This is war

This is war like you ain't seen.
This winter's long, it's cold and mean.
With hangdog hearts we stood condemned,
But the tide turns now at Bethlehem.

This is war and born tonight,
The Word as flesh, the Lord of Light,
The Son of God, the low-born king;
Who demons fear, of whom angels sing.

This is war on sin and death;
The dark will take it's final breath.
It shakes the earth, confounds all plans;
The mystery of God as man.

-This is War - Dustin Kensrue

I have long said that I'm not a fan of the image of Christmas that is popularly portrayed in this day and age.  I'm not talking about Santa Clause or commercialism or anything like that.  I am talking about the neat, clean, peaceful image of Christmas focused on a child.  We have songs such as Silent Night which talk about everything being calm and quiet, with radiant beams shining from Christ's Holy face. We have images of Mary looking beautiful and very put together after just going through 12-24 hours of labor with no epidural or any sort of medicine, really.  In all, we fail to see the whole point of it all.

Your image of the peaceful white Christmas is about as far away from the nativity story as is possible.

Let's get a few things straight:

1.  Jesus wasn't born in December.  He was most likely born towards the end of September.
2.  His home nation was occupied by a harsh and oppressive Roman Empire.
3.  Both his mother and step father can trace their lines back to King David, and anyone who had even the slightest bit of davidic blood in them would have done the same.  So when they had to report to their home towns for the census, thousands showed up in Bethlahem, which was probably a town no bigger than 300-1000 people normally.  When we say "there was no room at the inn", what we are really saying is that the town was litterally overflowing with people.  Imagine thousands of people who are homeless wondering around a town that is smaller than Ault.
4.  Jesus was born in a stable. This wasn't a nice clean structure with well behaved, not-stinky animals.  This was a barn.  Straw isn't soft and smooth.  It's itchy, it stabs you where you don't want it to, and the animals eat it rather messily.  There would have been mice, bugs, germs, feces, urine, rotting plant and animal matter everywhere.  It wasn't sanitary.  It was perhaps the worst place for a baby to be born.
5.  Mary was likely around 13-16 years old.  Joseph probably late teens to early 20's.  Imagine being a new mother at that age, far away from home, stuck in a barn with a man you're not actually married to yet, going through labor and having nothing to put your child in but the feed trough for a bunch of dirty animals.
6.  Leaving the arguments about christian holidays being repurposed pagan celebrations, the purpose or meaning of Christmas is not often fully discussed.  What is the reason that Jesus was born?  Do people draw the connection between his birth (Christmas) and his death (Easter)?

Jesus was born for one purpose:  To be sacrificed.  The Jews had been looking for an earthly king and Jesus came in the most humble, desperate situation imaginable.  This is akin to a baby being born in the grounds-keeping shed because the hospital didn't have an open bed for a mother in labor.

But why was Jesus born at all?  Why is he such an important character in all of history?  To answer that we have to go back to Genesis and see where it all started:  Adam and Eve and Satan.  God created the first humans, Adam and Eve.  He gave a simple command to Adam, who in turn gave it to Eve, who was in turn tempted to break that command by Satan.  And ever since then, every person in the world is inclined to turn away from God and do what is evil (If you think that all humans are inherently good, spend some time with a two year old.  Watch them grab a toy from another kid and scream "mine".  Pay close attention to those temper tantrums.  Did someone teach them to do that?  No.  It's a part of human nature).

That turning away from God, that breaking of his commands, that doing evil things, this is sin.  That word has been misused so often to describe the pleasure of eating a decadent desert and other stupidity like that, we don't understand the weight that it carries with it.  God is so pure and so perfect that to be in the presense of that sin goes against his very nature.  He is so just that he must punish it.  This means that anyone who is marred by that sin, they are guilty of committing a crime against God, and they must face the consequence, being separated from God for all of eternity.

The bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from above (God).  This would imply that every bad and evil thing comes from that which is not God.  Therefore a separation from God implies nothing but evil and bad things.  The bible describes Hell as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of fire and pain and torment.  I believe that this is due to the absence of God's mercy and goodness, and the presence of his wrath.  You see, when we turn from God, we become his enemies.  We fall right into the ranks of Satan and we earn that wrath.

But for all of God's justice, he is also merciful and gracious.  In ancient Judaism, he created a provision of animal sacrifice as part of the codified Mosaic law.  This would cover over a persons's sin in the eyes of God, their sin essentially transferred onto an unblemished lamb which was then slaughtered.  Something had to die because of that sin, and the lamb was a substitute in death.  And all through the Torah, all through the Old Testament, we see pointers to a Messiah who would take away the sins of the world and establish his government on earth.

Enter Jesus, born into a war between God and Sin, born as the ultimate weapon to destroy the strongholds of God's enemies, to tear down their fortresses and weaken their powerful grip on humanity.  Jesus was born for one purpose:  To be murdered.  Jesus wasn't just like you and me, though, you see.  He was God.  He was divine.  Yet, he was also completely human.  He never sinned, he never deserved God's wrath, he never did a single act that would be deserving of punishment.  He was that unblemished lamb I mentioned before.  So you see, the true meaning of Christmas... is Easter, where we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Jesus was hated by the religious leaders of his day, was arrested by the local government because of his claim to be God, but was also accused of being a conspirator, inciting the people against Caesar in order to give him the death penalty with Rome.  He was tried in secret in the middle of the night, passed from official to official and eventually executed for the sole purpose of appeasing the people who were demanding it.  The very people who had praised him as a hero had turned on him and demanded his death.

He was crucified over the course of several hours, slowly suffocating to death in the most painful method of execution ever devised - crucifixion.  So painful was it, that a word was created to describe the experience:  excruciating.  Jesus was then buried in a tomb and all seemed lost.  But then three days later, as was foretold, he came back to life and is now sitting in heaven at the right hand of God.  This is significant, as it means that the eternal separation from God no longer needs to happen.  Jesus can took sin on himself and it died along with his body.  The whole purpose of his birth was to die and to take our sin with him.  His return marks his victory in the war that he was born to fight.

Christmas isn't a clean, fluffy, peaceful holiday.  Christmas is D-day in WWII.  Christmas is the invasion of the allied forces into Europe to stop the unbeatable German war machine.  Christmas is war, and this makes me appreciate it all the more knowing that.  I can only imagine what the Frenchman would have thought as he encountered the american soldier dropping from the sky, but my response to the birth of Christ should be similar - gratitude, awe and excitement that the war would be soon coming to a much anticipated end.

Tonight, as I worked on getting craft products loaded into a store, I was listening to various pastors teach on different topics, and I came across a young woman whose story is incredible.  You've probably never heard of her, and if not for the advent of the internet, you never would.  She is a young woman who has given up everything, a promising education and career, money, position, you name it, to pour her life out in Uganda.

Katie had everything, she could have named the college she would attend, was the home coming queen, loving family, promising future, strikingly beautiful, she had the American Dream well in hand.  Yet she chose to go on a short term mission trip to Uganda in high school and was then haunted by the need when she came back.  She has since become the foster mother of 14 young girls and continues to give and give to people who are dying of aide and TB.  Why would anyone do this?

To some degree, I can understand.  I am haunted by the images and conversations I've had.  What we would call superstitious beliefs and a lack of hope.  I went on a short term trip to the country that holds the 3rd largest economy in the world, where people seem to have simply become used to being depressed and stressed, yet they do everything they can to hide it.  A culture where it's considered rude to offer to lend a hand because it speaks ill of a person's ability to handle a situation, where love simply isn't expressed because it's just too deep.  A culture that desperately needs Jesus but refuses to consider him because he's considered an "outsider".  To the Japanese, Christianity is foreign.  In Japan, I won't be dealing with AIDS and TB.  Instead I'll be dealing with depression and isolationism.

I know a woman personally whose life is such an adventure that it could be written as an epic story.  She's traveled the world, befriended the craziest of people and all for the sake of honoring God.  She always inspired me to live outwardly, yet a part of me never knew how.  But, I think that God is changing that in me now.  A desire to live outwardly, a desire to die to myself and simply let God do his thing.  Yes, God.  Have your way.

My point in all of this isn't to say that these people like Katie should be held as heros, rather they should be held as examples of what the normal Christian life should be.  We in America are so dominated by our dreams and ideals, our stuff demands out time.  How often do we deny someone access to our life because of the inconvenience?  Or that we're afraid of being tainted.  Yet Jesus ate with tax collectors, he forgave adulterers, he fed hungry crowds miraculously, he touched unclean men to heal them of deadly diseases.  We should do the same.  Do we often think of our homes as our sanctuary?  Do we say to ourselves that we don't want to house a group of people who need help because we don't want our carpets messed up or our hardwood floors scuffed up?

I am challenged by the life of Katie because she holds so loosely onto things.  She holds so tightly on to Christ.  I have a heard time breaking away from my job long enough to give someone a ride to the airport.  Do I visit the sick in the hospital?  Would I befriend someone who was dying of AIDS?  I'm forced to ask these questions and then begin asking the question, "What am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of God's glory and the spread of his Gospel?"  I am then forced to rephrase the question:  "What in my life is preventing me from loving others to the glory of God?"  The question isn't if I'm willing to sacrifice.  Christians are called to sacrifice even their own bodies if necessary.  No, the question really is, "What am I clinging on to that is keeping me from letting God use me in profound ways?"

I honestly think when we stop asking what we're willing to sacrifice and instead ask what simply NEEDS to be pruned out, and we actually follow through, that's when we get out of the way and the world can truly see God at work in us.

Katie Davis is the founder of Amazima ministries and her blog can be found here:  http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/

Chik-Fil-A never tasted so good...

A family in my church has a three year old little girl who is currently battling cancer.  This family is a part of the "mulitples club" as they have, not one set, but two sets of twins.  This last thursday the club put on a Spirit Night at Chick-Fil-A for this sweet little girl and... wow.  Just... WOW!

For those who don't know, a Spirit Night is a way to fund raise.  You organize with the restaurant and then people say they are there for whatever your organization is and 20% of the sale go to you.  For this little's girl, the line didn't go out the door... it snaked all the way around the restaraunt.  More people waited outside.  I stood in line for 40 minutes.  The line at the drive through went past Albertsons.  There was no place to park.  The place was packed with no place to sit and whole families were outside playing at the petting zoo or getting their faces painted.  I talked with the woman behind me and asked if she knew the family.  She didn't, but she was there to support them.  She herself had twins and was in the club, and she was there to support a family she had never even met.  Wow.

I love reading the Alvarado's blog.  You can find it here:  http://spendandbespent.blogspot.com/p/the-beginning-esthers-treatment-plan.html  I'll warn you, it's hard to read without being moved to tears, and I'm a dude.  To read of the trial, the struggle and the faith and hope that this family has in God and his power, I am moved and inspired.  I pray that when circumstances this hard strike me that I will find as much peace as I see here.

I am reminded of a verse in Isaiah: 

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. - Isaiah 26:3

I love that.  And I see it here.  I pray that my heart and mind may be that steadfast.  I pray that the Alvarados' will continue to be.

Pray for Esther.

~L

I have decided to quit Facebook.  Why?  Because I'm tired of having the temptation to use it as an emotional outlet, word vomitting all over everyone who is my "friend" (I use quotes because a facebook friend isn't anything like a real friend.  Let's face it, I collect facebook friends like trading cards).  Also, I'm tired of the thought process that I find myself going through saying, "Look, I have 785 friends!  I'm popular!"  There is an identity that comes with social media that I don't like, and I've slipped into it.

I prefer face-to-face contact anyway.  It's much better for my life and probably for yours.  This blog hasn't been updated in quite a while, not since April.  I intend to use this space as I always have:  To journal my thoughts from the word, to talk about mission trips and the general adventure of the Christian life.

So, with that, stay tuned.  I have much to blog about.

Musings on getting older...

Sunday the 15th was my birthday.  It passed by with little fanfare, save the 96 facebook posts all basically saying the same thing.  But no party, a few texts and no phone calls.  I spent it on the way back from Las Vegas where 2 other friends and I decided to go take a vacation in honor of our common April birth-month.  Surprisingly, it didn't really bother me that my birthday seemed to pass by so quietly and go un-celebrated.  Perhaps this is a sign of maturity, or at the very least sweet self-forgetfulness, but either way, I am certain of one thing:  Life doesn't stop moving, even when you try to sit and do nothing.

I turned 33 this year and though I may joke that I'm old, I know that I'm still young and have a lot of life ahead of me.  I also know that I've left a lot of life behind, Life that really went unspent, squandered and for much of it, I was bored and miserable.  But this last year has shown me what it looks like to really step out and take a big chance, trust God for something big.  And with that, I've decided to step out and do something even bigger.  I'm currently talking with a missions organization about working in Japan.  My biggest obstacle?  Something that I should have taken care of long ago:  about $14,000 in debt.  This isn't the biggest of things for God to take care of, and even they said it's not that big of a deal as long as I'm making headway on it.  But I want to have it cleared before I go.

So why did I suddenly decide to do this this year?  Well, the answer is simple:  I'm not getting any younger.  I can't very well see big things happen through my life if I don't take a few risks, right?  And besides, as an uneducated, single 33 year old in Fort Collins, Colorado, what does my life really have in store?  I have no relationship prospects, no marketable skills and very few strong relational connections at all.  So why not go?  Seems like the time is right and the field is white for harvest.

But this also brings up something else that I've been pondering lately:  Will I ever actually get married?  Perhaps the biggest reason why this question is coming up is because I have no real prospects here and in going to another country, I can't say that I see that changing there either.  Not that I have anything against Japanese women, just that I'm not going for that reason.  I'm going for the sake of the Gospel.  God can do what he wants, yes, but the reality is, I don't want that to be anywhere near my motivations.

Yet it is not good for man to be alone, as God says in Genesis.  And as I have so few strong relational connections here, I have to ask myself the question of why that is.  Is it because I'm being pulled away to someplace else?  Or is it because there is something broken in me that prevents me from forming attachments?  Either way, my current state tends towards loneliness and feeling like I have no one at my side.  A helper would be nice, a companion, a friend who isn't going to move on without me, but I've grown accustomed to being left behind.  So maybe it's time that it goes the other way:  Lee moves on and life in FoCo keeps on going like nothing even changed.

I am excited for this new venture in life, but at the same time, scared to do it alone.  I know that I will have a church that I will be working with and I know that I will become close to a few people there, but the idea of starting completely over and having to build a new support structure (when my current one is already in shambles for lack of maintenance on my part), is daunting at the very least and cripplingly terrifying at the worst.  But perhaps that is something that I need, a removal of all earthly supports to force me into a position of trusting God for all things.  Thankfully, that thought is fairly reassuring.

Whatever happens, though, this is the year that Lee steps out.  This is the year that Lee puts himself in a scary place to see God do something great.  This is the year that Lee stops squandering his life and becomes a blessing to others.  This is the year that Lee comes alive.  God will do something and all I have to do is walk forward.  Let him have his way, I am ready.

Japan?

Trying to put into words something that you believe God has placed on your heart can be quite difficult.  Especially when what you are experincing is more feeling than logical deduction.  I'm going to attempt to do my best here.

I have lived in the United states for a cumulative 30 years but have never really felt like this was my home.  Even though I know and understand the culture, the environment, the people, I have never really felt like this was my culture.  Now some may quote CS Lewis in this case, stating that I must be meant for another, heavenly home.  However this is not what I'm talking about.  I am an American, but I've always felt like I was meant for something else.

I've always had a heart for the world, and over the years God has refined that desire.  Being in Tokyo recently made me see that my heart isn't for going places, but for people.  As much as I enjoyed seeing places of culture and history, it was all so empty.  I loved the people I was with in Tokyo, but they were all Americans, people of similar cultural background.  I don't feel like I got to experience Japan in Tokyo, but tourism along with fellow tourists.  Don't get me wrong, I had fun, but the hilight of the entire trip was in Hamamatsu.

Hamamatsu was entirely relational.  I still didn't get to experience Japan in the strictest sense... We participated in an American style wedding with many other cultures represented.  We got to experience the church in Hamamatsu as we participated in that wedding, ate meals together tore down and setup together.  Aside from watching my friends get married, the hilight of the trip was sitting, of all places, at a Starbucks with several people who were in or at the wedding, just talking.  I traveled half way 'round the world and experienced sweet fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ.  To be honest, it felt more like home than home did.  

My favorite experience in Tokyo was meeting with someone I had met in Tohoku and catching up.  Experiencing fellowship with a sister in Christ that I barely know.  Hearing her story as an American working with YWAM in Japan greatly encouraged me and if anything, stregthened what I was already feeling about Japan.  Talking with on of my fellow Americans about his heart for missions and experiences made me seriously think about my life and what exactly it was that I was praying about.

My heart for Japan has developed, not from a desire to see it's history and experience it's culture.  It's come from meeting it's people, my heart breaking and seeing how much workers are needed for that harvest.  In Matthew 9:37 and 38, Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”  Part of this, though, is to understand that we are all workers in whatever harvest he sends us to.  My prayer for many years would be that God would simply have his way with me, to use me as he sees fit.  Would God send me to the harvest in Japan?  More specifically, would he send me to Hamamatsu?

While in Japan, I began to pray about relocating to Hamamatsu, one morning I read Psalm 20 and verses 4 and 5 lept off the page (or rather, off my cell phone screen):  "May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans! May we shout for joy over your salvation,    and in the name of our God set up our banners!May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!" Perhaps it's time just to take the plunge?

Are you still praying for Japan?

It's funny what God does sometimes.

Last week, I was challenged by a very close friend of mine, one Andrea Skerry, to love others more than I love myself.  At first, I was a bit shocked.  "I'm good at that already," I thought.  But then the reality of it hit me and I saw that, not only was I not very good at loving others, I sucked horribly at it.  Since then, I've made it a point to be more outward focused, to have a greater, stronger love for others, to put their needs before my own, to truly love as unconditionally as I, a fallen human being can love and something amazing happened.  For the first time... ever, I felt loved myself.  I felt like I fit.  That's such a rarity for me.  I felt like I was not only doing what I was designed to do, but I was living life as God wanted it.  I truly was where I belonged.

Today, I accidentally pulled up google earth on my phone.  The last time I played with it, I was looking at Ishinomaki, Japan, at the places where we went.  So, the earth spun to Japan and landed on the coastline along the small seaport city.  But the pictures had all been updated since the last time I saw that view.  Now, instead of full neighborhoods, there were large patches of dirt and debris with the occasional standing house.  I even found the shrine outlook that we visited on our last day there and could connect what I saw then with what I was looking at now.  My heart broke into a million pieces.

I spent the better half of the next hour looking at the Tohoku area on Google Maps and my heart just broke more and more.  Not long after that, I received an email about a potential year long trip and something stirred inside me.  "I have to go back," I kept thinking to myself.  My brain the suddenly switched to what I can only guess was the Holy Spirit speaking of the city of Ninaveh in Jonah 4, only with the nation of Japan in it's place, "And should I not have concern for the great [nation] of [Japan], in which there are more than a hundred and twenty [million] people who cannot tell their right hand from their left...?”  

I can't say that the desire to go back to Japan ever really left me, but I did dismiss it for a while.  Now, seeing this, timed with the possibility of a return next summer has stirred me once again.  As I'm learning what it is to "remove myself from the equation" and love others greater than myself, as I'm learning to give of myself for the sake of another, to lay down my life, my rights, my freedoms and my desires to benefit someone else and experience God's love and satisfaction and true life in the process, I can't help but wonder just how much God is preparing me for use in something like this.  Now, I have no idea what he's really doing, I could very well let my emotions simmer down and tomorrow be all in here in FoCo, but somehow, I doubt it.  My boldness with the truth is increasing and more and more, I want to make Jesus famous and myself secondary.

Are you still praying for the people of Japan who are still recovering from the devestating tsunami that hit more than six months ago?  Are they still on your minds at all?  Do you pray for their salvation and their recovery?  I haven't been nearly as much as I used to and that changes today.

I will keep praying about this.  I would challenge you, reader, to pray about going on a church plant yourself.  Ask God to give you a heart for the Great Commission.  Will you make him famous?  And if you have that heart, are you making him famous here, in FoCo?