Our love either is or is not enough depending on who our love points to and guides others toward.

There are a few options

1. Our love can point those receiving it back toward their own selves.
2. Our love can point those receiving it toward us.
3. Our love can point those receiving it toward Love.

In regards to the first two options, our love is not enough. Options 1 & 2 will always, eventually fail. Guiding people back to themselves with our love only provides them with a false relief composed of temporary facades of undulating self-esteem. Likewise, pointing others to ourselves with our love eventually fails. Let’s be honest, we can provide only so deep a love. Our manufactured depths of care are limited to certain levels and degrees. Pointing others to our own selves with our fabricated love is a selfish act filled with underlying greed and egotistical longings for self-relevancy.

The third option is where our love truly is enough. I John 4:7-8 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Christ followers, if our love points other people–friends, family, co-workers, enemies–toward anyone or anything other than Christ, then we are failing them in our love. We show true love by showing Christ to others, pointing and directing them to him and him alone. If your love–no matter how great, magnificent, worthy, or action packed–does not point others to Christ, than it is a failing love, and it is not enough.

Another follower of Jesus said it this way:

Does being loved mean being made much of? For many people, this is not obviously an act of love. They do not feel loved when they are told that God created them for his glory. They feel used. This is understandable given the way love has been almost completely distorted in our world. For most people, to be loved is to be made much of. Almost everything in our Western culture serves this distortion of love. We are taught in a thousand ways that love means increasing someone’s self-esteem. Love is helping someone feel good about themselves. Love is giving someone a mirror and helping him like whet he sees.

This is not what the Bible means by the love of God. Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We were made to see and savor God–and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors.

Quote from Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper, page 33, paragraphs 2 & 3. Copyright 2003 by Desiring God Foundation, Published by Crossway books, Wheaton Illinois

I John 4:7-8 as taken from New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. As found on Bible Gateway.

If you’re reading this, and you’re thinking about watching the video, I would strongly encourage you to pray before doing so. Regardless of what you believe, it will be unbearably painful. There are no words to describe what has happened and what is happening in Orissa, India. The persecution is heavy, and it is absolutely real. It is absolutely real.

The first wave of organized attacks against Christians occurred in Orissa in December of 2007. This aggression was followed by even more widespread violence in August 2008 following the murder of a well-known religious leader. What these outbursts had in common was that both assaults were orchestrated by anti-Christian elements within fundamentalist Hindu political parties. And in both cases, neither local, state nor national governments intervened to stop the killings.

In the 2008 attacks, more than 500 Christians were killed and some 50,000 were driven into the jungles. At least 5,000 Christian homes were destroyed, and dozens of churches were ransacked or burned out. There were also reports that several dozen Christian women were sexually assaulted and more than 40 shops owned by Christians were looted.

–GFA

You know how much persecution and suffering I have endured. You know all about how I was persecuted in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra—but the Lord rescued me from all of it. Yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

–2 Timothy 3:11-12

My wife signs her letters to me,

With More Love Than You Can Imagine,

Quinn.

I wonder sometimes how she loves so deeply. There are no logical explanations for her love; no cognitive reasons to account for her compassion. Outwardly, I have very little of anything of great significance to counteract my reconstructed, disfigured heart. There’s no gleaming band-aid to cover the torn fabric of my past; no fine silk to patch my jagged cracks or golden glue to repair my frayed edges. A self-possessed mess I was. A grace dependent mess I am. Young and overly restless, inexperienced and developing in love, aggressively competitive and plagued by pride. I’m lacking in excess cash and tanned Hollywood looks. Everything I own has been given to me, and my pursuit is not for more.

My shoes don’t shine. I’m not a corporate, career-driven man or charismatic, flashy leader. I can’t buy diamonds for her ears, pearls for her wrist, or Italian leather for her belongings. I can’t guarantee her a life of comfort, a white picket fence, or a path of ease. Lennon said, “You can’t buy me love”, and he was right, I certainly can’t buy hers.

The crazy thing is that she understood this from the beginning, and still she chose to love me…

Love is often challenging. Many times the potent side effects associated with loving imperfect people cause explosive, destructive agony. Many of us have been dragged to the brink by what we thought was love. We watched as it packed its bags, loaded the car, and drove away into the night. We observed, through teary eyes, as what was supposed to be love abused us with words and brute strength, betrayed us, or found solace in another man’s bed, another woman’s arms. Our corrupt security in human love raped us, tortured us, sold us into slavery, neglected us, starved us, and stole from us. We experienced so called love and determined it was no longer appropriate to consider; no longer a part of our plan; no longer necessary.

You won’t find these all too common side effects of imperfect love floating around the writers room at Hallmark. You won’t find tension and brokenness wrapped in pink, plastic foil; squeezed into heart shaped containers; and exchanged for dollars and cents. You won’t find these images of broken love embroidered on cuddly teddy bears or typed on red, helium-filled balloons. Real love doesn’t smell like roses, taste like cherries, or look like a Pinot Noir picnic by the lake at sunset. They don’t sell real-life love at your local drug store, stashed away between milk chocolates and cheap, sparkling wine.

And the baffling thing is that love consistently carries beyond the pain, beyond our flawed impressions, and beyond what we thought we could never move past…

There are times when standing on our own strength is–as the heaviness of love gently presses in–impossible. There are times when Love is almost too wide to conceive, too deep to grasp, and too long to gaze upon. In the midst of pain or joy alike, we long for hearts capable of comprehending and embracing love in all its fullness and truth.

Another famous John wrote, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence…There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” The more I learn about love the less I’m able to persuade myself to live with fear. I find it resoundingly interesting that pure, perfect love cannot coexist with enslavement to fear. That in the attempt to genuinely love, my life will likewise rid itself of obeying a spirit of fear. The opposite of love may be defined as hate, but our hate is usually rooted in something far more fierce–fear.

My love for my wife, no matter how strong or intentional it may be, will never be pure or perfect enough to alleviate her life of fear, and neither will hers be for me. My love cannot deeply transform. My love cannot, on its own merit, move her to live compassionately; open her eyes to see all people as equal; and love everyone regardless of anything. My love, on its own, is not lovely enough. I know that my wife is able to love me in spite of my flaws because her love is rooted in another Love that is exponentially more profound, mysterious, and perfect than my own. Her love is rooted in the One who drives out fear, who offers and freely gives perfect love, and enables her to love me and those around her more freely. The love we share has very little to do with the love that we can give to each other on our own and everything to do with the love we have received from the giver and endorser of perfectly, flawless love. Truly, it is a love that we cannot fully imagine.

This past weekend I got to interview my good friend and fellow journeyman, Dan Guiles.  Fresh off his return from the Central African Republic, we sat down over coffee to discuss the people, the church, and his standard of success for moving forward both here in the States and in Africa.  Guiles, 25, is a fourth year medical student at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He is set to graduate in three months and move on to a residency program specializing in internal medicine and pediatric care.  While it would be easy and impressive enough to define Guiles as another gifted physician in the making, his hope is to be defined by something else.  His deepest desire is to leave a legacy of love, and to use his skills as a doctor to spread the message of Christ all over the world.  This is his story.

Parke: How did your passion for medical missions get started?

Dan:  My senior year of high school I went to Brazil for six weeks in hopes of sharing the love of Christ with the people we came in contact with.  It was the first time I had done this on my own in a foreign country.  After returning from Brazil I knew taking the gospel to other people groups was something God wanted me to do with the rest of my life.  I also had a strong interest in science.  So, I began to explore how I could combine my interest in the sciences with my newly discovered passion for international missions.  I talked to a lot of trustworthy people, and many of them asked me if I had ever considered medicine.  From then on I began to view and understand medicine as a great way to help people both spiritually and physically, to bridge the gap between the two.  My life and early education turned into an attempt to figure out if both of my passions were compatible.  I wanted to know if being a doctor and a missionary, simultaneously, was possible.

Parke:  So is it possible?

Dan:  (laughing)  Yes!  Turns out it is possible!

Parke:  It’s been a few years since Brazil.  How have your passions for medicine and missions persisted and grown over time?

Dan:  As I have grown closer to God, my passions have grown as well.  The hindrance to growth is that it’s easy to look to the future and lose site of the present.  I have to continually remind myself that God desires my presence right now in this very moment. Throughout the past couple of years, I have been challenged to focus on what the Lord has for me right here, right now.  It’s easy to lose track of present opportunities when I become overly focused on getting my degree, moving forward professionally, or consumed with what’s next.  Growth has been a process of simply discovering what it is that God has for me today, right here in Indianapolis, in the community I am currently living in.

Parke:  Are our thoughts misguided when it comes to so called “missions”.  Don’t we often convince ourselves that “missions” are in Africa, Asia, or someplace far, far away?

Dan:  As Christ followers, we’re called to love God and love people.  In regards to missions, my “field” is right where I am–medical school in Indianapolis.  Medical school is not very conducive to talking about spiritual things, however.  Our days as students are consumed with becoming doctors.  So, I’ve really had to focus on building deeper relationships within the medical school community in order to show compassion and love to my colleagues.  I have to seek out ways to meet with people outside of the hospital.

Parke:  In a world consumed with busyness, it’s all about relationships?

Dan:  Right, exactly.  As Christ followers we need to be much more intentional in our relationships.  It’s easy to go to work, get stuff done, and then go home.  It’s easy to miss or ignore the whole “missions field” that is work.  I’ve been guilty of this a lot throughout my years in medical school.  When I’m tired, been up all night, and don’t feel like interacting with one more person, it’s challenging.  It’s hard.  And it’s humbling.  I think back on all of the missed opportunities to love people, and it makes me cringe.  Yet God continues to bring new people into my life every day.  It’s very humbling.  God is so gracious.  Despite our failures, He doesn’t give up on us.

Parke:  How did you wind up in the Central African Republic (CAR)?

Dan:  My Dad is on staff with Grace Brethren International Missions, and they’ve had a presence in CAR since the early 1920′s.  It started out very small with only a few committed doctors.  Over time they were able to build two hospitals and train a staff.  It was basic yet functional.  In 2002, unfortunately, the country experienced a major civil war, and all the missionaries had to leave due to safety concerns.  During the war, hospitals were looted and destroyed.  Ever since then nothing permanent has been established, yet it’s a country we really want to have a strong presence in.  So, when I approached Grace Brethren Missions about doing a medical trip overseas, they immediately plugged me into their CAR outreach in hopes of building on previous efforts and working to keep things moving forward.

Parke:  How did your school, IU, respond to your request to leave?

Dan:  Well, IU needed my trip to be at least 2 months long in order for it to qualify for school credit.  The CAR team, however, was only going for a month.  So, I couldn’t go with IU, and for a long time I didn’t think it was going to work out.  Thankfully though, after reviewing my schedule, I found that I had a months worth of vacation time saved from the past year.  It was a huge answer to prayer.

Parke:  You went to the Central African Republic for vacation?

Dan:  Yes.  That’s right.

Parke:  (laughing) That’s weird.  But awesome!

Parke:  Describe a typical CAR hospital?

Dan:  It is a very scary place.  There are a lot of very sick people crowded into very small rooms.  The operating rooms are basic, usually composed of a table.  The walls are brick or cement.  On average, there are probably 10 patients per room.  Privacy is not an option.  One of the biggest obstacles preventing people from visiting the hospital is that patients have to provide everything.  In other words, if you want food to eat while in the hospital, you have to bring it.   If you want clean sheets, a pillow, a gown, slippers, medication, or even water, you have to bring it.  The hospital doesn’t provide any extra necessities.  On top of all that, the hospitals are not clean.  Hygiene is not a priority.  Everything we take for granted as normal health care here in the States is essentially non-existent in the CAR.

A couple of days ago during rounds we were debating whether we should order a CT scan or an MRI.  In the CAR you don’t have an option.  These test don’t exist.

Parke:  How can families afford this type of pay-up-front health care?

Dan:  Simply put, they can’t.  The people have very few if any material goods.  The patients we saw were mainly subsistence farmers who grew enough for themselves with maybe a little left over to sell in the market.  Maybe.  The people might sell something or work for some of the wealthier business owners, but most of them can’t afford to step foot inside of a hospital.   So, primary care is essentially non-existent.  The sick wait it out at home, hoping to get better.  If the pain becomes unbearable, people will usually end up begging extended family and friends for funds.  But even if they do make it to surgery, necessary medications are not even close to affordable.

Parke:  You’re saying you literally get the care you can pay for?   In the States, if you walk in the door, you can’t be denied treatment.  It’s obviously a very different story in the CAR.

Dan:  Right.  Very different.

Parke:  How were you able to do things differently?  Were you treating people for free?

Dan:  Yes.  We spread the word through the churches.  If church leaders knew of anyone who needed surgery, we asked them to send their sick to us during a specific time.  It was crazy.  The people don’t have much at all.  We had to give it away for free or no one would show up.

Parke:  How did your patients react to the care?

Dan:  Their culture is very hierarchical.  People in authority are well respected, but, unfortunately, they hold their authority over people.  They use authority and prestige and higher education to lord over people, not to serve them.  Doctors also tend to hold themselves in high regard, above their patients, and are not very compassionate.  Many of the doctors were not very caring or loving toward their patients because they are, from their cultural standpoint, “better” than the patient.  For example, during the process of surgery the doctors will have the patient undress and walk across the operating room completely naked, unclothed in front of everyone else.  That’s very humiliating for most people regardless of culture or status.  Also, a lot of our patients had never been to a hospital before. They didn’t understand what was going on or how to properly act in a hospital environment.  So, the doctors and nurses ended up yelling at them to move and lie down.  Everything we understand as procedural, they do not.  They are not familiar with hospital routine.  This presented us with a great opportunity though.  We were able to show love by simply offering patients something to wear.  We prayed with our patients before every surgery.  We smiled, shook hands, and said hello.  We attempted to be overly compassionate in every way.

Parke:  These small acts of compassion were abnormal?

Dan:  Yes, certainly.  Another example is that most white people in the CAR speak French, so our patients greeted us in French.  But we would respond to them in their native tongue, and that would blow them away!  To them, it showed great care and effort for us to actually learn their greeting instead of the typical French reply.

Parke:  Did the people wonder why you were there?

Dan:  Yes.  They would ask, “Is the government doing this to help us?”, and, “Why are you doing this for free?”  We would reply, “No. We are here because of Christ, and we want to love you and provide you with care.  We are here because Christ has changed us.”

Parke:  How did they respond to that?

Dan:  A lot of people responded favorably.  They really appreciated the care and the love, and they expressed their thankfulness through letters.  Lots and lots of letters.

Parke:  Any stories of gratitude stick out to you?

Dan:  Of course.  The hierarchical caste system rules everything in the CAR, and the Muslim group is, by far, one of the most inferior castes.  They are called the Fulani people.  One day we were able to operate on four different Fulani patients.  This was huge because authorities usually prohibit the Fulani from even entering the hospitals.  After the surgeries, however, the Fulani patients invited us back to their village.  So we were able to go and visit and share with the Fulani in their homes.

Parke:  Wow.  Christians hanging out with Muslims?

Dan:  Yeah, it was pretty cool.  They fully understood that we were there because of Jesus, and they were loving it.

Parke:  What are some of the challenges the people of the CAR face every day?

Dan:  The challenge for CAR is that there is nothing there.  No infrastructure.  No reliable government.  Nothing.   So, anything you try almost has to be funded by the West, and the way I see it, that can only last for so long.  The funds run out, or the next civil war comes, and we have to evacuate.  Ultimately, it comes down to redefining what success looks like in CAR.  I want to change the country.   I want to help all of the people.  I want to cure their illnesses.  But that would take a lot, and I can only do so much.  So, success became more than building a hospital or establishing a government or curing diseases or ending poverty.  Success became less about the overwhelming, long term initiatives and more about loving the people.   If I could demonstrate actionable love toward those around me throughout a day, then it had been a successful day.

Parke:  Based on the current situation, the structural issues aren’t going away anytime soon.  The bigger goals are there, but we need to focus on what we can do right now instead of only focusing on the future?

Dan:  This is like what we talked about earlier in regards to making an impact right here, right now.  The Central African Republic has so many basic issues.  The culture and value systems are so different than they are here.   We have to focus on what we can do today and not get bogged down with the bigger, change-everything-now, type of goals.   Others have tried to start businesses and hospitals, but those outsiders eventually left and everything fell apart.

There are really two approaches to the CAR.  First, it’s easy to look at them and judge them for being so corrupt and lacking in values.  It’s easy to say they are lazy people.  Second, it’s easy to throw up our arms and say, “What can we do.  How could we ever make a difference.”  I think both of these approaches are wrong.  Maybe our efforts won’t last 5-10 years, but if we can show people God’s love and allow the Bible to permeate into the culture, then, even if we leave, the gospel and Christ’s love will still remain.  That’s what’s important.  That’s what will have a lasting impact and make way for permanent change in the future.

Parke:  What’s the church like in the CAR?

Dan:  They have churches and pastors, but there is a large disconnect between claiming to be a Christian and living like a Christian.  During the civil war, everything was looted, and a lot of the people doing the looting were from the church, previously having worked with our missionaries every day.  The CAR culture says, “If you have something I don’t, than you should share it with me.”  So, to them, it’s not stealing.  It’s just sharing.  Their value system is slightly off.  We take it for granted that our values are pretty much founded off of Biblical standards.

Parke:  In moving forward does the church have a responsibility to stand apart and the lead the way?

Dan:  I think it would really help.  However, the hierarchical society has impacted the church as well.  Being a pastor or leader of a church is more of a position of authority rather than a position of service.  We were able to go to some churches where this was not the case, but it’s not wide spread.

A lot of people claimed to be Christian, but most of them had a myriad of other belief systems as well.  They had not turned completely to Christ.  Christianity was just something else they did because everyone else was doing it.

Parke:  Any times when God had to show up and He did?

Dan:  Oh yeah.  The minister of health had agreed to let us work at this newly remodeled hospital, but when we arrived to get things set up, we found the operating rooms completely empty. The rooms weren’t finished.  We had all of these American surgeons coming in from the States with no where for them to work, and we had no way of fixing the problem on our own.  We had no hospital.  However, the year before we had worked at a community hospital across town, and we called them up on a whim, and they agreed to help us.  It was incredible!  They opened their hospital to us from one day to the next.  It was amazing that they opened up to us so much with no warning at all that we were coming.

Parke:  That’s incredible.

Parke:  Tell us about the orphan crisis in CAR.

Dan:  Well, due to AIDS a lot of the adults have died.  In the CAR the population is getting younger and younger.   Most of the patients we saw were kids or teens.  There are a lot of orphans.  The way families are traditionally organized, they tend to take care of their own.  The problem, however, is that there are so many parents dying that the ordinary, familial safety net is under huge strain, and families cannot afford to take care of their own.

There’s such a huge need for someone to help these kids.  Their parents are dead so they’re living with distant relatives or neighbors with zero direction for their life.  Kids are not given a lot of value; they are disdained and are not well respected.  Most of the emphasis, even within the church, is placed on adults, and the kids are largely ignored.  This has led to a mass exodus of kids from the church.

Parke:  This is all so overwhelming.

Dan:  Yeah.  It really is.  You really want to attack it.  You want to solve the issues and rescue everyone, but we have to remember that this is not just about us and what we can do.  It’s so easy to forget how great our God is.  It’s not up to us to completely change everything on our own.  It’s up to the Lord.  When I set out on this trip it was all about what I could do.  Could I train people to live better, more well-managed lives?  Could I build a hospital?  Could I revolutionize a health care system?  But day after day the issues became so overwhelming that I got to a point where I was asking, “Lord, can I actually do anything?”  And then God revealed to me that I can simply love these people.  I can respect them when no one else will.  That was a huge moment for me.  So, maybe I won’t change health care in Africa, but maybe I can do a surgery or smile at a hurting patient or share the gospel with someone in need of love.  Once again, it’s all about redefining success.

Parke:  How did this trip change you coming back to the states?

Dan:  It’s been very hard.  Thinking back it seems like I was in a completely different world.  I came back here and everything was so familiar and comfortable.   It’s so weird.  Here’s the challenge.  Lots of people travel and say, “I have seen the face of poverty. I have experienced people who can’t afford to buy food, medication, or receive care.”  They travel, come back, and say, “Here I am in America complaining about my $30 data plan so I can have the Internet wherever I go!  I need to change!”  Lots of people say that right at first, but I’ve never seen people act on it.  I’ve never seen people change their lives based on what they saw “over there”.  So, my challenge, and what I’m thinking through currently, is how can I truly live a simpler life?  How can I use my money in a way that is more beneficial to others around me and not just myself.  I’m still thinking this through.  I want the experience to change me and not just be another great story to share.  What should I value?  How should I spend my money.  I hear it too often that people go to third world countries, vow to change their ways, yet don’t alter the way they live once back in the States.   I want it to change the way I think, act, spend my money, and invest my time.

Parke:  We’ve gone everywhere and seen everything.   Our generation is probably the most traveled generation ever.  How do we put what we saw into action?

Dan:  It’s like thank God I’m back in the States with a cool story to tell.  Thank God I’m back in safety.  We easily fall back into the normal comfort of our lives here and lose site of what we saw in other parts of the world.  It really is hard to transition back from discomfort and poverty into a world of comfort and wealth.  How do I take it in?  How do I implement what I learned and saw and the changes that I know I need to make in my life?  It’s tough.  For starters, we have to keep loving those around us, right here, who need love.   We cannot become complacent.  We cannot become comfortable.  There are sick and hurting people around us all of the time, every day.  Go there.  Love them.

Parke:  What’s next for you?

Dan:  In the CAR, patients in need were in abundance.  If one of us didn’t show up and help that day, people were going to die.  In America, in Indy, if I don’t show up, patients can go down the hall or to the other hospital down the street.  I’m taking a cue from one of my team members, Dr. Kennedy.  Who, before every surgery, would introduce himself and say, “Hello.  I’m here because of Christ.   I’m doing this because of His love.”  Before every surgery he made it extremely clear that he was working because of God’s love for him and his patient.  I want to live, work, and introduce myself like that.  That’s what’s next.

Parke:  Wow!  What if we really did that here in the States?  If Christ followers introduced themselves and started every task and conversation with, “Hi.  I’m here because of God’s amazing love, and He has sent me to serve you.”  That’s a dangerous idea.

Dan:  (laughing) Yeah.  It could change everything.

Forgive me.

Forgive me for my feeble attempts to appear strong.  For an artistic legacy of painted words and hand sculpted sentences.  For a self-concocted life spent ignoring the easily ignorable.  For my lack of attention in the midst of constant hurry and waste.  For a life spent in willing comfort, separated from those afflicted by misery; cut off from inner city, high rise slums; and detached from broken, underground societies.  Forgive me for made-up rules used to shackle and control–not release and set free.  For self-guided, service oriented ambition.  For good deeds done in vain.  For easily packing my bags, fueling my car, and driving away from the pain.  Forgive me for my legalism, for task oriented obedience.  For heartless, lukewarm deed-doing in the midst of an eagerly awaiting crowd.  For arrogant strength, attempted safety, self-prescribed confidence, and the pursuit of an over-glorified, perverted sense of happiness I called normality.  Forgive me for misdeeds and futile attempts to cover them with wine, war, words and money.  Forgive me for my numb smile and hardened heart.  For self-preserving security.  For self-righteous Christianity.  For loving routinely and relating coincidentally.

Rescue me.

Rescue me from this self-imposed, self-constructed prison.  Tear down my walls, scale my tower, defeat my ego, destroy my pride, and retrieve my burdened, enslaved heart.

Lead me.

Lead me away from a life of ease.  Lead me down the narrow way, the path of most resistance, the path of highest cost.  Lead me over the crags, the cracks, the juts, the sharps, the fissures, the boulders, and the slants.  Lead me through the darkest valleys, under the coldest bridges, and into the most sinister of hallways.  Lead me through the cold.  Lead me through the night.  Lead me through the depths of mourning.  Lead me through the tension.

Carry me.

Carry me when the weight of this life is too heavy to take another step.  Carry me when tears blur my vision.  When I can’t see the path in front of me.  When I can’t let go of this life you’ve given me.  When I’m paralyzed on the edge, and the trail is falling out from beneath me.  When the plaster cracks, and the mask falls away.  When the noise becomes deafening, and my ears bleed from the anxiety of the trial.  When I am unable to shift while the ground quakes under foot.  When my buildings collapse and my house is in ruin.  When I cannot breathe.  When I cannot stand.  When I cannot lift my head.  When I cannot bear my yoke.  When my burden is overwhelming.  When my heart bursts, and the remnants scatter about the city.  When all else is lost, and the path is but a thin, red line in the desert–carry me.

Overwhelm me.

Overwhelm me with your Spirit, with your love, with your grace.  Overwhelm me with your presence.  May the mystery of who you are disrupt this habit of a day I call my life.  Surprise me with your joy.  Quicken me to your voice.  Hasten me to your cry.  Build in me a new nature.  Overwhelm me with your gentleness, your compassion, your burden, your yoke.  Overwhelm this broken, undeserving monstrosity, and capture me in your caring arms again.

Disrupt me.

Disturb me.  Disrupt this life, for it would be of great travesty to live in such a way that no part of it could be obviously attributed to anything other than what I can accomplish on my own.

There is a push–a slightly painful, inward nudging of the heart–to do something different with Christmas.  The challenge, however, is that we don’t know what different looks, sounds, smells, or feels like.  So, instead of attempting change and risking a potentially gift-less, nightmare before Christmas breakdown, we simply do the same things, apply the same rules, and carry on in our same merry ways just like last year, the year before that, and the year before that.  Stark tradition rules Christmas with a jingle and a jangle, and its fearless, fat leader lives on in the hearts and habits of children and their parents alike from New York Wal-marts to California Costcos.  This Christmas, with its flashing lights, red poinsettias, gingerbread men, and time spent packing and unpacking, will probably look and feel very similar, if not identical to, the experience of Christmas’ past.  There is comfort in sameness, in tradition, in the tree, in the fire, in the music, in the mega-church, Christmas production, and comfort is what certain cells of leadership within the American church today are attempting to convince us to accept as the founding characteristic of the proper way.

When it comes to Christmas, the church is comfortably confused.  

Embedded within typical church activities this time of year, running awkwardly parallel to the underlying theme of Christmas, are a mosaic of time, energy, and economically draining pursuits that not only strain the church budget but the church focus, as well.  During Christmas and throughout the year, the church is divided between building an outwardly pleasing facade and genuinely serving the community wherein it doth exist.  At times, there is very little difference between strolling through a mall and walking the halls of a church building.  We invite people into the church by acting just like them instead of offering them something lovingly strange, different, full of compassion, and brimming with hope.  We use comfortable indistinguishability to relate instead of earnest, loving relationship to care, serve and transform.  The church has become some kind of nice, well versed, father-figure, always enforcing the blatant rules for good living while simultaneously accepting both angels and elves, reindeer and sheep, receiving expensive gifts and living with self-sacrifice, the watchful eye of Santa and the loving relationship between Jesus and man. 

When it comes to Christmas, the church seemingly fails to celebrate any differently than the rest of the world.  There are few (if any) defining, heart-felt obligations which the church partakes in or does not that are unique in comparison to how everyone else chooses to celebrate Christmas.  The typical, made-for-tv, American church, with its multi-million dollar campus, professional sound system, and stadium sized sanctuary,  is working hard to be anything but different.  On Sunday morning we say, “Over consumption is idolatry.  Take a stand for Christmas.  Make it about more than just gifts, shopping experiences, and going to a Christmas Eve service.  Put Christ back in Christmas again!”  Yet the next day we are in the mall buying multiple gifts for our nieces and nephews. 

There is a deeply seeded, habitual contradiction between what the church believes about Christmas and what we actually do for Christmas.  While the foundational, routinely practiced, Sunday-before-Christmas sermon may be abounding with truth in regards to Christmas, we heed not these lessons and proceed to purchase and consume all the more regardless of whether we accept or do not accept the truth behind the tinsel and mistletoe.  If you believe that Christmas is more than buying gifts and feeding the insatiable appetites of American teenagers lust for the latest material goods, than stop buying gifts for Christmas.  If you believe that there is something more than shopping and spending money on things that will not even last the year, than stop shopping and spending money on things that won’t last. 

Christian, Christmas, consumerism is baffling.  The amount of material goods, trinkets and things to be bought and consumed are always on the rise.  In America, there is never a toy deficit.  We may let children go homeless and hungry on the streets of L.A. and Indianapolis, but we could never let them go toy-less on Christmas.  It just wouldn’t be right.  We stuff shoe-boxes full of McDonald’s happy meal toys, sanitary wipes, and toothbrushes, send them somewhere impoverished, overseas, and declare to the rest of the world that on Christmas, no matter how desolate, hungry or poor you are, you will and you must receive something shiny, and it will be us Americans who give it to you.  We are so good on Christmas.  Shoe boxes full of left over American crap do not change a child’s heart living in the slums of India any more than a big box full of American crap under your suburban, upper-class tree does yours.  After receiving a new toy do you think, “Wow, the person who got this for me must really love me.” 

People, no matter how rich or poor, do not need more stuff, more widgets, more made-in-China plastic play-ware.  What people need is love, and if buying someone a $25 piece of plastic from the friendly, neighborhood, electronics store down the street is the best way we know of to demonstrate that love, than something is critically wrong.  Intrinsically, over-consumption, regardless of whether it’s Christmas or not, is nauseatingly repugnant yet somehow still acceptable, especially around the holidays.

Some will state that what’s actually important is maintaining our focus on Christ in spite of the noisy, outwardly pointing, me first, environment that the holiday of Christmas has been morphed into by loud marketers, screaming advertisements, and shoppers concentrating on acquiring the best deals on the best goods.  Focus, however, is difficult to maintain when we subject ourselves and dip into, even if only slightly, the very environment which we claim to not want to partake in.  How can we authentically maintain our focus on Christ when so much of our attention is centered around and diverted away by anticipatory factors related to gifts under the tree and hot meals in the oven. 

The holiday of Christmas is as hard to swallow as some of those bizarre, powdered sugar coated, desert balls which always seem to sneak their way onto the serving table, yet never get re-claimed at the end of the night when leftovers are being divided between starving college cousins and new parents with ravenous, young mouths to feed.  It’s hard to know what to do differently withChristmas because Christmas, in its current state, is just so much fun.  It’s fun to spend money.  It’s fun to get gifts.  It’s fun to overeat and then sleep for two days straight.  Christmas is fun and comfortable for the majority of people, but when Christmas, or our relationship with Jesus in general, becomes more about having fun, living comfortably, and receiving than it is about giving and nurturing loving relationships with people regardless of what we can get from them in return, than we have severly missed the central aspect of what life as a Christ follower is truly all about.  How easy it is to lose site of what Christ has actually called us to. 

When Jesus was born, he didn’t lay his head on Egyptian threaded sheets and plush, silky pillows.  Instead, he was placed in a manger with straw and wood, surrounded by cold and darkness.  Jesus wasn’t born into comfort.  He was born into a world with a king that wanted him dead and, upon learning of his birth, reacted by instating territorial, child genocide in order to hopefully rid Israel of baby Jesus.  When Jesus was born he didn’t get to stay put and grow accustomed to a certain way of living.  Instead, he and his family had to flee to Egypt in orer to escape death.  Jesus wasn’t born into a family of rich parents with a two-story home and three car garage.  He was born to a mother who was pregnant outside of marriage and a father who probably wondered some days if it was all worth it.  The birth of Jesus was characterized by a dirty barn, a manger and an overcrowded hotel; near death escapes, government instituted murder, and fleeing from country to country; a government bent on controlling its destiny, strange visitors from far away places, and potentially disgraceful parents, pregnant before they ever even came together.  The birth and early years of Jesus, not exactly what we celebrate on Christmas every 25th of December.  

Christmas can be different.  Love others more not just by giving them gifts, but by telling them about your great Love, Jesus.  Tell others what He did for you.  It’s the greatest gift you can give this Christmas, and it won’t cost you a single dollar.