Have you ever taken a genuine interest in how someone was doing?

I’m talking about more than just a simple, “Hey, how’s it going,” or, “What’s up, hope you’re doing well.”

Let me put it this way, have you ever just listened to someone as they tell you where they’re at in life?

It’s something that’s pretty uncommon, and frankly, something I don’t do enough. I’m busy most of the time, that whenever I see people, whether family or friends, I don’t get to really have much quality conversation.

Last night, after I got home from work at around 11, my mom came into my room and asked me how my day was. I gave her the typical, “It was fine,” answer, then asked her how hers was very nonchalantly, with no genuine interest but to get back to what I needed to work on.

But I guess you can call it the Lord, I don’t want to sound all hyper-spiritual—I had this thought just come into my mind, telling me to stop all my work and really ask my mom how she has been.

So, completely out of the norm, I shut my computer, turned off my music, turned around and looked at my mom, who was sitting at the end of my bed.

“How are you?”

That one question opened conversation—conversation which has been quite scarce for a long time. I honestly can’t remember the last time I simply asked my parents what’s been going on in their lives.

It hit me. And it kept hitting me as I set aside my busyness and truly listened to my mom pour out her heart. Through all that I heard—so many words of wisdom and experience—I realized how much she desired to serve and draw near to the Lord. Genuinely. With everything she had. It was something so foreign to me. Here’s someone I have known for so long—who has been through a lot, trust me—and even now through the season in her life that was trying to say the least, my mom didn’t complain, she didn’t vent, she didn’t point out problems.

She was thankful.

And she had such a genuineness, I can’t put it into words.

For the first time in a very long time, I had this indescribable level of love, respect, and thankfulness for my parents that had been empty for so long. I realized—through listening—the sacrifice, tremendous love, and perseverance that they had for our family.

It just hit me.

How much I have missed.

How selfish I can be.

How easy it is to forget the people closest to you.

How faithful the Lord is in restoring distant relationships.

Wow, God, you have a way with words. If only I could learn to not talk as much. If only I could learn to be still. If only I could cease this striving in my heart, this stress, this schedule in my mind, this work.

If only I could learn to listen.

Recently, I read this article from Jewish celebrity Ben Stein, in which he speaks up against the political suffocation of Christianity during Christmas. Now I’m not one to get involved with political arguments or debates; I prefer to stay quiet concerning the subject, mainly to play things safe (to be honest, I’m ignorant to many of the current crises that are occurring in Washington, and I’d rather not speak up in ignorance). However, this is a subject I am all too familiar with. I very much appreciated what Stein had to say.

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It’s not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was  Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly Atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.

— Winston Churchill

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

— C. S. Lewis

I’m constantly reminded of the Lord’s faithfulness and provision through the people that He brings in my life, whether new acquaintances that may become deeper friendships, or through brothers that I’ve known for some time.

Regardless of who it is, there is a recurring characteristic that I realize with these people that I’ve been encouraged by and held accountable to—there is a level of unity through willing transparency.

The Apostle Paul stressed the importance of boasting in one’s weakness in 2 Corinthians—something that has, quite honestly, left me somewhat confused. However, I am realizing the work that the Lord can do through an open and transparent heart, even if it exposes things that I don’t want to admit—if it exposes weakness, fear, and insecurity. If communicated with discernment and understood with a heart of steadfast love, there is an aspect of relatability that unites myself and another believer/friend. It not only strengthens the bond that I have with them, but it draws me closer to the heart of a very real and relational God—a dad that wants what is best for me but won’t let me take the easy way out to get it.

It isn’t easy to face certain things. In fact, it is, in many circumstances, humiliating, embarrassing, and emasculating. But Christ, through His truth, is able to renew in my heart a strength that can only be administered through the admittance of and giving over of my own desires and wants—my own pride and stubbornness. And what blows me away—what causes me to step back in complete humility—is to see how He uses others to demonstrate this to me.

That is the redeeming work of His Son Jesus Christ—to transform our lowly bodies and make them like His glorious body.

Sulking in failure is childish.

I have forgotten that sin has already been atoned for—even my sin.

Will I fail? Absolutely. Have I failed? Too many times to count. Will I struggle in feeling like a failure? There’s no doubt I will.

It shouts me awake every morning, it breathes down my neck throughout the day, it keeps me unable to sleep in the night.

But this I do know: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

For we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us.

And His love never fails.

I was never meant to have control of anything. And yet I try so hard to control my life. That is exactly what I have been doing for the past five or so months. Trying to take control and thinking that I’m doing things right, that I’m doing things according to the plan.

I try to control my position in society. I try so hard to be liked by people, to meet their expectations, to be someone that everyone wants to be around. I try to control my placement in people’s lives, thinking that it is my job to be some kind of a leader, rather than simply being a friend.

I try to control the relationships I’ve made. I can’t let go of the fact that people have free will. I become so stubborn in wanting to be someone that matters to others—wanting to be someone who can trust others and be trusted by them as well. I will not allow God to have any say so in who to hold onto or who to let go of; I do everything by my own means to keep and tear down relationships.

I try to find my manhood in the world. I have this mentality that weakness comes through Christ. It only brings you to heartache, ignorance, and legalism. Men have to be in control of all that’s going on; have to have strength and never show weakness. And with Christ, I experience weakness. I experience pain. He shatters what I want. I experience failure. And with this mentality, I feel worthless because I think that following Him makes me less of a man.

I try to hold onto what He has taken away. I will not come to means with it. I will not listen. I will not give into this. I’m too afraid to lose what I’m trying to hold onto. I won’t give up the feelings of being robbed, of being a failure, of being terrified, of being alone, of being worthless, of being angry, of being bitter, of being in despair, of being broken. How could You? Why did You? Where are You? You owe me. You have robbed me and taken what was mine.

I’m letting go now.

I’m tired of giving into these lies. I’m tired of listening to my selfishness. I’m done with doing things on my own. I’m sorry for making You out to be a liar. I’m sorry for taking You for granted.

I can’t do anything on my own.

Show me how to be Your Son.

Take control, I’m done taking over.

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked — the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’

‘You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect — until my Father can say without reservation that He is well please with you, as He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.’

— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. . . . And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling.

We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.

 — C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed