Each miracle—opening the eyes of the blind, making a paralyzed man walk, feeding thousands of people by multiplying a few loaves of bread—were glimpses of the kind of kingdom Jesus would establish for his followers. A kingdom of wholeness, abundance, and holiness. And that was exactly the kind of kingdom Peter wanted to live in! 

Based on the way Jesus kept choosing Peter, James, and John to be up close and included in private meetings, it probably seemed to Peter that he was well on his way to playing an important role in Jesus’s earthly ministry and kingdom.

So, when Jesus began to reveal that he came to save them by dying for them, Peter got offended because he didn’t understand.

Followers Fail, Doubt, and Misunderstand

In the final moments of following Jesus on earth, Peter found himself at odds with Jesus, whom he’d been so determined to follow.

At the last supper, Jesus told his followers, “You will all fall away.” But Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not” (Mark 14:27–29).

Jesus said, “This very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” But Peter said, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you” (Matthew 26:34–35).

In the space of a few hours, Peter would be standing by a fire, and his declarations of loyalty would melt into three panicked denials. 

From sword-swinging valor to cursing and terrified disowning of his king and friend, Peter, a true follower of Jesus, proved unable to keep his promises of loyalty when it mattered most. So “He went out and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:62)

As you’ve followed Jesus throughout your life, have you been there? Devastatingly ashamed?

Have you asked yourself, “How could I have done that? How could I have done that again? Am I even a Christian?”

I have been there, and my tendency is the same as Peter’s. I want to flee! I want to get as far away from the evidence of my failure as I can.

I have often wept bitterly. I’ve cried in embarrassment because I ought to know better. I’ve buried my head in shame because shouldn’t I have this sin whipped by now? And I’ve bawled my eyes out in despair because I wonder if this time, I’ve finally ruined God’s plan for my loved ones or me.

One of those times was in the spring of 2012. At the time, our boys were 8, 7, and 5, and we had two little foster girls, ages 3 and 2. 

As I looked around my life, I was failing at all the things that were most important to God and to me. Marriage, parenting, foster-parenting, and even my walk with Jesus—everything seemed to be crumbling.

Kurt and I were merely existing in the same house. When I took time to read my Bible and pray, I spent more time crying than reading or praying. I was struggling with sins of bitterness, distrusting God, and being harsh and impatient with my family.

I was parenting like I was a machine, and our kids were five little widgets I had to service. Wake, feed, transport, bathe. It was like our home had become an institutional parenting operation with gaping holes where loving discipline and nurture should have been.

I’d begun to wonder, “Am I even a Christian? Shouldn’t this all be easier because I’m following Jesus?”

I had been begging God for months to either change my heart or my circumstances.

One particular night I prayed: God, why am I still struggling with these things?! Don’t you see how badly this is going? Do you know how wrung out I am? Do you care that these kids are dying for individual attention? I can’t do it because I have a logistics problem…a 1 to 5 ratio! The only mother-child activity I could possibly manage is to have them “help” while I cook. But I don’t have the patience for it, and the boys are interested in fishing, not cooking! 

There was no answer, and I went to bed in tears. Why couldn’t I get this figured out?! 

The next day was more of the same, robotic parenting and unloving responses. The gaping holes of individual attention were still begging to be filled.

No voice from heaven.

No overwhelming sense of peace. 

No change in circumstances.

No change of heart.

Jesus Points Out Our Need

I wonder if that’s how Peter felt when we find him in John 21. After Jesus had died and risen, he instructed his disciples to meet him in Galilee, and then he disappeared.

If I had to retell the story of John 21:1-9, I’d tell it like this:

Peter flung his net over the lake and heard it hiss as it sank. He and John drug it back in without speaking. Fishing came back to him as naturally as breathing.

Three years ago, he’d left this boat in a pile of fish and walked away to follow Jesus. And every unpredictable moment of the past three years had culminated in the strangest, most horrible, and fascinating week of his life.

He shook his head remembering. Loyal to the end was his plan. In his fast-talking, fast-acting efforts to be the rock Jesus had called him, he’d vowed to die with Jesus. Instead, he had denied and deserted Him, and Jesus alone had died.

Then, incredibly, He came back to life.

Peter looked around the boat draping the empty net over his arm. James and Andrew worked in rhythm. Thomas and Nathaniel were at the oars, and the others dozed in the bow.

The last orange glow of the evening diminished into darkness, and Peter cast out his net again.

He hoped fishing would ease his mind, and he hadn’t even had to convince the others to come along. They were just waiting, after all. Waiting for Jesus to meet them in Galilee, as he said he would. But when? And where was he now? What was taking so long?

It was a dreary but familiar rhythm. The sinkers slapped the water, and the hissing net sunk. Ropes scraped over the sides of the boat, and Peter and John pulled up the net tangled with weeds, dripping with mud, empty of fish. He shoved down his frustration. Waiting. Wondering. Working.

Hour after hour. All night long.

The sun fanned out pink on the horizon and gave just enough light to see the outline of a man on the shore. The smoke from his fire wafted onto the lake and reminded Peter of his hunger. Salt in the wound of a night with no fish.

They were tired, sore, and hungry, and they decided to call it a night. When they were still 100 yards out, the man on shore called out to them.

“Friends, don’t you have any fish?”

A night of work with nothing to show, and now they were forced to admit it.

No fish.

No breakfast. 

No income.

No idea where Jesus was. 

They called back to the man on the shore, “No.” 

I find it instructive that throughout the gospels, and in my own life, when Jesus wants to reveal himself and show his power to his followers, he often points out their need. And it sometimes sounds harsh.

For example, when 5,000 people on a remote hillside needed food, Jesus said to the disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Incredulous, the disciples replied, “We have only five loaves and two fish” (see Luke 9:13). 

To the crippled man who’d lain by the temple pool for 38 years, Jesus said, “Do you want to get well?” and the man essentially answered, “I can’t! I have no one to put me into the healing waters” (see John 5:7).

And to his followers who’d been fishing while waiting for him, Jesus asked, “Friends, don’t you have any fish?”

In my own life, Jesus often makes me acutely aware of my own desperate need so that when he goes to work in my regular surroundings, I’ll know it was him.

Jesus Fills our Gaping Holes

The evening after my desperate complaining prayer for help with my parenting, I put three of my five kids in bed. I was ready to clock out when my eight-year-old brought me a magazine with 65 full-color pages of perfectly decorated treats and said, “Mom, can we make something out of here?”

I was tired, and I had no desire or patience to start an activity. Plus, it was a Christmas magazine, and I knew every recipe in there called for peppermint oil or crushed candy canes, and in April, I had none of that on hand.

So I said, “I don’t have the right ingredients for any of those recipes.”

But he didn’t give up. “Can you just check?”

I flipped through the pages and noticed a recipe with only four ingredients. I had all of them on hand—including a half-bag of pastel mini marshmallows left over from a craft. And, it was a no-bake recipe.

I figured it wouldn’t take too long, so we went to the kitchen and had a rare and uninterrupted 20 minutes of Christmas “baking” in April.

We mixed melted chocolate chips and butter with the pastel marshmallows, rolled it into a log, and refrigerated it. When we sliced them the next morning, each cookie looked like a multicolored mosaic pane, held together by chocolate. 

I served him one of our little treats for breakfast, and since I’d never seen them before, I dug up the magazine and pressed it open to find out what they were called.

They were called Cathedral Windows.

Through a four-ingredient, no-bake recipe, Jesus had filled that gaping hole of need with a cathedral window.

Not only had he answered my prayer for one-on-one time with my needy son, but he had also done it according to the schedule he knew I had to keep. He acknowledged my veiled complaint about cooking with a no-bake recipe. More shocking, he answered my questions:

“Yes. I see. I hear. I know, and I care.”

In a way, it was like a recurring refrain of Jesus saying, “Even now, I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself.”

When we are desperate, God stands ready to strengthen his followers with his presence, his loving attention, and a revelation of himself that proves he is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.

He fills gaping holes with cathedral windows and empty nets with fish.

Jesus’ Generous Gift to His Followers

The man on the shore called out again, and Peter asked, “What did he say?” 

John answered, “He said to cast on the right side to find some fish.”

The rest of the disciples stopped fiddling with nets and oars, ropes and sails. John and Peter eased themselves and the net to the other side. The boat shifted, dipping low with their weight. 

In one orchestrated motion, they flung the net. Once again, it hit the water like a smattering of rain, then went silent.

In unison, they pulled on the ropes.

The net seemed stuck.

Peter held the rope too loosely, and two feet of it scraped through his hands, leaving a bloody burn before he got a grip. He and John braced themselves against the weight of the net and looked at each other. Andrew and James and the others dropped their gear and scrambled over benches and oars to help.

The seven of them pulled, and the boat lurched to that side. The water’s surface shattered with the splashing of silver tails and fins.

John and Peter held the ropes and looked at the shore. Then John said, “It is the Lord!”

Peter thrust the ropes at James, grabbed his cloak from the mast, wriggled it over his head, and dove in.

Peter had been here before. Straining at the ropes of a catch he couldn’t bring in. It was a visual demonstration of God’s grace that bookended his life of following Jesus: a net so full of what he had been working for that he could not contain it.

It had taken years of failure and misunderstanding for Peter to get it, but Jesus’s message had always been the same: I will generously give you what you cannot earn or deserve. I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. I will declare you holy.

Peter needed what only Jesus could give. And so do you and I.

Even if you’ve been following Jesus for years, you still don’t have to earn his forgiveness and grace. We must simply receive what he lavishes on us by whatever means he chooses.

In the setting that was most familiar to Peter, Jesus pointed out his need. Then Jesus filled the empty nets with fish…again…so that Peter and the other disciples would know—without a doubt—Jesus would continue to do for them what they could not do for themselves.

In your most desperate and discouraging circumstances, he is present and attentive, even if you don’t recognize him at first. He will provide, but he often does it in surprising ways so that you’ll know it was him.

The post What Does Jesus Do for Disappointed Followers? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

As I studied and pondered their culture, their preparation for the journey, and the certainty about Messiah that drove them more than 600 miles, one question shone like a star:

“Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2)

I wondered if that question lingered in the minds of the wise men over the next decades. The following letter imagines how one wise man, whom I have named Samir, might have sought an answer from his long-lost acquaintance in Bethlehem some thirty years later.

The Letter From a Wise Man

A LETTER FROM: Samir of Persia, Tribe of Magi
TO: Benjamin of Bethlehem, Tribe of Judah
DATE: A.D. 34, Spring

Dear Benjamin,

Peace and goodwill to you and your household in Bethlehem.

Some would call this letter a fool’s errand since it has been decades since you and I met. But I’m writing because I’m desperate to know whether you can confirm or deny the disturbing rumor that has reached me here in Persia.

You may not remember me personally. However, I think you will remember our entourage from Persia that camped in your father’s field at the edge of Bethlehem thirty years ago. 

I was 14 years old at the time, and I remember you because you were about my age and boldly vocal. In front of hundreds of foreigners–our soldiers, farriers, cooks, and my father’s fellow Magi–you declared that our horses, with so many brightly colored packs piled on their backs, looked like painted camels. Then you showed our caravan to the open space of your father’s field. 

We had traveled for months to worship Judea’s new king. As Persian Magi, we are responsible for recommending and crowning our kings. Some call us the king-makers. While Judea’s new king didn’t require our approval, we sought to worship him because he was foretold by your ancestor, the prophet Daniel, who saved our entire tribe.

Surely you’ve read the account from centuries ago when our ruler called for his Magi to recount and interpret his nightmare. It was natural that he should consult the wise men of the Magi since our tribe was positioned to help him divine direction by reading the stars. But this was no star-gazing affair. He meant for my ancestors to gaze into his mind and draw out the meaning of what they had not seen or heard. 

It was an impossible task, and when they told him so, our king decreed the execution of the entire tribe. But your God intervened. He revealed the truth of our king’s dream to Daniel, and our entire tribe was spared.

As you can imagine, we have revered and studied Daniel’s writings and the God in Heaven who reveals mysteries. 

So when an unusual star appeared in our land, my father and his fellow wise men understood from Daniel’s scrolls that your God was revealing another mystery: an eternal king had been born in Judea as The King of the Jews.

I saw his star with my own eyes, but it was not charted on the painted star maps in my father’s library. It didn’t rotate around the sky as other constellations did, but it moved. And as it did, we followed it toward Jerusalem. 

After many months of travel, when we finally climbed the hill to the city’s gates, I looked into the night sky, and I did not see the star. For the first time in months, it had disappeared.

As our caravan marched through town, the hooves of our horses and camels echoed off the stone streets and walls like muffled thunder. Jerusalem’s citizens stared at us and flinched at every loud noise. The snort of a horse and the sneeze of a camel sent them scurrying. 

There were no banners announcing the new king, so my father requested a meeting with King Herod. When my father asked where to find the newborn king, Herod knew nothing of it. Herod’s wise men, however, directed us to Bethlehem.

We exited Jerusalem and headed south toward Bethlehem. As we did, we saw the star reappear. It had waited for us just outside the capital city, not scolding us for stopping, but neither endorsing Jerusalem with its light.

In Bethlehem, we did not need to ask where the young King of the Jews lived because his star so clearly rested over one house.

We were welcomed there. The child looked terribly ordinary to me and not much like a king. He ran to his mother when we entered, stretching his arms to be lifted up, and then buried his face in her shoulder. He chewed on his fingers, and his little tunic was wet around the neck. 

My father visited with his, and we presented the gifts we had brought from Persia. I marveled at the number of coins and the volume of the incense and perfume, but the child was indifferent. 

That was the night we met you and took shelter on your father’s land. But before the sun rose, my father had a terrible dream and insisted we leave the pasture in the middle of the night. We were not able to thank your father, so we left a bag of gold where we hoped you would find it when you came looking for us the next morning.

Months later, we were shocked to hear of the massacre of children that occurred in Bethlehem just days after we had left under cover of night. I felt sick. I asked my father if our journey had been the reason for Herod’s madness. He only said that Herod had been mad long before we arrived.

When Herod died later that year, I waited for my father to tell me that the child we had worshiped had been crowned, but the announcement never came, and I feared the worst for King Jesus.

Over the years, I have listened and hoped for news of King Jesus. Was he a victim of Herod’s violence in Bethlehem, or was he somehow spared? Surely your God, who spared Daniel and the Magi, would spare his prophesied king.

But just this week, bittersweet news has finally arrived. One of our traders was in Jerusalem during your country’s Passover celebration. As he was leaving, he passed an execution in progress on a hillside. Three criminals hung on Roman crosses.

This might not have piqued my interest since Rome punishes criminals and dissidents everywhere. But our trader off-handedly mentioned that the man hanging on the middle cross had a plaque nailed above his bloodied head naming his charges: “Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews.”

By my calculations of the dates and moons, the crucified Jesus of Nazareth would have been the same age as the child I worshiped in Bethlehem decades ago. 

And now, Benjamin, I have only questions. 

Was this Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, the one we worshiped in Bethlehem? And if he was crowned King of the Jews, why have we never heard of his reign? 

Was he spared in Bethlehem only to be crucified in Jerusalem before taking his place on the throne? 

If this letter has reached you, and you can lend insight, I will be once again indebted to you for any answers you can provide. 

My messenger will wait for your reply and return it to me. I beg for your prompt response.

Sincerely, 

Samir

The Reply 

REPLY FROM: Benjamin of Bethlehem, Tribe of Judah
TO: Samir of Persia, Tribe of Magi
DATE: A.D. 34

Dear Samir,

I remember you, friend. How could I forget? We never had such a caravan camped in our fields again. I found your gold the next morning and delivered it to my father.

But now, as your messenger waits for my reply, I can gladly and quickly answer your questions.

The crucified Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the same king who was born in Bethlehem, just as our prophets foretold. You’ll notice I say he is the same and not that he was the same. He was killed, as your trader correctly reported. He was buried outside of Jerusalem according to our custom, but on the third day—steady yourself, Samir—God raised him from the dead.

And in the weeks following, he appeared alive to more than 500 people at once. My relatives saw him alive. They touched him and ate with him. 

You worried that you were the reason he died. You were—and so was I—but not for the reasons you suppose. The reasons are far worse and yet far better than either of us could have imagined. 

I know it may be difficult to believe, so I beg you to visit me again so I can tell you more. My father is gone, but our home still sits on the edge of the field where you camped. I cannot leave my sheep, but when you come, I will tell you the rest. 

It is good news, Samir. Jesus, the king born in Bethlehem, who grew up in Nazareth and was crucified and raised in Jerusalem, lives and rules today. 

But his kingdom is not of this world as we know it. His kingdom lasts forever, and he is coming to gather those of us who believe him. Your journey to honor him so long ago was not in vain. He is still worthy of our worship.

Believe him, Samir, and I will see you in that kingdom, if not before.

Sincerely,

Benjamin

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The post Letter From a Wise Man appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

As part of our fall Bible study, I’d been reading about the Temptation of Christ in the desert. I had that ho-hum feeling I sometimes get that makes me say, “Oh, yeah. I know this one. Three temptations, three scriptural refutations. Check!”

You can roll your eyes at me if you want. I’m rolling my eyes at myself.

Thankfully, my study questions slowed me down, and as I was reading, the scene started to take shape in my mind.

Jesus had just been baptized.

“And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased,” (Matthew 3:17).

It seems like there should have been a reception with cake and a certificate of baptism, but instead of cake, the Spirit led Jesus to a fast:

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry” (Matthew 4:1).

Jesus was starving to death in the desert, and the devil invited him to do some crazy cliff jumping with no harness to see if God would really do what he promised. Would God “command his angels concerning [Jesus]” so that he wouldn’t suffer harm.

It occurred to me that Jesus was already suffering harm. He was hungry, lonely, and tired, and the devil was taking jabs, “Didn’t your Father say he’d command his angels….” And quite frankly, that’s exactly what God had said:

He will command his angels concerning you,

    and they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

Psalm 91:11-12

But for 40 days, God hadn’t command his angels to prevent harm, and his Son, with whom he was well pleased, languished in the desert.

I started to wonder what kind of pleading was going on in the throne room of God.

Were angels begging for permission to rescue their King?
Were they waiting for a command?
Was God pained to watch this torture unfold on earth?
Did God have to command his angels to stay put?
What kind of divine restraint was required to allow this to continue?

Our Bible study group discussed the story. We noticed how brazenly the devil taunted Jesus in his vulnerable state. We saw how Jesus used God’s word to talk back to the devil and maintained his authority to command the devil to leave him alone. Then we came to the last verse:

“Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him” (Matthew 4:11).

God did what he’d promised. He commanded his angels to attend to Jesus at just the right time.

One woman in our group said, “I wonder what that was like.” I’d been wondering too, so I wrote the scene as I imagined it might have happened.

I hope you enjoy it, but more than that, I hope you’ll notice that suffering isn’t always a result of personal sin, and that God will do what he’s promised at just the right time.

Gabriel stood with his hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. He stared through a nearly imperceptible veil separating the throne room of God from the Judean wilderness. From Gabriel’s side, the veil was as transparent as crystal. Nothing obstructed his view.

Gabriel’s Creator, the King he had served from the moment he’d been formed, lay curled at the bottom of a desert ravine, near death. His eyes were sunken and closed, and Gabriel thought he could have passed for a dead man. Gabriel knew better. The time had not yet come.

He turned to Almighty and asked, “Now?”

A voice like rushing waters came from the throne, “Not quite yet.”

They both stared through the thin veil, separating heaven from earth. The King’s lips were cracked and quivering, but Gabriel knew those faint movements weren’t the twitches of a starving man. They were the silent prayers of a Son to his Father. Even as the King prayed, droplets of blood appeared in the cracks of his lips.

Gabriel picked up a jar made of such pure gold that its body was translucent. He dipped it in the River of Life and let it fill.

Michael approached Gabriel at the veil. Together they watched as a dark figure bent over their crumpled King. The King’s eyes flickered open. The dark figure stumbled backward, tripping on a stone. He kicked the stone, and it rolled to a stop near the King’s head. He laughed and taunted.

Gabriel and Michael drew their swords and glanced back at the Almighty, watching for a nod or the lifting of a divine finger.

The weakened King spoke from the earth, but his words echoed in the throne room, “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

Gabriel and Michael listened for that word of command to proceed, but none came.

Instead, the throne room began to rumble, and thumping wings stirred the air as angels fell into line behind Michael and Gabriel. Leaves on the Tree of Life rustled, but none fell. Fragrance from its fruit and blossoms floated on the breeze and overpowered the lingering stench of deception wafting in from the desert.

The King had pushed himself up to a sitting position, and the hosts of heaven sighed relief to know he was still alive. The dark figure flew to the top of a mountain, and Gabriel heard him shout, “Throw yourself down! Didn’t your Father say he would command his angels concerning you? You won’t even strike your foot against a stone if your Father tells the truth!”

Michael and Gabriel lunged toward the thin veil at the mention of their angelic order, thinking it was time. Wings thrummed behind them, ready to attend to the King. The veil ruffled in the breeze like a curtain in the wind. Just a breath from the Father and the veil would part.

Gabriel watched the Father, his face creased with focused attention toward his Son. The throne nearly vibrated with power demanding to be released, but the Father restrained his mighty hand for the moment.

The dark figure thrust his own hands under the King’s arms and forced him to stand. The King was dizzy and stumbled to one side as though he may fall, Gabriel reached toward the veil that he might catch him, but a voice like rushing waters restrained him, “Just a moment, Gabriel.”

Gabriel drew back his hand. The veil was hot.

Just as the King had steadied himself, the dark figure whispered, “Bow and worship me.”

Heaven erupted with a rhythmic fervor, and the winged army behind Gabriel chanted, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole Earth is full of his glory!”

The wind of their wings was fierce, whipping Gabriel’s tunic around his feet. The Tree of Life neither bent nor swayed, but the wing-whipped gusts lifted its branches higher, exposing its beautiful fruit. Gabriel longed to pluck a basketful for the King, but for now, the King’s “food” was to do the will of God and endure this test. The time for feasting would come later.

The King stood, staggered, then as though drawing strength from the other side of the invisible veil, he raised his hoarse voice and commanded, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only!'”

Then, like thunder rumbling from the throne came the command, “Go!”

The veil parted just as the King began to fall, and Gabriel and Michael flew to steady him. They each caught an arm so he wouldn’t strike his head or foot against the desert stones.

Throngs of angels rushed through the parted veil, winged attendants finally uncaged. They encircled the King, surrounding him with a protective perimeter, seven angels deep. Gabriel and Michael helped him sit, and the King leaned back against a large rock that seemed fitted to his back. Gabriel offered the golden jar, and the King drank. A few swallows, and he began to choke and cough. Gabriel lowered the jar. The King wiped his mouth with his sleeve and whispered, “A little more.” Gabriel lifted the jar again.

From within the wall of angels came the attendants. One unfurled a linen sheet over the desert floor and invited Jesus to lay or sit upon it, whichever was most comfortable for him. Another brought a basket of bread and a jar of olive oil. One took out a loaf, tore off the end, and dipped it in the oil. She reached into the basket again and drew out a pinch of salt, which she sprinkled on the oil-soaked bread.

She knelt, bowed her head, and held it out to her King.

Gabriel and Michael stood beside the seated King as the angels attended him, meeting his needs. There was a cloth and basin to wash his face and tattered robe and wine and oil to salve wounds the desert had inflicted.

Gabriel marveled as color and strength returned to the King. The angels had walked him back from the precipice overlooking the valley of death. It wouldn’t be the last time the King would have to peer into that dark chasm. Next time, Gabriel knew, they would not be summoned to break the fall.

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The post What happens in Heaven when God restrains angels? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

I had high hopes, but when I read the final pages, I thought, “Pfffft! That’s ridiculous. That would never happen.” One element of the ending was so unbelievable that I felt irritated.

I’ve never written a novel, and I know storytelling requires a boatload of creativity and mental stamina, So the fact that I had the gall to criticize probably says more about me than this author. But in any case, I was sorely disappointed.

Did the author’s deadline creep up too quickly?

Was the author simply trying to please a certain segment of readers?

Why did the editor allow it?

A thousand factors might have influenced it, but this storyteller wasn’t the first to get eye-rolls when the conclusion seemed far-fetched.

This week, I was reading a Bible story, and it occurred to me that the the original audience must have had the same kind of reaction. Pfft! That would never happen.

If we’d heard that same story on the news this week, it might have sounded like this:

Authorities responded to an altercation between two men in the 700 block of South Palace Street. Witnesses said 43-year-old Sam Swindel approached his former coworker, Bill Bower, with raised fists. Shouting ensued.

A friend of the victim stated, “The guy was shouting in Bill’s face, and he was like, ‘You owe me for that burger I bought you last week.’ He shoved Bill to the ground, and Bill was on his hands and knees saying, ‘I’m gonna pay you back, but I don’t have cash, man!”

When authorities arrived, Swindel had Bower by the neck, and bystanders were attempting to separate the two men.

Swindel was a long-time employee of King’s Corporation. Executives at the company told police they recently discovered $30 million of unapproved expenses charged by Swindel over the last three decades.

When asked how such an amount had gone undetected, executives declined to comment.

Lawyers for the CEO and investors first demanded that Swindel be fired and sentenced to life in prison. His garnished prison wages were to be paid to King’s Corporation. Swindel pled guilty but asked to be acquitted.

Because of the perennial success of King’s Corporation, and because lawyers previously believed Swindel posed no threat to society, the CEO and King’s Corporation investors dropped all charges. After the boardroom confrontation, Swindel left the building of his own accord.

With neither debt nor jail time hanging over his head, authorities are still investigating the motive behind his violent attack on his former coworker.

In a statement to the media, the chief investigation officer confessed, “We have no idea what Mr. Swindel’s motives were.”

One bystander speculated, “Maybe he just wanted a burger.”

Fake News by Fake Reporter, Shauna Letellier

If that isn’t a confounding ending, I don’t know what is. And guess who told that story?

Jesus.

You’ve probably read the first-century version in Matthew 18, which my Bible calls “The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.”

Those first-century listeners must have been shaking their heads, saying, “Pfft! That would never happen.”

But in a spiritual sense, it happens every day.

When Peter asked how many times he was required to forgive his brother, Jesus answered with the story of The Unforgiving Servant.

I sometimes wonder if Peter was literally talking about Andrew. They were business partners and ministry partners. A quick glance around your community will tell you that relationships are often sacrificed on the altars of business and ministry. Was Peter was sick of dealing with Andrew. Did he want Jesus’ permission to write him off? Or was there another Christian brother that was grating on Peter’s last skinny nerve?

While Jesus’ math gave Peter a number (70 x 7 = 490), the absurdity of counting forgiveness implies that Jesus was saying, “Peter, don’t waste your time keeping track of your own benevolence. It doesn’t end well.’”

Jesus told this same story repeatedly, but the settings were different, and the endings are always somewhat obscured.  

The Prodigal Son humbled himself and fled from his foolishness. His Benevolent Father threw a party upon his return. What became of the Prodigal after the party? How did he treat his father? How did he handle his chapped brother?

A half-dead man lying on the side of the Jericho Road received emergency medical attention and two months of food and lodging from someone he hated. How did he treat his enemy after he was discharged?

Do you see yourself in any of these stories?

I see myself slumped over that board room table, my heart throbbing and my face flaming with embarrassment. I am responsible, and I can never repay. I may promise the impossible, “I will pay you back!’ but everyone present sees my desperate delusion.

I need mercy.

Whether it’s three decades of embezzlement, short-sighted unforgiveness, or self-righteous pride, our benevolent Savior suffered our sentence and canceled our debt when he died in our place.

But the true story of redemption doesn’t end there.

When the charges are dropped, and the irreconcilable ledger sheets are shredded, what’s my next move?

What’s yours?

Let’s lose track of our own goodness and keep track of God’s goodness to us in Christ. His mercy has resolved the impossible conflict, and his grace guarantees eternity. The time in-between is for demonstrating how mercy frees us from keeping track, and grace propels us to forgive as we have been forgiven. And that makes for a satisfying end to the story.

The post Bad Endings, Fake News, & Good Stories appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

The famous French essayist Joseph Joubert wrote, “To teach is to learn twice.”

I have found it to be the absolute truth. Not only does the teacher learn it once for herself and again when she teaches, she remembers the truths longer and perhaps more accurately after she’s served them up to her class.

Last week, I had the stressful privilege of teaching Vacation Bible School at our church. I already knew the familiar Bible Stories—Jonah and the Whale, David and Goliath, and several others—but as I revisited them in my own Bible, I learned again.

I might take issue with Joubert and argue that “to teach is to learn thrice,” because I also learned a few things from the kiddos I was teaching while we discussed these overfamiliar Bible stories.

Vacation Bible School (VBS), on the surface, is an exercise in endurance. By the end of the week, the volunteers, kids, children’s ministry budget, and the collective creativity of all involved are tapped out. When it’s over on Friday afternoon, everyone needs a substantial lunch and a long nap.

Years ago, a single day of leading the three-year-old class actually sent me into premature labor (Not to worry. I stayed home the rest of the week and carried Levi to term ).

I won’t sugarcoat the challenges. It’s tough to get kids to VBS on time and corral 22 preschoolers in the church hallway. It takes supernatural patience to deal graciously and compassionately with “that child” who seems old enough to know better.

But there are also tremendous rewards. I often leave VBS feeling certain that I learned far more than any of the kids. Of course, the lessons are ultimately from God, but sometimes they come from the mouths, and faces, of children.

Here are just a few of the lessons I learned from the kids while teaching Bible stories at VBS.

​Sin Sucks the Air Out of the Room.

I don’t enjoy talking or teaching about sin, and I’d be initially suspicious of any teacher who claimed to like it. It feels a bit dangerous because, as a teacher of Bible stories, you’re automatically granted some degree of authority whether you deserve it or not. Kids tend to believe what you say, so you better make sure you’re telling the gospel truth. In Jesus’ words, a teacher would be better off at the bottom of the ocean than upon land, if they’re leading children away from the truth.

So when we talked about sin, I tried to keep it close to their own experience. We mentioned lying to your parents, being hateful to siblings, and looking at someone else’s paper at school to get an answer you don’t know. In every session, the room went quiet. One second-grade girl in the front row looked at me as if to say, “How did you know?”

Such sins might make adults snicker. After all, we’re personally familiar with “far worse sins.” But in their semi-innocent elementary minds, children are able to recognize their own failings.

As I left my classroom that day, it occurred to me that I would do well to take a cue from the second graders. I must take seriously the fact that I, too, even as an adult, have lied, been mean-spirited, and cheated.

I prayed that recognition of my own sin would suck the air out of my lungs so that I might become desperate to inhale the fresh, life-giving air of God’s grace and forgiveness.

Heaven is Better than Even THAT.

After gasping for the fresh air of God’s forgiveness and grace, we talked about being with Jesus forever.

It’s hard for adults to wrap their heads around eternity with Christ and without sin. When I try to imagine it, I fall back on the verse, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9, NLT)

So when I showed the kids a golden rendering of what one artist thought heaven might be like, it seemed somewhat unconvincing. “Streets of gold” would certainly be an interesting tourist attraction, but they don’t seem like a compelling reason to stay for eternity.

After looking at the picture, one child asked with serious interest, “Will there be Prank Week in heaven?” His facial expression told me he thought Heavenly Prank Week would be a fun and enjoyable way to pass the time.

Since I have always hated April Fool’s Day and pranks of every kind, I was tempted to wax eloquent about kindness and truth, but I was reminded that I asked a similar question when I was his age.

My dad died when I was young, so my family talked about heaven often. It’s where our daddy was living, after all.

I remember asking my mom, “In heaven, will I be able to have all the Cabbage Patch Kids I want?” In 1982, Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. Crazed parents were duking it out in the parking lot of Toys-R-Us to get their hands on a doll. Some of my friends had four or five Cabbage Patch Kids, so I imagined their parents must have had tons of money or else they had been in multiple parking lot fistfights.

I had one Cabbage Patch Kid doll, but they were apparently so valuable, I wanted more. Surely heaven would allow me all the dolls!

My mom didn’t shame me for asking or for wanting something so ridiculously temporal. She didn’t scold me for being a greedy American brat. She didn’t even turn my attention to the impoverished kids who had so much less than I did. She simply let me dwell on the best possible thing I could imagine at that moment, and then she said, “Heaven will be even better than that.”

Will there be a Prank Week in heaven? I highly doubt it. But instead of saying so, I told him, “Heaven will be far better than that.”

I was glad to remember that no matter what our minds can conceive, an eternity with Christ will be good beyond imagination.

​Marveling at God’s Greatness is a Marvelous Response.

On the final day, we studied the story of David and Goliath. It’s so familiar. I sometimes wonder if it’s worth rehashing. Turns out, it is.

Goliath was a warrior champion, or so everyone at the battlefield thought. All the signs pointed towards the likelihood of Goliath’s victory and David’s defeat. Even King Saul had his doubts about David’s odds for success. The King gave him ill-fitting armor to increase his chances of survival, but David couldn’t walk in it, much less move with the agility that would surely be needed in an ancient duel.

As it turns out, David’s goal wasn’t to make a hero of himself; it was to show the world that the One True God can defend and care for people who trust him. David trusted God when no one else did.

When the story ended, the children knew that neither Goliath nor David was the champion. They knew God was the champion and that he cares for his children.

One little girl in the second row sat staring at me, smiling with the satisfaction of knowing that the One True God, who defeated sin and death, is her champion. He made her smile.

And it made me smile, because her smile was evidence of the worship happening in her heart at that moment, and that makes God smile too.

There are a zillion figurative and physical headaches involved in planning and teaching Vacation Bible School. But the rewards are breathtaking. If you want a front-row seat to those beautiful, expressive faces–some of them hearing the old, old stories for the very first time–slip into a class at your church’s VBS and look for the goodness of God.

You might learn something new (or for the third time) from the little learners beside you.

The post Learn THRICE at VBS appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

It’s time to leave the beach, and I dread making the announcement.

The beach has become a reprieve for me in the busy days of parenting our three little boys. They were born within three years, so we never had time to store the stroller. I just kept squeezing them in and strapping them on—the youngest in the proper seat, the middle son curled into the fabric basket beneath it, and the oldest straddling the stroller’s canopy.

Aside from a few squabbles over the good goggles and the buckets without cracks, the boys have been happy and entertained for hours. They are slippery with sunscreen. Sand clings to every inch of their skin and sticks in the creases of their chubby arms and legs.

But now it’s time to go. I try to soften the blow, “In five minutes, we’re going to start picking up our toys.”

“Noooo!” They protest and go on digging, scooping, and filling their sandpits with scoops of water, only to watch it seep away.

I shade my eyes and scan the beach for misplaced towels and water bottles. I toss forgotten shovels and rakes into a mesh toy bag so the sand will gradually fall off and stay at the beach. Sweat trickles down my temple, and when I wipe it away, I realize I’ve swiped sand from one side of my forehead to the other.

Finally, I give the fun-squashing direction, “It’s time to leave. Go wash off in the water.”

Shoulders slump. Heads drop. Protests erupt.

I herd them toward the water to wash away the sand. If they weren’t slathered in three applications of sunscreen, the process would go faster. I remember that hogs supposedly use mud as a sunscreen, and I try to make light of this task. “You’re muddy as a little pig. This sand caked on your neck probably kept you from getting sunburnt.”

The joke goes unnoticed, and as I’m dipping them in the lake, trying in vain to flush away oily sand, the fun officially stops. I’m irritated, and I start barking commands. “Stop. Hold still. Stand up.” I wash one son and send him to put on his flip-flops, but the sand is hot and burns his toes.

“Stand on the wet sand and wait for me,” I holler. He does, but not without kneeling in the sand…again.

When I have completed our de-sanding ritual, we pile toys and towels onto the stroller, and I shove it across the beach toward the car.

For the next 30 minutes, my life goal is to keep sand out of the car, as if my salvation depends on it.

If I can just stay ahead of the chaos to stave off my kids’ meltdowns and messes, then (I falsely believed) I was doing well and pleasing God. This manic race for cleanliness reflected the striving in my heart to stay in God’s good graces.

Back then, I didn’t understand that as a believer in Jesus, my standing before God was fixed. Because of Christ’s death and resurrection on my behalf, I was already in his good graces. In fact, I was “blameless in His sight” (Ephesians 1:4) regardless of how many meltdowns I was mitigating or how many pounds of sand I had to vacuum out of my car.

But on that hot summer day at the beach, I didn’t understand that yet.

So I brush off sand, wipe hands, shake towels, and bang flip-flops together.

Then, from under the stroller, I retrieve my most important ally in my war against sand: my ice cream bucket of cool water. I set it on the pavement, and I lift each boy by his armpits and dip his feet in the bucket. They swish their little toes around, and the water turns brown.

After I buckle them in their car seats, it’s my turn to wash my own feet.

The water is dirty, and my feet don’t really fit in the bucket. I stand on top of my sandals while I try to get every last grain off. Finally, I leap from my sandals into the car. I lean out the driver’s side door and grab my sandals to bang off the sand. Then I swirl the bucket’s sludge into a watery vortex and fling it into the parking lot.

Finally finished, I look around the car to discover that somehow, we are all still covered in sand.

I am reminded that foot-washing has always been a futile chore.

During Holy Week, Jesus knelt in that upper room to wash the feet of his disciples. Their feet were covered in dirt and dung left in the streets by livestock. It was a smelly job. By the time the twelfth pair of feet was clean, the water was filthy. The basin was half-empty, and the towel was sopping and gray.

Was Jesus shaking the towel, flinging dirt, wondering how in the world he was going to keep everything tidy?

I don’t think so because Jesus’s main goal wasn’t clean feet. “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand” (John 1:37), he told them.

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” All of Peter’s bold-acting, fast-talking, hard-driving devotion to Jesus couldn’t keep him in God’s good graces. Peter didn’t understand that Jesus wasn’t as concerned about his feet as he was about his heart.

Friendship with Jesus requires a clean heart, but only Jesus can clean it up. Only he can brush away the oily sludge of angry insults we lob at people we should love. Only he can provide the solvent that cuts away the gritty sin that chafes, causes infection, and eventually brings death.

But Peter didn’t understand that yet because the cross was still to come.

Jesus would wash all his disciples’ feet that night as an example of service in a degrading and futile chore. Jesus would love them to the end. But they would still flee, deny, and betray him because a foot-washing, even when given by Jesus, doesn’t permanently cleanse the heart.

In a few short hours, Peter’s feet will be soiled again. He’ll kneel in a mudpuddle made with tears over his denial of the only Savior who could make him spiritually clean.  

At the cross, Jesus endured the punishment that Peter—and you and I—deserved. He felt the burning wrath of his Father against the sin that injures the people he loves. The futility of scrubbing away dirt to make oneself appear holy will finally be revealed for what it is: a symbol, not a solvent.

God will wring from his Son the true solvent—the only detergent that can permanently wash away the sin that clings.

A few weeks later, the Resurrected Christ will invite Peter to walk along the beach and talk. With one question asked three times—Do you love me?—Jesus will assure Peter that his place in God’s Kingdom is secured. He’s been permanently cleansed, even if there is sand stuck between his toes just now.

It’s time for him to leave the beach too. He’s got good news to share. Jesus doesn’t say, “It’s futile.” He says, “It is finished.”

Remembering Holy Week: A 5-Day Devotional

Once again, in preparation for Easter, I’m offering my free Holy Week devotional. Sign up below to receive your free copy.

The post Does it Seem Futile? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

I was zipping around town, feeling super productive and on top of my taxi-mom game. So, I was slightly annoyed when the large red pickup in front of me slowed to a crawl.

Our town isn’t large, but we were on a main street. It runs past the state Capitol, the beautifully landscaped Capitol Lake, the middle school, and a myriad of government buildings. But all of that was in my rear-view mirror when the break lights jerked me from my vehicular efficiency.

I’m not one to road-rage, but I have been known to mumble while driving.

What are you doing?

Go. Go. Go.

But the big red pickup did not go.

The driver could have veered left and driven past the Governor’s mansion. He could have veered right to meet up with the highway that leads out of town.

Instead, he pulled over right where that main street forks and parked beside the triangular patch of grass between the two routes.

I was slightly alarmed when the driver’s side door opened. I wondered if I was about to become a victim of small-town road rage.

Was I following too close?

Had he seen me pound my steering wheel?

Maybe he could sense my irritation.

But he waved me around him, and I carefully passed him on the left.

“What on earth is he doing?” I mumbled.

As I glanced into my rear-view mirror, I saw him helping a little girl out of the passenger side. He took her by the hand, and they walked through the grass at the awkward and busy fork-in-the-road to view the monument standing at the center. 

For 17 years, I’ve driven by that monument, but all I’ve seen was a triangular patch of poorly placed grass. I have never stopped to view the statue or read the plaque. I can’t tell you who it honors or what it commemorates because I’ve been too hurried to notice, much less stop.

A monument is something we build or display in memory of a person or event. It’s meant to be a gift to posterity so we can give the gift of honor and retell the story.

But if we never stop to look, read, or remember, we won’t properly honor the person or be able to tell others what happened there.

When God stopped the Jordan River so his people could enter the promised land, he told Joshua to have 12 men bring a stone out of the river to create a memorial, or a monument, so they could remember what God had done. 

Joshua told the people that in the future, when their children ask, ‘What do these stones mean?” they’d be reminded to recount what God had done there (See Joshua 4:1-9).

Monuments help us remember.

‘Tis the season for many long-remembered traditions to surface. We string lights on evergreens. On the plains of the Midwest, even the cottonwoods are good candidates for a Christmas light display.

Retailers run sales on snow blowers and wrapping paper. Organizations host fundraisers and coat drives. Kids thumb through catalogs and make helpful lists for parents and Santa. Parents hide unwrapped gifts in nooks and crannies until they have a chance to wrap them.

Year after year, we happily, and sometimes frantically, whiz through the season without stopping to remember and tell about the reason our monumental traditions exist.

We plunged into this year with plans for a “2020 vision for the future.” But it turns out we couldn’t even see the forced slow-down that was just a few weeks away. We collectively pulled over on the thoroughfare of our schedules and parked for a while. 

Your internal driver might be banging on the steering wheel of your calendar chanting, “Go. Go. Go.” But while you’re already slowed down, maybe you can park beside a monument you normally pass, even if the world zooms by.

Why do we celebrate Christmas? What was so monumental about it that we still celebrate? Who was there?

If we peer through history’s frosted window and look at Scripture, maybe we can get some answers.

If you’re ready to view the monuments that tell the story of what God has done for you, join me this month in reading Remarkable Advent.

Every day we’ll stop at one scene in the story of Christ’s birth. We’ll slow down to see who was there and what might have happened. We’ll honor the people who participated and the God who orchestrated it.

But we’ll find that we are the recipients of the gift that came to Bethlehem on that very first Christmas before anybody knew what Christmas was.

Slow down. Park yourself where you can reflect on God’s monumental goodness to us through the birth of Jesus.

If you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few suggestions.

1. Start with Scripture: Read Luke 2 and Matthew 1. If you’ve read it a million times and it sounds unremarkable, try reading it in a different version. Read it out loud or have someone read it aloud to you. You can also listen on your Bible App.
2.  Read a daily Advent devotional to keep your heart and mind focused on the reason we celebrate. May I recommend Remarkable Advent  (affiliate link), a 25-day devotional by me? Many families have used it as a daily read-aloud, and children as young as 6 have enjoyed it. (People as old as 78 have also enjoyed it…I’m looking at you, uncle Fred!)
3. Stick with your plan, and don’t quit just because you “missed a day” (I’m preaching to myself here!)

Don’t let anyone hurry you past Christmas, because Jesus isn’t merely worth remembering, he’s worth worshiping.

Come, and let us adore him.

Find my other Advent & Christmas book recommendations here. 

The post A Monumental Christmas appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

The problem is, she doesn’t realize it.

Right now, she’s just doing what’s in front of her and planning her next step of obedience. When I visited with her about increased responsibility, exponential stress, and a zillion “what ifs,” I found myself wishing she had someone to help her. For various reasons, the kind of help I can offer her is limited. She needs more, and I cannot provide it.

She’s remarkably capable. She has the constant presence of the Holy Spirit guiding her. But sometimes, life requires the help of a person with skin on.
We finished our conversation and discarded a pile of snotty tissues. Hard days are ahead, and I asked God, once again, “God, what are you waiting for? Hurry and send someone to help her!”

A few days later, I read this line from AW Tozer.

God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which he must work. Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves.

God has no deadlines.

For him, nothing takes too long. The ticking clock does not unnerve him. He’s s not wringing his hands worrying about fulfilling his plan before the timer goes off. Through the prophet Isaiah, God declared, “My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure,” (Isaiah 46:10, NASB).

But from my perspective, my friend needs someone in a hurry. I charge God with tardiness. I wag my finger and ask again, “What are you waiting for?”

When I am waiting, I tend to wonder if God is working.

In first-century Jerusalem, just outside of the Temple grounds on the northeast side of the city, a pool of water was supposed to have healing power. Some claimed the sheep used for sacrifice were washed there and lent a healing property to the water. Some said an angel came to stir the waters on feast days, and the first to step in would be healed.

Whatever the mystery, disabled citizens congregated around the edges of a stone pool, staring into the water, waiting for God to work.

A blind man’s nephew led him to the edge and situated him on steps that descended into the water. A husband carried his frail and disabled wife through the streets. At the pool, he propped her against a pillar under the shade of the portico. A mother hummed a tune and rocked the child, lying limp in her lap, waiting and wondering.

One man has suffered from his disability for 38 years. How many times has he come to this pool? Do the waters only heal during the feast? Which days? Who makes the schedule? Has anyone witnessed the healing power of the water? Has a cripple ever dragged himself down those stairs, fallen into the water, and climbed back out with two strong legs?

No one knows. Infirmity surrounds the placid waters. They come and wait for God to work, but they do not see him.

Someone stoops to visit with the crippled man who says he hasn’t walked since childhood because no one stops to help him into that water. He hopes his story might convince an empathetic feast-goer to hoist him off the thin mat and drag him down the stairs. Maybe he could finally be the first one in.

Instead of lifting and supporting and enlisting help, the feast-goer told the man to get up, pick up his mat, and walk. Then he slipped away into the crowd.

A man who hasn’t walked for 38 years rolls up his mat and skips toward the Temple. (John 5:1-18).

No one is staring at the water.

Maybe you want to accuse Jesus of being 38 years late, but we don’t hear that complaint from the man with a mat tucked under his arm. The religious leaders accuse Jesus of working on the wrong day, and as proof, they point to the man tapping his foot to the beat of the worship music.

Whether we see God’s hand at work or not, whether we think he should hurry up or slow down, Jesus tells us, “My Father is always working, and so am I” (John 5:19, NLT).

His work is not restricted to certain days, and he’s not constrained by what we can conceive.

When you suppose he has misunderstood because he hasn’t helped a crippled man into the water, he’s at work in an unexpected way.
When you believe he’s inactive, Jesus is working to accomplish his purpose for you.

When you accuse him of being out of sync with your schedule, he works even when you rest.

What is he waiting for? He’s not waiting.

He’s working. But he’s never in a hurry.

A woman in her 70s recently told me that she and a group of friends had been praying for their church. In their estimation, there was a large group of pew-sitters who would not take spiritual responsibility in their families or church community. These women asked God to enliven the inactive, revive the spiritually dead, and provide godly leaders for their church and community.

But for 25 years, the inactive group sat in the pews picking hangnails and nodding off. It would have been a fine opportunity to ask, “God, what are you waiting for?” But the women kept praying.

They couldn’t see what God was doing, but they believed he was working because he had promised.

Some would call it a heartbreak and doubt God’s promise. Some would roll their eyes and say it was a futile waste of time. Because those people never did liven up.

But God was working just as he said he would.

And the children in the nursery and Sunday school classrooms, who left animal crackers in the pews and soapy hand prints on the bathroom mirrors, grew up to be the spiritual leaders for the next generation of that church.

What is God waiting for? He’s not waiting. He’s working.

Our job is to trust his unhurried timeline and remember that his purposes may include something we can’t imagine.

Such truth does “relax my nerves,” as Tozer says. It also makes me eager and watchful.

Instead of crying with my friend over the challenges before her and worrying that God is behind schedule in providing help, I can lean forward and say, “Let’s keep praying and watch for God to work.”

The post God, what are you waiting for? appeared first on Shauna Letellier.

Is your Easter Sunday going to look a little different this year?

Every year on Easter Sunday, our extended family begins our resurrection celebration with a sunrise service.

At the end of a low-maintenance gravel road, 20-30 people–depending on the unpredictable spring weather—gather on the highest point in town. Strangely, or perhaps fittingly, the highest point of this village, nestled in the grasslands of the Midwest, is in the cemetery.

On the coldest mornings, we huddle beside a row of cedars that block the wind. We sing the same songs and hymns with tired, early-morning voices. No vocal warm-ups. No instruments. Just wrinkled song sheets that have circulated through the same hands year after year. Some of them are printed in purple, indicating they originated from that ancient relic called a ditto machine.

After we’ve shivered and scared off the wildlife with our singing, we drive three blocks to the church where the same group of ladies has been awake since the wee hours preparing a counter full of breakfast goodies. There are egg bakes labeled as “ham,” “sausage,” and “spicy sausage.” Cinnamon rolls and sticky buns–with raisins and without, with pecans and without—steam in their respective pans. A pile of biscuits teeters beside a crockpot of gravy. And at the end of the line, for the most discriminating and suspicious guests, there is a very safe pile of buttered toast—too much food for a few dozen people.

If that weren’t enough to make it feel like a feast, Easter grass runs down the middle of the long tables hiding chocolate eggs for dessert.

It’s a tradition I’ve done nothing to create. I’ve merely enjoyed it for the past 22 years. (Make that 21. One year, when I had a newborn, I skipped it and used my baby and the cold weather as my pass.)

But this year, like many other traditional Easter services, it’s canceled.

The village is Rural–with a capital R. Cell service is poor. Although I suspect on the cemetery hill, you might have a couple of bars. Besides that, the average age of the parishioners is…well, let’s just say they didn’t grow up with cell phones. Neither did their children. And without the grandkids home for a visit, streaming the sunrise service isn’t really an option or a priority.

I suspect there may be a few rebels who will gather there on Easter morning though. They’ve survived wars, drafts, dustbowls, and depressions. They’ve buried children, spouses, and parents, and—right or wrong—an unseen virus seems inconsequential.

We know we’re in for a different kind of Easter this year.

I think of Jesus’ disciples, though. They journeyed from Bethany to Jerusalem every day, assuming the week would culminate with their traditional Passover celebrations. They’d sing the same songs—from memory and not song sheets. They’d eat the traditional meal with the same symbolic foods—lamb, bitter herbs, sweetened apples, wine, and bread. But they would remember that evening as the most devastating night of their lives.

As Jesus was ushered to his execution by a gang swinging clubs and swords, his closest friends fled. Passover celebrations, for the disciples, were canceled.

When the arresting mob grabbed one of Jesus’ disciples by the collar, he wriggled free of his robe and escaped, naked. In deep humiliation he must have rushed through the grove hiding in the shadows of gnarled tree trunks, shocked that the night had ended like this.

Peter fled with blood from a man’s ear drying on his knife.

The rest of them hid in Jerusalem’s spare rooms and alleys.

The celebration was canceled.

But what they didn’t understand was that God was orchestrating another cancellation.

There were cosmic charges leveled against the disciples. Instead of dying with Jesus in solidarity and loyalty as they had so recently promised, they each panicked. In fear, they reasoned it would be better to live without Jesus than to die with him.

They committed cosmic treason. Denial. Desertion. Self-preservation at the expense of a loved one.

But while we–and the disciples–were making well-reasoned excuses and rationalizing sin, Jesus was crucified in our place.

The sin was ours, but he suffered for it. He accepted my sentence, endured my punishment, hung under my charges, and died in my place. And Christ’s punishment for my sin was acceptable to God.

“He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14, NLT).

Jesus said, “It is finished.” God forgave us all our sins.

At the cross, Jesus initiated an unfair trade. In exchange for my record of sin, he held out his own holy, perfect record to me and said, “Here, this is for you. Take it and claim it as your own. It’s a gift.”

God’s gift of grace to us in Christ can’t be canceled or retracted.

Such a permanent gift turns panic into preaching. It clothes naked cowards with clean linen robes. Rebels become sons and daughters. It is the reason we remember Christ’s crucifixion as “Good Friday.”

If your Easter celebrations were canceled, let it be a precious reminder that sin’s power and penalty are canceled too, but God’s gifts of forgiveness and grace continue as planned.

Get your free e-devotional for Holy Week –>Rediscovering Holy Week: A 5 Day Devotional.

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Every year around this time, especially when I’m pondering what to write about “love,” I’m bombarded with song lyrics from the soundtrack of my teen years.

Most of them come from pop songs I recorded on cassette with my single-speaker boom box. In so many of the lyrics about love, questions surround the concept.

Questions about Love

“What is love?” Haddaway asked, and has asked repeatedly for two decades.

“What’s love got to do with it?” lamented Tina Turner with her signature hair wobbling to the beat.

Even Eddie Van Halen confessed to being bewildered by the concept of love: “How will I know when it’s love? I can’t tell you, but it lasts forever.”

Perhaps the most aching lyrical question surrounding love comes from my elementary years when I saw the movie Oliver, a musical based on the Dickens novel, Oliver Twist.

Our music teacher, Mrs. Beem, wasn’t terribly nurturing. Students who talked during class were ordered to stand with noses pressed into the corner of the glossy white cinderblock walls. (I left my nose print there a time or two). But Mrs. Beem loved musicals. She introduced me to the original Annie—wherein the little orphan had brown bobbed hair instead of red curls–and the 1960s version of Oliver.

I adored them both.

I vividly remember watching Oliver peer into the dining room where his cruel headmaster stuffed himself to the gills. Oliver and his fellow orphans drooled and satiated themselves with a song.

Food glorious food,
hot sausage and mustard.
When we’re in the mood,
cold jelly and custard.

But the song that haunts me, and still makes me weep, was Oliver’s solo. His melodic question was the refrain and the theme of the story:

Where is love?

As I sat in Mrs. Beem’s class, my chin quivered. I was just two years into grieving the death of my father, and I suppose that’s why I felt Oliver’s pain so acutely, even if it was fictional.

Must I travel far and wide?
‘Til I am beside
the someone who
I can mean something to …
Where is love?

While I was far from orphaned (My mom was a heroic single parent), I ached to know I could always keep love.

So I latched on to lyrics and went around singing questions that God had already answered.

The Problem with God’s Love

The “problem” with God’s love is that it confounds us. We can barely comprehend the outer edges of God’s love, so we grasp for words to explain a love we don’t fully understand.

Humans have been doing it for centuries.

The Apostle Paul piled up dimensional words when he wrote about God’s love. For his friends in Ephesus, he prayed they would understand the breadth, length, height, and depth of God’s love. And in the same prayer, he asked God to give them the strength to know a love that surpasses knowledge.

The hymn writer, Frederick Martin Lehman, tried his hand at a metaphor to explain God’s love.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

More recently, Sally Lloyd-Jones has translated the magnitude of God’s love. How? She strung together words children could understand. She calls it his “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” (The Jesus Storybook Bible, pg. 36).

Michael Card spent ten years writing his book Inexpressible—an explanation of the untranslatable Hebrew word for God’s loving-kindness: hesed. Bible translators have used 112 English words and phrases to communicate the Hebrew concept of hesed—the love of God.
After years of study, Card distills the inexpressible love of God to this sentence:

Hesed: When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.” (Inexpressible, pg. 5)

It’s fascinating that Card’s definition is more of a story than an explanation. I suppose he took a cue from the apostle John who wrote, “This is how we know what love is….” Then he told a one-sentence story, “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16).
The One who laid down his life for his friends told compelling stories too. We call them parables. One of his most familiar parables fleshes out God’s loving-kindness (hesed).

But when Jesus told it, He used more than once sentence. You can read it in Luke 15.

A quick retelling might sound like this…

Once upon a time, in a patchwork of pasture and grain fields, a wealthy man raised two sons.

Neither of them had “turned out.”

His younger son had proclaimed a death-wish, demanded money he hadn’t earned, and ran away.

His oldest son had remained silent and unmoved that day. He didn’t come to his father’s defense, didn’t try to persuade his brother to stay, didn’t run to drag his brother off the path to self-destruction. He had just rolled his eyes at his father’s consent and gone back to work.

Neither loved their father. But only the younger son realized it. And when he did, he came home to suffer the embarrassing gift of his father’s excessive loving-kindness.

“Hesed: When the person from whom I have a right to expect nothing gives me everything.”

What’s Your Love Story?

Whether we know it or not, this is our story too.

Some of us have rebelled outright. We’ve thrown a punch at God because we wanted what we wanted. Now. We refused to believe our generous father knew best.

But some of us have thrown our punches more covertly. Our rebellion manifests as impatient eye-rolling at a Father who is too generous to an undeserving loser.

In alternating decades, I’ve rebelled both ways.

Where is God’s inexpressible love in the parable? In your story?

It is present from beginning to end.

God loved us before we loved him. While we were still cursing restraints, scoffing at his wisdom, and complaining about his provision, he was planning a homecoming celebration.

So, when he ran to scoop up a barefoot vagabond, and hollered, “Cook up the best cuts of steak for dinner!” his servants knew precisely what to do. They scrambled to build a fire, carve the steaks, strike up the instruments, and cue the dancing.

When rebellious and prideful people return empty-handed to suffer the humiliation of receiving God’s excessive love, we call it grace.

That kind of love requires a supernatural strength to comprehend. To know it requires child-like faith. And to tell about it requires more than a definition.

God’s love demands a story.

Jesus told the story with his life. The world sings questions about love, and we can answer with the refrain of the gospel.

You don’t need to recite a definition to explain it. You must simply tell the story of how God demonstrated his love and grace to you.

The world is dying to understand.

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