Hope for the New Year
From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.
Jonah 2:1 (NIV)
Like Jonah, you may have been swallowed by life’s experience and are lying in the dark recesses of the fish’s belly, so to speak. But here is the good news that Jonah’s example offers: God can bring you back.
It doesn’t matter how submerged you are. He can bring you back.
He is the escape out. He is the path back. And He is the destination as well.
As we begin a new year, I want you to stop being so hard on yourself because you can’t offer a perfect performance every day. Your testimony is not the sum total of perfect performances in life. Your testimony is the gift of resurrection that you have received. We are all going through these Jonah-type experiences, being swallowed by life’s realities. They’re draining, they’re perilous, and they’re threatening. They hit us hard, and they make enormous withdrawals causing large human deficits. And if you don’t know Jesus, if you don’t nurture the revelation that Jesus shares, you’ll never ever believe or experience reemergence.
We know people like this, don’t we? We know people who have gone through things and the season has passed, but the emotion remains. We know people who have gotten past something they just can’t get over something. God has taken them from grace to grace, but they have dragged along from grace to grace the baggage of all of the regret and the mourning and the horror and the abuse and the hurt. And even though he who the Son sets free is free indeed, too many people are in a prison.
But take this lesson from Jonah into the new year:
There is a path back from death. There’s a path from darkness. There’s a path from draining experiences. There’s a path from depleting encounters. Only Jesus offers it. That path is resurrection. When your doubts and suspicions are high, Jesus is in your life to give you liberty and to give you license to walk in Him by faith and make your journey from death to resurrection.
What a Privilege
Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name Jesus.
Matthew 1:24-25 (NKJV)
When we think about the account of Joseph, we often focus on the interruption that God brings to his life—the change of plans, the altered agenda, the community speculation and chatter regarding his character and honor, the parental obligation beyond the norm. We often focus on the obedience that was necessary, the tough nature of this divine assignment, and the sacrifice that it required.
However, a fresh reading brought me a new perspective on this story. When I wondered how Joseph could have been so okay with it all, it made far greater sense to me when I thought about Joseph’s immediate response as an embrace of a great privilege. I kept thinking, “Joseph, I understand why you accepted the assignment. You never saw it as an interruption. You didn’t see it as the unexpected. You didn’t greet it as the unwanted. You treated it like a privilege.”
What an honor, what a blessing, what a humbling thought that God purposed human redemption and included Joseph in its facilitation.
Each of us, like Joseph, is in some way called to steward a tough assignment. We are invited to accept in obedience the space and time where we have been assigned—but we can’t steward it powerfully until we can mature beyond seeing these assignments as interruptions and start thanking God for them because of how privileged we are for God to trust us with them.
Do you know what a privilege it is for God to trust you with your kids? Do you know the privilege it is for God to trust you with the job He’s given to you? Do you know the privilege it is for you to be in the generation to which you’ve been assigned?
Stop thinking about the work before you in terms of burdens, struggles, or calamities. It is a privilege for God to have birthed His purpose in you and let you live your life attempting to push it out.
How do we handle the tough assignments God gives us in life? By acknowledging how privileged we are and how much confidence He must have in us to accomplish them.
I Believe in Miracles
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Luke 1:35 (NIV)
The angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her that she would conceive and give birth to a son, whose name would be Jesus. He would be called the Son of the Most High, and His kingdom would never end. Mary asked Gabriel, “How will this be since I am a virgin?”
Then Gabriel essentially tells Mary that God is going to give to her a miracle. She’s not going to have to violate the laws of the land or her faith. She will not have to mishandle her virginity and give herself to Joseph prior to marriage. Gabriel indicates that the miracle is going to be manifested this way: “The Holy Spirit is going to come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
The natural process of pregnancy will be caused by supernatural means. In other words, a miracle will take place. A miracle is a natural occurrence that hasn’t caught up with reasoning. The pregnancy of a virgin is inconceivable to the reasoning mind. But God can do things in the natural that make absolutely no sense to the rational mind.
One of the lessons we are being offered in Mary’s visitation by Gabriel is that God has many ways to get things done in your life, and one of them is to work a miracle if necessary.
He can will the Spirit to work in you and He can overshadow you in ways that result in abilities, actions, attitudes, strengths, thoughts, and contributions that would never be the result of your natural capacities but are possible because you live believing in a God who works miracles.
My brothers and sisters, there are ways in which God wants to define your existence, order your experiences, map your journey, and purpose your pilgrimage in ways that can only be fulfilled if you can shape your faith to believe in miracles.
Do you believe that miracles can happen in your life?
God’s Good Gifts
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Luke 6:38 (NIV)
I was invited to compete in a golf tournament. On the first day of the competition, there was a large room full of tables that had free gifts (free in the sense that you already paid for them through your registration, but you could take one from each table if you wanted one). So I was going around, collecting free gifts from the various tables, and putting them in my bag, and I started to wonder how I was going to carry all of that stuff on my plane ride home. One of the gifts I picked up was a Yeti cup that had the title sponsor’s logo on it.
Now, the last thing I need is another Yeti cup because I have several at home, so I said to myself, “I’m going to keep it out for people to see. Somebody’s going to say something about it and I’m going to give it to them. Maybe I’ll barter for some golf balls or something else they have.”
So I go to the next table, and it has shirts laid out on it. I pick up three of the shirts because I’m trying to discriminate which color I want. I’m only entitled to one of them, but I’m comparing the three to figure out which one I want.
The nice lady who’s working behind the table says, “What a nice Yeti cup. I really like that.” So I extend it and I say, “Take it.” She says, “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly.” I say, “Yes you can. Let me teach you. Extend your arm, and open your hand.” I put the cup in her hand and said, “See, it’s easy, isn’t it?”
I started putting two of the shirts back down when she says to me, “Sir, thank you for being so nice. You know, we’re almost at the end of the day and you’re one of the last people to come through, so why don’t you just take all three of the shirts?” I said, “I couldn’t possibly.” She said, “Yes you can. It’s easy. Open your hand.” She grabbed them out of one of my hands, and put them in the other, and she laughed and said, “See, it’s easy, isn’t it?”
I said, “Look at how God works. You were blessed by what I gave, and I was blessed by what you let me keep.” I feel that way about the Lord’s interactions in our lives.
My friend, don’t get sidetracked by all the Lord is requiring of you and pulling from you and stirring in you. Look instead to all the Lord is letting you keep. Tonight, when you lie down, no matter how taxing this day has been, you’ll be able to do so with a supernatural peace that He gives. God gives you His power and blessings and joy in measures such that you don’t even have room enough to receive them.
What a generous God we serve.
Resurrection
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 6:4 (NIV)
The core of strong spiritual living is attachment to and understanding of resurrection.
What proves and confirms God’s power is His ability to bring people back from dark and dead realities—whether physical, spiritual, emotional, or otherwise. If you want to measure how God is working in a person’s life, don’t look for signs and wonders floating around them. Look to the evidence of resurrection in their life. There is no miracle that is as confirming as the resurrection of a person’s life from a dead state to a living hope.
Don’t ever minimize the kingdom of God down to performance and demonstration because there can be no performance or demonstration that is stronger than God’s power to resurrect a human life that was once in meaningless existence but which God has raised to meaning and purpose.
This revelation is as relevant for us today as it was when Jesus walked this earth. We are not nurturing our spiritual lives to perform for people as if our religion is for entertainment purposes. We can’t measure each other’s spiritual relationship or strength on performance.
Instead, we are nurturing a spirituality that offers a huge revelation, and that revelation is this: God is gifting to every one of us a real path from death to resurrection.
