How we respond to the bad circumstances of this world will be largely determined by our faith in God. Dr. James Dobson in his book, When God Doesn’t Make Sense, writes, “Either we continue to believe in God’s goodness and postpone our questions until we see Him face to face—or we will descend into bitterness and anger for the suffering around us.”
I have thought about this a lot since Brandon’s death, but God was working in me to bring about this revelation many years before that fateful event. The following are excerpts from my journal entries in 2014 and 2015 and my final Christmas memory for this season.
I have come to the conclusion that we are worshipping God for the wrong reasons. We cannot worship God because of any one of His specific attributes or even a combination of those attributes (love, mercy, grace, etc.). We cannot worship God because of what God has done for us (No, not even because He has saved us). We must worship God and serve God primarily because God is God. God is our Creator and owner of all. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present. God is superior, and I am inferior. I do not need to agree with or understand Him in order for Him to be God. In fact, my opinion of God does not matter in the slightest. God is simply God. Therefore, God can do what He wants—no matter how badly it offends my human sensibilities.
I want to ask God, “Why?” Why do good people hurt? Why do Christians get persecuted? Why would you allow a child to be raped and killed? Why do you not intervene to protect the innocent? Why do you allow evil to have the victory so many times on earth? How can You who have so much power do nothing?
But, like Job, when I ask, I don’t necessarily like the reply I get.
God is God. God can do what He wants, when He wants, how He wants.
I feel as if I am stripping my faith down to the barest of bones here.
If God is God, and I believe He is, then I have no choice but to worship and serve Him. I am truly the property of God. I am not my own, nor am I the world’s. I choose to serve and worship God because He is God.
What happens when an event in my life gives me a picture of God that is contrary to His word? Do I try to explain God’s actions or reason them out? Reasoning at some point becomes too painful, too difficult, too convoluted, and the world notices. They think we are making excuses. So, how do I reconcile all the bad things that happen in this world? My answers become a revolving door of whys.
I cannot explain. I cannot comprehend. I cannot justify. If God seems unloving to me, perhaps I really don’t understand what love is. If God seems unkind, then perhaps my definition of kind has been tainted. If God does not seem good, then maybe, I don’t really understand goodness. After all, I am human. My words, thoughts, actions, and attitudes are based upon what I know, which comes from my own experiences, my worldly home and influence.
If God is Who He says He is, then I must choose to believe He is love, grace, mercy, truth, goodness, light, and life—even when it doesn’t appear that way to me. After all, I see now through foggy glasses, but one day, I will see and understand Him face-to-face. Until then, I choose to believe. God is God, and He loves me enough to send His Son to die for me. Those are two basic truths, two simple facts, and upon those I rest my faith.
Christmas 2014
“Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright…” I love that Christmas carol, but the truth is, the first Christmas was most likely nothing like the way we picture it in our minds. I doubt it resembled the nativity scene on my mantle or the images that our modern culture tries to sell.
Bethlehem was rocking. Imagine Christmas traffic at its worst, but instead of cars backed bumper-to-bumper, camels, donkeys and people were laden with packages, all trying to push their way through the narrow dirt streets. Many of them had traveled far. They were tired. They were stressed. They were probably ticked off. They hadn’t wanted to make the trip; they were forced to log in with the Roman authorities in order to be charged the “appropriate” taxes. Now, they were fighting the crowds, trying to find a place to eat, racing to see who would get the few rooms that were available for rent, just hoping for a place to catch a few winks.
When Mary and Joseph finally did find a place to rest, it was hardly the local Hampton Inn. While Scripture does not tell us that they stayed in a barn, we do know that the baby Jesus was laid in a manger; so animals were likely close by. I’m not a farmer or a farmer’s daughter, but I’m pretty sure that most animals (especially farm animals) come with their own array of sounds and smells. Despite the way our children’s story books picture the scene, I hardly doubt that their room was full of fresh, clean hay and unnaturally well-behaved animals. I imagine Mary and Joseph were probably surrounded by mooing, baaing, cooing, crowing, munching and, yes, even pooping noises.
Then to top it off, Mary went into labor…labor without a doctor or a nurse, without a mother, perhaps without even a woman to lend a hand, without a warm, comfy bed, without pain medicine. I don’t believe that Mary’s labor was any different to any other woman’s labor. I’m sure it hurt. In fact, given that she was a virgin, we have to consider that her experience may have been even more painful and terrifying than any ordinary first birth experience. Think about it. I’m sure it was anything but quiet. I’m sure she screamed and cried and moaned and whined. I’m sure she sweated, and tossed, and turned. I’m sure Joseph was beside himself with worry, and when baby Jesus was born, I am sure that he, like every other newborn, he cried too.
Then, when it was over, and Joseph laid that precious bundle in her arms, when Mary may have wanted to rest her weary head, who arrived on the scene but a bunch of excited and smelly shepherds babbling on about a choir of angels who had told them where to find the Savior.
It doesn’t seem like a very silent or holy night at all. No, I do not think that there was anything really calm about that first Christmas.
Yet, somehow, that realization gives me more joy and peace than the wonderful words of any beloved Christmas carol ever could. Because, you see, there is little silent or calm about my life.
Sometimes, I get so frustrated that my house, with four boys ranging from 10-18, is so loud. I can’t understand why someone always has to be fighting, arguing, fussing, whining, complaining, or aggravating. It seems a never-ending battle just managing to keep enough food in the kitchen and to make sure everyone has clean clothes to wear. Trying to homeschool the two youngest adds another level of stress. I’m not complaining; I’m just stating facts. It’s reality. Life at my house is not peaceful—no matter how much I wish that it were. Life is, for the most part, noisy and chaotic (and, yes, sometimes smelly). And I would venture to say that if you are honest, you would admit that your life is too.
After all, life just tends to be like that. Even in the midst of everyday joys, life is often cluttered and complicated, busy and boisterous. It is seldom, if ever, silent and calm.
And that’s why I find comfort in the true nativity story. Jesus came in the midst of the chaos of Mary and Joseph’s world. He didn’t wait until life was perfect and peaceful, calm and complete. He was born right in the middle of it all—a world where Roman authorities forced burdensome taxes and laws upon His people, a world where commerce was more important than compassion, a world where even a pregnant woman in labor could be turned away. Jesus came into a volatile, busy, loud, stinky, uncomfortable world, a world not so different from the one we live in today.
And Jesus still meets us right where we are. Jesus meets me in my chaotic home, when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m energized, when I’m tired, when I’m frustrated, when I’m not, when I’m focused, and when I’m confused, when life is silent, and when life is ever so very loud. Jesus is here.
In John 14:27, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Thank God that life doesn’t have to be picture-perfect for Christ to be present. Thank God that when He comes He brings with Him a peace that is neither circumstantial nor fleeting. When Jesus entered the scene years ago on that first Christmas night, nothing changed. The world continued to turn as it always had. The town was probably still buzzing with people trying to find rooms. The cows were still mooing. Mary and Joseph were still tired and sore. The shepherds still needed a bath.
But everything changed; the Savior had entered the world, and God’s great plan of redemption had begun. For those that knew Him then and for those that know Him now, Jesus brings true peace in the midst of chaos, an internal and eternal peace. Jesus is our Hope, our Help, and our Salvation.
So, despite the noise and craziness of life, we celebrate God’s great goodness to us this year. We are so blessed…
It’s our prayer this Christmas season, that in the midst of this crazy, uncertain world, you too have met the Savior who was born on that not-so-silent night—Jesus, who was born and who died, for you. If you don’t know Him, we’d love to tell you more about Him and His precious promise of peace. We love you and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Read “The End of Advent,” the final lesson in the 2020 Advent series.