I was reading in Exodus today, in chapters 25–28. (Now, you might be wondering what Exodus has to do with the holiday season, but we’ll get there, I promise!) These chapters are where God is telling Moses exactly how the tabernacle is to be constructed. And I’ll confess that when I usually read through these pages of the Bible, I get a bit bogged down in all the details.

Okay, I skim. A lot.

The late February sky scowled while the wind turned the world sideways. The radio played in the background. Kenny Chesney wanted to know how forever feels, while I just wanted to know how the next hour was going to turn out.

After five miscarriages and other fertility-related struggles, I just wanted to meet my baby boy, and I was so close that I was sure everything was going to fall apart.

You know the feeling.

I love rubber bands. They are one of the greatest inventions ever! They are simple, practical, and useful. And, while there are many uses for them, one of the most basic functions of rubber bands is to hold a group of objects together.

I always keep a rubber band around my wrist. You never know when you might need one! But my habit took on new meaning this past year when my friend and teammate, who also wears one around his wrist, offered me a challenge. When I asked him why he wore his rubber band, he said that it was a constant reminder that God wanted to stretch him daily.

Zechariah 4:10 says, “Who despises the day of small things?” Indeed, everything we do is a very small thing. 

The Lord asks this rhetorical question of Zerubbabel, who led the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple around 530 B.C. The Hebrew exiles were returning from Babylon, which was very good. What they returned to was an absolute disaster, which was not. The temple was unrecognizable to those who witnessed its former glory. Zerubbabel and his motley band of not-always-reliable volunteers would work at its rebuilding for “the day,” which turned out to be one day out of the twenty years it took to complete. 

A person’s ride usually tells you something about that individual. A minivan suggests that it is probably driven by a family man—a family man with a big family. A hot hatch with nice alloys and the suspension lowered perhaps indicates that it belongs to a young person. A pickup truck is almost certainly driven by someone intensely practical. An elegant European saloon, in pristine condition, probably points to a late-middle-age driver who has taken early retirement and washes his pride and joy at least twice a week. A person’s ride usually tells you something about that person. That is exactly what we find in Matthew 21:1–11 with Jesus:

On a very (very) hot Sunday morning, my family was driving to church when we saw a car stopped in the center of the road.

There was plenty of room to nudge around it and keep going as plenty of vehicles did, but my husband pulled our minivan behind the stalled car and turned the ignition off. Stepping onto the hot pavement, he made his way over to where a man was bent over the open hood.

With our engine (and therefore, air conditioning) turned off, our van became an instant sauna. I noticed the rest of the stalled car’s occupants standing nearby in the shaded grass of the ditch, so I suggested to my children that we join them.

I can’t deal with that one.
He just rubs me the wrong way.
She gets on my nerves.
I can’t vibe with them.

Have you ever said these words about a teammate? I know I have.

Before we get carried away, this is not about the gift of discernment or vexation of spirits. I am aware of those things. But, this is about a person who lives for the Lord, but your personality and their personality clash. Why?

Recently I was listening to Leonard Cohen’s popular song, Hallelujah, which is often played around the holidays. As I listened, I was struck by the phrase “broken hallelujah.” It made me think about how in weakness and suffering our praises to the Lord are often imperfect and broken. 

“All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” – 2 Timothy 3:12

Suffering Learned 

The apostle Paul lowered his eyes as the words came rolling off his tongue. After a few moments, the amanuensis lowered his pen and scroll, waiting in silence. Apart from the crackling of the fire, Paul’s prison cell was eerily quiet. For some time, he remained in silent contemplation, occasionally glancing out of the window into the cloudless night sky. 

There is a living home within you.

Whether stately and beautiful, expansive and serene, or dilapidated and in disrepair, cluttered and chaotic—it’s often hard to detect your own setting for lack of visibility.

It’s actually quite rare that someone doesn’t have what I call soul clutter—that white noise of other’s opinions, stories we tell ourselves to cope, lies we’ve believed or agreed with, unregulated emotions, or pain that has become paralyzing. It’s also quite difficult to deal with the resulting chaos because we either cannot map a way beyond the clutter or we are too afraid to journey into the thick of it.