less really is more

"I do it" 

"by myself" 

Anyone. Anyone. Anyone who has ever had any prolonged exposure to any toddler has heard these words.

And the result of these words unattended? Shoes on the wrong feet. Clothes on backwards and inside out. Spilled milk. And cereal. And juice. And water. And anything else that can spill. Tangled zippers and knotted shoe laces. Scraped knees and boo boos that need kisses to make them better.

But have you ever heard yourself saying these things in your head or with your mouth to God or to others?

I have. I have said these things. I have thought these things. I have whispered them in my head. Screamed them in my head. Even attempted to justify them. And then agonized over the state of my heart because of the reality of them. These words, when from the mouth and heart of a follower of Jesus, speak of independence, self-reliance... pride.

"For apart from Me you can do nothing." John 15:5 NLT

What do those words look like when they come to life in an adult? Oh gosh. So many things!

"Pride leads to conflict" Proverbs 13:10 NLT

Broken relationships, dissension, unfair judgement, heartache, disappointment in self and others, unmet and unfair expectations...

"Pride goes before destruction" Proverbs 16:18 NLT

For the best of me I cannot kick this one in the butt. It has especially showed its ugly face this Christmas. I have learned, and relearned and relearned this over and over again. I know that I am nothing without Him.

"Though Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made." John 1:3 NIV

Without Him, Jesus, nothing was made.

"it was not I but God" 1 Corinthians 15:10 NLT

It's about Him. Not me. And with Him, Jesus, all things hold together.

"He holds all creation together" Colossians 1:17 NLT

The reality of my pride and hence the condition of my heart has slammed me in the face this Christmas. I have found myself quite disgusted with God over our finances. Miraculously, by God's gracious and loving provision, we have enough to cover all of our basic expenses, but nothing much extra to Christmas shop with. And come on people. I am in America. The land of stuff. Stuff I want to buy. I have attempted to justify this by telling God I don't want to buy for myself! I wanna shop for others! My kids, my nephews and niece, my parents and in-laws, my husband, my friends/partners that have become family that have royally SPOILED our entire family rotten for two and a half solid years. All those other people. I have cried over this. Griped and complained over this. It's not fair! And I have tried to place blame all over the place. Here's a ridiculously good one... it certainly must be America's fault for being so commercialized. Cause obviously if there wasn't so much stuff to see and want for everyone else (see my justification?!) then I wouldn't want it!

Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.

Can I be completely honest? I have found, in my life, that there is nothing more heartbreaking that to not be able to give to my kids. These things I want for them but cannot give to them have hit me like a sucker punch from a professional boxer, big huge, nasty, muscly, vein-popping, sweaty fella, straight in the gut. I haven't given them opportunity to learn to drive until they are in college. I haven't been able to put Tia in braces until she's a senior in high school. (And she suffered real physical pain and discomfort in the waiting because of the way her teeth were positioned in her mouth.) I watched two of my girls pack up every earthly possession they have into one fifty pound suitcase each just a few months ago. (That one really stung.) The list could go on and on... things I haven't been able to give, things our lifestyle has kept from them or even taken away from them.

Last week these feelings were literally boiling inside of me. They had been stewing long enough that they had come to a boil. I felt overwhelming evidence of them when I needed to buy garbage bags one afternoon. Jade begged to come inside Walmart with me (yes, please don't judge me for shopping there). Begged to the point she was in tears. But I didn't cave to her. I knew I couldn't hold it together inside. Ugh, I knew I couldn't hold it together in Walmart, of all places! Too many shiny, Christmasy things for her to see. Mostly all things she doesn't need, yes. But also things I can't buy.

But hold up, y'all. What does God say about all this nonsense?

"By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life." 2 Peter 1:3 NLT

I have everything that I need. My babies have every single thing they need. It's all been by God's perfect provision that we have never gone hungry, always stayed warm, had all the stuff that we need and a lot of the stuff we don't need, and that -this year- we are here together. I can reach out and hold them. What do I have to complain about? Why I am still struggling?

I have prayed my way around this and through it. And I have felt guilty. Seriously guilty. This lousy missionary who has been exposed to some of the simplest lifestyles on planet Earth. The lousy missionary who has written this post and used multiple translations of the Bible and knows that millions of people across the globe don't have one word in their languages. This spoiled missionary that KNOWS that she knows that she knows that Christmas is not about stuff. Duh. It's about Jesus!

It's my human nature at work in my heart.

It's my pride.

And would you like to know the two ways He has graciously and tenderly showed me this and helped me begin to work through it? Cause He hasn't left me alone in this. He met in it. Pulled me up outta the mess of it all!

Don't stop reading now... it's about to get too good.

The first way was through those ones that spoil us. Remember I mentioned them above? Those partners that were friends and have become family? Last week one of those ladies and I were arguing via text. She wanted the girls' Christmas list. I didn't want to share it. I can't buy for her kids so why and how can I be expected to continue to receive from her for my girls???

Just so you know, that pain strikes deep. Even as I type. The pain of wanting to give and not being able to. The pain of always being on the receiving end of a relationship is one I can physically feel tighten my chest. And you wanna know what her exact words to me were at the end of the conversation?

"God put us here for you!!"

Has anyone ever told you that before? That will knock you down to a new level of raw humility. The sort of true and pure humility where you see nothing of yourself apart from Him.

As if that conversation wasn't enough for God to continue to speak His tender words of the type of humility He desires of my life... Friday night we receive a call from my mom to come to her house. We have something from friends there we need to come and pick up. What the what?? When we walked through my mom's front door and around the corner into the kitchen her entire counter was covered with five huge Amazon boxes.

"Early" Christmas was how these gifts were described. Personal gifts just for Marty and myself. For Marty the gift of video gaming. For myself the gift of fabulous coffee brewed by the cup.

This is how gentle and lavish God loves. Even in the ickiest of all my pride. In the muckiest of the "I want to do it by myself" complaining and hurt He is still abundantly giving to me.

"how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts" Matthew 7:11 NLT

But wait, it still doesn't stop there. These insanely generous people who live out loud with their entire lives these words from Luke 6:38, "Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full - pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap. The amount you give with determine the amount you get back." Those people treated us to a Saturday night double date. Dinner and a movie where I ate this:

Holy-steak-knife, Batman! Yes, I used that monstrous thing to devour the deliciously tender and perfectly cooked and seasoned steak (that I didn't cook)! Anyhow, it was after the dinner conversation when we were spilling our guts to them about these frustrations we were feeling and listening to their heart from God to give to us that they asked us about when they could bring over the gifts to place under our Christmas tree. Yes, you read that correctly. They want our girls to still feel the excitement and anticipation that comes with receiving gifts at Christmas.

Again. Raw and true humility. These people have been Jesus to me. They have shown me in-my-face-truth that God loves my kids more than I do. And that no matter how much I think I have control over my life and finances that all good gifts are by His hand. Only by His hand. Here on the ninth of December when I have yet to purchase even one simple gift yet already tangibly enjoyed real life gifts I am being lovingly taught this truth by my gentle Heavenly Father.

"Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father" James 1:17 NLT

Now I know I am dragging this out a bit, but stay with me here. The second way I re-learning that I cannot do it, anything, by myself is obviously through His Word. Obviously! I am working through Priscilla Shirer's Gideon study. And for about a week or so I have avoided day two of week three. Less is more is the title. I just didn't want to hear it last week. You know it? Ever get that way? Where you are in the depths of the nasty stuff in life and you feel like no one can fix it? And for some pathetic reason you just wanna wallow in it?

Whelp, my gifted Keurig and my seamlessly never ending supply of easy and perfectly amazing cup by cup brewed coffee pulled me outta it. Yes, yes and God speaking His love to me. (But come one now, coffee always makes things better.)

Basically, here's the story line from the Word before I give you all the good stuffs from Priscilla... Gideon is forming an army to kick the Midianites' butts. He starts with a 32,000 man army and God whittles it down to 300. Only 300. The Israelite army's odds against the Midianites were 450:1. And they won the battle. DUH! This is what God said about attacking the bad guys with the teeny weeny army:

"You have too many people for Me to hand the Midianites over to you, or else Israel might brag: 'I did it myself.'" Judges 7:2 HCSB

Priscilla asks, "Have you credited yourself, or someone else, with something God did? When we are even reasonably positioned to excel in a task, we tend to take the credit that rightly belongs to Him. As long as we can remotely control it by numbers, smarts, experience, or good genes, we will try to own what is His."

By shrinking Israel's army and increasing the Israelite's odds God minimized pride's chance of assuming credit for the victory. Priscilla explains that for this same reason God will often allow us to be shorthanded. It leans us towards humility. God stripped down that army in such a way that they were left with absolutely no choice except to rely on God for victory.

"For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, 'Who is the Lord?'" Proverbs 30:9 NLT

So this Christmas when my ability to give has been stripped away. When I feel shorthanded, yet have still continued to receive lavish gifts, I know God is speaking to me. He is gently and yet forcefully leaning me towards humility. Away from my pride. My ability to try and take control of this Christmas is zilch. Nada. Nothing. I cannot take ownership for what is His. My hands are tied and yet my heart is overflowingly full as I sit back and watch my God display His love for me, my strikingly handsome husband and our precious baby girls. Far and beyond all our needs reaching into some of our silly wants - He is glorifying Himself in my life. Through those I love and that love me, and through His precious and holy Word He is telling me:

"you are precious to Me. You are honored, and I love you." Isaiah 43:4 NLT

This Christmas less really is more.

And so I thank Him for the beautiful gift of weakness that is brilliantly cultivating a state of humility in my life.