Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”  God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites,’The Lord, the God of your fathers–the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob–has sent me to you.'”                     Exodus 3: 13-15

Most people when asked who they are use descriptors like ‘I’m so and so’s wife,’ ‘I’m their mom.’ Sometimes we say, ‘I’m an accountant with whatever firm,’ or ‘I’m a doctor with this practice.’ After the I am comes the description.  We can often put into a few short words a pretty complete synopsis of who we are and what our lives make up and are made up of.  

God isn’t like that.  

He is so much there isn’t anything He wouldn’t have to list behind the ‘I am.’ He is infinite and perfect, He is all-knowing and eternal, He is Creator and King, He is, He is, He is.  Those words which might clarify who He is are literally innumerable, there is nothing that ever was or will be that wouldn’t need to be listed.  In an effort to convey this reality to mankind, He came to call Himself the I AM.  No other words needed.

Here’s the humbling part: while He is all that, while there is any title of greatness that He might rightly claim, notice the title He chooses: I AM (which is enough) the God of Abraham.  I AM the God of Jana. I AM the God of Joseph, the God of Kate, the God of you.   

Christ called Himself the Son of Man more than any other name.  Son, capital, all God, Divine.  Man, lowly, subservient, temporal.  

He chooses to give Himself titles that forever hitch His wagon to mine.

This God who needs nothing asks much of me.  This God who has everything wants all of me.  This God who is eternal before me and everlasting beyond chooses to call Himself…

Her Father.  His Counselor.  Their Friend.  

Like a proud parent with countless accolades under his belt showing up at the little league field and introducing himself only as ‘number 4’s dad,’ we see what titles might mean the most to him.  And my God chooses to interweave who He is with who I am in Him.  Amazing.  

I’d think little number 4 might strut along the bases a bit.  I’d think he’d be pretty proud to be that guys son.  I’d think he’d play pretty hard and want to do his best to make that daddy proud.  Love like that will move you.

“I AM __________’s Dad.  She’s the apple of my eye, worth every sacrifice to make her mine.”

A few years ago while traveling on mission in Europe I had the opportunity to visit the orphanage where my friend’s son had been raised.  We were given access where it wasn’t usually granted and allowed a glimpse of what life had been like for their son.  This week I ran across some of my thoughts from that experience.  We’ll call their boy Jack.

“To have been able to see how these children are treated and to know what Jack’s life was like gave me such a wonderful perspective.  I heard stories of other orphanages, of how good this one is. Much like coming to Christ, some lives seem ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ more or less difficult.  For an orphan, Jack had great caretakers who genuinely seemed to care about him.  But nothing beats being part of a family.  God had this wonderful and grand design for him, something better, with greater benefits and hope.  What he had wasn’t half bad.  But what was offered him was priceless.  Often times we meet people whose lives don’t seem half bad.  Often times we ourselves settle for lives that aren’t half bad.  But what God actually has for us is so much more.  He offers us something better and lasting and rooted in Family.”  

We weren’t made for ‘good’ and God’s designs for our lives aren’t just ‘good.’

We were made for lives of resplendent wonder.

We weren’t made to settle for less, but to strive for more.  We weren’t made for mud pies or really good orphanages, we were made for feasts and homes and Family.  That orphanage was a really nice place, but it was no home, it had only a foretaste of family.  And to all who look around their lives and see less than the greatness of belonging, He says, “The Best is better than all the good you’ve ever known. Let’s go home, son.”

We were–every one of us–made for lives of greatness, wonder, belonging.  For most of us, the battle isn’t between being a good person or being a bad one, it is between being a good one and the best one.  Often times we look at our lives, our choices, our families, our marriages, our finances, our relationships and we think it’s all pretty good, not half bad.  I’m ok. We weren’t made for ok.  We were made for greatness and to settle for anything less is to leave priceless blessings on the table of our lives, unopened gifts on the calendar of our days.  

I don’t want ‘a good life’ and that means I can’t make decisions that lead to one. I want the best life God has to offer me and that means I must daily make decisions that lead to it.

May we never settle for mud pies in the slums because we can’t imagine the greatness of a feast by the ocean. (And, yes, that is a rather loose paraphrase from the impeccable C. S. Lewis.)

My husband and I met a man yesterday.  It was late and he was sitting on a bench inside Zaxby’s.  He had a backpack and a hoodie and looked a bit under dressed for the cold outside.  He wasn’t eating, just sitting.  

As my husband was waiting for our food to be ready, the man turned to him and began to ask him a few questions.  The end result was one final question, “Do you mind if I draw your picture?” He didn’t want money and was fine with a “no,” but would it be okay. Certainly.  

After a minute or two my husband got my attention and called me over as well.  This man was incredible.  With barely a look at him, he was drawing a wonderful likeness that was laden with enormous talent.  He drew and we watched and it took less than ten minutes.  When he was done, he signed it, titled it, and said thank you.  I told him what a gift he had and what beautiful work he did and even took their picture together.  He was kind and respectful and demur and immensely talented and had the sweetest countenance about him.  

I haven’t been able to get him off my mind.  I had looked right into his red, tired eyes and seen something unforgettable– indistinct, but unforgettable.

Also yesterday I heard a quote from a well known actress that was so harsh and so hateful and so misguided that I’d had trouble forgetting the hardness of her face as she spewed her cruelty.  To most of the world, she is a beauty.  She has the world’s attention and adoration and when she speaks, even in ignorance and hatred, we often listen.  

This artist could have spoken from that bench for hours without a soul giving heed to his voice.  

Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.                            Hebrews 13:2

For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.                II Corinthians 11:14

To which do we usually defer, the one that looks like a random stranger or the one who glows like an angel of light?

What the world calls common, ordinary, or even refuse, the Lord calls angelic.  And that which our world lauds and panders to is so often the devil in disguise.

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.  The Lord does not look at the things people look at.  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”              I Samuel 16:7

With such a high priority today on looking the part, I’d like to request a set of goggles, Lord.  Give me eyes to see that which actually is beautiful and to unmask that which simply appears to be.

My genetic code has some pretty good stuff in it.  We’ve got great metabolism.  We’re pretty smart and without a propensity for cancer.  Good stuff in there.  It’s not all good though. There’s depression and alcoholism.  It’s in the code and something I’m mindful of as I raise my children. They may have predilections, natural leanings that not everyone has to watch out for.  

While I may have a natural bent toward alcoholism, I have never taken that to mean that I am an alcoholic or that I have no choice but to become one.  While my DNA may have the marker, my choices make the distinction.  While there are many aspects of life– from DNA to abuses, sins, and failings– that contribute to the whole picture of who I am, the final distinction lies in the choices I make in light of all those.

I am who God says I am.  Not who I think I am, or who my genes say I am, or who my enemies past and present claim I am, or even who I wish I could be.  I am who He says I am and I will never be truly alive until I take up that mantel and walk in the fullness of it.  Until I make choices that coincide with that identity.

I believe God is calling my son to lead.  He’s a more reserved type.  He is a homebody and only approves of a spotlight when it’s shining onto a basketball court.  He’s not looking to lead.  

Every day we make choices about what we believe and what we will and won’t become.  Every day God presents a mantel, a distinction for us to own and wear.  He says, “I have made you new and this is who you are.”  And we choose each day whether or not we believe Him.  

“You are a leader.”  No, I’m not the right person to lead.  I’m too shy or too quiet, too bumbling or too common.  “You are a mentor.”  I haven’t done nearly enough right to be able to show someone else how to. “You are a teacher, a parent, a role model, an evangelist, a missionary, a prayer warrior, a light on a hill.”

For some the trouble is far more basic.  

But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.              Colossians 1:22

You are forgiven.  You are without blemish.  You are free.

You are who He says you are.  Sometimes those things He says are too wonderful to believe, and sometimes they are too daunting.  Sometimes they may seem like they’ll take too much work. And sometimes we may think no amount of work could accomplish it.  

We are a product of our choices, not our DNA or our past, not our tendencies or our sin.  To each on any day God says this is your mantel, this is who you are and what you can become.  What will you choose? Are you prepared to choose it again and again?

Choose you this day whom you will serve.                           Joshua 24:15

Great word.  Have I ever told you about it?  Elpis.  One of my favorites.

Elpis is the Greek word usually translated as hope.  It doesn’t mean hope the way we think of hope, like, “I hope I win the lottery.” It isn’t pipe dreams, penny in a wishing well hope.  It’s assured.

Here’s our problem with hope today: we have either lost sight of that after which we biblically hope or we’ve bought into the lottery version of hope–either we don’t know what to hope for or we don’t hope for it with assurance of obtaining it.  We might, for instance, say that we hope we enter into eternal rest and find we’ve lived a life that warrants Christ’s accolades of us to His Father (but really we doubt it.)  We might say we hope Heaven is all that because, really, who knows and He gives us so little to go on (but secretly we fear it’s all harps and old hymns.)  We might say we have hope that tomorrow–whether spent here or there–will be blessed and better than today because He said so (but honestly we’ve had such a string of lousy days tomorrow looks grim on every front.)  We might say we have a longing hope to see His face (but deep down we’re scared to death He’ll say He never knew us, or worse, say He’s ashamed He does.)  

How much of what we say do we really mean?

And how much of my life affirms that I do indeed mean it?

Elpis is a longing to receive that which I know is coming.  It isn’t a maybe, but an assurance of things yet fully revealed.  It’s as good as done.

It means I believe God really won’t look on me as a criminal awaiting judgment, but rather as a bride approaching her Groom.  

It means Heaven really is that one destination I can hardly contain myself for want of entering into.  

It means I am today the makings of one who can be mighty in the Lord tomorrow.

It means a life of relegating myself to His will today will totally be one worth having lived when my final tomorrow comes.  

Biblical hope says that certain things are true.  Not because I want them to be, not because they appear to be, and not because I say they are.  These things are true because He said so and that makes them as good as done.

My Father’s house has many rooms if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?                                        John 14:2

He’s been working for nearly 2 God-days on this ‘place.’ Look at what all He did in six God-days!  What’s coming is bound to be good.  

Now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.           Colossians 1: 22

This is who we are in Christ!  We are HOLY, we are FAULTLESS, we are FREE.  This is done and for me to take on chains and shame is for me to fall short of the hope to which I have been called.  

He has made us to be Kings and Priests to serve His God and Father.        Revelation 1:6

We are of royal lineage, possessing all that is ours as heirs of the Kingdom of Light, and we have direct access to the God of all Creation.  We also serve as advocates, mediators bringing man in his sinful state into the presence of the God who redeems.  And it is our duty and privilege to spend our days at His feet and in His service.

We must know the promises He’s made that are as good as done.  And then we must believe that He will see them through to completion–assured belief, certain anticipation. (Philippians 1:6)

If we do not know or we do not find ourselves assured, we would do just as well to roll our pennies and spend our Sunday mornings casting wishes into the fountain.  Know whom you have believed and be persuaded that He is able.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.                          Ephesians 1:18-19

As I ran this morning, I discovered a tendency that permeates far more of my life than just those quiet morning moments on the pavement.  I have recently found the most delightful route. It’s beautiful, quite scenic, placid and peaceful, and usually in the morning just after the sun has begun to rise across the sky. I chose it for these very reasons.

I was halfway through all that gloriousness when I realized that I had not lifted my eyes off of the sidewalk even once to behold this beauty I profess to enjoy so.  

It is totally logical, even sensible to watch the ground in front of you as you run, especially on sidewalks as you often encounter uneven slabs and pine cones and litter.  These things can turn an ankle if you don’t know to avoid them.  I tend to keep my eyes down, lost in my head and scanning for the pitfalls that may await me.  

Many years ago I took a picture of this wonderful man in Haiti feeding a toddler.  His name is Jimmy.  He’s a pretty big guy, but the most gentle servant there ever was.  He stood behind the child with his left hand beneath the boys chin and his right holding a spoon full of oatmeal.  It was so tender and moving to watch.  The little boy merely had to open his mouth to receive what was placed there before him.

Far too often I profess to have come to the table while stubbornly, blindly, methodically refusing to lift my eyes to the provisions just inches from my lips.  

When you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.                                    Psalm 104:28

We do this in everyday life.  We go to church and we go to our knees and we ask the Lord for His provisions and blessings and we confess the needs of our days and lives.  Then when He puts His hand beneath our chins to raise our eyes to receive that for which we have asked, we press against Him or deny the sensing at all.  And we continue to sit hungry and needy and wishing for that which we continue to long for–never realizing how incredibly near it is to us.  

We do this in moments of rest and vacation.  We go somewhere beautiful, peaceful, restorative, but we never lift our eyes to behold the beauty we’ve come to see.  We allow our sights to be hampered by the anxiety over what may lie ahead, by the exhaustion of just putting one foot before the other, by the habit of keeping our nose to the grindstone.  And all the beauty we’ve gone to behold is left to rise and set unbeheld.

We do this at Christmas.  We don’t want to ‘miss it.’ We try to slow down and ‘catch it.’ We know, we sense, we believe there is this great thing that the season has to offer us and we try in so many ways to encounter it fully or at all.  We put our heads down and press on as if we think we’ll eventually run headlong into it.

I can run with my eyes down and there is a certain amount of wisdom in that.  But if I never lift my eyes, I miss all that is so breathtaking just inches above my lowered lids.  And then the snare of vigilance, watchfulness, fear, anxiety, and control have their way and I live the cautious life.  And miss everything that is beautiful.  

I felt His hand today.  I heard Him say my name and call me to behold the greatness He had drawn me there to witness.  It was an incredible morning; the veiled sun, the fountain in the middle of the pond, the last changing leaves dangling from the otherwise barren trees, a horse in the far field, the breath of wind on my face, and the awareness of His hand beneath my chin.  

Sometimes we go so long without looking up, Lord, that our necks seem stuck in a paralysis of control and shortsightedness.  We spend our days watching for danger zones, trying to avoid the problem spots, laboring to put one foot before the other, watching the methodical drop of our own futile footfalls.  As the gentle servant You are, lift our eyes to You today.  Let us feel Your tender provision and Presence.  And make us aware of all that is miraculously ours just inches from our lips as You lift our faces to You.  May we fully take in all that You desire to reveal to and provide for us this season.  

As I was leaving Walmart today there was a man in a wheelchair putting groceries into his back seat.  I asked if he might need any help.  As it turned out, he was almost done and declined but then stopped and told me thank you for offering.  

I recently saw a story about a man who has a muscular disease and has the body of a small child.  He wanted to see the world but was limited by his wheelchair.  His friends built a custom backpack and traveled the world with and for him.

I have a sweet friend who is legally blind.  There is much she simply can’t do.  While there is so very much she can, she has to rely on others for everything else–to drive her, to tell her what things look like, to read signs and point out tricky spots in the sidewalk.  

You know what all these scenarios require?

Someone with a need who is willing to allow others to meet it.

In light of our being delegates with vital work to do, this may be the ‘how’ to accompany the ‘what.’ We all have these things we feel and are called to, burdened for, gifted toward, but the journey to accomplishment is a long, arduous, bumpy, and doubt-ridden road.  On any given day you can know your mission and have such a passion and vibrance for it that you feel you could fly.  Then you blink and that same task is heavy as lead and every step seems riddled with turmoil and bearing little or no fruit.  Then there are the days when it just seems pitch black dark as you stare down the road it feels you alone must travel! You have no idea how to proceed or maybe even where it is you’re really headed.

You know what we need?

We need to be people with a need who are willing to allow others to meet it.

Tell Archippus: See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.                                                                           Colossians 4:17

We need others to come alongside us with whom we can share the ministry we have each received.  And we need for them to call us out.  We need for them to help ensure we ‘see to it’ that we live the lives we’ve been called to.  We need to be people who recognize our need.  We need to be people who turn to those offering to help us in love and humility and say thank you for reminding us of what we’re to be doing here.  We need to be people who don’t shun advice and help and accountability.  

Because you know what?  We all need a little help here.

There are two people in this scenario: the one needing help and the one offering it.  Be both.  And be both with grace, discernment, love, humility, patience, kindness, gentleness.  Not sure how to do that exactly?  Try.  Try to give it.  Try to take it.  Try to be moved to obedience by the gentle encouragements of others in the Body who know what you are called to be and need and desire that you be it.    

“The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it.”         -John Eldredge, Waking the Dead

Do you know what you could be?  Do others?  Do you “strenuously contend” (Colossians 1:29) to become daily that which Satan fears?  Can you become that alone?  Who will make sure you don’t have to? Are there others who are weak in the battle?  To whom might you be Aaron to the weak armed Moses? Perhaps it’s time we all just give little help here.

So my house isn’t exactly Christmas ready.  We do have a tree.  A huge, beautiful, bare tree. It’s so big that we put the ‘topper’ on it while we had the ladder in the house so it’s barren but for that one article.  My tiny topper is woefully inadequate for the size of this tree, but it’s what we have, what we’ve always had.  It’s an angel; a small billowing robe clad flying angel.  

As I enjoyed our one sign of the season the other night, I found myself considering that angel.  

Think of the tasks we know angels to have accomplished.  The big news of Christ’s upcoming birth announced, Daniel’s delayed prayer answer due to angelic battles involving whole nations, Jesus being ministered to in the Garden as He despaired and sweat blood.  

While humans don’t become angels, I find there is much to discover about myself and the Lord as I see how angels function.  I find that one of the many underlying themes of Revelation becomes apparent through the many mentionings of angels throughout the book.  

We see angels ‘holding back the four winds’ in chapter 7 as another angel ‘seals’ the 144,000.  We see angels holding trumpets in chapters 8 and 9.  We see the ‘mighty angel’ of chapter 10.  The whole book is replete with angels to whom great and impactful things have been delegated.

I believe my favorite such delegate is found in Revelation 16:

The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.  Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say:

‘You are just in these judgments, O Holy One, you who are and who were; for they have shed the blood of your holy people and your prophets, and you have given them blood to drink as they deserve.’                                                                                                                     Revelation 16: 4-6

This angel was in charge of the waters!  Do you know how imperative water is to the life of everything on Earth!? This is a huge job to delegate!  You can almost hear the sadness in the angels words, “I know it is right and they deserve it.  But I’ve watched these waters for thousands of years and they are my baby.  Your will not mine.”

There is much that I do not understand about how God chooses to relate to His children.  Why is prayer so valuable and necessary?  If He already knows what’s going to happen, how is it I’m always choosing–and why can’t He just make me make better choices?  What’s the deal with fasting?  So many questions.  A profound one among them is this:

Why does God delegate such important things to people who mess up all the time?

Our God delegates.  He delegates hugely important things and blissfully minor ones, but He is very much in the business of giving others jobs to do.  And just in case you’re inclined to believe this is just for angels:

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.                                                                                                                    Ephesians 2:10

There is work to be done and much of it is of enormous, eternal significance.  And we are the delegation He has marked to do it.  

This work that has been delegated to us is far more important than most of what we will spend our lives on today.  Being the gentleman, He will not push and shove His way into our schedules any more than He will into our hearts and lives.  

What matter of eternal importance has been pushed to the bottom of the to-do for too long? Or do we even believe there is one?  I don’t care who you are, if you are in Christ you have been delegated good works and we need for you to be about them.  He knew what He was doing when He set aside the task just for you and He surely stands by His decision.  As the angels who hold their eternal posts, let us show up today for the jobs we have been called to do.

We all ‘plug in’ to something. We get our life, our energy, our purpose from some source we tap into.   

We own a generator.  It’s very handy.  When the power goes out, we can hook the fridge and freezer up to it and not have to worry about losing our groceries.  It only has so many plugs though, so we can only power so many items with it.  And then there’s the need for fuel.  We have to constantly replenish the tank to keep the thing running.  

A generator could prove to have any number of inconsistencies (especially depending on your own watchfulness.)  They can glitch, have surges of power, spells of drought where they just cut off, or can stop working all together.  Rather finicky and a bit work intensive.  

My daughter and I were watching a television show last week and there was this sweet man who just seemed lost.  He explains that his wife of many years had passed away and she had been his whole world.  Without her he had no purpose, no life.  

This man had been plugged into her generator which cut off and left him in the dark.  Without her there, he had no source of life, light, warmth, purpose.  

We all walk around looking for plug ins.  Look at the rise of 5 Hour Energy and Red Bull.  We all need more oomph.  We find a substance that makes us feel lively and energetic.  We find a romance that makes us feel vibrant and useful.  We find a show that makes us feel a sense of belonging and distraction.  We find a job that makes us feel purposeful and proud.  We find a vacation spot that makes us feel peaceful and content.  We find….

While there may be a wonderful surge of power available to us from any of these sources, they don’t prove to be reliable generators.  They have relational glitches.  They surge us with power only to leave us feeling totally drained just minutes beyond the 5 hour mark.  They deliver us to cloud 9 only to send us crashing through the trees moments later.  And sometimes they just cut off for no discernible reason and leave us cold, lonely, hungry, and in the dark.  

There is no generator here that can fuel us consistently.  All that is temporal abides by it’s temporal nature and restrictions.  We need a power source that can deliver to us the life, energy, warmth, direction, and purpose we long for–and do that with such blissful dependability that we fear no storm or loss.  

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms….                                                         Ephesians 1:18-20

We can’t let the source of our strength– that which makes us feel alive, that which fuels us for lives that emanate light and heat and energy–be something that isn’t up for the task.  

God in Christ, the Great I AM, is the only generator big enough to fuel great, consistent, powerful lives of purpose.  To tap into any other source is to put ourselves under the strain of it’s limitations.  It is to entrust our own strengths to it’s weakness.  It is to settle for glitches and surges and seasons of darkness.  

There’s a generator that fuels with Perfection.  Plenty of plug in’s for the lot of us.  And a long history of unprecedented dependability.

I am a mom.  And like all children, mine are growing up.  The problem is that every new season of their lives tends to hurl me (without even asking!) into a new season of my own.  

We have just passed into a new season whereby much of my daily life has become rather…open.  Sounds lovely.  Right.

I feel as though my husband and I have done a fair job of prioritizing the closeness of our relationship knowing that one day it will again be just he and I.  I thought I had done the same for myself.  Bugger.  Life itself swoops in to prove me wrong.

By nature of the outlook of our daily lives, we come to see ourselves through a lens of activity, relationships, labels.  “I am so and so’s mom.  I am so and so’s husband.  I work for so and so.  I teach at so and so or do books at thus and such.”  The identity that we adhere to becomes one that is fragile at best.  And when that identity takes a shift, well, you feel like me this week.

Today I destroyed my bedroom with half done rearranging.  I washed the outside of my kitchen windows.  The outside mind you, not the inside.  I refilled the hummingbird feeder.  I gave my dog his anxiety pills. I tried out my new dust vac by getting the dead bugs out of the window sills. I sealed my name in every random book I own. And I walked a few miles…from my kitchen to bedroom and many times back again.  Fulfilling.

Then, thanks be to God, I sat down and let Him remind me! I am a saint.  I am a child and an apple of His eye.  I am a treasure and a prize. I am warrior and an instrument. I am a work in progress and a gifted soul.  

And I’m an alien.

Live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.                I Peter 1:17

Seasons will always change this side of Heaven because I’m not home yet.  In the meantime, I’ll figure out the shifts and sways of a life that’s lived in constant motion, longing for the day when my identity is my sight.