Make Room

I've spent the last few weeks doing something I seem to do every year at this time of year.  Some prefer to do it in the spring.  I prefer right before Christmas.

I initiate an all-out clean-out.  No closet, no drawer, no cabinet, no space under any bed is ignored.  

Trash bags in hand, we conquer the clutter.  We release what we have no use for any longer.  We toss what needs to be thrown away, and we organize what we want to keep.

Because I know more is coming in the next few weeks in the form of gifts, some of the old has to go in order to make room for the new.  If we don't, there's no room for the new.

And since I'm naturally a lover of all things organized and all things tidy, this makes my heart very happy to purge out the old, the unnecessary and seldom used.  Unfortunately, the process is not often met with the same zeal by my oldest daughter, who would be perfectly content to keep every nook and cranny just as it is.  

But as her most wise, most discerning mama, I know there is work to be done.  So this year, in an attempt to avoid any (& all) emotional drama, I told her an intervention would take place on a particular day and she, the occupant, would be responsible for accomplishing the task.  

Cue the pouting, sulking, and tears.  

A few hours into it, little progress was being made.  So an intervention did take place.  I intervened and helped her sort through her mess. Though I thought letting her handle her stuff all by herself was the way to go this year, it was not.  Through tears, she admitted, "I still need your help; it's just too hard to do by myself."  It was too much for her to handle and she was overwhelmed by it all.

Our plan:  divide the room into zones and tackle them one by one.  A couple days later and a couple trash bags later, she hugged me and said, "This feels awesome! Thank you for helping me, Mama."

Crisis (& clutter) averted.  Mission accomplished. Everybody's happy, happy, happy.

Until the the Holy Spirit pressed into my heart.

You see, I'm really good at taking care of business with my physical surroundings. Preparing our home for all the new gifts.  But what about my spiritual surroundings?  What about preparing my very own heart, the wellspring of life?  

So the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about just that.  Christmas will be here soon.  I've been doing so many things to get ready.  Shopping. Decorating.  Planning.  All good things preparing for one great day.  

But is there room? 

Have I intentionally cleaned out what's been piling up for some time?

Am I making room, turning my affection toward the most precious Gift ever given?  

The other stuff is just that, stuff.  I, too, need an intervention from time to time.  I need Jesus to intervene, to guide me in releasing what needs to go: unnecessary expectations, disappointments, judgments, unforgiveness, distractions, selfishness, etc., etc., etc.  

The main way I find to do that is by recognizing Advent, acknowledging that Christ has come, is coming again one day, and is present with us now. Last night was the first night of Advent this calendar year. 

As I sat with my family and read from Bartholomew's Passage, our Advent story this year, I could feel some shifting, some rearranging and some purging happening as the Holy Spirit began to take care of business.  

No pouting, no sulking and no tears on my part.  

Happy to oblige.  

Happy to have Someone helping me with the process.  

Happy to be making room.

"While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.  

She wrapped Him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."  

Luke 2:6-7

Help, Lord.  Help us clean out all the clutter, all that has hidden You.  You are the child that was born. You are the Son that was given. You are the Warrior King who's coming again.  You are Emmanuel, here with us now. Forgive us for unknowingly crowding You out as those did in Bethlehem the night You came. Make room in our hearts for You.  Amen.

Declaration of Dependence for Today

Can't do it.  Not today. 

The moment I do is usually the exact moment it bombs.  You know I'm right, Lord.  You know me full well.

Your own people tried.  They didn't get it right either.  They kept doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and to whomever they wanted.

Your Word says it was because they had no king.

"In those days Israel had no king;
everyone did as he saw fit."
Judges 21:25

That's why they did it.  Oblivious to You.

As I look inward and around, I notice how little things have changed.  Thousands of years later, I see moments when we're still trying to do our own thing.  In our own way.  With no profitable results, only substantial heartache and regret.

So much like a toddler, our hearts scream, "I can do it all by myself!" 

In the spirit of independence we think we can or we think we should, so we do.  But independence and self-reliance will eventually fail us in the spiritual realm.

The good news is that we have You.  We have a King.  And You have a kingdom.  Both in our hearts and in the heavenlies.

You have a throne where You sit, where You rule.  You are most definitely on it.  It's Your throne, not ours.  Our only response to Your throne:  bow before it; don't ever attempt to climb up on it.

You have complete dominion and absolute authority.  And only a King has both the privilege and joy of setting captives free.  Free from ourselves.  Free to follow You.  Free to do as You see fit.

Left on our own understanding and our own ways, we will screw up.  Royally. 

I don't want to do as I see fit.  No, I want to do as You see fit.  I want to live according to You and Your ways, not myself and mine. 

Direct my paths.  Direct the paths of your people.  Grant us the strength to do what is right and the grace when we don't.  Steer us clear of the compromising standards of this world and toward You and Your divine purposes.

Today {once again} I declare my dependence on You.  I fully rely on You for everything.  For in You, I live and move and have my being.  I trust You.  I need You.

I acknowledge You as King and rest in Your Kingship.   You are the King of all kings.  King of our hearts, King of our lives, King of every specific circumstance today.

May our hearts bow to You and Your authority as our King, today.  Because Your Word promises every one of our knees will do it one day.

I pray for my generation.  I pray that we may be a dependent people.  And that it may be said of us,
"In those days, they had a King; everyone did as He (the King) saw fit."

"Your kingdom come,
Your will be done..."

Matthew 6:10

A Grinch's Prayer

As ashamed as I am to admit it, the Grinch and I share a similar past.

Not in the... "I hate Christmas, so I'll steal gifts and trees and lights and happiness right out from under everyone on Christmas Eve" way.

No.  Not at all.  Because, unlike the Grinch, I really, really love Christmas.

Instead, it was more on the lines of..."I think the most likely reason of all…may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.”

In past Christmases, I remember the internal struggle I had whenever I heard that description to explain the Grinch's personality and the reason for his less-than-acceptable behavior.

Maybe that was me, too.

Given any personality test in years past, I'd score high on thinking, low on feeling.  High on analyzing and judgment.  Low on sympathy and mercy.

I rarely cried and was rarely moved to tears by others' situations and suffering.  I cared.  At least I thought.  At least I tried.  But in truth, more often than not, I turned my head, closed my eyes, or pretended not to hear the cries of the needy and the most vulnerable.

And though I'd never considered myself a taker, I'd never described myself as a giver either.  It's not that I was opposed to giving or that I hadn't given or that I didn't give. 

I had.  I did.

It's just that giving didn't seem to overflow naturally from me like it did from so many others I knew.

The hard reality:  I needed some supernatural help with my seemingly small heart.  The heart defect had to go.  My heart needed to grow.

So I prayed.  One simple prayer.  One very short, life-altering prayer. 

(I feel the need to offer a word of caution here.  You may not want to pray this prayer unless you really, seriously...like really, seriously mean it.  Consider yourself warned.)

"Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours."

 

What breaks the heart of God?  Here's my short list:

The lost.  The vulnerable.  The oppressed.  The captive.  The lonely.  The needy.  The helpless.  The poor.  The sick.  The persecuted.  The wounded.  The widow.  The orphan.

That one prayer changed my whole perspective on God and others.  No longer can I sit back and watch, content to stay within my own world, doing my own thing, for my own pleasure. 

No longer can I look at the needs, both here and there, and think, "There are just so many. I'm only one person so I won't be able to do much." 

Instead, I need to help.  I want to bless.  I'm compelled to give.  Something.  Anything.  Not sparingly, but generously.  Not under compulsion, but from a full heart.  A heart which has been given so much.

Weeks ago, I wrote down a specific list of giving opportunities I was aware of this holiday season.  Knowing it was not possible for our family to give to all of them, I narrowed the list to several things/people/ministries which resonated both with us and the heart of God.  And we focused our giving to that list.

And with each giving opportunity, I'm learning a valuable lesson.  Giving takes practice.  Lots of it.  Like learning to play a musical instrument or a new sport, giving is a skill.  The more you do it, the better you become at doing it. 

I'm grateful for these opportunities.  They have given me the chance to put into practice what I'm learning.

In 2 Corinthians 8:7, the apostle Paul said,

"See also that you excel in this grace of giving."

 

Paul knew that left on our own, we will hoard.  We will keep instead of give.  We will continue to store up temporary trinkets for ourselves.  But because God has been so incredibly generous to us, He calls us to store up eternal treasures on behalf of others and for His name's sake instead. 

 

Clinching closed fists less.  Extending open palms more.  

Not to receive, but to give.  Because the more I try to hold on to my life or my stuff, the more I lose it. The more I let go, the more I gain.

Including a bigger, growing heart.  A more generous heart.  A heart that breaks for what breaks His.

(To all my friends and family who possess such giving hearts, thank you. 

I have learned much from your example.)

 

Raising My White Flag

Job is a hard book to read.  Of all the books in the Bible, it’s the one I most often try to avoid.

Why?  Because Job is a hard-to-understand account of a man (a mighty, mighty good man I might add) who experiences unexplainable and unfathomable loss.  A man and his suffering.

Similar to the childhood game, “Mother, may I?” in which the player asks a question and waits for permission to be granted before acting, our accuser enters the presence of God, with just one question:  “God, may I?”  God’s response:  “Yes, you may.”

And in a flash, all that Job has ever known or ever possessed is gone. 

His children.  His possessions.  His health.  His position in the community.  His reputation. 

Job was stripped of everything.  Everything except his wife and his life.

Stripped.  All he had was taken from him.  All of this happened to him.  And God allowed it. 

As soon I come up for a breath from reciting this prayer, “Lord, please don’t allow all I have and all I know to be stripped away from me”, another word, a very different word, comes to mind. 

Surrender.

Surrendering is something I do, not something done to me.  Willingly, I choose to give something over to Someone else.  It’s not just a single action, but a posture in life.  It’s raising my white flag high above my head with the declaration, “I give up.  I hand it over it to You.  You win.”

But surrendering is hard.  For some reason, I think by hanging on to my “thing”, I am more capable of handling it or protecting it or making it more prosperous. 

In clenched fists, I hold on when God is telling me to let go.  To trust Him.  To surrender.

Just like last Christmas when an opportunity arose for our family to help some refugees from Bhutan, a tiny country north of India.

We were asked to collect blankets, winter clothing and coats to give these men, women, and children who had literally just stepped off the plane in cold Atlanta only wearing sandals and the clothes on their back.  My husband and I gathered what we were willing to give and asked others to do the same. 

The very Sunday we were to travel to Atlanta to take these items to the refugees and others already here from India, I got dressed for church, put on my brand-new coat I had only purchased days before, and walked out the door.

While donning my very new, very nice, very perfect coat, I got into the car while my husband loaded up the bags of old, worn coats into the trunk.  Without warning, I sensed these words in my spirit, “Oh, and don’t forget to give the coat off your back, too.”

“What?  Seriously, Lord?  Not my new coat.  Please.  How about I go inside and find another older coat to give?”

But even as I tried to wrestle with God over a silly coat, I knew what He was really asking.  It wasn’t even about the coat.  It was about my heart being willing to let go.  Would I give Him my best?  Would I think of others more than I think of myself?  Would I surrender to Him?

I wore my new coat to church for the first and the last time that day.  And then later in the afternoon, I carried it into the tiny apartment in Atlanta and laid it on the sofa as an offering.  Not to the refugees taking up residence there.  Not to the woman who would later wear it because she desperately needed it.  But to my God.  To the One who willingly laid down His life for me. 

Then I walked away.  Not dwelling on what I’d given up.  But thinking about what I would gain.  A more generous, giving heart.  Something I’d been praying to have.

“No matter what we give up, we are given so much more.”

~ Margaret Feinberg, The Sacred Echo

I wish I could say from that moment on, I continue to surrender my best, my all, with open hands.  But the truth is, I look down and find them closed and clenched far more often than I should.  It’s a daily surrender.  A daily death to myself.  A daily offering to Him.

At my church, we sing a song by worship leader, Chris Tomlin, entitled “White Flag”.

The lyrics are so incredibly powerful.  Read them below or click on the link to hear the song.

"White Flag" by Chris Tomlin

We raise our white flag.  We surrender all to You.  It’s all to You.

We raise our white flag.  The war is over.  Love has come.  Your love has won.

What could we lose by surrendering everything we have to Christ?  Better yet, what could we gain?

Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat—I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?” Luke 9:23-25 (The Message)

(Since the first of this year, I've been reading through the Bible with an amazing group of ladies--the Shine girls, led by an even more amazing friend, Jill. We've been camped out in the book of Job for weeks now. Jill asked me if I would consider writing for Shine's blog.  I wrote this piece and it posted today. Click here to read the post and also to see what God has been doing and how He is using Jill and a multitude of others to shine for Him.) :)

I Can Carry It

As was the norm for most Thursday mornings, I drove up to the front of the gym, parked my car, and prepared myself for the day’s fitness class.   In the back seat, my youngest daughter, Gloria, began organizing her belongings to go inside the building.  Before leaving our house earlier that morning, my pint-sized preschooler had managed to fill quite a few tote bags with various toys to entertain herself and her friend while in childcare that day.  Because I had also packed her a snack bag and brought her a water bottle, she had more than her little hands could possibly carry. 

I grabbed my purse and naturally began assisting her out of the car, inquiring if she needed some help carrying her bags.  She declined by saying, “I’m fine.  I can carry it.”  I watched as she struggled to climb out of the car and out onto the pavement.  She nearly got wedged between the seat and door because of the manner in which she chose to hold all her possessions.

Slowly, but deliberately, we made our way to the door at the front entrance where I scanned my key card and then paused to talk to my instructor who was sitting at her desk.  Again, I watched to see Gloria clearly having difficulty managing all her gear and asked if I could help her.  For the second time in just a few minutes, my petite, yet head-strong four year old, rejected my offer and continued to walk in the direction of her class.  Another gym friend greeted us; we made small talk and started moving again. 

Concern turned to action when I gazed down one final time at my daughter.  The weight of the bags bearing down on her arms had begun making large red indentations on her skin.  At this point, I stopped and looked her in the eyes.  Firmly, yet gently, I said, “Gloria, let me have some of your stuff.  I know you want to carry it and you think you can, but it will be easier for you if I help you out.”  This time, without disputing, she began to distribute some of the bags to me and consequently, her load became lighter.

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7(NLT)

 At that moment, I felt the Spirit whisper to my heart, “You know, my child, you’re a lot like her.  You want to be independent, handle things all by yourself and in your own strength.  The stuff you carry is weighty, burdensome, and awkward.  Oftentimes, it slows you down.  It’s not until pain is felt and wounds are evident, when you finally choose to accept help from Me and from those I send your way.  Give Me all your cares and your worries and really believe I care for you.”

Father, thank you for the firm, yet gentle reminder that you are always present, ready and willing to carry my burdens for me.  Forgive me for declining your help time and time again.  Forgive me for being strong-willed and independent, thinking I can take care of it all by myself; I know I cannot.  Instead, I pray complete dependence upon You and Your strength.  I pray I will experience both gentle peace and jubilant freedom in laying my burdens at Your feet.  Most importantly, Father, help me to never forget how much you truly care for me.

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. 

I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4(NIV)