As the New Year approaches….. Here’s an introduction of someone I’m pretty honored and proud to call a friend….. the most faithful and encouraging person I know….. Listen in…..
Monthly Archives: December 2010
God told me I’d be arriving naked!
It’s that time of the year when quite a number of our tribe are preparing to fly south in search of warmer weather and sunshine after Christmas. What to take and what to leave behind is a big question.
Ever thought of a conversation in heaven between the Father and the Son? “J C, I’ve good news and bad news for you.” “Ok Abba, let’s have it, the look in your eye is making me nervous.” “The good news is you’re taking a trip, the bad news is it’s not all vacation time.”
Jesus’ Father elaborated, “To be honest there’s really no upside for you in this, other than knowing that you’re undertaking the most ambitious, audacious, and under-appreciated rescue mission the world will ever witness. Most of our creation are so numb they don’t even realize they need rescuing.” The three of them (the Holy Spirit wasn’t about to be ignored) discussed the options with various pros and cons. Why not descend from heaven with an army of angels or get attention with a few more plagues to show that God is alive and well, or a flood? “Can’t bring another flood, remember the rainbow and our promise?” the Holy Spirit interjected. God the Father continued with a nod, “This is about expressing love and mercy, not just power and authority,” they agreed. “We’re not fighting human beings but the spiritual forces that enslave them – our strategy has to be creative, unexpected, and culminate in a resounding victory.”
None of these events caught them by surprise, they’d anticipated this trip since the dawn of human creation. It was merely the recognition between them that ‘the time has come to implement’. After a lengthy conversation and many questions finally the conversation turned to, “What shall I take with me, what should I wear?” “Son, you’re taking nothing with you, and you’ll be arriving naked.” “What?”
And so it was the King of kings agreed to do his father’s bidding. His port of entry would be in a cave with mud, hay, and donkeys. His mode of transport involved a long journey in the womb of a teenage girl who would have little comprehension of his identity. There’d be no extra privileges other than a guarantee of safety and some protection, no emergency packs or bodyguards, only the word of his Father, “I’ll be with you always, trust me.”
The first breath Jesus inhaled amidst the splutters and gasps of any infant being born were met with joyful exclamations from his parents and the inquisitive gaze of a donkey that raised its head from the feeding trough to see what all the fuss was about.
On the surface of life everything looked normal; ‘just another birth in Bethlehem’. In the bigger picture the Kingdom had arrived in embryonic form to infiltrate enemy territory. Thirty years in the future Jesus would stand as a man ready to demonstrate the love, power, and humility of an extraordinary God with a heart of compassion and a will of steel. But for this week we remember the remarkable beginning when God became like one of us, born as baby who would grow through childhood into manhood so that we could get to know him and His Father. “Happy Christmas” doesn’t seem to do the moment justice at all….. “Thank you so much Lord for your indescribable gift and for including me in your list of recipients.” May you be blessed with revelations of Him this Christmas.
You have a Friend Request this Christmas
Christmas approaches and all manner of frenzy is underway. Peer through the busyness, brush aside the wrapping paper and underneath it all is a timeless treasure that has never changed. A God who loves so passionately that he stooped as low as possible to whisper his words of hope and love, joy and peace, life and forgiveness into a very broken world. A baby was born in a cave outside Bethlehem and if there had been laptops and Facebook it may have looked like this:
There’s a ‘friend request’ this Christmas inviting you and me to respond perhaps in a more intentional and interactive way then we have for a long time. When your name and mine came up on His screen He didn’t press ‘refuse’ or ‘delete’… hope you don’t either….. Have a meaning-filled Christmas….. and may God truly bless you…..
From John Lennon to Multibillionaire Slumgod – Imagine!
“Imagine”… a word forever linked with John Lennon’s song of world peace through wishful thinking, a beautiful melody, wonderful sentiment – and that’s as far as he can go. Imagine imagination as a gift uniquely given to humanity. A gift enabling us to spread our wings and fly free of earthbound thinking and soar high above our present perceived pragmatism to catch a glimpse of what seems ludicrous or impossible. Imagine the origin of that ability coming from a God who anticipated us living in a fallen world with minds and feet like lead, so earthbound that left to ourselves we’d never think of flying. Mischievously and with huge delight he drops a healthy dose of imagination into our DNA and whispers to the angels with a smile, “Watch what happens now.”
Behold, the earthbound ones put sticks together and float on water, they fashion other materials into the form of crude wings, bounce two feet off the ground, crash and try again. “They’re imagining they can float, dreaming of flying and working out how to do it,” the Father gleefully nudges His Son, “They’re very little ‘me’s’ at work creating out of nothing what they first imagined in their spirits. It’s a miracle, I imagined them imagining and they’re doing it!”
It’s Christmas. A few years ago the British press carried the story of how Prince William spent a night amongst the homeless of London, slept in the streets and narrowly escaped being run over by a machine sweeping those streets in the early morning. Imagine walking out of your house, leaving family, children, job, bank savings, your everything….. to arrive in the slums of Mumbai where you will spend the next thirty years. You’re not leaving anyone or anything you have known because you want to get away. In fact you have a beautiful home, a wonderful family whom you adore, a job that fascinates you, and money to cover every need for the rest of your life.
Imagine one night in a dream God spoke to you. He showed you little children in Mumbai, mothers, and old men. He told you their names and revealed to you the cries of their hearts for things you never even comprehended ever lacking. One was thirsty, hadn’t sipped clean water in years, another had never slept in a bed, another had never had a warm meal, all of them had almost no comprehension of love. And God was asking you to go and be his hands and feet in that place, teach them to dream and imagine what could be… “Love them and mentor them into becoming what they will never be without my love being made visible and tangible through you”, He’d whispered.
If God spoke to me like that, I’d probably be thankful I’d awoken in my bed and it ‘had only been a dream’. I may have shared it with one or two people over coffee and we’d have continued in our earthbound lives…. “Can’t imagine God ever expecting me to actually do something like that.”
Imagine someone knocks on our door and hands us a rose, or chocolates, or does a random act of kindness despite our protests, “God just wanted me to bless you and show you that he is present and loves you.” Then the penny drops. God gave up everything to live in Mumbai, to die on a cross, to rise again, to release His Spirit into an earthbound world, to enable us to be His tiny little ‘Me’s’ in a very broken world where poverty is rampant amongst the materially rich. Jesus made the love of God real, tangible, present in a way we could never have even imagined. Grab hold of Him this Christmas, thank him, and imagine a New Year sharing life with Him and others…. imagine what could be….
Be awed that he loves you in your Mumbai so much as to share his Kingdom with you, Rejoice for there is Good news, Peace greater than understanding, and Hope beyond our wildest dreams.
