Do you love me?

God loves each of us,
as if there were only one of us.
~ Augustine

Lately I’ve been haunted by this question from Jesus in the gospels:  “Do you love me?”  At the time, Jesus was speaking to Peter.  Jesus had already died a horrific death and come back to life.  Jesus was appearing to his disciples along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  He gave them the greatest fishing tip in the history of humankind “Try the other side of the boat!”  And they do it- and they almost break their net the fish are so numerous.  And then Jesus, being the Son of God, made them breakfast.  And over breakfast, with a fire probably crackling at their feet, their bellies full of fresh cooked fish and bread, turns to Peter and asked the fateful question:  “Do you love me?”

For Jesus, He didn’t couch the question with first declaring His own love for the disciples.  They already knew He loved them.  They saw Him wash their feet.  They saw Him hanging on a cross.  They saw Him come alive and serve them breakfast.  They saw the look of love on His face.  Once they knew of Jesus love for them, their identity as beloved was forged.  Nothing could shake their knowledge that Jesus loved them.

I’ve been thinking of God’s love lately.  Heather asked me the other day, “What are your favorite verses on God’s love?”  And I’m embarrassed to say this, but my mind went blank________________________________.   God’s love?  Hmm….let me think about that.  I can tell you all about sin and the wages and the death that resulted from Romans 1/3/6.  I can tell you my personal favorite anchor verse from James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”  I can remind you from Genesis we’re made in the image of God, I can quote you pithy thoughts of wisdom from Proverbs and remind you of Moses and the great journey of Israel in Exodus.  There are of course the love verses from 1 Corinthians (“Love is patient and kind”) and 1 John (“we love because God first loved us”) but these mostly remind me of wedding ceremonies.  What verses remind me daily of God’s love?  Of His unconditional embrace?  Of His absolute delight in me?

How do I remember that no matter what I do, God already loves me?  How do I remind myself when I so easily forget that before anything else, I am already God’s beloved son?  Hmmm.  Truth is, I need more reminders that God loves me.  I need to write those verses on cards and stare at them each day.

Lately my oldest daughter’s nightly prayers have turned towards forgiveness.  She prays for her to be forgiven of all the bad things she has done.  Every-single-night.  After she prays, I then pray for her- out loud- “God, may my daughter know every night that you love her.  That You accept her.  That she is so good in Your eyes.”  And then I remind my daughter- God’s love is like my love- only way, way better.  I want my kids to KNOW they are loved by God and loved by their dad.   I think on my spiritual pursuits and often I’m running/clinging/pursuing Jesus and working so hard to do the things that I know God wants me to be about.  But what about my heart?

I was talking with a friend at church last month and he told me that he was struggling.  “What’s up?” I asked.
“I’m not sure why, but my heart isn’t feeling God at all.  Its all numb and void.”

I ran into this same guy Sunday after the church service.  “God answered my prayers!” he said.  “I’m feeling God’s love again.”

“Wow, that’s great,” I said.  “That means He’s answered my prayers too.  I’ve been praying for your heart.”

The truth is, we all need to reminded that God loves us.  Love does.  Love is.  Love wins.  We are good in God’s eyes.  We are loved.  Not because we do for others.  But because He first loved us.

Here are some great reminders this week that YOU are loved by God Himself. 

^“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.   Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
- 1 John 4:10-12

 ^“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
- Ephesians 2:4-5

“The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.”
- Zephaniah 3:17

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
- 1 John 4:7-8

“But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
-Psalm 86:15

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
-Galatians 2:20

^“ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
-1 Peter 5:6-7

May you feel the weight of God’s love today.  It covers you.  Before you’ve done a single thing. God loves you.  Period.  What reminds you of God’s great love?

This Ain’t No Instagram Life

The house is clean for what feels like the first time in months.  Don’t get me wrong; we know how to make things look clean.  It normally happens in the stressful hour before company comes over.  Quick!  We’re having people over!  Everybody start cleaning as fast as possible!

Heather and I joke that we invite people over to ensure we clean once in a while.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re not dirty people.  We love a good clean house as much as the next person.  But the reality right now in our life?  With 3 jobs, 4 kids, extra projects, and just the 2 of us?  On many days we just run out of time.

So the house is clean for the first time in months.  And I have this thought cross my mind: I should take a picture.  I should take a picture of my life and post it on Instagram.  Or Facebook.  I love to post pictures on Instagram, particularly of a highlight moment on a highlighted part of my day.  These highlights, if strung together properly, give the illusion that my house is always clean.  My children always obey me.  My wife always is smitten with me.  In other words, if I take the right picture at the right moment and post it online, my life might appear perfect.

We all want to appear as if our lives are perfect.  The reality is that this ain’t no instagram life.  Not in my house anyway.  Seen my garage?  It’s a disaster.  Seriously, a disaster.  And I keep thinking “I’m going to get to it one day” but it just never happens.  Or my closet that has had piles of clothes for MONTHS.  Seriously…months.  Here is the laundry pile that MAY get folded this week- probably not.  My office is a wreck.  My cars are dirty.  Get my point?
Clearly, I don’t live in an Instagram world.  And my hunch is that you don’t either.  But if I take a picture of the best parts of my life, I can give you the illusion I have things under control.  Why do we do this?  Because though we crave real intimacy and authenticity, we’re also scared if the world saw all our messy and dirty and not instragram-perfect parts of our lives, people would reject us.  The fear of being alone causes us to hide.  And though we turn to social media like FB or Instacrack to make us feel connected, research shows for most people it makes them feel a little more alone.  The reasons behind this are numerous, but when we only show each other the perfect parts, the notion is that everybody else is doing better than I am.  Clearly, we would do better to stop showing each other the best parts, and instead show the real parts.

There’s a great article on the danger of Instagram’s Envy Effect found here.  The author writes, “My life looks better on the Internet than it does in real life. Everyone’s life looks better on the internet than it does in real life. The Internet is partial truths—we get to decide what people see and what they don’t. That’s why it’s safer short term. And that’s why it’s much, much more dangerous long term.”

And not to sound like a prude, but I do worry about the long term impact that our cyber-virtual-social networks are playing on real friendships and real community.  The reality is that Instagram is fun.  Facebook can be a way to connect.  But these are only tools towards friendship, not real relationships.  Have you ever checked your FB live feed and felt more alone?  Or haven’t you noticed groups of friends sitting down around a restaurant table and everyone is starting at their phones?  Or husbands and wives on a date and both typing away on their phones?  I’m as guilty as the next person about staying connected, but we must ask ourselves when connectivity is actually a death sentence for real relationship with someone near you.  For me, I don’t want to over rely on social media to fill the lonely parts of my life.

Real life is messy.  Way messier than social media can communicate.  Way more ugly at times, but way more beautiful too.  Along with my messes, I can show you some of the beautiful “snapshots” of my life recently.  I can show you the picture of our cute front yard where we’ve recently planted flowers.  The picture of my date with my wife last Thursday where it felt like we were newlyweds again.  The picture of my kids playing together so happy down at the beach on Wednesday.  Boy, I could show you other snapshots to show you how blessed and fortunate I am.  Shots to break your heart.  But a snapshot won’t adequately communicate the love I have for my wife.  The way we laughed tonight when we danced to Taylor Swift.  The tears that came yesterday when I saw the sunrise hit the top of the Olympic mountains.  Real life is so much more beautiful than my iphone can ever capture.

See for all of us, we have so much to be thankful for. So many “snapshots” that really are incredible and relationships to celebrate and a roof over our head and food to be thankful for.  But perfection isn’t attainable on this planet and the sooner we give up the fantasy that someone else’s life is perfect, the sooner we can get busy with trying to see the very best in our non-instagram lives.  No marriage is perfect- they all take work.  So start working, start investing in your partner, schedule a date, make love, enjoy one another, and talk about the real issues you’d rather hide in the garage.  And your kids?  The ones that talk back once in a while and that you’re secretly worried might have serious need for therapy in the future because of your parenting skills?  Take them to the park this afternoon and instead of taking pictures of them and posting them to FB or Instagram as a statement to the world “SEE I AM A GREAT PARENT BECAUSE I TAKE MY KIDS TO A PARK”.  No instead of posting those pictures, leave your phone in the car and just enjoy them.  Tackle a house project of something that bugs you and leave the other 14 things that bug you for another night, another week, another month.  Because it’s an illusion to think you’re ever going to “do it all.”  Give up the obsession with the busy life.

The bible says that “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!” (1 COR 13:12 MSG).  This is our life, all of us, and at times it feels quite foggy.  Its not till we see Jesus face to face that we’ll finally experience true perfection.  I imagine that moment, of finally seeing Jesus face to face, when we get to know him directly, and I hope I have my iphone.  Because I most certainly will be posting that picture on Instagram.

But here on earth?  No this ain’t an Instagram life.  It’s hard at times and chaotic.  But it’s also very beautiful.  Yes we have messes and piles of stuff to do and real relationships that need our care.  But the God in heaven that made all this stuff wants us to pause and stop glorifying everyone else’s life and start living our own.  He’s made us, loved us, called us, and sends us into our world to let other people know: He loves them too.

It ain’t no Instagram life.  But it’s a beautiful life.

Eat my what?

Have you seen this video?  It’s a little boy getting cochlear implants and hearing his mother’s voice for the first time.  Think about that.  Your mother’s voice for the first time.  Unless you had never heard your mother’s voice- you wouldn’t understand.

We’ve been talking about Jesus lately at church…I know, I know…crazy right?  But think about this.:  Jesus says “I am the light of the world.”  That is only good news if you had no light or you had never seen.  Jesus says “I am the bread of life” and that is only good news if you were hungry.  It got me thinking- what do we actually need Jesus for?  And how does Jesus help a community that doesn’t need Him?  Unless we recognize our brokenness and low places- we’ll never need a Savior.  Early in Jesus ministry He went home to continue to heal people and do some of the miracles He had been performing in other places.  But they didn’t need Him- they didn’t recognize Him as anything other than “Mary and Joseph’s boy.”  And then the scriptures tell us in Luke 4: Jesus left.  Because if a community doesn’t need Him, Jesus takes His presence elsewhere.

I don’t know about you- but I’ve been especially aware lately that I need a savior.  Not in a religious, pastor type way.  But in a broken, “I’m not quite good enough” type way.  No, I can’t do life very good on my own.  I need help often to cling to the hope in this broken world.  To cling to peace in my own interior life that can feel such anguish and stress.  Yes I’m the broken.  I’m the deaf.  I’m the poor in spirit.  I’m the hungry.

This last Sunday we took a look at this weird passage in John 6 where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life” and then encourages His followers to “Eat my flesh and drink My blood”.  You can find the passage here.  To be sure, it’s a hard passage to understand.  Imagine hearing this message from Jesus.  Eat flesh.  Drink blood.  Bread of life.  What does it mean?  And better yet, who can do it???  Who can possibly follow the guidelines of this new brand of religion?  This man Jesus must be crazy!   How can I possibly do everything right to follow Him?

The genius here on Jesus part is simply this:  I can’t.  I can’t do it.  I can’t eat the flesh and drink the blood.  Jesus moves from Law “do these things and all will be ok” to a purely impractical statement.  Why???  Why does Jesus sometimes talk like this?  Because you can’t do it on your own!  We need Jesus to enter into the best life possible.

In this passage Jesus had just taken 5 fish and 2 loaves of bread and in a miracle, He fed literally thousands of people.  How does this work?  Because Jesus ushers in a new economy where 5 fish + 2 loaves= ENOUGH.  God’s economy doesn’t make sense to me.  Its not balanced budget- it’s the radical grace of God.  This doesn’t make sense to me and so I cling to my radical self-sufficiency.  I doubt that Jesus can take the 5 fish and 2 loaves of my spiritual life and weave it into something beautiful.  So I feel slow to trust Him.  And then I finally realize- my “economy” that makes such logical sense – really isn’t working for me.  Trusting myself and my own ends leads me to places of feeling bankrupt.  And in these places I yell out to God: ‘I can’t do this!”  I cry out and I fail and then I cling to Him.  Perhaps this is what Jesus means- He is the bread of life.  Because on my own I just always feel hungry.  But when I’m following Jesus I have a wholeness, a fullness, not of my own strength but of His.

I’ll be preaching about this need for Jesus a bit this Sunday at Bethany North at 9:15 and 11- if you’re in town you should stop by.  Maybe we could do this journey together.

“You’re doing a good job here”

We’re at the tail end of a vacation in Hawaii.  We pooled together a year’s worth of frequent flier miles and were fortunate enough to stay in the ocean side condo of a family friend.  We’ve had an amazing 7 days of rest and relaxation, swimming and dinners on the front lawn watching the sunset.  

But no matter the escape, vacation is also real life too.  And real life means someone has an earache on day 4 and so we take 2 busses into town and end up walking for a mile trying to find medicine.  Its hot, the kids are complaining, the earache is pounding.  It’s still real life…even on vacation.  I stopped an older gentleman riding a cruiser bike with nothing but shorts on and asked directions.  His long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail.  He pointed us to where we needed to go and his eyes were full of kindness.  I asked him, “How long you been in Maui?” because anyone that visits like me always has a piece within ourselves asking, ‘could I stay forever?’And then from the seat of his cruiser he tells me his story.  “The wife and I came 45 years ago, she’s passed on now.  The kids are all scattered from New Mexico and other places.  Enjoy it while you can- before you know it the kids will be all gone and will move away.  It goes fast.”  His face was kind and understanding, sad from the distance from his own kids.Later at Cheeseburgers in Paradise in Lahaina, Heather makes this startling revelation.  If we go on a vacation every few years, we’ll only take 4 more before Avery goes to college.”  I feel my heart swell into my throat and it gets hard to breathe.  Really?  4 more vacations?  That seems impossible that time is moving this fast.  That my little girl is now a few weeks from 9, halfway done with living under my roof before ending high school.  I have this haunting thought sit in my mind for a minute: we’re halfway done parenting her in our home.  Have we done a good job?  Have we done enough?  For most of us parents, most days we don’t think we’ve done a very good job.  

Maybe parenting is full of so many questions is because we take too much credit upon ourselves.   I know this is true for me, I worry about my own actions all the time.  But then I open the Psalms, and the very first Psalm has this promise:

“How blessed is the man who does not
walk in the counsel of the wick,  (choose wisely whom you listen to)
Nor stand in the path of sinners,  (keep your choices clean)
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!   (don’t ridicule others)
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,    (read your bible)
And in His law he meditates day and night.   (seriously, read your bible)
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,   (you’ll have strength)
Which yields its fruit in its season  (the things you love will grow)
And its leaf does not wither;   (and grow)
And in whatever he does, he prospers.   (and your life will be made whole)

Parenting is a funny journey, at times revealing the very best and very worst of our own characters.  At one moment, I’m the involved father playing for hours in the pool or on the beach.  At another moment, I’m losing my temper at my 3 year old for her temper tantrum about shoes.  Its funny isn’t it?  When we lose our tempers because of the emotional reaction of a child?  It’s like a temper tantrum in reverse.  But anyone that has parented knows they are capable of this.  Parenting is hard at times. 

At the end of a characteristically loud lunch Heather took the littler kids to the bathroom while I sat and held my baby son.  I sat thinking about all these things.  About the man on the bike, about time going fast, about parenting, about the promise of the bible that our fruit will be good if we anchor our lives to Christ.  As I sat and thought, an older man sitting a few feet away (who hadn’t seemed to say a word to his party he was sitting with the entire meal) came over and bent close to me and squeezed my shoulder.  “You’re doing a good job here.” He looked at the baby and then waved towards the stairs all the family had just descended, “with them all.”

 We all need words of encouragement at times to know we’re doing okay.  And the truth is, through the challenges of parenting, we’re doing okay.  Because we are planting ourselves near streams of water.  We read the bible with the kids in the morning.  We pray at night.  We go to church together.  We’re anchoring ourselves to God and trusting Him with making our fruit good.  Making our lives enough.  And I can picture him walking around the busy restaurant of our lives, standing behind us, wanting to squeeze our shoulders and tell us all: “you’re doing a good job here.” 

Slower

“We are facing an enormous problem in our lives today.
It’s so big we can hardly see it, and it’s right in front of our face all day, every day.
We’re all living too big lives, crammed form top to toe with activities, urgencies, and obligations that seem absolute.
There’s no time to take a breath, no time to look for the source of the problem.”
-Sarah Susanka, “The Not So Big Life”

Happy New Year.  It’s been a season of silence on this blog.  Though things have been busy over the last month, mostly I needed some quiet for a while.  It’s convicting as a storyteller and a blogger at times when the question arises: do I have anything to say to the world?  Am I “living” these things out?

It seems December gets busier each year as a family.  Despite the best intentions, it’s just a busy, busy month.  There is all the kid stuff at school and performances and recitals and parties.  I was fortunate enough to travel to Mexico to perform the wedding of two beautiful people.  And every day we celebrated an advent activity or spiritual practice to fill the season with meaning.  And it was a great month…but just very, very full.

We hosted both of our families for Christmas meals and gift openings and that was a real treat and our month was supposed to culminate in a cabin rental in the mountains above Cle Elum for 4 days of rest, snow and sledding, and down time as a family.  But the evening before leaving for the cabin, Heather came down sick (her second significant throwing up experience in 10 days).  Over the course of the night she threw up over and over again.  And then my oldest son got it and the two of them puked threw the night.  And then my daughter noticed our dog was bleeding…bad.  She had an exploded anal gland (yep, you read that correctly).  In the next morning of chaos, I was running around cleaning up garbage cans of vomit and cleaning the carpet of blood stains and calling the vet and opening a few of the presents that my parents had brought for the kids and just full of so much anxiety.  It became clear as the sickness lingered all day and the dog needed more significant care, we were not going to make it to our cabin rental.  Luckily, the cabin owners allowed us to use the cabin later in the spring and all of a sudden, our plans were cancelled and we had the next few days to rest, recuperate, and stay home.  3 days with nothing planned.

Sadly, my mind started to instantly go towards: “okay what should we do.”  I texted friends, made plans with the kids to make up for the disappoint of not going to cabin, and started to plot day by day how to fill the next few days.

Luckily my wife, from the sick bed she hadn’t been able to rise from for a day, held up a metaphorical mirror.  “Scott why are you trying so hard to fill in the time with stuff?  Can’t we just slow down?”

Yeah Scott, can’t you just slow down?  The answer, unfortunately in that minute, was no.  No, it’s hard to slow down.  I become adept at going and doing and accomplishing and checking things off a list and so when I need to slow down I don’t know what to do.  But over the course of that day, and the days that followed , I’ve been hearing the words of my wife- can’t we just slow down?  And this has turned into a prayer: slow me down Lord.  Slow me down.

“Sometimes it takes a wake up call to realize

we are living the fast life,

not the good life.”

-Carl Honore

Recently Carl Honore wrote a book about slow parenting and gave this TED talk about the value of slowness.  There is much to like about this talk, and I’ve now got Honore’s book on my reading list for this year, but what stuck out the most is that we shouldn’t just race through your life- we should LIVE it.  And living life intentionally, as a parent or as just a person, happens when we slow down.  When we stop looking at time as linear and wanting to move quickly through it…but as a cycle that we get to enjoy the rhythm and ritual of each day.  For it was Aesop that wrote, “Slow and steady wins the race.”  We all know how the children’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare ends, but then why do I often live like that crazy rabbit….running as fast as I can.

The pace of life becomes unbearable.  We need to slow down.

I was reading in the book of 1 Samuel an amazing story of slowing down.  As you may remember, Samuel was a boy who worked in the temple in Israel and had been dedicated for a life of service to the Lord.  But though he served the priest Eli, he didn’t know the Lord personally yet.  God spoke to Samuel in a dream by calling his name “Samuel, Samuel!” three times and each time Samuel ran to the priest Eli and thought he was paging him.  Finally Eli realized Samuel was hearing from the Lord and Eli gave Samuel these instructions:  “Go lie down and it shall be if He calls you, that you shall say,  “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”  True enough, Samuel heard from God again, and this time instead of running, Samuel said: “Here am I Lord.  Here am I.”  And God spoke to Samuel personally for the first time in his life.  How do we hear from God when we never slow down?

Lately I’ve been hearing of people choosing 1 word “slogans” for the year ahead.  The idea is that this word is both a goal and an anchor for the year, a thought to pray and meditate on. Though I’m not ready to commit that this is the singular word I will dwell on this year, I think the word I’m stuck with right now for 2013 is SLOWER.   Slower.  Slower.  In a frenzied world of pace and progress, slow me down O Lord, slow me down.  How else do we get formed than waiting at the workbench- showing up with the Maker?  How else do we form our families than slowly being together?Please know, this is a hope, and not a finished product. Slow me down Lord.  Slow me down.

Here’s a verse for you: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, the person who seeks Him.
It is good that he waits silently.
For the salvation of the Lord….
“Let us examine our ways
And let us return to the Lord,
We lift up our hearts and hands
Toward God in heaven.”
-Lamentations 3: 25-26,40

Here’s a theme song for you on this new journey of slowing down:

Slow me down, O Lord, slow me down
Help my heart to hear Your sound
Speak into my life, Lord speak now
Slow me down O Lord, slow me down
Clear my mind, O Lord, clear my mind
Bring me peace that I cannot find
Take my worried thoughts break my pride
Clear my mind, O Lord, clear my mind
Wake my soul, O Lord, wake my soul
With this mess I’ve made make me whole
Of this life called mine, take control
Wake my soul, O Lord, wake my soul
Slow me down, O Lord, slow me down
Help my heart to hear Your sound
Speak into my life, Lord, speak now
Slow me down Lord.

Yes Lord, this year, S L O W   M E  D O W N.

Grace, Marriage, and Princesses

The best love stories are those told at the end, not at the beginning.

Lately my daughter Harper is into “marrying”.  She wants to know when Mama and I married.  She imagines marrying some day.  She talks about “kiss on da lips.”  The other night she told me she will marry the prince at her birthday party and they will dance.  She then twirled on the steps of our house and I just knew I would remember this moment when she is heading off to Prom one day or when she gets married.  From our youngest days as humans we’re fascinated by love stories.

On Saturday night I officiated a wedding at Bethany.  Hundred of people came dressed up in their finest.  The sanctuary was decorated gorgeously.  Candles shone.  After the magical wedding, a limo whisked the couple down to the Fairmont Hotel for a gala celebration.  Thousands of dollars were spent.  Hundreds of hours were spent in preparation.  And it was fantastic…but all for a 45 minute ceremony.  Ironically, we spend months or years preparing for a wedding, when it’s really the marriage we should focus on.  The wedding is not the thing.  This is just day 1 of a journey of thousands of days.   And really, the best love stories are told at the end, rather than at the beginning.  We’ve grown skeptical of people’s promise to love, we want to hear about the couple that actually did it.  That couple that made it through 50 years of highs and lows and  that left a legacy of love by their actual example.  These are the best love stories.

Ever wondered why Disney stories typically end after the adventure and courtship of dating?  The book du jour my 2 year has me read to her lately is a princess book and it ends with a princess and prince running down the steps of a castle after the wedding.  Trivia question: name the Disney movies that actually show married people?  You could list “Up” (although the wife dies), “the Incredibles”, are there others?  All I know is you’ll not find married people in a princess movie.  “Little Mermaid”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Cinderalla”, “Snow White”- these all end at “happily ever after”, as if a kiss and a promise will ensure smooth sailing.  And yet, trouble arises.  Tim Keller of Redeemer Pres. in NYC wrote this amazing article about marriage- “We never marry the right person.”  Keller writes, “The hard times of marriage drive us to experience more of the transforming love of God. But a good marriage will also be a place where we experience more of this kind of transforming love at a human level.”  His point?  Marriage is difficult.  Marriage is beautiful.  We’re called to the struggle.

Here’s what I’m learning slowly after 13 years with Heather.  I love my wife.  I love her more now than when I first met her when I was 21 years old.  I love her more now than when I proposed by the waterfall in Spokane when I was 22.  I love her more now than at the birth of our first child after a delirious 25 hours of labor.  I love her now more than when we held each other tight after our son Fisher had died at 9 months in utero and Heather delivered him through the night only to say goodbye.  These are highlights…these are days…these are points in the journey.  The call to marriage is a lifetime of average days…of good and bad…happy and sad.  People throw around the phrase “marriage takes work” and though I agree, I think what people mean is marriage takes patience.  And marriage takes commitment.  And mostly, marriage takes grace.  For grace is the best term of being accepted and loved even when you don’t deserve it.  Even on your bad days.

May grace reign in your home as you step into the Christmas season.  If you are married, may grace for your partner dominate your life.  And if you are unmarried, may you feel Christ’s grace in a new way this Christmas season.  We celebrate at Christmas the very arrival of grace.  God looked down and sent His son Jesus because humans just couldn’t get it right without God’s presence here on earth and in our hearts.  God saw that we needed a new way.  May your life mirror this grace and may your relationships thrive because you are able to extend this same grace towards all who you love.

thanks

An elementary definition of the term thankful would be simply to be full of thanks.  How to be full of anything in days of derision and despair?  When bombs are flying in Israel and FB is full of hate and disdain for all that isn’t your exact philosophical or religious or political opinion?  What if we don’t always feel thankful?

Lord make us one.  Lord teach me to love.  Lord teach me to give thanks.

As a new parent again, I’m so mindful of all that a baby needs.  My son Skye is 2 months and whenever he needs something, he cries out.  Generally he’s a very happy little guy, but a baby is a baby, so when he’s wet- he cries.  When he’s hungry- he cries.  Whenever something is bothering him- he cries out.  He cries out- and we come running.  Because we love him.  We want his needs to be met.  We understand that he needs us too and that causes us to move towards him out of our love.

Do we cry out to God when we need something?  Do we cry out to God when our hearts aren’t full of thanks?  Do we cry out to God to fill us up?

At times life gets so full I just stop crying out.   I make myself busy with really important things, like errands, ESPN.com, and Facebook.  And I stop crying out.  I stop seeking a relationship with God as the top priority in my life.  It’s just so easy to stop seeking Him and stop crying out to Him when there is so much here in my midst to keep me busy.

And yet we’re called to follow Him and to be a people crying out to know Him more.  To see Him move in the lives of our loved ones and our communities.  Crying out so that we would be full of thanks for all He is doing here.

My life right now probably looks like many of yours.  I’m grateful for so much, and yet, carry so many other concerns and worries.  There is so much to celebrate, and yet I find myself weary or stressing at times.  And yet today, I’m mindful that like my baby son, God in Heaven wants to pick me up and hold me.  He wants to meet my needs.  He wants me to cry out for Him so He can fill me up.

Though life isn’t perfect, I can give full thanks for that.

Father God, teach me to follow you more.  Thank you for calling me Your own.  Thank you for letting me see you and know you.  Lord fill me up with your thanks.  Break my heart with what breaks yours.  And may I be fully capable of gratitude for all the wonderful work you’re doing in my life, in my family, in our church, in this city, and in your world.  There is much unsettled Lord, and yet You are alive. And You reign.  And you will one day make all things right.  For those things and many, many more- I give thanks.  I love you Jesus.

-Your son,
Scott