Myopic vision to say the least.

Why wasn't God satisfied with Cain's offering? Call me a pragmatist, but it's always seemed a little unfair that Cain took all the heat for what seemed like a perfectly good offering gone sour. God had never commanded that sheep be the only acceptable offering, nor had he stated that grapes and bell-peppers were unfit. All we know is that Cain's were bad and Abel's were good. Produce bad. Sheep good.

All we know is that God only knows the issues of our hearts.

All I know is that I've been concerned with the issues of my heart. Identifying those heart desires, thinking that before He can turn me in the right direction and kick my backside into motion, I have to stand before him empty handed. Nothing but the best given up, whatever 'the best' seems to me.

The truth is that I've been trying to sacrifice without identifying the sacrifice first. Like a child playing a guessing game, I stand before every possibility asking, "Is it this one?" and worse still, I imagine Him with the smug knowing negative answer to my every attempt.

The truth is that when someone asks (often recently) what it is I want, what I really want, the truth is that I don't know. The truth is that I'm tired of childish guessing games and always uncertainty. The truth is that sacrifice means little if it is just the closest thing within my grasp at the time.

This morning I understand why Cain's offering wasn't good enough. Maybe these first sons had some knowledge that I don't about why first-fruits didn't mean fruit at all, but a lamb's blood. But the real issue is that the nearest thing to our hearts doesn't necessarily mean the nearest thing around us.

So here I am again. Things surrounding me again, suffocating me and making me feel less like a daughter of the King and more like a insufficient cultivator, one whose every offering is met with a finger pointing away from the land of Eden.

The truth is my heart's desires don't really matter at all. My future is soundly in His grasp and He's not asking for all the dear things, or all the near things. He's asking for me. But, which is more, my heart's desires are always more valuable in His hands than in mine.

So, no. I don't know. But thanks for asking.

The Groundhog has nothing on us.

Perhaps somewhere, in some part of the world, December 21st really is the first day of winter. Perhaps children in that part of the world pull their snow boots out of storage and mittens out of cozy baskets in anticipation for the certain wintery weather to follow. Perhaps somewhere that shortest day of the year is a welcome beginning to nights by fireplaces and light blankets of fresh snow. Perhaps somewhere.

Here, though, in upstate New York, the first day of winter, that longest day of the year is welcome for other reasons. It mean that we're halfway through already. Really? Halfway already?

And this morning as I stepped out the door to a semi warmish, well at least not five below zeroish outside, I breathed and remembered that soon enough March will be here.

Mid-afternoon, though, and this is what our world looks like yet again:


We burrow back inside, glad still for the extra minutes of daylight, even if winter sure ain't over yet.

I haven't read it yet, but it's my new favorite book. Normal Kingdom Business by Andree Seu. This is how much I love her stuff: among the file folders in my desk drawer marked Financial, Sermon Notes, Writing, and School, is one marked Andree Seu. It's filled with essays I've printed out of hers. I'm not kidding.

But now, delightfully, she has them compiled together in a book. And with a title like Normal Kingdom Business, how can it go wrong? I have visions of great inspiration, deep meditation, and a little bit of, I confess, trepidation.

Beside being my favorite essayist, she's also the normal sort of person who provides inspiration to people like me. You know, the aspiring, tumbling, prone to messing up sort of people. Her husband died, she wrote a eulogy, someone sent it to World Magazine, it got published, now she's a senior writer for them. Plus she manages the coffee spot at a prestigious seminary in Philadelphia.

Her life's not perfect, she's clear enough about her foibles and falters, her kids' rebellion and her shortcomings. She still can't believe her good fortune, that people read what she writes and like it too. I think she probably pinches herself and cries in the corner sometimes. I know she forgets things a lot because she says so. I like Andree Seu. The same way I like carrot sticks and skim milk, good and good for me.

Inscribed on the inside of this book is a short message from the giver, a permanent reminder, as though the verbal one I get every day isn't enough: To my Dear Lore: WRITE!

Not your typical book inscription. Most of them say things like "READ!" or at least "Hope you'll like reading this!" This one, however, carries with it a responsibility that will hover over my shoulder while I read each essay, then long after my lamp has been turned off and my mind pieces strings of words together.

Ninety percent of the things I write never make it here, never make it to my file folder marked Writing, never make it to the notebook I keep by my bed for quick jots; ninety percent of the things I write I never read again. I'm a very good non-writer. I'm very good at being good with something I don't ever do. Most of us are.

Which is why Andree Seu is my recent hero. Because she goes about normal kingdom business and spews forth a book of essays. Because someone told Andree Seu that not only could she write, but that she must WRITE!

Because somewhere I bet Andree Seu has a book someone gave her some Christmas. A book that she knew would be her favorite too, once she got past the charge of the inscription.

Yesterday's post pointed to the necessity of the gospel being our tool for world surgery. Today, though, and really this whole Christmas season, it is one line from a traditional Advent hymn that prevails in my mind:

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

I have been struck this Christmas season by the gospel. When each new disappointment rises and every new joy surfaces, each prayer and each moment of deep hurt recognized, when peace is the one thing that seems furthest from my heart this year, I return to His gospel.

Because, really, yesterday's post was not about you. It was not about how I am refocusing on Christ's Crucifixion to help me relate better to you, or to help you realign your steps with the greater purpose given to us. Yesterday's post was about me. My need for "major surgery" surfaces with a vengeance and I need the gospel to remind me why I'm am so desperate for a savior and why I am so hungry for peace.

I confessed to her a few weeks ago that I didn't cry during the great entertainment accomplishment of modern Christianity: The Passion of the Christ; but that I buried my face in my turtleneck sweater and wept unashamedly during a viewing of The Nativity Story last year.

I was absolutely shaken by the gospel in those moments. The reenactment of his agony on the cross didn't compare, didn't arrest my heart, didn't awaken my spirit like his birth amongst cows and chickens did for me. As the newborn cry split the air and the actors' breath mingled with the cold air, as Mary prayed her famous prayer, and as Joseph wrestled with the great responsibility, a peace settled over me--one I haven't felt before.

I am familiar with the crucifixion, I am accustomed to the resurrection, and I know about Pentecost. I understand doubt and tongues of fire and miracles and ascension. I can somehow wrap my mind around these things.

I cannot fathom the Gospel birthed among straw and barn-mice and angst, to a girl-child and a broken father. I cannot imagine afterbirth and a first gulp of air, the taste of skin and milk. I cannot understand wicked kings robed in purple and a baby wrapped in wool and rough fabric. My mind does not grasp these things.

But it is peace. It is the birth of peace. It takes thousands of years and hasn't arrived yet, but it was and it is and it will be peace.

Today's reading from My Utmost For His Highest. A very good reminder:

"Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is an absurdity and there is absolutely no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but major surgery.

When you find yourself face to face with a person who is spiritually lost, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the cross. If that person can get to God in any other way, then the Cross of Christ is unnecessary. If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him yourself, and pour your life out in helping others in His way— not in a human way that ignores God. The theme of the world’s religion today is to serve in a pleasant, non-confrontational manner.

But our only priority must be to present Jesus Christ crucified— to lift Him up all the time (see 1 Corinthians 2:2 ). Every belief that is not firmly rooted in the Cross of Christ will lead people astray. If the worker himself believes in Jesus Christ and is trusting in the reality of redemption, his words will be compelling to others. What is extremely important is for the worker’s simple relationship with Jesus Christ to be strong and growing. His usefulness to God depends on that, and that alone.

The calling of a New Testament worker is to expose sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Savior. Consequently, he cannot always be charming and friendly, but must be willing to be stern to accomplish major surgery. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful speeches. We must be willing to examine others as deeply as God has examined us. We must also be sharply intent on sensing those Scripture passages that will drive the truth home, and then not be afraid to apply them."

I'm not complaining.

We are in, what a hero of mine was well familiar with, a complete blizzard. Church has been canceled. An afternoon at the opera has been called off. And so too, I imagine, a night's meeting.

Laden with a crock-pot of chicken soup, the family is on their way home, not having gotten the message until they arrived already. One sits at the piano pounding out jazz chords, disappointed at the cancellation of church because he won't put his stellar cello playing abilities to use in the "Christmas Symphony." I sit here, warmed by the heat, wrapped in a grey wool cardigan, nursing my morning coffee, and putting mediocre words down.

The thought of this whole day, shut in with people I love, the games we'll play, the laughter to be had, the hot drinks we'll sip, and the togetherness we'll share. All of that sounds redundant to me--all simultaneous synonyms.

All I know is that, with the white swirling around the house, the snow piling up by the inches, the icy bitter cold, it all blankets this house in a cozy winter-wonderland.

These are the days I love winter.

A year ago I wrote this:

"He chose five stones. Even though he had complete confidence that God was on his side and the giant would be defeated, still, he chose five stones. In case the first one didn't work? In case the first four didn't work? We know it only took one, but we have the vantage of hindsight and Hebrew scribes. He had nothing but his stature and a slingshot to count on. And the faithfulness of his God."

The story hasn't changed much from my point of view, the circumstances are different this year (they always will be), but the story is the same: which stone will do the work of the kingdom? Which path will usher the kingdom of God here on earth and, with so many choices in front of me, how can I ever choose the right one?

The answer, I am finding, is in the relinquishing of those five stones. If David had kept them in his pouch, handling them, letting them sift through his fingers, like sand and time, then those giants would still be lumbering above. But obedience for him was not the slaughtering of the giant, but the slinging of the stone. It was in God's hands to finish the job, but in David's hands to be available and faithful.

If the first hadn't worked, I am convinced his faith would not have faltered--there were still four more for the hand of His God to be displayed. Perhaps, if he had worked through the first four and had been left with the last one to produce the promised action, we would have a different sort of lesson to learn altogether, something about belief in promises that don't seem to happen. But he didn't.

The first one worked. He acted in obedience. Gathering more than enough resources, but needing only one. His eyes were not on the work to be accomplished, giants are everywhere after all, but on the immediate task at hand.

What may be your portion tomorrow is not your business today.
Elisabeth Elliot

Today's portion is to throw the stone.

If the rest of you are like me, you respond in like manner at those disciples when they reply to His question with clear condescension: You are in a crowd of people and yet You ask "Who touched me?"

I think to myself that those disciples weren't exactly the sharpest tools in the Master's shed.

And with that condescension of my own comes a perception of that whole crowd--I see them a bit negatively. Even though they formed a tight circle around the one person I would join a circle around too, even though they pressed in to the same man I claim to press toward, even though--well, those disciples make it hard to like the crowd. We opt instead for the woman with the issue. The one whose touch felt different.

I've been part of the crowd recently. I follow them. They follow me. We all run circles around the real One we want to see. We do ministry. We are ministry. We lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. We run in packs, rubbing shoulders with the people who are already in.

We even touch His robe once or twice, or at least touch someone who's touched His robe.

But He's not stopping the crowd for us. He's not questioning His disciples for us. He didn't feel the power leave Him when our hurried pressing meets his woolen dressing.

That was reserved for the one who pressed through all of us just to get to Him.

I find myself making a list of all the things I've crowded around recently, my plethora of ministry opportunities and familial commitments, my right hand service and my left hand giving, my relationships and my quiet times. And I find that the face of Jesus has been crowded out.

Even though I'm pressed in tight, against Him, His people, and His direction, I've lost my focus--and He knows my touch is only pedestrian. Not desperate.

Not like hers.

I've joined the ranks of the disciples and forgotten the deeper issues, the ones that don't go away until I get more serious about seeing and touching Him than running with the crowds around Him.