Top 10 Posts of 2020

 Happy New Year!

We're nearly done with 2020 and into 2021.  Each year I post a "best of" of the year's posts from this blog.  Looking back at the post from this year allowed me to remember the turmoil and the blessings of this year.  I pray our 2021 will be less wild than 2020.

Enjoy 10 top posts from 2020:

1) She Didn't Want to go to Australia

2) How to Think Biblically About COVID-19

3) My Miscarriage Prayer

4) I Saw His Face

5) Can You Say Black Lives Matter?

6) Skin in the Game: A Conversation with White Mothers of Black & Brown Children

7) Dear Worship Leaders

8) Hallowing our Heavenly Father's Name

9) Little Big Prayers: Praying with Kids

10) New Life, Nausea & Answered Prayers

Advent: Peace

 What brings you peace in dark places?

December is the darkest month of the year and for some of us this has been one of the darkest years in our lifetime.  Advent is about how God brings light into our darkness (Isaiah 9:2, John 12:46).  Fittingly we celebrate Advent with candles: Candle one of Advent is Hope, the second is Love, the third is Joy and the last is Peace.

Peace means many things.  It can mean the absence of national enmity.  It can mean no personal conflict.  It can mean, like the Hebrew word Shalom, the wholeness and rightness of the world.

So, what do we do with the "peace on earth..." proclamation the angels gave the shepherds at the first Christmas?  What is peace on earth when Boko Haram kidnaps hundreds of boys and girls, when communities and police can't agree on how to best protect cities like Minneapolis, when those who pledged to protect and teach instead molest and use, when we can't stomach even calling a relative due to past pain, when we see a virus infecting and killing and our response to it is arguing and name calling?

What do we do when peace has been proclaimed but the world still looks and feels dark and scary and chaotic and dangerous?

My three-year-old son Joshua has recently become scared of the dark.  Children being scared of the dark really isn't as silly as we think it is.  Naïvety wears off and children realize some things want to hurt them.  They, like adults, become afraid of the unknown. They insert monsters into their unknown and we insert expensive car repairs or floods or muggers into our unknown.  

Today I asked Joshua, "Are you afraid of going into a dark room when you hold my hand?"  "No," he replied, "I'm afraid when I go into a dark room alone."

Holding Daddy's hand calms whatever fear cripples Joshua from entering the dark playroom.  This reality is precisely the peace that Christmas offers us.

God promises to be with us.

"Even when I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me."
-Psalm 23:4

We see this promise littered all over the Bible: Isaiah 41:10, Joshua 1:9, Romans 8:38-39, Hebrews 13:5, etc.  God promises to be with us, before us, behind us, within us.  God can give us peace through His presence.  Christmas confirms this.

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' ... which means, 'God with us.'" -Matthew 1:23

When we walk in the dark places we can have peace because Jesus was born to be Immanuel.  He came to be God with us.  He came so that we can have the Holy Spirit indwelling us.  Jesus came so our hands can be held in the dark.

Jesus will come again to make the full peace He provides a full reality.  He will come again to end injustice, violence and all malevolence.  Until then, we hold on to the promises tight enough to have tranquil peace in a still dark world.

The peace proclaimed 2,000 year ago is here, but not yet.  During Advent we meditate on Hope here but coming, Love felt but not fully, Joy experienced but wanting more, and Peace here and now but also not yet.

2020 has taken us all into to rooms darker than we would have chosen.  Rooms lonelier and scarier.  2020 has brought hundreds of thousands of my countrymen to the valley of the shadow of death.  Latch onto the promised Immanuel.  Peacefully hold on to your Daddy's hand in the dark today.

Advent: Joy

 What brings you joy in 2020?
What brings you joy when you're at your breaking point?

Perhaps those seem like the same question after the year you've had.  If so, then you need to look at the third Advent candle.  Candle one is Hope, candle two is Love and candle three is Joy.

The Christmas season is very often described as a season of joy.  Many of our most joyful moments have come at this time of year.  But what is it about Christmas that brings us real joy?  What is it about Christmas that is so joyful this year?  What is it about Christmas that promises to bring us joy in whatever circumstance we find ourselves?

"Long lay the world in sin and error pining
'Til He appears and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."
-O Holy Night

If we honestly look at the world we can see and feel that it is lying in sin and error.  We can see that it is full of souls searching for worth.  If ever in my lifetime, this year the world feels weary; weary of sickness, infighting, politics, racism, isolation, fear, etc.

What is this hope that makes the weary world rejoice?  What is it about Jesus that makes our soul feel its worth?  What is this new and glorious morn that is breaking into existence yonder?

Our world, we, need what Christmas inaugurated.  We need to hear the good news of "New Management Coming Soon".  We need to know that a king has been born into the world.  We need to know about the humble baby that has come to earth and will return to earth as triumphant king!

The joy of Christmas isn't just that the Savior came to earth to save us from the penalty of our sins.  Oh, it is that, but it is much more.  Christmas is about what the magi said: a king has been born.  Jesus is our king who has come and will come again to rule perfectly.  This good news is so poignant, so relevant, so important for us to hear in 2020.

"No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found..."
-Joy to the World

This oft skipped verse of Joy to the World holds a key to finding joy in this Christmas during a pandemic.  Joy to the world is found in the good news that Jesus' reign reverses the curse.  No sins, no sorrows, no thorns.  The New Heaven and New Earth will not have pandemics, will not have infighting, will not have racism, will not have election cycles, will not have fake news: This is good news!

"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.'" 
-Luke 2:9-11

This is Gospel.  Jesus' birth is good news of great JOY that will be for all the people.  The Gospel that Christmas announces and reminds us of is for all people.  It is joy to a weary world.  This truth is gives us lasting joy at our breaking point. This is a tried and true source of joy, even in 2020.  

Let your mind understand and your heart be filled with this joy today.

Christmas Letter 2020

 Merry Christmas!  We hope this e-card finds you well.

2020 has been a year for our family like no other year, but that's been true for everyone.  The year has been strange and trying, but it has been good.

Anna and Joshua had birthdays, but the birthdays were very different.  Anna turned 1 on February 2nd surrounded by family.  Joshua turned 3 on May 14th celebrating with grandmas and grandpas on video chat.  Joshua was very excited though that a firetruck came to the house to help him celebrate and he really handled the disappointment of not having a big party in stride.

Joshua hit a big milestone.  He began preschool this Fall. He's really loved school and his friends and has been learning so much.  Unfortunately, he's done some preschool from home recently but will most likely go back in-person in January.  Joshua has been so resilient with all the changes in his world.  Luckily, Anna has little idea how different life has been this year.  

2020 also brought us severe sorrow and great joy.  In March Christine found out she was pregnant with our third child.  We were very surprised and excited.  Sadly, just after Easter Christine suffered a miscarriage.  We had always feared a miscarriage and known statistically that it was likely to happen to our family at some time, but it hit us hard.  That child's due date just recently passed and though we miss him or her we are thrilled that they get to celebrate their first Christmas with Christ Himself.  Our sorrow soon changed to joy in September when Christine became pregnant again.  We were fearfully excited.  This pregnancy is going well and the baby is due to be born on May 25th.  We've decided to not find out the gender until birth.

This year is a year we will never forget.  We've had highs and lows.  We've been cognizant of the moments that will eventually be in history textbooks.  We've palpitated between anxious and trusting.  We've added words and phrases to our lexicon, like social-distance and church on the couch, that we never saw needing.  Matt's prepared, unprepared and re-prepared to cover various sports seasons.  The kids discovered how exciting parks re-opening could be.  Christine wore more P.P.E. than ever before at work.  2020 will definitely be burned in our minds even though it's felt like the world's slowest blur at the same time.

2020 has also been different because it has mostly been spent with just our nuclear family in another way.  Our foster sons left us in January.  Our teen went to live in Texas with his dad and our toddler went to live with our wonderful friends who are inching closer to adopting him and his sisters.  

This year has offered us many chances to drown in worry, but thankfully we know a better way.  Christmas reminds us that Love Himself came down into our mess to deliver us.  Jesus has come and Jesus will come again!

The little baby in the manger grew up to be the man who gave us a great promise that we cling to in 2020:

"In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world." 

-John 16:33b

Advent: Love

 How do you know someone loves you?
How do you love others?

The first candle of Advent is Hope and the second is Love.  Love is a fitting Advent candle because God is love and Jesus is God.

Love is too often ambiguous.  Many of us can feel it better than explain it.  So to understand love we must look at its definition.  Jesus and His actions give us the definition of love.  

Jesus in all of His life has shown and is showing pure love.  But what is so loving about Christmas that we spend one of the four weeks of Advent dwelling upon it?  

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 
-John 3:16

We don't often think of this verse as a Christmas verse, but it most certainly is.  The very first gift given at Christmas, before even those the magi gave, was Jesus Himself.  God so loved the world, that... Christmas.

So, we've established that God the Father is loving, but what about Jesus?  Let's look at another lesser used Christmas passage:

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made Himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself

and became obedient to death...

even death on a cross!" 

-Philippians 2:3-8

Jesus, being God Himself and therefore equal to the Father, had to agree to this plan.  In fact, being God Himself, it was Jesus' plan.  At Christmas Jesus lowered Himself beyond our wildest imaginations.  The absolute value of His condescension is immeasurable.   From the apple of the eye of Heaven to the womb of a poor, teenaged girl to the cross!

True love must condescend. 

Advent is like a coin.  On one side we look back to the love that was shown; on the other side we look forward to the full experience of that love.  And today, we invest ourselves in living out what Advent teaches us.

When our hope is in Christ we can love like this.  When we're confident in how we are loved and abide in that love, then we can confidently, relentlessly and selflessly love like we're loved.  If we aren't confident in our hope we will have trouble condescending because we'll be afraid of losing more than we'll gain.

We are to love in this way because we know who love is.  We are to love like this because we are to mimic Jesus.  We are to love like this because the Holy Spirit grows us into mature, new creations of the perfect Creator.  As Sinclair B. Ferguson says in his book Maturity, "love... is Christian maturity in action."

We're also to love in the here and now because it pays dividends.  Notice the rest of Paul's poem about Christ in Philippians chapter 2:

"Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place

and gave Him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in Heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father."

- Philippians 2:9-11

Christ's awesome condescension rendered Him a reward.  Any condescending we do in love will also lead to reward.  Not the same reward as Christ, because our condescending is not worth comparing, but a reward nonetheless.

"'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brother or sisters or mothers or father or children or fields for me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields... and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.  But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
-Mark 10:29-31

True love, condescending love, is always worth it when done out of love for God and for neighbor.  At Advent we look back at our example of love and forward to our reward while living out ever-maturing lives of love.

"Stir one another up to love and good works" today.