I was with a group on a rubber raft going down a river whitewater rafting. We were about halfway into our trip and heading toward some rapids. Someone in the group who was rafting for the first time saw that part of the river had rapids and part of it was calm water. She suggested we go to the calm water and avoid the rapids. She hadn’t caught on to the reason we were there. We wanted to go through the rapids. That’s where the fun and challenge is found.

In his book Jesus Called – He Wants His Church Back, Ray Johnston writes about a new idol in America. “This new idol is so powerful and pervasive that it can dominate your decisions and determine your destiny. People who cave in to it see their dreams discarded, their hearts shrunken, their faith diminished, and their growth stunted. Its victims live with shriveled souls. What is this idol? The idol of safety.”

Johnston describes how we have become “the most risk-averse society in history. We are the most seat-belted, bike-helmeted, air-bagged, kneepad-wearing, private-schooled, gluten-freed, hand-sanitized, peanut-avoiding, sunscreen-slathering, hyperinsured, massively medicated, password-protected, valet-parked, security-systemed, inoculated generation in history – and all it has done is make everyone more afraid of everything.”

The idol of safety makes us fearful to open up our hearts and let somebody else in. We’re afraid “if they get to know the real me they’ll reject me.” So we play it safe and keep our relationships all superficial.

We’re afraid if we try to serve in a new position or in a way that’s different than what we’ve done before we might fail. It’s safer to just keep doing what we’ve always done.

If we invite our neighbor to church, they might say no. If we try to share something about Jesus with our friend they might have a question we can’t answer. When we lovingly serve that other person, they might not lovingly serve us in return. So we just do what is safe. We don’t take a risk. We stay in the calm waters.

The idol of safety can cause us to miss out on joyful adventures God has for us. In his book Johnston says, “Most people aren’t afraid to die – they are afraid to get to the end of their lives and discover they never really lived.”

Real living is found when you walk with the Lord Jesus and you take those steps of faith that He leads you to take. Staying in calm waters all the time is safer, but it doesn’t stretch your faith, help you to grow and deepen your relationships.

In 2015 I was on a boat in calm water. I was on the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The Gospel of Matthew tells of a time when that sea wasn’t calm. A storm came up while Jesus’ disciples were out on the sea. While their boat was getting tossed around by the waves, they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them. Peter said, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” Jesus invited him to come and Peter started walking on water. After a little bit he took his eyes off Jesus and paid more attention to the wind and the waves. He got afraid and thought he wasn’t “safe,” and he started to sink. Jesus rescued him and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:28-30).

For a little while Peter got to walk on water. I wonder if the other disciples later were a little envious. They stayed in the boat where it was familiar. Peter got out of the boat, and as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, he got to enjoy an amazing adventure.

It’s tempting to stay in the boat where it’s safe and familiar. But joy and adventure and life is found in taking steps of faith and going toward Jesus.

It seems like I’ve done more memorial services than usual the last few months. Memorial services should be times when we do something we don’t do enough of, and that is take time for pondering. Having multiple services occur the last few months has especially caused me to feel called by God to ponder.

I read of a man who did some pondering when he knew he was coming toward the end of his life. He had some regrets over things he had done, but he was bothered more by regrets over things he had not done. He regretted how rarely he had said, “I love you” to people who were close to him. He regretted he had spent so much time working and so little time with his kids and grandkids. He usually said, “Yes” when work asked him to do something but “Later” when the kids asked him to play or read to them. He regretted that “Later” never came. He regretted he had been more focused on building up his bank account than building up people. He regretted he had taken good care of his stuff but not such good care of his relationships. He had been successful at work, but he regretted he hadn’t been so determined to be successful in relating to his family and friends.

Some 20 years ago as I was wondering whether or not to be part of an effort to plant a new church in the Beaverton, Oregon area, a friend told me, “You’ll kick yourself if you don’t at least try.” She was right. Even though things didn’t go the way we had hoped, I’m glad we tried. Often in life the fear of failure causes us to not try to serve God and people, and it leads to regret. We regret that we didn’t stretch ourselves and take on the challenge of trying to serve God in a new way. We regret that we didn’t tell our friend about Jesus because we were scared they might ask a question we couldn’t answer. We regret that we kept on doing what was easy and familiar, even though we felt God leading us to do something that was hard but rewarding. We regret we didn’t check out what gracious gifts God might have for us down the new path.

“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). God is going to give us opportunities in this new year to serve Him, to let people know how amazing His grace is, to share the love of Jesus with people. He is going to give us opportunities to live, to take on new challenges, to explore new adventures, to invest in relationships in deeper ways. Don’t let fear be a roadblock that gets in the way of you going down the path God has for you. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

God has great things in store for us in this coming year. Let us fearlessly follow Him and look forward to the adventures ahead.

I got an electric train set one Christmas. Soon after I opened it my dad and I started playing with it. My dad thought he could get it to go a little bit faster, so the screwdriver came out. The train never ran quite right after that. I was okay with it. Getting to spend time on Christmas Eve, playing trains with my dad mattered far more to me than whether the train made its way around the tracks right.

I was fortunate to grow up in a home where my parents took time to play with their son. Adults too often fill up their time with what they think are serious matters, or they get busy playing with their own toys, and have no time to play with kids and their toys.

Another Christmas Eve my dad bought my mom an electric can opener. He didn’t always give the most romantic gifts. Dad and I thought we ought to test it out and we tried to see what kinds of metals the opener could cut through. We discovered the opener wasn’t a heavy metal fan. We broke the opener that Christmas Eve. The day after Christmas Dad and I went to the store to get a new opener. We had to promise Mom we wouldn’t open it on the way home, but bring it to her still in the box.

It’s not a good thing to break other people’s gifts on Christmas Eve, but it’s okay to sometimes “color outside the lines.” We can get pretty confined to doing things the way they’ve always been done and just sticking to the ideas some guy put down in the instruction manual. It’s okay to be creative, be imaginative, try things out at times and see what happens. Helpful discoveries have often come when somebody tried to do something differently.

I was with some friends and their son who had a new Hot Wheels set. It came with a power booster that made big boasts about how it could send the cars flying. The kid and I had the same thought: “Let’s see if this power booster can send the cars flying over the couch and on to some track on the other side.” The booster didn’t quite have the juice to do that, but it was fun trying, and surprisingly we didn’t break anything while doing it.

It’s okay to be unconventional sometimes. Christmas is about when God did things that were incredibly unconventional. The King of kings became a baby in the womb of an ordinary teenage girl. The Lord of the universe had a manger for His first bed. The Son of God took on human flesh and became the Son of Mary. The reason He did all this was not the conventional motivation for service. The conventional motivation for why people serve others is because of obligation or people have been good and are deserving. Jesus wasn’t under obligation and we weren’t deserving. Jesus did all that He did because of the unconventional motivation of love and grace.

The Lord loves undeserving sinners like us. He longs to shower grace – unearned blessings – on us. God’s grace is incredibly unconventional and incredibly wonderful. Thanks be to God for His unconventional love!

It was the end of November 1997. My brother had died earlier that year. My sister and mother had died the year before. It was the beginning of the Advent season. My parents and siblings were gone and gone for me as well was excitement over the coming of Christmas. It seemed every time I watched TV it was full of commercials that featured warm loving family gatherings that caused me to be envious.

The Christian musician Michael Card was having a concert in Portland. He is one of my favorite musicians so I went to the concert. One of the songs he sang that night was Immanuel. The words Michael sang were just what I needed to hear: “Immanuel, our God is with us.”

The promise is given in Matthew 1:23: “‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ – which means, ‘God with us.'” God has come to be with us. He doesn’t leave us on our own to try to deal with the challenges of life. Jesus promised He will never leave us. He rose again from the dead, so we do not fear that death will ever separate Him from us. Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).

It seems sadly inappropriate that Christmas is the loneliest time of year for many. Christmas is about God coming so that we never have to be alone. Immanuel – God with us – is a glorious truth we get to cling to.

Some people don’t get to enjoy warm family gatherings. It can be miserable to be alone on Christmas Eve, but what helps a person endure is knowing Immanuel. God has come to be with us in the miserable times. He is with us when others aren’t. He sympathizes with our hurts and He offers hope that the hard times are not eternal but His love is.

The words of the song that comforted my heart in 1997 still ring true today: “On earth there is no power, there is no depth or height, that could ever separate us from the love of God in Christ. Immanuel, our God is with us.”

Someone growing up in another country, like a child of a missionary, faces some unique challenges. In some respects they are children of two cultures. Those who’ve grown up as children of missionaries in Brazil are fluent in both English and Portuguese and can get along in both cultures. But in some ways they don’t belong to either culture. Often they don’t feel or get looked at as fully Brazilian or fully American. It can be a challenge because we all want to belong.

Jesus belonged in the kingdom of heaven. He enjoyed the glorious comforts of that culture since before time began. But He left those comforts and came to this earth. He came to a place that spoke another language – the language of sin and suffering. In many ways He, the sinless One, didn’t fit into this culture.

Jesus became like a person of this culture. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity … he had to be made like his brothers in every way” (Hebrews 2:14, 17). He learned the language of hunger and thirst and pain. He learned what it was like to not belong. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). He left the culture He belonged to and was rejected by the culture He came to.

It is not only the children of missionaries who struggle with belonging. Many of the commercials and advertisements at Christmas say this time of year is all about family. But some don’t belong to a biological family. Many of the activities and things associated with Christmas remind them of what they lack. They wish there was a group of people they could call their own. In some ways God created all of us with a longing for belonging. We long to belong to a group larger than just ourselves.

Jesus speaks the language of being rejected, not belonging and being alone. We try to avoid learning that language but Jesus chose to learn it. He chose to become one who “was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). When we struggle with not belonging we can turn to Him with confidence that He understands. When we hurt from rejection we can run to Him and know He chooses us to be in His family. When we suffer from feeling alone we lean on Jesus who came to this earth and promises He will never leave us.

The songs and the shows and the commercials can make us feel alone at Christmas. But in some ways Christmas, more than any other holiday, is the time when we should have the least feeling of being alone. Christmas is about Jesus taking on flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14). Jesus came so that we never have to be alone.

Christmas is about family time. It’s about Jesus coming so that we can belong to the family of God. The Lord chose to be despised and rejected so that you could receive a loving welcome and know you belong in the family of God.

We get so used to hearing a recorded message when we call places that when a live person answers and starts talking we’re a little surprised and almost not sure what to do. Sometimes our prayer life and our time in the Bible can get a little bit like that. We pray because we know we should, but do we live like we believe someone is listening and it’s going to make a difference?

It is easy for our spiritual life to become just following a routine. We do what is expected, but we maybe don’t have great expectations. Prayer can become just mouthing words and repeating phrases. True prayer is having a conversation with the living Lord of the universe who is active in the world and able to move heaven and earth. He listens to us when we pray and, amazingly, our prayers impact what happens. Jesus talked about mountains moving when we pray and then He gave the incredible promise: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matthew 21:22).

We pray expecting God actually turns His ear toward us. “I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live” (Psalm 116:1-2). Prayer is not repeating words because we are following a tradition. We are talking to God who is alive, listening intently and graciously interested in what we have to say.

In I Samuel 3 we read of when the Lord spoke to the boy Samuel who later became a great prophet. The first two times Samuel heard the voice of the Lord he thought it was the priest Eli. He went to Eli but the priest told the boy he hadn’t called him and he should go back to bed. It wasn’t till the third time that Eli figured out it was God calling. It appears Eli wasn’t expecting God to come and talk to them.

Eli was very religious and faithfully followed the traditions. But it seems he didn’t expect God to speak or get too involved in people’s lives. When we open the Bible, because it is God’s inspired Word, we can expect God will speak to us through His Word. If we truly spend time in God’s Word, we will hear from God and something is going to happen in our lives.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God” (Romans 1:16). The word that is translated power in that verse has the same root as the word dynamite. When a person lights a stick of dynamite they expect something is going to happen. In a similar way, when we read the good news of Jesus and share the good news, we ought to expect great things are going to happen. Guilt and fear can be blown away. Peace and hope can be found. Lives and families can be transformed. Eternal destinies can be changed.

We pray and read the Bible not just because we have been told to do it. We pray and read the Bible expecting God is going to work in ways more powerful and wonderful than our mind can begin to imagine.

When I was a kid I remember evenings when our family would watch the news on TV with Walter Cronkite. These days a lot of parents have their kids leave the room when the news comes on, at least during the time when the presidential election is discussed. The discussion has often been inappropriate for young ears. We hear the recording from 11 years ago of one candidate bragging about how he is able to force himself upon women. We are reminded about how the other candidate’s husband treated an intern and we hear many accusations on both sides of disgusting deeds.

As I hear these stories of men in power, using their wealth and position to treat women poorly and satisfy their lust, I think of female friends I know who have been abused and mistreated by men. Some have suffered physical abuse, some sexual, some emotional, some mental, some spiritual.

We are told these immoral words and actions were spoken and done many years ago. Some of my friends were abused many years ago, but the memories haven’t gone away and the pain is still there.

Some of the language and deeds have been described as just locker room banter, the way guys talk, the kind of things “good ol’ boys” do. Let’s call it what the Bible does: sin. It is treating disgracefully women who are created by God, loved by God, of great value to God. Women are not to be looked at by men as objects but as people who are precious and priceless.

Talking about and treating women as sexual objects is wrong, no matter the political party of the one who does it. Some political leaders in the past have treated women shamefully and still been effective, but their behavior was still repulsive. Mistreatment and abuse of women is not excusable just because it is done by somebody we agree with politically and admire for other things they have done. It is not excusable because their opponent has done things that are worse. Mistreatment of women should anger and upset us men, no matter the political position of the man who did it. We are called to honor women and speak up in their defense and try to take steps to defend them. It is sad and tragic that so many women are living lives full of fear. It is heartbreaking that so many have painful memories that still haunt them and hinder them from experiencing the joy and peace God wants to give them.

Leaders taking advantage of women is sadly not a new thing. In the Old Testament we read of King David, lusting after Bathsheba, another man’s wife. He slept with her. She got pregnant. He had her husband killed and thought he got away with it. But then the prophet Nathan confronted him: “You are the man! … Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes?” (II Samuel 12:7, 9).

David repented of his sin. He didn’t blame circumstances or say Bathsheba shouldn’t have been looking so beautiful and should have been wearing more clothes. David didn’t talk about how bad the other kings were. He confessed to the Lord: “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge” (Psalm 51:3-4).

God forgave, even the ugly sins David committed. Jesus values each person so much He went to the cross and took our punishment upon Himself. Because of Christ and the cross, we can find forgiveness, even though our sin is as terrible as David’s was.

David’s prayer of repentance also includes rejoicing in God’s forgiveness. “… wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity” (Psalm 51:7-9).

It is easier for me to write about how bad it is to mistreat women than it is to write about how forgiveness is offered to those who have hurt people I care about. But God is far more gracious and forgiving than I am and far more gracious and forgiving than I can fully comprehend. I rejoice that forgiveness is offered to those who have committed terrible sins like David did, because it means forgiveness is offered to me as well. My sin is as bad in God’s eyes as David’s was. But the same amazing grace that was showered upon him is offered to you and me as well.

In the Lord’s great compassion, grace and love those who have been mistreated and abused have hope of healing. It can take time, a lot of prayer, a lot of time reading the promises of God and a lot of sharing with caring friends, but hope is found in the kind, gracious and loving way our Lord treats us. While some people treat other people terribly, the Lord treats us as treasures He wants to take care of and hold close for all eternity.

I turned the page on a calendar in my house and the verse for the new month was Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Like most people I expect, I like that verse – especially the second part about God giving me the desires of my heart. I need to remember the first part of the verse, though. If I delight in the Lord it will affect my desires. It’s hard to imagine that I’ll be desiring selfish, temporal things if I’m delighting in the eternal joy of knowing Jesus and belonging to Him.

After being reminded of the promise that God will give the desires of our heart when we’re delighting in Him, then I read Jeremiah 29:11 where the Lord promises that He has “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” This sounds great and it fits well with God saying He’ll give the desires of our heart. The Lord has good and gracious plans to give me the desires of my heart when those desires flow out of delighting in Him.

In the midst of all these encouraging promises I read Jeremiah 29:10: “This is what the Lord says, ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.’” Seventy years! That sounds like an awfully long time. I like to hear that the desires of my heart will be given. I like to hear of God’s good plans for me. But I’m not so thrilled to hear that when God first gave the promise of good plans for hope and a future, He said it would be seventy years till the promise was completely fulfilled.

I want my desires met now. I want to know now the nature of God’s good plans for me and I don’t want to wait seventy years for them to be fulfilled. But so often the call of Scripture is to wait. Soon after the promise is given that God will give the desires of our heart the call is given to “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:7).

At a crosswalk I often use there is a button you press to get the signal to change to walk. I really don’t think constant pressing of the button causes the light to change faster, but that doesn’t stop some from pounding away at it. It’s hard to wait, even for the brief time it takes for the signal to change.

It’s hard to wait patiently for our desires to be met. We’re tempted to “pound away” and try to do something to speed up the process. Often, instead of pounding away and trying to make things happen on our schedule, we need to be still and wait on the Lord.

God operates on His own schedule, which is always the best schedule. He is the eternal God. Even seventy years, which is a lifetime to us, is just a brief moment to Him.

What helps us to wait patiently is remembering the nature of God. The Lord is good and He faithfully keeps His Word. At the best time and in ways better than we can even imagine, God’s good plans will become reality and He will give us the desires of our heart.

I’ve seen full shopping carts at Costco before, but none as full to overflowing as one I saw recently. A lady had one of those flatbed carts that you can get more on. She had very skillfully stacked it and now she was at check out. She kept taking things off the cart and putting on the belt to be scanned. I wondered if there were any muffins left in the bakery or if she had bought them out. There was produce and food items and household items and who knows what else underneath the mountain of things on that cart.

I stood in line for a little bit and bought the four items I was getting. The lady in the other line was still taking things off her cart and putting them on the scanner. She had been doing that the whole time I had been in line and it appeared she was barely halfway through.

A thing that struck me as I watched her, more than just how much she was buying, was that she appeared to be all alone. She was obviously buying for a large group. Why weren’t any of them there to help her unload her cart and take all this out to her truck?

Maybe she had told others not to worry, she could handle it. Maybe she had been hoping somebody would offer to come along, but she didn’t want to ask anybody for help. Maybe others were too busy to spend an hour or two on a Costco run.

Sometimes in the Christian life we’re like that lady at Costco. Our cart is overflowing with trials and challenges. We try to take stuff off the cart but the mountain doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller. We don’t know how we’re going to carry all these burdens, but we don’t want to bother anybody else, and our pride causes us to be hesitant to admit we need help.

I wondered why the lady hadn’t asked for help, and I also wondered why nobody had offered to help. At least one person who was going to be taking part in eating all this food should have asked the question: Is help needed in getting all the food and supplies? It is easy to take the approach: I’ll help if I’m asked. Christlike service notices needs and offers to help before we are asked.

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). It doesn’t say, “Carry each other’s burdens, if you are asked.” Jesus carried the burden of our sin to the cross for us before we even asked.

The Lord invites us to admit our cart is too full and we can’t carry it all ourselves. “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (I Peter 5:7). You don’t have to bear all those burdens and worries by yourself. The Lord sees how much you have to carry. He knows better than you do that it is too much for you. He has come to carry the load. “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens” (Psalm 68:19).

The load is never too heavy for Jesus. Our Helper and Savior has come.

A teenage mom wanted to have a baby so that there would be somebody in her life that would truly love her. That’s not the reason God created us. The Lord was not lonely and longing for somebody who would love Him. The Triune God is complete in Himself. He created us not so much to receive love from us but more out of a desire to have people He could shower His love upon. God isn’t just looking for love. He is looking to love.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). He wants us to love Him, but not really because He needs our love. Thinking of God as needing our love is a rather low view of God. The Lord wants us to love Him because He loves us and wants the best for us. He knows the best way to live, the way that will bring the most joy and peace to our life, is to love the Lord with all you have.

The Lord is looking to love you. “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). It is incredible to think that the holy God delights in undeserving sinners like us, and yet that is what He does. That is grace. The love that He longs to lavish upon us quiets our soul and brings peace to our easily troubled heart.

Because we are loved, we love like Jesus loves. Because we are loved, we don’t have to desperately look for love. Instead we look to love. Instead of longing for people who will tell us we’re great and wonderful and satisfy our desires, we pray God will bring people into our lives that we can shower love upon. We have been given love in abundance in Christ, and so we look to share that gracious love. And when we get opportunities to love and serve people we rejoice.

We often ask the wrong question in our relationships. Our old nature asks the question, “How can I get people to love me?” When we have been captivated by the love of Jesus and it is overflowing in our lives, then the question we ask is, “How can I best love the people God has brought into my life? How can I show them love and share with them the abundant love of Jesus?”

We get to live and love as ones who are loved by Jesus.