# Merry Christmas



## StriperAddict (Dec 22, 2019)

And a great New Year folks. ☆
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"Look how far the light came"

He has been called the "Inefficient God" by critics and friends alike. Perhaps He is. In one sense, life was more ordered before the God of weakness showed up in a stable, searching for His first breath on this dying planet. Power was more clear. The poor, the broken, the religious outcasts-they knew their place near the bottom of the heap. But then He showed up. And now the powerful don't know what to do with Him. Even the stunningly failed are not sure what to do with His extravagant offer of endless love. Many of them spend a lifetime trying to prove they are not worthy of what He has promised and so they rarely get to enjoy His grace and unique love for each of them. ...And some, they never even hear of Him their entire lives.
I've never understood that. None of us do, really. He could have made Himself so much more visible. A yearly bright bolt of light into the night sky, with His name shining for an hour or so, with several key verses, for all the world to see. I do not know what to do with all of that. I'd say I would take it up with Him when I see Him. But I doubt I will, as I pick through the endless variety of pies and custards in front of me on that day. But He could not have been more powerful and efficient for at least this one human, so far down the road from that cold night several thousand years ago.
I was bent only upon the destruction, vanity, narcissism and manipulation my self-obsession could deliver. I tried everything. Brilliantly formed masks for all occasions. Words designed only to get you to believe I was better and more mysteriously wonderful than I was. Words to draw you in, only to get from you. I loved people and things but almost always to get something. Something I couldn't explain. Something elusive and sacredly distant, I could only see faintly coming in and out of dreams. And then one night, with no stable in sight, and only self-disgust, broken dreams and shattered relationships I mostly caused, the Inefficient God broke through every wall and lie I had conjured through lyrics and the brokenness of most I had met along the way. He found me in one of the darkest alleys. If this was inefficiency, then efficiency will be very hard to one-day take in.
Before Him, I enjoyed things. I really did. I loved Chinese take out and Chinese lanterns. I loved beach glass and the sound of a ball hitting a glove. I loved the soundtrack constantly playing inside my head, picked perfectly for the exact occasions I found myself in.
I was created in the image of the very God I was fighting. And so I could enjoy His world while blind to the one I was running from. Among the things I hated was religion. Or most any artist's rendering of that grown up child. If anything was not real, it had to be those pictures of the flowing locks and blue-eyed, mildly bummed-out expression of the one in those glossy pictures. If anything did not look like a God who could rescue me, it was whoever was in those pictures. But for one moment, something got through. I certainly wasn't looking for Him. I was looking for what so many of my musical heroes were looking for; a god who agreed with them and their own self-centered story of heroism and valor.
He has turned out in some ways to be so different than I thought He would be. Seldom does He do anything the way I ask. The more I pray the less what happens next looks anything like what I prayed. He allows pain and grief beyond what I think He would allow for one He says He loves so much. He values so much that often doesn't bring comfort or ease to my life. He seems to make little effort to prove Himself to me. Often when I need Him most, if I am honest, I don't experience Him in the way I would expect a best friend to show up. He still befuddles and confounds me. I have so many regrets and failures that He has yet, this late in my life, not tied the bows on. But oh, look how far the Light has come.
I can scarcely recognize myself anymore. I still love Chinese lanterns, maybe even more. But I am not who I was. I am brand new. The Light has come inside. The Light defines me and has the temerity to be defined by me. With all the present compromise and hurt I am still able to cause, I can barely remember the human I once was. For moments at a time, I care more about others than myself. I do good things, that gain me nothing, that no one will see. My humor rarely wants to harm anyone. I long now to embrace the flagrant, flippant, God-mocking "sinner" I was told not to; who I once preached not to. I am embarrassed but encouraged at what I do not know that I thought I knew. I am often at peace with who I am not and what I cannot do. I am being shredded slowly of my shame story. And I am believing the miracle of Christ in me. He has done all of this. Not by coercion, guilt or by making me feel not enough. He has done this in cooperation with a new heart finding itself wanting to obey Him from the heart, to love sacrificially and enjoy Him with the joy of a child. And that God, who does not play by my rules, I am stunned how endlessly I love Him and have been convinced of His love for me. I am so much more vulnerable to pain and loss and how badly I can be hurt by those I thought I would do my entire life with. But He has taught me real forgiveness, to let the hooks be taken out; the ones I allowed. I could not have figured that out in a million civilizations of the Incas.
His name is Jesus. He is not an institution, or a political position. He is a Person, able to have the most real relationship, with you. He is not the winning team. He is not the mascot for the moral looking. He can be found by everyone, in any setting. He can do it without destroying the expression of the heritage and culture they were brought up in. He is not a creed or a set of doctrines. He is not necessarily found by a well-crafted prayer, but a thief on a nearby cross could get into His Kingdom simply by asking. I have never known real love until Him. And now I imagine I can face anything that comes because of Him. He has never failed me. He has never played me, or held out on me. Whatever has been best for me, He has either allowed, withheld, ignored or caused. He is the only One who has not let me down. He is what I was running from and searching for. He has put the value and meaning into every moment of this life.
I wonder if He has cards up His sleeve I have not yet been shown. I will give my life to share His love to everyone I am able. But I have seen so few come to believe in Him because of my words. So I must count on the God of all goodness, justice and love to draw hearts to where He longs them to be. However, if the unexplainable happens, it will be in Christ’s name and ultimately through His payment on a cross. If you don't like that, you will need to take it up with Him. I'm too old to fight you.
He is never disgusted with me, mad at me, or aloof to me. I am right on time. I bring little to this dance, except my trust that He will do what He has promised. I no longer beat myself up for not being or doing enough. For me to berate me who is defined as God in me, is silliness at best and probably closer to blasphemy. I'm not even sure He was born in this season. Theologians are always trying to bum us out with such pragmatism. For the argument I'm going say He was born on the 25th. Stores in the area and online companies thank me for this. If I have believed in a placebo, keep renewing my prescription. For no love, no history is worth the telling, without Jesus in the center of it, without the planets placed perfectly in rotation by Him. I will side with Him if it turns out He was not on the side of truth. Fortunately I doubt I will have to make that choice.
Anyway, just for the record, I am convinced when all has been played out He was never the "Inefficient God." Not with me, nor anyone who has ever walked this planet. He is Jesus. Fully God, fully man, fully Deity, fully perfect. He has made no mistakes. (Except for the size of the pit in the avocado) Even He blushes at that oversight.
It doesn't matter who you are, where you were born, or what you've done. Apparently, the Light does come this far.

From FB post:
Merry, merry, Christmas.--John Lynch, 2016


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## strothershwacker (Dec 23, 2019)

Well said.


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## StriperAddict (Dec 24, 2019)

Since this relates to the celebration of the birth of Christ, I'll share this here. Merry Christmas y'all  ... 
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Christ’s last night in heaven: “I’m ready Father.” “Son, the next thought you’ll have will be that of a baby’s. All memories of this home, this glory, this beauty-will be gone. They will be replaced with filth, cold and pain. The first breath you take will pull you on a course to your death. It will take years before you’ll remember this conversation, this arrangement. One day, parents holding your hand, you will pass a blind beggar calling out to God. You’ll look back, suddenly knowing it is you he is calling to. Then it will dawn on you; who you are, who I am and where home is. That moment will be the loneliest of all. The morning you realize how far away you are from home.” 

…Then, finally then, it happens. The deep magic begins. The single most important moment in the history of all the galaxies. In the dead of night when the world will least suspect. In the dead of human history when even the most devout had almost given up all hope. When evil had apparently finally been conceded victory. The world is at it’s darkest, this hour before the first Christmas. Then, with only a mother’s panting gasp and a newborn’s cry, God suddenly enters into our history…to rescue us. Not in thunder and smoke, or even on a white horse, but in quiet, fragile, helplessness, in a cold, dank corner of the world…God becomes not man, but first child…All the angels stand their post and hold their breath…And now we are not alone. He really did remember. God will now be forever with us.

“Hello earth. This is my Son. You will call Him Jesus. I am…giving Him to you. To do with Him as you will. And I am giving Him to you in the most vulnerable way. I am trusting my only begotten Son to you. To you. He will now breathe your air, totally unable to protect Himself. You will hold Him tonight, you will choose to receive Him. You will decide to love Him. This is my Son, in whom I am deeply and wonderfully delighted. Take care of Him.”

A fragile crying baby and not a grown man, so none of us could say that He doesn’t understand our life. On earth so no one could claim He didn’t breathe our air. In the center of mankind so no one could say He was above us, in humility so no one would feel bullied by Him, with no protection, so no one would ever be able to say that He didn’t feel alone, in common, desperate, impoverished surroundings, so no one could say He didn’t feel want, …choosing to enter the race of men and gradually learn who He was. With questions, with lack of understanding. The God of the universe, taking on the form of man, to progressively learn to eat, to sleep, to thirst, to feel tiredness. For you. For me.

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From Facebook by John Lynch


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