Jesus Did It For You! WOW!

Hi Friends,

This week, as I'm considering what Jesus did for me - arrested, beaten, spat on, a crown of thorns crushed onto his head . . . crucified - I am filled with awe, amazed with the wonder of it.  

For me.

For you.

He died.

He rose again.

He redeemed us all.

Wow.

Nothing will ever be the same again.  Because He changed everything on the cross, in the tomb.

And as I sit and ponder, I remember a story from when Bethany was a little girl.  She was about Beanie's age when it happened, just like this:

It started just like any other night.  Bethany grabbed her sea otter toy, snuggled deep into her blankets, and look up at me with smiling brown eyes.  I settled next to her and picked up the first of the bedtime stories I would read that night.  A dancing hippo shone from the book’s cover.  “I like that one,” Bethany mumbled through the two fingers she had stuck in her mouth.  

So, I read, she wiggled, and the short pile of books soon dwindled to nothing.  Then, came our favorite part of the bedtime ritual.  I reached for the Bible story book on her dresser, thinking I’d read about Zaccheus or perhaps blind Bartimaeus or the woman at the well.  

But just as my fingers touched the brightly colored surface of the book, Bethany sat up and tapped my arm.  “You tell me about Jesus tonight.  Tell me about Jesus on the cross.”

“Ahhhh,” I murmured as I turned from the dresser and tucked the blankets around Bethany’s chin.  “Jesus on the cross.”

“Please, Mommy.”

I smiled down at her.  Then, I reached over, dimmed the light, and began.  I told her about how the soldiers hit Jesus, and hurt him, and spat on him, and pushed an awful crown of thorns on his head.  I told her about how they made him carry his own cross up to the hill called Golgotha, and how they laid him on the cross and spread out his arms, and nailed him there.  

“Did it hurt very much?” she asked, just as she always did whenever I got to this place in the story.

I brushed the hair back from her forehead with my fingertips.  “Very much.”

“They not supposed to do that.”  She frowned.

“But they did.”

“And then what happened?”

My voice grew quiet.  “They lifted the cross high in the air, and the sky turned black.”  

“Oooo,” she breathed.

“Then, Jesus died, and the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

“That’s sad, Mommy.”  She clutched her sea otter toy even tighter.

I nodded, then told her about how they took Jesus down from the cross and put him in the tomb for one day . . . two days . . . three days.  

She waved her fingers in the air and counted the days with me.  

“Then –“ I paused.

Bethany caught her breath.

“The ground shook.”  I rattled her headboard.  “The stone rolled away, and—” I stopped.

As always, Bethany finished the story in her loudest voice. “Him not die anymore! Him risen!”

We laughed together as I hugged her and whispered in her ear, “And that is the most wonderful, incredible, amazing, important thing that has ever happened in the whole wide world from the beginning of time until now.”

Her eyes grew wide. She snuggled deeper into her blankets, and said the one word that I’ll never forget.  “Wow.”

Wow.  And somehow that simple word stuck in my heart and I saw the story of Jesus through her eyes.  I saw the wonder, the mystery, the beauty.  I saw how much it cost for God to make me His own.  

And in that moment, God rekindled in me the wow of the gospel.  Suddenly, it was new, amazing, and wonderful.  How had I forgotten the awe?  How had it become “old news?”

I laid back on the bed next to her and looked at the ceiling.  “Wow,” I whispered.  “Wow, wow, wow.”

Bethany sighed and rubbed her small hand over my arm.  “You tell me again, Mommy?  Tell me about Jesus on the cross.”

“Of course, sweetheart.  I’ll tell you as often as you want to hear it.”

And I do, with a silent prayer that neither of us will ever forget the “wow” of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

Who are You? in the Easter Story

Hi Friends,

This week I’ve been writing Chapter 10 of my new book, Wrestling with Wonder, about the arrest, beating, and sentencing of Jesus.  As I’ve been writing, I’ve been thinking about who I am in the Easter story.

And I’ve discovered that I am many people in the story:

--I am Judas, who betrays him with a kiss.  I say I love him, but then I don’t represent him as I should.  My actions, my sin, take him to the cross.  He loves me anyway.

--I am Peter, who claims he doesn’t know Jesus because he’s afraid.  He loves God, but he succumbs to peer pressure.  Jesus forgives him, restores him, makes him whole.  

--I am Barabbas, a sinner set free when Jesus is condemned.  I don’t deserve it.  I can’t hardly believe it, but all my sins are forgiven and I am free of all that binds me because Jesus, in his innocence, is sentenced to die for me.

--I am Mary, kneeling in sorrow at the foot of the cross, unable to grasp the depth of what it means that the Messiah hangs there.  Not knowing that in this darkest hour I am being transformed and God’s will is being done.

--I am the thief, asking Jesus to remember me when he gets to his Kingdom.

--I am the soldier, whispering in awe, “Surely this is the Son of God.”

--I am his disciple, waiting, wondering ... trembling with fear and wonder as the whole world is changed in a single moment, as darkness covers the sky, as the curtain is torn is two forever, as I am redeemed.

I am his.  May I never forget the wonder of what he did for me . . .

Finding a Heart of Worship

Hi Friends,

If you come to my house when Jayden's home, you'll leave with two things:  A stack of carefully-crafted drawings and a fistful of "fowlers" picked from our yard.  Because at four years old, that boy loves to give to others what he loves most - and that's drawings and wildflowers.  And he gives wildly, freely, joyously, abundantly.

He gives with a heart of worship.

He gives when he's feeling a little down.  He gives when he's happy.  He gives when everything doesn't go his way.

It doesn't matter what the circumstances are - he draws his drawings, his picks his flowers, and he gives them to those he loves ... which is pretty much everyone.

And in doing so, he challenges me to do the same.  He calls me to worship God in all circumstances by bringing him my wildflowers and my drawings, no matter if I'm sad or happy, fearful or fulfilled.

Jayden calls me to worship God with all I am, all I love ... with joy, with abandon, with abundance on those days when the sun is shining, life is beautiful, and I'm caught up in the wonder of God's love for me.  And he calls me to worship with all I am, all I love, with joy, abandon, and abundance when life is rainy, things aren't the way I hoped and prayed, and I'm caught up in grief and sorrow and fears for what will be.

Jayden calls me to keep drawing and give my drawings away.  He calls me to still hunt for the flowers in my life, and give them away too.  To God, to others ... because of joy ... because of love.

So today, may I pause for just a moment over bedraggled dandelions and scrubby purple flowers held in mud-stained fists.  May I catch a whiff of wonder as I take them in my hands, hear the words "for you," and place them in a crystal vase.

May I receive Jayden's love as I receive God's - fully, abundantly, so I can give it back again.  So I can bring God my bedraggled wildflowers and spread the aroma of his love to everyone I meet.

May I worship God in a dozen little ways that are unique to me - with the drawings and wildflowers of my heart - in the midst of my day.  And may I share that love with others.

Because maybe, just maybe, my drawings are on the frig of heaven and my flowers are in a crystal vase beside Him.

How to Obey God

Hi Friends!

Last night Bryan and I started studying the Gospel of Mark with our two oldest, Bethany and Joelle.  We printed out the first few chapters on regular paper, double-spaced, got out a bunch of colored pens, and dug in to the text.  What we found is that God wants to baptize us with the Holy Spirit - He wants to change us from the inside out.  Our job is not to change ourselves through sheer willpower.  We only need to make straight paths for God's Spirit by confessing, repenting, and letting GOD do the work in our hearts.  

So as I've been pondering what we talked about, I was reminded of this story:

It was the size of a watermelon.  A very large watermelon.  I stuck my hand through the huge hole in the screen door and hollered for my husband.  “Aren’t you ever going to fix this screen?”  

I heard mumbling from the other room.

“Well?”

“Maybe this weekend,” Bryan yelled back.

This weekend?  Was he crazy?  A hundred flies would buzz through the hole before then.  Or a mouse could get through.  Or even the neighbor’s cat.  I stood up and put my hands on my hips.  “I want to do it now.”

“Go ahead,” Bryan answered.  “The new screen’s in the garage.”

It wasn’t exactly the answer I was hoping for, but I wasn’t going to wait any longer.  “Fine,” I grumbled, “I’ll do it myself.  No problem.”  I slapped my hands together and headed for the garage.  There, as promised, was the brand new hole-less screen.  

I tromped back into the house with the screen in my hand.  Within minutes I had the door removed and the old screen out and thrown away.  Now all I had to do was squeeze the new screen into the metal frame and replace the door.  It seemed like a simple task.  

I laid the screen on the frame and pushed, and shoved, and tweaked, and groaned.  But the screen wouldn’t stay in the frame.  Finally, I took a butter knife and tried to wedge the mesh into the thin crease.  I pushed the screen in.  It came out.  I pushed it in sideways.  It came out again.  I smashed the stainless steel knife into the mesh and pushed it into the frame with all my might.  It stayed in for a moment, then slipped out.  For forty-five minutes I tried everything I could think of to squeeze the screen into the frame, but nothing work.

Finally, I threw the butter knife onto the ground.  “I can’t do this!” I shrieked.  “It’s impossible!”

Bryan ambled into the room.  “What’s wrong?”

I sniffed back tears of frustration.  “I can’t get this stupid screen into the frame.”  I grabbed the butter knife and stabbed it in Bryan’s direction.

He grinned.  “You’re using a butter knife?”

I crossed my arms.  “Yeah.  So?”

“There’s a tool for that, you know.”

I glared at him.  “You’re kidding.”

“We can go over to Home Depot and pick it up now, if you want.”

“Of course I want to,” I shouted.

Ten minutes later we were standing before a bin of 79-cent tools.  I stared at the small plastic sticks attached to miniature wheels.  “This is it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” Bryan smiled.

Less than a dollar later, Bryan and I were headed home with tool in hand.  Once I got back, changing the screen took only a few seconds. I couldn’t believe how my impossible task had suddenly become so easy.  All because I had the proper tool.

Sometimes I feel like following God, and obeying his will, is a lot like changing a window screen.  Without the right tool, it’s almost impossible.  I like to think that I can obey God through sheer will power.  But after struggling, groaning, and trying with all my might, I find the hole-filled screen of my life far from fixed.  What I need is not the butter knife of will power, but the new heart that God promises.  I need to lay down my self-sufficiency and pick up complete reliance on God.  I need to stop thinking that I can fulfill God’s dreams for me if I just try hard enough.  Instead, I must depend on the right tool – on God’s grace and mercy in my life.  Only then will I be able to accomplish the tasks God has for me.  

Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV) says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”  Through grace, God gives me what I need to obey Him.  He only asks that I be willing to give up my old heart of stone . . . or in this case, of stainless steel!

Finding What Matters...

Hi Friends,

So, I just got done with my yearly mammogram and got an email from a friend who's just been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be having surgery tomorrow morning.  This weekend I taught at a writers seminar where the original keynote speaker (wonderful writer, friend, and woman-of-God Ethel Herr) wasn't able to speak because she'd graduated to heaven from cancer this year.

And so I've been thinking about what really matters in life, what is worth spending our precious time on, where I need (and want) to focus my limited life and energies.

Here's my conclusion:  LOVE.

--Loving God will all my heart, all my soul, all my strength in whatever circumstances come my way.  I want to bask in His love and love Him in return.  I want to live my life out of the center of knowing in my deepest soul that I His beloved and He is mine.  I want to rejoice in Him, worship Him, live every moment in Him, aware of Love.

--Loving others in all their quirkiness, faults, and beauty.  I want to love like God does.  I want to see others as He sees them.  I want to enjoy the wonder that God has placed in my kids, my husband, my friends, my family, and even those who are strangers.

I want less worry and more worship.
I want less frustration and more laughter.
I want less frantic hurrying and more moments of wonder.
I want less irritation and more grace.
I want less me and more God.

I want to sing:  "Lord, we stand amazed in your presence, astounded by your mercy and love ... your grace for me is always enough."  (for the full song see:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECwIPkF3HYo)

So, may you live in the fullness of His love today, remembering what matters, and basking in His wonder ... no matter the circumstances!

Finding Peace in the Hurry Hurry Hurry of Life

Hi Friends,

It's been a busy few weeks here with too little time to stop and breathe.  And I've been noticing the results - frazzled nerves, a lot less patience, a lot more frustration.

So in the midst of it all, I started to watch the rain hitting my windows earlier this week, and I remembered this story.

I’m so tired . . . I can’t do it all. The words limped through my mind as I leaned against the headrest in my Honda Pilot. Rain drummed on the front windshield, accompanied by the steady thump of the wipers.

“Are you all right over there?”

I glanced over at my husband in the driver’s seat. “I dunno.”

“Just relax. We’ll be there in a minute.”

I tried to relax, but the baby started fussing in back seat. Then our 4-year-old began complaining, again, about his seatbelt. “Moooommmmm, it’s too tight.” “Waaaaa…”

I tried to focus on the swish-swosh of the wipers, the patter-smack of the rain. But the kids were louder.

It was supposed to be a quick task. Just drop Bryan off at the shop to pick up his truck, then zoom back home. A few minutes to rest on the way there, then a short drive back, and get to work. But so far, I hadn’t managed a minute of rest. And it wasn’t all the kids’ fault. There were too many thoughts crashing around in my mind. An impossible to-do list, deadlines looming, diapers to change, messages to answer, bills to pay, laundry stacked a mile high, bits and pieces of life scattered about, all shouting for my attention.

It was too much. But that was life. Things had to be done. And I had to do them. But how? My gaze drifted to the side window. There, dozens of raindrops raced in herky-jerky motions across the glass. My eyes followed a group along the jagged, horizontal paths. A moment later, those drops flew off behind us, only to be replaced by others in an endless, useless race.

There was something sad, something awful, about how the raindrops shuddered across the glass. They reminded me of something. No, not something. Someone. Me. Just like them, I too was driven in a frantic rush from one side of the day to the other, often accomplishing little more than moving across the distance.

I pressed my fingertips against the pane and watched as a puff of mist outlined my hand. How could I stop it? The raindrops had no choice. Did I? It didn’t seem like it, and yet . . .

The answer came quickly in the form of a scripture verse I had memorized years before. “Be still, and know that I am God,” God said in Psalm 46:10 (NIV).

I frowned. Be still?! Sure, it sounded good, but honestly, how could that verse apply to me? I had two small, busy children, a business to run, papers due, and writing deadlines looming. There was no time to be still! But what if there was, somehow, someway? What if one of those racing raindrops just paused for a moment on the glass?

As if to answer my question, the Pilot slowed to a stop at a red light. Not one, but all the raindrops shivered then paused. In one instant, they glimmered like a dozen oval diamonds. No more racing. No more frenzy. Then, the light turned green. The Honda picked up speed. But the raindrops didn’t resume their helter-skelter dash. Instead those drops, the ones that paused, made a graceful swoop to the edge of the glass.

I stared at the window as new raindrops resumed the crazed race. It was as if nothing changed. But something had. I’d seen the raindrops that paused. And I knew that somehow I had to pause too. I may still have to get from one side of the glass to the other, but I didn’t have to do it all at once. I could spare a quiet moment in the midst of chaos, a breath of blessed silence, a time to stop the hurry and place my heart, my life, my to-do list, squarely in the hands of God. I needed to stop, even if briefly, to remember who I am, and more importantly, who He is. To breathe a word of praise into the noise of the day. I needed to simply, sometimes, be still.

Warm Bodies Movie and Finding True Life

Hi Friends,

I went to see the romantic-comedy-zombie movie, Warm Bodies, with my 13-year-old daughter last night.  Very cute movie, enjoyed it a lot.  And of course, it got me thinking about God and Finding True Life in Real Life.

In the movie, the story is told through the perspective of R, a zombie who longs for life.  He and the others have a semblance of life - they can move, think in a limited fashion, get from place to place (if slowly!).    They look like they have life, but they're dead.

R plays records, collects things, and yes, eats brains to try to capture a bit of real life.  But these things fail him.  Only love brings him true life.  Only love can change him, make him alive.  And that love, that life, is contagious.  Only it can cure him ...

And that is very essence of the good news of Jesus in our own lives.  We have a semblance of life.  We walk, we talk (a little), but we're the walking dead.  We're ruled by the drives of our "undead" bodies.  And we long for real life.  We grasp onto glimpses of it.  We play our music, we try to remember what we were made for by God.  But we can't.  We moan and stumble.  And then God, in His incredible love for us, breaks into our dead lives.

His love gives us life, real life, true life.  He changes us, transforms us, makes us new.  He gives us what we long for.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2:1-5, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world ... All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts...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!"

We are new creations, true living people, because of His love for us!  It's not just any love that saves us, that remakes us, cures us ... it's Love Himself.  The One who IS love.  

And that is a gift, a wonder, an amazing, breath-taking, incredible, beautiful fact that should make all the deadness in our hearts disappear.  It should make us sing ... and come fully to life.  

We don't have to be zombies anymore  ... because God loves you.  Loves you enough to sacrifice himself so that you may have Life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).  He offers life, real life, through his love.  How can we be content to wander the airports of our lives with pale skin, unbeating hearts, groaning lips, unable to connect with others, living the lives of the undead dead.  

God, his love alone, sets us free.  And we live in full color, in full life, when we bask in His love, when we live in it and allow it to make us new, make us whole, make us alive, transform us fully!