A Guest Advent Reflection

This is another guest post. It's from The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey:

C.S. Lewis has written about God's plan, "The whole thing narrows and narrows, until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear--a Jewish girl at her prayers." Today as I read the accounts of Jesus' birth I tremble to think of the fate of the world resting on the responses of two rural teenagers. How many times did Mary review the angel's words as she felt the Son of God kicking against the walls of her uterus? How many times did Joseph second-guess his own encounter with an angel--just a dream?--as he endured the hot shame of living among villagers who could plainly see the changing shape of his fiancee?

[...]

Nine months of awkward explanations, the lingering scent of scandal--it seems that God arranged the most humiliating circumstances possible for his entrance, as if to avoid any charge of favoritism. I am impressed that when the Son of God became a human being he played by the rules, harsh rules: small towns do not treat kindly young boys who grow up with questionable paternity.

Malcolm Muggeridge observed that in our day, with family-planning clinics offering convenient ways to correct "mistakes" that might disgrace a family name, "It is, in point of fact, extremely improbable that Jesus would have been permitted to be born at all. Mary's pregnancy, in poor circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious case for an abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of the intervention of the Holy Ghost would have pointed to her need for psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy even stronger. Thus our generation, needing a Savior more, perhaps, than any that has ever existed, would be too humane to allow one to be born."*

The virgin Mary, though, whose parenthood was unplanned, had a different response. She heard the angel out, pondered the repercussions, and replied, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said." Often a word of God comes with two edges, great joy and great pain, and in that matter-of-fact response Mary embraced both. She was the first person to accept Jesus on his own terms, regardless of the personal cost.**

from me, not Philip Yancey:

* I sure hope this guy is overstating the case a little bit, but I think he makes a good point even so. I would hope a mother has more control than to just let the baby be aborted without her consent, but either way Jesus would definitely be a prime candidate if you look at reasons people give, like "oh, that family is so poor the kid wouldn't have a good life anyway," and stuff. I agree that Mary's explanation would definitely get her into a psychiatric hospital, too, if most doctors heard it.

**Wow. I love the wording he chose. Accepting Jesus and God's plan (which are one and the same) always comes at a high personal cost, and it must always be on His terms, without compromise, but it's always worth it.

What we are praying for when we pray for the gospel to spread

Last night the pastor at my church here was telling the story of his conversion. He said God meant nothing to his family during his childhood. None of the family believed or cared to follow God's ways. But when he was a teenager, first his sister and then his mother began going to church. He decided to investigate what this was all about, and he began to read the Bible. Not out of love for God, but out of curiosity. Then he said because of his reading the gospel message he began to be thirsty. That was not surprising to me.

Then he said he began to feel dirty. I wasn't sure I had translated correctly. He said he began to feel alone, and to feel very ugly. He said that before his encounter with the gospel as portrayed in the Bible he had been a very prideful person, content in his achievements and his intelligence and the pride of his family for these things about him. I knew that what he was saying made sense, but at first it struck me as very strange. And I realized that many people who don't know God simply don't feel a need for Him. And I realized, again, that the way to God dips into a valley before it climbs to heaven. We aren't taken from glory to glory until we've come face to face with the end of ourselves.

This has been a question I've had lately: how to pray for non-believers, when all they really need is God. At my church in America, sometimes they go and pray for people who don't know God, right in front of them. They ask what they need and pray for that. That's probably fine or they wouldn't be doing it, but I said "they" because I've not yet understood how that is supposed to work. It seems to be ignoring the most glaring and basic need in the person's life to pray for them and leave out the part about their heart encountering God, and yet it seems dishonest to leave that part out if you're planning to do it later so that they don't feel weird.

The truth is, when you find a person who is in need of God (aka everyone who doesn't walk with Him yet), what they need first to even be able to approach Him is a deep sense of unease with the way things are going. This might be why some of us describe encountering God as "having your life turned upside down" or "getting rocked" or even (okay, this is just me, in some dramatic moments) "having your life ruined." Because once you see the truth, going back isn't an option. There are no easy roads left to you once your ignorance has been stripped away. You have to do things that break your fleshly little heart, and yet not to do them is to turn your back on the one you love.

All this has been a surprise to me. It's dawned on me very, very slowly. And it's for this that I believe it's not up to us to make the gospel sound appealing to people. I once told a friend it's not like we listen for problems in someone's life and prescribe God to them like a medicine. He's not a product we're selling. We can't even exaggerate how great He is, but we can misrepresent Him sometimes if we try to make (or God forbid, succeed at making) the Christian life look cool. It's just not cool, okay? It's way better than the alternative, but it's not easier, and to tell someone it is can mess them up for a long time as they try to reconcile this paradox. It's not that we convince people into the kingdom; God chooses people, and calls them, and that's His divine initiative. And we can partner with His work by praying that the people we love will come to know Him.

But let's make no mistake about what we're asking. When I ask for someone's salvation, a person far from God who is pretty happy with their life, I am asking that they will be completely broken. That they will begin to feel dirty, and thirsty, and alone. Even ugly. Not that they will stay feeling that way forever with no comfort, but that they will get to that place and not be able to pretend it away anymore.

All through church I kept having more thoughts about this, and I thought, "maybe it's not so bad to pray for a little unhappiness in this life, seeing that it's so fleeting, and painful anyway, and that it could lead to eternal life. It's just like those metaphors about a doctor who gives a painful but life-saving shot, or who relocates a limb, or those people who have to push harder on the trap to free an animal or whatever."

And I also realized that prayers to get closer to God, which we might toss up so casually, knowing they are always a good bet, never the wrong thing to pray, might as well just be prayers for more sadness and more emptiness, so that God can comfort and fill us. It's impossible for Him to fill what is not empty.

I guess if there's anything good about this, at least for me, it is that whenever I am very, very sad (it happens) I am a vessel that can contain more of God's comfort, or when I am empty or alone, I can invite God to fellowship with me in a way that someone who is totally content just wouldn't be able to.

⁸ Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— ⁹ yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. ¹¹ See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. --2 Corinthians 7:8-11

P.S. This idea, paraphrased, "Don't Just Pray For Someone's Happiness, You Fool (Because It Might Interfere With God's Work In Their Life)" was originally given to me about a year ago by good ol Oswald Chambers, and I've been working it through ever since, and continue to realize more about it all the time.

A "Guest Post": The Trial of Faith

Let me be very clear. This is a devotional I copied and pasted from My Utmost for His Highest. Calling it a guest post is stretching the truth to the breaking point. It's almost certainly illegal for me to repost it like this, but since I have about eight readers, I don't think it will be a problem. This is the original link: http://utmost.org/the-trial-of-faith/I found this incredibly helpful, even worth breaking the law for. Enjoy:

We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith— faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to “walk by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.

Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him— a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is— “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Reflections on being foreign Part I

So, I am a foreigner right now. (I don't think this is news to anyone who is reading this.) This makes me read Bible passages about "the foreigner" in a WHOLE new light.

Check out this one: "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and foreigner. I am the LORD your God." -Leviticus 19:9-10

And: "'When foreigners reside among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigners residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." -Leviticus 19:33-34

Firstly, when I saw "poor and foreigner" grouped together, I instantly understood why. In your native setting, you might be intelligent, educated, and pretty good at handling basic transactions, but when you are in a foreign context (especially in a foreign language!) you basically come across as mentally disabled. I am not saying this lightly, or to make a cheap joke. There are multiple people I know, even friends, who literally seem to me to be slightly... developmentally challenged, because of the way they speak English. I may never know this side of heaven whether they are actually slow or not but the fact remains that when you can't speak a language well, that is the impression you give off.

"Poor" implies disadvantaged, in need of a little extra grace, lacking. "Foreigner," I am learning firsthand, is the same. As for the second Scripture passage, I would like to take this opportunity to say I could never have expected a better reception from the people here. People are always inviting me to do things, and feeding me, and giving me things and offering to drive me places, and actually driving me places and then home again, even though where I live is on no one's way anywhere. I realize full well that right now I have nothing to give back to them. All I can offer them is my sincere gratitude. In the future, I hope I can also offer them friendship, but friendship takes time to flower, of course, and now the best I can give is a stranger's kindness.

It's not like I haven't spent time alone, but I want to be very clear about something: I am a person who loves being in her room. Sometimes I don't want to leave it, even to do something better than test-drive free music from Noisetrade while playing Spider Solitaire to stave off the boredom. If I am getting out and about all the time (and, I am), it's because people are initiating with me. It makes me see my need; the point of this paragraph is that I would be "lost" (too harsh a word, I know) without the intentional generosity of others calling or texting me, then driving here to pick me up. And frankly, I am pretty sure this is also because I am foreign. In America, I know there are some settings I'd be completely at ease in. One is at a Target. Another is at a Starbucks. Guess what, Saint Claude doesn't have either one of those. Those are just two examples, but here I'm pretty sure there are no settings at all here that I'd be "completely at ease in" (in which I'd be completely at ease...). We foreigners need help, is my point. We need people to leave grapes and gleanings lying around so we can eat while we're trying to track down the phone number to get our fridge fixed and figure out a grocery shopping schedule and transportation options.

Being a foreigner and "dropping" from being a person who is quickly easily understood almost all the time (gosh I hope so) to being someone who stumbles over the simplest things and uses the wrong gender with nouns, and talks in a weirdly formal way that might be textbook right but doesn't resemble how most people actually talk, makes me think of the options we all have in life. There are some people who will never do what I did, in moving to a foreign country alone, and as a result they may never quite realize how great it is to be understood when you open your mouth. I wouldn't blame anyone for staying in their home settings. It's no fun to feel like everything you say is dumb, and you have a thick accent.

But on some days, I have this thought, and admittedly its prideful, but it's like: "Do you realize who I am? I promise I'm not some babbling stupid person. I have friends, and stuff. I know how to buy things, and to say and understand numbers, even long ones, and communicate effectively with a telephone. And from time to time I am even clever with words, just not in your language." I've always associated a willingness to "drop in status" with the Christian life. By no means am I trying to say I did that on purpose, or that it's good I did it. Not at all, I just see a metaphor here I can't resist.

Jesus was the ultimate example of "Don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I'm capable of?" His Father would have sent Him more than 12 legions of angels at the drop of a hat (and apparently a legion was like 6,000), but instead He opted to live like us, you know, giving up certain perks of being a deity for a time so that He could show true love. Because love would never pull rank. Love wouldn't feel like it needed to say, "Seriously, I'm not as dumb as you probably think right now. Seriously, I'm way more powerful than this, you've got to believe me. If I wanted to I could call my dad, he's pretty famous and rich, no big deal, and he would fix everything, I swear."

Thus, I will conclude by saying that even though I feel dumb sometimes, I'm grateful for this opportunity. I love the idea of hospitality, and I've always wanted to be good at it, and I am learning tons from being on the receiving end in such an extreme way.

Praise and glory to God for His kind children, and His generous heart that humans share as His image-bearers even when they don't know Him.

Cain and Abel used to bother me.

Yesterday in church I realized it bugged me that God seemed to accept Abel and reject Cain. Doesn't Acts 10:34-35 tell us that he's "no respecter of persons" (depending on your translation)? Doesn't 1 Peter 1:17 say the Father judges impartially, and are we not instructed to imitate God by doing "nothing out of favoritism" in 1 Timothy 5:21? And in James 3:17 the wisdom that comes from heaven is lots of things, and one of them is impartial.

But before I had even had time to think of those (I mean, who needs references to know God is fair, right?) I realized that I was overlooking part of the story. Genesis 4:4-5 says, "The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." Not just Abel and Cain themselves. So Cain gets mad and sad (my paraphrase of Genesis 4:5b) and God, being a considerate person, asks him why. "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?"

I admit there's a lot going on in the original story that I don't understand, because I don't know if there's some significance to the difference between offering animals and plants (one has blood and includes death?) and I know that Abel kept flocks for a living, and Cain grew stuff, so what does that say about 2 Corinthians 8:12 "For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have"? But I think I know the answer already. It specifies right in the passage, "if the willingness is there."

The reading of the Cain and Abel story that does not bother me is as follows: Cain's and Abel's offerings have modern-day parallels that I can understand. Another word for offering in this case will be sacrifice. Modern-day sacrifices include all sorts of things. Like:

- sacrificing your right to speak up and defend yourself all the time (Jesus set us an example of this in 1 Peter 2:23, and it is every bit as relevant today as ever);

- sacrificing whatever amount of time you set aside daily for prayer, listening to God and reading Scripture;

- sacrificing watching movies or TV or listening to music that feels really good but also sort of tears apart your soul a little bit by setting a bad example (okay, I am referring to Gossip Girl);

- sacrificing the unlimited free music you could be having by choosing to pay out of respect for musicians;

- sacrificing your American Dream to pursue something less glam and impressive for Jesus' sake and the sake of the broken (example: doing that thing where you put a cap on your earnings and give the rest away);

- sacrificing a tenth of your dinero to give to church;

- sacrificing making out too much or at the wrong time in the interest of purity and showing you trust God that He's better than making out out of season.

and.. the examples are probably infinite, but those are what I came up with on the spot. If you were wondering, the making out one is my favorite example, lol. And I'd consider those to all be pretty good sacrifices. Sacrifices that are supernaturally motivated when you decide you want to honor God and ask Him for the strength to make them. I realize there are way bigger things to give up, and also way smaller. But I think the listed examples all require faith that there's more to life than what we can see. Hebrews 11:4 says that, "By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did." So I can believe that in my modern-day parallel story, Abel's sacrifice, his offering, was something like one of those or better. And as for Cain, well, his offering was probably more like the day you forgot to bring lunch with you and there's nowhere you can buy it so you realize halfway through being hungry that technically it could probably be referred to as a fast, and that's what you offer. Cain's sacrifice was probably like giving your last leftovers to God instead of the firstfruits He both wants and deserves way more than you, anyway. It doesn't take faith, because you didn't really do anything differently in your life because of it.

Frankly, I often have trouble with the binaries, or lack thereof, in the world. It's far easier to understand life in black and white. But God is a person, and like any person, doesn't fit into any kind of formula or predictability. So it's His divine right (and in this case, who could blame Him anyway?) to look favorably upon some offerings and not upon others. Some offerings are better, some come from a deeper place in the heart and thus contain more of us. More of our will, because they reflect more of the giver's intention (if I didn't already tell you, I think will and intention are the deepest part of someone's being). To use a dumb example, think of the difference between someone giving you store-bought cookies and home-baked ones. Sure, they are both cookies. And even if they taste the same (I think we all know the home-baked ones would be better in a non-hypothetical situation), heck, even if the home ones are worse, you will probably look more favorably on the ones that someone took time to plan and bake for you, which they did not have to do (evidenced by the fact that there is such a thing as store-bought cookies).

The rough part for me is that I can easily imagine myself in Cain's place: someone else totally spends more time with God, and I am jealous that they seem to be receiving more from Him. Well, should I be surprised by this? If I gave up what they have to pursue Jesus, would I not receive the riches I see them with?

Lastly, there's a verse somewhere (thought it was in James or Corinthians, but couldn't find it, and Google didn't help at all) about how we kill people or are mean to them or something not because of how bad they are, but how bad we are (awful, awful paraphrase I know). And this seemed relevant, and I would've added it if I could've.

What we look at says more about us than what we look like.

Some of those bright motivational posters for children say, “It’s what’s inside that counts!” I propose that, alternately, what we take in is more important than both our outsides and our insides. Because it’s a choice. People act like their life happens to them, and it partially does, but I think your true life is defined by what you decide to do about it, not by what happens. It’s like all the metaphors about hands you’re dealt and making lemonade. Life handing lemons is the test, and lemonade, your answers, are more you than the exam questions. Isn’t that true of a real test; which part is written in your handwriting?

Jesus said what you eat isn’t what makes you unclean, but I totally think that proves my point.

Mark 7 begins with a story of the Pharisees criticizing Jesus’ disciples for not washing their hands before they ate. Then Jesus lectures the Pharisees for holding too tightly to tradition and thus missing the point. In Mark 7:14-16, Jesus “again called the crowd to him and said, 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside you can defile you by going into you. Rather, it is what comes out of you that defiles you.'” When the disciples ask him to explain, he accuses them of being dull (“willfully stupid” in the Message), and explains the rationale in v 19: “For it doesn’t go into your heart but into your stomach, and then out of your body.”

Even the Message translation holds to this same point: “Don’t you see that what you swallow can’t contaminate you? It doesn’t enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through the intestines, and is finally flushed.”

I think it’s pretty clear by this passage that something that actually does enter your heart has the potential to contaminate you. And of course, there’s Philippians 4:8 “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” The Message says, “you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

I think we sometimes buy into this idea that we can control what we are on the inside. I’m not so sure I agree. Haven’t you ever had an unwelcome thought? I’ve had more than I could possibly ever hope to count. Unwelcome means uninvited, and therefore I didn’t control its presence in my mind. We’re all born with internal, invisible traits we may or may not like.

Even Jesus couldn’t do all He did without a good influence, something to watch and fill his mind with, the most true, noble lovely, pure, admirable, beautiful, gracious, compelling, best, praise-worthy being that has ever existed:

John 5:19-20 -“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself, he can do only what he sees the Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that spiritual depression is mainly "due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself."

I realized this last part last night. I have this desire to regularly meet with a woman who is older than I am, just to talk to her about life. I apparently had this desire when I was in Paris, too, because in retrospect I totally did that, I just showed up at her office (granted, she was a youth pastor) a bunch of times and we talked. Last night I tried to ask this woman from church if we could get a meal some time, but really I used the word for sometimes, and either way, it doesn't matter because her response wasn't the desired, "of course! I know what you mean," even though I tried to explain why I was asking, it was more like, "sure, but you should just hang out with my son at my house if you're lonely."

Afterward I felt awkward for asking because I felt misunderstood and even a touch creepy, and I had to tell myself over and over again that it's really not that big of a deal that I asked, that she knows there's a language barrier, and ultimately, whatever she did end up thinking about it (or more likely, not thinking about it), I will not necessarily ever know so the fact remains that either way I need to quickly accept that it happened and move on from it. That was me talking to myself, even coaching myself if you will, with a chant of, "It's not a big deal, everything is fine, you can let it go." But that is not what I would think if I were listening to myself. If I were listening to myself, I'd hear, "you are SO creepy right now. She probably really doesn't want to hang out with you, and is too busy anyway, and is trying to foist you off on her son, and did I mention how awkward it is that you just asked to meet up with her for more than one meal even though you just met recently and don't even remember her first name?" (Connection time: those thoughts, coming out of me, want to defile me, like in the Mark 7 passage.)

One last thing. My mom never let me watch Friends growing up (to this day, I've never seen a full episode, or really enjoyed it-- maybe there's still a sour feeling attached to it) or lots of other things (she was so upset when she caught me trying to watch 40 days and 40 nights once after she'd gone to bed) and she was so against Gossip Girl that she confiscated the books I received for Christmas and complained that the TV show was TRASH when I mentioned it once. She believed something called GIGO- garbage in, garbage out. I still deeply resent this saying, and it's very, very begrudgingly that I admit it's spot on and if I ever have a kid I'm not letting them watch anything either.

Last thing, I promise: this is embarrassing, but I've heard lots of other people do it, too. When I am thinking about something hard enough, or imagining something, my face starts to reflect it. Seriously if I think about someone asking me a question I would say yes to, I start to smile and nod without meaning to. This can happen when I am reading a book, or at lots of other times. This proves to me that we are actually interacting deeply with our surroundings, and with our imaginations, even if we pretend not to be.

The Look on His Face

When I have emotional pain, I'm always convinced that it's worse than physical pain. But then I get the flu, and I am like, there is no possible way that anything is worse than this. Probably the worst part is that it's degrading. You're helpless in every way, and also it's just plain gross.

Anyway, I had the flu yesterday. I also prayed a lot. About that, mostly, but other things too. And the thing is, sometimes I've heard it can be a good thing when you're praying to imagine God's face. This seems like a good enough idea to me. Of course He's smiling when you pray to Him, because He accepts even our smallest offerings, and loves us so, just as if you were in love with someone, you would be happy with any way that they reach out to you, even if it's not the exact thing you wanted to hear.

Normally, that makes sense, and I like accepting that His face is smiling at me. But when I am helplessly suffering, I just can't imagine the look on His face. Frankly, I wouldn't want Him to be smiling. That would be ignoring the horrible pain I am in, a pain to which death seems preferable. I would be so pissed if one of my friends or family members was just smiling at me in that situation. But God is a happy person, they say. And for Him to be crying would make it seem like He was helpless, too, helpless to save me. Which I know He is not. Whatever face He has, He's never desperately wringing His hands and fretting.

I just can't picture Him.