Make Room

First published December 24, 2015

As the last month of the year comes to a close, the length of to-do lists somehow stretch out longer than before. More and more, I think we walk through every season this way. We rush from one appointment to the next. We face-time instead of making time to face each other. There is always one more thing to do that never gets done. We continue to set the bar for what needs to be accomplished higher and higher. We seek to do good work, and somehow get lost in the busyness of it, instead of the heart behind it.

And let's not forget the expectations. They get placed on us by those all around us. We place them on ourselves, too. And we carry hurt around when something or someone makes us feel like we're not enough. If we're being honest, there are no shortage of situations to make us feel like we didn't do enough, or we didn't bring enough to the table. You can fill in the blank with any adjective - smart, funny, attractive, educated - and there will come a point in time when that part of you isn't enough.

But while the world tells us to make more of ourselves, God asks us to just make room.

Jesus exchanged all the majesty of heaven for a tiny, messy manger. That should tell you what he thinks of expectations. There was no room anywhere else. This was not an ideal plan, nor would it be anyone's first choice. No one prepared the manger. No one worked hard to clean it or make it look nice - it's where the cows slept. Mary and Joseph were poor and uneducated. No 401k plan. No 10-year vision for their lives.

They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and room in their hearts.

Don't miss out on what God wants you to see: things were far from perfect, and yet He still came. He does the same for us because we are His first choice. When you're weary from the season, or when a season of weariness becomes your life, let the manger stand as a reminder that God has come for you, and not for any of the words that may describe you.

You just need to make Him room.

With God, things tend to be simpler than we allow ourselves to believe. John 6:29 tells us that the work God asks of us is this: believe in the one He sent.

That's it.

Philippians 1:6 says that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Isaiah 9:4 references the God who "shatters the yoke that burdens them."

In all these instances, it's God doing all the work, not us. We didn't reach for Him in the beginning; He came down to meet us. All the way down. Can you think of anything lower for a king than being born where the animals are kept? He was born into a mess - the mess of a manger and the mess of a broken world. When we accept Him, He dwells with us in the messiness of our individual lives. He comes alongside us to help us become who we are meant to be. Starting right where we are. And because He initiates this, He promises to stay with us and finish what He's started in us.

This is love.

If you struggle with feeling the weight of expectations this time of year, or anytime, just remember that someone must have thought the world of you to come as far as He did to be with you. He promises to never leave you, and He will always finish what He started in you. You don't need to bring anything, or be anyone. He already thinks you're enough.

All you have to do is make Him room.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. - Isaiah 9:2

 

Some Thoughts on San Bernardino

First published December 4, 2015

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting since Sandy Hook three years ago, the publishers of NY Daily News made their frustration with praying lawmakers who fail to enact stricter gun controls very clear with a headline that reads, "God Isn't Fixing This".

And my heart aches.

My heart aches for the victims, and the confusion and fear they must have felt. My heart aches for their loved ones, some of whom waited hours while bus after bus dropped survivors off at a gym, only to finally be told there were no more buses coming.

My heart aches for the authorities who bore the burden of sitting those loved ones down, one by one, to break the heart-breaking news.

Believe it or not, my heart also aches for Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik because I wish they knew the God I know, who doesn’t fix things because He makes all things new.

And I wish with all my heart they understood the power behind the love He had for them, even at their weakest. I wish they comprehended the magnitude of His grace for them, even at their darkest. I wish they experienced the transformation that occurs with one touch of that love.

This issue is so much bigger than guns, or terrorists, or ISIS. It’s bigger than the law of the land that seeks to put a stamp on it, shut the office lights off and go home. This is about a hurting world and the human heart.

When this country was new, our Founding Fathers seemed to be on to something the world has long since dismissed. It’s the idea that a submission to God equals a protection by God and a favor from God. That’s why they made us one nation under God.

They saw God’s principles as vital not just to the order of their daily lives, but to the order of a nation. Thomas Jefferson’s letter to a group of concerned Baptists that mentions a wall of separation between church and state referred only to protecting the church from government control.

In fact when a group petitioned Congress to separate Christian principles from government in 1853, the response was that “…any attempt to war against Christianity would have been strangled in its cradle”, because, they said, “In this age, there is no substitute for Christianity.”

But in 1992, those handful of words referencing church and state had been pulled from Jefferson’s letter and used so frequently in court cases since the 1940s that the Supreme Court stated the unthinkable, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

I wonder how Syed’s existence would have been defined if he had let God do the defining.

There is a popular portrait that depicts Jesus knocking on a closed door. The door is meant to represent the human heart. If you look closely, something is missing. There is no handle on the outside of the door.

There is no way in unless it is opened from the inside. Maybe that's because Jesus never went where he wasn't invited. Ever the gentleman, he has to be asked. He will not go where he is not wanted.

And sadly, the world doesn't want him. Because the world doesn’t know him.

I agree some action must be taken on the part of mankind. We were never called to sit idly by and watch any form of injustice flourish. Maybe in the case of the San Bernardino shootings, stricter gun controls would have prevented this.

But then what?

You're still left with a man and woman who just didn’t see things like other people do. What if they used a bomb instead because a law prevented them from obtaining guns?

A Huffington Post article reported that the couple had more than 1,600 bullets on them when they were killed. Waiting at home were 12 pipe bombs, tools to make more explosives, and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition.

Someone who knew Syed said, "This was a person who was successful, who had a good job, a good income, a wife and a family. What was he missing in his life?" Was it more money, a better job, more friends, or simply to just be heard and accepted?

The answer is none of it.

No matter how hard you try, nothing can fill a hole that is created to be filled by something else.

When a potter fashions a bowl, shaping it and molding it and causing it to have form, does the bowl then fill itself? No. That bowl remains empty until the potter fills it.

The God who formed Syed and Tashfeen, with such an incredible purpose in mind, is the only one who could have fulfilled them.

The law may seek to reign in behavior. It may even succeed. But it doesn't change the heart.

There are deeper rooted issues at hand that no law can change. I'm not saying that we shouldn't enact laws that will protect us. I'm simply saying until we get past the behavior to the heart underneath it, we will continue to see this violence.

Whatever the cause, God does have an answer. It's not in the rules we follow, songs we sing, chants we hum, or peace we manifest inside ourselves. It’s not in the life we think we design, the job we think we’ve earned, or the money we think secures.

The answer is simply found in Him.

It’s found in meeting a loving, merciful Father who has never not existed and is bound by nothing.

It’s found in trusting the God who keeps the earth from crashing into the sun, and still hears every prayer you pray.

It’s found in a relationship with the God who bled on a cross to save you, wrestled with hell to win you, defeated the grave to redeem you, and still catches every tear you cry in a bottle.

Nothing is too big for Him to overcome.

Nothing is too small for Him to notice.

Every piece of your heart, however broken, is held by hands that were strong enough to tear death to shreds and safe enough to steady the raging seas.

God doesn’t fix things. He replaces the broken with something brand new. This isn't a gun issue. It's not a Muslim or terrorist issue. It's not a Republican or Democrat issue. It's not an ‘us’ or ‘them’ issue. It’s not a law issue. Since time began, this has been a heart issue.

And only God can make hearts new.


John 3:16-19

2 Corinthians 5:17

Psalm 97:1-6

Psalm 139