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Scriptures:
- Genesis 3
- Isaiah 53:6
I’m in the midst of a terrible flare – the temperature change (of 40 degrees in 18 hours) hit my body like a sledgehammer, so doing anything on the computer is terribly painful. Thus, tonight’s entry might be brief and not all that great, so bear with me (and pray for me too). Our devotion today was on sin and the fall of man. It was interesting because as Stephen and I started the devotion, we realized we were now trying to talk about sin and evil in a very clear way with a 2 1/2 year old. Noah kept asking “who ate the fruit” and why they couldn’t eat it. He wanted to go over the story again and again… he’s very into “why’s” right now – everything is ‘why Mommy’ and once you give an answer, he then asks ‘why’ about the answer. (Isn’t it a little early for that? I wasn’t expecting the why stage to start for at least another year or so?? It’s so much like Stephen though… he even started asking why and pondering the deeper meaning in everything as a toddler too, hmmmm.) Anyway, in the end, what seemed complex at the start was really not that hard to understand, even for a toddler. I asked Noah if he understood that sometimes when Mommy and Daddy tell him not to do something, like touch a candle when it’s lit, we do it to protect him so that nothing bad happens to him or so he doesn’t get hurt, like getting burned to reference the aforementioned example. And then we brought that back around to God telling Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit. Then, although obviously this is not a really deep analogy and there might be better ways to explain it (but it worked for my 2 year old), I compared Adam and Eve having to leave everything that was good and the sweet fellowship they had with God in the garden to when Noah is put in timeout and we take him out of the room, leaving all his toys and whatever he was doing behind, because he disobeys or does something wrong. In his little Bible, I love it… after Adam and Eve are banished it says, ‘normally you might think this is where the story ends… but not in God’s story!” I asked Noah if he remembers what happens at the end of timeout…how Mommy or Daddy will come to get him, but (as Noah was quick to remind us) before we take him out of timeout we explain again what he did wrong and he says he’s sorry… and then most importantly, every single time we take him in our arms and give him lots of hugs and kisses and tell him how much we love him. You see where this is going already, right? Honestly, maybe it seems silly, but the reality of the love of Christ so touched my heart as we were talking. Just thinking in such a simple but provoking way that the indescribable love and mercy exists in my little heart when I take Noah up in my arms and shower him with affection, even when he does something wrong, is nothing compared to the mercy and love that brought Eternity and time together at the first coming of Christ.
“For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11)
There was a plan that existed in God’s heart even before Adam and Eve took that fruit and left the glory of the garden to do something so radical, so unbelievable… that He would actually come Himself. He wouldn’t just send an angel or a messenger – but God Himself would come to the very place to which mankind was banished and take on flesh that He made from the dust of the earth, that we might once again know the sweet fellowship and knowledge of God that we were made to enjoy from the beginning. What kind of crazy love is that?!
Ironically or sovereignly, Noah cried at the beginning of our time together because he wanted to read and talk about Jesus on the cross instead. I guess he already knew where the story was going : ) Oh the great power in the Hand that rescues us when Compassion Incarnate takes us up in His arms and crowns us with lovingkindness… Jesus, may the Truth set us free tonight. Abba, I pray your children would find themselves caught up in Your mighty embrace, showered with the affections of Your heart, and O God I pray that in Your mercy, You would remind us again and again that nothing can separate us from the love found in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and nothing can snatch us from Your embrace.
I’ll leave with a little something from Bernard of Clairvaux:
God certainly is well within His rights in claiming to Himself the works of His own hands, the gifts He Himself has given! How should the thing made fail to love the Maker, provided that it has from Him the power to love at all? How should it not love Him with all its powers, since only by His gift has it got anything? Man, called into being out of nothing by God’s free act and raised to such high honour, how patent is his debt of love to God’s most just demand! How vastly God has multiplied His mercy too, in saving man and beast in such a way! Why, we had turned our glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth hay; our sin had brought us to the level of the beasts that know not God at all! If then, I owe myself entire to my Creator, what shall I give my Re-Creator more? The means of our remaking too – think what they cost! It was far easier to make than to redeem; for God had but to speak a word and all things were created, I included; but He, who made me by a word, and made me once for all, spent on the task of my remaking many words and many marvelous deeds, and suffered grievous and humiliating wrongs.
What reward therefore shall I give the Lord for all the benefits He has done to me? By His first work, He gave myself to me; and by the next, He gave Himself to me.
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all His benefits-
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s…
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love…
He does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His love for those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him;
For He knows how we are formed,
He remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103)
Scriptures:
- Genesis 1 and 2
- John 1:1-4
- John 17:5, 24
- Colossians 1:15-19
- Hebrews 1:10
- Psalm 150
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him, was not any thing made that was made…
Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things that were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – ALL things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together…
The word “Advent” means “coming.” The celebration of Advent really commemorates the coming of Christ 1) at His birth - that insane moment in history when God was born in Bethlehem, 2) into our hearts as we become His dwelling place - Christ in us, the hope of glory, 3) at His death and Resurrection, and 4) in that Day when the skies part and mounts split as the King returns to claim His rightful Kingdom and make all things new again. It’s really my favorite season because even though the holiday season has sadly morphed into something that barely resembles or remembers the glory of the Incarnation and the One who came and is coming again soon, there still remains a whisper of His greatness if you listen really closely… a whisper that cannot be silenced by ‘50% off sales’ or jolly old bearded men in red suits… a whisper that roars with unequivocal force in the hearts of those who love Him… that still small voice that has the power to melt the mountains like wax and turn the entire world upside down and inside out. Consumerism and greed and all that would try to hide our eyes from the One who is preeminent and supreme… know this: He will not be silenced. Jesus… Yeshua… God in the flesh… Emmanuel… YHWH (Yahweh)… God came near and oh, here’s the really glorious news: He’s coming again.
Today we look to Jesus in the beginning, in Genesis 1 and 2, and in turn, throughout all of time and eternity. Jesus’ presence and active role in the beginning as Creator and Maker of all things that were made is hugely significant in New Testament Theology. Jesus Himself, Peter, Paul, John, and the writer of Hebrews all made a point of the fact that Jesus was not only there “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:5, 24) but also participated in the creation of all things (John 1, Eph 3:9, Col 1:16, Heb 1:2, Heb 1:10 to name a few), sustains all things (Col 1:17, I Cor 8:6, Heb 1:3), and has dominion over all things (Matt 8:26-27, John 6:18-21, Luke 5:6, John 21:6, John 2:11, Eph 1:20-21, and so forth). I love one of Max Lucado’s 25 questions for Mary, he asks “did you ever feel awkward teaching Him how He created the world?”
The truth about who Jesus is can only be realized when you view Him through a continual gaze from who He was before the foundations were even laid to His appearance in the Old Testament Theophanies (Gen 3, Gen 18, Exod 24, Numbers 12, Josh 5, etc) to His birth at the Incarnation, His growth from a child to a man, His ministry, His passion, His death and resurrection, and then looking to Him as the One sitting on His throne at the right hand of the Father, living to make intercession for His Bride, and finally as the wonderful King and righteous Judge that will return to rule over all. For some reason, our propensity is to compartmentalize Jesus into little categories or boxes that we can easily understand, “baby Jesus” or ”the suffering Lamb on the Cross”, “the Lion”, “God”, “man” and so on… but He is One Person, He cannot be torn apart and analyzed – He is God! He can only be known and loved because He wholly reveals Himself in relationship with wholehearted believers… who He was, He is and will always be. The beauty of the Incarnation would be incomplete without the revelation that the Baby who was born in a dirty, smelly stable in a small unknown town in Israel is the very same God who stretched the heavens in the sky overhead, the same Person who created every living creature and brought man (including His own mother) from the very dust of the ground with a word and His breath. Likewise, the roar of the Lion would utterly destroy us without knowing longsuffering and meekness of the Lamb.
When we begin to see Jesus in His completeness (although always through finite eyes… for now anyway, I Cor 13:12), it is then that our knees buckle and our bodies can barely contain the song of our hearts, “WORTHY is the Lamb… Holy, Holy, Holy… beautiful and glorious are You Jesus.” And then, perhaps again, by His Spirit, the Word is made flesh through us and in us and that absolute Truth resounds on earth as it is in heaven, that in all things, Jesus Christ is infinitely supreme.
So today I set my eyes on the Maker of the heavens and the earth and the tender Babe born to a young mother in a tiny, dark stable in Bethlehem beneath the stars He set in place, to the One with wounds in hands and feet whose tears, blood and intercession would unveil the greatest Love the world had never known, to the resurrected One whose same Love even the grave could not contain, and toward the heavens where at last mine eyes will see in full and my tears will shower His beautiful feet with grateful love when the skies are parted and our Beloved King returns… all this, and so much more, and I am undone again.
Jesus, you said when you left so long ago that you would not leave us as orphans, that You would send Your Spirit to remind us of who You are and of all You’ve said and done. I pray, Holy Spirit, that You would help us as we celebrate this Advent and peer into Your coming… help us to remember… remind us again of Who You truly are… let us drink of the depths and heights and widths and lengths of Your great love and heart… and may the whispers of Your coming shake us from our slumber, awaken us to Love’s violent tyranny, and cause our hearts to tremble until finally we join with the cry of the seraphim through all the ages, crying “Holy, holy, holy…”
SUCH a good cd… all the way through… Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, glorified.
Love the Media Team at IHOP-KC… what would we do without them? What would I do without them?
For a minor cold/flu that went away earlier this week and for some reason, came back with some sort of vendetta today.
And this little face, this wonderful little boy whose personality and life brings more joy and love to my heart than I feel like my little frame can contain at times… he is truly a gift and a wonder. Thank You, Jesus, for a selfless, Christ-centered, prayerful husband and the cutest, funniest, most loving, little boy ever. Amen and good night…
Blogging… hmmmm… I remember blogs. My favorite two things about blogging are:
- To read my faraway (and nearer) friends’ blogs and feel that closeness and day to day journey again – something you just can’t have when you have four states in between you (or more) – and I really do miss you guys, just so you know… and that day to day glimpse into each other’s hearts and lives something that is even hard in the world of night and day prayer (even though we’re in the same city) for moms with little ones trying to spin so many plates at once in a world where nothing stops (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)
- I love writing and I love looking back and remembering what Noah did that day or how the Lord touched my heart during that particular time
Yet, sometimes, like the last however many months, you just don’t feel like blogging or at least I don’t. Anyone know what I mean? (Especially when you are an introvert like me — an INFJ for all you Meyers Briggs fans). I have to FEEL it to express it and I have to be a bit out of my cave. So what brought me out of my cave of late?
Simple. 10 YEARS of night and day prayer. I’m just a mess over it : )
Ten years… night and day and day and night, no matter the hour… or as my much more eloquent husband says in a yet-to-be-released publication (that he might not be so thrilled about me posting on the world wide web), “If you happened to wander in at 3am on a Sunday or 5pm on a Wednesday you would discover a room longer than it is wide, large enough to hold only several hundred grey chairs. At the front is a small platform where roughly ten souls, most of whom haven’t yet reached twenty-five years, play instruments and lift their voices in a flowing dance of structure and spontaneity mingled with interjections of spoken prayers. Before them an assembly of people that ebbs and flows in size sits not looking at them but beyond them, offering supplication and praise to the One who alone is worthy of this incessant attention.”
And the reason for this phenomenon? Well, I can tell you this… it’s not about a cool ministry or cool music (cuz ahem… we’re not that cool, people, trust me). It’s not about the right marketing strategy or big conferences (cuz um, well, I won’t say anything about that). Night and day prayer is about Heaven. It’s about wanting things on earth as they are in Heaven. And Heaven is a real place that is utterly centered around one Triune Person… the living God. Our beloved Jesus Christ, the Worthy One, preeminent and supreme in all things for all time, in Whom we live and breath and have our being, by Whom and for Whom all things that were made were made, He is before all things and in Him, all things hold together. “Night and day prayer is not a testimony to human dedication but rather to the power of the majesty of Jesus to ensnare weak hearts and hold them fast in unending preoccupation.” (Stephen Venable)
This is where my heart has been feasting these last few weeks… in not just Kansas City, but the many expressions and witnesses God has risen up all over the earth to declare one thing, “Jesus Christ is worthy.” More worthy than our wealth, more worthy than all the opportunities to ignore Him, more worthy than our ministries, more worthy than our egos, more worthy than the rulers of the earth… worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb, the One that was and is and is to come.
On September 19th, here in Kansas City, we celebrated 10 years of unceasing worship and prayer in our community. Of which, I have been blessed to be a part of 8 1/2 of them. I so remember first coming here… which is a crazy story that I won’t go into. But I came from a VERY nice church and let’s face it in Texas, we just do things… well, BIG. So I came with a certain “assumption” of what the International House of Prayer would look like. And well, let’s just say it was not what I expected. It was the “stable” as some like to call it… it was – well, it was a trailer. That’s it. I think I was like the 30-something’th person on staff. And now, ten years later, we are bursting at the seams (in thousands) with I don’t even know how many properties – all with crazy God stories as to why we even have them (like Harry Truman’s land that was sold to us by a Jewish man) and crazy stories like that. So much has changed in 10 years. But what brought me to tears as we celebrated these last 10 years were not all the changes and all the testimonies of how far God has brought us over a decade… but the flame. The fire in men and women and children’s hearts that brings them day after day after night after night back to the place of prayer and of worship… the testimony of Christ that is whispered in the walls of that building over on Red Bridge and the fragrance that rises toward Heaven… His gaze peering back at us, weak and broken and striving human beings that we are, yet He sees and knows and loves. That mighty flame… loving and being loved by God Himself… prayers offered by the saints in accordance with His will… it remains. That is simply stunning to me. Everything around us might be changing, but the reality that binds us together is unchanging, eternal, unfailing… Jesus Christ is worthy… He is supreme.
In addition, during this ten-year celebration, the Lord put on the hearts of the leadership team that this the time to start 24/7 works of Justice. Justice being outreach of all sorts – from simple evangelism to a Women’s Life Center to rescue, support and help victims of the sex-trafficking trade to Orphan Justice and adoption to an inner city mission center and prayer room as well as many other ministries flowing out of the place of night and day supplication for the mercy of God. The center and heartbeat of the International House of Prayer will always, always be night and day prayer and worship. All other realities flow out of that singular calling the Lord has put at the heart of this ministry. Yet, I so feel the answer and kindness of the Lord to us in this season to grow even deeper in the place of prayer and in the 1st commandment by diving deeper into the 2nd commandment. My heart has been really stirred by compassion and service flowing from the reality of night and day prayer… something I hope to write about a little more in the weeks ahead if I can find time. Aslan is on the move… : )
Here are a few fun videos remembering the last 10 years that were showed during the celebration services:
The last 24 hours have been FULL and oh so RICH with friendship, family and fun. A picture’s worth a thousand words so I’ll leave you with ten thousand : )
Candlers & Venables (minus kids)
Me & Dana with the kids (boys didn’t want to sit still, of course)
Noah and Daddy throwing pine cones into the river
Noah with his favorite girl, Madison
Mommy & Noah
Campfire and roasting marshmallows
Smores : )
Yummy : )
Coffee, smores, campfires, mountains, and bff’s… nothin’ but the best for us : )
Friends to the end
Madison, Dana & baby girl Candler (in the womb) on the boat at Dillon Lake
The captain and his boy
Unbelievable views
My cute boy
Father and daughter moment… so sweet
Noah and David playing a game with Matt
Matt throwing David overboard… just kidding (the water is about 40 degrees)
Sweet friends – Madison and Noah
They are super cute together… Noah ADORES Maddie
At Sapphire Point
Multi-tasking Matt
Noah and the chipmunks
Noah feeding his first chipmunk
On this day four years ago, Stephen and I went out for a short hike in the mountains of New Mexico…
And right about now, I was praying and weeping in a waiting room at a hospital in Espanola, New Mexico, while Stephen was in emergency surgery and the doctors were trying to save his foot and ankle. (For those of you that don’t already know this, he fell off of a 30-foot cliff face and had both an open, compound fracture and a pilon fracture of his right ankle).
Today, as a redemptive “celebration” to mark that awful day in our history, Stephen and Matt and our boys (Noah and David) went for a hike in the mountains of Summit County, Colorado. No falls, just fun… and for Stephen, a little bit of redemption (and as you can see from the picture below, simply stunning). They were really close to the tree line. So from valleys to mountain tops… our pilgrimage continues and our joy overflows.
I have to say I had a lot of feelings before the hike… none of them remotely rational, because this hike was neither difficult nor dangerous… but it was the first time Stephen had done something quite like this since the fall AND he was taking our little boy with him. My whole world went up on that mountain for a hike today, you know? But it was good; and it was a gift to Stephen and a memory for him and Noah. So I’m glad they went. Dana, Madison and I went for a drive and ended up at an outlet mall (of all places : ))… so we had a good girls date too.
These two pictures are of Madison and Noah playing together — putting packets of sugar on their heads and giggling. Noah LOVES Maddie… though I think it would be impossible NOT to love Maddie, or David for that matter. They are the greatest kids ever, so much fun and so good for Noah. Right after this, Noah and Maddie were rubbing noses and hugging… we tried to get a picture but none of them came close to portraying the cuteness and sweetness of that moment.
Last night, we all gathered at the ranch Matt and Dana are staying at in Breckenridge for some steaks and brownies… and had SO much fun as you can see.
Our view from the dinner table.
This is my Noah-bear, who always wants things in their proper place, trying to put the pine cones back on the tree : ) I’m not sure where or who he might have inherited that from… ha ha : )
Yummy brownies, oh yeah.
We are here in Colorado on our annual trip to the mountains… so LOVE it here. This year, the Candlers are up here too for part of the time, which is simply the best. Beautiful mountains, wonderful climate, favorite friends, and long days enjoying Jesus and each other… really, there is nothing better.
Noah and Fluffles hanging out in our room…
That would be Noah’s fake camera smile. I love him… he’s such a trip.
The “back yard”, aka the forest of Breckenridge around 10,000 feet, at the house where the Candlers are staying this weekend. Unbelievable.
The kids had so much fun picking flowers and exploring, climbing and jumping… really endless adventures to be had when your backyard is a forest.
Magnificent mountain Maddie.
Best buds.
