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This Sunday marks the beginning of Advent, and I’ve asked Christine Sine, an author and blogger at God Space, one of the best Advent and Lent resources around, to share a guest post about the Advent Season.  She most recently edited a collection of brief devotions for Advent and beyond called Waiting for the Light:

The Christian calendar begins at the end of November, with the season of Advent and our preparation for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas. This season means different things to different people.

For some the season of Advent is just a time to enter into the hype of consumer binging and overindulgence. For those of us who follow Christ, this season is meant to have a different focus. This is the season when we all should await the coming of Christ in quiet expectation.  We don’t just await his coming to us as a baby, we enter into the anticipation of the coming of a Savior who not only brings personal salvation for those who choose to follow him but who will also redeem all creation with love and righteousness. 

This is also the season when we anticipate the coming of a God who brings justice for the poor and freedom for the oppressed and judgment for the oppressors.  For still others it is the remembrance of a child whose birth two thousand years ago radically refocused our world.

Christians of all traditions are discovering the value of taking time in the days that lead up to Christmas to break away from the consumer frenzy of our culture and prepare their hearts and minds for the coming of Christ.  Waiting for the Light is a book that responds to this desire. It is more than a devotional; it is a complete guide to the Advent and Christmas seasons providing liturgies, weekly activities and daily reflections to equip and nourish us throughout the season. Reflections are contributed by bloggers across the globe who love God and love to share their faith with others.

And if you want to spend more time in quiet reflection during this season you may also like to follow along at http://godspace.wordpress.com where we will continue to add new thoughts on the theme Jesus is Coming – What Do We Expect?

One of the most disconcerting phrases in the Bible may be, “We rejoice in our sufferings.” How in the world could a sane person ever arrive at the conclusion that suffering is something to celebrate?

Even worse, we’re guaranteed troubles, trials, persecution, and other forms of suffering in this world. Something in the back of our minds may tell us this is the case, but it doesn’t help to read that right in the Bible.

In other words, the Bible assures us that trouble is coming. Then, once trouble comes, it assures us that we can rejoice in the midst of it. How does someone arrive at this point? In fact, should we even desire to reach this point?

Discipleship is all about the process where God reshapes us into people with his priorities. We become committed to manifesting his Kingdom in this world and detached from the desire to build our own kingdoms. Instead of building faulty structures for our own security and comfort, the Kingdom sends us out. Before we’re willing to leave our faulty buildings behind, we need to be changed.

Left to our own devices we’ll opt to stay put, to compromise the calling of discipleship. People untouched by the power of God have not been conformed into his image. They will steer clear of anything that could lead to suffering or persecution. They have their own kingdoms to worry about.

We’d never take the risks of discipleship without God’s power in our lives that makes us holy and renews our minds. This process of being conformed into God’s image is why holiness is so critically important for disciples.

As we learn to value holiness, we’ll realize that suffering is a sign that this world is passing away, that God’s Kingdom is our only hope. Suffering helps us see the world from God’s perspective.

Suffering reminds us that our little kingdoms are weak and flimsy. God is present in the midst of our suffering, preparing us for the day when all tears shall be wiped away and our joy will be made complete.

I had a bit of a grumpy afternoon yesterday. We were expecting thunderstorms, and I somehow got into a huff about our afternoon being ruined by rain and lightning and hail the size of hamsters.

I wanted to be outside, enjoying sunshine, not keeping a constant eye on each new wave of dark clouds.

I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. I just sort of a stew a bit and somehow I get worked up for a few hours. It passes, and I realize that the world isn’t so bad a place. We have rabbits who frolic about our home. There is coffee to drink each morning. Blueberries are in season.

Life is good.

I was praying this morning, and I began to think about Jesus’ teachings about fruitfulness in Matthew 21. Without sounding too dramatic, Jesus said that bearing fruit, i.e. producing the kind of life that God desires, is really, really important.

Ethics and practice are inextricably tied to our salvation in the Kingdom of God. Jesus wants people who actively reflect God’s character and nature. If we don’t reflect God’s nature, then we need to figure out who our Lord truly is and which kingdom we’re living in.

I began to think that I hadn’t been all that fruitful yesterday. Then I realized that I’d been plenty fruitful to a certain degree, but I’d been producing the wrong kind of fruit.

Yesterday I was producing the fruit of control and selfishness, wanting things to go exactly according to my plans. Rain in the afternoon, eh? Then I’ll just be tense, grumpy, and moody about it—introducing my fruit.

We’re always producing something. The scriptures make it really clear that the fruits of God’s Spirit are things like peace, hope, self-control, and even patience for dealing with rabbits who nibble on coffee tables. It shouldn’t take us long to figure out what’s influencing us based on the fruit we’re producing in our lives.

If you’ve had a yesterday like mine, take heart. God wants us to be fruitful. He’s not sitting back waiting for us to let him down. He wants to help you and me rest in his perfect strength today and make a clean break from yesterday. We can produce good fruit today because God is passionate for his people, compassionate when we repent, and powerful enough to change us.

I pray that you’ll produce fruit today that results from time spent resting in God’s presence, enjoying his favor for you. May you abide in his goodness and love, allowing his power to bring about good works and joy in your life.

All of the talks within the U.S. government about potential spending cuts has me really worried that our nation could make drastic cuts to one of our most important groups: nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapon is always a sound financial investment because there really is nothing like guaranteed mutual destruction to make you sleep well at night.

We’ve built our weapons with great care and precision, stored them in specially designed bunkers to keep them warm and dry, and even paid people to care for them. What kind of heartless savage would tell our loyal weapons, “Thanks for preventing WWIII, but we need to balance the budget and you’re going to be dismantled.”

Shame on us. How could we be so uncaring as to tell some of our 5,000+ nuclear weapons that they’re superfluous and unnecessary! If China only has 240 nuclear warheads, it’s only because China clearly fails to see the long term value of stockpiling thousands of nuclear weapons.

Before we allow our politicians to sabotage our national security by dismantling even one weapon, let’s consider these important facts about nuclear weapons:

Nuclear Weapons Need Shelter

Under their cold metal shells, nuclear weapons really are defenseless. Sure they could blow you up if you don’t handle them properly, but every nuclear weapon just wants a quaint little bunker to call home. I’d think we could at least maintain enough funding to make sure that every single missile in our country has a place to call home. As the largest economy, that should be a simple task for us.

Nuclear Weapons Need Care

But it isn’t enough to provide shelter for our missiles. We need to maintain them, plan for their future, and make sure that they’re ready for any challenges to come into the future. If we don’t invest in our missiles, they may let us down when we need them most.

Nuclear Weapons Deserve a Dignified Old Age

As nuclear weapons enter their golden years, they won’t be able to care for themselves. Our weapons have worked hard all of their lives to prevent nuclear war, and now we dare to send them off to a landfill or wherever you send hazardous waste? No weapon should have to worry about whether it will have a safety net of support to ensure it has a dignified existence when it can no longer take care of itself.

I understand the pain of our lawmakers who have to make tough cuts to our budget, but there are certain budget cuts that are simply unconscionable.

How could we make a budget cut that leaves a missile out in the cold?

How could we fail to invest in the future of our missiles, especially missiles in poor states that may not be able to afford caring for them?

How could we let our weapons down late in their existence when they’re at their most vulnerable?

Perhaps Jesus said it best when he told his disciples, “Blessed are the peacemakers who prevent wars by using nuclear weapons to assure the mutual destruction of everyone.”

If we want to assure our continued existence and peace, we need more weapons. Let’s tell our politicians to make sure our budget continues to make that happen.

Soldiers ask the hard questions civilians can avoid if they so choose.

They have to face a fellow human being and decide whether or not that person represents a threat that is worth killing.

They have to leave their families behind and live in the unreal world where death could be waiting behind every corner.

They have to believe in their mission each day, even if they have their doubts.

They return home with the memories of the war alive in their minds.

Soldiers Who Doubt

I read a lot of history, and I’m always struck by how many veterans from the Second World War returned home with a strong commitment to peace.

I also read and listen to the accounts of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and if you read enough of them, you’ll find that many soldiers over there are wondering what the heck they’re doing over there. While some are quite certain about these wars, there are many who are afraid to voice their doubts.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday night our Alpha group at the local prison watched the video and met in small groups on the topic of the Holy Spirit. While I believe it’s really important to learn about the Holy Spirit—you have to start somewhere—it can also be really discouraging.

I now have a laundry list of all the awesome things that are NOT happening in my Christian life.

I caught myself sort of begging the Holy Spirit to descend on me during the video—such is my insecurity at times. However, the point of it all is that the Holy Spirit is within us, and we can’t replicate the Holy Spirit’s work among us.

Our job is to seek and wait. Those two words come up over and over again in the Psalms. Stillness and silence often help, which run counter to everything in American culture.

The truth is that the Spirit sometimes just shows up. Sometimes we need to fight off every distraction and get a drop of God, and it feels like the most precious thing in the world. Other times God fills us with himself in ways that almost seem wasteful. I want to bottle some of it up for later.

Christianity is all about God bringing the dead to life—people who spiritually have no life going on and no power on their own to connect with God. They can only seek God and wait for God to bring the Resurrection.

The Christian life is full of Good Fridays where we confess our sins and die to ourselves. We’re waiting for Sunday to come—the day when God comes to us with his presence, joy, and peace. These are the moments we realize that every other source of joy in ours lives, even playoff hockey, cannot compare with the goodness of God.

However, stuck between Friday and Sunday is Saturday. Before I start singing in an auto-tuned voice, “Gotta get down on Friday” (which can have a sort of spiritual double-meaning if you take it out context), I wanted to say something about Saturdays.

We have to persevere through our Saturdays. There’s no way around it. God does the resurrecting. God raises us on Sunday on his schedule.

On my way to visit some family this weekend while Julie wrapped up some some pressing school work, I put some worship music on in the car. All of sudden, KABOOM! God’s presence invaded, and I experienced three hours of spiritual insanity—joy, hope, peace, love, etc.

Driving through the abandoned wasteland outside of Hartford with empty lots and heaps of rubble and trash, I had a sense of God’s love for the broken people and broken places of this world. The places that no one gives a damn about are his treasured possession—the places where he is Lord. This was his domain.

I sensed his love and delight for me, his child. I felt his acceptance erasing the insecurity I manifested on Wednesday. In a few minutes he erased all doubt and fear.

When I tell people about Christianity, I don’t need to talk about too much theology, even though I’m passionate about theology. It’s moments like these when you meet with God and he turns your insecure Saturdays into the assurance and peace of a Sunday.

I follow Jesus because he rose one Sunday 2,000 years ago, and he continues to raise people every day.

Distance from God because of sin is bad enough without making up more sins, guilt, and despair on our own. Sin certainly creates a distance between us and God, but we don’t necessarily need sin to do that. We can handle that quite well on our own.

That isn’t to say that we are at fault whenever we feel distant from God. However, it will help us to eliminate some possibilities when we sense we are far from God.

Some struggle with this more than others, but here are a few ways we can isolate ourselves from God:

Expectations

I’ve expected God to show up for me in a particular way, and then felt disappointed when he didn’t. After seeing God show up for someone else or even revealing himself to me in the past, I’ve expected God to keep revealing himself in the same way.

Sometimes the Jewish leaders asked Jesus to show them a particular sign or miracle so that they could believe, but Jesus didn’t always give them what they asked for or expected. God defines the time, place, and means of his revelation. Our place is one of attention and awareness to him so that we’re ready to receive him when he shows up.

Moses didn’t expect to find God in a burning bush.

Guilt

We can feel bad in general when God doesn’t show up in the ways we expect or because we don’t have a certain kind of spiritual life. While Godly sorrow leads us to repentance and restoration, it’s possible to just feel bad and inadequate on an ongoing basis.

Guilt can creep in when we compare ourselves to others and minimize what God is doing in our own lives. If guilt is keeping you from God, then you can rest assured that it needs to be surrendered. We can use guilt as a crutch, “I’m a bad Christian, but so long as I feel guilty about it, I’m OK.”

God intends his people to be free from guilt, able to enjoy his presence with freedom.

Tomorrow’s Post: Drawing Near to God

Can you imagine the disciples signing up to follow Jesus, but then Jesus drops a thick scroll in their laps and wanders away? That’s how Christianity feels to me sometimes.

Christians have committed themselves to following Jesus, but then they’re handed this thick Bible and need to figure God out by thumbing through it. Who said that Christianity had homework?

And so we dig into the stories and hope that we’ll feel something, wondering what Christianity is all about. Is the deity in the Bible supposed to match the deity we experience today?

When praying we may feel discouraged because it seems like we’re just talking into the air. Where is God? What is the Holy Spirit up to?

When I read the Bible, I keep bumping into promises for abundance like a bubbling stream, for deserts turning into well-watered farms. We’re promised that God is seeking us, placing us where we are so that we can find him. Why does it feel like God is so hard to find if he’s actually reaching out to us, seeking those who are seeking him?

While I’m committed to studying the Bible and to persevering in prayer even when I don’t feel particularly spiritual, I want to know why God feels distant sometimes—perhaps he feels distant all of the time for some of us.

I’ve met Christians who seem to have a direct line to God. Other Christians have struggled through dark nights of the soul where there’s a long-term heavenly radio silence. What’s normal? What’s wrong, if anything?

We touched on this topic last week at small group, and the more I discuss it with fellow believers, I’m convinced that this is a complex issue that often defies one-size-fits-all answers. Having said that, the solution may not be as far away as we suspect. In fact, what we suspect may be a large part of the problem, but that’s for the next post.

As we dig into this topic, I’d like to look at the ways we can make things worse and then how we can take positive steps forward in our relationship with God, particularly in our prayer lives.

The Next Post: How We Make Things Worse.

Following Jesus takes a lot of work and effort, but it isn’t necessarily the kind of work we expect. In fact, the effort that following Jesus requires often looks like nothing.

While the Christian faith is ideally an active one, one of the most important acts a Christian can do is this: rest. Sitting, listening, and making ourselves available to God are all part of the “active work” of resting.

I’ve felt called to spend more time sitting lately, and it has done so much good for helping me focus on God’s Kingdom and the needs of my relationship with Jesus. In addition, I’ve become a little more focused on praying for others and far more aware of the self-centered nature of many of my prayers.

More than anything else, I’ve learned that I need more time to rest in God’s presence. A little can make me aware of my need for so much more of God. I’m grateful that he has given me this kind of discontent.

I pray that we all can figure out ways to seek God and his Kingdom first by resting in him before the worries of our to-do lists take over.

For More About Rest: Check out Bonnie Gray’s post “One of the Biggest Rest Killers.”

Tomorrow’s Post: How Christian Writers Teach Us Theology

When playing baseball in Jr. High, I used to watch with relief when a ground ball streaked toward shortstop or a fly ball soared into right field. So long as I didn’t have to deal with it at second base.

If I didn’t make any errors and at least hit the ball once, I could usually go home happy.

This is not the attitude you want if you plan on actually winning a game.

While the members of a youth baseball team can coast through a season within thinly veiled disinterest, the stakes change significantly when we start dealing with the Christian life. In fact, half-hearted interest is a huge problem.

Paul speaks of the Christian pursuit of God as something we throw ourselves into with complete devotion, straining to win. We aren’t just in the race. Being in the race as a Christian won’t do much for us.

In fact, if we aren’t actively trying to win the race, we may be in trouble.

We need to be careful that we don’t allow the results or numbers focus of the business-world to influence us. We don’t have to freak out about bringing verifiable data to God. A PowerPoint presentation of our quarterly spiritual growth and progress is not required. 

I have the sense that God is searching for people who are deeply committed to him. That means besides believing in him, we are reordering our lives in the short and long term around him.

God is looking for commitment on par with Rocky: rising early for an egg drink, charging up the Philly art museum steps, and pounding hunks of meat at the local packing plant. His life revolved around his goal. I doubt anyone would punch meat for the fun of it.

Our time in the car, waiting in line, or lying in bed before falling asleep are all opportunities to draw near to God. We can find moments to advance throughout our day, and other times we’ll need to change our schedules in order to make God our top priority.

Drawing near to God is our goal. 

If we aren’t making progress toward giving ourselves completely to God, we are in danger of being distracted by an unhealthy focus on things such as money, sex, power, or listless amusement. That isn’t to say we can’t have those things in their proper place. However, if we aren’t moving toward God, we run the risk of being pushed away from God.

I see the Christian life as this ongoing process where we’re continually learning to surrender more and more of ourselves to God. We don’t arrive at a place of complete surrender or deep holiness overnight. It’s a long-term training process with some short term rewards leading to the greatest reward at the end.

Ask God where you should begin.

I started swimming laps back in November. It was more like splashing a lot and drowning a little. I needed lots of breaks, and I couldn’t do the freestyle/crawl stroke too much. I mixed all of these made-up strokes together. A few months later I still struggle to keep a fast pace during my laps—“no pain” is my unofficial work out motto—but I can swim relatively well for 30 minutes with a few breaks.

Training myself to exercise regularly has been a difficult process, but it’s paying off in the short and long term with better health, less stress, and sound sleep. Those rewards were not apparent at the beginning, and there were moments of frustration, but winning the mental battle of the first few swims was the worst of it.

God can help you ask those first questions, take those first steps, and sort out what needs to change. God wants to be found—at least eventually. Finding God may not be easy sometimes, but I’ve often found that those times of waiting and uncertainty were generally part of him breaking down unhealthy patterns in my life or teaching me something I’m not expecting.

God wants us to thrive, experiencing the full peace and joy that he gives us. If we want those things too, we won’t find them by doing the bare minimum.