Heart Boxes

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I just spent my first night in my new place. I really do love it. I have space. Lots of it. It’s bright, cheery, and the best part is my roommates. I love those girls.

This morning, as I’m contemplating all that I need to do today, I realized something interesting. The thing about moving to a new place is there is a huge sense of renewal, a chance to ‘start again’. A chance to redo all your organization. …But with all the new-ness comes lots of boxes. Full of stuff. Full of past stuff. And to really get a hold of your newfound organization and cleanliness, one must unpack, organize, purge if necessary, the old life. Hopefully, if you’re really on the ball (or you have a mother like mine who is excellent at helping you get rid of stuff!) you move with the least amount of junk possible. But inevitably, you will probably still have the random box of stuff that you just don’t know what to do with. …Actually, I probably could guess that many of you, though you haven’t recently moved into your current home, probably still have that box in your basement. …Maybe it’s even multiplied a few times.

As I was looking at the boxes stacked and strewn (…we’re working on that organization) in my dining room, I realized that I still keep quite a large box of random stuff that I should have gotten rid of a long time ago. It is stinky and dirty and really disorganized. …This box didn’t come in the trailer. This box sits in my heart.

The most ridiculous thing about this box is that I keep having the Junk Removers take it and I go searching for it and bring it back. …Do you know the phenomenon I’m talking about? I think that’s why Romans 12:1 calls us “living sacrifices”; we keep crawling off the altar of the High God and back into our old lives. I hate that about my nature. Colossians 2 commands that I “put to death whatever belongs to [my] sinful nature”. …Except I keep trying to revive it.

Oh! how I need His forgiveness. I wade around in this box, overwhelmed by its state, forgetting that Christ has already bought and removed it from my heart. And He desires to give my heart a total renovation so as to produce in me a heart that is “filled with the fruit of righteousness” (Phil. 1: 11).

What about you? Do you have a box (or two?) lurking in your heart? Christ will remove it and replace it. Though I can’t promise that the renovations will be painless (Tozer says that God can’t use a man greatly until He wounds Him greatly), but your heart will literally glow and be filled with the fragrance of Christ (1 Cor. 1:14-15) if you let Him. ….Let Him, friend.

Gifts Are the Real Meaning of Christmas

I don’t know what year it was, but it was the year that I got the full Scholastic edition of The Chronicles of Narnia series. If I’m remembering correctly, I got a good number of good books that year. My little stash of gifts probably was very decent.

That was also the first year I can very distinctly remember the sinking feeling in my stomach that descended on me as we began to tidy up the living room of wrapping and boxes and settle in with our new things.

You know the feeling that I’m talking about? It’s the one that feels a lot like disappointment, but you can’t really put your finger on what it was that you really wanted. All you know is that you didn’t get what you really really wanted–you know, the thing that would have certainly made you entirely happy, for at least another 12 months?

That first year, the year of Narnia, was also the year my baby sister got a whole whack load (I’m not even exaggerating!) of Barbies. I was *just* too old to really ask for them, but what I would have given to get a whole box of lovely blonde dolls with outfits and new shoes. Seriously.

As I was thinking about that Christmas this morning, I had a couple of realizations.

First, gifts are central to Christmas. I know that because of the North American practice of giving gifts to practically everyone we know. Our gift giving is almost like our ‘friending’ on Facebook. If you saw their face once or you have one mutual friend, you give them a gift or a card. That leads to the second reason I know gifts are central to Christmas. We spend a whole boatload of money on it. In fact, I’d venture to say that most of the money we spend around Christmas is money spent on those 1001 gifts we have to give. The third reason I know is that when it comes to charity events or campaigns, we are asked to donate presents and toys to the children who won’t get any at Christmas.

There actually is nothing really wrong with most of our gift-giving practices, in and of themselves. …But as I thought about it, I realized that there is quite a bit wrong with our gift-giving motives. In fact, they are actually very perverted.

First? Our gift-giving often can and does incite us to a great amount of sin. What do I mean? Well, think about your own gift-giving. On the most base level, I can be jealous of what other people give because I can’t give “as good” (that is, expensive? gifts like they can. On the most surface level, that thought is envious of others. On a deeper level, it makes us feel a bit guilty if we can’t give as good a gift to someone but they give us a fantastic gift. On an even deeper level, it implies that we give gifts to make others like (or love?) us better. At the deepest level, it makes the gift-giving about the gift-giver, not the gift-getter. Our motive is [almost] entirely based on envy, lies, and selfishness. …That’s a receipe for sin if I’ve ever seen one.

If I manage to not have that thought or motive directing my gift-giving, I have often thought this thought: “Well, if this gift for Dad will cost $25, I’ll have to make sure I buy another $10 gift for Lauren to make it even.” Usually the thought isn’t so plain as that, but I’ve heard its relatives come out of the mouths of other shoppers, so I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks in this family of thought. Why is this thought sinful? On the surface level, it makes gifts about the monetary cost of them. Why not just give them all cash then? On a deeper level, it takes out the individual thoughtfulness and uniqueness of the receiver of the gifts. Instead of finding a special gift for mom, we’re looking for a good gift that we spent $25 on, same as John’s. On an even deeper level, it makes the gift about the giver, again, and not about the getter. ….Worship of money, concern for man’s approval, and selfishness? Once again, a potent and subtle receipe for sin.

I think the reason they incite us to such levels of sin is because gifts can be so powerful. On the surface, there is something so thrilling about giving a gift that you know the getter is going to totally love and will totally make them feel really special. There is something about opening a box and discovering something in there that is just so thoughtful and great and you didn’t even know you wanted it until you saw there nestled in the wrapping paper.

But on a deeper level, the reason presents are so powerful and so often incite us to sin is because presents are a shadow of the real gift that our hearts are always longing for. And because our hearts long for it, we are so easily swayed to believe that a twisted version of gift-giving will do.

Unlike our gift-giving, God gave freedom and life to us, not because of anything about us, but because of everything He is. He gave because He loved us, yes; but He gave because He wanted to restore His relationship with us–so He would be  glorified.

Unlike our gift-giving, God gives freedom and life totally unfairly and totally unequally. We don’t deserve this freedom and life but we get it anyway. …And we know some of our loved ones won’t ever receive it. That’s not fair. And some receive their life just as their fleshy one is giving out while some gain new life mere years into life here on earth. Some struggle with doubt and fear for most of their spiritual and fleshly lives. Some live in complete abandon with a charismatic obsession with Jesus. That’s not equal.

So presents, rightly so, are central to Christmas. We feast and sing and feast and laugh and feast and gift-give and feast and get gifts and feast all because WE were given a GREAT GREAT great gift from our Heavenly Father who knows how to give good and perfect gifts.

When Colleen challenged me to make next year’s Christmas about the Real Gift by not getting any other gifts, I balked a little bit. …I know that left unchecked, my heart would be miserable Christmas 2011. I have some rethinking to do about my gift-giving practices…

What about you?

Santa Claus is Not Coming To Town.

Recently, I heard this:

“Christmas is not about all the gifts. The real meaning of Christmas is about appreciating those around you and being thankful for what you have.”

Also, heard:

“Christmas is about spending time with family.”

I’m sorry, but isn’t that what Thanksgiving is for? …

Don’t get me wrong. Christmas is a time where we do appreciate each other, often with gifts and cards, and we do end up spending a lot of special time with our family and closest friends, but Christmas is not about that. Not really.

You want to know what Christmas is REALLY about? …Well let’s start with a lesson from a famous Christmas (Or should I say, Consumerist?) song:

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He’s making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who’s naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

Putting the creepiness factor aside, this song has got it ALL wrong! First of all, Santa Claus is NOT coming to town, and therefore, Second, is not making a list and checking it twice–which leads to, Third, your behaviour should not be dictated by this fake overweight hermit man and what he might give you.

You know who is coming to town? Jesus. The God-Man. You want to know why He’s coming? Not to give gifts wrapped up nice and neat, but to deliver the message that we need a Saviour because our world is messy and perverted and completely screwed up. And the list that He’s making is not a good one.

Unlike Santa Claus, God made a list, and He didn’t even need to check it twice to find out who’s naughty and nice; He knows. …Oh how He knows. In fact, that list has nothing good on it. We actually deserve something worse than a lump of coal. We deserve death–eternal separation from life.

But the real meaning Christmas is that Jesus, the God-Man is coming to town, as a wee baby, to give us freedom. Hope. Joy. LIFE!

So don’t be good “for goodness sake”. Be good because your life actually means something now. Christmas is a time to be thankful—for life given through Jesus. Christmas is a time to be spent with family—with our Father in Heaven and our Brother the King!

…But Christmas is also a time to confess and repent from our sin. It’s the time to renew our love of the only God who gave His life for us! THAT is the meaning of Christmas. …And Easter too, but I guess that’s another chapter for another day!

Next time you hear the songs they play on the radio wrongly called “Christmas” songs, remember this: we’re lost. And nothing dear old St. Nick can give us will get us found. Our sin is WAY too big. But the good news is that the Lord, the Creator of the Universe, is bigger than all of my sin and all of your sin put together, and He CAN and DOES give us LIFE. …That’s something much better to celebrate than a terribly-dressed, isolated man like Santa Claus who is apparently coming to town, and shall I say, very uninvited?

Christmas is not about attitudes or gatherings. It’s about your sin and God’s solution to the problems that result from it; “Jesus is Coming to Town”!

When the Ride Is Not Reliable, He Is.

….Well, I’ve been pretty quiet for the last 6 months or so. These past 6 months have been some of the most difficult of my life, but also will probably be 6 months that I look back on to see God’s goodness to me.

From emotional rollercoasters and misunderstandings, I’ve been all over the place. But He hasn’t. And I’m SO glad.

Case-in-point…. This week, I had some rather big and somewhat detrimental things happen to me in the last week of my teaching block. One of them being  serious bus/travel issues getting to school on Wednesday morning, and as a result it has effected my apparent dependability.

It started with my regular bus being late by more than 15 minutes. This is not usual, so I thought I had missed it. Anyways, being -9C at 7:25am, I crossed the street to see if I could catch the next bus going the around and back to my stop so I didn’t have to wait in the cold. As I’m standing and waiting, my original bus finally comes and drives right on past me. I sighed, prayed that this isn’t a sign of my morning, and waited for the bus I’m waiting for. It comes, I got on, and rode it for a bit. …And then it turned into another route. At this point, I’m starting to panic, and in my panic I decided to stay on the bus because it would eventually get me to the downtown terminal, where I wanted to be. …Eventually it got me downtown, and I hopped on the bus that would drop me near the school. I rode it around, looking for the stop I needed to get off, couldn’t find  it, and rode it back to the terminal. At this point it’s 8:45am, and I’m supposed to be teaching at 9am. (!) The panic is in [almost] full bloom, and holding back tears I call a cab. It comes…and promptly drives past me. I call the cab company again, and it comes again and picks me up. Cherry on the top? The driver is a parent of one of my students. I finally got to the school, during the first period that I was supposed to be teaching, twenty minutes into the period. You can imagine my frustration.

…And my frustration was about to get bigger. All my early mornings at the school, the after class meetings with students about homework or help, my breaks spent helping with math, all were wiped away by one bus mishap. …Whether or not it was fair, that was the evaluation.

My unreliable ride resulted (and is resulting) in a much bigger issue than I had ever anticipated. I feel very misunderstood and struggling with anger, but this is what I realize and must cling to:

My God is bigger than this. In my heart, I know that He is in control. He knew this would happen on Wednesday morning, and He sees the long-term results. My reputation and genuine frustration and anger and sadness and disappointment with my associate’s response is not lost on Him. My ride was not reliable on Wednesday morning, but my God was, and will continue to be constant, in control, and caring to my character and future.

I don’t know what Monday morning with my faculty advisors looks like. I can’t predict what their responses will look like. But I can completely depend on God. He is the same, Wednesday, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever.

This week’s truth applies to the last 6 months: Yes. There are a number of big regrets, some “I wish”s, some “why did that have to work out that way”. But for whatever reason, to whatever result, my God knows, sees, cares, and it will work out for my good, and His glory.

Life is not reliable. My uphill climb in these last few months have been brutal and unpredictable. I have been humiliated and cast down. I have learned that I fail regularly, can be unreliable, and am unbelievably proud. …But He doesn’t, can’t, and isn’t. He is eternally perfect, entirely reliable, and emphatically humble.

Even when my ride is unreliable, my God is not.

Albert Mohler on Reading

As I attempt to be a bit more strategic and disciplined in my reading, I found Albert Mohler’s thoughts on reading very helpful. For the original article, click here.

Here are his suggestions:

1. Maintain regular reading projects. I strategize my reading in six main categories: Theology, Biblical Studies, Church Life, History, Cultural Studies, and Literature. I have some project from each of these categories going at all times. I collect and gather books for each project, and read them over a determined period of time. This helps to discipline my reading, and also keeps me working across several disciplines.

2. Work through major sections of Scripture. I am just completing an expository series, preaching verse by verse through the book of Romans. I have preached and taught several books of the Bible in recent years, and I plan my reading to stay ahead. I am turning next to Matthew, so I am gathering and reading ahead — not yet planning specific messages, but reading to gain as much as possible from worthy works on the first gospel. I am constantly reading works in biblical theology as well as exegetical studies.

3. Read all the titles written by some authors. Choose carefully here, but identify some authors whose books demand your attention. Read all they have written and watch their minds at work and their thought in development. No author can complete his thoughts in one book, no matter how large.

4. Get some big sets and read them through. Yes, invest in the works of Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, and others. Set a project for yourself to read through the entire set, and give yourself time. You will be surprised how far you will get in less time than you think.

5. Allow yourself some fun reading, and learn how to enjoy reading by reading enjoyable books. I like books across the fields of literature, but I really love to read historical biographies and historical works in general. In addition, I really enjoy quality fiction and worthy works of literature. As a boy, I probably discovered my love for reading in these categories of books. I allow some time each day, when possible, to such reading. It doesn’t have to be much. Stay in touch with the thrill.

6. Write in your books; mark them up and make them yours. Books are to be read and used, not collected and coddled. [Make an exception here for those rare antiquarian books that are treasured for their antiquity. Mark not thy pen on the ancient page, and highlight not upon the manuscript.] Invent your own system or borrow from another, but learn to have a conversation with the book, pen in hand.