pray for Haiti

FROM IHOP-KC BLOG ON JANUARY 15, 2010:

Shortly before 5:00pm on Tuesday, January 12, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the nation of Haiti near its capital city, Port-au-Prince. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that this is the strongest earthquake to hit Haiti since 1770, with its effects being felt more than 200 miles away. Approximately 3 million Haitians (nearly one-third of Haiti’s population) have been immediately affected, and over 100,000 people are currently feared dead or missing. The United Nations is releasing $10 million in aid while many countries, including Iceland, Venezuela, China, UK, Israel, Russia and France are also sending help. (Sources: CNN.com, FOXNews.com)

Join us free via live webstream to cover Haiti and its people in prayer at this time of disaster and tragedy. We’re praying for Haiti during all our intercession sets (12:00am, 4:00am, 6:00am, 10:00am, 4:00pm, 8:00pm).

IHOP–KC will be sending aid and supplies through relief teams in the next few weeks and months. One team from Crisis Response International (CRI), an affiliated justice ministry of IHOP–KC, left yesterday (Jan 14th) and another will leave Tuesday (Jan 19th).

To partner with IHOP–KC in the relief effort for Haiti, please click here.

Intercessors, please pray that the Lord would open a door for the gospel to go forth in this nation and for many lives to be saved and touched by the love of Christ!

Friends and family - please join us in praying for the Haitian people in this time and please keep donating (as I know so many already have) to the many relief efforts already on the ground in Haiti.  Every little bit helps.  The work in Haiti is just beginning.   We have friends from here at IHOP-KC and IHOPU already there and more close friends leaving this weekend and next week.  Teams from IHOP-KC (through Crisis Relief International) are coming and going each week.  Our hearts are with them, who knows we might even go too, but for now, it is our privilege to stand and to pray day and night for Haiti’s fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons…for those facing the most unimaginable loss and an unthinkable future.  Please continue to pray for those traveling to Haiti in the weeks and months ahead, for strength, for compassion, for protection and safety, and more than anything, that Jesus would be known – that the beauty rising from these ashes would be the love and glory of Christ, even as the songs of the saints in Haiti can still be heard as the sun is setting with sweet voices of trust and worship rising amidst rubble and tragedy.  

Oh Jesus, be near.  Be nearer still… may they know You, my Compassionate King.

With love,

Karli & Stephen

in quietness and stillness, the holy roar of the unseen

I really want to post about something else that Lord has been touching my heart with related to Heaven, Eternity and Jesus & Job and us.  Intrigued?  Well, we will see if I ever put it to paper… it’s just where I’ve been meditating and reading lately and my heart has been full.  But again, that is going to have to wait… I just don’t have the words yet and it’s still such a tender place with Jesus that I’m not sure I’m ready or willing to let it go, if that makes sense.

But tonight, as I was sitting in complete stillness communing with the Lord, I began to ponder the work of silence in my own life in God.   I’ve been working on the overarching theme of the curriculum this semester for our beloved 2nd year students at FSM and the Lord really, firmly put something in our hearts… the words Solitude, Silence, Compassion and Community.  What’s beautiful to me about those words is that they all belong together.  They aren’t four different ideas for those who abide in Christ and in whom Christ abides.  I won’t go into the curriculum for the IHOPU students, but sovereign and kind as the leadership of Jesus is over my life, somehow here in the mundaneness of document typing, email reading and writing, and meetings about curriculum, He has managed to bring my heart into a place of deep fellowship and gratitude for these gifts and inward realities in my life with Him.

In 2004, Stephen and I had just been married.  We were married by candlelight at sunset in the midst of truly some of the greatest people alive in the earth today — people who in my humble opinion, the earth is wholly unworthy of,  (minus a few comrades and dear souls that it still makes me sad to think about their absence to this day).  In those hours, we felt like we were on top of a majestic snow-covered mountain world, completely “other than” in its richness and beauty and love, and maybe just a little closer to the sapphire pavement : )  To be clear, it was “just” the Colorado Rockies.  We really love it there though.  That night and many trips before and since have been some of the most powerful and obvious ”mountaintop moments” of our life together, if that makes sense.  Yet inevitably, going back to 2004, after two weeks of being surrounded with snow and mountains and beauty words alone could not define, at long last, we had to pack up and leave our dreamy little world there and head back down the mountain.  We drove down the winding hills laughing at the words we spoke to one another just two weeks before which began, “On the mountaintops and in the valleys…” and ended with, “I choose love… I choose us… until the day we see His face.”  It was a sign post, a prophetic covenant we made there on that mountaintop, to each other… but more than that, to the Lord.  We both made commitments to the Lord during that time that would set our lives on a course we couldn’t have known then… a course with one purpose and one purpose only, that Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Beautiful One who came and dwelt among us and revealed His glory would reign supremely in every area of our lives, our hearts, our souls, our minds, our strength, that in everything and in every way, Jesus Christ would be preeminent, no matter the cost or how narrow the way.    (Col 1)

And so the next step in my personal journey was into a deep, dark valley… it was a valley that I was somewhat familiar with.  I had traced its outskirts.  I had taken a few steps in here and there.  But this time, the invitation or really the divine thrust was into the heart of the wilderness in a way that I could never have imagined before then.   I wish I could say it was voluntary.  I wish I could say that I signed up for it… that I followed Him there… that my heart’s desire was to journey there.  But no, really no… it wasn’t my radical-ness and super holy heart that took me there.  It was Another who led me there… “not by my will or in my own strength, but by His grace alone.” (also in our wedding vows, crazily enough)

Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
   and bring her into the wilderness,
   and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give her back her vineyards
   and make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.

“And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘Master.’”

I will betroth you to me forever;
       I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
       in love and compassion.

I will betroth you in faithfulness,
       and you will acknowledge the LORD.  (Hosea 2)

And so it was… a wilderness indeed, but one with a purpose under Heaven. 

As a sidenote, so no one is now trying to imagine what circumstance might have contributed to that wilderness,  I will let you in on some of that time period, just enough to avoid vain imagination bunny trails, for both our sakes : )  The main reason had to do with my health.  It went downhill (valley dwelling downhill) fast that year.  As a result, my ministry changed, my ability to do normal every day things changed, our schedule and day to day life changed, our finances changed, our relationships with others changed, really everything changed; and as if all those changes weren’t enough… I had to fill out endless reports and questionnaires describing just how bad things really were, listing in detail just how “unable” or disabled I actually was.  The physical part was hard, of course.  But in those first few months and even years, the harder part was the real wilderness.  And that had to do with my heart and my soul, not my body. As everything was stopping and as I became increasingly ‘unable’ to do the things I wanted to do and the things I thought I HAD to do to be me, I ran (hard) into a wall that was the reality of just how barren my heart really was.  How I had defined my life was so much less about Christ Himself than it was everything else.  Who I thought I was was so much less about Jesus than it was about ministry, what I could do, how I contributed, who others thought I was.  And I felt like I was being barraged with words – so many words, in my mind, from my mouth, endless words and definitions and limitations, even in my prayer life.  So while sitting in my living room or bedroom for hours and hours every day, not even able to go to the Prayer Room with Stephen (a lot of time alone – more time than I had ever been alone before), I was being stripped… layer by layer of pride and imagined control… layer by layer of false identity… layer by layer of false motivation… layer by layer of false understanding about who I thought I was before God… layer by layer of false understanding of who Jesus really is.   Before then, my life was really full, but what I didn’t realize yet was that my heart was not very full at all… and I mean in comparison to Fullness Himself, not by any other standard.  I felt like I needed the reality and love of Jesus in a way that I had never needed Him before, but the ironic thing is that what I was really doing was realizing how deep and wide and great the need within me had been all along… so much so that I tried to fill it with a thousand other preoccupations (not even bad preoccupations) and a milieu of distractions (distractions many times done in His name).

In quietness and in trust shall be your strength (Isa 30:15)

And then one day, in the middle of an afternoon, I was stripped of one final thing… words.   Part of it was that I was thrust into silence with the season (wilderness silence I guess you could say).  Being at home alone for the same amount of hours that Stephen had to be at the House of Prayer left me with long, long hours of silence.  Who was I going to talk to??  So I talked to God, and talked and talked and talked.  And then one afternoon, I remember the entire thing so clearly…  it is almost like it happened 5 minutes ago and not 5 years ago.  I was sitting before the Lord in a ridiculous amount of physical pain and feeling as though the world was going on without me and without my permission while I was at an involuntary standstill, utterly stuck in some dinky apartment in South Kansas City (because in those days my beloved husband would have to carry me up and down the stairs from that apartment – ahhh, Stephen was the grace and the beauty and just a moment to moment drink of cold water in that season – you have no idea)… and that was it… I was stuck, I was alone, and I was without words.  In that moment, I truly had nothing else to say.  I just let a pathetic little ‘help’ fall over my lips before throwing my hands up in silent desperation before the Lord.  What happened next completely and totally changed my life in God from that moment forward…silence, silence, silence… a long painful silence with the singular companion of a deep ache within… and then, suddenly… something amazing happened… I heard.   I heard.  And it was no whisper that came that day… it was a Holy Roar of the One unseen as He infused His heart and renewed my hope while I just sat there in silent longing.   I don’t know how long I was there, but for some time, the Lord was with me, speaking to me, showing me, helping me, loving me and writing on my heart a Hope that does not disappoint.  It was actually in those very moments that something in my heart grabbed onto the glory of the Incarnation in a way that is still shaping my life to this day.

“A flood of words is never without its faults…”  (Proverbs 10:19)

Before that day, most of my prayers were long prayers… the longer, the better because I had much to say, much to ask for, much to process with the Lord.  And they were sometimes loud too (for me anyway)… because the longer and louder, the better, right?  Then He might actually hear me and understand what I am trying to say.  Most of my prayer life was what I thought prayer was supposed to be… talking.  It isn’t that I never listened or adored or worshipped before that point, but when I went into the place of prayer, I most often started with talking and ended with talking… and if I’m really honest, there was a lot of talking in between too : )  Before that day, I had never realized the real limitation of words and speech.  In one majestic afternoon of silent desperation at His feet, I was transformed by the reality that Paul spoke of to the church in Rome… sometimes there are no words but:

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  (Romans 8:26)

Something would be forever changed in me that warm afternoon in 2004… and many things, great and glorious things, have been changing in me in the many, many afternoons since.

In the beginning of that season, I thought solitude and silence were literally ruining my life and destroying the best parts of who I thought I was.  I watered that wilderness with many tears, to be sure.  But what I didn’t realize (though I should have – I had read the Desert Fathers and the stories of old, but none of them can console you when you are truly in a season like that – especially when it’s sovereign [the heart part anyway])… what I didn’t realize was that solitude and silence were working in me the greatest gift I’d ever been given from the Lord.  So much of Life happens in the deepest, most hidden places – in secret silence and solitude… like the seed that works through winter to resurrect the green within and then push it through the hardened, dirty cracks of thawing earth and soil to finally find its way to Springtime’s sun.  What I didn’t know was that in secret, in places that I could not see because of the harshness of that long winter, God wasn’t destroying at all (at least not anything good), He was planting and growing and watering in the garden of my heart. 

And me… I was waiting.  I was listening.  I was growing.  I was changing.

FINALLY, Psalm 27:4 was more than just a great verse with great language that I’d sang and heard and said and written and prayed a thousand times.  FINALLY, that young girl sitting at Jesus’ feet while all the other “leaders” around her and even her own sister criticized the futility of her actions… finally she wasn’t just a vision of a life that seemed out of reach in our day and time… that little girl was me!  I was actually there.  I found my way – rather He found a way for me to understand, to know, to sit, to actually listen and hear and taste and see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.   He took me to the bottom of myself where all His deepest riches were buried and He got me out of the crowd, shook everything in my mind and heart that needed to be shaken, and then He waited for me to do just one thing… stop talking, stop thinking, stop doing… and just be. 

Now, five years later, I honestly don’t know how and when it changed, but most of my prayers are prayers with no words, though certainly and obviously prayers with words and supplication are very important to our life in God too and to God Himself.  But it is the effort that is gone.  I used to try to fill the atmosphere with prayer… I made efforts to pray in the right way and at the right times… and of course, I just prayed because I loved God and I wanted to pray because I needed and wanted to know Him.  But now I catch myself in prayer without even realizing I had started to pray - if that makes sense.  As if my prayer starts not with my lips, but from my very center.  Ceaseless prayer makes so much more sense to me now – still mysterious, but more real than ever.  And my mind is different too -  I don’t know how it changed, but when my mind wanders… it wanders to Jesus as if in pursuit of the silent longings and reachings stirring within.  I used to think about a thousand other things first and try to repeatedly set my mind on things above, “gotta set my mind on things above – whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, right.  true, noble, pure… what a cute shirt, I wonder where she got it – oooh – not so much good shoes… oh yeah, true, noble, pure, things above…” - anyone else know that speech?  But somewhere along the way – and I really believe the way for me was through that valley and the experience of a place of holy solitude and silence that Jesus was more than willing to fill with His presence and His words – I was transformed and my mind was set on things above, not by my super-powered will, but by the Gracious Giver of good gifts. That’s not to say that I never think of things below (of course, I’m a person… I think of the dumbest stuff ever and even dwell on and stress over things that are just pointless, like a conversation that I had where I wish I said something different… you know, right?  Or is that only me?  But it’s less and less often with time, and that’s amazing to me.)   But what I love and what I’m grateful for, because I don’t feel it was my doing at all, is that constancy of prayer, of reaching, of pondering… that sometimes, many times, it catches me by surprise and takes my breath away in humble gratitude because on autopilot my mind wandered to a scene in the Gospels or my heart was reaching in silence to hear the only Word that means anything.

So tonight, I am profoundly thankful and my heart overflows to a Bridegroom God that leads His Bride to valleys of trouble sometimes to make clear His intentions and His heart.  I Love you with an Everlasting Love… I Lead you with cords of lovingkindness… Remember who I AM.   I am thankful for a place to sit at His feet and hear from Him.  I am grateful that though I am probably not even at the shore yet, He has set me on a pilgrimage of diving deep and searching out His glory.    I am most grateful that it is His Word that saves and not mine… that He alone speaks and calls things as they truly are so I may be defined by Christ and Christ alone…

I am grateful that in the quietness and stillness of this weak little heart, there abides a Holy Roar, it’s the Roar of the Unseen… the true North within leading this pilgrim ever Homeward to my King and His Glorious Kingdom.

**Picture above from ”Let the Lion Roar” ~Animalgal300**

hope

Read this…

that’s all I have to say for now…

more to come.

noah and his guitar

Noah got a new drum AND a new guitar (a Cars guitar no less) for Christmas.  On Christmas night, he played and sang to “Uncle Shane’s” new CD (Everything is Different, which is SO good and I highly recommend it) for a long time as we all just took pictures like paparazzi and enjoyed our little boy!  It was so cute… he would sing “worthy of affection” followed by “all His glor-eeee” and praise Jesus.  During the “I’m alive” song, he spun in circles singing with increasing volume as the crescendo of each chorus, then put his hands up to worship Jesus.  We all just watched with love and adoration…

 

 

Isn’t he the cutest?

I have a video from my phone, so I just need to figure out how to upload it.  Anyway, took these pictures trying to figure out my new camera (most incredible, humbling gift I’ve ever received — thank you to everyone who did that!!)

I have another post coming… been drinking at the well of Christ’s meekness and His command to us to love one another the same way.  I’m also in a big, bad flare, so pray for me.  Hoping we can get to at least some of Onething Conference… but not looking great at the moment.

Hope you guys had an amazing Christmas… and may Jesus meet you as we head into a new decade with His counsel, truth, love, and mercy.

everything…

When JESUS had spoken these things, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify and exalt and honor and magnify Your Son, so that Your Son may glorify and extol and honor and magnify You; since You have given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him.

And this is eternal life: to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and to know Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent…”  (John 17:1-3)

Whom have I in heaven but You, JESUS?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but You alone are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  (Psalm 73:25-26)

Scriptures:

• 1 John 1:1-4
• 2 Peter 1:12-19
• John 11:1-44
• Romans 12:15
• John 17:1-11
• Psalm 73:23-28

Yesterday, my mom and Stephen’s mom came over and we all made Christmas cookies with Noah (which was so much fun – I know this is crazy but I have actually never made sugar cookies and decorated them at Christmas so it was really special to me).   Then, after TuTu (my mom) and Grandma (Stephen’s mom) left to go home, Noah and I went through ALL of his current toys and gave away 1-2 older toys for every new Christmas present he had under the tree, which was no easy task (seriously, you should see the presents under our tree – they go beyond the tree into all parts of the living room now - he’s the only grandchild on either side of our family, but it’s really crazy).  Then, after Noah went to bed, Stephen and I stayed up to wrap some of our Christmas presents and put them under the tree.  As I went to bed last night, I put my head on the pillow thinking of  and having great expectations about a wintry white, dreamy, joyfilled Christmas morning, thinking of Noah’s sweet little excited expressions as he unwraps a new drum or some other exciting toy, and with a really grateful heart, I was just thanking Jesus for all the blessings in our lives and for my wonderful family…

For my selfless, godly husband who is my best friend and my absolute most favorite person on the earth – this wonderfully strong and compassionate man sleeping beside me right now who just by living his life, seen and unseen, inspires me every day by the wholehearted and remarkable way in which He loves and follows Jesus.   There is no greater thing in a husband or a father than his devotion to Jesus Christ.  Truly his whole being is utterly and singularly wrapped up in the Person of Christ (for real) and I absolutely love that we can talk about Jesus and about the Incarnation for hours and hours, day after day, without the conversation ever growing old and many times until we are left speechless with both our hearts reeling in wonder and adoration – that’s the best fellowship EVER  and it’s been fun especially this Christmas.   And then there is my sweet son whose boundless joy, endless wonder, and heart-melting tenderness leaves me every night with glorious anticipation for “the sun to wake up” so I can finally see his face again and discover the world with him for another day.  I am astounded by the capacity with which we have to love our children – I love everything about Noah and every moment I have with him… it never feels like work to be his mommy; it’s really my favorite occupation.  I really do miss him when he’s sleeping (Stephen and I still go into his room almost every night just to look at him while he sleeps because we just miss and adore him so much).   And oh how grateful I am for my mom, who is truly a great pillar of strength and love in my life.  As I grow older and have become parent myself, I have come to realize just exactly what the Lord did when He ordained her to be my mom.  My life simply does not work without her in it.  She is my dearest friend, my strength, my encourager, my witness (she has been the singular person to see the Lord working in my life since the day I was born), she’s just my mom in every glorious sense and definition of that word.  If I could choose from all the moms in all of history with every gift , personality or character trait available, I would absolutely, unequivocably choose her and her alone, no doubt about it – that really says everything right there, doesn’t it?!   And what amazing gifts and heritage we have in our family, mine and Stephen’s, whose love, strength, humility, faithfulness, generosity, and fellowship have been a great source of strength and encouragement and joy in our lives (we love you all SO much – we so wish you could all just be here in KC!!)  – (And to my Daddy, I miss you every single day – I thought it would get easier, but it never goes away – I really can’t wait to hug you tight and see your face when we at last we meet again in Eternity).  And thank God for sovereign friendships… like my friend Dana, who I am quite sure knows me better than I know myself.   She provokes me with every word she speaks and writes, and even more by how she lives in love for Jesus and with her deep, deep faith-filled longing for fullness.  Rarely do I read an email from her that does not make me cry or laugh out loud.  Rarely do I leave from her presence without feeling alive, laughing, peaceful, known and understood,  longing for and loving Jesus.  She has this incessant way of stirring hope and faith in my heart like no one else I know with just a word (or sometimes a simple heavenward, teary-eyed gaze and no words at all)… and for Matt, who has eyes to see something in my Stephen that almost no one else on the earth knows and the God-given ability to draw those things out like no one else I can think of (including myself).  Matt’s friendship to Stephen is one of the things in our lives that I am most grateful for – in ways I cannot share in a blog, but it’s a sovereign friendship through and through – you can’t fake those kind : ) Matt also has the most amazing gift to see things through a pragmatic but optimistic, faith-filled lens and make decisions based on that in a way that is so necessary and helpful to both of us  – I have actually been thinking about that a lot lately (because it just happened other day) and how much his perspective helps us in ways he probably doesn’t realize.  (We just so need you guys – you have no idea… we wouldn’t be us without you).  And Maddie and Cai and Avi too, whom Noah talks about almost every day and whose lives and destinies are eternally woven into his, what will the Lord do with these little ones??! — I cannot wait to be a witness to His unveiling in their lives.   There are just so many other friends  that I want to mention and marvelous comrades that the Lord has blessed us with here in Kansas City and back in Texas and all over the globe… I so want to name each and every one, but this post would be way too long if I did because there are really MANY, many who we count as true treasures in our journey with Jesus and without whom, we can’t imagine our lives to this point. (I started to name them all but the list got longer and longer and finally I just deleted it because I was afraid in my tiredness from the day I would forget someone… and I am the kind of person that cannot stand the thought of leaving someone out… so that won’t work… but you know who you are : )   Last but not least, for our little (and growing quickly) community of people here in Kansas City who have chosen that one thing necessary, who actually live their lives before the Lord with only Jesus as their reward, who choose regardless of the cost to minister to Him night and day and to cry out for His fullness and for justice without ceasing, we so love living among you and walking beside you as we all look toward and long for a coming King and a better Day.  

How did we get here?  How are we so blessed to do what we do with our lives?  How are we so blessed with the friends and family God has given us?   Thank you Jesus, thank you Father, thank you Holy Spirit… with all that is within me, I know I deserve none of what I wrote about above, yet You’ve given me all these windows into Love and knit our life with so many of the “greats” of the earth… I am undone.

I could go on and on really… I literally dreamt dreams last night that I can’t really remember except that they all seemed to be filled with gratitude and thanksgiving and expectancy and hope… and of Love that was stronger than the grave.

And then I woke up to hear the tragic news of the loss of a beloved father, husband and leader here at the House of Prayer.  I am too tired to even try to process the rest of this day here (even what I wrote above is really jumbled and not very well-written — sorry about that, but it’s a little glimpse at least).   But as surely as I laid my head upon my pillow last night and even slept through the night rejoicing… I woke today with tears for Renee and for the entire Loux family for their father, a husband, a comrade, a soldier for justice, a leader, a worshipper, a witness, a priest before the Lord, and a brother in Christ who we all lost much too soon.  

Today, I have never been more grateful for two simple words tucked away in John 11 that speak volumes of the heart of God and the truth of the One who sits on the throne and leads our lives…

Jesus wept.   (John 11:35)

I actually posted about this last year, I think.  I will look for it and include the link [Link to the tears of God post].  But it was really near the time that I first posted about Jesus weeping and about how that verse, that entire story in John 11, so diffuses our latent accusations about God being distant in His holiness or that somehow His being sovereign can’t coexist with Him have emotions and weeping about suffering, loss, death, and the wages of sin, even though He knows the end of the beginning and the greater glory from the temporal suffering… even when He knew BEFORE HE EVER WENT TO SEE LAZARUS that He would be raising him from the dead, still we have before us the Word made flesh, the God-man, the second person of the Trinity here in John 11 weeping.  And He is revealing something very important to us about who He is and how He loves us.   He is no less all-powerful when He is weeping and feeling and showing emotion… and it is not more holy or sovereign to be without emotion…  in fact, the divine emotions are more passionate, more pure, more zealous, and much more powerful than anything we can imagine feeling or experiencing because Jesus had no hardness of sin, no selfishness, no pride, nothing that could hinder Him from fully “feeling” (for lack of a better word) and drinking in the well of suffering, all the while without suspending any other attribute in His being. 

Even in God’s sovereign leadership, His knowing of all things surrounding the mystery of life and death and having all power over both, in John 11, Jesus stood with the family of a brother lost too soon and with all His holy sovereign heart, God wept.

That has been my great comfort today… and it has allowed tears to flow at different times, tears of compassion for the Loux’s, tears of sorrow, tears of hope, tears of gratitude.  Though truly there is an element of sorrow and suffering that will always be solitary  (no one can enter that fully with another), we are not alone.  Even though no one kept watch or endured with Him in the garden during His long night, Jesus ALWAYS comes into our garden and watches and weeps and intercedes through the dark nights of our lives.  I have prayed for so many friends today as the Lord has brought them in a heavy way to my heart,  along with the Loux family, and for many students as well.  Our hearts are knit together through things like this and we’ll move forward together… supporting the Loux’s grand and glorious family in every way we can and each other in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.  But today, we weep… we live Romans 12:15 with sincerity and not platitudes, because this is what we do in grieving and we know Jesus loves and weeps with us as well.

And so tonight, I put my head on my pillow not asking questions of the Lord and not without hope.  Yet what is rising up from the deep, even as little tears glisten my tired eyes, is gratitude.  Only this gratitude comes from a place greater than me and deeper within.  I have felt it on and off today – at one point, almost too much to bear because we were heading to Walmart of all places (not where you want to be feeling a holy encounter in loving Jesus – not even where you really want to go period, but we had to).  I was crying and trying to hold back the sobs and Stephen was asking what was wrong, what was happening… and all I could get out was:

He’s just everything.  Jesus is everything.  He’s everything… 

It was just the pondering of those two little words, Jesus wept.  GOD CRIED – physically had TEARS running down His holy, transcendent cheeks of flesh.   That one moment lived out by God in the flesh is a giant window into who He is, and it’s just one among thousands in the Gospels and in the Word.  And with that one little window of two words in the pages of John and the breath of the Holy Spirit, GOD COMES NEAR.  The accusations in our heart are obliterated and God is glorified.   The really crazy thing is that that’s just one little story and the Bible offers a thousand more… and even this little “internship” in this age is just our introduction, the preface if you will, it’s only dim sight with eyes of faith and the help of the Holy Spirit.  Oh but beloved, there is coming a Day when the Morning Star will rise in our hearts and we will see and know fully even as we are fully known.

Who am I, who are we, that He would come so near… that He would even reveal Himself and give us these wonderous treasures of His glory so intimately??

He’s everything.  Jesus is everything.  Everything.  Every breath we breathe is a gift that we might know this one thing, namely the glory and excellency of Christ.  Christmas is a celebration of the Giver of all gifts when He gave Himself in coming in the flesh that men might finally know and perceive and recognize God in spirit and in truth.   So tonight I lay down with tears and with thankfulness, holding my Stephen and Noah a little tighter, but also loosely for they are not mine to own, they belong to Another. 

Jesus You are everything… everything.  My heart and my flesh will fail me, but You remain the strength and my portion and my great reward… everything I truly long for.   All my hopes are bound up in You.  All my desires found in You.  All my searchings lead to You.  All my questions answered in You.  You are everything.

Jesus, be near to Renee tonight, to their children, and to all those to whom Derek was so beloved as our IHOP family and friends and family everywhere are missing him tonight.  Remind us Jesus of our hope… that we do not grieve without hope… but be near to every one of us in the grief because weeping, there will surely be.   We look to You, the One who holds the power of life and death in Your nail-pierced hands, and remember that You are not so far away… we remember that You too know the tears of losing one too soon and we remember Your love which reaches across eternity and time and into our very hearts, and that the same Love that weeps with us and for us is also the Love that conquered the grave and even made the bitterness of death a slave to your glory and to the tyranny of Love’s zeal.

For all of us, this Christmas, may we celebrate You Jesus… may we look to You, the God of glory who took on flesh, not just once, but forever… and may our hearts be saved and our love be full.

blessed are the meek

meekness  – noun:   1:  cannot be defined in human terms; see Jesus Christ

In Your majesty ride out victoriously
   for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness;
   let Your right hand display awesome deeds!
Let Your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king’s enemies;
   let the nations fall beneath Your feet.

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
   The scepter of Your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed You
   with the oil of gladness beyond Your companions…  (Psalm 45)

You give me Your shield of victory,
       and Your right hand sustains me; 
       You stoop down to make me great.   (Psalm 18:35)

Scriptures:

• Luke 2
• Mark 10:13-16
• Matthew 18:1-6
• Philippians 2:1-11
• Matthew 5:1-12

Now it is out of such a heart as this [a heart governed by gracious humility], that all truly holy affections do flow. Christian affections are like Mary’s precious ointment, that she poured on Christ’s head, that filled the whole house with a sweet odor. That was poured out of an alabaster box; so gracious affections flow out to Christ out of a pure heart. That was poured out of a broken box; till the box was broken the ointment could not flow, nor diffuse its odor: so gracious affections flow out of a broken heart.  All gracious affections, that are a sweet odor to Christ, and that fill the soul of a Christian with heavenly sweetness and fragrancy, are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men, is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is “unspeakable, and full of glory,” is a humble, brokenhearted joy, and more poor in spirit, and more like a little child…

(Excerpt from Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections – WJE Online Vol. 2 — picture is a painting called ”Walking with God” by Morgan Weistling) 

I was going to start this post with the word “meek” and its definition, but as I looked up the word in all the online dictionaries, I found in each of them an undercurrent of complete disdain for its true meaning. Each definition seemed to paint the word “meek” in a negative light… which, if you think about it, is really revealing of the latent pride in the heart of man. 

For example, thefreedictionary.com defines meek in this way:  meek  adj 1. patient, long-suffering, or submissive in disposition or nature; humble 2. spineless or spiritless; compliant

Reference dictionary:  meek  // –adjective, -er, -est.  1.  humbly patient or docile, as under provocation from others.  2.  overly submissive or compliant; spiritless; tame. 

Merriam-Webster:  Main Entry: meek Function: adjective 1 : enduring injury with patience and without resentment : mild 2 : deficient in spirit and courage : submissive  3 : not violent or strong : moderate

Personally, I love the word “meek.”   The depth and width of its meaning far surpasses more commonly used descriptions like ‘humble’ or even ’gentle.’   There is really only one Person in all of human history who can truly be described as being meek in the fullness of its meaning, and that is Jesus.   And Jesus is anything but “spiritless” or “spineless,” and His love is violent with passion and strength that even the grave could not contain. Only in Christ do we see a meekness incomparable in beauty and breadth.   Only in knowing the strength of Christ can we also discover and appreciate the gentleness that stoops so low to reveal such unsearchable greatness and splendor. 

A simple and Biblical definition of the word ‘meek’  might be ’strength restrained’… in other words, having all the power of the universe, yet choosing not to use it for personal gain or advantage.   Sound like anyone we know?  By human definition, as seen in the examples above, the one who has power and strength but chooses not to exert it might be called “spineless,” “spiritless,” “deficient in spirit and courage,” and ”overly submissive.”   In today’s society, and even in the church if we are honest about it, we have little or no respect for those whom we view as having great potential, strength, and/or gifting, but choose not to exert their strength and use it to somehow get ahead.   Yet by Heaven’s standards, the fullness of the glory of God and of Holy Love Himself is revealed in the very One who epitomizes meekness and the only One who can truly lay claims to its fullness.   In other words, God would define the one who is meek as the greatest of all.  Paul uses three simple words in his letter to the church in Corinth to explain meekness, three words that if pondered should bring us continually to our knees in worship and send our hearts reeling in gratitude:

Love suffers long.

In the Incarnation, we are allowed a glimpse of the face and heart of God revealed in the most potent and unique ways imaginable.  And in the light of the countenance of His face, all of reality is suddenly flipped on its head and everything within and without us has no other choice but to be utterly and completely redefined.   Humanity longs for fame and power and we will do almost anything to be a part of it even if we can’t have it for ourselves.   We spend ourselves to climb higher and higher upon the ladder of recognition and success, thinking that we will finally experience that reward that will satisfy the ache and hunger that plagues us; and the irony is that the very thing we are longing for is found in the lowest places.  

Millions of dollars are spent each year by the press for the rights to take and publish photos of babies born to celebrity couples and millions more by the consumer to see those photos.   But God chose to come into the world as a baby born in a smelly stable to an unknown and somewhat scandalous couple in a tiny unimportant town with only some shepherds and a few animals in line to see His face.  Even after the unthinkable events surrounding His birth, Jesus did not rest easy in a life of comfort nor did He seek the praise and recognition that He deserved.  Instead, though He had all the power of heaven at His tiny infant fingertips, He basically went into hiding for years with His earthly family just because of the evil intents in one man’s heart.   That one story in and of itself is the epitome of strength and power under restraint… it is the glory of Love’s great patience and gentleness with humanity.  Yet His meekness didn’t end there, it went on and on and on - in every action, every word, every reaction, whether known or unknown.  God walked among those He made, in the world He Himself created, but chose to live in complete anonymity for most of His life.   People passed God on the streets without so much as a nod in His direction, children sat next to Him in class learning the commands that He gave Moses and the covenants He made with Abraham, and in the end, leaders of those that were called His most treasured possession utterly rejected Him and sentenced Him to a death more disgraceful and unjust than any other in all of eternity.  The only person in all of history that did not deserve to suffer, suffered the very most.  He was despised and rejected, considered smitten by God and afflicted, His appearance marred more than any man, like one from whom men hide their face in disgust.  We spat upon Him as though He was nothing, and He did not say a word.  With hands that He formed from the dust of the ground, we nailed His holy body to a dirty cross and put Him on display with thief and murderer alike.   He could have said but one word at any point in His life on the earth and every knee would have to bow and all of Heaven would have come to His right hand.  But Love suffered long that we might come to know what greatness really is… Love stooped that low to make us great.

“… no one has ever had a greater right to retaliate, but used it less. He had at his disposal infinite power to take revenge at any moment in his agony. “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53). But he did not do it. When every judicial sentiment in the universe cried out “Unjust!” Jesus was silent. “He gave [Pilate] no answer, not even to a single charge” (Matthew 27:14). Nor did he refute false ridicule: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten” (1 Peter 2:23). Nor did he defend himself in response to Herod’s interrogation: “He made no answer” (Luke 23:9). No one has ever borne so much injustice with so little vengeance.”  (Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper)

If we ponder the infinite facets of the Word made flesh as He walked through the deserts of the Middle East and through the pages of history…  if we really consider that this Person surrounded with scandal at His birth, hidden in the mundane life of an unimportant family in Nazareth for most of His days, and crucified as a common criminal in His death is really Yahweh, God Himself, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One by whom all things that we call “reality” are held together…  then we are at once confronted with a Condescension so unfathomable and a Love so incomparable that surely all that we esteem and spend ourselves on in this age should appear as nothing but fading shadows in the light of something, Someone much, much Greater.  

There is only One who can truly be described as meek.  The Incarnation in and of itself is the very definition of meekness.  The fact that the fullness of the Godhead was somehow contained by flesh and He actually walked around engaging with creation and creation didn’t blow up is really insane when you think about it.  But when we see the Holy One kneeling in servant’s garb washing the feet of the one who was about to betray Him the most, or when you hear Him praying for mercy for the ones at the foot of the Cross who mock with seething hatred the very One who gave them a mouth with which to speak… in the light of His glorious meekness and devastating patience, how can we then stand and demand anything for ourselves?

Yet we do… I do.   I think I am entitled to everything from personal possessions to respect and decency from others to even things as small and unimportant as my own opinions.  And if just one of those things is challenged - if I am dishonored or rejected in any way, if I have to wait too long in the checkout line at the grocery store, if the government decides to take more money from my paycheck or does something with my tax dollars that I don’t agree with, or if my circumstances aren’t the way I want them to be, even if God doesn’t do what I expect Him to do – how will I respond? 

Oh Jesus, let me not condemn You to justify myself.  I ask You to help me find the way to the lowest places… and in my arrogance when I think I have found them, I beg You, take me lower still.  Create in me a humble heart that exults in You and You alone.  Holy Spirit, give to me the gift of revelation and the knowledge of God in the face of Christ.  Illuminate my heart and help me see Jesus as He truly is so that all of what I call reality would be shaped by His worth and glory.   Create in me a brokenhearted and humble love that fills the earth with the fragrance of Christ.  In my life and in the lives of the few that might be reading this, may You reign, Jesus, in complete supremacy that our hearts would be full and overflowing.  Lead us to the place where we cannot find a posture low enough to exclaim Your infinite worth.  Bring us to our knees and let our mouths proclaim with heaven’s chorus, “Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive all power and glory and honor and praise!” 

The Meek Were Kneeling

“Blessed are the meek,” Jesus explained. Blessed are the available.  Blessed are the conduits, the tunnels, the tools…

That’s why the announcement went first to the shepherds. They didn’t ask God if He was sure He knew what He was doing. Had the angel gone to the theologians, they would have first consulted their commentaries. Had he gone to the elite, they would have looked around to see if anyone was watching. Had he gone to the successful, they would have first looked at their calendars.

So he went to the shepherds. Men who didn’t have a reputation to protect or an ax to grind or a ladder to climb. Men who didn’t know enough to tell God that angels don’t sing to sheep and that messiahs aren’t found wrapped in rags and sleeping in a feed trough…

A small cathedral outside Bethlehem marks the supposed birthplace of Jesus. Behind a high altar in the church is a cave, a little cavern lit by silver lamps.

You can enter the main edifice and admire the ancient church. You can also enter the quiet cave where a star embedded in the floor recognizes the birth of the King. There is one stipulation, however. You have to stoop. The door is so low you can’t go in standing up.

The same is true of the Christ. You can see the world standing tall, but to witness the Savior, you have to get on your knees.

So …

while the theologians were sleeping

and the elite were dreaming

and the successful were snoring,

the meek were kneeling.

They were kneeling before the One only the meek will see. They were kneeling in front of Jesus.

(Excerpt from One Incredible Moment: Celebrating the Majesty of the Manger)

In that day the deaf shall hear
    the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness
   the eyes of the blind shall see.
 The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD,
   and the poor among mankind shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.  (Isa 29:18-19)

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.  (Jesus)

to be blessed and highly favored of the Lord

Stephen and I were reading one of the chapters from Max Lucado’s book on the Incarnation, ”From One Father to Another,” together the other night and I think it really ties into Matthew 2 below, so I thought I’d copy it here.  It’s a prayer from Joseph to the Father (obviously fictional words but imagined based on the circumstance Joseph found himself and Mary in at Jesus’ birth).   

Excerpt from the book One Incredible Moment: Finding Majesty in the Manger.

This isn’t the way I planned it, God. Not at all.  My child being born in a stable?  This isn’t the way I thought it would be.  A cave with sheep and donkeys, hay and straw?  My wife giving birth with only the stars to hear her pain?   This isn’t at all what I imagined… This doesn’t seem right.  What kind of husband am I?  I provide no midwife to aid my wife.  No bed to rest her back.  Her pillow is a blanket from my donkey…

Did I miss something?  Did I, God?   When You sent the angel and spoke of the Son being born – this isn’t what I pictured.  I envisioned Jerusalem, the temple, the priests, and the people gathered to watch.  A pageant perhaps.  A parade… I mean, this is the Messiah!

Or, if not born in Jerusalem, how about Nazareth?  Wouldn’t Nazareth have been better?  At least there I have my house and my business.  Out here, what do I have?  A weary mule, a stack of firewood, and a pot of warm water.  This is not the way I wanted it to be!…  Forgive me for asking but… is this how God enters the world?    The coming of the angel, I’ve accepted.  The questions people asked about the pregnancy, I can tolerate.   The trip to Bethlehem, fine.   But why a birth in a stable, God?   

Scriptures:

• Luke 1:26-56
• Matthew 1:18-25
• Luke 2:1-7
• Matthew 2:13-18

How do you define “the favor of the Lord?”  What does it mean to have a “blessed life?”  Just out of curiosity today, I googled the phrase ‘God’s favor.’  Almost everything that came up from the search linked the favor of God to circumstantial blessing and ease in life… e.g. we almost unanimously define God’s favor and blessing as a peaceful, easy, prosperous life in this age.  If we have more money, we have God’s favor.  If we’re healthy, we get the new promotion, people recognize us for our “anointing” or giftings, we have a lot of friends and people who think highly of us, we have a great house, we can pay our bills, our family is happy and healthy, we have fame or popularity, and so on, all the things that we think of as blessed circumstances… essentially, when things are just nice and easy and good, the natural conclusion we come to is that our good circumstances must mean we have God’s favor (or alternatively, bad circumstances must mean God is angry with us).   And sometimes we even take it a step further and believe that we can actually “earn” God’s favor, so we therefore conclude that our good works earn us ”favor” and good circumstances (and vice versa).  

I’ve been reading Job the last few days, specifically been in Job 1 and Job 40… don’t ask me how I got into Job in the midst of meditating on the Incarnation, but I did.  Anyway, it seems to me that Job 1 really rocks the boat of the whole “if I do A, B, and C, then life will be just peachy” line of thinking.  It actually doesn’t just rock it - it kind of takes the boat, flips it over, and sinks it into the ocean’s abyss.   We can try to dance around Job 1 all day long to make it more palatable, but it’s pretty clear what happened – the Lord didn’t pull any punches when recording the facts of the events at hand.  God calls Job blameless and righteous like no one else living on the earth at the time, and then He dares and even gives permission to Satan to annihilate all of his “good” circumstances and all that he holds dear in this age, basically turning Job’s world upside down with an intensity of testing and trials that most of us could never imagine.

Then there is Jesus… Jesus’ life really declared war on the line of thinking above.  Today while pondering Matthew 2 and then watching a Birth of Christ DVD with Noah, I was really struck by the whole middle of the night exodus to Egypt with Jesus as a baby and His two very worn out parents.  Meanwhile back in Bethlehem, every child two and under was being slaughtered just because of their nearness to Jesus, the infant God who now threatened one of the strongest leaders of the region.  I think it was actually the first time the fullness of this particular string of events surrounding the Birth of Christ impacted me in a such a significant way.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” 

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: 
 ”A voice is heard in Ramah,
      weeping and great mourning,
   Rachel weeping for her children
      and refusing to be comforted,
   because they are no more.”

The events surrounding Jesus’ birth could have gone down so many different ways… I’m not all that smart and I can think of a bunch of much easier alternatives but nothing about the way Jesus entered the world was easy.  I mean, in the Exodus, it only took a little bit of blood over the doorway or raising a stick in the air to save multitudes.  Yet outside the doors of a tiny room in Bethlehem where God was sleeping peacefully, the evil in one man’s heart would bring an angel into Joseph’s dreams to wake two sleeping parents and the infant God and take them on yet another long and less than convenient journey in the middle of the night.  Angels could have been called to protect the infant God and His parents… Herod’s plans could have been thwarted… and who knows what that seemingly helpless little Baby could have done Himself (He is a member of the Trinity after all).  God could have done a million different things.  He had all the options of an omnipotent sovereign God - it’s not like God the Father was backed into a corner and despondently said to the angels, “Well, looks like this guy Herod is way too smart and powerful for my Son - I’m just not sure what to do now - I guess all I can do is try to get Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to go to Egypt… I have no other options.”   (Ugh – it hurt to even write that sentence.) 

NO – neither God the Father and the Holy Spirit from the throne above nor Jesus from the manger crib below were grasping at straws or thrown off by the actions of one evil ruler, just as They weren’t flustered by a last trimester trip to Bethlehem or the lack of room at the inn before that.   The meekness of Christ revealed in the Incarnation is absolutely breathtaking – isn’t it?  Put just the tiniest inconvenience before us and what arises almost immediately is that old familiar song of entitlement and our ”rights.”  But here we see God Himself in the flesh, the only One worthy, the only One entitled to anything at all, and He bowed so low in coming the way He did in the first place, born as an infant in a smelly stable with only shepherds and a young Jewish couple to welcome God’s great visitation to His creation; but then after all of the events surrounding His birth, to let evil men wake Him and actually chase Him and His earthly parents to Egypt in the middle of the night??   Oh – I have so far to go… I’m not even in the shallow end of humility… oh Jesus, in Your great mercy, help my little pride-filled heart find its way to the depths of Yours.

We so often think that the Lord’s will, and especially His FAVOR, is whatever will bring us the most ease.  We believe naively that a “blessed” life is one with little or no trials; yet in Matthew 2 we see the birth of Jesus, GOD in the flesh, to parents who the Bible repeatedly describes as “highly favored of the Lord” and who are without question, two of the most blessed in all of human history (just in the glory of living every day for years in such nearness and intimacy with Jesus)… and clearly, their life together, from the moment Jesus entered it to the moment He departed, was anything but easy and comfortable.  Living in God’s favor means living as a vessel for His purposes and His glory, no matter where that may lead us.  We may not have an easy and problem-free existence in this age, but He does promise something much greater…

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

In this world, you will have many troubles.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.  (Jesus)