What Are *You* Giving Up for Advent?

Read: Philippians 2:1-18

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)

It is with a sad sense of irony that it is often been observed that the weeks leading up to Christmas are characterized by a more concentrated emphasis on materialism and consumerism than we see at any other time of year. In the United States, the day set aside for Thanksgiving is immediately followed, and increasingly overshadowed, by Black Friday, a day dedicated fully to consumerism, a day when people often go without sleep so that they can line up early to buy more stuff. The throngs of people we see lining up in stores on Friday, not to mention the violence that we sometimes see breaking out in those store line-ups, raise justifiable questions about just how thankful people were for the stuff they already had on Thursday.

What a different perspective we find in the mind of Jesus during the first Advent leading up to his birth! In today’s Scripture readings, the Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

    by taking the very nature of a servant,

    being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

    he humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death– 

        even death on a cross!  (Philippians 2:6-8)

It is impossible for us, with our finite and innately self-centered human minds, to truly and fully grasp the depth of utterly unselfish love that prompted Jesus, the Son of God, to give up his glorious home in heaven and his rightful place at the right hand of the Father in order to subject himself to the limitations and frailties of the body of a human infant. We can, however, gratefully acknowledge the unfathomableness of Jesus’ love for us, and allow our gratitude to inspire us to look for new opportunities to offer selfless acts of service to God and to our fellow human beings during this Advent season.

Loving and Compassionate Lord Jesus, during this Advent season, fill our hearts and minds with renewed wonder and gratitude for the love that compelled you to humble yourself to the point of taking on human form and ultimately dying to pay the penalty for our sins. Although we will never be able to fully grasp the depth of your love with our finite minds, may your love inspire and embolden us to greater acts of service, for Your glory and for the good of our fellow human beings. In Your Name. Amen.

Glory: How Can We Give God What He Already Has?

Read: Revelation 4

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 
(1 Corinthians 10:31)

The Bible tells us repeatedly that one of our main functions as human beings who have been created in the image of God is to give glory to God (Psalm 3:3-4; Colossians 1:15-18). The Bible also tells us that heaven and earth are filled with the glory of God (Numbers 14:21; Isaiah 6:3). At first glance, there appears to be something of a contradiction, or at least a paradox, here: How can we give God something He already has?

It seems to me that a key to resolving this conundrum can be found in the psalmist’s exhortation: “Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations, / ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. / Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; / bring an offering and come into his courts” (Psalm 96:7-8). To “ascribe” something to someone means to “give credit” to someone as “being the cause” of something. In other words, we give glory to God when we give Him the credit for who we are and what we have. When we do this, we are actually reflecting God’s glory back to Him.

But, for those of us who have disabilities which are the result of malfunctioning bodies and/or minds, there is sometimes a tendency to think that our disabilities somehow disqualify us from bringing glory to God because we’ve bought into the able-ist worldview of our society. According to this able-ist worldview, the presence of disability may well be a cause for ascribing blame, but certainly not for ascribing glory.

Jesus, however, demonstrated a very different view of disability during his earthly ministry. Upon encountering a man who had been born blind, Jesus’ disciples asked him, "Teacher, whose sin caused this man to be born blind-his own sin or his parents' sin?" Jesus answered, "It is not this man's sin or his parents' sin that made him blind. This man was born blind so that God's power could be shown in him” (John 9:2-3, New Century Version).  In this encounter, Jesus teaches us that, rather than being disqualified from bringing glory to God, people with disabilities can be uniquely positioned to bring glory to God in ways that will have maximum impact. (And you don’t necessarily need to be healed from your disability for this to happen! But that’s a subject for a future post... :-)

Loving Heavenly Father, Thank you for giving all human beings the capacity to reflect Your glory, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. Grant me the perceptiveness to catch glimpses of Your glory in those around me. May I daily become more and more conformed to the life of Jesus, so that I may reflect His glory with increasing clarity. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Honest Thanksgiving

Read: Psalm 71

Though you have made me see troubles,
    many and bitter,
    you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
    you will again bring me up.
You will increase my honor
    and comfort me once more.
I will praise you with the harp
    for your faithfulness, my God... (Psalm 71:20-22)

I don’t know about you, but there have certainly been seasons of my life when thanking God for anything felt like an impossibility, at best, or an outright lie, at worst. For me, 2008 was one of those years. (Yes, I said “years!”) In January of that year, I was the victim of a violent home invasion which almost cost me my life. And by late August, I was in hospital fighting for my life again–this time, because of aspiration pneumonia.

On the infrequent occasions when I was “with it” enough to pray at all during my first week in the hospital, my prayers were more like that of an exhausted and depressed Elijah in 1 Kings 19:4 than anything resembling thanksgiving. It was toward the end of this week that one of my “email carrier pigeons” (i.e., friends who had volunteered to check my email, and print off emails that they thought I’d like to hear) brought me an email from a close friend of mine who lives in another city. In this email, my friend first assured me that I was being prayed for–A LOT. And then, he referred me to today’s Scripture reading from Psalm 71, suggesting that this might be a prayer that I could pray for myself.

During the months of slow and arduous recovery that followed, I did periodically endeavour to pray Psalm 71 for myself. But because I was stuck in a lamenting frame of mind, I would invariably omit the first word, “though,” and stop at the end of the first sentence. My “prayer” thus amounted to, “You have made me see troubles, many and bitter. The End.” (I’m pretty sure this wasn't what my friend had in mind when he pointed me to this Psalm!) One day though, I sensed God saying to me “But this is NOT “The End”–of the psalm, or of you! You need to KEEP GOING!” So this time, I made myself pray on through the rest of the Psalm. As I did, I was struck with the realization that God doesn't expect, or even want, thanksgiving that glosses over our trials and discouragement. Rather, what God wants is “honest thanksgiving” – thanksgiving in which we acknowledge the existence and severity of our struggles, and yet affirm our trust in a Wise and Loving Heavenly Father who will sustain us in and through all of our struggles.

Loving and Wise Heavenly Father, Thank you that you are a God who is big enough to handle honest thanksgiving. Please help me to learn and practice this art more and more, as I encounter seasons of trouble and discouragement. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

The Mission of Being Out-of-Commission

/Read: Psalm 119:65-71

"He has alienated my family from me;
    my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
   My relatives have gone away;
    my closest friends have forgotten me.
   My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner;
    they look on me as on a stranger.”  (Job 19:13-15)

Most people who have experienced a long-term bout with illness and/or depression can
probably relate very closely to the isolation and loneliness that Job talks about in these verses. There is often something inherently isolating about suffering of any kind. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is a common, subconscious fear that, if people get too close to suffering, they will somehow ‘catch it’ and end up as sufferers themselves.

The writer of Psalm 119, however, seems to have a very different attitude toward suffering: he declares, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps 119:71). Like many of us, it seems that the psalmist discovered that God brought affliction and suffering into his life in order to, first of all, get his attention, and thereby to bring him into a place where God could reveal Himself to the psalmist and begin to teach the psalmist His ways. This suggests that God can often use the isolation we experience as a result of our suffering to quiet our hearts and minds to a point where we are at last able to hear Him speaking to us. Evidently, there is something about suffering, and the isolation which often accompanies it, that gets us into a physical, emotional, and spiritual space where we are able to hear God speak to us in ways that we often miss or ignore when we are caught up in our “regular” lives.

Gracious Heavenly Father, I confess that, when I find myself in seasons of suffering, my first response is usually to lament–and resent–the inactivity and isolation that come with the suffering. In the midst of my physical and/or emotional pain, please grant me the patience and discernment to be able to quiet my heart and listen for Your voice, and learn the lessons that You desire to teach me in and through my suffering. By Your grace, may I emerge from my seasons of suffering saying with the Psalmist, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Remembering to Give Thanks

Read: Psalm 103; Luke 17:11-17

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—   (Ps. 103:1-2)

One of the greatest, and most detrimental, drawbacks to living in this current technology-driven age of ‘instant everything’ is, it seems to me, the radical shortening of our attention-span, and, with it, our memory. We have become so obsessed with taking in as much information, and having as many different experiences, as quickly as possible that we are losing our ability to step out of the moment in order to analyse the information that we take in, or reflect on the significance of the experiences we’ve had. When we don’t take time to reflect on our experiences, we are less likely to learn from them, and much less likely to be grateful for them.

Today’s Bible readings indicate that the propensity for people to forget about the blessings that God pours into their lives is not just a present-day phenomenon. The psalm-writer had to remind himself, “forget not all [God’s] benefits.”  And, of the ten people with leprosy who Jesus heals in Luke, Chapter 17, only one remembered to come back and say “Thank you.” These passages thus convey a clear link between a lack of reflection caused by a short attention span and a lack of gratitude for the multitude of blessings, small and huge, that God pours into our lives on a daily basis.

Gracious Heavenly Father, Please forgive me for my propensity to let my busyness and my consequently minuscule attention span prevent me from recognizing the multitude of blessings that You lavish on me day by day. Sharpen my perception and expand my memory that I may develop an attitude of gratitude for the life that You have given me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Thanksgiving: Our Not-So-Secret Weapon

Read: Joshua 6:1-20

On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in." (Joshua 6:4-5)

I grew up in church listening to various pastors and speakers encourage their listeners to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, because thankfulness is a key characteristic that ought to distinguish Christ-followers from the majority of people around them. And, in fact, I discovered early on in my life that people who are genuinely thankful for what God has given them are a whole lot more likely to have positive outlook on life, which, in turn, equips them to deal with future difficulties and challenges. Not only are habitually thankful people better equipped to deal with difficulties that come into their own lives, they are often uniquely positioned to come alongside others who are also dealing with challenges. Conversely, people who constantly dwell on their difficulties tend to isolate themselves, thus greatly impeding their capacity to either receive support and encouragement from others, or be a source of support and encouragement to others.

Something else that I learned about thankfulness early on in my life is that genuine, God-centered thankfulness is not dependent on favourable external circumstances, such as good health, financial security, thriving relationships, etc. Rather, it flows out of a faith in, and experience of, a Gracious and Loving Heavenly Father, who is able to pour abundant blessings of love and peace into our lives, even in the midst of great adversity and turmoil. When I look back over the past year in my own life, I see once again that, although this was a year of many deep losses and unprecedented DRAMA (read: stress and distress), it was also a year in which I witnessed God’s miraculous provision in ways that I had never before experienced.

In re-reading the Old Testament story of Israel’s capture of Jericho, I find myself intrigued by the question of what, exactly, it was that the Israelite army shouted that caused the wall of the city to crumble before them? The text does not provide this detail, but, from reading stories of other Israelite conquests in the Old Testament, I am led to strongly suspect that it was a shout of thanksgiving that sent the great wall of Jericho a tumblin’ down!

Gracious Heavenly Father – I confess that, when I am faced with seasons of adversity and turmoil, thankfulness is usually the furthest thing from my mind and heart. But during those times, may I remember all the ways that You have graciously and miraculously provided for me in the past. And may I thus find the courage to move forward with a triumphal shout of thanksgiving. In Jesus’ Name. Amen. 

Created Crip, or Created TAB, You Were Created to Serve

Read: Ephesians 2:1-10

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

For many of us who have disabilities or chronic illnesses, there is often a strong temptation to become so preoccupied with our own day-to-day challenges that we begin to feel like we’re destined to perpetually be on the receiving end of acts of service, rather than being capable of offering meaningful acts of service to others. When this kind of thinking becomes ingrained, it can lead to bouts of depression, as we begin to internalize the messages that we receive from the society and culture around us–messages which tell us that our lives can only be a burden, both to us and to those around us. People with disabilities who internalize these kinds of negative messages can often become convinced that our limitations render us incapable of helping or being of service to others in any kind of meaningful way. When we begin to think this way, it becomes very easy to sink into depression over our perceived uselessness.

The Bible reading for today offers, I think, a very effective encouragement to Christian crips–of all types–who struggle with feelings of uselessness and consequent depression. In this passage, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that all Christians, crip and TAB alike, are “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” As far as God is concerned, having disabilities does not disqualify anyone from being of service to others. In fact, it’s been my experience, and the experience of many other Christians with disabilities, that God will actually use both our positive and our negative experiences of living with disabilities to minister in unique ways to other people, those who have disabilities themselves, and those who don’t–yet.

Gracious Lord Jesus, I confess that, too often, I let myself be too influenced by a society which tells me that my disabilities and limitations make it impossible for me to be anything other than a burden to others, and even to myself. When this happens, Lord, please remind me that this is not the way You see me, for You not only created me to do good works, but even prepared in advance the good works that You would have me do. Please help me to recognize those good works that You’ve prepared for me, and to engage in them wholeheartedly, for others’ good and for Your glory. Amen.