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God's Good Thoughts - December 09, 2011
By Deborah Ironstand
I had been reading God’s word daily along with talking to Him when, one day, He surprised me as I was going about my devotions. I was at the table with the Bible opened. I thought I would pause for a moment to thank Him that I have His word, to tell Him how much I appreciated His sending His son Jesus to earth to die for me, and to thank Him for my family and other people.
Suddenly in my heart I heard His voice. I sensed He was talking to me! I had stopped talking and just listened as He confirmed that He has good thoughts and plans for me. I was so excited, I nearly fell off my chair! I felt blessed to think that He was listening to me all these months as I was seeking HIM.
And I was seeking Him as I had a lot of questions that I wanted answers to. One in particular was about the Kingdom of God. As we were growing up, we always had to repeat The Lord’s Prayer every morning in school. At home, my mother and grandmother would have us children repeat the prayer before going to sleep.
I know God was aware of some things affecting me in my job. After I'd get home from work, I’d realize I just came out of a situation where I was invited to gossip. So I would talk to God and tell him how I hated the gossip. It made me sick and I would resolve to not have anything to do with it again as it was wrong for a believer in the One who did so much for me, personally. I would pray, “Lord, help me not to gossip.”
Whenever it would start up at work, I would become burdened and saddened by it. I discovered this gossip often included lies but other ugly things. My heart was breaking and when I learned that others were gossipping about me, I started to experience how it felt to have people mistreat you and accuse you falsely. Sometimes, I would cry all day long! To top it off, someone else wanted my job! I couldn't believe how quickly everything was getting ugly.
I got to the point where I was feeling overwhelmed, until I started to remember what my Lord had impressed on my heart, "The thoughts I have toward you are good thoughts...” My faith in Him began to rise up and I would tell myself, “Wait a minute! He thinks only good thoughts toward you and He knows you even better than you know yourself.” I was encouraged.
As I mentioned earlier, I always wanted to understand the Kingdom of God better. Through His word, I came to understand that His good seed is in me to produce the fruit of righteousness. Meanwhile, our enemy sends bad seed into evil-hearted people where they grow into weeds like lying, gossipping, stealing, threatening, fighting, abuse and so on, because they are ignorant of the Living Lord. Realizing this helped me find comfort in God’s word.
I was humbled at His presence in my heart and how I could bond with Him through the changes that were happening in my life. I came to understand that everything I was hearing about people mocking my faith and laughing at my value to God was being filtered right through the Lord Jesus, Himself. The Lord God is an ever present help in trouble! I'm excited to say it was a personal victory for me to overcome the negative feelings and emotions that came from my troubles at work and eventually losing my job. Why? Because I have a relationship with my God in Christ and everything is for His glory.
So we grow from faith to faith (Romans 1:17) and are being transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). All because He pours out His love in our hearts (Romans 5:5)
Connecting Generations - August 22, 2011
A Guest Blog by Diane Roblin-Lee
Diane not only identifies a couple of problems, she offers a solution!
In recent years, my concern has been for two main things. On the one hand, it has been for the young people of our world, so many of whom have been left to their own devices, absorbing negative influences of 21st century media, video games, values and social inertia. They have been so innundated with secularism and materialism that faith has increasingly been squeezed to the side. (I am not blind to the wonderful young people who know the Lord and, raised by responsible parents, are becoming trained and prepared to contribute to society in meaningful ways. But for every one of those, there are a thousand Johnnies glued to computer screens with disconnected dads gaming at other computer screens and moms so stressed from compounded responsibilities that they have no patience for dealing with the Johnnies and the Emmas.)
On the flip side, my concern has been for the faith-filled seniors who are being ignored, neglected or simply deemed irrelevant by their busy, self-absorbed families. Clearly, the youth of today are going to be faced with unprecedented challenges for which they lack preparation. They have no concept of the deep need they are going to have for a close relationship with the God upon whom we can call. There are those who say that the coming economic meltdown is going to make the Great Depression look like a cakewalk. I’m not sure what a ‘cakewalk’ is, but no matter how the pundits try to spin the current situation, anyone with a brain knows that the illusion of normalcy is dissolving into an uncertain reality.
Back in the day, while mom and dad did what had to be done to provide for the family, grandpa and grandma were generally available to ‘be there’ for the kids, tending to their needs, giving a reproof when earned and sharing insights about faith and life, gleaned from experience and years of observation. They were often the ones who taught about faith and life skills and filled the gaps left by busy parents. These days, society has become age-segregated through the advent of seniors’ housing developments, age-segregated schools and parental work obligations that take them away from the home.
The barriers between generations have robbed every age group of the benefits of inter-generational interaction. Texting has replaced talking and Facebook has become the new living-room of interaction. The voices of seniors without computer skills are being muted. Unless we take steps to strengthen the links between generations, the new ways people communicate will widen the gap irretrievably and the ability of seniors to communicate their faith and insights will be even more stunted. The wisdom of our elders are the wells from which we draw understanding, knowledge and warnings against repeating the evil elements of history. We must find a way to open these wells and give our young people opportunities to drink deeply from the life-giving flow. Wherever possible, we must reach out to seniors and help them become equipped with the new avenues of communication. We must help them to become comfortable in the new living rooms of communication.
There’s no one better equipped to teach them than the very ones who need their wisdom - our teens. Linking teens and seniors for mutual mentoring can have tremendous benefits. Technology is not going to go away. Its advent has been a wonderful boon to our world - but we must not allow its potential for isolating people to rob our young people of the natural, centuries-old, methods for gaining insight and life-skills. We need to use technology to strengthen our world - not to weaken it. We need to use whatever tools we have to channel the wisdom, insights and experiences of our elders to prepare our young people for the challenges ahead.
Those who scoff at the importance of what seniors have to offer are forgetting that things like faith, industriousness, integrity, financial management, ingenuity, kindness, unselfishness etc. are timeless values that determine success and can’t be taught by a video game. They forget that our kids need a solid foundation on which to grow. They need both faith in God and practical life skills for things like knowing how to survive in a world without electricity. One swipe at our grid by any act of nature or terrorism could demand that they know how to survive in a pre-wired world.
In responding to my concerns, I designed legacy journals in which seniors could communicate their faith and record their values, insights and observations for the benefit of oncoming generations. http://www.bydesignmedia.ca/store/index.html I love to see young people helping seniors to complete the journals and do what they can to coach them in the new social media, welcoming them into their wired world. It’s wonderful to see precious seniors lift their downcast gazes and smile in response to someone who recognizes their value - to someone who wants to hear about their life experiences and their words of faith and wisdom. It makes me smile.
Locked Out - June 21, 2011
This summer seems to be shaping up as one to be characterized by labour unrest. It's not my intention to weigh in with an opinion on a specific dispute, but to draw your attention to something that happened that resonates strongly in the spiritual world.
Workers on strike can be quite vociferous about pursuing their right to engage in work stoppage to pressure their employer to cave in to their demands. However, the moment that the employer turns the tables and locks them out to apply pressure to the union negotiators to reduce their demands, the rank and file cries "foul."
When people choose to rebel against God and live for themselves, they can be quite strident in defending their "right" to live as they please. However, the moment God's message that He turns away from those who turn away from Him comes to their attention they can become just as indignant. "How dare God be so unloving as to judge me for rejecting Him and His purposes for me?" Just a little something to think about.
Giving Blood - April 21, 2011
Today on my way to the office, I stopped for a pint. No, it wasn't at a pub to drink a pint; it was at Canadian Blood Services to give a pint. Having the kind of mind I do, I couldn't help thinking about some parallels between what I was doing and what had been done for me a couple of millennia ago.
Here are some points of comparison and contrast:
I was there to give blood entirely voluntarily. A year or so ago, as I was having a routine checkup, my family doctor said, “Your blood is really good, nice and high in iron. You should consider donating some.” I’ve been in to do that five times now. To force someone to donate blood would make it something other than a donation, wouldn’t it. It would be fair to say that I’d gone to the clinic because someone else sent me, but I totally went along with the idea.
The same is true of the Lord Jesus. Though the Father sent Him (Theologians please note that I understand this was not at all the same as my doctor sending me to give blood.) into the world to die on our behalf, when Jesus bled for us on the cross, it was voluntary. He willingly submitted to the Father’s will and “for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising its shame.”
Other than a tiny bag of salty snacks and a tetrapac of apple juice, my trip to the blood donor clinic didn’t benefit me, personally. I suppose if a family member were in need of a donation and I donated blood specifically for his or her benefit, I would stand to gain something in terms of saving myself some grief and extending a treasured relationship. The reality is, I have no idea who’ll benefit from my blood.
When Jesus bled for us on the cross, there is a sense in which He received no personal benefit, especially when we consider the millions who will ignore His sacrificial act of love. Yet, in another sense, because Jesus died for those He loves he did benefit. It turns out that in dying for us as individuals, He died for “the church” which will be His bride throughout eternity. Other than knowing this will be better than anything we can imagine, we don’t know much, but we can be thankful. The fact is, Jesus knows each and every one who will benefit from the gift of His blood.
I noticed that there was a whole sheet of barcode labels printed off to go with “my pint.” I asked about those. Some were to go on vials of blood for screening purposes. But, I learned, my blood would be split up into its component parts and each one had to have my label on it so that it could be traced back to me if there were a problem. I didn’t ask for details, but apparently as many as five different people could benefit from my blood donation.
When Jesus died on the cross for us, his sacrifice would benefit innumerable people. We can’t begin to imagine how many of us will accept his death on our behalf and receive the new life He offers.
I could, no doubt, think of several other items for a “compare and contrast” list of this sort not the least of which would be that my blood can only help to prolong someone physical life for some unspecified time. The shedding of Jesus’ blood ensures an eternity of blessing. This Easter time, as you think about the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, consider the power of His blood to not just change our life, but to give us an entirely new one.
You Will Grieve, But... - March 11, 2011
Jesus showed remarkable patience with and confidence in his disciples. So often they were slow to understand, but He simply clarified the truth He was entrusting to them, knowing that, eventually, they would understand. Here’s an example from John 16.
Some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?" They kept asking, "What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying." Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no-one will take away your joy.
(John 16:17-22 NIV)I hate getting bad news and I’ve had my share, maybe more. We probably all feel like that. Put yourself in the place of one of the disciples on the occasion quoted above. Jesus was speaking to you all, but you don’t understand. You poke your neighbour who seems to be nodding knowingly and whisper "What does He mean?" You are keeping your voice low to avoid detection. After all, nobody wants to feel like the stupid one when everyone else is understanding.
Then, before your friend can respond, Jesus looks at you and blows your cover "Are you asking each other what I mean..." Perhaps you nod slightly or simply avert your eyes. Whatever you do Jesus proceeds to explain. This is where things go from bad to worse. From simply not understanding to getting really bad news. "I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices." Wow! What a way to brighten your day. Everyone else is going to be in party mode and you’re going to be suffering. This is not what you were hoping for, not what you were expecting.
Jesus pauses ever so slightly and drives the point home in other words. "You will grieve..." Another strategic pause, then a little smile as He finishes the sentence, "...but your grief will turn to joy." Ah, relief. Grief while He’s absent, joy on His return. Pain over, health forever. Shame forgotten, weakness overcome, suffering ended, the party begun.
In this declaration of Truth, Jesus holds out hope to all who suffer. He acknowledges that suffering happens. Suffering is real. Suffering is unpleasant. And then, joy of joys, suffering is temporary. His vivid illustration of childbirth drives the point home. The pain happens. It is real. It is unpleasant (OK, worse than unpleasant). It is temporary. The joy of holding the baby overshadows the pain of having the baby.
One last word. This joy is the kind that no one can take away. It can’t be lost, destroyed or stolen. This is the joy of the Lord—our strength.
Thoughts on Knowledge - February 15, 2011
Knowledge is a wonderful thing. It enlightens the mind, driving away the darkness of ignorance. It replaces fear with hope. Even if the news is bad, knowing it allows you to make a plan and move forward. Not knowing, paralyses you. You can’t afford to do anything because you may find that you’re just making the problem worse.
In recent days, I’ve been intrigued by the release of secret government communiques on the internet. The most powerful people in the most powerful countries are very upset. This is natural because they have the most to lose. Knowledge is power. The leaking of these documents brings everyone into the loop - something officials have tried very hard to avoid.
By keeping what they know within a trusted circle, they can control what the public knows and thus control the public. More than just guarding the truth, they can manipulate it to give entirely false impressions and thus steer public sentiment in a particular direction to suit their purposes.
By feigning respect for certain national leaders, other government officials can get them to cooperate in ways they would never do if they understood the contempt in which we hold them.
By suppressing hard data about issues and releasing only computer models which support a particular vision of the situation, promoters of that view can generate enough fear to mobilize actions which will be advantageous to certain sectors.
By under-reporting casualties and collateral damage in military offensives, while over-reporting the threat the enemy poses, politicians can whip up support for particular initiatives which increase the power of the powerful and further marginalize the powerless.
I gave these illustrations on the international scene, but exactly the same things happen at the humblest levels of society. Family members sometimes feign respect to get cooperation. Parents don’t let the kids in on all of the family finances, giving them just enough information to convince them to start looking for jobs. Kids downplay the hazardous side of their friendships and activities, while reminding their parents of how helpful they are.
If everyone knew all of the truth about everything, the power that resides in the hands of the few would be diluted. We know this intuitively so we tend to guard what bits of knowledge we have because it gives us the power most of us crave.
One of the things that intrigues me about God is His openness. He gives us all kinds of information that people can, and do, use against Him. For example: God is patient. We sometimes use the word "longsuffering." This lets people live as dangerously as they feel comfortable doing, with the hope that they can scurry back to safety just before judgment falls.
He tells us about His eternal purposes and people try to figure out the minimum required to get a good outcome, completely missing the point of his grace.
He tells us about His qualities, His character, His attributes, His personality and people rise up and stand in judgment against the very One who gives them life.
Besides making information available, He gives people brilliant intellects and they use them to argue that He doesn’t exist. He gives people amazing creative gifts with which to glorify Him and they use them to make money and fame for themselves.
It interests me that the One who is the source of all knowledge and wisdom is so free with information. He clearly has no real fear of anyone being very effective in using it against Him. Early in human history, God publicly announced that He would defeat Satan through a man born of a woman. He told Satan that he would wound the Deliverer’s heel, but that the Deliverer would wound his head. (See Genesis 3:15)
Even with that inside information, Satan was unable to do more than God said. He certainly wounded the Lord Jesus on the cross. Now he waits in the knowledge that the other half of the prophecy still lies ahead. The Deliver will return and crush him.
Substantial though it appears to be, Satan has always depended on misinformation for the underpinnings of his power. God defeats him with truth. God knows, but he doesn’t need to hide what He knows to gain power. The power is already His. Because of this, He can afford to be open about what He is like, what He plans to do, and how things will come to an end.
As followers of Christ, the Truth, we can afford to be open where others are closed, vulnerable where others protect themselves, and clear where others are confusing. It’s good to remind ourselves that the weapons of our warfare are not the tactics of either the world or the devil, but of our Father whose Truth makes all of us free.
Thoughts on Time - January 13, 2011
Many of us feel overwhelmed by the amount we have to do. Every item on our to-do list is unavoidable, a must-do, a priority. Nobody is taking anything off of our plates. Nobody is willing to back off on their demands and give us extra time to catch our breath. We’re trapped between limited time and unlimited obligations. The longer we ponder, the less energetic, creative and productive we become. Our feeling of despair is compounded as the seconds tick by while the list stays as long as ever. Maybe I just hang out with the wrong crowd, but nearly everyone I know feels the pinch of too much to do and too little time. But all this is on one side of the fence.On the other side, things are different. Very different. When we are depending on someone else, we expect them to get on with things. We hate being put off. We resent having to wait. As soon as we experience the first symptoms of illness, we want to be healed. As soon as we lose a job, we want another one to be handed to us. As soon as one meaningful relationship dissolves, we want to replace it.
Meanwhile, thoughtful observers wonder what will become of us as we hurtle through life. Courtesy, gratitude, consideration, empathy and similar social graces are quickly losing their status as the lubrication of polite society and moving into the category of relics-of-the-past. Lest you think I’m headed in the direction of a diatribe against changing social patterns or a lament for the good old days, allow me to remind you that I’m focussed on time, here.
What’s changed is our perspective of time.
A hundred years ago and more, people knew that things take time. They spent a lot of time waiting. They were always looking to the future. The present was a stopping off spot on the way to the future. In a world of limited resources and home-grown food, families had to wait for the snow to melt and the land to become workable. Then they cultivated the earth, sowed the seed and waited for the rain to come, the seeds to sprout, the plants to grow. In the meantime, they pulled the weeds, dealt with the slugs, caterpillars and other pests and stood guard. Eventually, if conditions were right, the crop would mature and they would have fresh food for a few weeks. During this time they preserved what they could, any way that they could. Then they waited for another spring to roll around.
I think all that waiting had an effect on people. It put them in touch with the cycles of life. It gave them time to reflect. It reminded them of their own mortality and instead of seeing this life as the whole story, they recognized it as preparation for something bigger and better which lay beyond the confinement of the grave.
There was no point in trying to prove their value with what they could accumulate or accomplish. They were too dependent on external factors. Very few could get far ahead enough fast enough to change their circumstances significantly. Old money had advantages and privileges but new money was so slow coming that it generally wasn’t a factor. Hence the class systems which, acknowledged or not, cut through most western societies.
Things are different now. Fortunes can be made in a few years. A great product idea and a sound marketing strategy along with fortuitous timing moves people across social strata in a matter of months. Even people without a great product idea, marketing savvy and good timing can, in a lifetime of hard work, move far beyond what their parents could have dreamed of. It could be this golden age of personal advancement is drawing to a close, but many young people are still starting out at salaries which were unimaginable when their parents were beginning their work life. Of course, their debt load is also unimaginable.
Now, we’ve come to the point where everything is accelerating so quickly that we’ve refocused our sense of time from the future to the present. For many, enjoyment of the present has risen above hope for the future on their priority list. So they are willing to spend what would have seemed like astronomical amounts of money a hundred years ago to have food out of season, to be able to travel internationally on whims as well as business, to have instant access to friends and colleagues untethered by postal services or even telephone wires.
As this focus on the present has become entrenched, it has affected everything. Philosophically, it has deflected any sense of the eternal. Fewer and fewer people even believe in an eternal conscious state, let alone live in a way that might take it into consideration. Even Christians, the group in Western culture that stood most strongly for this proposition, are infected by this focus on the present. They haven’t changed their doctrine yet, but they live like there’s no tomorrow. The Christian lifestyle is largely similar to that of the unbeliever except that it’s busier because of all those church activities which chew up time on the weekends.
The Timeless One has not changed His view of time. I think that’s why so many Christians feel such tension. They’ve lost the purpose of time in God’s economy. No longer is time one of the processors that God uses to shape us as we move toward future eternity with Him, it’s the only resource we have as we go for the gusto and fill our lives with as much money and stuff and pleasure and prestige as we can. In my local church, we talk about the concept of Sabbath more than many other churches, but I’m not sure that many of us are doing a significantly better job of practicing it. But there’s hope. At least we’re reminding each other of the concept.
If this piece accomplishes anything, may it be that it makes you think once again that the present is a journey not a destination. Nobody, especially God, cares about how much money, sex and power you enjoy. These things don’t really matter to anybody but you. Ask yourself if they truly matter at all. If the answer is that once you reach the end of your stay in the box in the churchyard they won’t matter, why put such emphasis on them now?
Old and New - January 03, 2011
Last year I bought a new car. The old one had definitely passed its “use by” date and was beyond economical repair. While it had served me well, I was glad to see it go. I’m enjoying the new one a lot—so much that I’ve racked up over 50,000 kilometers on it already. I guess I’ll soon have to stop calling it my new car.
Most of us like to get new stuff. That’s why Christmas is such a big deal for many. New things replace old things. New things make life easier. New things allow us to explore our potential in areas of creativity and productivity. “New” has a strong appeal.
Old has appeal, too, at least for some of us. We like to look at old stuff because it triggers pleasant memories. Whenever I see a scuffler, a scythe, a drawknife or many other tools that have passed out of common use, I remember watching my dad use them. Though these things were a regular part of his life, they are not part of mine. I wouldn’t even attempt to use a scuffler (which is a kind of horse-drawn garden cultivator). I’d rent a gasoline-powered tiller instead. I’ve occasionally used a scythe to knock down a few thistles, but prefer to use a string trimmer (sometimes called a “whipper snipper”). When I need a drawknife, I use the one I inherited from my dad, though my lifestyle is such that such occasions arise only once every three to five years. Most of the time, I resort to my electric plane to do the job.
There is no doubt that new tools are easier to use than old ones and, for the most part, do as good, if not better job. So, though seeing old things gives me a warm feeling, generally speaking, I prefer new ones.
As January comes around each year, I enjoy it for two reasons. One is that it is my birthday month and I sometimes get some new stuff. The other is that January always represents a fresh start to me. It allows me to separate the events of the previous year and lump them into the category called “the past” so that I can look forward to the future with something like a clean slate. I always hope that what lies ahead in the new year will be better than what’s been left behind in the old one.
God recognizes that things don’t last forever. He doesn’t expect His blessings in the past to go unreplaced with new ones. In Leviticus 26:10, for example, he spoke of his intention to continue blessing His people and told them: “You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new.” Everything old shows its age through natural deterioration, sometimes we need to clear it out to make room for what’s to come.
Jesus used a potent illustration of the time to remind people that trying to mix old and new has disastrous results. In Matthew 9:17, He said, “Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” The containers which were so effective at holding last year’s blessings are not sufficient to what God intends to give us this year.
Tradition is a wonderful thing. It provokes warm memories of the past, like looking at the tools of my father’s day does for me. However, also like those tools, it isn’t the best thing for the present. New challenges, new approaches, new opportunities all call for new forms. Trying to mix old and new can easily end up with the loss of both what was good about the past and what is good about the present.
Moving effectively into the future will often, if not always, call for clearing out the old to make way for the new. This happens at many levels, the Bible’s emphasis is at the spiritual so Paul emphasized that “we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit” (Romans 7:6). God has called us from rule-keeping and people-pleasing to Spirit-living and God-pleasing. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul went so far as to say “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Some are contented with something which could better be described as “the old has been dressed up to look like it is new.”
In these opening days of a new year, let’s follow the wisdom of God and not the wisdom of men. Let’s clear out the old to make way for the new. Let’s seek new wineskins in which to receive the new blessings God desires to pour into our lives. Every one of us will need to apply this differently. Each will have to examine him or herself to find the limitations we have unconsciously put on God’s work in our lives.
Thoughts on Christmas - December 17, 2010
Today, I want to champion the celebration of Christmas. Even among Christians, the festivities have lost some of their sparkle. People complain of being bored with the ancient carols and unfamiliar with the new ones. The decidedly rural emphasis of the nativity narrative with references to shepherds, flocks and mangers seems out of place in our urbanized world. The supernatural element introduced with angelic messengers doesn’t fit well in a culture which prefers to celebrate the physical and the material. The healthy concept of the miraculous demanded by a virgin conception and birth is out of reach for 21st Century sophisticates.
So poor old Christmas faces an uphill battle these days. Why not forget it and instead celebrate the solstice–that wonderful day when the hours of light begin to increase. Something that works equally well in the city and the country and has a comfortable scientific explanation completely understandable to even grade school children?
Much as I appreciate the solstice (being, most emphatically, not a “winter person”) I see value in celebrating Christmas, especially because many of those who benefit from it most find their physical lives closely representing the human spiritual condition.
Christmas is great because it often includes acts of uncharacteristic charity. Those with ample resources share them with the poor. To consider tests of merit at such a time is repugnant. The mobile soup kitchens, the distributors of dry socks and warm blankets, the hosts of great Christmas feasts in church basements, the organizers of toy drives and the preparers of food hampers are eager to share with all – even those who at other times might be considered unworthy of help because of their abuse of “the system.”
This generosity of spirit reflects the gracious love of God who reached out of eternity into time to offer the gift of life to the walking dead. He is willing to share His life even with those whose repeated rejection or abuse of His love would prompt onlookers to see them as entirely unworthy. Indeed, we all are.
Christmas is great because it is all about hope for the future. The six weeks or so leading up to the big day are full of hope. Looking back to my childhood, much of that hope was ill-founded. It would have required resources far beyond my parents’ means. But even though many of those expectations were unmet, I don’t ever remember being disappointed with the reality of Christmas morning. More often than not the most desired gift was there under the tree, but whether or not it was, the intangibles–the love, the care, the dreams–were in abundant supply. Though I don’t remember ever being consciously aware of them at the time.
All Christ could offer to those who first recognized Him was hope, not deliverance. He came as a baby not as a Roman-trampling warrior-king. More important than any political aspirations He might have fulfilled, He offered spiritual hope for deliverance from a far more pervasive kind of bondage. He offered Himself as the King of life, truth, love and the like to those who found themselves in subjugation to the king of death, lies and hate.
Christmas is great because it stimulates connection. For some families, it is the only time their members get together. For those who can’t travel, the upsurge in mail and phone calls suggests that somehow, this season of celebration promotes relationships. A whole subset of Christmas literature is devoted to stories of estranged family members rekindling relationships. Only some of them are fiction. Hard hearts are softened. Bitter resolve is eroded. Grace is unleashed. And love’s restorative power goes to work.
We see all this in the coming of Emmanuel. The God of Heaven became “God with us.” The Unapproachable came near to us. The Unimaginable became real to us. The Pure and Holy touched our diseased, broken selves and healed us. Those who know this Emmanuel can never be the same. Anyone who connects with God, no matter how tenuously is plunged into a process of relating which defies description.
Christmas is great because it reminds us of who we are and who God is. It is great because it has provoked the most touching stories and the most transcendent music. It is great because of its settling effect on troubled souls. It is great because it serves as a reference point to which we can return year after year and remind ourselves that regardless of how much things change, some things don’t change.
For these and other reasons, I’m celebrating Christmas this year–not just with gifts and decorations, music and programs, family and friends. I’m celebrating Christmas with a new sense of Emmanuel–the God who is with me as I move through my crazily busy days, the God who is with me as I speak peace into the lives of others all the while needing His peace spoken to me, the God who is with me as the circumstances of life strip away the trappings and confront me with the essential, the God who is with me whether the tears express pain or joy.
Community - November 23, 2010
Individualism and independence are highly valued in our culture, to
the point of being exaggerated. People take pride in their ability to
“go it alone,” whatever “it” might be. We speak frequently of our
exploits in first person singular. We take sole credit for
accomplishments which others made possible.
All of this leads to fragmentation and isolation. To protect ourselves and our reputation as “self-made persons,” we fail to connect deeply. Real intimacy eludes us. Across the culture, sex has become the stand in for intimacy. Too often, people substitute superficial physical connections for deep interpersonal relationships. This allows us to avoid making our “real self” vulnerable to things like criticism, rejection and emotional pain of various kinds.
I am amazed at how fragile most of us have become. Instead of being able to accept and benefit from constructive criticism, evaluations, suggestions, we take them personally and withdraw. Are we deluding ourselves with fantasies of personal perfection? Do we not recognize that the way others perceive us could be more accurate than the way we see ourselves? After all, they have the vantage point of objectivity which we lack!
God designed us to be in community. That’s the environment where we reach our full potential. Are you afraid of looking bad? Think about this: To come across as strong, make yourself vulnerable. Open yourself to the positive contributions of others. They have more to offer than you imagine.
Sure, some will be negative. They will put you down to puff themselves up, but even this can work in your favour. It provokes deep self-examination. That’s good. Only after you consider comments carefully can you separate the useful from the useless, benefitting from the former and remaining unscathed by the latter.
All members of the human race are more closely linked than most of us find comfortable. Inevitably, because we share the planet and the same physical and spiritual needs, we are connected. We are part of a global community which demands a lot from us. Sometimes, we can learn most from those we like least. After all, those closest to us are likely to share our cultural blind spots. So honour the broader human community as well as the narrow one which supports and nurtures you.
Christians find themselves challenged by this quotation from a letter of the apostle Paul. “Therefore, putting away lying, ‘Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25 NKJV).
Everything I’ve said about community in general is especially true within the specific community we call “church”–the spiritual family with which we identify. We are individuals, but we also have that corporate identity. We are a community. We must be particularly careful to be truthful with each other. For members of any community to lie to each other degrades the bond that holds them together. As members of the church, we are “members of one another.” We are mystically connected to each other in a way that defies analysis.
As followers of the One who embodies the Truth, we deceive ourselves if we claim a right to deceive others. The New Testament uses the expression “one another” over 80 times, the word “together” 125 times and the word translated “church” or “assembly” more than 70 times. Community is a major theme of God’s communication with humanity. We ignore it at our peril. We embrace it for our blessing and the blessing of the whole community.
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