waking up

26. Another year.

It’s important to have markers/reminders that make you look back and reflect. Like when we have New Year’s Eve or Thanksgiving. This birthday, I am compelled to reflect on one thing.

I am a very broken and flawed person. I look back and see that I have failed at many tasks, that I have not learned some very basic lessons, and that I am no better than anyone else. I learned more about the dark parts of me, the lonely parts of me, and the confusion of becoming an adult. I learned about the ways in which I lie to myself, too. And this type of reflection is good for one reason.

No, it’s not good because of some G.I. Joe thing that says, “And knowing is half the battle!” This is not even some kind of critical turning point in my life where I turn away from all the bad parts of me and now have the willpower to change myself. This is a place where I accept them, and I confess my need for faith in something that will go deeper than the lies that got me here.

Faith is believing in something that inspires you, gives you hope, and picks you up when you have no tangible reason to get up. Faith makes you do crazy things that are not justified by reality, but justified by belief in something that is True with a capital T, the kind of truth that is more true than what we “know” with regard to our experience.

This Sunday, we began a discipleship group in Haven. Basically, this means we have gotten more structured/serious about following Jesus in tangible ways (read: not just talk about faith, but live it). We began by acknowledging that our faith in Jesus should liberate us and make us fully alive. And we mentioned how if we are not fully alive, it just means we don’t know how amazing the good news really is.

How good? We talked about how everything is reconciled in Jesus. This means all conflicts, all contrasting philosophies and paradigms, all political strife, all familial tension, all of nature’s turmoil, all cynicism and doubts, every single thing we ever did wrong… all these things are put right in Jesus and the work he did on the cross. That’s how good.

This is good stuff. This is forgiveness, this is the an expansive claim of reconciliation between us and our Maker.

In Colossions chapter 1, we read:

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.”

And coming right along with this reconciliation stuff is that faith thing again… the thing we need, the thing that is supposed to go deeper than anything else and pick us up again, make us fully alive.

And today in our house church meeting it resounded again, even as we read the Old Testament in Isaiah 7:

“If you do not stand firm in your faith,
you will not stand at all.”

Isaiah, in chapter 7 and following in chapters 8 and 9, begins to prophesy the coming birth of a son, a boy who will grow up to liberate his people from their oppressors and end all conflict and violence. His name is to be God-is-with-us, or Immanuel. And in the same breath, he lumps Immanuel in with all the destruction he is also promising to unleash on the people of Judah. What he is saying here is a foreshadow of the utter humiliation and ultimately gruesome crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus is our Immanuel, the one who stands with us, perfectly modeling for us the faith that believes that whatever is coming our way is meant to happen for the good, and it is for a reason. And the reason is so that God would pave in us the way of real, true, and deep life, to live as we were intended.

The more I look back and see the horrible, ugly things about myself, the more I acknowledge my need for real freedom, and the more I recognize that God is the one that accomplishes this feat, and not me. I don’t do the changing, and changing is not even the point. The point is so that I can know my Maker, know that He is good, and that He loves me. Only then can the wrong in me be put right.

Isaiah 9:2-7

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.

You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as men rejoice
when dividing the plunder.

For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.

Every warrior’s boot used in battle
and every garment rolled in blood
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.

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