the longing of Simeon...

I love the expectation and longing of these verses, and even more so of Simeon's life...

...Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him.  It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.  Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.  For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

Luke 2:25-32

Merry Christmas...
Praise God for the hope that He gave us in the birth of His Son Jesus....
May we long for His return even more so as we remember when He first came to us...

expectation

yesterday, as i considered the fact that there are only 25 days till christmas (um, YAY!)... i had this thought:  what were people doing 25 days before Jesus was born?  were they even thinking that He could be on earth in 25 short little days? (what a crazy thing that would be to know!)  now, yes, i know that the 25th of december is not the exact day of Christ's birth, but that's really not the point of all this... it was more like, hmmm... what an interesting thought...

just as we wait today for our Jesus to return, individuals way back then were waiting for the Messiah to come and deliver them.  they waited in expectation... we wait in expectation... and i guess that's more along the lines of what i was thinking... what did their expectation look like 25 days before the Messiah's birth?  and what does our expectation look like, not knowing if Christ will return tomorrow or in years and years?  and sometimes i wonder, do we even expect Him to come?  or even more so, are our lives affected by this feeling and motivation of expectation?  are we excited?  do we really long for His return?

i am sure that Jesus' birth was a surprise to many... i mean, we kinda know it was right?  the shock of the shepherds, the erratic and fearful behavior of Herod... so as much as they waited for their King to come, the surprise of His actual coming was shocking and life changing... i guess what i just hope is that our lives are being changed in our expectation of His coming.  yes, i know there will be shock and surprise at the moment Christ returns to save His people, but i do not want to only be affected AT His coming, i wanted to be changed AS I WAIT for His coming.  

i was reading "the Jesus storybook Bible" last night... i love love love this book and there is one part in particular, just in the introduction, that i especially love...

"...the Bible is most of all a Story.  it's an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure.  it's a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne - everything - to rescue the one he loves.  it's like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!  You see, the best thing about this Story is - it's true.  there are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story.  the Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.  it takes the whole Bible to tell this Story.  and at the center of the Story, there is a baby.  every Story in the Bible whispers his name.  he is like the missing piece in a puzzle - the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture."

i LOVE how at the very beginning of this Bible, written for children, such a revolutionary and life changing truth is made clear... the whole Bible, the words of the old and new testaments, some of which people used as their Scriptures before Jesus came as a baby... these words all pointed towards His coming.  and in His coming and in His work, all these stories, all the pieces of the puzzle came together.  i want to view life from such a perspective.  how is the day to day preparing the way for Christ to return?  do i look for the ways God is working to prepare for His return?  how i am acting and working to prepare myself and others to live and wait in expectation?

because... He is coming... He came several thousand years ago... and He will come again...

Emmanuel, God with us, will once again, BE WITH US.

...as Thou hast been...

as someone who has had a couple homes... and both being quite far apart, sometimes that "feeling" of home is hard to find.  i know that i have mentioned this before, but today as i was thinking about that homey feeling i had such a good time praising God for the "HOME" that He is for me.  it's not just about getting those warm, fuzzy home feelings, it's knowing that in Him I belong... in Him i live and move... in Him i am satisfied... in Him i do not need to seek for anything more, for because in Him i am home and have found everything...

i have always seen God's faithfulness in my life.  there may have been days or moments or weeks or months where this steadfast quality was not as apparent as other points in time, but as it often is, looking back His faithfulness was and is crystal clear.  how is it that so much can change and so many things are wavering in the wind like the last leaves on the tree outside my window... and yet, God is so consistent?  to know this consistency and to see it manifest itself in each moment of the day... this is what i want!  may we not move throughout life's seconds missing it.  i want to pause in the madness of the day and settle in on the clarity of His faithfulness.  and in these "pauses", i am sure that i will find freedom.  freedom from my worries, freedom from demands that i put upon myself... because in these "pauses" i will see Jesus working.  i will notice that His faithfulness has been consistent not to bring me to a place where i can just move on without Him... but instead a place where i can depend on Him in the craziness and not be motivated by anything but Him.

life continues to meander, to places i enjoy and places i fear... and yet, in those places, both good and bad, the faithfulness of God is true and real and steadfast as it has even been.

"...as Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be..."

words of the wise...

...a couple of quotes from some old guys long gone...
...who, by the way, are no longer longing for home...

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, 

the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

C. S. Lewis

"We must meet the uncertainties of this world 
with the certainty of the world to come."

A. W. Tozer

brokenness...

for the last several weeks we've had a few things break.  i mean... it's been a little crazy.  the other night i listed verbally to shawn everything that we have had break and we were both surprised with the amount... nothing really of value, it just seemed like everyday we were finding something else that was broken or messed up... first it was our oven.  it just stopped working.  one day i went in to pull out some potatoes and i was met with a strange cold feeling when i opened up the oven.  next it was the dvd player in our room.  (like i said these things aren't a really big deal, it just started becoming an odd trend...)  more recently we had our carbon monoxide alarm go off (which we thought IT was broken and IT was not... therefore something else was... yes a little crazy, but it's all fixed now... no worries.... mom. :)  the other day i was trying to learn more about photography and somehow encountered a massive virus that, at the moment, i thought destroyed our computer... which it did not... though i don't know if it will ever be it's old, cheery self again.  meanwhile, we have also had our other dvd player break and then the pipes in our house freaked out and decided not to drain.  

needless to say, it has been a lesson in brokenness.  not brokenness of spirit, but brokenness of things.  things that won't last... things that won't even last for my lifetime... things that won't even last for a small part of my lifetime!  and while the consistency of things breaking has at times been quite frustrating, it sure has been a reminder of what i can depend on and what i can not... what is important and what is not... it's also been a lesson in entitlement... when i was frustrated, even with the bigger things, like the CO alarm going off... i was most definitely reminded that many do not have a home to even have a CO alarm go off in... or that i have the safety of an alarm that tells me such things.  i am not entitled to any of the above things that broke.  and as i found myself frustrated, i was quickly reminded that these things are gifts and not needs.  

sometimes it's the little things that bring you back to a place you need to be.  something silly breaking can pull you back to realize that you don't even really need that thing.  and a long list of things breaking or just one thing can remind us that these things should not be invested in.  as we long for home may we truly do so... not longing for things.  these things seem so unimportant as i consider our future with our God.  unimportant is not even the right adjective... more like, irrelevant... expendable... worthless... i do praise God that He continues to pull my heart towards eternity.  moments where i find myself caring less and less about things and more and more about people and moments that are eternal... these are changing my life.  i love the process of God changing us - of seeing how He continues to alter my focus and change hearts of others.  i'll take the broken any day... only to be reminded of the complete wholeness accessible through our Savior Jesus.    

ode to the normal day...

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.  
Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.  
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so.  One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, 
your return.  - Mary Jean Iron

sometimes normal days, i mean like normal normal normal, get me a little down... i know!  crazy, yes, but i think you might know what i'm talking about... as much as i would give anything for just a normal day now and then when life is busy, often when they eventually come along, they just are so..................... normal.  yes, there are great normal days and then there are the normal, normal days where you just wish something exciting would come along... and by exciting i mean "exciting for a normal day", i.e. -  a text message, stepping out the front door, driving the car, talking to someone other than yourself... not quite exciting but in comparison to that "normal" day most definitely riveting!  so you get what i mean... i have found myself having a few of these normal days recently... and most definitely their succession has made them even harder to tolerate... but then i stop and think and wonder why these normal days are so unattractive at some moments and at other moments they are all i want... and i catch myself once again, why do i always want what i don't have... when life is normal i want it to be exciting... when life is exciting and busy i long for the normal... ugh.

i have to challenge myself on these normal days to have a correct perspective.  each day is a day that God has given to me with responsibilities that are anything but normal.  in fact they are quite supernatural and eternal and huge.  in these moments of normalcy i have to remember that i am called by God to use each day to glorify Him and His Son.  and sometimes i think that in the normal, when we are most challenged to follow through with this task, the results can be so much more obvious than in the big, exciting moments.  the most challenging thing for me is to figure out how to make this practical?  any ideas?  how do we live for God in our normal days?  how can we follow through on the tasks that He has given us as His ambassadors?  We have been made new creations, how can we do anything but respond, in the normal or the not so normal...

"...all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave US the ministry of reconciliation (do you ever wonder what in the world was He thinking, giving US this responsibility?!?); that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are AMBASSADORS for Christ, God making his appeal through US..." 2 Corinthians 5:18-20a.

definitely not what i would define as normal...

so let us embrace the normal, not take it for granted, enjoy the blessings of the normal and use the normal to glorify our Lord and Savior... turning our day into anything but normal.

my place

i am not a runner.  however, as chicago moves into a colorful collage of yellows and reds, being outside is much more appealing than the stuffy bally down the road.  so yesterday morning i took off, my pink sauconys crunching through the leaves.  on went the ipod and off went all the concerns of the week.  a few minutes into my run a song by leeland came through my headphones and i was reminded of my place... and the place where i should find myself and yet by God's grace, the place where i am not. 

We who were called to be Your people
Struggling sinners and thieves
We’re lifted up from the ashes
And out came the song of the redeemed
The song of the redeemed

We have caught a revelation
That nothing can separate us from
The love we received through salvation
It fills your daughters and your sons
Your daughters and your sons

these words compelled my thoughts and i began to make a mental list of where i should still be...

in a place that is filled with sin and darkness... 

a place of hopelessness and separation... 

confusion and chaos... 

lost and alone... 

cut off, removed, weak, futile... 

unloved and with no chance... 

condemned to die... 

a place of pain.... 

dirty and completely aware of my lack of ability to ever experience freedom... 

a place where God is unknown and unknowable...

and yet, this is not the place where i find myself...

i am in a place where there is freedom and unity with my Savior...

i have been made new, i am accepted and made holy...

i am in a place full of love and unity...

a place where i find healing and am healed...

i am able to MEET WITH GOD...

not only can i meet with God, He has given me a new place in HIS FAMILY...

i am not merely an acquaintance, i am family and have been given the rights that members of a family are given...

i am fully loved and complete...

i am in a place of friendship and peace...

i am new and have been set free from the place i once found myself...

and i will never return.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

2 Corinthians 5:17