with us

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means God with us). ~Matthew 1:23


What a promise!  And more than just a promise, what a statement of who God is!  He is Immanuel!  That is his name!  Thus, he is the God who just can't stay away.  He is God with us!  In the midst of our deepest darkness, he is with us.  In the midst of our most desperate loneliness, he is with us.  In the midst of our most unimaginable pain, he is with us.  When our hearts have been broken beyond repair, he is with us.  When we have made a total mess of our lives, he is with us.  When tragedy strikes, he is with us.  When we are lost, left, or abandoned, he is with us.  At the times we feel most unlovable and ashamed, he is with us.  When we feel like complete and utter failures, he is with us.  When we feel like all hope is lost, he is with us.  When we feel completely broken and inept, he is with us.  When we are terrified of what lies before us, he is with us.  When we are uncertain about our futures, he is with us.  And even when life seems to be going "just fine thank you," he is with us even then.  In fact, the Psalms (Psalm 139:7-12) tell us that there is nowhere we can go where he is not with us.  Just open your eyes and your ears, he is there.  Somewhere.  Even if he is there in a way--or a place, or a form--that you didn't expect.  He is with us!  It's just who he is.  Thanks be to God.


I'd love to hear your stories of how you are recognizing God to be with you these days.  Leave your comments so all of us can celebrate Immanuel.

prepare

When Moses told the words of the people to the Lord, the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. (Exodus 19:10-11)


"Are you ready for Christmas?"  It is funny this time of year how many times a day you are asked that question.  And I don't know about you, but the minute I hear it my mind goes immediately to whether I have bought all of my presents, or if the lights are up, or the tree is up, or the million-and-one other things that must be done before Christmas Day arrives.  Getting ready for Christmas can be a bit overwhelming at times.  But I wonder if there is not a deeper call I need to hear in that question.  What if being ready for Christmas has more to do with being prepared, which seems to have much more to do with the state of my heart and soul than it does the state of my decorations and/or Christmas list? 

Isaiah (and John the Baptist) knew what I'm talking about: A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:3-5)  There is a certain amount of preparing that needs to be done when the God of all creation is about to enter that very creation.  And it has much more to do with what is going on within us than it does about what is going on around us.  There is much work to do within before God arrives.  Valleys must be raised up.  Mountains and hills must be made low.  The uneven ground of our hearts and souls must be made level, and the rough places smoothed into a plain.  After all, the King is coming.  Let us prepare the way for him.

It is easy to get lost in the visions of mangers and shepherds and angels and stars and babes in swaddling clothes, and forget that this tiny baby is both the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  It is easy to allow ourselves to be filled with wonder and amazement about the beauty breaking in within us and around us and miss the awe and the reverence (and even terror) of realizing that a holy God is about to enter our world.  So maybe I should spend some time, like God directed Moses to do, doing some serious preparing within before he arrives.  Maybe I too need to turn my mind and my heart to the ways I need to be cleansed and consecrated before he appears.  The word consecrate comes from the Hebrew word qadash which is a verb meaning to sanctify, to be holy, to separate, to set apart, or to be pure and clean.  God tells Moses to make sure the people of Israel have prepared themselves in this way for his coming.  "Wash your garments, and your hearts, because a holy God is coming down out of the heavens to descend on Mount Sinai.  Therefore, be it Sinai or Bethlehem, get ready."

Which makes me ask myself, "Am I really ready for Christmas?"  If Advent is about watching and waiting for his coming, shouldn't I be doing the same?  Shouldn't I spend the days and weeks of Advent consecrating and cleansing, preparing myself for the arrival of my awesome and holy God?  And what does that look like for me?  God, how do you want me to prepare for your arrival?

So I guess tomorrow, when the next person asks me if I'm ready for Christmas, I think my reply will have to be,  "Probably not.  I've still got some preparing to do."  


God said to Moses, "Go to the people.  For the next two days get these people ready to meet the Holy God.  Have them scrub their clothes so that on the third day they'll be fully prepared, because on the third day God will come down on Mount Sinai and make his presence known to all the people." (Exodus 19:10-11, The Message)

hope

Ultimately the season of Advent is a season of hope.  Hope that God will somehow show up amidst all of the chaos and turmoil and pain of this world.  And after watching a significant amount of pain in the last few weeks in the lives of several different friends, I am coming to believe that where we perceive God to be in the midst of our chaos and pain is a very significant thing.  It determines so much about our process of healing, or at least it has for me.  Because in order to heal us, Jesus needs to get his hands on us.  In order for us to find ourselves in his healing embrace, to hear his words of deep affection, and to allow his hands to tenderly mend our broken hearts, we have to be willing and open for that to occur.  For the most part, Jesus never healed anyone, or put his hands upon them, without some amount of willingness and openness from their side.  And this willingness and openness is largely determined by where we think God is in the midst of our pain.  Or, in other words, how we see him. 

If we believe him to be distant or disinterested, much less the source and cause of our pain to begin with, we are unlikely to ever seek his healing touch.  In that case we are more likely to feel abandoned or betrayed, which becomes a source of anger and bitterness.  But if we are able to believe that God is somehow mysteriously and wonderfully with us in the midst of our pain, it is a different story altogether.  Then we are likely to have a deep sense of compassion from him and companionship with him.  We are likely to realize that since he has experienced the depths of pain himself, he is wonderfully able to understand ours, and to truly be able to comfort us in the midst of it. 

Thus, the season of Advent stands at the mysterious intersection of groaning and hope.  When we stand with Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, seeing his tears and hearing his groans, we are likely to see the tears in his eyes and hear the groans of his heart over our pain as well.  And then we can rest assured that, even in the midst of our pain, we are both deeply known and deeply loved...and deeply understood.  I don't know about you, but that gives birth to hope deep within me.  Hope that I can, indeed, make it through this, whatever this may be.  Hope that I am not alone to navigate it, but somehow more connected with him than I've ever been--more fertile to whatever he wants to plant within me and more receptive to the movement of his Spirit.  Hope that somehow, someday I will be able to live again, not just surviving, but thriving because of the beauty he was able to bring out of my ashes.  Now that's hope!  Come, Lord Jesus!


"The purpose of Advent is to make us pregnant with hope." ~The Work of the People

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jp

So the day after I had the amazing privilege of meeting Sean and his family I attended the funeral of another young man.  This young man's name was Jonathan.  We all called him JP.  JP was 25 years old and had graduated from Powell the same year as my daughter.  He was also on our football team for all four of his high school years, so I knew him pretty well.  JP was bright, fun-loving, outgoing, and had a warm and infectious smile.  He was really fun to be around, on top of being a pretty good football player.  But apparently, since his days at Powell, things had not gone quite so well for JP, especially over the past few months.  Through the years I would see him from time to time around the Powell community, or when he came back to one of our PHS football games, and from all appearances he was doing fine.  But inside it was a much different story...he was really struggling.  So much so that on Monday, November 10, JP decided to take his own life.  Shock, sadness, and sorrow filled my heart as I heard the horrific news.  "Not JP.  Really?!?  Are you sure?"

 

Well, on Thursday night, November 13, I joined family and friends at JP's memorial service.  "What do you say?" I thought to myself, as the pastor began the service.  And what I heard over the course of the next hour was so honest and so real, so sad and yet so beautiful.  The pastor who led the service had known JP, and his family, from the day he was born.  And it showed.  I've been to five or six different funerals that came about as a result of suicide during my years of life and ministry, most of which refused to face the tough questions that were firmly lodged in the hearts and souls of everyone in the room.  But not this one.  It was truly incredible.  Having had 25 years of relationship with JP the pastor began the service head on, by acknowledging that in the last few minutes (if not years) of his life JP had made some devastating decisions, but those terrible choices were not "who he was."  He encouraged all of us to remember JP for "who he was," rather than for "what he had done" just a few days earlier.  He then spent the next few minutes recalling who he knew JP to be; which was then followed by his father, his mother, his sister, and then his brother, all of whom spoke, remembering who JP was to them.  The image of a grieving father talking about the life and death of his dearly loved son will be something I will remember for a long time.

 

After a time of remembering who JP was, the pastor asked the question: "So what happened?"  He then went on to describe some of the darker days and disappointments in JP's life that had left him in a pretty dark place.  He talked about the hope of Christ in the midst of darkness and spoke a bit about JP's journey of faith, the time he had trusted Jesus with his life as a younger boy, and how he had recently started coming back to church again.  But by far the most impactful moment in the service is when he turned to JP's parents, his dear friends, and began telling them that God knows exactly what they are going through.  So much so that he is wonderfully able to meet them in the deepest places of their pain.  He told a story about how he had been in Israel last summer with some folks from the church, touring all of the places of Jesus' life and death.  He said one day while they were in Jerusalem touring the places related to the death and crucifixion of Christ, their guide, who was a Jewish Christian, turned to them and asked them if they knew why the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom as Christ died on the cross.  After hearing the correct theological answer the guide informed them that, in his culture, when someone was overcome by grief or pain, the proper expression of that was to tear their robes.  He then introduced them to the idea that maybe God the father was so filled with grief and sadness at the loss of his son that He tore his robes from top to bottom, in the rending of the temple veil.  It was an incredibly beautiful and profound image to offer these grieving parents, and one that I will remember for years to come.

 

Please pray for the Price family in the days ahead as they continue to grieve the tragic loss of their dearly loved son.

grief

I've been thinking a lot about grief lately as I have watched, in the last couple of weeks, two different families experience the tragic loss of a dearly loved son.  One was from a heroic two-year battle with cancer and the other from a heartbreaking decision to take his own life.  In both cases loved ones were left in the wreckage that only death can bring, filled with pain and anguish deeper than they ever imagined possible, trying to make sense of it all, and wondering how they will ever be able to survive the next minute--much less the next day, week, or year--without their beloved child.  It was incredibly hard to watch.  Maybe because it was too familiar.  For, looking into their eyes, I saw something that I recognized.  It was a deep, indescribable pain that only the most difficult moments of this life can produce; one that reminded me of a different time and a different place when that pain was my own (Jackson).  And I remember clearly that it was into the midst of the pain (almost 27 years ago) that God spoke, reminding me that he too had experienced the agony of losing a son.  Reminding me that he could understand my anguish like no one else. 

Another beautiful reminder of this was given to me just last week at one of the memorial services, in which the pastor turned to the grieving mother and father and said to them, "God understands what you are going through."  He then went on to explain that at least a part of what may have been happening as Jesus died on the cross, and the sun hid its face and the rocks were split open and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, was that God himself, a grieving father, was tearing his robes in pain and grief.  I don't claim to fully understand how that is even possible, but when I heard those words it brought up a "yes" from the depths of my soul.  "Of course," I thought, "that's exactly what God would do."   It touched me to the core; a God who would share our pain, a God who would voluntarily take that pain upon himself that we might have life and hope.  Only God would do something that beautiful.  Only God would put himself in those shoes...for us.  Why?  So that in the midst of our deepest darkness and suffering, we might have an even deeper companionship with him.  So that when we found ourselves in times of most desperate need, we might be met by a more beautiful vision of his heart.  So that at those moments when we felt the most lost and hopeless, we might find hope and healing in the midst of our pain.  Thanks be to God!

why

A few days ago I was given an extraordinary gift.  A dear friend of mine invited me over to his house to meet a truly remarkable young man.  The young man's name is Sean and at the time he was in the midst of a two-year battle with Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of tissue and bone cancer that predominately attacks adolescents and young adults.  Sean grew up in Brentwood and came to Knoxville to play tennis at UT, where Ben (my friend) became one of his coaches.  But shortly after signing with UT, in October of 2012, Sean was diagnosed with cancer, which was the beginning of a heroic two-year journey.  And it was also the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Ben and Sean.  If you know Ben at all, you know two things: he loves his players and he loves Jesus.  Well, eventually Sean's most recent stage of his battle with cancer required a significant amount of care and attention, but because of his love for his teammates and his friends he did not want to leave Knoxville.  Therefore, my friend Ben invited Sean, and his family and friends, to come live with him.  Again, if you know my friend Ben, this is no surprise at all.  That is where the "extraordinary gift" part comes in.

On Wednesday of last week Ben invited me over to join some friends and family as they prayed for Sean.  It was an incredibly beautiful and intimate time.  Beautiful in the sense of a man selflessly opening his home, and his heart, to a group of folks in tough circumstances in order to kindly and compassionately make their lives as easy as possible.  Beautiful in the sense of the love poured out on this young man by a community of family and friends who were loving him selflessly and extravagantly.  And beautiful in the sense of an incredibly strong and courageous young man fighting an epic battle with heroic perseverance and bravery.  I watched as Ben warmly and gently made such wonderful space for this beautiful story to unfold.  I watched as a group of women cared for Sean with such tenderness and affection that, as a bit of an outsider, I didn't feel worthy to witness it.  And I watched as Sean tenaciously fought a battle that would have overwhelmed, and long since defeated, a lesser man. 

And so we prayed.  We gathered around his bed and laid our hands upon him and poured out our hearts.  We prayed for healing.  We prayed for comfort.  We prayed for peace.  All of which God graciously granted; for on Sunday, November 16, Sean peacefully went to be with Jesus.  Now he is, indeed, whole.  Now he is, indeed, comforted beyond our wildest imaginations.  Now he is, indeed, fully at peace.  In the immortal words of  Dwight L. Moody, “One day you are going to read that Dwight L. Moody is dead. Don’t believe it.  For at that moment I will be more alive than I have ever been."  And so it is with Sean.

I realized that day that I had been given an extraordinary gift.  During times like these we are often tempted to ask the question "Why?"  And as I drove away from the house I began thinking about that very question.  But it wasn't the whys you would have normally expected, it was a whole different set of whys.  The whys that recognize that all of life is a gift.  Like, why did I get the privilege of spending thirty profoundly impactful minutes with such an incredible group of people?  Why did I get the privilege of meeting this amazing young man?  Why was I somehow chosen to be one of the ones that were fortunate enough to have found themselves in his life-changing path?  And I thought about his parents.  Why were they given the incredible gift of being this young man's parents?  Did God have a broad smile on his face as he gave them this amazing son?  And why did they get the privilege of having him for a full twenty years?  Why not just twenty minutes?  Or twenty days?  Why did God want them to have hearts and minds filled to overflowing with a full twenty years of wonderful memories?  What a gift!  And I thought about his friends.  Why did they get the gift of being able to be Sean's friend?  Why did God specifically pick them out to be next door neighbors, or classmates, or doubles partners with this extraordinary young man?  Why did they get that privilege and not someone else?  For they are so much the richer for having known him and having been around him.  And then I thought about his teammates.  Why were they the ones to be chosen to come to Tennessee, in just the right place at just the right time, to get to be on Sean's team.  And why did God give him to the UT community to begin with, and not to Vanderbilt, or Florida, or Georgia?  Why did they get the gift of walking this journey with him?  Why did they get the gift of seeing the courage and the tenacity and the bravery and the strength and the fight of this one remarkable young man who would forever change the course of their lives by having known him?

 I know I am a richer man for having met Sean and his family, and I was only around them for about thirty minutes.  I can't imagine the impact of being around him for two years, much less twenty.  And I am forever grateful for those thirty minutes and this one amazing young man who helped change forever the way I see the question, "Why?"
 

o my soul

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. (Psalm 103:1)


I love the way David seemed often to live from his soul.  There is something about that idea, and about these words that begin Psalm 103, that is very appealing and intriguing to me.  I tend to live, all too often, from my head, or from my fears and insecurities, or from my surface reality, or from my circumstances.  But when I do this I get the constant sense that I am missing something, that there is much more to life than what I am experiencing at the moment, something much deeper.  And I think this something deeper has a lot to do with living from my soul.  My sense is that my soul is the deepest part of me, the uncharted depths of my being.  It seems very mysterious and abstract, but at the same time it seems to be the most real part of me that exists.  And it is a place that I long to live from regularly, but one that I, unfortunately, seem to be aware of and in touch with far too infrequently.

So just what is a soul anyway?  And how do we bless God with it?  The word soul in the Hebrew (nephesh) comes from the root naphash which means to breathe, to take a breath, or to strongly pant.  Our breath is the part of us that gives and sustains life.  Therefore, nephesh (soul) is that part of us that makes us most alive.  It is our being, our essence, our is-ness, who we really are.  It is who God dreamt us to be.  Dallas Willard once called it "the deepest part of the self."  Or, as a dear friend said to me recently, "It is the part of you that burns inside."  In short, the soul is the place we were created to live out of.  It is the part of us that was made for intimate union with our God. 

And the word bless in the Hebrew (Psalm 103:1-2) means to kneel or adore.  So when David says, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name."  He is saying, "Let the depths of who I am, who I was dreamt to be, adore the one who made me that way."  To bless the Lord with all my soul means to turn towards God and open my most intimate places, in adoration, to him.  To engage him with all that I have and all that I am. 

But the soul can be an elusive animal.  As a matter of fact, I once heard someone describe the soul as a deer; which makes total sense since Psalm 42 uses the image of a deer to describe our soul's longing for God.  "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you , my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go meet with God?" (Psalm 42:1-2)  I am not much of a hunter, but I do know that if you want to see a deer it will take time and patience, stillness and attentiveness; any sudden movement or commotion will scare it away, back into hiding.  And so it is with the soul.  If you want to have access to your soul, most likely all of these things will be necessary as well.  There are times, however, when you just "happen upon" a deer completely by accident.  You just look up and there it is, as surprised to see you as you are to see it.  These moments happen with the soul as well.  Sometimes, when we are least expecting it, the soul just shows up.  It might be a scene from a movie, or a song, or a sunset, or work of art that suddenly captures you, and low and behold you and your soul are standing face to face.  These moments, as they are with deer, are rare and beautiful.  They leave us different than they found us.  And if me are willing to take the time and the space to reflect, and to mine their treasure, they can offer our souls food for days and weeks to come. 

But what of the intentional moments?  How can we be more like David?  How can we live our lives more consistently from my souls?  I guess the easiest answer is to pay careful attention to the things that bring us to life inside, and to consistently make these things a regular part of our practice.  These things can help us to have access to, and live from, our souls more often.  The other day I heard an incredible question in this regard, one that I hope to reflect on and wrestle with in the days and weeks (and maybe even months and years) ahead.  The question was: "What fuels your soul to keep you stumbling toward love?"  And what a great question it is!  It is a question that realizes a few central truths.  First, it realizes that our soul is the engine that drives us, in whatever direction we may end up going.  Secondly, in recognizes that the soul can't run on its own, it needs fuel to keep it going, whatever that fuel may be.  That is up to each of us (since we are uniquely and wonderfully made) to figure out.  And lastly, it clearly shows us that the purpose of it all is to continually stumble in the direction of love.  Ultimately life, even my life and your life, is not about us, but about God, and about him being known and glorified both within us and around us.  So, this day, let us consider our souls.  Let us live constantly from them.  Let us consider what offers them the fuel they need.  And let us, always and everywhere, continue to stumble in the direction of Love.