without giving up on the gorgeous and extravagant promise of Christmas, a baby on his way.”
-Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

Advent is joyful hope and restless longing mixed together in this beautiful way that only makes sense through the lens of faith. I relate to the waiting, anticipating, yearning… for God to act, to move, to speak… and yet I share too in the sense of resting in God’s promises, walking in the hope and joy of what is just beyond the horizon.

And that joy… that unexplainable, overflowing joy that is a gift of God… was the first candle lit this week as we began this Advent path. It reminds me of the words Peter spoke in his first sermon: “You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.” {Acts 2:28}  Joy in His presence… only possible because He who is infinite and incomprehensible chose to enter our world and become tangible… become Immanuel, God with us. And this is what we celebrate on Christmas.

So this year I’m challenging myself to embrace the invitation of the season… the invitation to, in Shauna’s words, “Let yourself fall open to Advent, to anticipation, to the belief that what is empty will be filled, what is broken will be repaired, and what is lost can always be found…”

What an incredible God we serve.

thankfulness & denial...

In this long weekend of giving thanks, it was fitting that my reading picked up at Mark 14… describing the Last Supper. We are told to take and eat and remember, as modeled in this Last Supper, whenever believers gather for the Eucharist… with bread and wine… and I say it’s fitting because “Eucharist” quite literally means, “to give thanks.”

So I pause and give thanks- for Jesus, for the way He makes beauty from messes, for the way He loves, and for the grace I receive from His work on the cross. I pray I would remember the weight of this and never become immune to His story or the sight of His cross.

As Jesus and his disciples gathered to celebrate this Passover meal, I imagine it was similar to the excitement and festivity that we all experienced Thanksgiving night. The meal had significance in that it was a time of looking back on God’s faithfulness and provision, thanking Him for the ways He’s blessed them and protected them. They had certain foods that were traditional to eat at this meal… probably not pumpkin pie, but I’m sure it was delightful just the same…

Jesus put a damper on the mood a bit, though, when he told the group at the table that one of them was going to betray him in a major way that night. Suddenly everyone was on edge, making sure to point out their loyalty and that surely it wouldn’t be them. More so than the others, Peter was adamant that He would never forsake Jesus. When Jesus responded by specifically telling Peter that he would deny Jesus three times that very night, Peter spoke from his heart that he would rather die than disown his relationship with him…

Jesus was being gracious here, I think, because as I read on Peter denies Jesus more than just the three times we typically hear about…

- As Jesus spends his final hours praying in the garden of Gethsemane, so distraught that he is sweating blood, he asked the three closest to him, Peter included, to keep watch and pray with him… and three times Peter fell asleep instead of holding vigil with his desperate friend.

- Then when Judas and the mob showed up to arrest Jesus, there is a brief altercation as told in the other gospels, but eventually “everyone deserted [Jesus] and fled” (v.50)… everyone including Peter.

- The chapter ends with the other three denials that Jesus had predicted earlier in the evening. Three bold questions of whether Peter was one of Jesus’ followers… and three blatant answers that he was not.

Here’s the thing… I can identify with Peter. In my excitement and passion I make lofty statements and bold proclamations of how I wish to live my life for Jesus… but then, like Peter, I so often give into my flesh and my fear. I will sing songs and pray prayers of how I will do anything for the glory of His name… and then when opportunities arise I let my own desires or doubts get the best of me.

But the hope I have is this- even though the only consistent things about Peter were his tendency to speak too quickly and bail out when things got uncomfortable, God still used him as the vessel through which His church was organized and the gospel was spread. If God can use Peter as a pillar of establishing His church, maybe just maybe He can use me too. And this is another thing that I am deeply thankful for…

a prayer for kindred souls...

When I began this crazy task of writing a blog a few months back, I didn’t really know what the experience would look like. My honest intentions weren’t to gain a following or be recognized in any way… I just wanted a way to process some of what I was learning and possibly be a glimmer of encouragement to whoever might read these pages.

And here’s what I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find… there’s a lot of people out there just like me.

I’ve been blessed to “meet” people through their blogs and linkups {I didn’t even know what those were until two months ago!}… and they have so much wisdom and insight to share, so much love and encouragement to pour on people like me. Sounds creepy, I know, like I’m this little online stalker… well, I guess I kinda am… but if you’re here reading this, then you probably are too!

And these people… who I have never met in person, but I feel like I know a piece of their heart… they are who I thought of when I began reading Ephesians this morning. Because I know we all have a similar struggle. We read a lot… and allow ourselves to reflect, be inspired, grow convicted, be challenged… we constantly take in, desiring to grow and influence and bring the most glory to God that we possibly can… but sometimes it’s just a lot, and we need to settle and just be. I was reminded by Steph that sometimes we need to just breathe.

So to the few blogger buddies I’ve come across so far… I pray you can stop for a moment and let Paul’s prayer settle on your heart and your mind, your stress and your anxiousness, your hopes and your joys… today, I echo this prayer for you:

“When I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you. Every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask— ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!"

-eph 1:15-19 (msg)