Christmas Reality

This Christmas has been bitter-sweet. In my last post I wrote about being in a temporary world on our way to an eternal home. At 6 am on Christmas morning Jeri’s (my wife) Grandma Raine went home to heaven.

Obviously, this was a difficult way to begin Christmas day, but something amazing had occurred. For the first time in many years the whole family was gathered in two locations. My father-in-love’s family were all together in Virginia Beach (this included our family). And, his sister’s family were all gathered in Michigan (where they live and were Grandma lived).

This provided us the chance to immediately truly be there for each other. It was hard, but we were all together! I praise God for working out these details.

Finally, these times are a little weird for me. When the person we “lose” is a believer, I have a tough time really getting overly upset. It absolutely hurts, but at the same time I rejoice because they have truly moved from the temporary life (with all its hurt and struggle) on to their eternal life (with no more tears). If anything, I’m a little jealous. I love life, I pray often that God’s mission for me will keep me hear for a long, long time, but when it’s time for me to go home – I’m ready!!

Even writing this is a bit weird because I’m really not in a hurry to get out of here, and you always here stories of people writing or saying something like this and then dying. Yet, it’s the truth, it’s how I feel, when I go home – celebrate for me!! And, I’ll look forward to seeing you there – what a party that will be!

Father, I pray that you will ease the pain we feel in our loss. You are the God of all comfort, and we lean on You in times like this. I thank you that we don’t grieve like those with no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). In Jesus’ name.

/D

Synthesis

I apologize for not posting last week. My current seminar class’ workload is higher than usual, but something I read yesterday struck me and I thought I’d share it with you.

There’s a church joke that says, “Don’t make me go Old Testament on you!” The implication is that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath. In contrast to this we read in the New Testament that God is a God of love.

In fact, I believe we can replace the word “of” in my above description with the word “is” – God is wrath; God is love. Does that statement cause tension for you?

Here’s how William Yount describes this truth – “God is love and God is wrath. How can He be both? The answer is found in synthesis. The fire that warms is also the fire that burns. The difference is in our relationship to it. Those who are rightly related to God are warmed by His love. Those who refuse His love, who reject His offer of grace, are left to be burned by His wrath. He is not love or wrath. He is love-wrath, which exists like a two-sided coin.”

If this messes with your head a little, it should – synthesis is level 5 thinking (there are 6 levels, but those details aren’t really my point). My point is that there are many things about God that I struggle to understand, but that does not make them untrue.

This morning, I just learned about the death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s five year old daughter. Anytime something like this happens it creates a tension in my soul. I know God is Sovereign, but I cannot help but struggle with the “why questions.” God why would you allow this to happen?

Here’s where I land with this right now (and I’d love to hear your thoughts), God wants to have a relationship with us, He does truly love us, AND there are things (and circumstances) I simply cannot fully understand. Am I talking about blind faith? No, blind faith would require no basis whatsoever. I’m talking about faith that is able to understand enough to accept it all.

What about you – what do you struggle to understand and how do you choose to deal with your confusion?

/D

Questions Jesus Asked – Fear (6)

Our next question is found in verse 26 of Mathew chapter eight. Jesus asks, “Why are you afraid?” I believe this question gets to the heart of a true relationship with God. If we truly trust God, we really shouldn’t fear anything.

The disciples were afraid they were going to die, and if I’m honest, there are lots of things about death that still scare me

- The death of another one of my children or my wife
- The wellbeing of my family if I were to die
- I’m somewhat prepared for losing my parents some day (that’s the order of life), but I still don’t want that to ever happen

I’m afraid of all of these things happening - and many more. What about you?

So, is it fair for Jesus to ask us why were afraid? Do I hear a resounding “Duh”?

I think there are many things we could be scared about, but Jesus’ point is not that there are scary things that can happen to us, but that there is an antidote to this poison called fear. We learn in Jesus' next words that the antidote is faith.

Faith is a funny thing – it’s intangible, yet very real. It’s hard to describe, but incredible to experience. The writer of Hebrews tells us faith “is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” How cool is that!?

Where does this confident assurance come from? It comes from a relationship that is based on trusting God. And we learned from the last set of questions that God will provide everything we truly need [read Questions Jesus Asked – Prayer (5)].

So, what are you afraid of? Will you learn to trust God with that fear? It probably won’t happen over night – no real relationships are formed that way. But let me encourage you to take another step closer to trusting God each time you feel scared – that’s what I’m doing and it gets a little easier with every step I take. [Great, now I hear a Police song playing in my head].


/D