Charlie Brown Christmas

This scene from “Charlie Brown Christmas” really gets me…Charlie is so down on himself, negative life thoughts looming over his head.¬†¬† Lucy comes to save the day in her “perfect-Lucy-way.”¬† Charlie says “WHY, WHY, WHY?? do i let her do this to me!!” – as she makes a spectacle of him, yet again, actually ‘instant replaying’ his football failure play by play, clumsiness, mess up after mess up.¬† He gives into Lucy’s manipulation, in an effort to get over his inadequacies, “maybe she’s right, he thinks, maybe I am messed up…i never knew I had so many faults!”¬† This was, as I call it – Charlie Brown’s Melt-Down Moment.

It usually starts happening about this time of year, the melting pot begins.¬† I saw a clip today on that “Myth Busters” show – the one where they process experiments to see if what they had always heard about a product proved to be true or false.¬† They were testing a lava lamp, to see if it would really kill someone due¬† exploding glass piercing someones torso and shooting hot liquid onto them from simply “overheating.”¬† When they tested it, the myth was busted on the smaller lamp, because when the lamp was placed on a burner, the liquid started to boil, but instead of the glass actually shattering everywhere as expected, the lid FLEW off and the hot liquid exploded like a volcano.¬† It was awesome!¬† They replayed it like ten times!¬† Further reminding me how often our lives are like that lamp – “accidently” left on the burner, forced into our own volcanic explosion with our lids flying off from the pressures of life.

We were made with a purpose, with order, with structure.  We were made to function for a specific reason, to be a beautiful, graceful instrument for use by our heavenly father.  Like the lava lamp in a dark room Рmeant to be seen, meant to function with peaceful movement and develop gracefully in life.

I recently read on Bethany Worship Center daily devotional that “Jesus was busy, but he was never hurried.”¬† He traveled from town to town, often his days were filled ministering to people, pouring out to the masses and remembering to especially encourage and edify those who were closest to him.¬† He had it together…despite fatigue, despite the battle over his life, despite the lack of faith he saw in his closest friends.¬† He never rushed!¬† He lived in every moment fully.

You never read about Jesus spilling coffee onto a new mac book pro because he was so rushed with last minute efforts…(a story for a future blog!)…instead you hear about him calming the waters and saying, “peace be still.”¬† You never hear about him running to catch up with his ride…because he did not need the boat, he could walk on water.

Dad talked about Faith today in his message this morning…it was awesome.¬† The Faith of Abraham.¬† If ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for & the evidence of things unseen,’ and if that is the element that allowed him to walk on water and calm the storm, and if that is what he offered to Peter as he took his hand and saved him from sinking, saying “oh ye of little faith..” then why has the church, with over 2,000 years under our belt – not been able to discover the Faith that Jesus said we could have an even greater measure of?¬† He later told his friend Peter, the one who lacked faith on the sea, “on this Rock, I will build My Church.”¬† Yes, Peter was able to develop the kind of faith (“the belief in Jesus, that he is the Messiah”) that the church WILL Be BUILT upon!¬† Yet, we today have the power of the Holy Spirit on our side, to perform miracles to loose chains of injustice to set the captives free – and still we are not building The Church with this Faith…”belief in Jesus.”

Faith is about the measure of our thoughts and our priorities.¬† I’ll explain.¬† When realities, science, emotions, relationships, schedules and all of the other distractions and obstacles in life become more of an object of our faith, then our faith does not stand in the power of God or in the workings that faith has to offer…it stands in our ‘understanding’ or our faith in what we know to be true because of what we have ’seen’ in life.¬† But God says, it’s the evidence of things unseen…it’s believing with the eyes of our soul, what we cannot see with our human beliefs.¬† Jesus Christ was a man who walked the earth just like we did, but he encompassed Faith.¬† HE believed more (the level of priority in his spirit) that he would walk on water than he believed that he had simply missed the boat and would be stranded on the shore.¬† In fact, I imagine that the thought of NOT walking on water did not even cross his mind – no shadows of doubt.¬† He believed with FACT that he would be crossing that water to meet his disciples. And he DID!

Jesus is the way the truth and the life!¬† We should strive to live life as he did, full of faith believing in the “unseen” – having the ’substance’ of things hoped for.

What is our substance?¬† Its the same to us as it was to Jesus as he walked on water.¬† We all have our own water to walk on…”things” seemingly impossible for one human to accomplish.¬† Is your substance so great that you wonder how in the world it will ever happen – purchasing the home of your dreams, having children, being debt free, changing the mind of a supreme court justice?¬† We have to being to put that substance in the realm of faith – where it is unseen, but we have EVIDENCE in our hearts that it WILL happen, without a doubt!

Charlie Brown had lost his faith, his hope, his belief in what he could be.¬† He believed the manipulation of Lucy and easily gave himself over to be kicked down once again.¬† It’s time we rise up and balance our life priorities, and go after our purpose to live our chosen life — by faith.