love

Those People

Sunday, we discussed a gigantic question that sprang forth from a quotation by David Guzik in his Bible commentary.

Guzik wrote, “If the Lordship of Jesus Christ is not greater than any difference you have with others – be it political, racial, economic, language, geography, or whatever, then you have not fully understood what it means to be under the Lordship of Jesus.” And the question was, “is it?” Or “Has it?” Or something like that. Have we decided that our wholly arbitrary love of the Dallas Cowboys and hate of the New York Giants is bigger and more important than a cross and empty tomb? Or where we live, or what we do, or what we think about the tax code? Are there places in our lives where we use the phrase that can so easily expose the innermost parts of our own perspective, “those people?”

Then, as so often happens, I was immediately faced with a situation that confronted me with the implications of living a life without walls, and free of “those people.” It’s a bit of an occupational hazard, but more than that, it’s a human phenomenon. When we decide to consider our own patience, for instance, we immediately receive opportunities to practice that patience, where we can easily see where we are deficient.

A boy on the basketball team is academically ineligible for the rest of the season and playoffs. He is very likable and a nice basketball player, and he is also lots of other things we might infer from his situation that takes him out of the game. And probably those inferences are the gate to a path we don’t belong. Maybe those inferences are right, too. But does their rightness matter?

Inferences invite us to look at their motivation from across the room, empathy asks us to imagine from inside their skin. Jesus asks neither. Jesus asks us to love them, without thought of motivation.

Now, as a side note, it can be important teaching & learning to explore the behavior of others. In addition, it’s vital to practice empathy (whether we are gifted with it or not) to make connections and allow us to better agape someone else. We can use another person as case study to look inside our own motivations. They become, in effect, mirrors. It’s not gossip (unless it is), it is curiosity and accelerates growth.

But back to this boy. When I heard, I was disappointed and frustrated at the impact upon the team. I inferred, and began the foundation on a wall that separated us. In my initial reaction, I was one thing and he was another, both of which are completely irrelevant, “under the Lordship of Jesus.” In this Kingdom, we are not different in the least, we are both children of the Living God, created in love, by love, and for love. He’s ineligible, I wasn’t (but could have been as a high school junior), but neither matters in the way Our God sees us, and the way we are called to see each other and bring peace.

Now, is it ineligibility, or is it the party designation on our licenses, how we maintain our yards, cars, and garages, or our habits and/or personality quirks? There is no us & them, only we.

To be honest with you, it’s uncomfortable and a real nuisance when this happens. It’s just eligibility on a high school basketball team, I’d like to leave it there, just once. Offhand thoughts and comments might not be windows into our souls. Not everything is a matter of divine significance. Except, of course, that it is. And that is kind of a pain in the neck.

The choice we’re asked to make, that plays out in a bazillion different ways, several bazillion times per day, is simple (yet never easy), “He is either the Lord of our lives, or we are.” Now what?

What If We’re Wrong?

We have to make decisions in, and about, our faith, right? Big decisions. Like, is the point to get out of here, escape this place, His creation, and go somewhere else? And if it is, what does that say about how we treat our neighbors, our pets, our environment, and everything else that we can see and touch? But what if that’s not the point, and we’ve neglected our home for this long? When God says “reconciling all things,” what does that mean? Is it like a reset, or a mulligan (like in Endgame when the Avengers go back in time and take a re-do)?

What if we’re wrong about each other? What if we are actually very trustworthy? Or what if we’re not? What if we should not have treated each other so awfully? Or what if we were too easy, and love is closer to what those people in the documentary I watched who ran teen camps in the deserts called “tough love?” What if we should’ve said “I love you” and “I’m proud of you” more often? Or is it possible that we said them too much and they lost all significance?

And I guess that’s my point.

Some decisions on how we live our lives don’t matter too much. Like the brand of toothpaste we use or how we fold our pants or what our favorite football team is. (Obviously, the right answer is the Dallas Cowboys, but everybody already knows that.) If we buy strawberry jelly and don’t like it too much, we can get another one next time. If our detergent gives us a rash, it’s uncomfortable, but it’ll go away and we can make a note to stay away from that particular kind.

But other decisions have much wider consequences. Some have eternal consequence.

If we choose the wrong person with whom to spend our lives, nothing is easy, we don’t want to go home, it’s tense and we’re full of anxiety, walking on eggshells. If we don’t tell them “I love you,” we might regret it forever. If we never hear “I’m proud of you,” we might spend our whole lives searching for it in all sorts of destructive ways.

Are we really thinking about our choices, are we intentional, consciously evaluating the things we value? Or are we sleepwalking, being swept along by what our parents or friends or celebrities believe & live, or are we just too busy and distracted to pay attention?

We’re going to be talking about community a lot. Are we spending time with our friends and family, with our tribe, taking the steps through this life together? Or do we find that most of our time is spent alone, isolated, behind screens, windshields, and walls? If that’s the case, is that really the choice we made, or did it just happen? Did we just wake up one day with no one to call with the celebrations or in our suffering?

Did we decide we weren’t worthy of beauty and peace? Or is that simply how we’ve always thought? And, really? Always???

Some of these questions absolutely need to be asked, because we didn’t choose them, it feels like they chose us. If we hear a lie often enough, it can sound like the truth, but it’s still the same filthy lie.

This morning, driving to the grocery store, I was thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we continue to allow the heresy of a salvation by works to subtly creep in, what exactly does that mean? And what if we’re wrong?

So, if the right theology is Grace+… If our salvation is lots of grace, but we have to do our part (no matter how large our part is)… If the True Gospel is closer to the gospel of Jesus and Chad (or Sally or Kevin or whatever your name is), and we partner with God to clean ourselves off to become acceptable, then what?

What if the Gospel you hear every Sunday, of Christ ALONE, is wrong?

Well, 2 things about that. First, the works: Ideally, our response is to live lives of love and peace and kindness and beauty, so maybe that might count. But does it really matter?

Is that one answered with a far more important question, why does “Christ Alone” matter so much? If the Gospel of Jesus ALONE is wrong, we would be guilty of shrinking ourselves and our egos, making Jesus the center of this wonderful Story, making it His Story. Our mistake would be to elevate the sacrifice of Jesus to cover all of us, everywhere, for all time. His life, death, and resurrection would be Everything. His love would be deep, wide, thick enough to hold every one of us as His children. We would define ourselves by/through Him, He would have the final (and only) word on our identity. We would, essentially, make Him bigger than He is.

But, on the other hand, if Grace+ is wrong… Then we elevate us, we make our actions, our behavior, our rule-following, necessary. The story would be ours. And we would minimize the cross, we would de-value the blood of Christ. We would say, “thanks, but it’s not quite enough.” Are we prepared to say that?

But what if we say that in a million ways, just because we never asked the questions, never thought to consider what we believe and what it all means? We started this post asking questions about some specific scenarios, but what if the way we answer the last one – if it’s a Grace OR Grace+ New Creation – is the answer for all of the other ones?

Nothing But Helmets For Everybody

Even though we were beginning a study on the Shield of Faith, moving on from the Helmet of Salvation, I realize now there is no moving on from the Helmet of Salvation. Of course, this reference is to the beautiful passage in Ephesians 6:13-17, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

I have struggled with weight for almost my entire life. I would decide to give up hot dogs or soda or ice cream or packaged foods or whatever, all modifications based in various levels of fact and/or current trends, and probably all fairly intelligent. It’s not great to drink soda, or to eat foods made in a lab rather than made in the ground. And hot dogs…while unbelievably delicious…well, there’s a reason we try so hard to not know how they’re made.

Anyway, I am able to give up donuts for a time, sometimes a long time, but eventually, they find their way back into my life, a bite at a time. I can lose a few pounds, and keep them off for seasons, but they surprise me and end up back on the cold, hard scale, my nemesis.

What does the weight yo-yo have to do with the Armor of God? My focus in the kitchen is usually based in a negative, what I must “give up,” in order to be a healthy person, to find a healthy weight. And our focus in the spiritual life is often driven by the same motor; what we have to stop, or what we can’t do, the thou shalt not’s. Right? I can’t lie or gossip or envy. So, we stop spreading the latest news at the water cooler, until we can’t. We stop telling any untruths, until we don’t. We stop eating bread, until we eat bread again.

This kind of negative posture is based on me, on my superior will power or self-control, but I think I’ve been very clear that when things are based on me being awesome and supremely capable, it doesn’t ever lead to lasting success. Maybe I can be awesome enough today, but on a long enough time line (depending on how motivated or shamed I am), I will always let everybody down.

Instead of all of the ways we have to be different, all of the behaviors and habits we have to stop, the Helmet of Salvation tells a different story. Instead of detailed lists of who we are not (and how we can improve), the Helmet simply states the truth of who are. We don’t get better, we get new.

My dysfunctional dance with weight mostly ended when the focus became health & fitness. I began saying Yes rather than No. I liked me, thought I deserved better than hot dogs and cookies with cheap unnatural ingredients from a factory. This is not to say I don’t eat those cookies, it just means my value isn’t tied to whether I’m perfect or not. And the behaviors that make me feel like garbage (the behaviors that “miss the mark”) because they’re beneath me, I don’t have to stop, per se, I just have to do the things that are in line with the honor and dignity with which I have been bestowed.

But I have to understand the “honor & dignity with which I have been bestowed.” I have to know who I am, to live up to that identity. Then, my worth isn’t based on my perfection – on my totally abstaining from hot dogs forever – it’s rooted somewhere else, in SomeOne else. And that is exactly what the Helmet of Salvation is all about, that’s why it’s the only thing I’m talking about for the rest of my life.

Reflections

In my reading today, I ended up stuck on Proverbs 27:19. My Bible is a New Living Translation, and the NLT of that verse says, “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.”

Sometimes, I’m just moving right along. Sometimes, I take notes. Other times, I simply soak in the words and the feel of the pages in my hands. (Incidentally, when I purposefully study the Scriptures, I use a computer and lots of translations. The physicality of the paper or the hard cover has no draw for me. Instead, then, bridging gaps and making connections are the point.) Today was a little bit different, though by no means rare or unusual. Reading for pleasure and communion became study, then back again, translations mixed, computer screens and the thin pages held hands with each other, to the extent that it wasn’t either study or communion, either work or rest, it was both, and. It was everything, dancing together, blending seamlessly into one.

And I was stuck. My eyes wouldn’t skip down the 1/8” to verse 20. This isn’t that unusual, either, and when it happens, I know I’m about to be laid bare and kneaded like dough.

“The heart reflects the real person.” Who am I, really? Would my heart agree? When I think about my heart, it’s the motivation, the why behind the actions you see. Why am I doing these things, any things? Is it ministry, like I think/hope it is. Or is it obligation, vanity, ego, simple image-making, people-pleasing, or something else that I haven’t yet considered at all? I wish I could tell you, once I was open and totally authentic, it WAS ministry!!! But I don’t know yet. I pay lots of attention to this very thing, but “the heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,” (as it says in Jeremiah) – it’s why I ask, seek, knock for clarity, to be shown my dark, deceitful parts before they can take root and lead me down paths not meant for me. But just because I pay attention doesn’t mean I can’t fall, or get confused, or misled.

So back to the matter at hand, why was I stuck on this verse 19?

The NIV translates it as, “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” Now, my life reflects my heart, which reflects the real me. What does my life say? And does it actually say what I think it does? Or what I want it to?

I don’t always know why I write these posts, sometimes it’s in writing that I discover the point. But I already knew, today. I knew before I opened my computer to type a letter.

The Scriptures are never simply one thing. This library of books is not just instruction, not just history, not just poetry, not just allegory, or parable, or prophesy, or love letter – it’s all of them. It cuts us, wounds us, and puts us back together and heals us. It tells us we are here, now, and we are special and loved extravagantly, and then invites us to grow and move beyond the here and now. This library also serves as a mirror, reflecting our faces, hearts and lives, back at us.

I’m pretty sure the answers to all of these questions I’ve asked aren’t important. (And if they are, maybe they’re the sort of questions that are answered with the Spirit in private;) But what IS very important is that we ask them. It’s important that we jump in enough to get stuck, that we acknowledge that we’re stuck, and that we care enough about the answers to stay stuck until we’ve asked the questions. Maybe today isn’t a day for answers, maybe just for questions. Maybe I need to ask if the values I think I hold are really the ones illustrated by my life. Maybe I need to ask myself, “is it, really?” Or “Why are you doing that?” Or “Why did you just say Yes (or No)?” Or “Is this love?” Maybe I need to be laid bare and kneaded like dough to awaken me to my own beautiful life. Today, I did. I don’t always listen, don’t always ask.

So anyway, what did I find in this reflection? Me. Like all reflections, I saw me, for all that means, the good (of which there is much more that I can see than ever before), the bad, and the places we (He & I) need to address. I saw guilt and forgiveness. I saw love. I saw the same thing I always see: a new creation.

It’s a new year, I wrote this to get to this one line: May we all follow Him into our own reflections, see the intense, boundless, endless love He has for each of us, and may we ask all of the questions.

New Creation

So, I have this very great friend who got married on New Years Eve. We’ve known each other for 20ish years and in those 20ish years, we’ve been through everything. She was married to a guy who turned out to be a, well, he turned out to be a guy NOT to be married to. We cried together, the 3 of us, The Angel, her, and I, in our rented apartment. I stayed in relationship with him for her, until I couldn’t, because as it turned out, he was also a guy NOT to be in relationship with. We drove together to pick up her things. We watched movies, ate ice cream, wept, laughed. We followed Jesus together, we mourned the loss of our church together. We fell apart, then returned. We hurt each other, picked each other up, carried the other, said things we can never take back, and said and did things that cemented our lives to the other. She prayed for God to bring her a good man, a man more after God’s heart than hers. She wondered if the prayer was unanswered or if the answer was a gentle, soft, “no.”

But, of course, there would be a man (I spoiled the ending with my first sentence) with such a beautiful heart, the kind of man that could/would be her husband. It’s not always that the best people get the best things, but when it happens, it must be savored.

As they enjoyed their first dance, the only 2 people in the world, I thought of this passage in Isaiah: “…The Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43:16-19) This was truly a New Thing. The “former things,” the “things of old,” we would not remember. That guy is forgotten. The years and years of patient waiting on the Lord, wondering if this moment would ever happen, are forgotten. In His timing, He had made a “path in the mighty waters.” Her mourning had turned to dancing before our eyes, and our only duty (our honor, our privilege) was to perceive it.

Earlier in the day, we discussed the new year, and our preparation for it. These 2 weren’t passively waiting for a miracle, and they weren’t restlessly trying to manufacture that miracle. They didn’t settle for less 10 years in. They simply stayed on the path, listening, wide-eyed and open-hearted, becoming the woman & man they are today. To paraphrase the verse in Proverbs 21:31, their horses were prepared for battle – they had prepared well, faithfully – but this victory was the Lord’s. This victory was always the Lord’s.

What are we doing to prepare for this beautiful gift of our lives? And how? Are we patiently faithful, or are we still choking the wheel, trying desperately to force what we want, when we want it. Are we frustrated & confused at the perception that God isn’t listening, or isn’t going to show up? When will it be me, my turn? Why isn’t He answering? Where is the victory?

I stood in the front as she walked down the aisle, I wondered how many of these questions she asked, and how hard it must have been to not settle for just another warm body. I have a great job, and I got to stand in front of everyone, look at them both, and say, “you both deserve this.”

I don’t know what this year will look like for us. I know it’s not off to the greatest start, as I sit here with a box of tissues on my lap waiting for the sinus medicine to work, but it’s only the 4th. I do know last year ended with a Big Win. We have questions to answer, horses to prepare, moments to craft, and people to love. So many people to love. He’s doing a new thing, for us, in us, around us, through us, and maybe we have 20 years of waiting to do, maybe we have ex-husbands to forget, maybe we have colds & flu’s to suffer, pain and loss to endure, but it’s springing forth, even then, even if we can’t yet see it.

Congratulations to the Mr & Mrs. And to all of us, a very happy New Thing!

Last Post of The Year, with an Important Announcement

The Important Announcement: Christmas Eve service is Sunday 12/24/23 at 7pm. They’re will be NO Sunday morning 10:30am service.

I pray for you, that you experience God’s love & grace in every way, having the wisdom to choose Him and the strength to follow through on that choice, carried by the Spirit living in all of us. I am honored to walk this path, together. You are so great, I hope & pray that you know that. We jumped into so many things, one day at a time, holding your hand as you hold mine, never alone, discovering our worth and place as loved children of the Living God.

I am thankful at the grace you’ve given me, more thankful for the love you’ve shown. I hope you have felt the same from me. If you haven’t, I’ll do better to show you what’s in my heart.

At the end of every year, I sit down and consider what I’d experienced over the last 12 months, where I’ve come from, where I’m going to, what I’ve learned, who I am now, and with whom I’ve shared everything. I make peace with who I was, hold him gently, praise some things, forgive others, tell him how proud of him I am (after releasing what I have not been proud of, thankful of what those things have taught me), then say good bye. I pick a new focus for the upcoming year. I can tell you I am very grateful, overwhelmed at God’s grace.

This is the last post of the year – at least, I think it will be. Everyone will be home in this house and I’m thinking I’ll take those precious moments to breathe. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you one of my favorite passages, Genesis 28:16. You see, this guy Jacob finds himself in the middle of the wilderness (code for where God is NOT) and drifts off to sleep. As he sleeps, he has a dream, and in the morning wakes up and says, “surely God was in this place, and I was unaware.”

I don’t think any of us should be unaware, anymore. God was in the wilderness then, and He’s here now, if only we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel. We can wake up, to God, to each other, to ourselves. We can love, and we can do that any- and everytime we want.

It’s Christmas, The Savior is coming as a baby, to be “with us,” so we can be with Him. What could be more wonderful? I’ll see you Sunday night (there is NO morning service;). Have an awesome Christmas, everybody.

Last Weekend

Last weekend was very full… There are many different kinds of full. There is a bad full, where the stacked responsibilities are burdens, greedy vampires that suck & suck, leaving us completely drained. But the good kind operates in an inverse relationship, where as the items are completed, as the to-do list decreases, our hearts and souls increase. As the calendar empties, we are filled, with emotion, meaning, purpose, joy, with love.

There is the full that crowds out connection and presence. We miss sacred moments and invitations in the service of our productivity.

And there is the full that uses the schedule as a guide to direct our own participation in the gifts of our lives.

As we move into the Christmas season and it’s demands, I pray that, as much as is possible, we choose to be this 2nd kind of full.

There was a memorial service, wedding rehearsal, wedding ceremony, 2-day basketball tournament, and church service, each overflowing with beauty. We – all of us, with very few people overlapping events – showed up, as we are, and generously poured what we had to give into each other, like human offerings. Death, life, creativity, athleticism, new creations, passion, pain, celebration, everything all at once. On Sunday morning, as we held hands at the end of the service, I was exhausted, on the verge of tears, physically, emotionally, and spiritually spent, yet very alive and keenly aware of the significance of the blessings.

I barely finished my lunch before falling asleep to the sweet, soothing voice of Scott Hansen of the RedZone. Then, last night, I made the final touches on my book, and ordered the first copies. It was at that “Place Order” click that I could hold no more and those tears finally fell. The significance of months/years of work becoming tangible, harsh vulnerability and the naive hope of it’s impact, after already struggling to hold the beauty of the weekend, was waaaay too much for my soft, hyper-sensitive heart.

We still need our tree, to do some more shopping, presents need to be bought, meals need to be planned, people invited, holiday parties to attend, and there are so many basketball games. It’s easy to think of these things as nuisance or bother, as if they are obstacles to the lives we’ve always wanted. But that’s simply not true, they are our “as we are going,” from Matthew 28, they are our Great Commission. They are our lives and they are full of wonder & awe, if we only have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel them.

This is the season where we celebrate The Creator of the Universe, and it’s Savior, “moving into the neighborhood,” a season of hope and possibility, of the Kingdom of God bursting into this fragile, broken, wonderful world. It’s a season of presents AND presence, both of which can coexist if we only decide they will. It’s a season of basketball games for sitting together and experiencing the extraordinary gifts our boys & girls have been given. A season of mistletoe for kissing, family meals for listening and laughing. A season of missing those who are gone. A season of heartbreak. A season of new people in our Bridge circle. A season of such unexpected beauty that sometimes runs us over, smushing us into the fabric of forever.

I don’t pray for less things to do, for a life less full. In fact, it’s the opposite. I pray for more – of you, more time together, more hugs, more prayers, more gratitude, more Christmas songs, more of the Spirit, and much, much more love for all of us.

Current Favorite

I’m going to share my lovewithacapitall post, again. There was a prompt on the hosting website and, as I began to fill this screen, I realized what I was actually writing about. The post, instead of being about the movies and songs we like now, superficial and light (as was surely intended by the prompt), quickly morphed into Sunday’s message on salvation, grace, and the cultural attraction to conditionality.

We are MFPs, extravagantly loved, and accepted, adopted into God’s family without a trace of the word “current.” And we are invited to also eliminate the currency of our love and commitment, become hi-fi brothers and sisters, and change the world, one extension of forgiveness & grace at a time, together.

Here it is:

Yesterday’s site prompt was, Who are your current most favorite people? It’s an strange question, feeling clunky and slightly unsettling. Most Favorite People should surely be capitalized, as if a title or award that is bestowed on the deserving. However, the inclusion of the word “current” implies that this title can also be rescinded. What is earned can be taken away.

Current MFPs are Chris Evans and Bong Joon-ho, star and director of the dystopian nightmare (yet still hopeful) Snowpiercer movie. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, who is expecting a baby with his girlfriend Sarah Jane Ramos, is, too. Why do I know who his girlfriend is? Or especially that they are pregnant? Is this really important for us to know? I’m not certain that all lines between public and private should be erased, but that’s a little strange for me to say as I sit in my living room chair writing a blog where I share all of the personal, sometimes intimate, details of my life with you. But I get to choose what is shared. Maybe Dak Prescott or Ms. Ramos issued a press release, but very often the breaking information/news is clearly not for me. The social contract of fame, whether I like it or not, has a very high cost.

What is unsettling to me about this question is the conditionality of it all. If Snowpiercer was terrible, would Joon-ho make this list? I wasted an hour of a Netflix movie, 6 Underground, before I had to turn it off with extreme judgment, and that director isn’t an MFP. Dak has been awesome lately, but the next time he throws 4 interceptions, or loses another playoff game, will he, his girlfriend, and his baby still be Most Favorites?

Nev Schulman, Max Joseph, and Kamie Crawford – hosts of Catfish – are perpetual MFPs. That sounds right. If they are truly our Favorites, they should remain favorites, right? Not all episodes of Catfish are great. In fact, most new episodes aren’t.

Morrissey is the best example of this contrast. He often says regrettable, problematic things, not every song is an A+ anymore, some solo albums are admittedly average, but he will stay my #1 MFP forever.

I’m so far considering celebrities or famous artists I’ve never met, but the temptation to carry this idea of currency is insidious, infiltrating our actual relationships and lives. We commit to our spouses, children and friends with the same level of faithfulness as our quarterbacks, and directors. If we don’t feel it right now, we move on, they were a current love, but that’s over and we’re down the road onto the next “current.”

Fidelity means “the quality or state of being faithful or loyal,” and maybe the term hi-fi shouldn’t apply only to our stereos. Maybe we should be hi-fi. Currency is fine for singers and sports teams, but not families and communities. I wonder how everything would change overnight if the impulse to disconnect, leave and find a new current based on this moment alone, were left behind. If our MFPs were never again current, and just remained the favorites they are now. Maybe we could just give our love, based not on performance, covering over the metaphorical interceptions and 6 Undergrounds. Maybe we could begin to choose hi-fi over why-fi, and just see what we could build.

2 Songs For Thanksgiving

Bruno Mars, in “When I Was Your Man,” breaks all of our hearts with: “I should have bought you flowers. And held your hand. Should have gave you all my hours. When I had the chance. Take you to every party ’cause all you wanted to do was dance. Now my baby’s dancing. But she’s dancing with another man.”

We all know this feeling, but maybe it’s not because she’s dancing with another man. Maybe it’s because she’s gone. Maybe it’s because she can’t dance anymore. But the feeling of, “if I only knew,” is real, and universal. We all understand “should have,” right? I should have held your hand one more time, when I had the chance.

The opposite is illustrated in Thomas Rhett, in his song, “Notice,” who sings: “At that party last night. Baby, I don’t know why. I forgot to mention. You were looking drop-dead. Not even a contest. Center of attention. If I had to say every time you looked amazing. You’d think I was joking. But I brag about you. When I’m not around you. You don’t even know it.. You think that I don’t notice. How you brush your hair out of your green eyes. The way you blush when you drink red wine. The way you smile when you try to bend the truth. You think that I don’t notice. All the songs you sing underneath your breath. You still tear up at a beach sunset. And you dance just like you’re the only one in the room. You think that I don’t notice, but I do.”

I have lots and lots of faults, too many for me to count (or to list), but one thing that cannot be said is that I do not notice. The Angel played this song for me, and the truth is that it’s not something I like too much. But I do like that she does. I love how she sits when we look at her phone while it plays, how her mouth moves to the lyrics. She knows I notice, and that’s why she curled up into my arms to listen to it with me.

I didn’t always (and, if we’re honest, I probably don’t always.) There were so many old, dead relationships where I was way more Bruno Mars than Thomas Rhett. The thing about the Mars song is that it isn’t to send us down a spiral of regret and self-loathing. Instead, it is a string around our finger, a reminder that nothing is to be missed. Both of these songs are sisters of Genesis 28:16, where Jacob laments, “Surely the Lord was in this place and I was unaware.”

Thursday is Thanksgiving, and this reminder is an invitation into a new reality that begins any time we say it does. But it is Thanksgiving, and it’s a very good time to say it does.

Of course, we should have held her hand one more time, but we can’t do anything about that now. Guilt doesn’t give us that one more dance, and neither does regret. We honor those moments we chose something else besides bringing flowers or giving our hours in a different way: by choosing to not miss the hands and hours that are here now. These gifts are precious and sweet.

There will be turkey or tofurkey, filling and apple pie (which my mom, for some reason, is now calling apple gazette), and people who are absolutely the very best and can be absolutely the very worst. When I talk about my sister, you will know she has always been my hero, and she has often been my nemesis, and my heart aches thinking about how much free time I haven’t spent with her. But what I will do is soak in Thursday on her couch with my mom (who is now calling apple pie apple gazette, and so will we), brother, nephews and my favorite dog ever, I will thoroughly enjoy every second.

The Rhett song has a line, “Baby, I don’t know why. I forgot to mention. You were looking drop-dead.” The conviction we feel is to not forget to mention ever again.

Look into their eyes. Hold their hands to pray, to say thanks. Say thanks for them and for the God who created us all and gave us to each other to make these days so full of wonder and light. Kiss too deeply, hug too long, laugh too loud, and eat as much apple gazette as you can, get sick on joy and love. It’s Thanksgiving!

About The Weather

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances…”

Next week is Thanksgiving, so it’s a terrific time to reference these verses. Give thanks in all circumstances. We talk often about creating lives of gratitude, and the reason we do it so often is because it’s so difficult. It’s far more natural to allow lives of resentment and lack. Nobody has to tell us to take anything for granted, to hold grudges, or to try to control everything and everyone. I don’t remember any class syllabus with, “The Necessity of Wanting What We Don’t Have.” Yet, these are the wide paths we regularly walk.

Do we rejoice always? Pray continually? Give thanks in all circumstances? All? Really?

The words of Scripture confront us with a gigantic, usually unspoken, question. Are these characteristics we are asked to build realistic? Is the life Jesus (and in this case, Paul) calls us into possible? Or are they simply ideals, never meant for practical use?

It’s easy to argue the latter. Listen to how that passage begins (verses 13-15): “Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

Do I even have to ask if we live in peace with each other? How about our success in being patient with everyone? Everyone? And strive to do what’s good for each other and for everyone else? That’s infinitely more complicated when we’re focused on doing what’s good for ourselves, right?

In a world where peace is in such short supply, where the accepted norm is to pay back wrong for wrong, these words seem so far away. Loving our brothers and sisters, moms and dads, loving ourselves, is so challenging, how can we honestly be expected to love our neighbors, much less our enemies? It’s hard to even guess what it means to love our enemies. Is it hyperbole? Just pie-in-the-sky rhetoric that sounds awesome on a mountainside or in a letter to a church?

But there is the end of verse 18: “…for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” What about that? We wish to know God’s will for us and our lives, but maybe we already do, we just keep asking because we don’t like the answer. God’s will for us is that we are patient? Sounds that way. That we give thanks in all circumstances? But what if the circumstances are terrible?!? (Just a quick note; it does say in all circumstances, not for all circumstances, and that’s a big distinction.)

The last 3 words are the keys to all of it, of course. Chad alone can’t do any of these things with any consistency, if at all. But Chad in Christ Jesus is a new creation with a new nature, and with those things being true, anything and everything is now possible. We can be patient, kind people in a chaotic, upside down world. We can rejoice always, and we can give thanks in all circumstances. We don’t have to live the way we have been, we can live beautiful lives of hope & love in the middle of this hurricane. And maybe that can calm the hurricane. Or maybe it can’t. I don’t know. But it doesn’t really matter if I know or not, that’s what faith is.

Next week is Thanksgiving, and it sounds perfect to be the jumping point into living 1st Thessalonians 5 lives. Even if the turkey is dry or the pies are burned. Even if we happen to be alone (and if you are, maybe you would call me). Even if lots of things. We can start there, one day, step, moment, at a time. Let’s try to change this weather together.