What I Learned This Weekend: Ordinary Miracles

In the midst of the chaos of Christmas, we get so caught up in the preparations for celebrating the day & sometimes overlook the miracles that happened the day Christ was born.

What are miracles? They are situations that happen by divine or supernatural intervention. In other words, when God reaches down and does great work in our lives. 

The miraculous is done:

• without discrimination - who did the angels come to first? The shepherds - the 'unclean' in their society. They weren't able to worship in the temple, weren't trustworthy in the other people's eyes, and therefore weren't worthy of consideration. At the other end of the status spectrum, God told the wise men - important kings, revered by all. Throw in Mary and Joseph and you see every level of society participating in this miracle.
• according to God's plan, not ours. God did not fulfill the prophecies in the way the Jewish people expected. Jesus came in, not like the ferocious lion, but like a quiet lamb in a barn. Because He did not arrive on the scene the way they expected, He was written off as a false prophet, when in fact He saved all of mankind, miraculously taking away the barrier of sin between God and man. Clearly God's plan is so much bigger than we can imagine, and He loves us more than we can ever know. But because we don't have His vision, we tend to write off what we don't plan or understand.
• in ordinary circumstances.  When the shepherds are just going about their daily business, the angels appear to them. In the middle of a tax census - in the middle of a normal work day, Jesus was born. If we open our eyes, we will see that, in the middle of our ordinary days, God works miracles all the time.
• through ordinary people.  God doesn't need us to work His miracles, but He chooses to use us anyway. We must make ourselves available for Him to use us.

The miracle of Christmas is that God chooses to use the ordinary - circumstances and people - to create miraculous situations in people's lives.   Be available - be open - be willing - and God will use you. In the meantime, open your eyes to the ordinary miracles occurring all around you every day.

"For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son. 

That whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life."

John 3:16

Knowing Whose We Are - Hebrews 13:14

For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.Hebrews 13:14

When we conform, we're trying to make a place for ourselves. But when we belong, it is because a place has already been made for us.

Our home - our comfort, hope and joy - are not here on this earth - our home is in heaven with God. We will never belong here, because we belong to Him.

So much of our time is spent trying to fit in - a square peg in a round hole. No matter how hard we try, we will NEVER fit in here, so we must learn to rejoice in that. Our desire should be to never fit in here on earth, but to stand out - to be set apart - knowing that we belong to the Creator of the universe. 

We belong to the KING of heaven! Don't be afraid to stand out. Rejoice in our separateness - our royalty - and in the better things to come!

Understanding WHOSE we are allows us to be WHO we are.

Changing Perspective: Luke 1:26-38, 46-47

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!

Luke 1:26-38, 46-47 

Here's one of the lessons I learned this weekend:

In the middle of the chaos of the Christmas season, sometimes God will step into our lives with a 'divine interruption' to get our attention. He does this, not to hurt or punish us, but to change our perspective in such a way that our lives are changed and His will is done. Our response to this intervention is key. It may completely upend any and all plans we may have made and even make our lives more difficult. 

In these passages, Mary is told that she has found favor with God and will bear the Son of God. This is something amazing to have happen to her, but will cause her a lot of issues. 

It is important to remember that just because we may have God's favor on our lives, it doesn't mean that life is going to be easy for us. It will, however, give us greater perspective on life. The message here is that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.

Mary, knowing that she will likely lose everything, has a choice in how she can react to this - with obedience, trusting God to take care of her or by wallowing in sadness & frustration. Mary chose to praise God for this enormous divine interruption, knowing that, in the big scope of things, God's will was so much greater then her own. 

Here is the big challenge: when God gives you a divine interruption, don't get upset, but instead praise God, because things are going to work out God's way.

Thoughts on Passionate Living...

"When you reach the point

that you are passionate enough about something

to the point that you would die for it,

shouldn't that change how you live for it?"

~ Pastor Greg Rholinger

Lead Pastor, Palm Valley Church

(This post originally appeared on Beautifully Broken Me on 8/15/09)

Thoughts on Transparency...

We had unbelievable sunsets last week. The colors changed minute by minute, causing the clouds to take on an increasingly deeper shades of pink, then purple, and eventually a deep black tinged with gold.

I felt so small in comparison to the wide-openness the sky. In that moment, when the last beams of light were fighting their way through the clouds, I realized that my desire is not only to let God’s light shine in me, but to have His light shine through me.

I want to be transparent.

Not in an “I don’t matter so therefore I don’t want to be seen” way, but in an “I want to be so close to God that you can see who He is because of who I am” way. I want you to know that I am hiding nothing; that what you see is what you get.

I want to be transparent.

I don’t want to hold onto secrets. I don’t want you to think that I have any ulterior motives. I want you to know me, inside and out, as a child of God, living my life for Him.

I want to be transparent.

I want you to know that, good or bad, all that I am belongs to Him, and that He is still working on me, turning me into the person He has created me to be.

I want to be transparent.

I want to love without reservation. I want to see you for who He has created you to be. I want to be merciful, not judgemental. I want to be grateful for the life I have been given and not the life I think I should have. I want to sing with joy. I want to rejoice in the opportunity to change and grow.

I want to be transparent.

I want to throw open my arms, turn my face towards the sky and say without hesitation, “With all of my heart, my mind, my soul and my strength, I am Yours. Use me. Teach me. Love me.”

I want to be transparent.

(This post originally appeared on Beautifully Broken Me on 3/10/09)

Thoughts on Faith...

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about faith. With all that is going on in the world today, faith seems to be the first casualty in our collective efforts to “turn the tide”, so to speak. We want to take charge of our future and storm ahead, making things better and overcoming the insurmountable problems of this world. We have been told “Just do it!”, and we believe we can do it on our own, with a little elbow grease and a lot of willpower – strength in numbers and all that…

On the surface, this sounds just great. We just need to buckle down, work together and weather this bumpy ride, and all will be better in the long run – you’ll see! There is hope: a light at the end of the tunnel. I know it is really dark right now, but if we work hard enough and long enough we’ll make it. Prepare for the worst – hope for the best. Isn’t that how it goes?

Well, maybe not…

We have heard that word “hope” used a lot in the past few years. Entire campaigns were constructed around that one, very powerful word. Hope is a great thing to have, but where is our hope coming from?

In my last post, I wrote about hope. In it I defined hope like this:

“Hope itself is the sure belief that something better is coming. As simple as that definition sounds, it implies that to have hope, there must be suffering or despair to overcome. It requires the one who is suffering to make a choice between despairing in today’s pain and grief and hoping for the better day that is coming.”

I still believe that this definition is true. The question that arises, then, is this: “What is this ‘something better’ and where is it coming from?” Good question.

This is where faith comes in. Faith is commonly defined as our belief system – our “religion”. While this may be one definition, the one I prefer is from the book of Hebrews. Paul writes:

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

Another translation says it this way:

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)

In other words: believing in something that we cannot see for ourselves.

That’s a tough one for most of us. We as humans are wired in such a way that we only believe that which we can see, hear, touch and experience for ourselves. Faith, then, goes against every logical bone in our bodies. How are we supposed to have faith in anything but that which we can do for ourselves? It doesn’t make any sense!

So here’s the rub: in order to have faith, we must overcome the innate desire to see, hear, and touch, and make the leap to belief in that which is unseen.

The very essence of faith - the foundation of hope, therefore - is believing in someone or something acting on our behalf even though we don’t know in advance what they are doing or how they are doing it.

OK…so back to the question of where does our hope comes from? The answer is: it all depends on where we place our faith. Not so simple, is it?

So...where do you place your faith?

For me, the answer is simple: “Have faith in God," Jesus answered. Mark 11:22

(This post originally appeared on Beautifully Broken Me on 12/16/08)

Thoughts on Hope...

Hope itself is the sure belief that something better is coming. As simple as that definition sounds, it implies that to have hope, there must be suffering or despair to overcome. It requires the one who is suffering to make a choice between despairing in today’s pain and grief and hoping for the better day that is coming.

I heard a story the other day that offers a metaphor that truly describes hope to me:

While walking in the park, a child came upon a cocoon that obviously had a butterfly struggling to get out. The child felt sorry for the butterfly, and helped it to break free from the cocoon. As she watched the newly freed butterfly, expecting it to take flight, she noticed that its wings were not strong enough to lift itself off of the branch. You see, the butterfly’s ability to fly comes from the strength that is built during the struggle to free itself from the cocoon.

Just as it is true with the butterfly, it is also true for people: without the struggle, we cannot grow stronger. We cannot always choose the condition of our adversities, but we can choose to engage in the struggle. In doing so, we sustain hope in the knowledge that we will emerge stronger than we were when we began.

HOPE is what gives us the strength to fly.

(This post originally appeared on Beautifully Broken Me on 7/29/08)