This was posted by “MishaPraise”–also known as “Red from Iowa”–on the Thin Within forums. I repost it here with permission. I thought it was too good not to share with as many as possible! Thanks, Red, for letting me share your wisdom and insight with others!
I had an interesting epiphany this morning that I will try to put into words. It’s probably common knowledge to all of you but it was spiritual dynamite to me.
Hunger will find me. It will find me. I don’t have to hunt for it like I’ll miss it or something. God has constructed our bodies in such a way that when we are hungry, it will let us know, and of course, He will help it a bit if something is in the way of our realizing it.
So simple, but I have spent many obsessed hours “looking’ for hunger. Am I hungry, am I not, is this 5? or 4? or 3? It was like planting a little seed and digging it up every day to see if it had grown? It created it’s own obsession and pushed out things God wanted to say and do in me.
So, today, I will not stress over it. When the body is hungry, it will get in touch with me. It waited until 10 this morning. But I do not have to worry about it any more. That lie, that it is all up to me, is shattered.
So is the lie that I HAVE to eat the moment I feel hunger. I don’t have to if I can’t do it the way I need to within the perameters of conscious eating. I can wait. I won’t die ( although I imagine that is one of the lies the enemy has been whispering in my soul. NOT ANY MORE!!!!!!!) Jesus waited 40 days once. (I’m not talking anorexia here) . I’m talking about thwarting a little lie from the pit called gluttonous expediencey, gotta have it and gotta have it NOW!! That is the mantra of a food addict, let me tell you. I think it’s at the core of all addiction really.
But it’s not too great for God to handle and defeat. Nothing can defeat Him, which is just perfectly awesome because Romans 8 says He is for us and does not condemn us. Jesus took all God’s anger and condemnation for our sin on the cross. That left God to lovingly watch out for us. And that is just too cool.
Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father’s house.
The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.
~ Psalm 45:10-11
God is doing a new thing…right now, today. This is a fact! I want to rejoice in it, delight in it. To do so, I must release my hold on my past, be it 2 minutes ago, 2 decades ago or more!
For me, one of the biggest issues is the way I was raised…the memories I have from my childhood and the things I have come to believe about myself and about God that are rooted in my upbringing. As my eyes fall on this passage, the mandate from my Lord to forget my people and my father’s house is powerful. So much of who I am today seems bound up in the past!
But that is just the point! Early in my life, I learned to use food to cope with disappointments and emotions I didn’t want to feel. I learned, too, to believe the lie that food is my enemy.
God calls me to choose to forget these things…to choose to allow him to renew my mind as is spoken of in Romans 12.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy,
to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve
what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
~ Romans 12:1-2
But more…Psalm 45:11 tells me that I have a new truth to believe. That truth is that the King is enthralled with my beauty! Can I embrace this belief? Will I choose to believe what God says? Will I allow him to trade my old ways of thinking, rooted in “my people” and “my father’s house” and replace it with this truth that he speaks over me? To do so really would be a new thing.
How about you?
If you were to let go of all the things that you believe about yourself and trade that for believing Psalm 45:11, that the King of the Universe is enthralled with your beauty, how might this affect you today?
Feel free to use the comments part of this blog to respond.
I don’t know about you, but if I were to believe God in this, if I were to allow this thought, that He is somehow “enthralled” by my “beauty,” to go with me through the day, I believe I would live differently…and truly, radically, experience that “new thing” that God is at work doing!
This time of year, this blog gets a lot of hits due to people asking Google “Is God Doing a New Thing?” I want to answer that question with a resounding YES!
His Word is filled with examples of situations and verses of promise that state that this is so!
Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
– Isaiah 43:18-19
Look at this passage a moment. What do you suppose, from this text, we need to do in order to see and experience the new thing that God is doing? You got it! We have to let go of the past. Even victories of our past and definitely “failures” or “perceived failures,” we must let go! Let’s stop telling tales of former glories, former wounds, former victories, and the pain of the past. Let’s release our grip on whatever we think we know and open our arms, hands and hearts to what God IS doing now!
Paul is definitely one great example of this:
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared
to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things.
I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith.
– Philippians 3:7-9
Even the GOOD things, must be counted as rubbish or loss compared to what God is doing now.
Look again at Isaiah 43:18-19. Note that it doesn’t say “I WILL DO a new thing.” It doesn’t say “I DID a new thing.” God promises that, now, “I AM DOING a new thing!”
God IS doing a new thing. RIGHT now. As you sit here at the computer reading this. Even if *you* think you are stuck in a rut, you have never been quite the same person as you are right now and the circumstances you are in aren’t quite the same as anything you have ever experienced before. THIS is a NEW moment! (Connecting this with yesterday’s post…) This moment is brand new! Capture it for the Lord. He IS doing something new in it!
In scripture, God is constantly doing the unexpected, the new, the wondrous.
Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. – Lamentations 3:22-23
His mercies, compassions are new every morning and, if you look more deeply into scripture, I think one can even say justifiably, each moment.
So, yes! No need to search Google! God IS doing a new thing! His eternal Word promises that this is so! It is interesting…God’s name for himself revealed in scripture is I AM! This is a present tense that is always sufficient in the moment…for the past, for the future, for the now. Whatever the question is to what I lack, God responds, “I AM!”
He says “I AM doing a new thing!”
I love that he asks the rhetorical question, “Do you not perceive it?” Well, gosh! If I don’t SEE it, maybe I have blinders on. After all, he says, it IS springing up! WHOO HOO! There is hope here! God IS doing a new thing…right now, in this moment. And another new one now…and now! In order to see it, perceive it and experience it, I have to let go of the former things and stop dwelling on the past. I must allow Him to give me eyes to see it!
He IS making a way in the desert of my life. He IS making streams in my wasteland!
We often minimize our momentary choices when we do something wonderful in the moment, but we allow a poor choice in a moment to spell disaster for the day or more. It is an odd way that we have of thinking about time. God has shown me that THIS moment, THIS choice, THIS momentary surrender, THIS babystep…it matters as it is one step closer to a softened heart. It DOES matter.
Likewise, one bite that I take when my heart is convicted isn’t just a mere bite…the caloric content of one bite of almost anything is negligible, but what happens with a choice to disregard the Spirit’s tender conviction is another layer of a callus is placed on my heart…eventually, my heart will be hardened to my Shepherd’s sweet voice if I keep ignoring what he says! Not because of the food, but because of the choice to say NO to Him! No matter what it is He directs me about!
God would do ANYthing for my heart, so that one little choice that seems so minimal that disregards the sacrifice he has made for me…it is actually HUGE…and the tiny little choice that I make to deny self and to say yes to God in this moment…it isn’t so tiny…it is HUGE as it aligns with his purposes for allowing Jesus to be tormented and to die for me. He delights in my taking captive THIS moment for Him! He purchased me. He chose to come to earth so that sin would be defeated and I could have a relationship with him, walking moment-by-moment with Him, keeping in step with the Spirit as I listen to my Shepherd’s voice and respond accordingly. When I choose, in this moment, to cooperate with this, it thrills His heart! THIS is what matters! THIS moment! Not all the moments that came before. Once they are gone, they are history. I don’t have to pay a penalty for indiscretions made a moment ago, an hour ago, 10 years ago. Yes, there may be consequences, but in Christ, I can observe, correct, move forward in THIS moment! Take captive my thoughts NOW!
Every single solitary choice matters, but not because of what it does to my *body*!!! It is because of what it does to my ****heart****!!!! Oh! I wish I could grasp this fully! He cares soooo much about our hearts!!!! If it is about my body and what I think of being thin or fat or fit at any given time, then it is so negotiable! How I feel about being fat or thin may change at any given point just based upon what I have been reading, who I hang around with, how good I think I look in a certain outfit now, and what food is presented. My feelings about that are fickle, at best.
But if it is about the condition of my heart with respect to my Lord (and it is), then the “motivation” to say YES to him NEVER goes away! He cares CONSTANTLY!
If I lament that I don’t ever seem to have a “good eating day” or that I start the day well, but then get derailed by 11am, I definitely need to shift my focus to the moment. Here is how it works (I have blogged about this before, but it bears repeating!):
Right now, this moment…I make a choice. I can take this moment captive and give it to the Lord. You are reading this blog and you can prayerfully respond to God in the moment, too. (If you are eating at your computer without regard for physical hunger, for instance, you might want to stop and prayerfully evaluate if God is calling you to eat right now. If you were to take this moment captive for Him, what would it look like?)
Great…ok, that moment is gone, so…now, how about THIS moment?
Now this one…Yay!
See how this works? 🙂
By the time you have read this blog entry, you may have 5 minutes worth of moments you have captured for the Lord…that is a LOT of moments where you have chosen, freely, to give yourself to God. THIS ALL MATTERS! It pleases him so much that you choose to do this! But those 5 minutes were made up of 100s of momentary choices. Do you see? 🙂
When we get up from your computers, we continue to do the same. Let’s refuse to consider the entire day or the entire week or certainly not the entire year! Instead, he has given us this moment. Let’s capture it for Him…
As we string together one moment for Him with another moment for Him, before we know it, we have an hour of moments that we have seen His victory. We continue in the present moment to do likewise and moments build hours, hours build days, days build weeks…and ta-dah! Before we know it, we have a life that is patterned more on surrender to God than on raising a rebellious fist in his face! But it happens not by looking at the entire thing…it happens by relishing the moment he has given us NOW and declaring it HOLY ground NOW. I can’t really say what will happen an hour, week, month or year from now, but I can do something godly with what I have been given…and what I have been given is THIS moment, NOW!
Let’s go into the year ahead with resolutions that don’t look like the world’s. God wants so much more for us. In fact, Jesus may come again on January 2nd! 😉
If you are tempted to make a New Year’s resolution that looks like these:
“Lose weight in 2010” “Get Healthy in 2010” “Work out 3x a week in 2010″…etc….
I challenge you to, instead, resolve to develop a Momentary Mentality. Let’s commit to take this moment captive to the Lord–EACH moment!…to live with eternity in view, but capturing the moment for Christ!
…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness
Ephesians 4:24
I am blessed to live in a beautiful place. Many sojourn here for incredible athletic experiences–100-mile running races (Western States), 100-mile equestrian endurance races (Tevis Cup), mountain biking, fishing, white-water rafting.
We share our little piece of paradise on the side of a hill with two dogs, a chinchilla and four horses.
Since I am the primary animal lover in our family, the responsibility for the horses falls primarily to me–and rightly so. This time of year, the mystique, intrigue, and “romance” of having horses is eroded by buckets of rain that fall, causing mud and manure (or, most likely, a combination of both) to be everywhere. Should the ponies go frolicking around, kicking up their heels at a time like this, everything else flies around too. (To the right is my pony, Breezy, in his rain sheet, standing in the muck.)
No matter what the weather, three times each day I head out there to do my chores, which include mucking the little arena the horses have access to (adjoining a big hillside forest turnout) and feeding them…these are messy, muddy, poopy jobs! All for the love of the equine! LOL! I slog through the gunk to get to their feeders. In the summer, I can spread hay all over the forest, but this time of year, the ponies have to be fed in their feeders most of the time. Upon completing my chores, I have been known to re-enter the house with “mud” (or something more sinister disguised as mud, with a much more “pungent” aroma) on my sweatshirt hood or my back. This is in addition to the mud caking all the normal places such as pant ankles, legs (and, occasionally, my rear and arm should I slip and land on my backside).
Often, the rest of my daily routine adjusts to the timing of my “horse chores.” For instance, my daily shower may be put off until I find myself longing for “clean” mid-day. It is rather odd, though. In spite of emerging from the shower victorious over my arch-nemesis, unless I have a place I have to be or plan to host visitors, I typically figure “Why bother changing into clean clothes? They would just get dirty, too.” Granted, if the mud on my clothes is still wet, I am less likely to do this. 😉 Nevertheless, since I plan on just going out and getting dirty again, putting on freshly washed clothes to match my freshly washed body, seems pretty pointless! After all, why bother changing into clean clothes since I am just going back outside again and I am sure to get nuzzled with snot-nose horsey faces or rubbed on by a dusty head or step ceremoniously into a fresh pile of…well, you get the idea.
Often, I toss my favorite jeans and sweat shirt into a pile on the floor (complete with mud smudges) and head into the shower. I then step out of my hot-water reverie, having been transformed, shrug my freshly dried shoulders, slide back into mud-smudged jeans and hoodie, aware that I will be feeding ponies dinner in just a couple of hours. With all the rain dumping from the sky outside these days, I know that I will definitely be slogging my way through my evening horse chores again.
I would love to change into nicer or, at least, cleaner clothes. In fact, my husband bought me a wonderful soft sweater jacket for Christmas. It is beautiful and, did I say…soft? But it is white! I wonder how life would be if I were to shower and then put on a clean pair of pants, socks, and this white sweater? (In fact, I wonder if I will ever wear this sweater! I LOVE it, but it is white!)
Here is the thing and the point of this lengthy post…I get in the shower and get out, enjoying being clean, but I don’t plan to change my behavior so it doesn’t really last long. In fact, I basically “make provision” for heading back out into the mud. I don’t plan to change. Wearing something clean, let alone white and new runs totally contrary to what I accept as my reality. My reality is that I am going to behave in such a way as to be mucky and gunky anyhow, so I expect it and, even, plan for it.
If I were to put on the sweater my husband bought me, I bet I wouldn’t live quite the same way. In fact, assuming I went out at all, I bet I would stay on this side of the fence and throw the hay over! If not that, then I would likely ask someone else to do my horse chores and I would stay clear of the muck all together! I would live verrry differently if I wore that nice white sweater hubby gave me!
Yesterday, as I got out of the shower and had the fleeting thought of “It would be nice to put on clean clothes, too…” and argued with myself just as quickly…”Yeah, but what’s the point?”
I heard the voice of the Spirit of God impress on my heart…
“Child, you do this with me as well.”
Yes…each morning I start the day spending time focusing on Him, confessing, committing, genuinely offering myself to Him. I get “cleaned up” so to speak. It is like my shower…I am cleansed, forgiven, his grace abounds…but then, I get up and leave that precious time with my Savior and Lord and proceed to live as if I assume that I won’t change. I “make provision” for the same old same old…the same old rut, the same old muck and same old behavior that keeps me coming back asking Him to forgive me again and again. I do this instead of “changing my clothes” in anticipation of choosing to change.
What if I were to put on a new soft white sweater, spiritually speaking? Or, better, like Isaiah 61:10 says, what about the robe of righteousness? Is there some way that if I were to “put on” clean clothing, I might live accordingly? I might stay “on this side of the fence” instead of heading back into the muck of behavior that dishonors God?
Wow. Maybe I will choose to wear that white sweater for the rest of the day…to remind me physically of the fact that God HAS made me clean…now I am to LIVE IT OUT! To remind myself to choose differently when I am tempted by sin.
…Binge-Eating Couch Potato or Wholesome-Food-Eating Gym Rat?
Those of us who have struggled with food, eating, body issues for much of our lives need to be careful not to allow ourselves to be deceived as we search for an answer to our “problem.” Many of us live at one end or the other of a continuum. At one end, we obsess about food and eating the delectable treats we enjoy with abandon–without caring about what God has to say about the matter, being gluttonous and greedy. Rarely living anywhere between the two extremes, following some moment(s) of huge conviction or an experience where we come face to face with how out of control we are, we fly to the other end of the continuum, and earnestly manipulate and control our food, limiting the quantity in an extreme way (even to the point of denying physical hunger), weighing and measuring, charting and graphing obsessively, exercising compulsively. In this place, we live in fear if life is temporarily too busy or we feel too under the weather to maintain our exercise regimen for a day and need rest, or we worry we will gain ten pounds overnight (literally) if we “give in” to Mom’s home-made chicken soup (how can we, after all, count the calories in home made chicken soup? etc…).
I hope this comes across with intensity:
For me, in my life, these behaviors have been the same ungodly obsession, but with a different appearance. They may make me appear godly, but it really is just another way of indulging in the same sinful pattern in my life–fixating on my bodyand on food.
There is nothing wrong with exercising or being aware of what I put into my body, in fact, I believe these are great things! But I have learned over a long period of time that the Lord Jesus wants to break me free from an obsession in ALL it’s forms. No, wait…more than that…He already has. It is up to me, as I call on him for strength in the moment to walk in the victory he has already purchased in the strength he provides by the power of His Holy Spirit.
If fear, in any way, is a part of what motivates me, I must invite God to “search me and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” as fear can be an idol. God wants NOTHING but His own presence and Holy Spirit to direct my steps!
Rather than fear being fat, I must hate sin! In *all* its forms!
The diet fanaticism and gym-rat mentality that has characterized me in the past, is out of his will for me:
Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world,
why, as though you still belonged to it,
do you submit to its rules:
“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?
These are all destined to perish with use,
because they are based on human commands and teachings.
Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom,
with their self-imposed worship,
their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body,
but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
– Colossians 2: 20-22
Because of the tendency I have to get self-righteous, legalistic, prideful and to “just do it,” I know that as soon as I begin to speak of “taking responsibility,” “caring for my body as the temple of God,” “being a good steward of the body He has entrusted to me,” and other Christian “good health” catch-phrases, I have to be especially wary. I can allow a good, godly motive to carry me away into a place that is equally compulsive, sinful, dark, and displeasing to God as when I sit on my rear and binge time and again.
What makes it even more of a challenge, though is:
One approach, our world praises! The other, our world looks upon with disdain.
One approach, leads me (usually) to have a physical appearance that the world admires. The other, often leads me to have a physical appearance that the world rejects.
God isn’t a “factor” in this equation at all, let alone the sole motivator!
The question is, what is God speaking to my heart, today, right now, in this moment? What does He want? To what does He call? What will obedience to my Lord and Savior look like in this moment? In this hour? In this day? In this week?
I hope you will share what God has laid on your heart. I would love to hear from you. I will write more about this in the days ahead.
As I mentioned in my previous “Is this all there is?” blog post, the disciples lamented the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Disappointed that he was not coming as conquering king, being crucified as a common criminal was not on their list of ways to “win friends and influence people!” In fact, with their fixation on what they assumed was God’s plan, they almost missed the really BIG thing…the HUGE, ETERNAL thing that God was doing! …and that was that righteous, perfect, holy Jesus–God in the flesh–become sin for us so by embracing Him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus’ coming to earth as a babe, living life on earth in the flesh, having a ministry for three years, dying on the cross and RISING again …. none of that was about setting up an earthly kingdom (much to their disappointment!). It was about something so beyond that!
Like those earliest disciples and apostles of Jesus, I often miss the point. I am so fixated on my body and wanting to look a certain way that I miss what God is doing through the times I cry out to him, through my sometimes weak attempts to obey him. I miss the fact that, through my continued engagement in this battle, He is doing a HUGE, SIGNIFICANT, ETERNAL thing in my heart. When I, day in and day out, struggle to surrender my eating to the Lord and strive to eat within godly parameters, but then look with disappointment at my body…”I still don’t LOOK the way I want to! WHEN will I finally be DONE with this? When will I be my ‘natural God-given size’ and stay there without struggling any more?” I miss the point. Plain and simple. This isn’t what it is about. This isn’t why Jesus has come into my life.
He isn’t here to be a “diet remedy that works.” He is about something SO much MORE!
At the time of Jesus, God’s focus wasn’t the Romans…he allowed them to continue to be in authority. This doesn’t mean he condoned it or condemned it. It just meant it wasn’t the point of Jesus’ coming.
Same, too, with me…Jesus has “come” into this aspect of my life. He has invaded my eating, my thoughts of my body, what I struggle with. He doesn’t condone or condemn my size, shape or physical condition. His point isn’t to make me thin, or, even, to give me good health…In fact, as uncomfortable as it may make me, these things may not even be on His radar screen. While what I struggle with is nothing like being fed to lions or the oppression of the Jews and early Christians, nevertheless, looking back to that time in history does show me something of the character of God. It may be an uncomfortable aspect of the character of God…
If God’s point wasn’t to deliver the Jews (and later the Christians) from Roman brutality, but something else entirely…if he had a point on which he focused even while all these things that seemed to need to be fixed remained, isn’t it possible that my size or, even my good health, isn’t the point now either? That what IS the point is my heart? God has always been and, I believe, will always be about the heart.
If he allowed the Romans to remain in power and to cause such trials for the godly people of Jesus’ day and at the time of the early church, who am I to think that he will remove all my struggles from me…and make me THIN! Does God really care if I am thin or not? NO! He does care about my heart…that I allow my size to make me sad or to build pride…he cares about that. He wants my heart to belong 100% to him. It has never been nor will it ever be about thinness or physical health. He wants my heart.
This is the foundation of everything that I go through on this earth: God wants my heart. He gave His Son over to sinful man to be crucified, thus demonstrating that He is willing to do anything to get it.
God’s point in allowing my struggles with eating, food, body image, the abuse I faced in my childhood, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum :-), is my heart…to give it to HIM. To glorify HIM. To allow HIM to be my portion, my satisfaction. If I give any of my heart away to the hope of being attractive, thin, “whole,” or any of that, it is possible that I miss the point entirely…He wants it all. Therein IS my wholeness. Therein IS my sanity. Therein IS my rest, my peace, my hope, my healing–giving all of who I am to Him. This shall be my pursuit. This shall be my “resolution.”
Tomorrow I want to address the questions that I know this post may raise…like “What about being a good steward of the temple of God, my body, that He has entrusted to me? Doesn’t God care about that?” Hopefully, if you have followed this blog at all or know me from the Thin Within forums, you will know what I think about that! 🙂
When I was a kid, I remember Christmas afternoons after everyone left. We had spent the better part of the previous 24 hours “celebrating” Christmas with food, singing, and PRESENTS…OH!!! The PRESENTS! Aunts, uncles, cousins and, best of all, grandparents, would all gather to shower the kids…there were only three of us…with tons of gifts! SUCH fun!
Yet somehow, after the last car drove away and the house was suddenly quiet except for the sound of my mom cleaning up in the kitchen (and griping about how no one helped with the clean up!), I would invariably find myself under the Christmas tree for a final snoop…to make SURE that no more presents were hiding there under the thick foliage. After all, I reasoned…this couldn’t POSSIBLY be all there was!
Perhaps you have experienced a child (hopefully not one of your own), upon opening all the packages on Christmas Day, turning to you or to another adult lamenting incredulously, “Is this all there is?”
At the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the apostles and other disciples of Jesus sort of had a similar view…surely Jesus was going to do something more. They all expected him to top all the miracles he had previously done. He had fed the multitudes and raised the dead, so surely he would conquer the Romans and begin an earthly kingdom! Now would be a good time!
How surprised they were when, at the height of Jesus’ popularity, suddenly, the tables turned…everything flipped around, came to a grinding halt, Jesus was taken away, arrested, beaten and scheduled to be crucified.
“What?! Is this all there is? Surely, there has to be more! Surely, Jesus will defeat Rome now!”
Even daily, I must admit I struggle with an “Is this all there is?” sort of mentality. Do I truly find Jesus satisfying? Somehow, I know in my heart of hearts, if I did, I wouldn’t struggle with overeating the way I do, body image the way I do, or materialism the way I do. I wouldn’t pursue an incessant quest for more or constantly ask “Is this all there is? Is this ALL you are going to do, now, Jesus?”
I believe that one of the reasons that the Lord has allowed me to continue on this path, continue to experience a struggle with this food/eating/body “stuff” is because the most important thing on his agenda isn’t my size, my eating, and not even my physical health. Perhaps it is that he wants me to learn to find him, his presence now…just HIM…not what he gives or what he can do…to be totally 100% satisfying.
This is, I believe, what this journey is about. It is about discovering again and again that Jesus IS sufficient. Or better, realizing this and dwelling in that realization…staying there! Clearly, when God sent his Son into the world on that first Christmas, it was an answer to that human question… “Yes, my Son, Jesus, IS sufficient for all you need.” Whatever the question is, Jesus answers “I AM…”
Will I allow myself to experience the reality of that today? Or will I continue to behave like a spoiled child after all the presents are opened on Christmas Day… “Is this all there is?”
My family and I have just returned from DisneyWorld. Admittedly, one reason why we chose Christmas time for our visit was because we LOVE all the decorations. Although there *were* Christmas decorations, they weren’t in the abundance that we have enjoyed in years past in DisneyLand. Whether this is a DisneyWorld-specific oversight 🙂 or perhaps due to the times changing and people succumbing to the “heat” of critisicm about “focusing” on a Christian Holiday…I am not sure.
What has surprised me is how much I realize–now, in this moment–over the past few years I have heard myself and my family members say “It doesn’t feel like Christmas.” Or lamenting in retrospect, “This year didn’t feel like Christmas.” In fact, when I really stop to ponder it, I wonder how much of this feeling actually motivated our choice to travel to DisneyWorld at the time of year we did. We hoped it would cause it to feel more like Christmas, somehow.
This strikes me as so incredibly hollow. I am convicted, in fact. Why does the number of trees, their sizes, or abundance of lit garlands and ornaments on a tree or if lights are on the house or if I pick the right music to play on the stereo dictate if it “feels” like Christmas or not? Christmas is about something so…NOT external!
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment,
such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.
Instead, it should be that of your inner self,
the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is of great worth in God’s sight.
~ 1 Peter 3:3-4
This morning, this passage reminded me that I allow my perception of my body (an outward thing) color whether or not I feel beautiful. I spent time praying about what a gentle and quiet spirit might actually look like outwardly…and it is funny…these inward things will have an outward appearance or Peter wouldn’t have said what he said here.
Then I realized it…I do the very same thing with Christmas that I do with everything else…I focus on outward things rather than inner things…things that matter most. That is why it doesn’t feel like Christmas to me unless there are “adornment” (ornaments, lights, etc) and gold jewelry (the gold beads I like to put on the tree…) or tons of decorations at Disneyland or everywhere I look.
The truth is Christmas is about an inner quietness, peace and…salvation that will have external ramifications, but it isn’t something that lights, music, and even nativity scenes can generate. Jesus condescended from on high…he chose to allow himself to be wrapped in the weakness and frailties of human flesh so that he could live a sinless life and trade his life for ours, his righteousness for our sin, his joy for our shame…he came to earth to suffer and die. Christmas isn’t about decorations, gifts, lights, trees or great times with family at Disney. Sure, these can be a part of things…just like nice clothing and jewelry can be a part of what makes a woman beautiful…but true beauty of Christmas, of a woman, comes from something so much deeper.
