Advent Devotional Series

The coming weeks will bring parties, food, presents, family, and so much more as we celebrate the coming of the Christ Child. Typically our wallets are thinner and our waistlines are thicker by the end of it all. In the midst of everything, it is possible that you may celebrate the Prince of Peace without experiencing much peace yourself.

I wrote Advent reflections over the past several months to help orient my heart to the joyful and unshakeable peace found in Jesus Christ. I pray that His peace will overwhelm your soul as you spend a few minutes each day considering the significance of Advent. 2,000 years ago the angels brought good news of great joy for all people. These writings are my attempt to join that heavenly throng in declaring:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

I invite you to follow along this Christmas season as we celebrate the arrival of our Savior. There are 25 daily devotionals, starting December 1st and running through December 25th. My prayer is that you will be blessed in reading them. These posts will come each day so you can check back here, check on Facebook where I will re-post them, or simply subscribe in the "follow by email" box on the right hand side of the blog.

Some Pre-Election Thoughts

It’s hard not to watch the news and feel like we need to immediately have an opinion, answer, or reaction to what we’ve seen. The news cycle and the clamor it creates seem to be built off of an innate human ability to project assurance, clarity, and authority even in the most complex situations. Politicians are not the only blowhards in the world. Nearly all are guilty. Just check your social media.

So with an election happening tomorrow, I want to help us all do a little heart check. Regardless of outcome nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems. God is gracious and compassionate and merciful to the righteous and unrighteous alike. 

Now for Christians, we of all people ought to have tempered (as in reasonable, not angry) responses to what happens. So I am going to point you to some realities that can slow down that reactive, confident (or panicky as may be the case) response to the election.

We know the end of the story. Tomorrow’s election is just a blip in the radar before God reveals the new heavens and the new earth. A kingdom made from every nation is our hope, not a nation filled with politicians trying to create a kingdom.

The end of the world is only brought about when God decides so. Neither candidate can bring that about. They, along with everyone else, will one day bend their knees before Jesus when the Father has decided that that should happen. Like every other nation and ruler, our new president will answer to and submit to Jesus.

In the meantime, Christians have plenty with which to concern themselves. Whatever changes have or may come the task at hand for believers remains remarkably consistent through the ages.

·      We serve a Creator and Redeemer worth worshiping. This is our eternity. There are others who don’t know this reality and they face judgment if they don’t come to know our Redeemer. Working on helping others know Jesus can certainly keep us busy.

·      The New Testament is filled with “one another” passages, most of which we do poorly. We can bear burdens, love, be at peace, comfort, fellowship with, and build one another. For those within the church we can do far better with all of these "one another" exhortations. We can do so zealously knowing that the world watches and sees Jesus when we do those things well.

·      We can bear fruit. As individuals we can surrender to God and invite his Spirit to help us do the work of dying to ourselves so that we can show more and more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.

Too often Christians allow themselves to be consumed by things that, while important, are not ultimate. The things just mentioned above are ultimate and eternal. We will worship forever. We will be with “one another” forever. We will bear fruit as we conform to the image of Christ for all eternity

The election is big. It is important. It’s consequences may be catastrophic or glorious but it is only for God to judge that.

In the meantime, let’s be sure that we do not neglect the little acts of mercy, the little fights for justice, or the little acts of love that God puts in front of us. The ballot that you fill out may not be an act of love but the smiles you give on your way in or out can be.

When stakes seem the highest that seems to be when God uses the most ordinary acts of faithfulness and love to draw people to himself. Gladly be an ordinary person of peace and mercy and love this week as others race around gloating or grieving. Be assured that a calm heart and Spirit-filled response in the days ahead will get noticed. No doom and gloom, no end-time projections, just faith, hope, and love.

Exposure Therapy

Writing is a peculiarly intimate thing. People respond to emotion, to reality, to the messiness of life. Which for writers means that you end up putting a lot of yourself into your writing because that emotion has to come from someplace. Perhaps better writers than myself can manufacture emotion, but for me it is a deeply personal endeavor to blog. What you read with me is as likely to be buried somewhere within myself as it is to be something that I've observed elsewhere.

Sometimes my writing feels like I am selling bits of myself, pimping out thoughts or struggles for others to gawk at or scrutinize. There certainly is a voyeurism to reading about someone else's life, thoughts, or struggles. None of this is written in condemnation of any readers, but it is an observation about the lopsidedness of a relationship where I put myself out there in writing without reciprocation (feel free to use the comment section, hint hint).

I imagine much of this sense of voyeurism comes from my own insecurities. I write and publish in the hope that others will mirror those insecurities or struggles or thoughts and that my writing will somehow help them where they are at. At the same time, there is that bit of doubt or fear that such exposure is a set-up for condescension, for others to gain a sense of superiority.

The truth is probably that most people do connect in some manner in a helpful way but the lie of judgment is easier to believe.

For me, I can't always verbalize my thoughts or feelings well or in a timely manner and so I have continued writing even if it is just for myself. There is something empowering for my sometimes timid and anxious soul to project my voice for others to see even if it is poorly received.

One thing I have been learning through my journey with anxiety is that I have a certain idolatry of competence. I like to be or appear competent and in control in work, life, family, etc. Add it all up and the insecurity that I find in my writing makes a lot of sense.

Now to a certain degree my gifting and my choices have lined up where I do have a strong measure of competence with what I am faced with. However there are deeper places in my soul where that is not the case. It is in those places where my anxiety wells up as I fear being exposed in both my finite-ness and fallen-ness.

I think we all have a fear of being exposed or fully seen and known. Our limits and brokenness scare us so we assume that it most certainly will scare others. My insecurity over writing is no different than the almost universal fear of intimacy. We might not say, see or know it, but there are thoughts and struggles that we would rather remain hidden.

Ultimately this fear is rooted in a fear of being fully seen and know by a perfect and holy God. Adam and Eve after eating the fruit ran and hid but for all of us there will come a day when there will be no more hiding. Adam and Eve knew that their newly found fallen-ness was not something to be brought before a holy God. They and now we have been hiding ever since.

We hide from one another and from God in countless ways, far more than can be listed here. We can sense it when we hold back, or are brazen and bold, or carry ourselves with unwarranted bravado or mouse-like  timidity. Somewhere in the messy mix of all that, lie hidden things that we just don't want to deal with, certainly not in front of others. There are times even when we overshare and overexpose ourselves as a way of diverting attention from other faults or wounds we want to remain hidden.

There is good news in all of this, and of course it is the Good News! In Christ we are fully known and seen and exposed before the holy God and as he gazes upon us he sees not everything which we want to remain hidden but instead the glorious, radiant perfection of Christ in us.

We can carry our faults and insecurities lightly in Christ because we bear another burden, namely the light and easy yolk of Christ. There is something fear-shattering and shame-destroying about being in Christ. Being a new creation and having a new identity means that we can be exposed with no fear or anxiety. As Paul says, we can be poor, yet make many rich and have nothing and yet possess everything.

So, in Christ, I will continue to write, continue to get counseling, continue to confess and repent to God and others not simply to be known,  but to be redeemed. May God give you the courage to do the same. The exposure may end up saving your life.