Christmas makes me say WTF?

CHRISTMAS MAKES ME SAY WTF?!

Several cases in point...

I mean, these photos would make anyone say WTF?!

But what I really mean is that the Christmas story itself evokes that response for me.

GOD'S STORIES AND WTF?!?!

Actually, most of God's stories do. See, in the Bible, it seems like every time God makes someone a promise, the very next event is something COMPLETELY antithetical to whatever he promised. 

• He tells Joseph he's going to be a ruler...
• then Joseph gets thrown into a pit by his own brothers and sold as a slave. 
• He tells Moses he's going to lead his people out of slavery...
• then Pharaoh repeatedly blocks his efforts and sends an army to stop him. 
• He tells David he's going to be the king...
• then David gets chased around the desert by a murderous lunatic for years. 

I could go on and on with examples of times when God takes people in the exact opposite direction of wherever he said they were going to go. 

(Now, eventually all of these people did see the fulfillment of the promises, but it wasn't until they'd encountered multitudes of obstacles that God supernaturally overcame.) It's like he enjoys taking people all the way down to the "all is lost" scene before he finally razzle-dazzles everybody with some crazy breakthrough.

It's encouraging for me to hear those stories because in my life right now, there's something I believe God has promised me...and yet EVERYTHING that's happening seems to contradict that promise.

Seeing all these closed doors makes me think I ought to just give up and write the promise off as a product of my naive and pathetic mind. So to know that the "all is lost" plot device is typical in God's stories helps me hang on to some hope when everything seems hopeless.

CIRCULAR THINKING

But honestly, I'm never able to plant my flag and hold on to that hope steadily, come what may.

Rather, my mind is in a constant cycle of believing-questioning-believing-questioning-believing-questioning, etc. 

• One minute I'll believe God told me something and get all hopeful...
• Only to get slammed by the impossibility of it the very next minute. 
• Then I'll try to revive my hope by reminding myself of all the stuff I think God has said to me over the past 2 years regarding this "promise"...and that will get me hopeful again, thinking that after all God has done so far, SURELY he wouldn't abandon this story now. 
• But then the next setback comes, and I'm catapulted right back to despair and unbelief.

My circular thinking worries me. After all, I've always imagined that after hearing God's promises to them, these Bible characters just remained steadfast and confident, relying on the promise no matter what obstacles stood in their way. 

• I've always imagined that when Joseph got thrown into prison, he sat there and thought, "No worries! I know God will get me out of here and promote me to ruler!" 

• And when David was running for his life, I've always imagined that he was like, "No sweat. I know God's going to put me on the throne before long." 

After all, that's what faith is, right? Being confident of what we hope for?

So that's something that's always DIScouraged me about these stories...because I don't have that kind of steadfast confidence about the promise I think God made to me. I'm much more up & down and back & forth and every which way, depending on the weather. 

Ask me today: 
"God gave me a sign! I believe it!!!" 

Ask me tomorrow: 
"WTF??? This is impossible. It must have all been in my imagination." 

I change my mind like a girl changes clothes. So does my Katy Perry-ness indicate that my promise was never real? Does my lack of confidence and my need to convince myself over and over again prove that I made the whole thing up in the first place? 

And if the promise IS imaginary...is God getting really annoyed that I keep turning it over and over in my mind? Is he tapping his fingers and wondering when I'm going to get over this obsession and move on to something REAL?

MARY WAS A CIRCULAR THINKER

Well, I guess I won't know definitively if the promise was real until I reach the end of my story. 

But as I was reading the Christmas story this year, I realized that maybe not all the Bible characters were as sure about the things God promised them as I've always assumed. The line in the Christmas story that got me thinking was this one:

...but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Put in context, the verse actually says that everybody around believed that this baby was the Messiah...BUT Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

• It doesn't say: "Everybody believed that this baby was the Messiah and so did Mary!"

• Rather, it says: "Everybody believed it...BUT Mary was still weighing all the evidence." 

And that leads me to believe Mary wasn't feeling a whole lot of resolute confidence at that moment. (And that's not the only moment, either! Luke records TWO separate times that Mary had to treasure and ponder things in her heart. - 2:19 & 2:51)

When I read about the treasuring and pondering, I suddenly thought, "I get it, Mary!!!" 

I totally get this need to treasure things up and ponder them in your heart. Isn't that what I'm doing when I repeatedly refer to my backlog of evidence and try to determine whether it's all real or imaginary? I'm treasuring up all the things I've seen God do, and I'm pondering them in my heart to determine what they mean:

Are these instances of God speaking to me??? Or can the whole thing be summed up with a big "WTF"???

I guess what I'd always pictured was Mary hearing from the angel and then serenely going forward with no more doubts: "I don't care what you say; my baby is the Son of God!!! No matter what happens, I know I'm playing an integral role in the story of how God's saving the entire human race!"

But I'm starting to think that wasn't the way it went at all. 

• After all, if she'd gone forward with no more doubts - serenely confident that the baby that popped up into her womb out of NOWHERE was the long-awaited Messiah - then why did she need to treasure up her evidence and ponder it in her heart? 

• If she'd been completely confident that this impossible and scandalous pregnancy was God's plan for her, then why did she need to hurry off to her relative Elizabeth's house to ponder over things with her? 

• If she'd been completely steadfast in her knowledge that her kid was the Son of God, then why was she so confused and needing to ponder things several years later when that Son of God was found hanging out in his Father's house?

I'm really starting to think it's because Mary wasn't steadfastly confident at all. What if she was more of a circular thinker like me:

Someone who believed she'd received a promise...
and someone who saw God do amazing things to confirm it...
but then someone who lost her confidence when she encountered opposition...

Someone who often wondered about the validity of the promise and needed to repeatedly go back over the backlog of evidence and re-evaluate everything she'd seen so far?

(I mean, we might like to think that if an angel appeared to us and delivered a message, that we'd believe it - no questions asked. But I really doubt that. We tend to explain away the supernatural. Case in point: Last week I saw my best friend's injured knee get miraculously healed after we laid hands on it and prayed for her. But instead of believing God answered our prayers, my first instinct was to dismiss it as a figment of my friend's imagination. Geez Louise...what does God have to do to convince me?! If I'm that quick to disbelieve a miracle, I doubt I'd be any different with an angel.)

MARY'S "SIGN VS. WTF?!" THOUGHT PROCESS

Anyway, I'm starting to think Mary's thought process went a whole lot less like: 

PROMISE: Mary, you're going to give birth to the Messiah!!!
RESPONSE: I believe it! It doesn't matter what happens; I know my son is the savior of the world!

And a whole lot more like:

PROMISE: 
Mary, you're going to give birth to the Messiah!!!!

RESPONSE:

• And you're going to get pregnant without having sex..........WTF??? 
• The angel reminds her God can do anything..........Sign!
• Joseph's going to divorce her..........WTF???
• Elizabeth has a similar impossible pregnancy story..........Sign! 
• Joseph stays with her after all..........Sign!

• No room in the inn..........WTF???
• First people to greet the Messiah were...lowly shepherds??? .........WTF??? Mary needs to treasure up and ponder her evidence.
• Wise men come and bring gifts..........Sign!
• Simeon blesses the baby..........Sign!
• Angel tells them to flee to Egypt to save the baby's life..........Sign & WTF??? (all mixed together)
• Angel tells them it's safe to return to Nazareth..........Sign!

• 12 years of nothing - just raising a normal kid..........WTF???
• Losing him in Jerusalem..........WTF???
• Jesus says God's his Dad..........Sign! Mary needs to treasure up and ponder her evidence again.
• 18 more years of nothing...........WTF???
• Jesus is baptized and the Spirit comes down...........Sign!
• Jesus is tempted in the wilderness..........WTF???

• Jesus is praised in Nazareth..........Sign!
• People of Nazareth try to throw him off a cliff..........WTF???
• Jesus says he won't do a miracle at the wedding..........WTF???
• Jesus does turn water into wine after all..........Sign! 

(And now I'm understanding why this poor woman needed some wine!!!)

• Jesus heals, casts out demons, preaches..........Sign!
• Jesus is crucified..........WTF???
• Jesus comes back to life..........Sign!

                

WHY I LIKE THIS

And that's actually really encouraging to me. 

• It's encouraging to think that God would choose someone who didn't stand perfectly confident in her faith. 
• It's encouraging to think that God would CONTINUE to write a story involving someone who was repeatedly questioning and doubting. 
• It's encouraging to think that the fulfillment of the promise wasn't dependent on the steadfastness of her faith. 
• It's encouraging to think that I'm ALLOWED to treasure up evidence and ponder it when I'm clueless...that this doesn't make me any less faithful.

In fact, as I've treasured all this up and pondered it in my heart, I've started thinking a couple of things:

1. Bible stories are summaries: I bet a whole lot more of the Bible characters experienced that type of circular thinking as well; it's just that we don't know it because we only get summarized stories in the Bible; we don't get the journal entries detailing everyone's thoughts and feelings. (After all, for the ones where we DO get some insight into their thought processes, we find that they're pretty flaky, too. Look at all the psalms where David cries out and asks God what in the world is going on. Look at Moses when he tries to back out of the promise and get God to choose someone else. Sounds pretty much like Mary and me.)
2. Bible characters aren't perfect: Secondly, I think there actually IS a lot of flakiness recorded in these stories...it's just that we tend to ignore/explain it away because we expect these Bible guys to be perfect heroes. We don't expect them to be clueless chumps like us who just happened to get chosen to participate in the story God was writing. 

WHAT IS FAITH?

All that to say...none of this actually helps me to determine if the thing God promised me is real or not. Darnit.

But maybe that's not the point.

Here's what I mean: 

I don't know whether the promise is real. But I DO know that all this "treasuring up and pondering" of the things God has done has certainly focused my mind on him more than ever before!

So I have to believe that even if my promise is a figment of my imagination, God can't be opposed to my treasuring and pondering. He can't be opposed to anything that focuses my mind on him. 

So maybe developing unshakeable and resolute faith isn't the point. 

Maybe determining with 100% certainty whether the promise was real isn't the point.

Maybe the point is to treasure and ponder until I grow so close to my Dad that I can say, "Whether or not this promise is real, I trust you and I know that you are for me."

Maybe faith isn't about unwavering absoluteness; maybe it's more the way Anne Lamott describes it: 

"...the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns."

Maybe faith is more like saying something like Mary: 

"God, I THINK this is what you're promising me. But honestly, I could be wrong. What I do know is that YOU'RE not wrong. So whatever you HAVE said about me...let it come true."

At least, that's where I am on this issue right now. 

So if you catch me with a far-off look in my eye, just figure I'm treasuring/pondering...and feel free to chime in with a well-timed WTF?!

"Nothing, you see, is impossible with God.” 

And Mary said,"Yes, I see it all now:    I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve.Let it be with me    just as you say." 

--Luke 1:37-38