The Words of Jesus in the Chaos of Christmas

I love attending to God's time.

By it, He speaks into the places where the culture is simply sucking me dry. And so, in this time of Christmas chaos, God highlights Jesus, not in a manger with mooing, but in the temple for a little Hanukkah hardball. (John 10)

Yet in the middle of this mugging, Jesus pulls back the veil on His relationship to us. His words bring comfort and they confront as well. For He presents who we are to be and yet, how we often fail to see.

Questions arise: Does the Authentic Voice of the Shepherd reverberate in our innards? Or does the white noise that feigns life scream too loud to discern His whisper?

In the hearing comes the Encounter. And in the Encounter is a 'no-holds barred, full frontal, I-know-you-to-your-bones' moment. We are known by Him. It rattles us. Raw...revealing...rewarding... RISKY.

Upon those two dynamics depend the likeliness of the third: that we actually follow Him in truth. The deaf and camouflaged are forced to depend upon another's insight and revelation. Short term, fine. Long term, deadly. For we follow no primped process but a wild and winsome ONE.

Jesus spoke of this in this time frame of Hanukkah: The remembrance of the temple freed, restored and rededicated. The Maccabees had paid the price. First by blood then by elbow grease to remove the stain of that beast. But then the problem: 'Wait....Where's the light?'

The practical would have purposed to wait for FedEx for the next batch of kosher oil. But the passionate leaned forward and just lit...it...up. How about us? Feel like one day of oil for eight days of darkness you're facing? Without risk, they were not positioned for the miracle that followed. Hear His voice. Stand fully in His knowing. Follow Him. Then lean over and light it up!