Christmas in July

The day is drawing near. There is anticipation. There is excitement. There is a fleeting sense of reality and an increasing sense of a dream-like state.

The day after our engagement as Hunter and I drove to Louisville for a conference, we talked about the feelings of anticipation. Conveniently enough, we had just listened to a sermon on Christmas. It mentioned the feelings of hopeful anticipation for the day itself. The ABC 25 Days of Christmas Countdown begins, the turkey is eaten and Christmas music can finally be shamelessly played, and the decorations are in full force. But it’s not just Christmas day that we are preparing for. We are preparing for the birth of a Savior.

The danger in just preparing for the day itself is the sense of emptiness that will follow when that day is over. If our hope is just in the event, we will feel a deep disappointment following the conclusion of it. I hope this doesn’t sound too bleak, but it really is a serious matter to miss the point of the celebration. The good news in all of this is that after the day is over, we get Jesus. He isn’t born on Christmas and then vanishes 24 hours later when the day is over. He remains.

Yes, this is July. And yes, I have just compared our wedding day to Christmas, but soak up the incredible parallel that it provides.

Our marriage is not a wedding.      

And it’s not just a wedding day we are preparing for; it’s a till-death-do-we-part covenant.

The wedding ceremony begins our marriage but we do not cease to be married after the day has ended. When we wake up the next morning, July 23^rd, and it is no longer our wedding day, we are still indeed very wedded. The covenant doesn’t end when the wedding ends.

The tragedy of putting our hope in the wedding day is not only the disappointment that will follow, but also a serious lack of preparation. –It’s no different in preparing for Christmas day by hanging lights and garland, but forgetting to prepare your heart for the Christ Himself.

As we move forward to this incredibly joyous celebration, we remind ourselves that our end is not the celebration itself. It is in the covenant that we make to sanctify and selflessly serve each other until we are brought home to Christ, who is our ultimate end. Our lives begin with Christ, the Savior born on Christmas day, and our lives end with Christ.  

Lord, please keep our minds on the covenant we are making before each other and before you. Protect us from getting caught up in the excitement of the celebration and missing the point of what we are celebrating. Use the next 11 days, not merely as a waiting period, but to continue to prepare us and teach us about the gravity of the commitment we are making. And as we process the gravity of it, keep us from despair and remind us that it’s not ourselves that will make this marriage work, but it is Christ who holds all things together.

Walk by the Spirit

These thoughts were incited by a John Piper sermon called “The War Within: Flesh Versus Spirit”

As we continue moving towards marriage (12 days now), we are realizing how present that desires of the flesh are. 

We’ve heard lots of marriage advice, but the general consensus seems to be that marriage is a huge means of sanctification. This means that a LOT of dying to self and your own preferences happens. As Hunter and I spend more time together, we’ve been realizing just how selfish we really are. Anyone who knows us would probably stop me there and say, “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourselves! You’re doing alright.” But the truth is, the subtle sin that has been covered becomes quickly exposed. Marriage, and even engagement for that matter, is a catalyst for uncovering sin.

The selfishness that I’m referring to isn’t overt. It starts to manifest itself in inconspicuous ways… through gentle nudges to get our way, making sure our own needs are met first, hinting at what we want the other person to do for us, even “innocently” justifying our own preferences.

In order to identify the solution, the first step is identifying the problem. What is it that makes me unable to love the man I love most the way I want to love him? Well, we know the problem. We are both sinners. As much as we want to do what we know is right, we just can’t.

I think Paul explains it best in Romans 7: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that it, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do –this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body, that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Paul helps us clearly identify the problem, that is, we are still fighting a war against our flesh. Yes, we are regenerated (regeneration) and no longer slaves to sin because of the cross of Christ! We are made alive! But we are still being sanctified (Sanctification) and made new, which means we are still living in bodies that desire the flesh. And until we get to glory (glorification), that battle will be very present.

I know the outlook of this war between spirit and flesh isn’t looking good, but there’s more. Chapter 8 of Romans goes on to identify the solution, that is, the life believers have through the Spirit.

So where does that John Piper sermon that I mentioned way back in the beginning come into all of this? To be completely honest, I only listened to about the first 5 minutes of it. BUT those few minutes were rich, particularly the part about being “walking with” or in other words “led by” the spirit. Piper compares it to being led by a locomotive. If you think about it, all of the train cars behind really don’t have any power without the locomotive. Heck, they don’t even have engines! They’re really just wheels and axels. They’re good at following and that’s what they were intended to do. 

Could you imagine how ridiculous it would be for one of those train cars to try to deliver their cargo without being attached to the locomotive? SPOILER ALERT: Nothing would happen. The engine-less car has no power or momentum on its own. I know it’s more plain to see the futility of relying on our own efforts through the analogy of these train cars, but really let it sink in. No locomotive; No power. No Spirit; No power.

If we are not drawing from the power of the Holy Spirit to complete even the most simple of tasks, we are making a futile and power-less effort. It is so very essential for the Christian to be “attached” to the spirit if we are ever to begin to do the work of the Lord. Hear this and tell it to your soul: It is impossible to live the Christian life on our own. It is impossible. There is no back door to living the life God calls us to without God.

But hear this very very good news. God gives us Himself. God gave us Himself in Jesus, God incarnate, to reconcile His people to Himself through Himself. And God is presently giving us Himself in the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is God. He is God -- with all the attributes of deity. He is the third person of the Trinity -- co-equal with God the Father and God the Son.

Thanks be to God who delivers us through Christ Jesus our Lord!

Lord, help us to be more bendable to your leading. Just as a rigid train car will have a difficult time following, our rigid hearts will make it difficult for us to be led by you. Keep us humble and teachable, forsaking our own wills to pick up yours instead. Help us delight in following you and give us hearts that desire to attach onto you.

A Gentle and Quiet Spirit

This morning I was talking with my soon to be husband about our church’s Meditation for Preparation to get ready for the gathering. It’s a short reading and some questions that our pastor sends to all of the members of our church to help us get our minds right.

Scriptures for this Sunday:
Read Psalm 11. Where does David say the Lord is in the midst of your troubles? Does the Lord see or care for your concerns? Does your life reflect that truth?

As I thought through these questions, I couldn’t say that I always run to God in the midst of my troubles, even when being reassured by His word that “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne. He observes everyone on earth; his eyes examine them.” (Psalm 11: 4)

We discussed that it’s so difficult to be consistent with the way we trust God. Personally, I find myself doing either of two things: 1.) running towards God or 2.) away from him and turning to myself for help. The pattern for my own life seems to be that I turn to God with life’s “bigger” things, but tend to want to trust myself for smaller things. I think my reasoning is that the big things feel more out of control and daunting –I believe that I can control what I eat for lunch but I am more aware that I can’t find a job or sustain a marriage on my own. The truth is, though, that I can no more control the small seemingly insignificant life events any more than I can control whether or not it rains or whether or not I get into a car accident driving on I-275.  All of it is controlled by a very sovereign and all-powerful God.

Reflecting on these questions did something really important for my forgetful mind this morning. It reminded me of a simple yet day-changing and life-changing truth. “The Lord is on his heavenly throne.” This ought to change the way I approach things.

We’re either fixing our eyes on the transient things around us or on a never-changing God. Our eyes are fixed on something. But think about it, it is much more difficult to fix your eyes on a moving target than on something secure. It’s exhausting really. When I try to keep my eyes on the temporary things around me, it mostly just results in confusion and a lot of unrest. My mind is constantly swimming and trying to keep up with where my eyes should be. But when my gaze is steady on God, I can just keep my eyes on one place. I know that no matter what, I can keep my eyes anchored to the one who is on His throne and never leaves his throne. There’s no guessing or trying to find where he is. He tells us exactly where He is and where He will remain.