The "Holidays" Aka the Christmas STory,

So because it is near Christmas I suppose I should write something on how I feel about the holidays.

I lived with the Spirit of Christmas for my first two years in college. My appropriate response to my roommate who watch elf at least once a week starting right after Halloween was to be the nastiest Grinch on the floor. I actually was nick named the Grinch for two years and it still comes up time and again.

However, I enjoy the holidays, I guess I shouldn't call them the holidays because I have never cared to be politically correct.

So I have always enjoyed Christmas but I have never really understood it.

Now I know that I am not stupid but I guess I have never grasped in my own life the impact of the Christmas story.

It's kind of like communion, which I just recently got a real taste of.

You do it, because every one else is doing it and it's written in the Bible but you don't really know why you are doing it.

Then you learn why but you still have that misunderstanding, almost like that well I should do this even though I don't understand why it's such a big deal, but everyone else is making it such a big deal so I might as well too...right?

That is how I feel about Christmas.

It's originally about Christ.

I guess.

But it doesn't seem to matter because I have not been able to grasp it in my own life.

I guess I just don't get it.

And you can use words to explain it and so can I. But words only go so far, and experience only goes so far, and prayer only goes so far, and scripture only goes so far.

It's the fact that I need to collide with the Christmas story to understand it and to start living it out.

Why faith is dirty.

I was talking to a guy that works at my college about women preachers, simply because he was asking about what I wanted to do after I graduated and we ended up on women who are preaching today.

He had brought up Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore and we were discussing the difference in generations.

I think that these amazing teachers and preachers have an audience of middle aged women whom have had children and whom have been married. Which is great because they need Jesus too and they need to be discipled as well.

But I don't connect with either of these women. Maybe it's because I am a pessimist or maybe it's because I am a cynic. I don't really know.

So while I was communicating that this is a generational thing this guy wanted me to give an example so I told him this.

To them God is good so God sent his son to die for us.

To us Jesus came and saved us and it's because God is good.

To them hope is there and seen and felt.

To us hope is a distant thing that we need to collide with.

To them the church is made up of 'good' Christians.

To us the church is made up of people who are a mess and who are trying to live.

To them faith is a soft compacted manageable thing.

To us faith is dirty and beautiful and untamed.

And that is where I ended. Faith is a gift that has been given to man to use and mold and learn. God doesn't give us gifts to just look at and play with once in a while. They are meant to be used and molded and communicated.

Faith isn't logical. It isn't easily explained. It allows people to follow the Holy Spirit and it shows the world what the biggest difference is between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men.

I mean you can look at any character in the Bible that is used by God and see that the culture around this individual thought they were out of their mind. Abraham was going to sacrifice his human son, Noah built a big boat, Moses wanted to lead millions of people from oppression, Jonah ended up in a fish, Mary was given the opportunity to mother the Savior of our fallen existence, these men and women were all considered crazies by there culture, because of their faith.

It's funny because we so crave for a revolution. We long for something to change, so we help the poor and we love people, and we think that if we take our social justice and but it on a white banner that we will change the world.

How we are so easily deceived.

We have missed the faith part. The trusting part.

We need to fall to our knees and surrender. Because our logic won't save us from the dirty faith that is commanded to be harnessed in any person who calls themselves a Christ follower.

This dirty, beautiful, faith is the need that the church so longs for. The ability to follow the Holy Spirit without hesitation.

Big words are not the proof of spiritual maturity.

The faith to be obedient is.

Taking it all out.

So I very short and yet pointed question asked to me today by a friend.

"Do you love God just because of his Majesty?"

I asked the person to expound and he asked me the same question in a different way, "Do you love God because he has done all this stuff for you through Jesus or do you just love God?"

My immediate response was "I love God because I don't know how to love him without all that other stuff. I don't know why I should love him if Christ isn't involved."

My friend's response got me thinking, "Well God gave you life, you should love him just for that."

So I started thinking about that statement, and I came to the realization that if I were to love God because he gave me my existence it still would be a conditional kind of love. I would love God simply because he gave me something. So in essence I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the reality of loving God without it being reactionary. I cannot love God on my own because I simply don't know how to love without loving through reaction which is where the post I just recently blogged about gets hairy because if you are supposed to love in a unconditional manner than the reaction of your life is not supposed to deter that kind of love.

I am not allowed to love in a reactionary way however, I seem to be trapped in reactionary loving. I love because.

But then I start to look at my newly founded relationship with Waylon. I am in love with Waylon and I don't know why. I guess you could say, we are compatible, or I love him because, but then I have those days where I just love him and there is no reason and there is no reaction but because it's just the reality of my life. Then I think whether I would love him even if he did not love me back and I come to the conclusion that I would. If Waylon decided to leave me tomorrow I would still love him. Because the love I have for him is not a worldly love. If my love for Waylon was worldly it would be very easy to stop loving him because a worldly love is flawed and corrupt and isn't truly love. But because this love comes from God I can love him in a deeper sense.

Or I take my niece for another example. There is no way that my niece has done anything for my love. I mean she just was born four years ago and walked into my life and the love just blossomed. There is a love there that I don't understand and only comes from God. It's a love that leaves me speechless at times and allows me to realize that I am very very small in a very big story.

So maybe the love that is embedded in my life is not just reactionary but is just slowly being portrayed through different people. I can love God without it being a reaction because I am commanded to do so, but I feel like it goes much farther than that. It is not just a commandment but it is a planted thing. And when the love I have for God and for myself and for other people is watered and put out in the sun and nurtured the love grows and it's grows like a vine grows on a house. There is no stopping it and it tangles around everything and in everything and through everything.

So the question still remains; Can I love God solely and individually without any help?

And my answer is no. I can not love God first because He loved us first. It was His hand that reached out to us and I can grasp this love and unfold it as I encounter the different aspects of who He is through different experiences, scripture, prayer, and relationships.

Loving You Back

So yesterday I came to a short realization that is going to lead to a long resolution. God doesn't call people to love you back.

I was thinking about the greatest commandment, "Love the Lord with all your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself" Matthew 22:37-39

The Light Bulb came and I realized that I should stop expecting people to love me back.

Now, most of you out there reading this will find this to be quite unbelievable but let me explain to you why I have come to this conclusion.

Christ commands us to live three things out through this passage. He first commands us to love the Lord our God with everything. Not just with two or three parts of our lives but with every part of our life.

Second he calls us to love ourselves. Now this is generally overlooked because most of the time people immediately go to love your neighbor because it is the first part of the next commandment however, one cannot love their neighbor without first loving themselves. And one cannot love themselves without first loving God with everything they are. So in essence one who does not know God does not know how to love.

So if you didn't catch it before let me show you again in a list form;

1. Love God with everything.
2. Love ourselves.
3. Love our neighbor.

Well that's all fine and dandy but what should I do when I don't feel loved back? When I don't feel like I should be loved back? How should I react and treat the people around me who marginalize my ideas and my lifestyle?

God did not call us to love in a reactionary way.

It's interesting that we, as a consumerist society become so entrapped with being loved. We long so deeply for someone to understand us. We long so deeply to be whole and the only way this is to happen is through someone to make us whole.

However, this is not the case in concern with the life that Christ commands of us. He commands us to love the Lord with everything, Love ourselves with the Lord's love and love our neighbor.

No where in there does it say: Love others to make them whole, Love others so they will love you back, Love others so you may be whole.

The reason I have used this conditional love is because I have grown up in a culture of condition. 'I will give you this, if you give me that. I will love you if you do this for me. I will cherish you only if you help me out. But watch out because when I have a bad day, you will not be loved. When you don't do things that make me happy my love is not for you.'

So many times I have tried to earn this love from other people. I have tried to be good enough, or smart enough, or funny enough, or savvy enough, or culturally acceptable enough for the people that I so crave love from to love me.

But I don't have to be any of those things anymore. I can just be me. I am good just the way that I am. And I didn't find this out on my own but I let someone in who has the ability to tell me that I am good enough and that I can not earn grace but that it's a gift.

So I will strive to do what I have tattooed on my arm.

Love Recklessly. Another layer has unfolded in the revelation of what God's love truly is.