Exhaustion should not Accompany Waiting

Maybe we have it all wrong.  I often feel that… in humility… it is important to remind myself of this possibility.  We wouldn’t be the first…

II Peter 3:13-16:

“in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.  So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction” (NIV).

I had to read this several times, and the truth is…  I’m still afraid I might not really ‘get it,’ which I guess would just serve to prove the point.  But is it possible that we have misinterpreted Scripture (or at least parts of Scripture) so grossly that we are running ourselves into the ground in order to somehow attain something we were never intended to chase?  Yeah…  maybe…

From the book:  Illuminate, An Advent Experience, this is what I read, this morning: “During the Advent season, friends and family sometimes assign us responsibilities we don’t really want to do…  The responsibility of being faithful followers of Jesus is the responsibility that should set our priorities for Advent…” (Sheneman, 23).

This is both freeing and terrifying.  Expectations are difficult.  In my family, we have so many Advent, Hanukkah, and Christmastide traditions that it can be overwhelming (even if I love them all)!  I ran across this image a couple of weeks ago, and it spoke deeply to my heart during this time that should be subdued:

But what do we cut out?

I think the answer may lie in these questions (oh, the irony):

What responsibilities do you love during the Advent season?  What things bring hope to others and joy to you?

Can we let the rest go? 

L.

Undoing Exile... Dare We Pray?

Micah 4:6-7, “’In that day,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief.  I will make the lame my remnant, those driven away a strong nation” (NIV).

Again, from the book:  Illuminate, An Advent Experience, this is what I read, this morning: “Jesus teaches the importance of prayer in the midst of our brokenness… We are invited to hope in God and continue to pray with complete trust that God will transform us and our relationships” (Sheneman, 19).

Broken relationships are difficult, perhaps especially so during the holidays.  While I don’t think it would be responsible to equate the very real, physical exile of whole people groups from their native homes with the exile we feel in our hearts, caused by broken relationship; I do think there are some parallels we might draw, regarding our interaction with others.  In every way, when we have the opportunity and ability to restore right relationships, we should do so.

I fully recognize wide scale, systemic exile might be beyond the scope of what most of us can hope to repair.  We could, however, begin with our own families and then allow the effects to spread to our neighbors… our communities… strangers…  Because, let’s be real, brokenness can be found everywhere.

There are some key things that should be noted:

Prayer is messy.  It’s not a magical wish list that we hope might somehow be delivered to us, wrapped in shiny paper, topped with a beautiful bow.  That’s the other Christmas story.  Prayer most often incites transformation, and that transformation begins with us!  So if you’re going to pray, you might want to consider whether or not you actually want to change.  That’s the first part.

But I’m also looking at this Scripture and thinking about the odd language used… the idea that God brought people to grief and is now gathering them in.  If I’m honest, I don’t know exactly where to go with this, but I do know that I have, at least at times, brought people to grief, and the thought of humbling myself in order to now assemble them is overwhelming!  How might I do this?  How might we do this (goodness, it’s always easier in community)?  Who are the people I/we have exiled, and how can I/we now make it right?  These inquiries require pondering, because I do not know the answers!

Dare we pray?  I feel like it might be dangerous…  (#ButLessFearAndAllThat)

L.

Longing for Peace, with a Sword in Hand

It’s the first day of the first week after the first Sunday of the Advent season.  I fully understand that this should be about hope, and here I am thinking about peace.  Stay with me…

In the book, Illuminate, An Advent Experience, this is what I read, this morning: “Hope is an odd thing to understand.  We typically think of hope as a good thing.  Yet hope is rarely found in places where good things happen regularly.  Rather, hope is found in places where bad things happen, such as when we experience hurt and loss.  So if you meet people who are hopeful, they can usually tell you stories of pain or suffering” (Sheneman, 16).

The Psalmist implores:

“How long, Lord… may your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need.  Help us, God our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name’s sake” (Psalm 79:5, 8-9, NIV).

We’ve been watching and waiting for 24 hours, and we’re already desperate.  It’s interesting that the next words we read in this text include an inquiry about how God might destroy our enemies in order to bring peace to us in the way we expect and desire peace to come.  Does this even make sense?  The prophet Micah says no:

“Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever” (Micah 4:3-5, NIV).

We don’t have to fight.  No one has to be destroyed.  It seems that there might be enough space for all of humanity, if we would just go out and find our own tree…  Hope and peace, intricately tied together, are not about conquering our enemies but rather about making room for them. 

In all of this, I have been thinking about what it is to actually suffer, as well.  I have been thinking about what it is to be in a place where hope is found precisely because the suffering is so great.  And I’m not sure we (you… I… whoever) grasp what this really means.  If we’re coming at it from any kind of privilege; I’m not sure we can.  That is not to dismiss any real suffering and tragedy that happens in our lives, but we have to make a distinction between pain and offense.  If, at any point, our response is, “I’m offended, so I am suffering;” we’ve got it wrong.  And there is no time during the church year that I see offense more prominently than during Advent.

I recently ran across a quote that went something like this: “Rather than putting Christ back in Christmas, I would settle for putting Christ back in Christian.”

Oh… 

And so I’m pondering what that means, today, as I think about ways in which I might usher in hope and peace to people who are hurting in tangible ways that extend far beyond sterilized offenses that only affect values that should be changed, anyway.

L.