We have been going through a spiritual battle lately. Ironically, returning to Mozambique to continue on with the Lord’s work, after having testified to God’s handiwork in the States, has resulted in some new waves of spiritual warfare for our family. (Go figure, right?) How the Deceiver loves to capitalize on our weaknesses. And while I am still a baby in the world of spiritual warfare, Matt and I are finding a renewed bracing on the Word of God itself.
We are too weak to fight. We are but broken people. But our Lord? Oh our LORD has ALL the victory. And we are learning to guild ourselves better with the Word of God. To arm ourselves better in His very armor. Taking Him at His Word. And using the Word to fight our battles. Literally taking His Word to the conflicts, praying His Words back to Him, meditating on His Words, journaling His Words and singing His Words. He is our defense. He is our everything. The Rock of our salvation will not be moved!
Lord, lead us into this battle, we are willing.
This song has become a theme song in my heart lately as I fall before Him.
He WILL win the battle. HIS is the victory.
Oh God Who makes the mountains melt, come wrestle us and win!
Lord of Hosts, You’re with us. With us in the fire. With us as a shelter. With us in the storm. You will lead us, through the fiercest battle. Oh where else could we go but with the Lord of Hosts!
I have been pretty quiet over here lately. Oh sure, I’ve posted some pictures and shared a small sample of our tiny slice of the world. But it has been a while since I have really written. —
This Christmas season leaves much to be chewed, much to be wrestled with.
This Christmas season has been filled with learning, growing …and surrendering.
By the utter grace of God, I get to see this Christmas season. I don’t ever want to pass by that truth lightly; nonchalantly, flippantly casting aside the fact that He literally sustained my life at this time last year. I am humbled, yielded and unworthy.
I can’t explain to you what it feels like to look at the scars in the mirror.
They are deep.
Forever changing me.
Christmas comes with a different taste for our family. When we think of last year.
When we think of last year…
I actually struggle to finish that sentence right now.
Christmas away from friends and family is tough, dear ones.
We passed “the other restaurant” in town the other day. [Yes, there’s really two restaurants in town, unless you want to pay way too much at the third one.] Much to the squealing delight of four little girls “the other restaurant” was the only place in the entire city to decorate their windows for Christmas. It was a wonderfully shocking surprise! One animated reindeer, fat white man in a red suit, snow man and a few unlit icicle lights, but still the girls wanted to circle the block to see it again. We couldn’t believe it. We saw any semblance of Christmas decorations in Mozambique for the first time in years, people.
Dear ones, we don’t believe in Santa Claus in this household. We haven’t since the beginning, but yes we hang the stockings like happy fools clinging to a little Christmas silliness. And our kids know we buy the stocking stuffers while they are told to go to one of the other 2 aisles in the convenience-store grocery shop. But who can resist that delight, you all? Gah, we’re addicted to those squeals when they receive the same candies the grocery always sells, but this time out of a stocking on Christmas Eve. It’s one of the few traditions we hold to make it feel like Christmas around here.
We make the best of it. It’s silly really to think that Christmas must come with cold weather, but when that’s all you’ve ever known, something just feels broken about Christmas if it’s over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit (41C to be precise). There’s something wrong about watching the Polar Express when you all have headaches and upset stomachs from the heat because, try as you might, you couldn’t drink enough water to counteract the lost sweat. It’s just hard. And it makes us “homesick”, though honestly we use that term flexibly. Home is where we are. So yes, we leave home to go home all the time. Because when home has meant so many things over the years, you just need the word “home” to come with a reassurance and a security that we’ll be together. The location doesn’t really matter. We’re just together. If you ask any one of the six of us where home is you may get any number of answers. But “together” is always the heart of our response. And Christmas has always been a “together” tradition – just together used to mean more than the six of us during this time of year.
Maybe this is a small taste of Abraham’s cost. That part of the Word that calls us strangers and aliens in this world is more tender than it used to be. We relate more. Leaving it all for a nomadic life of obedience. That’s more raw than it used to be.
I remember it one day, sitting on the couch and realizing that to share the greatest story of Hope – very Immanuel come down to dwell among us – we had become “homeless”. When we left U.S. soil we gave up more than a permanent address… we gave up our people group. I was flooded with the stories of the disciples leaving it all at the drop of a hat to follow the Rabbi. If the Messiah’s specific “come” hadn’t so radically changed us too, we’d probably still be fishing in the boat beside our father. We’d still be with our people group. We’d still be in our meaningful, heartfelt Christmas traditions sitting around the table with our precious extended family who are obeying their own “come”. But the Messiah has said “come.” And we aren’t the same. With His “come,” our sacrifices instantly became our offering.
And now we find ourselves circling the block again to laugh at a restaurant’s fake icicles hanging in the sweltering Mozambique heat. A joyful giggle that even though the greatest message has yet to come, the hint of Christmas has begun. No, dear ones, we aren’t bitter or weary to see Santa Claus arrive first. It doesn’t surprise us in the least. Who doesn’t like generosity? Even if it’s packaged differently. But oh the revealed mystery of the Word come down to us, putting on flesh and dwelling with us. Immanuel has come. Let us search the Scriptures together, for they speak of Immanuel who gives Abundant Life.
This year, Christmas comes with scars, deep scars that tell of pains still raw in some moments. And it also tells of an overwhelming gratitude that’s hard to put into words. The sacrifices may catch in my throat sometimes, especially when I’m tired. But it’s the gratitude that wells up the tears. Immanuel. I am overwhelmed. GOD with us. How HE has proven to be Immanuel (“God with us”), Jehovah Jireh (“The Lord Provides”), time and time again.
Thank You, Lord, for sending Immanuel. Not just to some, but for all. I rejoice in the scraps that fall from the Master’s table. Thank You that “it is finished”, the Law is complete. Oh thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord, that Immanuel is here all year long to hold my hand. To turn every sacrifice into an offering of heart-freeing gratitude. Help me, Lord. Christmas season comes with many Isaacs to be placed on the altar. And the hardest Isaacs are those I help my children lift. But thank You, Lord, that we can all step back and watch You come down like a consuming fire. Thank You, Lord, for receiving our offerings. May our faces glow as we walk through this life, changed by having spent time with You. Oh Lord, our faces do not glow for us to see, but that others may be encouraged to take up their Isaacs to the altar and be forever changed by Your consuming fire.
*Noel, Noel… come and see what God has done. The story of Amazing Love!
The Light of the World given for us. Noel.
Thank You, Lord.
.Amen and amen.
*Noel – French word based on the Latin root: “birthday”. Later adopted as a yuletide but referring specifically to Christ’s birth announcement.
“Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” – Philippians 4:11-13 (NASB)
You know sometimes I want the finality of it all. I want to arrive at the “I have learned” conclusion before putting in the time. I forget that for Paul to have spoken with such confidence that he is not speaking from want, he must have experienced speaking from want before. I forget that for him to state, through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, that he has learned to be content, he must have known the antinome too.
It hit me as I ran beside my daughter. We were approaching her second-wind breaking point – that tension before her next burst of endurance. I had studied her face for the past half mile as the tension slowly built and I knew the challenge she was feeling. I remembered, all too well, the tension and pressure on your lungs, and that little stitch in your side that feels like it may swell to being unbearable. I remembered, all too well, how far your distance goal feels in that moment and how your mind lays out compelling evidence to stop.
(A curve along our normal running route.)
“This is your moment,” I told her. “You want the joy of the finish line, then it comes during this push right here. Once you get past this push, the finish line distance becomes a reality.”
Distress wiped from her face. Determination set in her eyebrows. She clenched her teeth, organized her steps and set her gaze. She would win this race. This race in her mind. And she did- even commenting afterward that she still had more left to give.
(The sun peeking over the trees in an early morning run.)
I want the “I have learned” so many times without the sacrifice to get there. I want the finish line without the work put in day after day to train up to my goal. I want the “I have arrived” without the stretch marks that prove that I can never go back to looking the same, evidence of having worked through that tension. Paul can’t say he knows how to get along if he didn’t wrestle through the “humble means”, “hunger” and “suffering need”. Oh, but I want to dance in the “prosperity”, “being filled” and “abundance” and just forget that the antinome exists.
But here when He calls me yet again to wrestle in the tension, here where He opens the door for reminders of sacrifices, here where I’m broken wide into the messy, here before the “I have learned”- this is where He has brought me. And here I can continue to chip away at each piece of the grand thesis statement. Here I can add another layer to the “I have learned” argument. And here I find that “I have learned” is indeed a lifestyle. Because His Strength has always been extended to me in my time of weakness.
Thanks be to God. He has always stood ready.
Distress is wiping from my face. Determination is setting in my eyebrows. I am clenching my teeth, organizing my steps and setting my gaze. I will win this race. In Christ, I will win this race in my mind.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” – Romans 12:2 (NASB)
“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” – 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (NASB)
