The Language of Advent

This morning I woke up early for band practice before church. The sun rose, as it seemed to me, even earlier, unaffected by the numbers on my alarm clock and the recent time change reflected there. It filtered new rays of light through a canopy of misty clouds, sending with them what may be the last remains of the season's warmth. A cool breeze blew through branches overhead, teasing the leaves still holding fast to near-winter branches while their less tenacious rusty-brown brethren rustled together across the driveway.

I stood there for a moment, looking and listening. A shaggy black dog shifted down the street, sniffing from mailbox to mailbox. He found nothing, the squirrels nestled away in their nests. The birds had abandoned the trees like the leaves, taking their early morning canticles with them. There was no other stirring, no other sound. The wind whispered a hush over the neighborhood like the Spirit silencing Zechariah when he doubted the angel.

Always Looking

Although we are brand new customers of TIC Federal Credit Union, I have never been inside one of their buildings. TIC happened to be the institution that the car dealership used to help us finance our new vehicle. Last week, I had no idea where to find a local TIC branch to make good on our first payment. The website claimed there was a branch in our hometown of Smiths but provided no address. Smiths isn't a big place, and I've lived here all my life. I thought I could picture where it was probably located.

So off I went in search of TIC. But when I arrived at my targeted destination, what I found instead was a Wells Fargo. I know Smiths like the back of my hand. Where else could this place be? I was running out of time, and I had to pick up my kids from school. The payment would have to wait. After all, I'm sure there's a grace period. Then, on the way to my kids' school, I spotted what I had been searching for. There was the local TIC branch directly in front of Walmart. Now, although I almost never enjoy going to Walmart, I must say that I have been there countless numbers of times. How long had I driven past this very TIC and never paid it one ounce of attention? Why had I never seen it before? Why couldn't I find a place that I had been next door to for years?

When my son, Noah, was younger, he would find coins on the ground almost everywhere we took him. Like a little hawk, he would pick up coins in his sight that we would have stepped right over. I always thought it was because he was closer to the ground. One day I asked him, "Noah, how do you always find money on the ground?" He replied, "Because I'm always looking."

Stop Trying to Stop Sinning, Part 1

What if the best thing you could do for your Christian life is to stop trying not to sin? What if your efforts to stop sinning are at best a waste of your time and at worst actually hurting your spiritual life?

While in high school, I worked at a pharmaceutical retail store similar to Walgreen's. My boss, an older Christian man with a charismatic personality, had a favorite question that he asked me repeatedly. I am sure he asked me this question at least once or twice a week. "Brad" he would say to get my attention. "Do you love Him?"

I knew he was referring to Jesus. I would answer affirmatively, slightly embarrassed at his forwardness. He would press further. "But do you really love Him?"

The All-Satisfying Face of God

"You fill their womb with treasure; they are satisfied with children, and they leave their abundance to their infants.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness."
Psalm 17:14-15

My kids and I have started a new morning ritual this school year. Every day, as we make our way to their school, one of them reads a Psalm aloud. After the Psalm, there is a moment of silence and then a prayer. That quiet moment between the psalmist's prayer and our own is one of the most tangibly (and yet intangible) holy moments of my day. The Lord has spoken prayers into our hearts, and as the truck engine rattles and hums its doxology, we silently prepare our hearts to respond in kind. By May, we will have traversed our way through the streets, through the school year, and through the Psalter with our prayers for mercy, justice, and jubilation over both.

Last week, Noah read Psalm 17 for us. I have probably read this Psalm numerous times, but it took my 10-year-old son reading these verses about children for me to more deeply understand what this prayer means. It is a prayer about satisfaction.

Here Comes the Sun

"Here comes the sun.
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's alright." - George Harrison

I could never live in the state of Washington. It rains too much. Or so I've heard.

Every so often I wake up with this feeling that something is missing, like the means to get up and start the day is still tucked away somewhere under the bed covers. Eventually I slug my way over to a window and realize that I was wrong. My absent enthusiasm is not hidden under sheets but behind thick, dark clouds. It's a dank, dismal morning with no visible sunrise.

Mission

"Make a table of acacia wood - two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold molding around it."
Exodus 25:23-24

Honestly, it's one of those parts of the Bible that is really easy to skip over. When the Lord wants you to build something, He can be painfully explicit in the building plans: use this much of this material on this part of this thing which is to be this size - no more, no less. And so on and so forth. I realize that, tedious as it appears, this is still God's Word, so I sort of feel guilty if I skip over it. My typical solution? Speed reading.

But when I recently encountered the passage in Exodus in which God gives building instructions for His tabernacle, I wasn't bored. I was actually a little jealous.

Come and See

"And I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
U2

"God looks down from heaven on the children of man
To see if there are any who understand, who seek after God."
Psalm 53:2

There is this scene in the early chapters of the gospel of John where Jesus has one of His first encounters with a couple of His future disciples. Up until this point, these two men have been disciples of John the Baptist. But when Jesus shows up and John begins to call Him "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," the disciples can't help being drawn to this mysterious figure.

After one such comment by John as Jesus passed by, these two disciples begin to trail Jesus, following Him from a distance to get a better understanding of this holy stranger. Jesus is aware of their presence, and He turns and asks them a simple, yet very revealing question: "What is it you are seeking?"