Lori Stanley Roeleveld's Blog, page 29

Who Will You Let Tell You Your Own Story?

When the year is new but it’s the same old you walking into it,

surrounded by the identical supporting cast from last year and a plot that feels like an under-budget rehash of material you know too well,

When your mood flits between grateful and glum depending on the stories flashing past in your Facebook news feed

(grateful for your health after a friend’s cancer diagnosis, passed over after a colleague wins an award, envious of a neighbor’s promotion, thankful your children are near when another’s goes missing) as you ride the rails of the comparison roller coaster (He loves me, He answers my prayers not.)

When you’re only half-joking that you’re taking a sick day out of disappointment for not winning the Powerball, which makes you feel guilty for sincerely wanting all that money, which makes no sense because you didn’t play the lottery since it’s gambling and if God wanted you to be a billionaire He probably wouldn’t deliver it through the Powerball,

which makes you remember your goal of cultivating true contentment with what you have,

which you could do if you hadn’t just read that blog post about how people don’t have because they don’t ask, or pray long enough or hard enough, or catch onto God’s vision for them, or ask a big God for big things, or pray believing for the thousands of cattle on God’s hills, or fast and march around your prayers like Jericho, or get enough other people to pray, too,

I mean, perfectly respectable looking Christians are telling you it’s practically a billboard of your pathetic faith that you drive an old car and wonder where the money for the electric bill will come from if the temperature continues to drop, so which way is God’s way – praying big or fostering contentment with little?

Was there some class on pure, uncomplicated faith that other people attended but you missed?

Then, the reading in your morning devotions (which you’re doing after dinner) is all about not worrying about tomorrow, what you’ll eat or drink or use to power your laptop, which reminds you that you’re a terrible Christian even after all these years and all this trying because that’s exactly what you were just doing.

That idea (the terrible Christian thing) gets reinforced when you watch a news video about a young couple who started an earth-friendly business that also helps empower people in poorer countries to create their own businesses.

Now, you’re not only a terrible Christian; you’re also an under-achieving believer and you turn to ask your husband if the two of you should consider some greater venture in Jesus’ name, but he dozed off watching the news – the six o’clock news – so then you think the least you can do is buy some of their product, but you remember your resolve to spend less so, there’s not even that.

And now, you notice the news report that North Korea says they have the bomb and can wipe America off the planet, so you remember last year’s resolution to memorize more Scripture just in case “they” come and take away all the Bibles, but you stink at memorizing, so six verses into John 15 you bailed on the effort.

Maybe you should start again. Maybe you should have started two weeks ago. How angry is North Korea?

And just when you thought you couldn’t feel like a worse Jesus-follower, you see the story about the Canadian pastor kept in solitaire digging ditches all day in a North Korean labor camp. He risked telling North Koreans about Jesus while you pray for opportunities to witness at work but secretly hope they never come because you’re so tongue-tied about your faith.

When suddenly the Holy Spirit says, “Enough! Get outside and look at the stars.”

The air is crisp. The night sky is clear, glittering with Orion and his compatriots. Here, in the dark, you exhale.

You think about Abraham under the stars and Jacob dreaming of a staircase to heaven, of Paul shipwrecked on an island looking at the night sky, and childless Sarah on a cool desert night. And the same God sees you, knows your name, writes your story.

You can almost hear Him speak to you what He may have spoken to them:

This is your life. These are your times. I am your God. Settle down and press into that truth.

They got lost sometimes. Confused. They felt small and wondered where God’s great promise was. God never lost sight of them even when they lost sight of Him.

God whispers, “Who are you going to let tell you your story? Your mood? The enemy? Facebook? People who only see you in the now? You in your own worst moments? Or Me, the Author and Perfecter of your faith?”

God writes your story. He is such a Master Storyteller that He’ll even weave the moments of confusion and doubt into the tale in a way that ultimately testifies to redemption and saving grace.

So, when the year is new but it’s the same old you walking into it, stand under the stars and remember that God lives outside of time. Give Him every frustration, doubt, fear, failure, worry, and stumbling step.

Then watch the God of Abraham, Sarah, of Jacob and Paul, tell a story of adventure, of near disaster averted by patient endurance and a creative, redemptive God who never fails, with your life.

Who are you going to let tell you your story?

What do you call a Christian on their worst, lowest, most lost day?

A Child of the Most High God, Redeemed by the Blood of Jesus, Saved for Good Works, Wholly Loved, Full of Eternal Life and Destined for Glory, Friend of God.

Who Will You Let Tell You Your Story? https://t.co/nuqc6sFoRY #Jesus are you struggling already in the new year? Here’s your life raft.

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) January 17, 2018

Who Moved the Finish Line?

Imagine running a race with no clear finish line.

My father was a high school athlete back in the early fifties and loves to reminisce. My favorite story is not one of his glory, but one of his arrogance.

Dad was a baseball player and he was fast. So fast, his coach challenged the track coach one day that dad could best his runners.

Being the early fifties, high school sports weren’t so bound up in regulations. The track coach took the dare, offering to let dad run the next race.

“Stanley, take off your baseball shirt. You’re running the 440.” Dad’s coach ordered him down to his T-shirt and Dad, having NO clue what the 440 was but believing he could do anything, trotted over to the track.

The other runners crouched, but dad began from a standing position. At the sound of the starter pistol, he was off and immediately ahead of all the runners by a comfortable lead.

He remembers people yelling and cheering. He knew he was way ahead of the other runners, so he poured on the speed. Of course, he was the fastest! Was there ever any doubt?

Reporters from three local papers waited around the track. Dad was confident his win would be big news the following day. He ran faster. As he neared the curve of the track, there stood his baseball teammates hooting and cheering.

Dad was soaking it in until one of them called out “You’re halfway there, Stanley!”

Halfway? Halfway?

It suddenly occurred to Dad that he had no idea how far the 440 was, but halfway was not what he’d been thinking. It wasn’t too much further up the track that Dad hit a wall, passed out, and landed on the track with one inglorious thud.

When he came to, his coach and teammates standing over him, he asked “Did I win?” They groaned, and the coach shook his head in disgust. Throwing Dad’s baseball shirt back at him, the coach ordered, “Just get back to practice, Stanley!”

Before you enter a race, it’s good to know the distance. Training to run a sprint or a dash is wildly different from training for a marathon.

Sometimes though, we don’t have information about the finish line.

None of us knows where the line of ribbon waits for us. My father has been planning his funeral since he was in his twenties. As a firefighter, he always imagined his life would be a quick sprint. But, now he’s in his eighties and he still doesn’t know where the ribbon lies, but then, neither do I.

So, how do we train when our finish line is veiled until we stumble over it? Rely on the training of a great coach.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that we all run a race and there is One in charge of our training:

“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12: 7-12

When God brings hardship into my life, I hate it, but I’ve learned through the years that no hardship I’ve endured has ever been wasted.

Because of the Lord’s help, I’ve taken from each trial a skill, an understanding, or a strength that I can pull from the knapsack of my soul further along on the track to either sustain myself or others for the race.

When the discipline is happening, praising and thanking God for it seems as ridiculous as praising a coach for extra wind sprints or thanking him for making me do push-ups until I puke. But when I’m on my feet and flying down the track, I’m grateful for the newfound endurance or grace.

I’m a lot like my dad. Too many times, I’ve shot off like an arrogant fool and let the roar of the crowd distract me from paying attention to the race. Too often, I’ve come to, lying on my back as others easily sailed around me and seen Jesus just shake his head, roll his eyes, and send me to the showers.

But, whenever I land on my back, it does help me keep my eyes on Him!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Hebrews 12:1-3

The finish line awaits us all. Finishing well is the prize, but that takes training, loved ones. Pay close attention. We have the best Coach.

Who moved the finish line? https://t.co/5jdjSZ39GS What happens when we run with no clear view of the finish line? #runningtherace #Jesus #runners

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) January 11, 2018

Finding the Indestructible You in the Christmas Story

**Dear Readers, I know many of you hope to switch off social media and other distractions to focus on Jesus, loved ones, ministry, and rest over the days surrounding Christmas. This is my plan, as well. To support all our efforts, with this final post of 2017 I’ll take a two week break from the blog and will return with new material after the New Year. Press in to Jesus and make His heart your home. May God bless us, every one. Merry Christmas, with mercy, grace, and love, Lori

Have you ever been separated from the things that once defined you?

Maybe it was your career, your marriage, your appearance, or an ability you had, but lost. How lost did you feel? How hard was it to meet new people and to answer the most basic questions like where do you live, or what do you do, or are you married?

There really is no way to understand the naked exposure of losing that something that defines you until it happens. Then, even though you know in your mind that others have gone through it, still, you feel alone.

Once, there was a night janitor where I worked.

He was a hard worker but pleasant, too. His English wasn’t fluent, but we had brief, friendly chats. One night, he said to me, “You are so kind to me. I want you to know that in my own country, I used to be somebody.”

I used to be somebody. I understood what he was saying. Here in America, he works three, sometimes four jobs. He wears coveralls and comes on the job as everyone else leaves. He mops floors, cleans toilets, and takes orders from a young man who could have been his grandson. People seldom speak to him except to point out a spot that he missed or to ask him if he’d mistakenly taken a member’s missing cell phone. Three times they ask him, “just in case.”

In his country, he was a professor at a university, head of the department. He taught Psychology. He enjoyed his subject, his research, and his students but there were limitations on his life and certain dangers. In this country, he is no one; but in this country, his children don’t live in fear.

Sometimes, there are compelling reasons to leave what defines us behind.

Usually, it’s not a venture we take on willingly. There’s a trigger, an inciting incident, a personal tsunami that rolls in. When it rolls out, we’re stripped of that which used to hide the naked truth of our unadorned selves.

Now, here we stand. Just a person. Without credentials or references or photo id’s. We simply are.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

Especially, when others are dressed so well in their degrees and designations, their designer clothes and deeds of ownership, their pedigrees, histories, accomplishments, and their entourage ready to offer testimonials on their behalf. We think about how, in our old country, we used to be somebody. How now, we’re not.

Most of us only enter this condition when compelled by forces beyond our control. No one volunteers to be a refugee. Except Jesus.

Jesus willingly stripped off all that would identify Him as God, as Creator of the Universe, as THE WORD, and became a nobody, just a baby born to some poor couple on a busy night in the city. When He stepped into our story, He came as no one, revealing His true self only to those who took the time to take a second look.

The apostle John wrote one of the saddest passages of scripture in this: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” John 1:9-11 (ESV)

Have you ever experienced that? Rejection by those who used to call you their own? Refusal by those once close to you to acknowledge you. Have you ever become nobody in front of everyone who once thought you were somebody?

Jesus did.

Like the night janitor, He had a compelling reason for leaving everything that outwardly defined Him and outwardly become nothing – His love for and obedience to His Father who loved us so dearly, He sent His only son. He, too, wanted His children to live free from fear.

He showed us that becoming nothing is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Giving up our identity, leaving our home, descending from the heights, this is nothing to fear.

Separation from the Father’s love – that is a fearful condition.

Because Jesus came, we never need to fear that again, if we receive Him. To find our identity in the measures of this world is natural.

To find our identity in our relationship with Jesus Christ is to touch our eternal selves and to know the freedom of living indestructible lives.

O come, o come, Emmanuel! How are hearts long for home!

Finding the Indestructible You in the Christmas Story https://t.co/8e3c9Avzrr #Christmas #Jesus goodbye2017

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 22, 2017

When God Gets a Busy Signal – A Post to Set You Free

My Dad wanted to reach me once, so he called. Repeatedly.

I was on the phone having a long overdue chat with a friend. I saw him beep-in but I ignored the call. I could speak with him later. The house phone rang. I knew it was him. I let it go to voicemail. Again, he beeped in my cell – twice.

I’d already seen him that morning. Knew he was fine. We live across the street from one another. There was no ambulance in his driveway, so I continued my conversation.

The house phone rang again, and then the cell. (sigh)

As I wound down my chat, from across the street I heard his screen door slam and watched his car leave his driveway and pull into mine. 

“I gotta go,” I mumbled. “He’s actually driven to my house.”

There was nothing wrong with my chatting, and nothing wrong with expecting him to wait.

Dad wasn’t angry with my not answering. He assumed I had an important call. He just was intent on getting me a piece of information important to my son. He knew exactly where to find me just as I usually know exactly where to find him.

This came to mind in the past weeks as I’ve endured an unusually busy time.

For years, I crafted a life that allowed me to be available to God and to others, to be the person who isn’t always busy, so I could spend time with God. Spend time with hurting people. Pay attention to my kids.

Now, my kids are grown, and the landscape of my life has shifted. I have a full-time day job. I write full-time. (Do the math on that.) A speaking ministry. My parents live across the street. My husband is pursuing his dream of renovating a house (while we live inside it) while coping with MS. I serve in my local church.

I. Am. Busy.

For weeks, I wrestled with an undercurrent of stress I finally identified as fear and guilt. Busyness is a bad thing isn’t it?

Busy prevents me from being available to God. God calls us to a simple life and there’s nothing simple happening here. But as I looked over what I’m doing, nothing can give right now. Whatever doesn’t need to be done, I’m already not doing.

Plus, I’m not ignoring God. He’s on my mind when I wake. I pray before my feet hit the floor. Throughout my workday, I listen to the Bible on CD and pray about what I’m hearing.

And, to be sure I don’t lose sight of Him, I take a day off from all work once a week, Saturday evening to Sunday evening. That’s when I go to movies, worship, read a book, walk with my husband, or sit on the porch.

On my day of rest, I am like Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything, “I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.”

Even with that, I wrestled with fear. What I wasn’t seeing was that Satan fed that fear. Taunted me about being too busy. Whispered that all this busyness would lead to terrible, terrible trouble. Someone would get hurt.

Then, all at once, God reminded me of Him.

I was involved with my day job, making lists for Christmas, and lists for the writing when I heard Him beep in on my mental conversation.

Several times, I ignored Him, thinking I’d get to Him later, but He had an important piece of information for me, so He got right in my face with Romans 8:38-39.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That’s when I saw the truth. Nothing can separate me from Jesus – not even busyness.

If there is a time for everything, then there is a time to be busy. I still believe there’s too much busyness on the planet and we should be sure what we’re doing is what we’re called to do. But, there are demanding seasons when what He calls us to do stretches us and requires us to be busy.

He. Is. still. With. Us.

Nothing can separate us from Jesus. I pulled out my Bible and read Romans 8 in full. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” leapt out at me. I used it against the voice of Satan and His taunts disappeared.

I’m no longer afraid of the busyness because I know that whenever God wants me to know something, He’s going to break through and tell me.

He is for me and because He is for me, who can stand against me? Not even me.

Is this your busy season? If God called you to it, He’ll see you through it. Rest in Him even in the busy season.

When God Gets a Busy Signal https://t.co/0j2fbZa9Ko A post to set you free #BusySeason #busychristmas #Jesus

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 20, 2017

The Very Best Bible Reading Plan You’ll Find This Year (2018)

A struggling family with several teens lived one street over from a popular, restaurant district and came up on my radar.

Christmas was near, so I asked if they had a wish list. I expected them to clamor for video games, trendy sneakers, or iPods.

Instead, they showed me a dozen magazine clippings of recipes.  “We think we figured out how to make this stuff if you could get us the ingredients for Christmas.”

What was on their list? The makings for lasagna, grilled cheese, hot dogs and beans, shepherd’s pie, and tacos. They were hungry. Deeply famished, in fact.

As they showed me the food photos and read the directions, they spoke in dreamy tones of commonplace foods, describing how they would imagine being able to sit down at a table to eat as much as they could hold. I was overwhelmed. This was Rhode Island, after all, not a developing nation.

The family received food assistance, but their parent struggled with life tasks so usually purchased only two or three items. The cupboards were stocked with ramen noodles, peanut butter, and saltines.

Every day, these growing teens walked home from school through the aroma of the area’s finest eateries, but they were so hungry, food was all they could imagine wanting under the Christmas tree.

Such an easy problem to solve.

People who cared supplied all that their recipes required. Then a family friend helped that parent learn how to vary the shopping.

We introduced them to local church suppers and food pantries. The teens eagerly took over the cooking and learned to prepare a variety of meals. One of them finally observed, “Isn’t it crazy that we nearly starved to death and all the time we were surrounded by food!”

Many Christians live just like these hungry boys.

There are believers who languish in persecuted countries with no access to God’s Word. It’s understandable they would suffer from a famine of God’s Word because it’s not available to them. They go to great effort to secure even small portions of scripture, treasuring it when they find it.

Other believers, though, live surrounded by opportunities to feast, yet exist in a self-imposed state of famine. You may be one.

This is how you’ll know.

Walk around your house collecting all your bibles. (Go ahead. I’ll wait.)

Stack them on a table. Never mind the Bible study books or books about the Bible. Just collect the Bibles.

Then, ask yourself how often you opened and read any of them in the past two weeks. (I feel it important to mention here that there is therefore no condemnation in Christ. You are loved and found in Him, you are His child and secure in eternal life even if you haven’t read the Bible in the past two months – if you’d read the Bible, you’d know this. False guilt is a waste of time. Real guilt, if you’re ready to own up to it, is already covered by Christ so this is an exercise, not in failure, but in waking up.)

You love God’s Word. You know reading the Bible daily will open you up to a deeper relationship with Him. You know that it’s better to go right to the source and wrestle with it yourself than to listen to a thousand Bible debates on Facebook.

You know that time in God’s Word will increase your knowledge of Christ as well as your wisdom, endurance, and love for others. I don’t even need to remind you that Paul, who loved Jesus, was an apostle, and had miraculous experiences, loved to read and study Scripture so, of course, we need it, too.

Then what gets in your way?

It’s a famine induced by a glut of choices. A famine induced by the pursuit of the perfect reading plan.

A famine induced by indecision and the illusion that owning twelve Bibles and being surrounded by Bibles and clicking on links that discuss the Bible are all the same as consuming the Bible with your own eyes and mind.

Reading the Bible is reading the Bible and it’s the daily food every soul craves.

Allow me to speak words of freedom to you: There is no perfect reading plan.

Every reading plan was devised by imperfect humans and will be employed by imperfect humans so pick one plan and do it imperfectly.

When you miss a week – forget catching up – just start up again. Or, go wild and don’t follow a plan just start reading (okay, but not the start in Genesis thing because everyone drops off in Leviticus).

Start in an imperfect place, maybe the middle of Isaiah. Read three chapters or five and record what you read. Tomorrow, read five more. If you miss a day, so what? If you miss a day of showering you don’t decide to skip showers for the rest of the week and start up again on Monday, you just shower, right?

Another thing. There’s only one perfect day to start. Today.

Today is the perfect day to begin. And here’s the best part. It’s always today. Tomorrow is a terrible day to begin reading the Bible so avoid that and start on the perfect day, today.

When we’re young and single and interested in a person, we hang out in places we might encounter him or her. If we’re interested in a relationship with Jesus, one place we’re certain to encounter Him is in His Word, so it’s always a perfect place to spend time.

Pick a Bible. Any of the seven on your table. Open it. Read a portion.

Ask God what the passage says about Him. What does the passage say about you? What from this passage can affect your life today? Tomorrow, read this section again and do what it says.

This is the single best way you can enter the Christmas season or the New Year or the middle of winter or any season of life. Don’t allow your soul to waste away steps away from the finest food prepared by Your Loving Father.

Today is the day, loved ones. Wake up to the power between the pages of God’s communique to all living on this outpost of Glory. Today, is the day. Read on and feel your soul revive.

The Very Best Bible Reading Plan You’ll Find This Year (2018) https://t.co/yhykkvkARw #Biblereadingplan #NewYearsResolution #Jesus

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 15, 2017

He Sees You When You’re Weeping, He Knows Just What’s at Stake

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.

How creepy is that, right? Sounds more like a Stephen King novel than a Christmas song. The idea that someone sees everything we do can be unsettling.

That’s one reason someone invented Santa. To help parents keep little ones in line when they left the room.

But, what can be a sobering thought for mischievous little ones, can be an enormous encouragement to those who labor faithfully at duties no one else sees. No one human, that is.

There’s a consistent call in the Christian community to make time for rest, recreation, and contemplation. It’s a good call.

Still, there many engaged in demanding, unrelenting labor that isn’t about selfish ambition or consumerism, but requires consistent devotion, either for a reason or a season. Farmers, parents of special needs children, caretakers for the very old or the dying, missionaries who are the only light for Christ for entire regions, first responders in disaster areas, and many others can’t take vacations, hours to meditate, or sometimes even eight uninterrupted hours to sleep.

For these weary souls, I have this to say by way of encouraging you amid these demands: Jesus sees you when you’re weeping, He knows just what’s at stake. Loved one, you may not be able to take even an hour off, but know you can still rest in Jesus, even while you work.

Because God never slumbers nor sleeps, and He is ever watchful even over those of us who feel invisible.

People planet-wide are doing mighty, heroic, compassionate, sacrificial things, that no few ever see. These are the round-the-clock faithful. Spouses holding and calming disoriented husbands or wives who awaken panic-stricken because of Alzheimer’s or wrestling with pain from a crippling illness.

Parents praying into the night over sleeping, straying, or sick children – battling for them on a celestial plane, bathed in the glow of night-lights, listening to hospital monitors, or watching for headlights in the driveway.

Caregivers, medical workers, and first responders in a myriad of circumstances administering comfort, aid, rescue, consolation, and true joy while everyone else shops, celebrates, or sleeps.

Young people standing behind registers and counters working hard, providing fine service, even when no one is looking, not so they can buy video games, but so they can help with rent. Farmers laboring in fields, growing food they can’t afford to purchase. Adult children sleeping on waiting room couches so they can monitor ailing parents.

Soldiers not old enough to drink, faithfully standing watch in lands far from home wondering if anyone is thinking of them. Men and women stringing together multiple jobs just to cover their daily living expenses, unable to say no to extra shifts.  Homeless friends taking turns watching out for those who would prey on them.

Ministers caring for the broken or hurting long into the night. Social workers leaving warm homes to rescue confused and battered children, sitting in government offices pleading with others to take the children in so they don’t spend Christmas sleeping on sofa. Foster parents making up beds in the night to receive children who just want to go home.

So, our God made rock stars out of shepherds.

Shepherds didn’t have the coveted roles of their day that the Christmas story portrays. Until that band of angels showed up, shepherds were the invisible people of their day. They clung to the bottom rung of society. People probably told shepherd jokes at the inns.

Shepherds smelled bad, spent hours alone, and likely felt forgotten as their families gathered without them.

Their acts of heroism – helping ewes through difficult births, defending the flock from hungry lions or wolves, and rescuing lost sheep, was expected, but went unseen. They recited poetry and sang songs for an audience of One.

Their faithfulness was taken for granted by everyone but the One who sees all. And the joys they experienced – new lambs, light shows in the sky, or triumphing over danger – they rejoiced in these experiences alone, too.

God sent a message to all invisible people who keep watch round-the-clock, when He chose to announce the birth of His Son to shepherds.

God’s son could have been born anywhere at any time. Certainly, there were more important people who could have heard the news first. Babies are born in the daylight all the time. I think God wanted everyone who labors faithfully, but invisibly to know – He sees.

He knows all those times you choose to do the right thing when no one is looking. He shares your joy. He knows your sorrow. Even if no one else knows, He sees that you are a hero.

One day, everyone will know because He sees. No one ever sang songs about shepherds until Jesus arrived on the scene. Well, not nice songs. In heaven, they’re composing songs about you, faithful ones, and our God sings them over you, even now.

So, don’t lose heart in the late watches of the night. You’re never alone. You’re never unnoticed. He knows there’s too much at stake for you to rest just now, so rest in His presence, draw strength from His great heart.

The God of the Universe sees and One day He will tell us your story.

Until then, lift a mug of coffee to the shepherds who went before you and thank God for sending Jesus who faithfully shepherds us all through the watches of our long night.

Sonrise will come, dear friends, and with it, our long-awaited rest.

He Sees You When You’re Weeping, He Knows Just What’s at Stake https://t.co/F1Pn7XsDvC #Christmas #fires #tired

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 10, 2017

Don’t Make Your Children’s Dreams Come True This Christmas

If you believe all the commercials and holiday specials, Christmas is about making dreams come true. Funny, no one told Jesus. He didn’t come to work for Walt Disney; He came to fulfill His Father’s will.

Ask Mary. It wasn’t her dream to start her married life under a cloud of suspicion. Ask Joseph. It wasn’t his dream to have his friends wonder if he was a fornicator or a chump. It wasn’t this young couple’s dream to spend years running and hiding from a powerful and angry king. Nor was it the dream of families in Judea to watch Herod’s soldiers kill their infant sons.

Jesus didn’t come to make dreams come true. He came to teach us to dream better dreams.

He arrived a poor child, so we knew He understood the pain of going without. He endured rejection, suffering, and trials so we knew He had walked in our shoes.

He was misunderstood, betrayed, arrested, beaten, mocked, and humiliated. Those He loved abandoned Him. He faced an unjust conviction and died at the hands of arrogant and manipulative blind guides – while His mother watched.

Christmas isn’t about dreams – not the dreams we normally dream.

It’s a celebration of God’s love for us made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. God came and lived with us. That wasn’t a dream; it was real.

And it wasn’t about making our dreams come true. It was about delivering us from the lesser dreams of this world, so we are free to dream eternal dreams.

He is the originator of dreams, the great Dream Weaver, but we have come under the curse of one who convinced us to trade our glory for lesser dreams. That is why we spend the holidays at Target, but still feel as if we’re missing the bull’s eye.

If you love your children this Christmas, don’t work to make their dreams come true. Rather, teach them to dream the best dream – that of a life with Jesus Christ –

a life where they discover their true name, where they realize their original and glorious design, where they know they are seen and loved by the God who calls them to step into His idea of them – an idea bigger than the galaxies, the Aurora Borealis, the nations, and all art, music, and science combined.

Jesus stands ready to wake them from the sleep of sin, so they can realize the dream of a life set free and embrace the truest dream of entering an eternal story where love and adventure never end.

We all want the best for our children. Wise men still know to seek it in the place most of the world would never dream to find it.

Don’t Make Your Children’s Dreams Come True This Christmas https://t.co/eA2ctnA0ou #amwriting #Christmas

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 7, 2017

Manger Danger

I woke to the headline that a church in Massachusetts has added what many are touting as a “modern twist” to their nativity. In fact, their addition is actually quite spot-on to the historical birth of Jesus.

This church added lists of mass shootings to the walls behind Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, hoping to raise our consciousness about the irony of “Christmas peace.” I wonder if the architect of this tableau considered how true to life it is to consider the pain of mass murder at the birth of Jesus.

Jesus would have stood out in his generation for a sad reason. He would have been in a minority of young men his age because Herod tried to exterminate Him shortly after Jesus’ birth by ordering the execution of all males two and under in Bethlehem and the surrounding area.

A slaughter. A bloodbath. The deaths of the innocents by a king worried that another threatened his throne. 

Matthew 2 records the tragic subplot of the Christmas narrative this way: “Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:  “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” Matthew 2:16-28

She refused to be comforted because they are no more.

God sent His Son into a brutal world. A serrated edge sojourn in a hair-trigger land. That is the place where we still live. 

In December 2012, the lives of twenty children and six adults ended in Newtown, CT, gunned down in their innocence. As recently as November, children were massacred as they worshiped in Sutherland Springs, TX. There is no lack of evidence that there is still a prince of this world worried that another is coming for his throne. 

Oh, He’s coming, all right. And when He comes, all things will be set right. There will be no more weeping, or mourning, and the only bloodbath will be the one prepared for unrepentant ones who thought that babies were fair play in this war and that swords and automatic weapons ruled the day.

There is a day coming when love and peace will be the only law. 

I wonder if Mary told her son about the slaughter surrounding His birth. How did they process that? How many mothers wept? How many fathers grieved? How many little girls grew up wondering why they were so many among so few because of the death of the innocents.

And Jesus was acquainted with sorrow from birth and carried the burden of knowing that unnumbered children lost their lives even as His was protected, guided, celebrated.

The holidays are a complex emotional concoction of joy, nostalgia, hope, and sadness – especially when we’ve lost one we love. 

Jesus knows. Jesus knows. Jesus knows. 

Jesus came to the real world. He didn’t bury His head or offer slogans or pablum; He offered His body, given for all of us. He faced death and arose from the grave the victor. He offered us the promise of an eternal future where love reigns if we hold on while all He longs to share it with us are brought into the family of God.

In your sorrow, your sadness, your grief, your anger, confusion, and your heart’s cry for justice, peace, and an end to suffering, know that you celebrate Him and honor Him, too, for He was a man of sorrows.

If your loved ones are sad at Christmas, weep with them, listen to their pain, and hold them close. Assure them that they, too, have the holiday spirit because Jesus also wept in this world. 

He holds our grieving hearts in His calloused, gentle, nail-scarred hands and whispers to us all, “Hold on, I’m coming.”

Manger Danger – the inherent truth of the sadness around Jesus’ birth https://t.co/BcilB3QVWx #dedhamchurch #livingnativity #Grief

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 5, 2017

Only Christians Are Equipped for Matt Lauer Headlines

You and I encounter people every day who monitor our responses, anticipating judgment or condemnation, simply because of what they’ve heard about Christians.

Most of these individuals believe truth is relative, everyone should do pretty much as they please (except we shouldn’t bully or tell others what to do), and that Christians have created God, not the other way ‘round.

They believe the Bible is fatally flawed, wholly inconsistent, irrelevant, and outdated. In their circles, polite people don’t talk about Jesus.

Sadly, this leaves them wholly unequipped to cope with the headlines about Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Charlie Rose, Al Franken, and whoever hit the Twitter feed today.

These men had everything modern humans believe is vital for people to become their best selves – education, opportunity, purposeful careers, creative outlets, health, family, financial security, power, freedom, experience of other cultures, politically correct politics, and the respect of sometimes millions.

Yet, with all this, they were unable to save themselves from their own bent toward sin.

Rampant shock and dismay leave secular people bereft of options, save for the crude tools of condemnation, mistrust, disillusionment, and disgust. They must find ways to separate from these men, and so they declare them monsters, some kind of “other” beings, broken in a way no one they love could possibly share.

There is a better way.

A biblical worldview is the best equipper for handling the handlines.

There is a God who created us. Our design is, indeed, glorious, and we are capable of magnificence. But, we rebelled against our Creator and chose sin, which stalks each of us, seeking to be our master.

We cannot free ourselves. Not through education, financial advancement, politics, power, true love, or creative expression. The most infamous evil of all times was perpetrated by people who had all these.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There is no shock or awe when men (or women) behave badly. The potential – the bent for this – resides like a coiled serpent in every soul.

We are not, however, without hope.

God sent His Only Son, Jesus, to be born a human, to live a sinless life, to die on the cross in our place, to atone for the sins of all humankind, and to rise from the dead in triumph, eventually to come again. He is the Savior of all who receive Him “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9

 

This is the worldview that equips us to understand these fallen men are not monsters or some “other” type of being than us. But for the grace of God, they are us.

Even in relationship with Jesus, we are not perfect. We sin. We fail. But, we are no longer slaves to it. We are free and can avail ourselves of this freedom.

This is why Jesus-followers cannot stand with the crowd looking for the handiest rock to hurl.

This is why we cannot be like those who turn away.

This is why we cannot waste energy and emotional resources expressing shock and disgust, wondering what went wrong.

We must invest our resources in lighting the exit ramp off a life enslaved to sin. Demonstrating the same truth-telling grace that was offered to us. Walking in the humility and diligence of those who know we, too, can be tempted to great sin.

And living up to our calling in Christ so others have opportunity to see Him and thus find the way of escape into the matrix that is the only eternal reality.

God exists. He lives. He sees, hears, speaks, loves, and is active among humans. He pursues a relationship with each one of us and without the context of that relationship, we are left open to our own devices.

Sin is also real, as is the force of evil. Small sins build appetites for greater sins and all sins flourish in the dark. This is what has occurred when men and women with no excuse for evil engage in it.

There is forgiveness even for those who have perpetrated the darkest of sins. The sacrifice of Jesus was that great and that powerful.

Surrounded by a culture of death, we are suspect because within us, we bear life, the life of Jesus Christ. Live openly for Christ anyway.

In a world where sin craves darkness to flourish, people resent the light. Be light anyway.

In times when many will let their love grow cold, all who continue to love will be considered the greatest of fools. Love fearlessly anyway.

When men and women fall, Christians stand ready. Not to condemn, to point fingers, or to mock – but to demonstrate what was freely offered to us when fell – the salvation of Jesus Christ who equips us to handle the headlines.

Only Christians are Equipped for #MattLauer Headlines https://t.co/CdRLNlvb8s What do we offer that others lack when facing the headlines? #Jesus

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) December 2, 2017

How Many Lights Do You See – Four or Five? (the scandal of certainty in uncertain times)

A simple phrase at the start of Luke’s gospel sucker-punched the solar plexus of my soul.

Luke is the logical gospel for the season, so I dove in headlong, not suspecting any immediate surprise in such familiar territory.

Suddenly, there it was, this throbbing heart hunger, identified and called out by the author/physician at the close of his introduction. Perhaps he is the writer to conduit some inner healing.

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” Luke 1:1-4

Certainty.

Certainty in uncertain times. Certainty concerning the things I’ve been taught. Wow. That’s it.

I’d danced around my longing for it until Dr. Luke tapped my knee with his gospel hammer and my spirit kicked him clear across the room.

Certainty. A slippery quality in divisive days. Some would say an antiquity, an archaic notion. Others declare it a fool’s desire, the refuge of the unsophisticated, a distinctive of the simple and uninformed.

It’s de rigueur, for those wishing to appear wise and inclusive, to qualify every statement with a modifier indicating that facts change, truth is relative, and perspective may shift with prevailing winds.

I appreciate an openness to other positions, sensitivity to culture and worldview, and willingness to listen and learn. But, not everything varies with perspective.

There are absolute truths. There are eternal certainties that don’t vary with timelines, cultures, genders, or vantage points. Even if to believe the contrary is the fashion of the age.

Toe-ing the cliff-edge of 2018, most of what I see for certain is change – personally and globally. Change on numerous fronts – some welcome, some dreaded, along with threats, shifts, and other transitions. On the last page of every calendar, I find the phrase, Beyond here be dragons and so I press into Dr. Luke and say, yes, help me locate certainty concerning the things I’ve been taught.

Jesus. Of Him, I am certain. That He lived. That He is God. That He died for my sins and rose again. That He is coming again. Still, it’s a certainty I don’t take for granted.

Daily, in a fallen world, we’re confronted with subtle (sometimes not so subtle), mental, societal pressures to deny certainty, to question perspective, and to speak only what is acceptable, not what is truth.

The persistence of the fallen planet under the influence of the chief deceiver, nibbles at the edges of our faith all the time. Like beach erosion, certainty must be measured and combatted after every major storm, and monitored even after minor squalls.

Do I know that my redeemer lives? Yes. Do I believe the Bible is reliable and true? Yes.

But while our anxiety fixes on threats from North Korea, the deceiver slithers across the transom of a thousand open-doors in our every day, curling himself around our thoughts with an ever-tightening choke-hold on truth and we need the Holy Spirit to unfurl him with the certain remedy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Modern life is like an old Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode (an homage to George Orwell’s 1984), where Captain Picard is tormented by a ruthless captor who continually shows him four bright lights, promising Picard comforts and relief if he simply states there are five.

Watching this scene play out, I think of the inquisitors we face daily.

“If God is real, there’s no way He’d allow suffering. Let go of your juvenile need for a great bearded man in the sky.”

“You say God is love, but it’s not love to tell people how to live, is it?”

“No one can know what the Bible is really saying. It’s so full of mistakes. Grow up. Move on.”

“The writers of the Bible weren’t as informed as we are now. Update your translation. Admit no one can really know what God wants.”

And right now, today, we withstand the pressure, but one thing I know for certain – without Jesus, we will fall. Humans reach limits. And our enemy persists, fueled by his hatred of our God.

Captain Picard is released before he succumbs to the torture.  His admission, though, to his counselor after he is free, should caution us all.

“Captain Jean-Luc Picard: At the end, he gave me a choice – between a life of comfort… or more torture. All I had to do was to say that… I could see *five* lights, when in fact there were only four.

Counselor Deanna Troi: You didn’t say it.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: No. No. But I was going to. I would’ve told him anything. Anything at all. But more than that – I believed that I could see… five lights.” (Chain of Command, Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1992)

We’re big on announcing that we know the reason for the season, but are we certain of what we’ve been taught?

What better way to celebrate Jesus’ birth than to remind ourselves of who He is, to consider what we believe with certainty. What better preparation for a new uncertain year than to affirm the spiritual ground beneath our soul’s gospel-shod feet?

Walk with Luke through a thorough examination, eyewitness accounts, of Jesus’ life on earth and enter the new year reading the Acts of the Apostles. Re-establish certainty in Jesus and then, you too, will understand this riddle:

 

What did one domino say to the other? We don’t have to fall.

How Many Lights Do You See (the scandal of certainty in uncertain times) https://t.co/dhZM2pGnyZ #Gospel #StarTrekTNG

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) November 29, 2017