Behold, the Light of the World Comes
I walk paths of gray concrete almost every day for five years.
Five years of walking and praying.
Praying for this place and people who live here in this small corner of the wide world, and pray for God's grace.
Five years, more than five years of this and me trying to be light in this small corner. Light in darkness.
Praying for ways to be light, to show the true Light that has come into this dark world, I walk.
In the midst of hot summer, full of light, streaming, I was busy, so busy, raising this neighborhood full of kids.
There were usually at least a dozen here everyday, many times sixteen and the week of neighborhood Bible club, there were thirty kids here every day and ministry too.
But it's easy to get tired and feel like your time, your giving, your hospitality, it's not making any difference. It's easy to let the hardness of ministry, of raising a neighborhood, and the conflict that goes with having sixteen kids at your small house all the time, to lose sight of the light.
And it's only now, in these days of waning light, of cold and Christmas that I begin to see the glimmer in this darkness.
The boy next door, he comes to church with us now. Every Wednesday to Awana. He comes and he eats pizza sometimes before we go and as we eat I help him with his Bible verses. He's working on John 3:16. He says, "I know who Jesus is. He is God's Son. He lives in heaven with my brother."
"Yes," I say. "And God gave His Son for us, so we could go to heaven with Him when we die. And we just have to believe."
This boy, he's never been to church before. When we walk through the church he says, "This place is nice. I'd like to live here."
"Yes, it is. Would you like to come with us on Sundays too? We can bring you and your Mom?"
"Sure, this place is cool!"
So we ask, and she says yes. This mother who lost her first born son when he was fifteen. This single mom who has had the hard of life. Raising the daughter of her ex-boyfriend and now taking care of the teen daughter's baby too. And I can see the hand of God writing redemption all over their lives so weary and grief-dark and worn.
And that mother around the corner, the one with the six rambunctious boys, she asks how I do this job of mother-life with all my six and how? And I say, grace.
It's just grace.
And God, he gives grace that I don't deserve and maybe you would like some too.
And would you like to come to church this Christmas? And she says, yes.
And the other boy down the street. The one who gets beat up on the bus. The one without friends, he has a birthday party, that no one shows up to. No one. They had pizza, games, goody bags, and not one friend to eat the pizza, share the goodies, to play the games. We come late.
His dad tells us the boy left to run an errand because he just couldn't stay there at the party without any guests and thanks so much for stopping by and it made all the difference. And he takes our gift and we ask if we can take this boy out for dinner for his birthday, this motherless boy abandoned by her at the age of two. And his dad says, yes, that would just be great. And he says, do we know that it really made all the difference that we were just there?
Yes, the light it's beginning to shine.
I begin to see, that really it comes down to this,
all we really have to give is us.
We give ourselves, we give His love.
And we were meant to be the gift, to give ourselves, to give and not stop giving because that is what God did for us.
He is our gift.
And what He gave was Himself, wrapped himself in human skin, came as a weak and helpless baby, and grew into a man who died on that cross for us.
How can we not give, when He already gave it all?
Is it convenient or easy or comfortable all the time? No. But neither is a cross and He tells us to take ours up and follow Him.
And this what we are called to,
to just be the gift.
To give just us, and Christ in us, to all this weary, worn, broken and bleeding world.
To love like He loves, to go after the lost and to bind up the broken-hearted.
To be Jesus with skin, today, here, where ever.
Because it really is better to give than to receive.
And I think that this really is all I want for Christmas, just to receive more of Him, so that I can give Him , the Light of the World, away this Christmas, to those who still sit in darkness.
And in these dark December days, the light, it's just beginning to shine.
Five years of walking and praying.
Praying for this place and people who live here in this small corner of the wide world, and pray for God's grace.
Five years, more than five years of this and me trying to be light in this small corner. Light in darkness.
Praying for ways to be light, to show the true Light that has come into this dark world, I walk.
In the midst of hot summer, full of light, streaming, I was busy, so busy, raising this neighborhood full of kids.
There were usually at least a dozen here everyday, many times sixteen and the week of neighborhood Bible club, there were thirty kids here every day and ministry too.
But it's easy to get tired and feel like your time, your giving, your hospitality, it's not making any difference. It's easy to let the hardness of ministry, of raising a neighborhood, and the conflict that goes with having sixteen kids at your small house all the time, to lose sight of the light.
And it's only now, in these days of waning light, of cold and Christmas that I begin to see the glimmer in this darkness.
The boy next door, he comes to church with us now. Every Wednesday to Awana. He comes and he eats pizza sometimes before we go and as we eat I help him with his Bible verses. He's working on John 3:16. He says, "I know who Jesus is. He is God's Son. He lives in heaven with my brother."
"Yes," I say. "And God gave His Son for us, so we could go to heaven with Him when we die. And we just have to believe."
This boy, he's never been to church before. When we walk through the church he says, "This place is nice. I'd like to live here."
"Yes, it is. Would you like to come with us on Sundays too? We can bring you and your Mom?"
"Sure, this place is cool!"
So we ask, and she says yes. This mother who lost her first born son when he was fifteen. This single mom who has had the hard of life. Raising the daughter of her ex-boyfriend and now taking care of the teen daughter's baby too. And I can see the hand of God writing redemption all over their lives so weary and grief-dark and worn.
And that mother around the corner, the one with the six rambunctious boys, she asks how I do this job of mother-life with all my six and how? And I say, grace.
It's just grace.
And God, he gives grace that I don't deserve and maybe you would like some too.
And would you like to come to church this Christmas? And she says, yes.
And the other boy down the street. The one who gets beat up on the bus. The one without friends, he has a birthday party, that no one shows up to. No one. They had pizza, games, goody bags, and not one friend to eat the pizza, share the goodies, to play the games. We come late.
His dad tells us the boy left to run an errand because he just couldn't stay there at the party without any guests and thanks so much for stopping by and it made all the difference. And he takes our gift and we ask if we can take this boy out for dinner for his birthday, this motherless boy abandoned by her at the age of two. And his dad says, yes, that would just be great. And he says, do we know that it really made all the difference that we were just there?
Yes, the light it's beginning to shine.
I begin to see, that really it comes down to this,
all we really have to give is us.
We give ourselves, we give His love.
And we were meant to be the gift, to give ourselves, to give and not stop giving because that is what God did for us.
He is our gift.
And what He gave was Himself, wrapped himself in human skin, came as a weak and helpless baby, and grew into a man who died on that cross for us.
How can we not give, when He already gave it all?
Is it convenient or easy or comfortable all the time? No. But neither is a cross and He tells us to take ours up and follow Him.
And this what we are called to,
to just be the gift.
To give just us, and Christ in us, to all this weary, worn, broken and bleeding world.
To love like He loves, to go after the lost and to bind up the broken-hearted.
To be Jesus with skin, today, here, where ever.
Because it really is better to give than to receive.
And I think that this really is all I want for Christmas, just to receive more of Him, so that I can give Him , the Light of the World, away this Christmas, to those who still sit in darkness.
And in these dark December days, the light, it's just beginning to shine.
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