Christmas —
A time to restfully wait.
Wait for the coming Christ,
Wait to cherish the precious Gift,
Wait as an art of life,
Wait because it strengthens you.
Because in a season where it’s all about the gifts,
You can easily miss,
How the Magi gave the Child
their gifts;
The shepherds their path,
And the angels their songs.
But Mary her womb —
And with that,
Her trust, her life, her everything.
We can give Him our heart;
turn down all noise,
tune up our thanks.
Sing a melody of love
let it reverberate,
an anthem of loud trust.
Jacob of the Bible — he ran.
“Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran.” (Genesis 28:10)
He ran from the comfort of home.
And from the people he loved.
He ran with the lie that it’s a birth order that’s needed to make him right in life.
And a firstborn right that would set him right for life.
And when you somehow miss that order — or anything else you think you need to get ahead in life — you can somewhat end up struggling and striving, scheming and shoving.
Just so you can stay atop.
So you won’t fall behind.
I know this face.
I was, had been, and sometimes am.
But that night, under the starry host and fifty miles away from home, Jacob in his utter aloneness and with his utmost forlornness,took a stone to lay his head.
And dreamt.
He saw a stairway.
There at the very top of the ladder was God, speaking to him.
And this is where it gets me.
Sometimes we may run all we want.
Try all we can.
And still find ourselves — a fugitive.
A runaway staring from the bottom of the ladder figuring out how on earth we’d ever make it.
A soul still circling crazy to save a sane seat in the supposed sweet spot.
“Surely the Lord is in this place and I wasn’t even aware of it!”
Genesis 28:16
And these ladders in life — those meant to raise you higher, get you somewhere, make you someone — only get you tired in the pursuing.
The steps don’t always stack up for those born without a silver spoon.
You can find yourself sequestered from everything that is indeed true life.
But God,from the top of the ladder, speaks Jesus;
He became the stairway, the bridge that crosses us over our biggest gulf.
He isn’t just pointing us to the way —
He is the way.
“…the Son of Man, the One who is the stairway between heaven and earth” (John 15:1)
He speaks hope, and whispers it unto us:
“Let Me be your way”
“Let Me be your one ladder to everything you would ever need in life.”
He hung there on the bloody Cross one day; the true ladder bridging us towards forgiveness, redemption, eternal life — so our scarcity can be forever changed to His all-sufficiency.
I can testify…
He’s been this ladder over us.
A banner of love.
Everlasting arms around us.
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)
There is grace unmerited, undeserved, reserved wholly for His beloved.
Grace that makes all our gaping losses covered.
Grace that turns scars into scabs, heals our wounds.
Grace given out of His fullness, so we can be full of Him.
“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given”. (John 1:16)
And so this Christmas:
Stay in the Word.
Rest in its authority.
Because grace isn’t some sort of some spiritual cosmetology.
Truth liberates; an emancipator to our freedom.
Faith transforms; changes our natural polarity. It makes the cowards courageous and the silent speaking.
And so wherever you are today —
You can come to Him.
Find your purpose and potential, significance and safety in Him.
We can thank the stats, or whatever our status; but trust Him for our security.
Because on many runaway roads —
When we’re looking for ladders,
We can see Him there, be found by Him here.
Here at the sink, behind the wheel, and in the indefinite period of all the waiting — we can be met by Him, in all these imperfect places of our lives.
We can cease working for Him, and really learn to care like Him.
We can stop wishing a life that does great things for God, and instead, build a life that encounters this great God, every day.
Because it’s true:
The art for celebrating the good life isn’t in the producing or performing, but in the presence of Peace, the One Person.
So go —
Stand in the hallway and stare at all the blinking lights of your Christmas tree.
There is a Cross from which He hung, so you can have a ladder that reaches up back to Heaven;
Your one step up so you can enjoy this gift of rest —
This gift of being.
That roughly there,
In the rough, sketchy, strained patches of our lives,
We can all step right on and up.
Confidently, calmly.
Because we will be met by Him who will always lift us up.