Know the Real Enemy

Two known terrorists were killed today by police in France. I caught the news by accident this morning as I intended to turn on music to clean my house by. I didn’t get much cleaning done. Instead I found myself in tears over the image of these young men arriving today before the throne of God. I know they were murderers. Terrorists, even—the worst kind of murderers. I’m sure social media is abuzz with cheers and online chest bumps that the bad guys got what they deserve. It is a good day for freedom and democracy, especially if we find out that no hostages lost their lives in the battle. But my soul tells me it’s a bad day for humanity.

Every one of us will stand before God and give an account of our lives. Today was the day for Cherif and Said Kouachi, as well as their hostage-taking associate who was killed in a separate police raid in Paris. We might think, “Well, good! They deserve nothing less than eternity in hell.” And I might think that, too, except that I know I deserve nothing less than eternity in hell. I haven’t murdered anyone, but even my most righteous deeds are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) when compared to the holiness of God.

I imagine these two men standing before God, instantly realizing that they had missed it. There is no deception in heaven, only perfect clarity. It must have been perfectly clear to them that they had given their whole lives to a lie, that they had killed for that lie, that they had died for that lie. They were told they’d find 72 sexually-charged virgins waiting just for them in paradise if they died a jihadist’s death. Instead, they found truth and holiness. They found the God who can only be just, who can give them nothing but what their life’s wages earned for them—death and eternal separation from the presence of God and all that is good. No one walks away from that proud. Even the most passionate atheist will make a humble, sorrowful departure from God as they realize the truth.

I can’t cheer that these men are dead. I weep for them. I weep for a world that is so deceived. Our fight is not against flesh and blood. It is against the evil one and his power of deception. The same “spiritual forces of evil” (Ephesians 6:12) that sucked these men into murdering and dying for an empty lie tries to do the same to me, to my kids, to everyone around me. And a lot of the time, he is successful.

What can we do? We’ve got to start with ourselves. We can identify the lies that we’re so easily deceived by, and we can immerse ourselves in God’s truth, the truth found in His Word. We can memorize scripture and battle the lies with it. We can refuse to listen to the voices in our heads that tell us we’re not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, perfect enough. We can teach our kids that their enemies are not the people they can see, but the invisible one who seeks to kill, steal, and destroy their very lives. And on a very practical note, we can pray for our enemies. I recently heard about a website where you can adopt your very own terrorist to pray for. Hard to be more Jesus-like than that. God is pulling people out of darkness and deception every minute of every day. I can think of nothing cooler than praying a terrorist out of darkness. I’m signing up today. 

Books Read in 2014 (or at least the ones I remember)

Must-Read

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain—The most enlightening book I’ve read in a long time. It helped me understand the introverts in my family, the extroverts, myself, and the society we live in. So many a-ha moments. Don’t miss this one.

A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison—Also exceptionally enlightening. Helped me understand how Islam became so pervasive and what God is doing among Muslims today. We’ll never hear these stories in the news, but they teach us how to pray and remind us that the world is not spinning out of control. If you care at all about this topic, read this one. Today.

Yawning at Tigers: You Can’t Tame God So Stop Trying by Drew Dyck—This book spawned a series on my blog about what it means to fear the Lord. If you ever have the hunch that God is getting too small or too controllable in your mind, this book will correct your perspective.

Runner Up in the Must-Read Category

Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing by Philip Yancey—I’d never heard of this 2003 Yancey book but picked it up on a whim. With Yancey, you know you’re going to get good stories and good writing. Here he addresses the visible, material world and the invisible, spiritual world and how the two often collide if we’re paying attention. Thought-provoking and worth reading just for the quotes he uses from other sources.

Technology

It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by Danah Boyd—An unusual choice for a mom whose teenagers don’t have cell phones, let alone Facebook accounts. But I’m also someone who wonders how all this technology is rewiring our brains and changing our culture. Originally written as a dissertation, this is a current (2014), well researched book. The author is just young enough to think parents are the real problem and blame them for nearly everything. While I didn’t appreciate that tone, I was reassured by her conclusion that teens today use social media not to hide from genuine social interaction, but because they long for it. It makes sense that in a world where fearful parents have made their kids’ worlds smaller, kids attempt to make it bigger from the comfort of their own rooms.

BBB (Bios/Books from Bloggers)

Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis—Read this on the plane to and from Russia in January. Nothing gets you in the mood for an overseas mission trip quicker than reading about a teenager who gives up her affluent life to feed, nurse, love, and adopt nearly 20 Ugandan girls. Eager to have my kids read this some day.

Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life by Glennon Doyle Melton—I love it when a blogger gets an easy book deal. I’ve read a few of this writer’s pieces on her blog, Momastery, and she certainly deserves a whole book. Although we come from totally different places, we see the world and faith in a lot of similar ways, and her easy, casual, hilarious style sucked me in and made for a quick read.

Move On: When Mercy Meets Your Mess by Vicki Courtney—Do you see a theme here? Apparently I’m attracted to books for messy people. Didn’t like this one nearly as much as Melton’s, but it did contain some stories that have stuck with me.

Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life—Finally got a Lauren Winner book checked off my list. Glad I read it, but probably don’t need another.   

Bossypants by Tina Fey—A funny weekend-get-away read but a little too raunchy to widely recommend.

Fiction (which I could devour but only allow as an occasional treat)

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill—This book has been out since 2008, but I just found it this year. Painful to read, almost impossible to imagine, but important to hear how a young life was forever changed by slavery. Highly recommend this one.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd—I didn’t set out to read two fiction books about slaves, and probably I should have spaced them out more. They’ve melded a bit in my head. This was my least favorite of the two, but the character development made it worth reading.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving—This one did little more for me than confirm that the Kindle is good for fiction. I had no idea how long it was when I started it. While it contained some slick writing and a story like no other, it was not worth the time commitment.

Sycamore Row by John Grisham—This was a typical Grisham book, which means you don’t love it, but you don’t put it down, either.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury—One of the joys of having a high schooler is getting to read his books with him. A product of a rural education, I missed out on a lot of the classics and am looking forward to making up for it through my children. This book is a strange one, and at first I didn’t like it at all. By mid-way through I was starting to get it and realize how prophetic Bradbury was. How could he have known, in 1953, that we would be a culture mesmerized by media and addicted to virtual-world entertainment?  Made for great discussion with my 15-year-old. 

Making a List, Checking It Twice

At any given time, I have several lists going. This time of year, my lists multiply, until the Post-Its no longer cut it. I recently had to start a dedicated notebook full of lists. (I admire those of you who use phones for such things. As my tech skills are pretty much maxed out with texting, it’s unlikely I will be joining you any time soon.)

There’s one list I’ve never made, though this is the year I’ll start. It was prompted by a question our pastor asked last weekend: “Do you live like you believe in Christmas?” Not that you believe in the holiday and therefore put up a tree and stockings and some lights. Do you—do I—live the rest of the year acting like Christmas matters?

While sort of listening to the rest of the sermon, I started pondering what it would look like to live like I believe in Christmas, like it matters to my life. As is often the case, a list formed in my head. Here’s the check list I came up with to see if Christmas is genuinely affecting the other 363 days of my life each year:

• Am I spending time with Jesus?
• Am I looking for glory for myself, or can I let God have all the glory?
• Do I spend more time trying to control the people and situations around me, or more time actively surrendering them to the Lord?
• Am I looking out for myself, or looking out for ways God wants to use me?
• Do I have hope? Do I talk and act like I have hope?
• Is self-protection my number-one goal in any relationship, or is it being authentic and trying to love the other person well?
• Do I live as one beaten down by the world (i.e., whining and complaining), or as one who believes the battle is won and I’m on the winning side?
• Am I willing to give grace to the people who annoy/confuse/hurt me the most?
• How tightly am I holding onto the things of this world? Would I freely let them go if God asked me to?
• Do I live like I believe that this world is not my home?
• Am I aware of my sin? Do I try to hide it or do I admit it? Do I ask for forgiveness when I need to?
• When’s the last time I loved or served someone well and didn’t tell anyone else about it?
• Am I asking God for big things and keeping my eyes peeled for His response?
• Is my life marked by gratitude? Would the people around me say that it is?

It would be a lot easier just to get to work on my errand list and shove this list in a forgotten drawer somewhere. These are hard, soul-searching questions. They’re harder than some make-believe “naughty or nice” list that causes me to look around and conclude that I’m doing a lot better than some other people. I know I’m not “naughty,” but am I living the way I want to live? Like Christmas affects me every day of the year? Hard questions, but important ones. Christmas, Immanuel, God with us—these things matter. I want to live like they matter to me. 

Preparing Room

Have you ever been mindlessly mumbling along to a Christmas song only to be stopped in your tracks by the words you were saying? I’ve sung Joy to the World hundreds of times. In seventh grade music class, I learned the harmony part, and it became my favorite Christmas carol to sing. In eighth grade my best friend and I changed the lyrics, practiced the cool harmony over and over again, and called all the local radio stations with our new rendition, which touted their awesome music and, we hoped, would get us some free air time. (It didn’t work, but we did sing to a lot of DJs one Friday night. There were worse things we could've been doing.)

But today, I couldn’t get past this line: “Let every heart prepare Him room.” That could be the tagline for advent! Surely some advertiser has thought of that. But what about me? Have I thought about it? Not in a commercial, sell-it-to-a-radio-station sort of way, but in a personal way? I love the idea of preparing room in my heart for Jesus. Of course Jesus is a permanent resident in my heart, but sometimes it surely gets a little crowded in there. Those words give me a much-needed visual: I’m packing up all the unwanted junk in my heart and moving it out. I'm preparing a place for the thing I want most. Just like we cleaned out the guest room in 1999 to make room for our new baby, I’m preparing a place for this Christmas baby, the one who became my Savior and my King.

Advent is a time to dump some of the random things taking up my brain space—Where did I last see that missing library book? Will Braden ever learn to iron? What was the name of that girl who ran away from my fourth-grade slumber party? Do we have enough milk?—and prepare my mind to meditate on Immanuel, God with us, and how spectacularly mind-blowing that is.

Bethlehem was all filled up when Jesus arrived. What about you and me? Have we prepared room for Him?
  

Giving Purposeful Thanks

Know what I’m most thankful for this week? That thankfulness requires an object. I’m thankful that I don’t have to walk around tomorrow with only some vague notion of gratitude directed at no one in particular. 

I admire the courageous pilgrims and their descendants who sacrificed so much to make America the home I have today. The Indians helped keep them alive and taught them how to survive in this new land, and we’re all glad for that. I think turkey’s delicious, and who doesn’t love mashed potatoes and gravy? It’s lovely to have a couple days off work to eat yummy food and spend time with family. And I’m grateful that we can do it without fear of bombs falling on our houses or armed terrorists stealing our children. I’m not sure you can live in America and not be thankful for freedom.

My children are healthy and go to excellent schools. My husband is kind, faithful, and hard-working. We live in a house I still can’t believe is ours. I have rich, deep, life-giving friendships, and I get to do my dream job from the comfort of my dining room while wearing sweatpants.

So much to be thankful for, but nothing compares to knowing the One to whom I give my thanks. He’s real, He cares, and He is the giver of every good and perfect gift. My thanks is directed firmly at Him.

Choosing our Battles

The most sobering statement I’ve heard in a long time:

“It is obscene to complain about a ‘war on Christmas’ in the United States when there are Syrian cities without Christians to commemorate their holy days at all for the first time in some 1,900 years. That’s an authentic war on Christmas.” 

(“On the Edge of Extinction,” Christianity Today, November 2014)

What if every time we hear the words “Happy Holidays” this season, instead of getting our Christian noses out of joint, we use it as a reminder to pray for our Syrian and Iraqi brothers and sisters who are huddled in refugee camps this Christmas? 

A Wind We Need to Know About

My book list will be ready in a month and a half, but here’s one that can’t wait: A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison. 

If you’re not concerned about what’s happening in Syria and Iraq right now—not to mention schoolgirls being kidnapped in Nigeria—don’t bother with this book. But if you think of it, well, dozens of times each day, if you’re wondering what in the world is going on and where God is in all of this, then this is the book for you.

Evil appears to be running amok. I want all the news I can get, and yet I can barely watch. A worldwide showdown between Christianity and Islam seems inevitable. God-loving, God-fearing people talk seriously about just nuking the world’s Muslims and calling it a day.

Where is the hope in this situation? Where is God?

He’s on the move. And, oh, did I need to hear about it. I need to know that unprecedented numbers of Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus. I need to know that He uses jaw-dropping miracles and amazing visions to reach them, but the most common way is the tried-and-true way: one person living out a changed life in front of others. I need to know because this helps me sleep at night. The world is not spinning out of control. The King is still on the throne, He’s aware, He’s involved, and our struggles are not against flesh and blood, but the evil spiritual forces in this world that He is more than capable of fending off.

Garrison’s book is a mix of history, sociology, and scientific method. So tedious are the details of the methodology that it’s almost sterile at times. But when you actually picture the methodology and what it took to make it happen, the yawns turn into goose bumps. In hidden rooms throughout nine regions of the world, Christian interviewers met with Muslims. The rooms were hidden because these weren’t just any Muslims. They are Christ-following Muslims. (And don’t even think of calling them Christians.) They shared the stories of their conversions, the suffering they experienced as a result, and their views on Jesus and Muhammad. Some traveled a hundred miles and risked their lives to tell their stories. One woman hasn’t been seen or heard from since. Interviewers, translators, and the storytellers themselves put everything on the line to tell us how God is drawing Muslims to Himself.

There will be Christians who aren’t comfortable calling these people brothers and sisters. They’re not exactly like us. They call God Allah. Many still attend mosque and read the Quran, at least for a while. They don’t even like the word Christianity. But Jesus? They love Him. In Him they’ve found the answers their own religion lacked. They’ve found grace they’ve never known. They’ve found a savior who guarantees their way to heaven. In all the ways that matter, they are very much like us. Heaven is going to be filled with them, and I can’t wait to meet them. Until then, I will make myself keep watching the news, which keeps me praying.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” –2 Peter 3:9