Behold! God Makes All Things New! Even (or Especially) You and Me!

Posted on January 28, 2024 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

Introduction

We all have moments in our lives when we burst into flames. Or drown. Or bury ourselves. Pick your metaphor for getting beaten down by this life, this painfully broken world.

I hate to admit that I’ve been dealing with that myself lately. My consulting contract (and therefore my job) ended in early December, and I haven’t found my next job yet. Not long after that, I fractured my wrist, and I’m still in a cast (and in pain) from that. I have gained back some of the weight I worked so hard to lose over the last few years, and I’m struggling to get it back off. It pains me to confess that I’ve had more than my share of moments recently where I have felt defeated.

But there’s hope. Thank God, there’s hope.

Over the last few days, I have experienced a phoenix moment, rising from the smoldering ashes. Coming up from the water, out of the grave.

In the tapestry of scripture, few promises are as profound and hope-inspiring as God’s declaration in Revelation:

“Behold, I make all things new.”

Jesus, in Revelation 21:5 (NKJV)

This promise stands as a testament to God’s infinite creativity and His transformative power in our lives. It’s not just about the grand cosmic renewal but also a deeply personal call to each of us. When He says this, there’s no reason we should assume that we should be excluded from the list of all things that He is making new, is there?

Let’s explore how God’s creativity captures our attention and how His power is making us new, leading us away from our old, self-destructive ways.

God’s Creativity: A Call to Attention

The Bible begins with a narrative of creation, a powerful display of God’s creativity. From the vastness and agelessness of the universe to the intricate details of a flower that whithers in a few days, everything speaks of a Creator with an endless imagination. God’s creativity is not a past event but a continuous, dynamic process. It’s evident in the changing seasons, the diversity of life, and even in our daily experiences. This creativity is God’s way of capturing our attention, drawing us to marvel at His works, and recognizing His presence and power in the world around us.

Yesterday I went to a botanic garden called Sunken Gardens near my new home. This experience was restorative to my soul. But anyway, since moving to Florida, I’ve seen several more varieties of palm trees than I knew existed (I thought a palm tree was a palm tree). However, at Sunken Gardens, I saw even more varieties of palm trees than I see each day walking through my neighborhood or driving around town. So, out of curiosity, I looked up how many varieties of palm trees exist, and I found that there are more than 2500 unique types of palm trees! We have a creative God, and I think He wants us to notice.

Personal Renewal: Becoming New Creations

So what? Well, if God will spend that much attention on variations of a single type of tree, imagine the effort He spends remaking you and me. More than just transforming the world, God is deeply committed to renewing us. As Paul reminds us through his second letter to the church at Corinth:

Borrowed from YouVersion

This personal renewal is an integral part of our spiritual journey. God’s creative work in us involves reshaping our thoughts, desires, and actions, steering us away from self-destructive patterns. It’s a process of being molded into the image of Christ, growing in love, grace, patience, and kindness.

The Excitement of Transformation

But let me back up a few days. My most recent phoenix moment began when I attended a 3-day “Time to Rise 2024” seminar given by Tony Robbins, a famous author and coach who is known for helping people transform their lives. By no means am I comparing him to God, but his message is similar to the idea that God will make you new if you let Him. Tony affirms that our old story does not need to be – indeed, should not be – our new story. Robbins shares one example after another where someone had been beaten down, but then, with encouragement and help, they rise above their miserable circumstances to reach heights they never thought possible. And he gives seminar participants the tools they need to achieve similar outcomes.

The whole seminar jarred me back into remembering that I can’t control what happens in my life, but I can control how I respond to what happens to me. Further, Robbins also reinvigorated my mindset by saying, “What if God is challenging you to rise above what’s happening to you?”

What if, indeed. What if God is making me (and you) into something new, someone who overcomes our current challenges?

In case I still wasn’t getting the message, God drove home the point in the praise music at church this morning. All of the songs (Raise a Hallelujah, Same God (Oh God My God I Need You), O Praise the Name) spoke to trusting in God for victory. Grateful tears streamed down my face when we sang the lyrics:

I raise a hallelujah
Heaven comes to fight for me

I’m gonna sing in the middle of the storm
Louder and louder, you’re gonna hear my praises roar
Up from the ashes hope will arise
Death is defeated, the King is alive

“Raise a Hallelujah“, by Bethel Music, Jonathan David Helser and Melissa Helser,

There is a profound excitement in this process of becoming new. It’s not merely about self-improvement; it’s a divine transformation. It’s Jesus making us into overcomers, more like Him. As we let go of our old ways – our fears, our sins, our selfishness – we discover a life that is richer, more meaningful, and more aligned with God’s purpose. This transformation is a journey filled with moments of revelation, growth, and, importantly, joy. It’s about discovering our true identity as children of God, created in His image and called to a life that reflects His glory.

Embracing the Newness in Christ

Embracing this newness requires faith and surrender. It means trusting in God’s plan for us, even when the path is uncertain and difficult. It’s about allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us, to renew our minds and hearts. In this journey, we find that our once self-destructive paths and negative self-talk are replaced with pathways of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17, NIV). This is the essence of living in the newness of life that God offers.

Conclusion: A Continuous Journey of Renewal

God’s promise to make all things new is both an assurance of a future-perfected world and a present reality in our lives. As we journey with God, let’s remain open to His creative work in us and through us. Let’s celebrate the transformation He brings and eagerly anticipate the new things He is doing. Remember, in God’s creative hands, we are being made new, day by day, into a masterpiece that reflects His love and glory.

By His grace, we rise from the ashes we created. Like being baptized anew, He pulls us up from the water that had overtaken us. Like Lazarus, He calls us out of the grave.

This is our time to respond to our kind and creative God, to step forward as bold new creations.

Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Our Long and Winding Roads

Posted on January 21, 2024 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

We may think of our journeys from cradle to grave as long and winding roads, and that’s entirely appropriate. We can also break our lives into smaller segments, which can seem lengthy and circuitous, especially while we are going through them.

Particularly when we are waiting to see God move in our lives somehow, the wait can seem endless. Sometimes the extra twists and turns can be of our own making, resulting from dumb decisions we’ve made. But other times, the delays (or perceived delays) could be due to God’s actions or timing.

Why would that be? I don’t have a good answer, other than to say that God’s ways are often beyond our ability to understand (Isaiah 55:8-9). When we wait for Him, it might be because He is working on something else (maybe even with someone else) that needs to happen before our desired outcome can be achieved. Or maybe we need to wait because He is teaching us to be patient or that nothing is more important than our relationship with Him.

And at the end of the day, that’s probably it–that the most important thing for our eternity is our relationship with God. We can and should lean on Him, lean into Him. We need to trust that He is working for our good, as Paul points out in his letter to the Romans:

Borrowed from YouVersion

I know we want what we want, and we want it now, but our desired timing is less important to God than our relationship with Him. One of the really effective ways that we can develop our relationship with Him is by developing our trust muscles, our faith in Him.

Because God knows the plans He has for us, and in the end those plans are good. He gives us hope and a future. Let’s thank God for that, in spite of our long and winding roads.

Borrowed from YouVersion
Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Running toward Heaven or Fleeing from Hell?

Posted on January 14, 2024 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

There are, of course, many different reasons people choose to follow Jesus, but I would assert that most of them can be reduced at their core to one of two driving forces: running toward heaven or fleeing from hell.

For running toward heaven, I think of people who are motivated by the idea of spending eternity in paradise, face-to-face and arm-in-arm with the Triune God. They are eager to enjoy abundant life, both now and forever, and are perhaps looking forward to being reunited with loved ones who also accepted Jesus as their Lord.

On the fleeing from hell side, the motivation is more likely to be an overwhelming desire not to spend eternity suffering unimaginable agony.

I know I’ve made these out to be mutually exclusive, as though you have to be purely in one camp or the other. But I know the reality is probably that we can fluctuate between the two key motivators daily, and sometimes even more frequently than that.

However, I’ve made the distinction to give our minds and hearts something to ponder. Let me add the caveat, though, that at the end of our days, it won’t matter what path we took to become followers of Christ–the important thing will be that we became His followers. Having said that, I’ll suggest that our daily walk with Jesus might be more fulfilling and enjoyable if we make a conscious effort to allow our continuing faith to be motivated by running toward heaven.

Why do I say that? Well, running toward heaven is about love. It’s about wanting to be in God’s presence because we love Him so much, because we are so grateful for the countless ways He has blessed our lives. It’s about yearning to be welcomed home by a cloud of witnesses, which will hopefully include loved ones who have gone before us.

Whereas fleeing from hell is about fear. It’s about being terrified of eternal torment, about eternal separation from God. Imagine being able to see the people enjoying everlasting life with our Creator in paradise, but not being able to cross the chasm separating you from them (as Jesus suggested in His story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31, which was the subject of a great sermon today by Pastor Johnny Scott at Generations Christian Church).

Now, don’t get me wrong. We should be terrified of those things. But if we’re motivated mostly by fear, our faith might become twitchy and jumpy, waiting for judgment to crash down on us the next time we screw up.

That kind of outlook misses the greatest gift God offered us: His grace.

I like the way the Apostle John put it in his first letter:

Borrowed from YouVersion

So the question is this: would you rather live a faith and life motivated by love or fear?

Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Even Abraham Didn’t Always Get It Right

Posted on January 7, 2024 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

Since the Daily Audio Bible’s annual journey through the Bible returned to the starting gate at the beginning of the year, we’re once again getting reacquainted with Abraham, who is basically each of our father in the faith. This is what the Apostle Paul wrote about him:

So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Galatians 3:6-9 (NIV)

But here’s the thing–even with these glowing credentials, not even Abraham got it right every time. In Genesis chapter 12, God promises Abraham (Abram at the time) that He will make Abram into a great nation and that all peoples will be blessed through him.

Jumping ahead to chapter 15, though, we see Abram asking God for clarification about that prior promise. He had not yet had a child through whom God could create a great nation, so he’s wondering aloud whether God may have meant that the great nation would actually come through Abram’s servant and not his direct lineage. But God reassures him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” (Genesis 15:4, NIV). To this God adds a covenant and a promise that his own descendants will be as numerous as the stars.

Sounds good, right? There shouldn’t be any reason for Abram to doubt that commitment, should there?

Well, not so fast. In chapter 16, we see Abram and his wife Sarai wonder if she might be the reason Abram still has no heir. Sarai helpfully suggests that maybe her servant Hagar could provide Abram with a son. Hagar succeeds, and Ishmael is born. The problem is solved, right?

No, not really. In fact, more problems are created, which we’ll come back to in a moment. By the time we get to the seventeenth chapter of Genesis, we see God telling Abram that Ishmael was not the answer He had in mind. He clarifies that Abram’s wife Sarai will bear him a son, whom they are to name Isaac. And both Abram and Sarai receive new names from God: Abraham and Sarah.

However, before we reach that happy resolution, Abram receives the prophecy from an angel of the Lord that Ismael “will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.” And that prophecy has rung painfully true, since the abrasion between Isaac and Ishmael formed the root of the Israeli/Arab conflict that persists even to this day. And all because Abram/Abraham didn’t quite understand the direction God had been giving him.

Why do I point this out? Certainly not to paint Abraham in a negative light. Not at all.

My goal in going through all of this is to give us all hope in our relationships with God. I’m making the assumption that you are like me in that you don’t usually have a clear picture of what God is saying to you or how He is directing your life. Like me, maybe you’re trying your best to live true to God’s calling for your life, but it’s not usually clear what that is. So what should we do? Give up?

By no means! Reading through this story of Abram/Abraham, we see that he has what appear to be some very direct conversations with God. But even then, he doesn’t get it right. He misunderstands what God is telling him, but it doesn’t really matter.

Why not? Because he remains faithful to God, even when what’s going on makes no sense. His faith is counted as righteousness, and God works with that. In the end, God achieves the outcomes He was after all along. In the end, God wins and Abraham wins.

And we can win, too, if we’ll let God work in us and through us, the way Abraham did.

Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hope for 2024

Posted on December 31, 2023 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

It’s time to flip the calendar over to a new year. For me, I’m glad to bid farewell to 2023. While there were blessings this year, it also came with its fair share of challenges.

As we turn the calendar over to the new year, it’s a good time to reflect on the year that was–but then let it go. It’s useful to remember. Looking back, it’s helpful to reflect on how God blessed you as you reached mountain peaks. Carry those memories with you as you move into 2024. It’s also a good idea to reflect on how God comforted you when you traversed the shadow of the valley of death.

In both cases, it’s helpful for us to remember the moments when we were aware of God’s presence. We should leverage those remembrances to give us hope in 2024–God is and will be with us throughout the year. But other than hanging on to the hope we glean from remembering, we need to let go of all of our other baggage as we move into the new year.

Here are some encouraging verses to keep in mind as we head into 2024:

Borrowed from YouVersion

I got some discouraging news last night, but then God reminded me of this verse 3 different times this morning! I first saw it in my morning devotional, and then it came up twice in the church service I attended this morning. God wanted to make sure I was listening! I’m thankful for that, to be sure.

Borrowed from YouVersion

I love this picture, but it doesn’t tell the whole story of the reason we can be strong and courageous–because of God’s presence with us wherever we go. Here’s the whole verse:

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9 (NIV)
Borrowed from YouVersion
Borrowed from YouVersion
Borrowed from YouVersion
Borrowed from YouVersion

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus, in Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)

So, let us all remember to walk with God in the best of times and worst of times throughout 2024. We can trust Him, that He is working for our good. He blesses us and comforts us. Thanks be to God!

Happy New Year, friends! I wish you all a 2024 full of the richness of God’s blessings.

Warm Regards,
Dave
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

D-Day in the War Between Good and Evil

Posted on December 24, 2023 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

Christmas is the culmination of God’s plan to liberate us from the clutches of evil. A modern-day analogy of this event is known as D-Day–the date upon which the Allied forces launched their daring assault on Hitler’s “fortress Europe”. One characteristic of that invasion was that it did not look like what the forces of evil expected, which is at least part of the reason why it succeeded.

In the same way, who would have expected God to land on Earth in the form of a newborn baby? Satan certainly did not. After all, what chance did a helpless baby have against the mighty fallen angel? Not much, really.

Helping the Helpless God

Except it turned out that Jesus wasn’t helpless, after all. God put people in place to protect Him until He could protect Himself. God gave Him human parents–the most ferocious representatives of human love–who obeyed the strange dream God had given them, moving to Egypt (and away from everything and everyone they knew) to protect Jesus from Satan’s / Herod’s deranged plan to kill all the baby boys in Israel. God sent kings who were humble enough to obey God rather than the ruler of the land, deciding to take the long way home to avoid revealing Jesus’ whereabouts.

Who would have thought we mere humans could help God? Since He is God and can do anything, He doesn’t need our help. But He wants it. He wants us to help Him by helping others. And by so doing, we end up helping ourselves as well.

Beginning of the End

Back to the invasion story. Even though June 6, 1944, marks the beginning of the invasion, the full invasion was not completed until the end of August 1944, when the Battle of Normandy was won. Similarly, Christmas marks the beginning of God’s invasion of Earth, but it was not really completed until Easter 33 years later, when Jesus rose from the dead, crushing sin and death and Satan.

But If Jesus Defeated Satan, Why Is There Still Evil in the World?

Even though the D-Day invasion marked the beginning of the end of World War II, it didn’t actually end until May 8, 1945, more than 11 months later. Why? Because evil was not going to give up without a fight. Sadly, tens of thousands of people died during those 11 months.

So why is there still evil in the world, even though Jesus’ resurrection marked the beginning of the end of the war between good and evil? Because Satan is not going to give up without a fight, and he wants to take you and me and millions of others with him when he goes.

The Choice to Live

Thankfully, we don’t have to let that happen to us. We have the choice to be spared, unlike those who perished during the final 11 months of WWII.

How can we choose to be spared?

All we have to do is look to the Baby Boy born on Christmas, who is God with Us. And upon realizing that He will become the man who dies on a cross to take the punishment for our sins, we fall on our knees in worship and gratitude. Even better, we rise with Him three days after His execution, following Him through His resurrection into paradise, which will be our address for eternity.

The war isn’t over, but the victory is won!

And it all starts with this Baby Boy.

Borrowed from YouVersion

Have a blessed Christmas, my friends!

Posted in Christian, Faith, Miracles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Running Away from God

Posted on December 17, 2023 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

This past week in the Daily Audio Bible, we read the book and story of Jonah, the reluctant and annoyed prophet of God. It’s a famous story and a short book, so I won’t recap it here. Also, there are many nuggets in this story, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll focus on 3 key points.

You Can’t Run from God

God directs Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capitol city of the Assyrian empire–the bitter enemies of the Hebrew people. He tells Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh that if they don’t turn things around, He is going to destroy the city. But Jonah doesn’t want to do what God has asked him to do. In fact, he would like nothing more than for God to destroy Nineveh. So he runs away from God.

At least, he tries to. He goes in the opposite direction from Nineveh.

The sailors on the ship Jonah takes for his escape attempt figure out that he’s the reason for the deadly storm, so they throw him overboard and leave him for dead.

But God finds him. This leads to my next point.

God Will Still Save You

Even though Jonah was trying to run away from God, God sends a giant fish (or whale) to save him. God is kind, so He saves us, too, even when we’re trying to run away from him. But His ways are also mysterious, since Jonah survives for 3 days in the belly of the fish without getting digested. It might also be that the way He is working on saving you (or the way He saved you) doesn’t look much like a rescue story, either. But it is.

And also, not to be deterred, guess where God has the fish barf out Jonah? You guessed it–Nineveh.

This leads to my final point.

God Wants to Save Everyone, Even Our Enemies

Jonah is the only prophet that we know about who God sent to someone other than the Hebrew people. But the Assyrians were wicked people, so why did God want to save them? Because they were wicked, and He didn’t want them to stay that way.

This seems a little extreme at first, until you realize that most of us aren’t descended from the 12 tribes of Israel, and we all have streams or rivers of darkness running through our hearts, so Jonah is also speaking to us on God’s behalf (not just the people of Nineveh).

God Wants to save us because He loves us. This time of Advent is a time for us to reflect on God’s invasion of this cruel and wicked world to save us from ourselves. And this story of Jonah shows us another example of the lengths to which He will go to rescue us, His beloved.

Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

A Very Expensive Free Gift

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

Most of us like free stuff, to an extent. I’d likely accept if you wanted to give me a free T-shirt or pen unless there was something weird about them. However, if you offered me a free car or a free house out of the blue, I’d probably decline, suspicious of foul play, something too good to be true.

Maybe this is why so many people–Christians included–are tempted to turn God’s grace for us into something that must be earned, because if we earn it, then it isn’t something we get for free.

But, of course, it’s also not God’s grace, as the Apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Ephesians:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. 

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)

I wonder if this is why unbelievers mistakenly think they have to “get their act together” before they can even think about going to church, as though they (or anyone) can behave well enough to be acceptable to God–they can’t. None of us can.

I also wonder if this is why it’s hard for some people to accept this gift that God offers us–His grace wrapped up in the package of a tiny baby, who would grow up to become a man. A man who would give His life for us because none of us is worthy to go to heaven. He would take the punishment we deserve so that all who accept this gift are made worthy to go to heaven.

This is a gift that costs us nothing, but there’s no catch. It’s not too good to be true. Jesus gave everything to offer it to us.

How’s that for a Christmas gift?

Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

We Couldn’t Get to God, So God Came to Us

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

Christianity is the only world religion that doesn’t subscribe to the belief that followers can achieve enlightenment or some other sort of oneness with God by behaving in just the right way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s the only belief system which recognizes that nobody can achieve the perfection required to enter God’s presence.

Of course, God Himself knows this as well.

So, instead of sitting way up in heaven beating us all back like so many intruders storming the castle, God–in the form of Jesus–climbed down from His throne to be with us (as Matthew reminded us in the first chapter of his gospel: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)—Matthew 1:23 (NIV)). This is why we celebrate Christmas, and this is what we remember in partuluar all throughout Advent (which starts today). God came to us to show us the way to heaven–to become the way to heaven. All He asks is that we follow Him. Not easy, but certainly very simple.

Which doesn’t mean you have to behave a certain way or dress a certain way or look a certain way. Satan planted those lies into our culture because he wants to keep people from going to heaven. He wants a bigger headcount in hell. Yes, it’s crowded, but he will always find a way to cram in one more just to make everyone more miserable.

I often wonder why so many people think they’re smarter than God when in fact they’re dumber than Satan. Why do they ignore the celery of God’s Truth in favor of devouring the candy of Satan’s lies?

In my morning devotional today, I came across this verse:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Luke 19:41-44 (NIV)

Even though Jesus is lamenting Jerusalem’s (i.e., the Jewish leaders’) rejection of Him, I think the sentiment applies equally well to individuals who haven’t accepted the priceless gift of His grace. In particular, I can’t even count the number of people I know who would benefit from what would bring them peace.

For example, there are two people who I love dearly, both of whom struggle mightily with anxiety specifically and mental health in general. I pray daily that they will return to the faith, not only because I’m concerned about their eternal destination, but also because I know that Jesus will help them find true peace. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that a relationship with Jesus is a magical overnight cure for mental health challenges, but I am saying that I believe Jesus will help them process their challenges in healthier ways than they are dealing with them now, which basically amounts to self-medicating.

But instead of accepting God’s grace-filled invitation, one of these people hides behind intellectually lazy, half-baked theories he refers to as Christian agnosticism, while the other rejects the faith because she has been wounded by Christians behaving badly (which is, sadly, all too common, but which has nothing to do with Jesus Himself) and because she has bought into the lie that you have to behave a certain way to be a Christian.

My prayer for them this Advent, and for everyone else I know who thinks they’re smarter than God, is that this time around, they’ll ignore the lies and open their hearts and minds to the truth of who God is. I hope they will recognize that this baby at the center of Christmas is God coming for them, to help them and heal them. To save them by showing them the way to heaven. I pray they’ll finally realize how much God loves them and that His grace is enough to cover over everything they have ever done wrong and ever will do wrong. That would be the best gift they could get for Christmas.

Posted in Christian, Faith, Miracles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Dependence of an Infant

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Writing & Photography by David K. Carpenter

And so it begins. With Thanksgiving behind us, we are wading–or perhaps diving head-first–into the Christmas season, the time when we commemorate God’s invasion of our planet to eventually eradicate evil. As I pondered this, an image flashed into my mind, which may or may not have been a message from God. But either way, I felt it was worth writing about today.

Here’s the picture that popped into my head: God coming to us in the form of an infant. What a delicious irony, this–the Creator of a billion stars coming to this tiny planet as a tinier, helpless baby. And since God, in the form of this Jesus, didn’t cheat the physical constraints of being a human, I have to believe that He was truly helpless.

My grandson isn’t quite 16 months old–so, much more capable than an infant–but still, he wouldn’t last very long without his parents (or other caring adults) looking after him. He’s trying to talk, but it’s still just gibberish (even though it seems like he thinks he’s saying things that make sense), so he can’t even convey what his needs or wants are. He needs people who care enough about him to try to discern what he needs.

And, of course, I remember this from my own children as well: newborn babies are even more dependent on others to survive than a toddler is.

For those of us who recognize Jesus as part of the Triune God, it’s difficult for us to think of God as ever needing anything from a human, but this truth is revealed in the Nativity story. Sure, we like to picture a cute little baby Jesus lying in a manger, but how often do we dwell on the fact that He depended on people to stay alive?

What’s the point? Well, of course, there are lots of lessons to be learned from walking with Jesus through His earthly ministry. We can certainly learn a lot from things He said–His many wise and challenging teachings. But we can also learn many things simply by examining His life–the things He did, the way He acted and reacted.

In this case, I can’t help but wonder if God sent Jesus to us as a baby instead of a fully grown man so He could show us that it’s OK–even necessary–to depend on other people.

In our culture, we prize rugged individualism–I did it my way, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, look what I did.

But those are all examples of our pride talking, and pride is one of the most clever and insidious weapons of the evil one. He enjoys helping us think we don’t need anyone else. And he’s the father of lies.

Of course, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with working hard, as though success depends solely on our own efforts. But it’s foolishness to think we can actually achieve anything worthwhile without the help of others. Oh yeah, and without God’s help.

So, maybe as we slide into the Christmas season, every time we see images of the baby Jesus or sing about an infant so tender and mild, we should reflect on our own dependence on others, and on God. Perhaps this would be a good way to help us eliminate Satan’s foothold of pride in our lives and turn instead to a posture of gratitude toward God and–<gasp!>–other people. Who knows, maybe it’s the path toward sleeping in heavenly peace.

Posted in Christian, Faith | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment