Knowing

The holiday season is just full, isn't it?

I think it's appropriate to kick things off with a huge meal shared with family and friends, because that's basically what stretches over the last two months of the year for me. Parties, get-togethers, reunions spent sewing moments together into great big tapestries we all have a part in. To me, that is the best part of life: knowing each other.

I've thought about that "knowingness" I treasure so much. I can comb through the past years and cull out the people who have shared my experiences and those I would call my true friends. Of course, in any situation there are people who are "around". They might have happened upon the scene, or simply have been there by default because of whatever position they have held in my life. But there are also those who were "there" -- not necessarily in the same proximity, not necessarily in my circle at the time, but present nevertheless. They are the ones who have willed themselves into my life, who knew me for one minute and have chosen to know me many more, in whatever circumstance I may find myself. For some reason, to them, it's worth it.

And what strikes me is, real relationship is not built upon the drama of the worst days or the fluff of the best, but in those in between moments when life is just ordinary, even boring. I think that's what hangs us up so much of the time: the expectation to be great at something. To be worthy of being known at all times. To impress and entertain and produce a great time. But there is such freedom to realize friendship is the antithesis of that idea; that, at its core, our Father has sewn an intrinsic truth: love is love because it is undeserved.

I've thought about our innate desire to be known and loved, and it amazes me to think that our infinite God wants the same thing with each of us. The Bible itself is a proclamation, a love story that records the depths He is willing to conquer, the stretch of His hand over mankind throughout history. Over and over again He chose individuals who could adhere to one commitment: to know Him. He penned His words through those who resolved to record His heart -- now spread open for us to read. Yes, He is worthy of worship, adoration, eternal praise. But to remember how He walked with Adam in the garden. How He sought out the rejected and alone time after time. How He spoke in a whisper to Abraham, in the quiet stillness of a Friend. How He somehow makes Himself available to be "there" for each of us in the pit, in the furnace, the desert, the field of battle. He stands there with us as we face our Pharaohs and our Red Seas. He chooses to accompany us through throes of heartache or passion or despair......even on to the mundane as we pour our coffee and read the paper. Even while we are unaware and sleeping.

It blows my mind that He wants to know me that way, but even more that He wants me to know Him. To really connect on a relational level. To meet Him there in the morning and talk. I think about Paul and the words he wrote expressing his heart on the matter:
"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...."
And I think, what are we missing if we don't plug into that?

Knowingness between the Creator and created. Eternal relationship, the purity of Love, the gift that brought God from heaven to save the world. God With Us, Emmanuel.

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

-- John 17:3

That Alabaster Box

And a woman in the town who was a sinner found out that Jesus was reclining at the table in the Pharisee's house. She brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil and stood behind Him at His feet, weeping, and began to wash His feet with her tears. She wiped His feet with the hair of her head, kissing them and anointing them with the fragrant oil....

Luke 7:37-38

I won't forget the first time I heard the song Cece Winans wrote about that alabaster box. I remember being carried through the story, identifying so much with every word. Truly overcome with the love of Jesus, my heart poured praises to Him as I thought back to the moment He captured my heart.

Funny thing is, that happened long after I met Him as a young girl. It happened after many years of prayer and discipleship, even service. It happened after we had walked together through many valleys of trial and after I had seen His glory shine on the mountaintop. The fact is, Jesus Christ won my heart long after I gave it to Him. Because for years and years, on every step of that journey, I hung onto my own alabaster box.

We all have one at some point. That expensive, valuable possession of ours that we think adds value to our lives. It can be many things: a back door plan, our prized attribute, a role we claim for ourselves and protect with a vengeance. Some of us wrap our identity up in our alabaster box, feeling that without it, we'd be worth very little. Some of us hang onto it with fervor, feeling it is our lifeline in case things don't pan out with this Jesus. Some of us keep it stashed away, the treasure of our hopes and dreams that we pull out in moments of desperation. It can be many things or just the thing that matters most to us. What no one touches. What we hesitate to speak of, for fear it will be taken. For years we walk in hesitancy with our Lord, watching Him for any move He might make toward our precious box. When we feel His touch on our hearts, we cringe to think He might want it. When we hear His gentle call, we stow it away and surrender all else, hoping He won't notice what's missing.

One night during that season of unrest, I found myself facing a person in the mirror I had never really seen. Her eyes resembled mine and her face seemed familiar, but it was the heart behind it all that shocked me in that place. I saw myself, yet I clung to that same alabaster box, my "best", a Cain's offering, built by the sweat of my brow. Surely it would stack up on those eternal scales that weigh a life. Surely it would count in my favor.

But as I faced the dark depths of that heart and looked down at the box I held, I was overcome with the truth that nothing I can do, nothing I can earn or prove or accomplish could ever be worthy of the love of my Savior. I realized for the first time that His grace towards me was unfathomable and unsearchable, and entirely over my head. That this thing I held was actually pinning me to the ground with the weight of my own pride. And as I dropped that box and all its contents there at His feet, letting it all spill out over the truth of my salvation, I felt His freedom fall over me, overtaking my shame as I raised my hands for the first time to take hold of His beautiful grace.

The fact is, until we let go of our box, we will never be able to worship Him for who He is because we have not yet embraced the reality of who we would be without Him. What our filthy rags really count as. What our very opportunity to worship cost Him. Until we break it, we will remain in a bondage of the most threatening kind. A canny, serpentine trick of our enemy -- the chain that keeps us bound to ourselves.

I can't forget the way life used to be
I was a prisoner to the sin that had me bound.
And I spent my days,
Poured my life without measure
Into a little treasure box
I'd thought I'd found.
Until the day when Jesus came to me
And healed my soul
With the wonder of His touch;
So now I'm giving back to Him
All the praise He's worthy of.
I've been forgiven
And that's why
I love Him so much.

And I've come to pour
My praise on Him
Like oil from Mary's alabaster box.
Don't be angry if I wash his feet with my tears
And dry them with my hair
You weren't there the night Jesus found me
You did not feel what I felt
When He wrapped his loving arms around me and
You don't know the cost of the oil
Oh, you don't know the cost of my praise
You don't know the cost of the oil
In my alabaster box.

from Alabaster Box, Cece Winans

Lies

He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
"Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"
Isaiah 44:20

From time to time, I receive a potted flower as a gift....and I love it. I think those are some of my favorite gifts, to be honest, because it's so rewarding to successfully care for that little plant and watch it grow. Although cut flowers are much more extravagant with all the greenery and arrangement and the vase, I know the day I set them on the table that they are already dead. It's much more wonderful to get a modest little late-bloomer that I know will one day blossom into something beautiful -- hopefully over and over again.

One thing about potted plants though: they usually outgrow their pot. The healthier they get, the longer their roots will stretch, seeking more nutrients and deeper territory. The confines of the pot begin to stunt the plant as it seeks to become fuller and stronger. Eventually I will have to place that plant into the ground outside where it can get fresh air and sunshine and grow larger in a broader space. Otherwise, it will probably die. There's no going back to the small plant I received that first day, happy with the pot it is planted in.

In experiencing this life, I have come to believe that many of us are planted in a pot of lies. How this happens, I don't really understand. I guess it's just the fallenness of the world that has corrupted the soil our souls are steeped in from birth. Although some of us are blessed enough to have some sheltered years of honesty and wholesomeness, many others never experience the security of those bonds of trust. And still others make their way out into a world that fills our ears with lies and our eyes with a skewed view of reality. But our Father in heaven is faithful, isn't He? I imagine Him lifting us out of that pot of deceit when we reach out to Him. I imagine Him carrying us to a new plot of soil, filled with His refreshment, His love, His truth.

And yet the moment we are planted there is painful, isn't it? We must confront what we have come from. We are faced with making a decision: to reject what we have always known, what has, indeed, nourished our own roots with deception, and to embrace this newness, this strange awareness He presents us with. It's intimidating to begin to understand the wrong of what has become second nature to us. We have always believed and lived in accordance with what we know now are lies. But those ways are so much easier to just return to. They are, in many ways, native to our hearts. And like a stranger in a foreign land, we may feel out of place, insecure, and a poor match for this much healthier environment.

Which is exactly how the enemy of our souls, of our growth, our freedom, and our life in Christ, would have us to feel.

He is the father of lies, friends. That is what he draws strength from. That is what he uses to work havoc in the heart of a believer. Sure, we are a new creation in the saving Grace of Jesus, but some of that old potting soil still clings to our root system. Our enemy would have us to hold onto it, and there are so many ways he convinces us to do that. Old habits. Old insecurities. Old identities. Old relationships. Old patterns of thought. Old prejudices. Old guilts. As our loving Father gently taps each one, pain shoots into our flesh, those nerve endings so sensitive to His holy touch. "Leave that alone!" the old nature cries out. "That's part of me! That's where I came from! I need that! That can't be changed; it's just who I am." We don't even realize the death grip those lies have on our lives. We don't even understand that until we let them go, our growth will be stunted and we will never absorb all that the Father has graciously placed around us for our good.

Let's let go of that old soil, dear one. If you've hung on through this post this long, I think you and I have something in common. There are so many different deceits we can be bogged down with, so many different angles the enemy uses to shoot his flaming arrows. But if you and I are bought by Christ, if we truly belong to Him, there is no place for lies in our lives. We can believe Him and take Him at His word: "The truth will set you free." Let's be free. Let's look at the lies we are holding onto. And let's let go.