A Dare to Do Nothing

You may have noticed that the past few months have been a bit dreary for me. If I’m totally honest with you, the past three months have been some of the darkest months of my life. I could give you the list of everything that’s been going on, but it would be neither appropriate nor beneficial. I want to tell you that I’m strong. I want to tell you that I have it all together. When you read my writing, I want you to think that I am an incredible mom, wife, and friend. I want you to see how completely sold out I am for Christ. After all, why would you think a crazy lady stuck in a pit of depression has anything to say? There’s always the temptation to pretend to be someone I’m not. And I realize that I fool no one with this charade.

I will be honest with you. It’s been dark. Dark. Lonely. Scary. Depressing.

Just last week, though, two friends opened my eyes. A five hour dinner woke me up from a long sleep.

I’ve been wrestling against the darkness, and that’s the very thing that has made me miserable. I’ve been trying to figure out how to escape the darkness.

What do I need to do, God???? What do you want me to do????

Nothing.

Moses knew darkness. When the people build a golden calf and God refuses to go any further with them, Moses begs God to change his mind. He knows that without God’s presence, any attempt is futile. So God listens. And to prove it, he tells Moses, “I will make all my goodness pass before you” (Exodus 33:19). But here’s the catch. It requires darkness first.

Verses 21-22

The Lord continued, “Look, stand near me on this rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.”

It must have been dark hidden there under God’s hand.

Could it be that the darkness is actually the safest place we could be? Could it be that when we feel life can’t get any darker, it’s because we are secured in the crevice of the rock, hidden by a nail-scarred hand while God’s goodness passes by? And if we stopped. If we stopped wrestling that hand, maybe, just maybe, we would catch a glimpse of His glory?

And then suddenly we’d realize that it’s actually in the darkness that we see HIM. We would realize that an unexpected friendship is actually the revelation of his heart. The failure you can’t get over is actually the greatest expression of his grace. The person who hurt you is actually the stairway to a new level of his affection. The loss of one dream is actually the doorway to a place greater than your wildest dreams.

Be still and know that I AM GOD.

Can we ever truly KNOW God unless we are still? Unless we stop wrestling against his hand?

This is my year to stop.

This is my year to simply be.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I’m more of the daily resolution kind of girl. Today I won’t yell at my kids…Today I won’t get mad when my husband comes home late…Today I will let go of that hurt…Today I won’t eat ten chocolate chip cookies…Today I will be patient, kind, loving, skinny, energetic…perfect. Hah!

It’s a recipe for disaster. It’s a recipe for darkness.

What do you want me to DO God?????   Nothing.

Today…

Instead of trying to be a good mom, I will be still and know that HE IS GOD.

Instead of trying to be patient, I will be still and know that HE IS GOD.

Instead of trying to overcome my anger, I will be still and know HE IS GOD.

Instead of trying to measure up to who I think I should be, I will be still and know HE IS GOD

Instead of trying to manipulate my dreams into reality, I will be still and know HE IS GOD.

Instead of trying to find purpose, I will be still and know HE IS GOD.

Instead of trying to muster up grace for others, I will be still and know HE IS GOD.

Instead of striving for worth, I will be still and know HE IS GOD.

And maybe if I’m still long enough, I will actually KNOW him. Not the God I’ve conjured up in my head. Not the God I think he should be. Not the God I expect to find. No, I will KNOW him as HE IS.

I have a feeling that all the other things will fall into place.

And maybe, just maybe, the people around me will look my way and realize that I’m not there anymore. No, they will look my way and stop for just a moment because they see God’s goodness passing by.

Radical Living

It’s over.

Another Christmas has come and gone, and I for one am exhausted.

I got caught up in a frenzy this holiday season, but not the usual frenzy of shopping and consuming (although I did a bit of both, I must admit). No, I allowed myself to get caught up in the Christian frenzy that begins every December 1^st. Something happens to Christians at Christmas time. Bibles come out, Jesus becomes an all-consuming focus, and Santa Claus and materialism turn into the sole contributors for America’s moral decay. 

Seems to me like Santa Claus is given more credit than he’s due.

Meanwhile, parents desperately attempt to counter Santa Claus’ power by inundating their kids with the true meaning of Christmas. As long as our kids know the answer to that one vital question, we’ve succeeded, right? If they can tell their grandparents, teachers, or preferably a random passerby whose birthday we will celebrate on December 25th, we pat ourselves on the back and deem the season a success.

I did everything I was supposed to do this Christmas. It just never went as planned. Maybe my kids aren’t as spiritual as they should be, but they didn’t sit on the edge of their seats when we did the Jesse tree. In fact, they did everything but sit still and listen. At least one of us was crying by the end of our time together each evening. Not exactly how I saw it going in my head. I tried really hard to give them special memories to last their lifetimes, but they just didn’t seem to appreciate all the important things I was trying to do for them. Making sugar cookies, for instance…I hate making sugar cookies (Gasp!!). Don’t deny that you hate getting them from little kids too. You know they are full of boogers and drool. Well, I did the good mom thing, but it resulted in a different child in time out for the entire experience.

Yes, memories to last a lifetime. That’s what we made…

What surprises me most, though, is how many blogs, sermons, and articles are written about how to keep Christ in Christmas as if this is somehow a radical idea. Don’t get me wrong. I think there is something very holy and beautiful about Christmas. But keeping Christ in Christmas isn’t radical. Jesus is everywhere at Christmas. Walmart plays songs about him during the same month we frantically tell our kids about his birth. Many of the real-life influential leaders in our country’s moral decay suddenly proclaim Christ’s birth through our stereos. We give to the poor. We take a stand against materialism. For one month, we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.  

And then it’s over, and everything goes back to the way it was. The Bibles go back on the shelves, traditions melt into normalcy, our passionate pursuit of the Messiah in the manger dissipates into complacency, and all our efforts to live radically leave us unchanged on January 2nd. We can’t keep our resolutions because we haven’t been transformed by the One who came to turn our lives upside down.

A REAL encounter with the Messiah doesn’t leave us unchanged.

What if we pursued the God-incarnate miracle of Jesus as passionately in February as we do in December?

What if God’s Holy Word actually became our daily bread instead of an annual feast?

What if we were as worried about teaching our kids the true meaning of life as we are about teaching them the true meaning of Christmas?

What if we changed the way we live so that giving to the poor becomes a way of life instead of a special occasion?

What if we realized that our own complacency is a greater threat to our children’s faith than Santa Claus ever will be?

Now THAT would be radical!