Endless

God’s whole plan is to set up ways for us all to see and experience and reveal the vastness and wonder of who He is.  The work of God is to let us increasingly see His character and heart.  Everything He asks of you and invites you into is to reveal His power and love, and anything less than trusting Him and diving in will shortchange us from dazzling moments of that discovery.

Hold On

So what’s the point if I celebrate the coming of the Christ, then pack up Christmas and tuck Him away with all the decorations, securely in the closet for another year. 

Christmas was supposed to remind me that something is to be different in all my dealings because of His coming.  Christmas is supposed to remind me that miracles are normal when He is here,  Christmas is supposed to fill me with hope that I am not alone, not without Shepherd direction nor Wise Man insight.  Christmas isn’t just the end-of-the-year “I made it!” doorway that just segues me toward a New Year and starting my self-inflicted rat race again.  Christmas wasn’t meant to be one day of celebration, but the reminder that every day now holds me in His presence.  The small undemanding baby I was willing to embrace has grown up and wants me to live in His victory over sin and death.

Don’t pack Him up with the Christmas ornaments.  Let Him be the gift of promise we wear every day, the gift we drink from for either energy or calm, the one thing we’d like all the world to know we were given.  He was a gift that wasn’t meant to be exchanged, put in a drawer, or given to the local thrift store because we were too embarrassed to let anyone know we had received God for Christmas.   

Coming?

 If your prayer is continually, “Come, Lord Jesus,” there is good news.  Christmas and Pentecost bookended a message that was punctuated by the cross and an empty tomb.  He is here, never to leave us or forsake us.  So now we can move on to what we do with His presence.  It usually has to do with keys.  Are we holding onto ours or handing them to Him, willing to go along on the passenger seat as He takes us on the journey of our lifeC?  Don’t worry about getting bored, that isn’t even a possibility when the days can be full of healing the sick, setting prisoners free, and seeing love enter heavy hearts.  As you begin to experience Him (in life, not in theory), you will be surprised by His ways and His creativity.  As you keep on, His trust in you will increase and He will expand the places He will pick you to accompany Him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

You have to get past the look in His eye that you aren’t sure is trustworthy.  He is; it’s just hard for Him to hide the sparkle of adventure.  Uncertainty stops most of us from going along.  

It Looked Too Small

So what do we do with the Gift of yesterday?  Return it for one that we think fits us better?

We can discover that He isn’t bankrupt or stern or stupid, and we don’t have to wait for some opportune moment when He will be available and willing to offer us help. We don’t have to look for a marked down version.  There isn’t one anyway.  If we truly get Him we will get all of Him, which is only scary if we haven’t yet begun to discover His profound goodness. We will find that He smiles and laughs and has a great sense of humor and isn’t overwhelmed by any of our real story or unable to help us get beyond the worst of it. 

If this is strange, you can start to scratch the surface with a simple request.  “If you are really there, let me see you. I’ll give you a chance by watching. (Don’t skip that part.)”  If you have encountered Him before, it may be “Stir my hunger for You again, Lord…I’ve gotten terribly distracted.” 

It’s the day after Christmas and His brilliance and worth hasn’t decreased a bit, even after the thousands of years and all the care and provision He’s already given.  He is fully there for you and His storehouses are stocked with everything you will possibly need.  You wanted peace on earth?  That was exactly what He brought.  Open the box.  

The King Has Arrived

Bethlehem.  The name means House of Bread.  It was the place that was chosen for the birth of the Bread of Life who has come to be our sustenance for every day, to feed us with all that heaven holds.   He is the whole loaf, fully on the table.  How much do you want?  It has always been up to us to determine the answer.  The day on the hillside when more than five thousand were fed should help us to see that when thanks is given and bread received, the supply will more than meet the need.  Remember the twelve basketsful that were left afterward.  He has never been worried about running out, and is longing for those who would come and test His character, who believe that He meant what He said and stake their life on it.

Welcome Baby

The laboring woman gave one final push and the baby made a grand entrance, announcing his evening arrival with a loud and lusty first cry.  He was checked quickly by the doctor and nurses even though he appeared to be perfect, then was wiped clean, wrapped in a soft blue blanket, and placed into his mother’s waiting arms.  His father had been attentive throughout the pregnancy, looking after his wife and anticipating with her the arrival of their first baby.  Parenthood for them had already held more than a few setbacks and complications.  Now he was one proud and grateful daddy, amazed at the sight and size of his tiny new son.

The father moved to the head of the delivery table and began to wheel his wife and son into the corridor, but instead of taking the expected right turn toward the recovery room, he proceeded through the hospital hallways straight toward the infectious disease ward, and once there, moved from bed to bed, placing his tiny son into the arms of each person there.  The startled patients were not used to having visitors in this sparse and depressing place.  It wasn’t safe here.

No one could have anticipated this absurd scene, yet it really shouldn’t strike us as odd or unfamiliar.  After all, it’s precisely the story we celebrate every Christmas.  It was that amazing night when God the Father sent His Son here to planet earth, where there was not even one person who could be considered “well” in His eyes.  All of us were deathly ill, trying to fight off with fleshly knowledge and sheer determination what we were not equipped to conquer.  We had already been given the news and the report was not good.   “It’s terminal,” they’d told us as gently as possible.  We knew we were dying before they said the words.  We could feel it.  And then the Father brings His tiny Son here, right into the thick of the mess and says to each of us “Would you like to hold the baby?”  In our arms now was the miracle cure we were afraid would not come in time.  But He has come.  It is very good news.

Anita Hickinbotham©2008

A Good Soak

What is God up to?  Give that question a moment to sink in, then consider both how widely He can work and how immense His power is.  Soak in that wonder.  He has come,  and is coming still. 

Who Could Imagine?

It’s the best miracle ever.  We were given Jesus for Christmas.  He is a gift that will not tarnish or break, whose batteries will never wear out, whose end we will never finish discovering as we plumb His depths and gaze at the wonder of who He is and what He is doing in His universe.  We begin by accepting the gift, untying its red ribbon, and lifting the lid of the gift that will fill our desire and fulfill our destiny.  There are more layers there than you could ever imagine.

He is healing, provision, protection.  He is the missing piece you have been hungering for your whole life, the one that brings peace, for that is who He IS.  He is astonishingly good.  Dare to pray a prayer that if any of it is true, your eyes will begin to see, your heart will begin to feel it, your spirit will have the courage to dip its toe into the stream and see where the river is going.  Once you get your first mouthful of these waters you will never regret doing whatever it takes to swim there for the rest of your days.  Pay the price to turn from the tinsel and find the gold.

The Gift

You’d think that the evidence of His strength and attention to beauty and detail and goodness would have been apparent with a sky full of stars, cascading waterfalls, fields of sunflowers, and lands full of animals in endless varieties, but He went a few big steps beyond even that.  He decided to come in person, to visit us, and to show us what He was all about.  It wasn’t for state dinners (He preferred the company of those who had true curiosity, no matter what economical class they were in), or pampering (He was pressed and stretched more days than not).  Jesus came to display some of the love and power of His Father’s kingdom, what was important there, and offering all of it to any who would dare to take Him up on it.  He lifted the weary, healed the blind, lame, and lepers, put a few from the tomb back into the company of their families, and lit the flame in hearts that didn’t yet understand the significance of what was going on.  Then He bled, died, and rose to ensure that we wouldn’t miss the point of the power He holds. 

He places much in our hands…time, resources, gifts chosen specifically for us by Holy Spirit and invites us to come back to Him with them all, open handed, to discover what He had in mind when He distributed those magnificent ingredients.  We can’t do glorious work and bring what He intends from heaven to earth if we decide we can manage it adequately without His guidance. 

You may be wrapped up in all the trappings of the holiday, but He doesn’t care if your paper is a bit torn and your ribbons crushed in this hectic season.  Just come, and bring Him the Christmas gift of you.  Let Him open you up and decide what He will do with your precious life.  His plans are stunningly beautiful and not at all dependent on the condition we are in when we come to Him.  He is utterly gifted at taking something that most would consider far too damaged and revealing its true beauty and worth. 

Stop holding on.  Stop stepping from the Christmas rush right into the resolutions of the coming year marked with your own goals and see what He has for you, miracles all of them, as you walk it out learning how trustworthy and brilliant He is. 

You are the gift He wants most.

Getting Our Wings

I love that God has never tried to mask over the depravity of humanity.  He is big enough for our real stories, our true damage, our great need.  He gave us Himself for Christmas.  It’s mind-blowing…honestly, think about this…GOD IS WITH US. We become so aware of His presence  in which we are encompassed, that our circumstances are then rightly seen as the outer layers of reality, not the most close and influential ones and our freedom truly begins to be our experience.

Take Joy

A Christmas gift from me to you...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euA0Ypy_jqE

On My Way

 All of us begin the day with worship.  Don’t we all wake up—our minds being immediately set on something…a person, a need, a plan, a circumstance…whatever is forefront…important? We give our attention and thoughts to whatever has moved into that position of power.  And thus begins our day.  We shift to circle around it, to bow to its influence, to let it point its finger to the way it demands we should go. 

Many of us have never identified what runs us, what sets its subtle but consuming agenda.  And maybe we will wake up months or years later wondering how we could possibly have missed so much, never having gotten around to what we said was important, how we had wanted to live.

Please don’t be afraid to pause for there is a way back home, its promise and invitation in each dawn.  The way there isn’t a long one, but starts in the quiet of the heart and a turning to it.

It takes courage to admit our distractions and shortcomings and failures and idols.  But refreshment and strength will come to the man or woman or child who will go there.

We are in a season when many will be heading home to spend holidays with loved ones.  No matter if you have friends and relatives accessible or not, your excessively good and gracious Father is only one moment away.  He is near.  He has already come to love you, to teach you, to guide you into all He imagined you to be, all He designed for you.  The difference between Him and all the others is that He always has your best interest beating in His massive heart.  Every persistent and patient effort is one to enjoy your company.

This morning, take a chance and turn His way and let Him begin, or continue, to speak His healing and restoration to you.  He will bring wisdom and direction and provision.  It’s who He is, and it is the gift He gives to those who desire Him.

All Around Us

I pray that we would, in the day before us, get an unexpected whiff of heaven, that we would see Your presence in the faces and circumstances around us, and notice Your fingerprints and movement and follow Your exceptional rhythm.  I pray that we would not be timid to taste the things that You have prepared for us to both share and receive and to know the community that You long for us to have. 

Hebrews 12:1 (The Voice) So since we stand surrounded by all those who have gone before, an enormous cloud of witnesses, let us drop every extra weight, every sin that clings to us and slackens our pace, and let us run with endurance the long race set before us.

No one said it would be easy, but great is the reward for those who accept the invitation and lace up their shoes to run after Him, who keep walking and listening as He speaks, who kick off their shoes to dance when the music plays.  The rhythm isn’t always the same and sweet will be the joy He brings as you find your pleasure in His care. 

Dare

We quiet ourselves to hear Him better.  We stop our busyness to sense His movement.  We set aside the plan for the day and the lists of what we think is important to get a glimpse of what He has in mind.   We set down human agendas to gain heavenly ones.  We dare to approach the warmth of the fire to discover the depths of His strength and love, the blazing light to reveal our broken places, the potter’s kiln to strengthen us, the holy light to see His brilliance. 

The quiet is good…a transforming place.  Don’t be afraid to discover the greatness of its mystery.  But you have to have courage to go there, to let yourself feel small in His presence and to let Him do a work in you.  The quiet is not a place for the faint of heart.  But it is safe.  You won’t know until you go there.

The Invitation

We come through life, given the opportunity to consider what we are doing here.  We bump into the difficulties within and around us, pushed here, tugged there.  We struggle to reach for our security blanket, whatever that may be, but all of which have fraying edges. 

We are moved deep within by the subtle stirrings of something that seems right and pure and good, but it is filmy.  We are afraid to trust that it could truly be or truly hold us.  But there is where the miracles are waiting.

This time of year reminds us some with unusual courage.  Mary couldn’t see the end from the beginning, Joseph was surrounded by the cultural turmoil of the situation he found himself in.  They chose to trust the call and to focus not on the chaos that would ensue, but on the voice of the One who invited. 

Advent is a time to remind us again of the invitation.  It will always be mixed in with the glossy ads of things that tantalize.  Don’t just assume that you will go to the party.  You need to make a decision and R.S.V.P.  Every day following is the unfolding of the party if you will attend.

On Earth

The story of Jesus’ life includes three different versions of a veil being torn.  The most obvious one, the moment of His crucifixion death, was when the veil in the temple was torn in two, tearing the thick wall between God and man and allowing eternal access for each of us.  But that was the last of the three times. 

His birth had also included a tearing, one of an amniotic sac necessary for a human arrival.  That was the second one, allowing the gift to arrive—the coming of God to live among us.

But an even earlier veil story was nine months before when a young woman said yes to the invitation of God.  Mary offered herself for His outrageous plans, yielding her future to His way.  Her dreams for home and husband were forever altered as she responded with a courageous “yes” when the angel arrived bearing a heavenly proposal that nearly cost her her earthly one with Joseph.  It was a very real risk that the bridal veil she’d probably envisioned for years might be lost forever in the scandal she was entering.  This was not a tame story.  Her “yes,” wrapped in humble willingness, had the power of trust at its core that could shatter darkness.  She would agree to that whatever the cost.  She didn’t know how it would unfold, only that her life was only right when she aligned her will with His and let whatever good He’d desired get to earth. 

At the moment she agreed, however, and in any moment that we say yes to God’s promptings and will, we find that a veil of possibility gets torn and heaven arrives again.  Each time it is a miraculous gift that brings His amazing presence and power to the planet.

When His will comes, He Himself is with us.  We cannot separate Him from His purpose and His character.  It is all one.  Love and truth and justice come when we are willing to choose Him.  

It's Not Heads and Tails

Let your “Yes” be “Yes,” and your “No” be “No.”

We are too often persuaded by other people’s expectations and impressions of us.  Our own convictions and values sometimes get lost in trying to please others rather than being true to the heart of how we want to live. 

This morning, in this time of Advent dark, let’s determine to live today being true to that which we ultimately what we want to be about.  We can become a very watered down version of ourselves if we stop living in a way that is burning in our heart and keeps the coals of the most important things alive.  One way of increasing our clarity and strength is by walking moment by moment in the truth that we know. 

Be courageous today in your yeses and your nos.

The Question in Advent

Advent comes with a question that burns in the soul.  It is dark.  It is quiet.  And we have the inevitable uneasiness and doubts that must be worked through. 

Will the King actually come?  Will the Savior arrive in time?  We must experience it ourselves to be convinced, yet each time, the question hangs there again.  Will spring come to whatever winter I am frozen in?

The only way I have figured out how this dilemma gets resolved is in the walking through my days.  There is no other way for our hearts to be assured than to build a record of His attentiveness and faithfulness.  We walk.  We stumble sometimes and our faces are down.  We see progress and often days unfolding that we wouldn’t consider the “answer” to our prayers.  And yet He will be at work if we give Him time and room. 

One wonderful thing about getting older as a believer is that the track record begins to get built.  We see that even if the situation didn’t unfold to the script we would have written, He has answered and worked.  It is a glorious realization. 

Advent gives us that opportunity again to sit in the quiet and gaze upward, to slow down and remember my story and how He has worked.  And I trust forward and celebrate and rest in His unearned care again.