Life Begins Here, Now

I was pretty busy on Saturday. We were making preparations for Christmas. I brought up the decorations from the basement, including the outdoor lights which I hang on our home each year. It's no small feat. Including checking the bulbs, placing the hangers on the gutter to planning where I am going to place the lights, and then actually climbing up and down the ladder, it takes a couple of hours all told.
I found myself thinking, "I'll be glad when this is all done." I had to stop myself. Why not be glad now? What was delaying my joy? Wasn't I decorating my house in preparation for Christ's birth, after all? And wasn't the sweat and soreness worth the end result?
My answer to those questions was a shift in my posture to one of gratitude and simple surrender to the moment. It enabled me to be patient, taking a systematic approach to the process. I was met with an unexpected buoyancy in my spirit and a spring in my step. In other words, I actually enjoyed the "drudgery" of the chore, and was able to really begin celebrating Christmas through it.
This started me thinking about all the myriad ways in which I delay joy in my life. "If only I had/was X, THEN I'd be happy" and "When X happens, THEN I'll be happy" are common refrains in my brain. But life isn't something that happens once we get everything set just the way we want it. It's happening all around us, at all times. It's up to us to wake up and be present in the moments of life that are passing us by. It's also about waking up to the incredible treasures and gifts we hold in our hands and are given freely every day. Life truly is a miracle. Perhaps if we accepted each day as a miracle and every moment as an opportunity to live in and spread Light, our joy would emerge from us as naturally as our breath.

Hard Questions

I learned of a tragedy last week that had the potential to shake my faith. A friend of a friend who had been struggling in many areas of life committed suicide by cop a couple of weeks ago. This was disturbing on many levels, since this man was a Christ follower and had prayed with my friend just days before for God's help in his situation. It brought up all kinds of questions for me about just who God is and a lot of "why" questions. If God is in control, how can evil be allowed in this world? Why does crap like this happen? Why do good people die? Where is God's justice in this world? Where is his Spirit, his presence? Where was God when this guy was losing his mind and his life?

These are tricky questions and ones without concrete answers. It's some solace to me that they've been asked of God since biblical times - many Psalms and the book of Job pose these same queries to God. And though I haven't received many solid answers since this happened, I did have a very helpful experience last Monday. I had a short coaching session with an acquaintance in which I was the client. I brought up these tough issues. Turns out, she had been trained as a pastor (coincidence?), and was quite skilled at listening to me "pour out my lament" without judging or trying to provide answers. I learned quite a bit in that session, including:

• God does not prevent us from feeling pain as his followers. What he does is infuse the pain with the possibility of his presence.
• We are called to rely on God, not on pat answers or formulas, or on how God has shown up in past situations. There is a part of me that would much rather create an answer sheet based on what I've seen and experienced from God in the past and disengage from living life with God. That is obviously contrary to the life we are called to - a full, eternal life that begins now as we walk with God every day and allow him to stretch and reform us in his image.
• Relying on the gifts God brings into our lives vs. God is also futile. This one is quite tricky, since human nature is always searching for a substitute for God. What better to fill the role than the gifts he provides? Of course, all things that are visible are temporary. Any time we're misaligned and worshiping God's creations, the rug will surely be pulled out from under us.
• In spite of my not knowing, God still acts. I don't have to have all the answers. It's not all up to me. I am a part of God's story, not the other way around.
• All efforts to construct limits for God will be blown apart. I always thought my image of God was always being challenged and broken apart so that a larger image of God could be created. The problem is, any image we create of God in our minds and hearts is inadequate. God is alive and wild. He cannot be caged, boxed in, or understood completely. We must relate to God as a Person, because he is. We're actually called to a relationship.

Even as I type, I know I will need to be continually reminded of these realities, which is part of the reason I'm blogging about them. These aren't the kinds of paradigm shifts one makes in a day or a week. I have gained a lot from asking these questions and realizing that God is here with us in our darkness and pain, even when we can't sense him and when all evidence around us is contrary to that truth. That's where faith comes in - believing something that flies in the face of worldly evidence.