For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.                                               Hosea 6:16

Hosea’s word to Israel was very repetitive, “You’re giving God lip-service.  Your hearts aren’t His, they belong to other gods.”  They maintained many rituals, but they were empty, meaningless rites that afforded them no standing with the Lord of Hosts.  They gave what He didn’t want and withheld what He did.  They were lousy gift-givers.

They offered sacrifices, they gave Him burnt offerings.  But those weren’t what their God was asking for.

My husband is an incredible gift-giver.  He puts a lot of thought into it and usually knows what I want much better than I do.

If my husband only gave me things he had on hand and would never miss, if he only gave me things that were free or thoughtless or that he wanted to give, he probably wouldn’t be considered such a great gift-giver.  Not many people get excited about getting gifts that they don’t want.  And if you’ve asked for something and that gift isn’t given while all these unwanted gifts are, well that makes it even worse!  You give me all these gifts I don’t want and deny me the one gift I do!? You might want to save your gift, it’s not gonna get you much of a genuine thanks.

All this makes sense in the world of gifts in wrapping doesn’t it?

What about the gifts that don’t come in a box?  What about the gifts that we lay on the table of the gods of our days?  What about the gifts you lay at the feet of the God who made you?

What all do I ‘sacrifice’ to the Lord that He doesn’t want?  Do I offer Him hard work, Sunday service, do I give Him every Sunday from ten to twelve?  That’s good sleeping in time!  That’s a perfect hunting moment or reading hour that I gave up for Him.  Surely, surely, that warrants a thank you. Do I offer Him rituals, do I offer Him my presence, my memorization, my service, my time?  What am I really willing to lay at His feet?

Does He want it?

All the gifts I tirelessly offer, does He have any desire of them?

What does He require that I withhold?  Acknowledgment of God.  Is there some part of me that thinks that because I ‘worked’ for it, I kind of earned a little piece of that throne?  Is there something in the way I offered those unwanted gifts that made me feel as though I deserve the right to say no the next day?  Do I, somewhere in me, feel as though my gift bought me something?  Is there a question of who really reigns here?

Say it’s my birthday and I really want and request this one thing.  I’ll even sweeten the pot and tell you that it is the cheapest gift you can buy.  You talk up your gift for weeks before hand.  You give it with the largest grin, your face belies the value you place on it.  But it isn’t what I requested.  It isn’t really even something I want at all.  You’re so offended that, even though I try, you can see I am not falling all over myself over the gift.  Now somehow I’m a bad person for not being more thankful, you’re the saint who just gets mistreated so terribly after all your hard work and tireless effort.  (In the immortal words of Dolly Parton, “Get down off the cross, Honey, somebody needs the wood!”)

This is an unlikely extreme on your birthday.  It is an every day occurrence (or at least every Sunday) in the Kingdom.

God doesn’t want my lip-service.  He never asked me to show up every Sunday and never miss a service.  He couldn’t care less whether or not I can quote the Lord’s Prayer or a single catechism.  He does want my heart though.  He does want me to get my rear end off His throne and let Him rule.  He does want me to quit wasting my efforts offering Him trinkets when what He wants is of infinite value.  He does want mercy, love, selflessness, and acknowledgment of just Who it is that rightfully rules here.

I never want to stake my claim to eternal reward on gifts that weren’t joyfully received.  I don’t want to spend my life laying trinket after costly trinket on the altar of a misunderstood God only to find that I was a lousy gift-giver all the while.

What do I sacrifice, what do I offer that He does not desire?

And what do I withholding that He does?

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.                                                                                         Jonah 2:8

I’m no gardener.  Both my parents have some giftedness in this area.  It isn’t genetic.

I know this about myself and, therefore, approach horticulture with much trepidation.  I love beautiful flowers, I love the gorgeous plants that flood my beds in the spring.  But I have absolutely NO idea how to keep these same plants doing that year after year.

I have Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas in my front beds.  They are incredible.  They get huge and so heavy they end up lying on the ground. After they die they just turn a dingy brown and hang there, waiting for someone who knows what to do to do something with them. That someone doesn’t live at my house.

This year those beautiful blooms just hung around until yesterday.  I knew they had to go and I really want to see them again in a few months, so I had to do something.  Google.  That’s what I did, Google.  Google said that I needed to cut those suckers off.  Google actually said I should and could have done it long ago.

I didn’t exactly prune them, it was more of what they call ‘deadheading,’ I just cut off the old blooms.  I did prune some of the others more severely though.  Before I made that first cut, I hesitated and said to myself, “Please don’t kill these!  Do I really have to do this?!” The answer was so clear and so fitting for all of life within and without of that flower bed:

“It’s my way.”

Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?                                             Isaiah 43:18-19

Those blooms were absolutely breathtaking in their day!  They, just like the fame and infamy of the Israelite’s exodus, were phenomenal things to be treasured and told of for generations.  But our desire for the beauty that has not yet been revealed should so surpass our delight in the beauties of yester-year, that we should ‘forget’ them by comparison.

As I look out at my ‘winterized’ garden, my primary delight needs to be in the hope of the spring to come rather than in the visions of the days that have passed. In order for the new to come, however, the old must be allowed to go.  We have to be willing to cut out the old and dead.  We have to be willing to let Him trim and prune and deadhead.

I trimmed about four kinds of plants yesterday.  One was my Abelia.  Abelia can get a little whooly, but they are quite attractive if you can keep them reeled in.  If you trim the outside parts of an Abelia, for every one cut, the plant will replace it with three.  They shoot way off of the plant, multiply, and leave the center empty. An Abelia you must prune on the inside.  You have to cut right down at the soil.

One plant needs to be shaped on the outside.  Another has to be cut deep in the heart.  Sometimes cosmetics work to accomplish the long term goal, but sometimes you need to go much deeper.

If we want to be big and beautiful and flourishing year after year, we’re gonna need some pruning.  And it might get a little deep up in here.

If you never cut out the old, if you never trim off those wild unruly shoots, if you never shape the edges, you just aren’t going to have the prettiest flower on the lawn.  It’s His way.  His way is to trim off the old, His way is to shape and mold and train us into all the glory we were designed to express.  His way is that we let go of the old, forgetting even that which was astounding in it’s day, and perceive the new thing that God is blooming today.

You know what happens if you cling to this incredible flower forever?  It still fades.  And you may miss out on the new one that would have bloomed in it’s place.

God’s growing something beautiful today.  Do you not perceive it?

Our minds are so very limited.

I say that I’m learning to love change and rejoice at it’s arrival.  But my mind is just so small.  My imagination so very…limited.  I say change and I easily go to job, family, schedule, finances.  I can look at those big issues and say, “Yeah, like the seasons, Lord, have me to welcome this new dawning in my life.”  But then I’m shell shocked when God discloses that He might desire that I hear from Him differently.  I resist when He says, “That method worked yesterday, but it’s not going to do for today.”

I heard from Him at the patio table yesterday at noon.  I’m back.  Why don’t I hear today?

As a teacher, this can be a bit frustrating.  One series He gives me the whole game plan long before the first lesson begins.  Another series He tells me only so much as I need to know today.  Some ideas come, literally, months in advance.  Some build over the course of years.  And some He gave me last night.

I refuse to teach without Him.  I won’t make something up and let carnal knowledge be enough.  I insist on a Word.  And sometimes He doesn’t feel like speaking until the 11th hour.

Once I held firm on this so ardently that I basically blessed Him out and went to bed the night before I was to teach a lesson that I had not yet been given.  I don’t dream.  I did that night.  He wrote the whole thing on an old green chalk board.  I don’t wake up without a (very!) loud alarm either.  I did that day.  The dream ended, I awoke alert and ready, I ran to my computer and recreated what I’d seen. It was a great lesson.

He may make you wait, but it will always be worth it.

How God related to me last month may well be wholly different from the way He desires to relate to me today.  I seem to be ok with the new ways, but letting go of the old ones doesn’t sit so well.

I hate to be cliched, but when He closes a window He usually opens a door.  So often I sit and put my face in my hands and moan over the closing of the window and totally miss that door swinging wide.

This could be about embracing changes in your life that you didn’t initiate.  This could be about finding peace in the fact that life and family are ever moving into new seasons, some of which don’t involve much of you.  For me, this is about being willing to let the Lord have His way.  It’s about vigilantly watching the horizons of my life for the dawning of His appearing in new ways, with new challenges, instituting new norms.  It’s about not getting chagrin when the old methods show themselves now fruitless.  It’s about seeing the trials and disappointments, challenges and changes as segways into a new chapter with an incredibly creative Maker, Father, and Friend.

Look to the Old Testament prophets.  Just think about all the ways that God revealed Himself to them, and all the ways He had them reveal His Word to others.  There were visions, there were dreams, there were voices.  They stood outside of temples, they requested audiences with kings.  They humiliated themselves in public.  They bought trinkets design to invoke thoughts and mental connections.  They married prostitutes.  They walked about in sackcloth and ashes.  They wrote and they spoke and they cried and they pleaded and they loved and they did whatever He said to do.  And what He said was crazy creative.

I wonder if Hosea ever said, “Can’t I just go buy a jug and smash it like the last guy? (Jeremiah 19:1-15) Do I really have to go and buy her back?  My heart is dying here!  Can’t you let me do what he did instead?” (Hosea 3:1-5)

The answer then and now is no.  You and God are unique.  You and God today are unique. There is no other pairing and no other time like it.  The Lord has amazing things for me this year.  The amazing things He has for you won’t look like mine. There is no pattern, there is no road map.

There is only trust.

Let me, Lord, not look to anyone else, including the me of old, in order to find your hand at work today.  Let me not look at yesterday’s news for today’s living. Enable me– only by the unfathomable power of your Holy Spirit is it possible!– to follow the work of your hand in my life even when it comes from and takes me somewhere wholly new.  May my roots run deep into the only sustainable surface that endures, You.

There is a time for everything…a time to plant and a time to uproot…a time to tear down and a time to build…a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them…a time to search and a time to give up…a time to keep and a time to throw away…a time to be silent and a time to speak…                                           Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I am a traditionalist.  I may have said that before.  I really mean it.  I like for things to stay the same, feel the same, include the same people and events.  If the option were available, I’d be hunting Easter eggs in my jammies in my dad’s back yard this April.  Love me some traditions, even long after love for the tradition itself has died.

Most people don’t like change.  I used to hate it, that fits with the traditionalist in me.

But in the grand tradition of this very thought, I have changed and I now love and embrace change.  Every day is a change from the last.  Every season brings the excitement of what newness the winds will usher in.  There are no stagnant days in man’s life, they are always changing–babies grow, the clock winds down in just the way it wound up, the cycle simply finding it’s corresponding downhill of decline to the uphill of maturation. His mercies are new every morning.  Why do they need to be new?  Because the life you faced yesterday doesn’t look like the life that you will encounter today.  Yesterday’s manna will not stave off your hunger today.  Life is new, your needs are new, your task is new, His provision is new.  Because today is different from yesterday, life is ever changing.

I wouldn’t call myself a resolution maker, but I pretty much always think like one around this time of year.  I reassess life and schedule, dreams, desires, and agendas.  There are petty things one might ponder in this vein.  And then there are those that are not.

It is unwise to approach a new year or a new day without first conceding that God may have a plan for you in it.  He does.  And if we approach today just as we did yesterday, we may not be looking for the new plan He’s waiting for us to jump on board with.

This year I may need to let go.  I may be called to gather stones.  I may need to set aside some time for tearing down, giving up, and throwing away.  I may need to prepare my heart to be willing to do that.  God may say, “Let’s build something new today!”  God may say it’s time to cry, but hope dawns in the morning.  I may be asked to lead a war.

But if I face the day just as though it were a replica of the last, I’m unlikely to notice that the schedule has changed.

My husband wakes up every morning at just about the exact same time, work day or vacation, weekday or weekend.  It’s what his body has become accustomed to. Some things we do because that’s what we’ve done forever.  Some things we don’t really think about, we just find ourselves in the middle of doing…again.

May our lives be intentional, not merely familiar.

Every morning in the car I thank the Lord for the fact that today’s weather is never quite the same as yesterdays.  Today’s is something beautiful.  Change can be beautiful.  It’s only harsh and unattractive when we see it from behind the fingers of eye-covering hands.

There is a time today.  There is a time for us to lay down yesterday, to pick up on His plan for today, and to open our arms wide to the adventure that He has in store.

Do you have the time?

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David…Abraham was the father of …David was the father of…Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.                            Matthew 1:1-17

I encountered a woman just over a week ago.  She was standing in the lobby of an adoption agency.  She quietly rocked from side to side about the room.  She was waiting for her husband to pull the car around.  She held her son.  He was about 12 days old and slept in her arms.  He had, only moments before, rightfully joined their family.

She didn’t have much to say.  I think she and I both knew that if she tried to talk, not only words would come but tears as well.  This boy in her arms was her long awaited son and he was finally and forever coming home.

She and her son did not share the same race.  They looked nothing alike.  This boy had a different father than the man whom he will call Daddy.  This sweet baby boy had just been legally adopted.

When you see this happen, when you get to witness the power of this experience, it will drop you to your knees in awe of the power of the very moment, the beauty of love that transcends blood lines and shared features and traits.  Both parties have waited so long, both parties are blessed by the sacrifice of one who gave life, hope, and opportunity.  One sweet woman sacrifices and from it three others get the gift of fullness of life.  It’s just overwhelming.

And that boy is now her son, the new mommy rocks back and forth with this child who is now and forever, every bit, her son.  He will eat with them, sleep in their home, enjoy the benefits of family and love and heritage and inheritance.  He is her son.

Adoption is powerful.  It crosses racial boundaries, it infuses blood lines, it transcends history and science and hospital records.

And that’s not just how the family sees it.

Jesus Christ was the Son of the Living God.  He was born of the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This Christ was to be of the line of David.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  Through whose lineage was this Child connected to King David?  Was it through Mary, His only human parent?  No, in God’s eyes, He had another parent.  There was no blood connection, there was no shared facial feature, but He was his Son.  By the power of adoption, this Christ was the Son of a Davidic man named Joseph.  And God saw this adoption as so binding and so real and so all-encompassing that it was good enough to fulfill prophecy.  Joseph’s adoptive Son was the Christ of the Davidic line.

God knew a bit about adoption.  He still does.

Many adoptive families celebrate ‘Gotcha Day’ – the day when their child joined their forever family.  Technically these are called Placements.  They’re a pretty big deal.  God sees Placements every day.  Every day is a Gotcha Day among the angels.

For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.  In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will–to the praise of His glorious grace.                                                                                                                 Ephesians 1:4-6

I am the daughter of the God Most High.  My adoption is binding and powerful and all-encompassing and my inheritance and position are sure and profound. Sons and daughters are not given away or passed over, they are not tossed out when sin creeps in and they aren’t withheld love when it isn’t actively returned. True sons and daughters are as good as blood, they are the real deal, they are powerfully and forever bound to the Father with whom they have had a Placement.

This Christ, born to an adoptive dad and a child mom, whose birth was lowly, whose appearance so breathtaking in it’s surprise, this Child is my Brother.  My big Brother at that.  And in this family, I belong.  I fit in and am welcomed.  I’m seen as valuable and useful and beautiful and loved.

I am the daughter of the Lord of all Creation, the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, the God Most High.  He’s my Dad and in Him I belong.

It’s storming here.  I love a good storm.  The house is quiet, everyone is long since sleeping, and the only sound is that of the rain outside my window.

Weather is fascinating, isn’t it?  Fog.  Who could ever have thought of the idea of fog.  And then there’s the science that makes it possible!

God’s creativity is one of my favorite of His traits.  Rain and flowers and bugs and the human body.  How did He come up with it all.

His creativity inspires awe and wonder.

Nowhere do I see greater creativity and wonder than in the plan that He devised to save mankind from themselves.  He sent a baby to be born in a cave.  He revealed this truth to outcast loners on a hill in the middle of the night.  He got the attention of the wise of the world by altering the stars.  And time after time He used the lowliest of mankind to bring about His masterful plan.  If I had all of eternity to concoct a grander, more obscure and beautiful plan, it would never have formulated quite like that.

Life is so rarely follows out script.

I feel fairly certain that neither Mary nor Joseph anticipated lives like the ones that God would call them to lead.  I’d venture that very few people ever believed what Mary knew to be true.  Most likely thought her quite pompous in her silly claims to try to exonerate herself.  Joseph’s friends surely did not understand and probably called him the fool for falling for Mary’s ludicrous lies.  But it was enough for them that God had called them to this life.  They needed no one else’s approval, respect, or understanding.

God intervened and their plans got wrecked.

And look at how beautifully it turned out.

When our plans go south, when things don’t go as intended, that’s when you need to get out your binoculars because something wonderful may be on the horizon. So often we hold our heads down in dismay when life goes off cue and we don’t have our eyes toward heaven, ready to see what the Lord has in store.  And we just miss it.  Wonder went before us and we had our heads hung in dismay and we missed it.

Shepherds came with wild stories of angels and glory!  Outcast men who didn’t mingle among the people sought out a young girl in a place not meant to house humans at all.  There had been not one angel, but a host of them.  They told of the greatness of this night, the birth of this King, the wonder of this coming.

Mary knew that life had gone off script, but she trusted that her Maker had a better course in mind.  And with a heart of wonder and a soul of love, faith, and trust, she watched her own life unfold with a spirit of splendor, awe, and amazement.  Who could dream this up?  Who could make up such a tale of love and beauty, of sacrifice and wonder, of seeming lows and eternal highs?  Who could inspire such wonder as this?

My God could.

And every day My God spins lives of greatness.  He weaves tales of love and beauty, of sacrifice and wonder.  Every day, in a million ways, my God makes wondrous the lowly.

God’s Word tells us that Heaven will be a restoration of Eden.  The picture of eternity that was given to John in the final chapters of this great Word is one that brings together all that was beautiful there and perfects it, restores it to it’s intended glory.  God made something beautiful, we dirtied it up, He restores it to it’s intended glorious state.

That’s Christmas.

Today my thoughts are rather personal.  I concede to this.  But a picture that spans from Adam and Eve, to a baby in a feeding trough, to a girl with electronics on her lap, to an eternity of awe and wonder, that is one that must be powerful.  It survives forever.

As I made a long drive home yesterday I rode along an incredible sunset as I listened to one of the most beautiful songs ever written, Pachelbel’s Canon in D (my favorite).  I begin to ponder.  It was breathtaking.  It was beauty and perfection and flawlessness.  It was on this earth and yet smacking of Eden.  It was life restored.

Christmas is all about restoration.  God created man to walk with Him, commune with Him, share eternity with Him.  He made something beautiful.  We messed it up.  We dirtied His beautiful plan.  Step three is about all that is predictable about my God.  He restores.  He creates, we mess up, He restores.

We lost our ability to be the beautiful things that God created us to be–perfect image-bearers, flawless friends of the Living God.  And we had no way back, the price was simply too steep.  So God made a plan.

He sent Christmas to restore us to Himself, to give us the opportunity to return to the glorious state that we were created to occupy, to bring back to us all the joy of fellowship with our God and King.  He sent His Son as a baby that we might be restored, and that the whole earth might find it’s perfection in eternity through His offering.

I spent the day in the company of those with whom God is restoring relationships. I watched as He gave me this inspiring picture painted across a darkening sky of how breathtaking restoration can be.  As I write these words, a family waits with eager excitement as a child will join their family, restoring life and promise to them all.  The year winds down, the death toll of winter, chimes the coming of newness on the horizon.  In the very seasons of our years and lives, God reveals the pattern of restoration.

From the curse pronounced in the Garden, God has been revealing a plan much older than even that.  He has been making known what lengths He would go to to restore that which was tainted.  We muddied the water, He cleanses it anew.

At what might we aim if we desire to hit the target of eternal significance this Christmas season?  The spirit of restoration, the making new of that which has grown old and sullied.  I’ve often marveled at the variations of that Christmas song that says, “faithful friends who are near (dear) to us, will be dear (near) to us once more.”  Judy Garland says the ones ‘who are near will be dear’, other artists usually say ‘dear to us are near to us.’  I used to think that it was so funny that she misspoke and they never went back to fix it.  I’ve come to change my tune.  I think that she too had an eye for restoration.  Restoring to their intended state the relationships that have grown old and sullied with time.

When Christ came down, He brought restoration; restoring the beauty and purpose and glory and intention and meaningfulness and love and perfection that He created everything to hold.  Restoration of lives–lives too that have grown old and sullied; of relationships; of nature, long abused and undervalued; of fellowship.

May I see the spirit of restoration at work around me this season.  May I bask in the beauty of a plan that makes it possible for me to walk in moments of Edenic perfection with a God who both made and bought me.  May I follow His example and let restoration come, even at the cost of letting the old and sullied fall away. May I look with awe at the newness and beauty that He can recreate from that which I have tainted.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.                             Luke 2:6-7

My daughter is pretty impressive with a bow and arrow.  We have a big target that we move around the front yard to shoot arrows into.  It’s really pretty cool, and it’s actually quite fun, a good workout too.  If I stand in my front yard and attempt to hit the target, I can hit it most times.

But what if I didn’t know exactly where the target was.  What if my daughter put out the target and shielded my eyes and said, “now hit the bull’s eye.”  How often might I hit it, you think?  The target could be anywhere- in front of me, behind me, anywhere.  My chances of getting it in that circle aren’t very good if I don’t know where to aim.

I think many of us don’t know where to aim when it comes to Christmas.  The world and many of our pasts and traditions and family plans, they can all distort the vision.  I want desperately to ‘get it’ this Christmas, but with all the possibilities, all the options, all the favorites and must-see’s, what exactly is the ‘it’ that I want to get?

The Bible really says so very little of our Lord’s birth.  Amazingly little, but I’ll come back to this another day.  The verses that are there have been repeated for many of us so often that they almost seem trite, overdone, like lines in a play rather than realities pertaining to me and my life.

The God of all Creation, the Maker of Heaven and Earth came to earth in the form of His own creation.  Unprecedented things occurred; angels appeared to both individuals and groups, skies were alight with multitudes that praised God and spread word of His plan being played out among men.  Our God condescended, He came near.  The plan of salvation entered the human realm and began to play itself out amid those who would benefit from it.  Prophesy was fulfilled.  This is a big deal.

Christmas is more than gifts and decorations, though they play a part in it.  It is more than lights and gathering, traditions and music.  So often those things are considered the root, when they are but the offshoots, the outer workings of an inner reality, a deeper truth beneath the facade.  Those are the trappings, the ribbon that adorns the actual gift, not the gift itself.

What then is the gift?  What is the target at which I now aim?  I can shoot in the dark this season and pray for the best, pray that somehow my attempts to truly grasp the enormity of this occasion will find their mark.  Or I can aim more wisely.  I can find the target first, and aim thereafter.

It’s all about the baby.  It’s found there in a cave.  It’s in the wonder and awe, the humility, the ramifications, the sacrifice, the truth and beauty of these solemn moments.  I have more than a dozen manger scenes all over my house.  I’d imagine you do too.  Stop and really look at it.  Stare at that baby.  Picture yourself in the room.  Smell it.  Shiver in the coolness of the night.  Picture Mary, so humble and modest.  Imagine how it is she made it through the night.  See Joseph, not knowing how on earth to help.  Did he stay by her and hold her hand?  Did he stand outside, giving her the privacy in the intimate moment he had never broached with her before?  Did they cry in disappointment that they couldn’t do any better for this Immaculate child?  Did they feel excitement or was it fear and dismay?  It was real to them.  He was real.  That baby she birthed, that child they couldn’t manage to find a bed for, that infant in a trough was, without question or doubt, the God of the Universe.  Imagine yourself as His mom and try to swallow.

This Child changed everything.  When God comes in, He changes everything.  It was true that night.  It is true today.

Don’t let me miss the target, Lord.  Don’t let me ogle over the wrapping paper while dismissing the gift.  Don’t let me praise the mud pies of this incredible season, while unaware of the feast that is offered me here.  May the spirit of this season, the very heart and meaning and power of what has happened find its way into my soul and permeate every part of who I am, how and why I celebrate, what I deem worthy of my time and attention, how I treat others, what holds prominence in my life.  Narrow my focus, Lord, to the true and eternal target of my attention.

I went for a very long run last weekend.  If you are about tired of the running stories, please bear with me once more.  It was a hard run.  In the spirit of humility, it was the worst I’ve ever had I think.  I began to have a cramp in my calf with quite a few miles to go and was forced to stop and stretch and then continue at a walk. Now, run-walkers pass me every race I run.  They beat me over and over, but I just can’t join them.  My body doesn’t work that way, if I stop running then my body thinks we’re done and doesn’t take lightly to starting back up again.  So for me to stop and walk is not normal and not welcomed.

To stop and walk because I have no other option is humbling at the very least.  It isn’t what ‘runners’ do, hence the title of runner. I began to ponder other things that I have felt were somehow beneath me.  I remember when I was not a kid, but not a teen in that unsettled place between.  My church had a ‘children’s church’ program.  You sat through the music in ‘big church,’ then filed out of the sanctuary to a back room where you did activities more suited to your age.

I was close to too old for children’s church, but my neighbor ran it and I enjoyed helping her each Sunday.  One Sunday she wasn’t there.  I didn’t know this.  I filed out with the kids and found someone I didn’t know leading the pack.  The woman didn’t know me, she didn’t know I was a ‘helper’ and not a student, she didn’t know that I was too big for that craft project.  She didn’t know that all that was beneath me.

How old do you think Jesus was before He really put it all together?  Do you think He knew from birth that He was God?

Do you think He ever got fed up with His earthly body and the limitations it put on His infinite power?  Do you think He was disgusted by the fact that He had to be potty trained and didn’t just do things perfectly in complete bodily control?  Do you think that He ever wanted to say, “If you had any idea who I am, you would never ask me to wash these dishes!”

Just imagine for a minute what His life must have been like.

Have you ever had someone try to tell you about some subject on which you happen to be a certified expert, not knowing just who you were and what you knew?  Have you ever had someone tell you at length of things you know like the back of your hand?  It makes you want to fill them in, doesn’t it?  The inclination is to stop them and say, “Actually, this is what I do for a living.  I happen to know all of this already, perhaps I can tell you a few things.”

There was never a conversation that our God in the flesh ever had where He didn’t know more about the subject than the person with whom He was speaking. There was never a time in His life when He was inferior to someone.  He was fully man, but He was fully God.  At any time, He could have called in the legions and expressed His Godly character to it’s fullest.  All the humility that He expressed was an act of will, a choice that He consciously made.

Can’t you see Him, shaking His head, belittled by His tasks and His limitations, and mumbling the words, “I’m really taking one for the team here.”

Those humbling situations where I find myself wanting to be treated the way I ‘should’ be, where I’m disappointed with myself for not asserting the skills or talents I know I have, where either I or others have forgotten just who it is I am and what I’m capable of.  I don’t go looking for those.  And I try to stop them when they look for me.

Every minute of His life was one of those situations.  All day, every day, He did that which was beneath Him.

And it began at Christmas–the first concession to the plan, the first of many times when the Savior would say, “Ok, I’ll take this one for the team, I’ll do this for them.”  It was the beginning of that life of humble moments lived in denial of His rights, in the selfless demeaning of His Perfect, All-Powerful potential.  He let Himself be squeezed into a frail and helpless capsule of skin and bones.  He let Himself be stripped of all power and control.  He let Himself be put into the care of an average little girl hand picked to be His mom.  He let Himself take on bodily functions that reminded Him every hour of this new humanity – every hunger pain, every dirty diaper, every rash, every human need.  He didn’t just come to earth in a body, a strong, powerful, imposing and charismatic figure that demanded respect by His very presence.  He came as a baby that demanded no respect, no attention, no accolades, and no praise.

My God does that.  He so often goes one step further than I could have come up with.  I can see the King on His horse, the mighty Warrior Prince riding in to victory.  That I can visualize.  But He took it one step further, He didn’t just come to rescue me, He came to welcome me.  He came to make sure that I felt understood and valued and important and special.  He didn’t want to just come in and wow me, He wanted to woo me too.

It worked.  Who wouldn’t love a God who would leave it all to be near them?  Who wouldn’t love a man who can do anything He wants, but chooses not to because He loves them?

From the very first cry, He chose humility.  He chose to be demeaned and overlooked, He chose to be helpless and underestimated, He chose to be selfless and humble.  He chose the hard road.  Not so that I could have an easy one, but so that I could have a purposeful one–in the company of a humble King who loves me so.

Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!                                                                                          Psalm 65:4

I’ve been overwhelmed the last few days–as Christmas decorations have been hung and sprawled and left half way to their destinations–to consider anew just why we do this.  My family went to see Saving Christmas last week at the movie theater.  I recommend it.  It is very good, but I recommend that all believers support anyone willing to put the Gospel on a big screen.

But the point of the movie is this very question, why do we do this and is it biblical.  Thus my thoughts on why I have a tree in my den and lights on every surface I can get them to hang from.

This is where I’ve landed, where for me it begins this Christmas:  an invitation, a few really.  The point of all this coming to earth business was to make it possible for me to accept His invitations.  Without Him coming, I would be in no position to receive all that He offers.

And to what has He invited me?

Ponder this verse for a minute.  Blessed are those you choose.  He’s doing the choosing, and I’m the one chosen.  Me.  And bring near to live in your courts. I’m being brought to live in His presence, His temple, His palace, His kingdom.  I’ve been invited to dine at the King’s table.  For ever.

You know how some invitations you wish you didn’t get–now you have to think of a decent reason not to go.  Some invitations you accept and then wish you hadn’t because ‘something  better’ came along.  Some invitations you clutch to your chest and jump for joy when you pull them out of the mailbox.  Some events you would move your whole schedule around to make sure you didn’t miss.

We’ve been invited to one of those we shouldn’t be willing to miss and yet the invitation often sits unopened on the foyer table overlooked and undervalued.

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.                                                                                                               Matthew 11:28

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into His courts.                                                                              Psalm 96:8

The Spirit and the bride say “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come.                                                Revelation 22:17

Come, come, come.  Come lay down your cares.  Come be humbled by His greatness.  Come bask in His radiant glory.  Come find your purpose in His perfect plan.  Come find shelter in His wings.  Come rest in His arms.  Come get a glimpse of who you are meant to be. Come. Come.

We are invited this season to join lowly shepherds and mighty kings at the feet of an Almighty God who humbled Himself right down into a dirty trough.  I’m invited.  I’m invited into the private, intimate scene of my Savior’s birth.  I’m invited to draw near to this Creator Child with the perfect plan.  I’m invited into such an honored place.  This scene is precious and tender and priceless and privileged.

And I’ve been invited to come.

Come to Bethlehem and see                                                                                               Him whose birth the angels sing.                                                                                     Come adore on bended knee                                                                                                 Christ the Lord, the newborn king.