golden clay

Our breath swirled in circles around our faces. The night was a muffled calm; the streetlights cast a foggy yellow glow on the snow covered pavement. Owen stuck a gospel tract out to a middle-aged man limping past us. The man’s stained and worn lumberjack coat was buttoned almost to his neck. “Did you get one of these tonight, sir?”

The man stopped and fingered the tract as he scanned its’ contents, “Oh yes. I’m a Christian, you know, a born-again, Bible believing one. All that. You guys are from that church on Wonderland right?”

We all nodded. Owen shifted his weight from foot to foot to try to stay warm. Right. Left. Right. Left.

The man squinted down at the tract again and then handed it back to Owen. “Yeah,” he paused to look down the street at the giant red brick churches towering side by side, “I don’t really think it’s necessary to do what you’re doing.”

“Why’s that?” one of us asked.

The man shook his head. “It’s not my thing to tell people about Jesus. I went to a United Church for years and it was all ninety year old ladies.” He laughed and gestured to the two churches on the other side of the street. “There’s a church on every corner. If people want God, they can just go to church.”

I held my jaw together, afraid it would drop right open. “You would be surprised,” I tried to keep my voice steady,  “at how many people, especially people my age, have no idea what the gospel even is.” I thought about the blonde-haired girl with hipster glasses who thought you get to heaven with some type of universal energy, the short boy who thought that the Ten Commandments include “thou shalt not drink coffee”, and the girl with the sweet, quivering smile who said eternity freaks her out.

The man looked evenly at each of us and shrugged, “I have enough of my own problems to deal with. I can’t worry about anybody else.”

My chest was ice cold, like someone just knocked the wind out of me. He said what I have thought too many times.

I’m glad that God is not like us, but “he is patient with [us], not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

I go home and try to warm up white toes and whisper: Help me want to want toshare the gospel.

I stumble out of bed into Monday morning, sickness waking me. I need a prescription for this pain, but I forgot to renew it. I try to go to class, but I miss the bus. I’m willing this week away. I just need to get past Thursday, past the tests, the due dates, and then I can live.

How often do we waste each moment thinking only of the next one?

I remember saying to her, on Saturday, at the end of the week, when so many people we knew were in the funeral home or in the hospital. “Life is just plain hard.”

That’s why we simply can’t base our happiness on our circumstances. We have to Know That He Is God. All the time. The celestial city’s light fringes the edge of the storm cloud. See that, Christian?

“That’s kind of a dying field, isn’t it?”

I rub at the corner of my lip and look down at my feet, trying to pull my smile into neutrality. That’s what the businessman said to me as I traced the creases on my book and leaned my elbow against the cool metal of the plane’s insides. “I mean, it’s not easy to make a pile of money writing, but…” I’d like to think I’ll be able to eat somehow.

Months later, as a tall boy weaves me through the other waltzing couples, he asks me the same question, “So, what do you want to do with your degree?”

I’m trying to think of an original way to answer. “Uh, I think I’m going to be a full-time waitress and write on the side.” I probably should have bit my tongue because I think he thought I was serious.

I do it too. It’s the go-to question with high school students, with university students. It’s right up there with “What’s your name?”. I evaluate people based on where I see them going. That’s not always a bad thing; sometimes it really is the best way to get to know someone. However, maybe we’re missing what matters.

There’s no denying that some careers lead to a better income, some lead to a better lifestyle, and some give an outlet for creativity. That’s just not the point. I’m not saying to be lazy, unfocused, aimless; God never says that either. I’m just saying that when Abraham was about to plunge a dagger into his son’s heart, he had no idea God was going to provide a ram. Faith isn’t poetry we put on our walls. It’s what happens in the sweaty, sticky moments where we hold onto His promises even when we don’t know what’s coming next. It’s the rising to our feet when He gives us a command and we do it without knowing the outcome.

Growing up starts today. I whisper ‘yes’ to God for this moment, stride forward once, and nod ‘yes’ again. The cycle continues. Sure, I’ll lightly pencil in my five-year plan if you really want me too, but I’ll give God the eraser and the pen.

What I’d really like to answer when they ask it again is this: I want to do what Jesus did…nothing apart from the Father.

What do you want to be?

I want be a reflection of Jesus.

More than worrying about their career choices in grade ten, maybe we should worry about their souls. While we’re teaching them numbers, we should live out words in front of them, His Word.

This is when fragments shatter into grains of sand. I try for words, but they’ve lost their meaning. I’m grabbing at shapes and signs. She lies on her tummy in those plaid pajama pants, toes pointed to the ceiling. The fireplace dimly glows behind her. “Do you ever stop and really think about humans? Like, why did God create us?”

She nods at me, “Yeah.” She’s thought about this too, this smallness of life.

Where’d we get this idea that the universe revolves around us. Take a moment. Just step outside and watch the world spin. The cross is the center and God is bigger than anyone has ever known.

All this craziness is our confidence. We serve an awesome God.

That sickness is a flickering second against the black background of eternity. That sorrow is a shadow fading into the light of the endless past and future. The Alpha and Omega. That joy is nothing compared to what’s ahead in Christ Jesus.

This earth was in His plan. You were in His plan. Weigh that in your scale.

I always seem to awaken in mid-December before the New Year tiptoes onto my calendar. This hibernation of the soul makes me freeze straight and stiff, back unbending. Unbowed. Suddenly, I’m no longer catching my reflection in the mirror, but I’m seeing my true form: skin and sin and bones.

I finish my last exam of the year and walk into the foyer of the music building. Some of my classmates have that shell-shocked gaze, like they just escaped the trenches and the bullets. I’m just relieved I don’t have to grate more eraser dust on those pages of notes and scores and same-sounding multiple choice questions. I text my brother later: “That was a brutal exam. People were crying throughout it.” I hesitate after I click send and wish I could rewrite some of my life’s scenes, rephrase my dialogue, and insert silence instead. Okay, so I didn’t actually see people crying, but my friends said people were crying…I think. But as much as I’d like, I can’t really imagine Jesus exaggerating his life to make people sympathize with him.

I’m oozing with pride, the worst kind…the kind that I can dress up into making me look plain awesome. Only God is awesome though. Somehow, like Adam, I think I know better than God. When will we be honest with ourselves and realize that we really are nothing without Him?

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/y7qLNDGTm-E&source=uds

I can’t get it out of my head. They were waiting for a Redeemer. Looking back through the pages of the Old Testament, this stable in the City of David is the natural conclusion. We, twenty-first century Christians, expected it. But, I can imagine Mary, opening her hands to the Lord’s will, her questions covered by faith. I can picture Joseph, the carpenter of royal blood, remembering the words of his ancestor King David who spoke of a Redeemer. Then, there’s white-haired Simeon lifting the baby Jesus up in his arms, up towards the ceiling of the temple, knowing that this baby was the King of Kings. Anna, a woman who spent her life on her knees, excitedly grabbing people’s shoulders and shaking the news into their souls: The Messiah has come! Those were the few who were waiting expectantly for the Saviour of the world.

Then, there’s us. And I wonder what few will be there at the return of Jesus. When the trumpet blows, will we be awakened from our slumber? No. May we be watchmen and point through the darkness to His marvelous light and say, “There, my Saviour approaches. I knew it. I knew it. He’s finally here.”Welcome the New Year with hope. He could come any day. Let’s be faithful servants and look for His return.

He stands there on the half-wall, under the yellow glow of a streetlight. We’re shivering as we listen, as we pray, as we offer people gospel tracts. The cold bites through our layers and colours our finger tips white.

He yells out the gospel and the crowds laugh and point at him as they cross the street, wearing their hockey jerseys. He could be Paul standing up there if it were two thousand years ago and the snow was dust. He quotes Romans 1:20 and then shouts, “You know there is a God!”

A girl in a dress snorts before she steps into the cab, “God is dead.” I watch the red tail lights of the taxi fade into the darkness.

He stands there, talking with his hands. He looks like a traffic director. This is the last crossroads before hell and he’s pointing people the other way, to the path of Joy and Life.

A group of guys swagger directly underneath the preacher, “Let’s push him off, boys.” One of them laughs. But they move on, chuckling.

I think of Paul and where the preaching of the cross led him: to martyrdom. While the snowflakes land on my nose, I ask myself if I’m really willing to give up my earthly life to follow the path of the cross. The golden streets and the pearly gates and God: the final destination. My heart can give only one answer and there’s no turning back once you’ve found Hope.

The backpacks, briefcases, and bus rides were all new to me. I tried to blend with their hipster glasses and jeggings, checking my phone as I walked the sidewalk, pretending that I really did know where my next class was being held.

Three weeks into first year, I pulled open the glass door and scanned my music history classroom for a place to sit. The cathedral ceiling seemed to suck the September sun into its highest point. But I still saw her clearly, her illuminating smile. She was talking to the people next to her, looking them right in the eye. I went and sat beside her. An introduction.

“What instrument do you play?” I asked.

“Piano.” That smile.

“Me too.”

In music theory class, the next day, she sat beside me.

“How many siblings do you have?” I asked.

“Three. I’m the youngest.”

I smiled back. “Me too.”

I never asked, but I knew. The smile came from her heart. She had a new heart, like me. Jesus transformed us.

Over a year later, we’re sitting here in the house we share, our other roommates at home with their families. We should be studying, but we’re talking, the fireplace making shadows dance in the living room. We both wear ugly bathrobes. Mine is baby blue. Hers is pink. We talk about God’s sovereignty. I look at her with a mess of highlighted papers scattered on the floor before her; I don’t think I can believe in coincidences, even in history class.

Remember, today, the grace He’s worked in your life.

There are some who think an empty cathedral is where to bare the heart before God. I am thankful that God chooses to work in the dirty places. “She… laid him in a manger. (Luke 2:7)” As I was spraying the concrete slabs of my dad’s pig barn, washing the manure and rust away, I realized I had forgotten. There was no stained glass in the barn, no sunlight blinking through the cracked and coloured panes, exposing dust particles. There was just a dead spider above my head; I grimaced and stepped out of its range.

Somewhere in the midst of prayer meetings, street witnessing, church attending and Bible reading, I had forgotten the point. My first Love. I think of a man across the ocean who lies on the cold stones of a prison cell because he handed out a gospel tract. What’s the secret in his heart that is holding the hope in his eyes? Why bother living out the Christian life?

The barn is silent except for the water pipe leaking from the ceiling. I quietly whisper the line in my heart: Because I love you. Jesus, I want to do all this because I want to know you.

“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8