christmas eve...

this past week has been a pretty tough one...dealing with a lot of confusion and feeling really out of control (which i am). there is just so much uncertainty to life, you know? like, at one point you feel you've got everything going for you and things are perfectly in line...and its exactly what God wants too. then, things get mixed up. you're totally out of control and don't know what is going to happen next. the way you saw things happening has just been thrown out the window and now there's something new, completely uncertain, and entirely confusing. that is my situation...vaguely.

i have spent the past few days wrestling with my thoughts and trying to let go of my plan. there's this internal struggle going on where i know that God has a plan, but i so want my way. it seems so much better right now, you know? it always does. but, it also always comes down to trust, just like any relationship. except in this one God demands a lot more, and our trust is well placed in him. so, he's telling me to trust him with this one...more than ever before. there's so much uncertainty surrounding it though. there's potential for disaster in this...and God's saying to do it his way?! well, what other choice do i have? and its the best one...its just so hard to do.


i haven't really gotten into the christmas spirit until tonight. this week i've been studying, and God has been revealing to me how his plan has always been Christ. and this holiday, at the core, is to celebrate Christ's coming. and if we think about it that way, its to celebrate God's love, our salvation, and Christ's sacrifice. so, tonight i was playing the piano for a while. i started of singing, "there is nothing like your love" - a song by united, but that's the only part i really know so i sang that over and over again. then i played "lord you have my heart"...classic. and then, this is where it really started to hit me. i played "the nails in your hands"...another classic. but, ah, the words are so powerful...and really so fitting for a night like tonight. let me show them to you:

"the nails in Your hands, the nails in Your feet, they tell me how much you love me.
the thorns on your brow, they tell me how you bore so much shame to love me.
and when the heavens pass away, all your scars will still remain. and forever they will say how much you love me. and all i want to say:
forever my love, forever my heart, forever my life is yours."

an old, familiar song, but the words are so powerful. its all about Christ's love - how he came down to earth, born to die. he had one mission - to save the world from their sin. he loved us that much. he humbled himself to be killed by his own creation so that those that killed him might receive life. and those thorns, those scars, the nail marks...they will forever remind us all of Christ's unfathomable love. the love that Christ gave demands our entire life - and all of our trust. who better to put all of your trust in than the one that has already given you everything! (2 peter 1:3).

after playing that song, i continued to play my favorite christmas song, and one of the few i like: "o come let us adore him." isn't it weird that our God came as a baby!? like, just think about it. God, the glorious, majestic creator of the universe, the one that we cannot possibly explain or understand, sent Christ as a baby. it would be weird for us as humans to bow down to any baby, because they don't know anything yet and aren't leaders of any kind. but then, to think that baby could be the savior of the world, the lover of our hearts. how strange, but awe-some.

Christ deserves all the praise, and we need to give it to him. Come, let us adore the king, come as a baby, born to save us from sin and call us into the glorious light. let us adore the one who loves us with an unfailing love. let us adore the one who will never leave us nor forsake us. let us adore the one from whom we have received every spiritual blessing. Come let us adore Christ the LORD!

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death -
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."

philippians 2:5-11