“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give good things to those who ask him!” – Matthew 7:11

Two nights ago as I led my eldest girls through their bedtime ritual of reading the Bible and saying their prayers, my three year old daughter, Chesed, began to pray, “Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and thank you that there will be a bouncy house in Heaven.”

She did not laugh. She was very serious before God and also very sure of the fact that there were, in fact, bouncy houses in Heaven. I did not correct her, for who am I to say what Heaven contains?!

I gave her a big hug and went downstairs, smiling at her simple faith and trust in God. I told my husband, Joel, and we both laughed about it.

The following day we were invited to a fun event in D.C. for kids to help them ring in the New Year at noon instead of midnight. We decided to go and didn’t know what would be at the event, only that it would be “fun for kids.” As we walked up to the park where the party was   happening, I couldn’t help but smile as I gazed upon three large bouncy houses with large lines of kids in front of each.

Chesed was giddy with delight. “Bouncy houses! Mommy, can we go?!” “Of course!” I said. “Chesed, did you know that God answered your prayer?” She smiled widely and began to do a little dance (I know it was just for God Himself) as if to say, “thank you, thank you!”

In the sincerity of her little three year old heart, Chesed prayed for a bouncy house in Heaven. Because she believes God loves her and wants to give her good things. Instead of a chastisement, “Heaven is too holy for bouncy houses,” or “what a frivolous thing to pray,” God not only heard her request but decided to bring ‘heaven’ to her the very next day.

There is nothing to insignificant or small to bring to God in prayer. What God cares about is that we bring all that is in our hearts to Him and trust Him for His reply.

I wrote in my journal yesterday, “Lord, increase my faith to believe you for little things, big things, all things alike – you care about them all! You are the God who hears the prayers of persecuted saints in prison cells and the God who does not lift up your nose to a three year old’s prayer for a bouncy house.”

God desires to hear all our hearts – that is what an intimate relationship is all about – He doesn’t only turn His ear to us when we are sick, hurting, or desperate. He bends near to hear our hopes, little fears, silent cares, or even what we might deem “silly desires.”

I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel. I don’t believe that if my kid asks God for a pony, one will come galloping into our yard. But He does love us with Fatherly love. He does delight in blessing us, for our good and his glory – and, as in Chesed’s place, just for the sheer joy that comes to His heart when He sees a little girl do a dance of thanks.

Yes, God sometimes says no. But to approach Him less because we suppose that is His default is wrong. Scripture says He loves to give good gifts to His children.

God instructs us to ask. And He says we have not because we ask not. His answer is not up to us, but the asking is….

What have you not talked to God about because you thought it was too silly, too small, or not important enough to bring to Him? Go ahead – talk to Him. And only God knows, but you may find yourself doing a dance of thanks yourself as a result.

“God is coming! God is coming! All the element we swim in, this existence, echoes ahead the advent. God is coming! Can you feel it?” ~ Walter Wangerin Jr.

If you’ve ever seen a live birth, you know that there is nothing like it. Nothing to describe it except words like, “miraculous,” “awesome,” and “amazing.” There is something about the birth of a child that commands the attention of everyone present.  But it isn’t as much about the birth as it is the result of the birth – the baby.

A newly born baby is like nothing else. It is what causes grown men who are now called “Daddy” to weep. It is what causes midwives and doctors and doulas who have been soundly sleeping to burst into flight at the ring of a phone and run out the door. Why? A baby is on its way and as one midwife told me, “its addictive – who wouldn’t want to watch a miracle happen again and again?”

But the baby comes through labor, often arduous and painful. Some happen so quickly the mother seems in shock to be holding the baby in her arms. Some happen so slowly the mother wonders if it will ever end – when will she finally be able to hold this child she has carried for so long?

I happened to run into one of my best friends at a birthing center yesterday. She is 5 days before her due date, happily waiting and anticipating her little boy to come. I touched her swollen abdomen and thought, “And this is what I am doing now, too. Waiting and anticipating a child. Not my own, but God’s child. God’s Son.”

I don’t remember Advent as a season growing up. I only remember Christmas itself, which was always fun and memorable and full of love and laughter.

But since I have had my own children, I have fully engaged myself in Advent and seen its purposes.

For those of you who may not know, Advent is a season observed in many Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. The term is an anglicized version of the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming.”

Advent is waiting.

Advent is eagerly expecting.

Advent is like a spiritual labor of sorts.

We who already know Christ prepare ourselves once more for His Coming. We seek to make room for Him – the one for whom there was no room in any of the homes of Bethlehem.

Because as we all know, the month prior to Christmas tends to be the busiest, most “stuff-focused,” event-filled, (often stress-filled) month of the year for many families.

To make room for Christ during December, to be still and wait upon Him in eager anticipation, to push aside our “to do” lists for awhile and open our eyes and our hearts and our Bibles and simply wait on Christ is to engage in counter-cultural behavior for America in December.

But He is the only gift worth waiting for. The only gift worth anticipating. My girls started asking me about Christmas before Thanksgiving. And I knew that the only way for them to understand when Christmas falls on the calendar is for us to participate in Advent.

For kids who still mix up “yesterday,” and “Tuesday” and “next week,” Advent provides them with something even my three year old can do – count the days up to 25. Celebrating Christ each day, I cut slips of paper with a Bible story on each and put them in each day of the advent calendar we have. They took turns getting the slip out each night for Daddy to read to them. “Only 1 more day until Christmas!!” they said today.

What are we waiting for, really? What are they waiting for with such anticipation? Is it gifts under the tree? A sweater we will one day give away? a toy that will one day be at the bottom of the toy box?

What this Advent as taught me, what it is still teaching me, is that I am waiting to receive Christ. Every day, soaking in the desire for the Heavenly King who humbled himself to take on baby skin and complete vulnerability…so that He would know and understand our human condition, so that He could live the perfect life we never can (no matter how hard we try), so that He could die the atoning death that pays the price for our sins…

ultimately….He came so that He could be with us. Personally and Intimately. Forever.

This is the thing worth waiting for, worth anticipating, worth reveling in at Christmas. Receiving the One who alone can save us, change us, fill our empty spaces and flood our darkness with light.

As Ann Voskamp says in her wonderful Advent devotional The Greatest Gift that I have chewed on each day of December, “Your greatest gift is not your gifts, but your surrendered yes to be a space for God. ….You are most prepared for Christmas when you are done trying to make your performance into the gift and instead revel in His presence as the Gift.” 

To wait upon Christ like my friend Emily waits for her baby boy who will be born any day now…with joy…with expectancy, with focused care and loving desire.

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given” – What will it look like for you to open your heart and your soul to Christ this Christmas? And every day, receive the gift He is giving you – the gift of Himself ?

Grace  enters the kitchen, breathless and covered with early morning mist. In her hand she holds a few small roses from our garden, presents for Mommy. “You don’t let me get flowers for you from the store,” she says, “so I have to get them from outside.” She asks me for a little vase or cup of water we can put them in ~ then we sit them on the middle of our table to admire.

I love flowers and always have. Just like my mother, daisies are my favorite. Happy and unpretentious, I don’t find any that compare with their simple beauty. Arranged in a beautiful bouquet, cut flowers brighten any room and make almost anyone smile  -and that is their purpose.

What is always sad for my little ones to see is that these flowers, once cut, are destined to wilt and die. Some disappoint us and wilt overnight; others surprise us (often some flower we aren’t as thrilled about, sad to say) and last a full week or even two. But eventually, they die because they are not connected to their root.

Sometimes Grace brings me a flower or two but gets distracted by some more important matter like building blocks or playing hide and seek with Daddy. She tosses the flowers on the table and runs off, forgetting them for the moment. She may remember them only an hour or two later, but alas, they have died and she must toss them out and collect more.

We as people can be a lot like Grace’s flowers. When we choose to connect to the source of our spiritual life (Christ) we remain fresh and flourishing. But when we choose to cut ourselves off from the spiritual nourishment of His life-giving Presence, we quickly begin to wilt. Some of us may be able to keep up a nice display of what appears to be strength and beauty for an impressive amount of time. We may even be impressed with our own abilities to survive on our own, or so we think. Like freshly cut flowers, we may appear to everyone as though we are thriving when the reality is our souls are wilting more quickly than we’d like to admit.

We may keep this up for awhile – feeding ourselves with the stuff of this world – the praise of other men, a new adventure or destination vacation, a socially acceptable addiction – it can be anything, really – can’t it? But it simply cannot compare to Christ. If they could speak, any cut flower would tell us that tap water and a packet of “plant food” simply can’t compare with rainwater in their roots and sunlight streaming into the soil that surrounds them.

Nothing and no one can nourish our souls, our spirits, that inner part of us that thirsts so deeply, that hungers achingly for unconditional love, abundant life, or meaningful and enduring relationship but Christ. No one else can fill our void for love, satisfaction, pleasure, worth, dignity, or true happiness the way that He can. No one.

I’m so glad that Jesus spoke to us sometimes in His Word through parables, stories, and illustrations when He knew we just might not “get it” any other way. Here He speaks to His disciples as they walked through a vineyard, referencing the life of the vines that surrounded them for their spiritual lesson (and now ours):

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” ~ John 15:4-7 ESV

How about you, friend? Are you feeling depleted of spiritual and emotional strength today? Have you come to a realization that the good fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and more cannot be worked up or self-produced, but must come as a result of a loving relationship with the Almighty – the source of all true goodness? If so, the good news is that even when we are withered, He can breathe new life into us. When we hunger and thirst, He is eager to fill. So cling to the Vine – and come alive again.

image courtesy of www.creationswap.com