The crack is how the light gets in

But God loved the world

John 3:16-17 For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son … God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Romans 8:1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

James 1:16 Every good and perfect gift comes down to us from God our Father.

When I was in high school and in awe (I still am) of my later to become sister-in-law Elaine, we had a (for me) eye-opening discussion of John 3:16-21. I was steeped in judgment—my parents judged me, my school judged me, I judged myself—always as inadequate and unworthy of love. I naturally believed God viewed me the same way. I had no concept of him as a loving Father.

Elaine showed me in these verses and John 5:24 that people’s natural state was judgment, but God had done everything necessary to change that. All we had to do to pass from death to life (John 5:24) was to accept God’s love through Jesus’ life and sacrifice in our place.

Sometimes I forget and continue to judge and condemn myself. This Advent, I’m asking God to take me to a new level of understanding of his love for me as my Father NOT based on my performance. I’m trying to listen more to his words of love and less to my own inner critic.

What about you? What do you long for from your Father in this season of gift-giving?

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

But the Holy Spirit gives us love for others

Romans 15:30 Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to join in my struggle by praying to God for me. Do this because of your love for me, given to you by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 13:8 Pay everything you owe. But you can never pay back all the love you owe one another (NIRV).

Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love.

Last week I had the opportunity to share about Karis’s experience with a group of chaplains. It brought back to me the incredible grace, friendship and love we received from people who “joined in our struggle” over the thirty years of her life. Perhaps you are one of them. Thank you. How could we have survived without you?

*Two of Karis’s precious friends, who stuck with her through thick and thin (photo near the end of her life)*

As we consider our reasons for thankfulness this week, I also think of you who read and interact with this blog. Your comments and appreciation encourage me to continue, but I’m going to make a change. As an attempt at greater “searchability,” the posted title will reflect the content. “But God …” will still be the theme, but it will appear in the post itself. Feedback to this change is welcome!

One thing that will not change is my desire to post YOUR story of how God has intervened in your life. I would love, love, love for you to write and share your experience with God, to encourage other people and give him credit.

Today’s post is the last one in “ordinary time” of the church calendar, since I’ll be engaged with my gathered family on Thursday, and Nov. 28 is the first Sunday in Advent. Here and there I’ve seen references to people feeling anxious about gathering with their families this holiday season, fearing conflicts over political issues.

I find it encouraging that in this, Paul’s last reference to the Holy Spirit in the book of Romans, Paul shows us the beautiful fruit the Holy Spirit desires to grow in us, the fruit of love. We can ask the Holy Spirit to grow love in us, to increase our desire for harmony with those most important to us, our own families.

We have so much to share and to be grateful for—let’s not allow it to be sabotaged by politics! Instead, let’s listen to each other. Covid has increased many people’s feelings of loneliness, possibly people among our own families and friends.

And if you’d like a great (and entertaining) sermon about preparing our hearts for the holidays, I recommend Alex Banfield Hicks’ sermon yesterday (if it’s not up yet, it will be soon)!

Happy Thanksgiving.

But God honors those who seek truth

Acts 17:10-11 [Jealous Jewish leaders incited a riot against Paul and Silas in Thessalonica, arresting Jason for hosting them.] That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea [19 miles away]. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. The people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.

Someone anonymously sent Dave and me, through our mission address, a typed set of Scriptures often used to motivate defense of the unborn. I love those verses and have used them myself not only in favor of babies in the womb but for others who can’t speak for themselves.

I’ve used them when I speak about the vision God gave our friend Janet of Michael Derek, our fourth child whom we lost to miscarriage. (That story is in chapter 20 of Karis: All I See Is Grace.) A prior vision of Michael, shared with us at his memorial service in 1987, led us to believe his special task in Heaven is to care for the babies who arrive there due to elective abortion. I love thinking Karis assists him in that sacred work.

I’m both intrigued and puzzled about what led someone to send us those Scriptures in the way they did. I would love to know! I would love for that person to share with us whatever concerns are behind their decision to communicate—what exactly?—in that way. Especially if they think we are at fault and need correction. Even more if we have offended them. Jesus teaches us, If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense (Mt 18:15). I invite you, if you’re reading this, to ‘fess up so we can talk, and learn, and grow. Let’s live in the light and have fellowship with each other (1 John 1:7). Let’s speak truth in love (Eph 4:15).

Truth. How easily it gets skewed, and muddied, and misrepresented, and misunderstood. And put into rigid boxes along with things that aren’t true or right or godly. More than ever, we must be people like the Bereans, with open minds to truth, if we are to impact our generation for our Lord.

Sometimes, I’ve found, truth dresses itself differently than we expect. And we have reason to mistrust “truth” when it is dressed in bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, and other wrong behavior (Eph 4:31-32). Instead, Paul says, Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Truth. It matters.

But God show us his secrets

1 Corinthians 2:7-12 The wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our Glorious Lord. That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit shows us God’s deep secrets…so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

In the 1950s or 1960s, if you climbed into a Jeep or Carryall and drove for hours over rutted, one-track muddy roads over two ranges of mountains and then down into a verdant valley and wound through a Mayan village with dogs and half-naked children chasing after your vehicle–one of only two in that village–you would reach a small adobe house which by local standards was a mansion.

*A view of the valley last time I was there (2008), the village now a small city*

Inside that house, on a designated evening before Christmas, the children were put to bed early in the single bedroom which cradled them all. Under the narrow door into the living room a sliver of light shone, and mysterious sounds tantalized the children’s imaginations. For their father had rolled into the living room from its resting place in the garage the Christmas barrel, that round bastion of steel opened only once each year, on this night. Who knew what treasures were hidden inside?

Every child’s ear strained to detect some clue to what wonders were being wrapped on the other side of that door. Sure enough, gifts nested beneath the Christmas tree when they awoke, two for each child. They knew one would be something practical: socks, or underwear. But the other could be anything—a toy, a game, a puzzle—selected from the barrel especially for him or her. Those gifts were shaken, prodded, examined from all angles. The tension of anticipation grew with each day until finally, on Christmas morning, with a fire roaring in the fireplace (the only time each year Dad kindled it in the daytime), the secrets were revealed, one by one, in order of age of the four—then five, six, seven, eight children.

I can still feel the tingle of wonder at receiving something brand new, chosen just for me. My name on the package. Gifts selected (or donated to our family) years ahead of time, loaded onto the trailer we pulled behind our vehicle from Illinois or Kansas, through the agony of customs at the Mexican border, all those long sweaty miles south through Mexico and over the mountains into that Mayan village, finally to be sealed into the waterproof Christmas barrel to await their wondrous revelation.

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. … For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? (v. 16)

Because of Easter, we can know. His secrets are all about love.