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My favorite words from the Word at Christmastime come from the Apostle John at the beginning of his gospel. In just a few sentences, John declares an unfathomable truth - the Word became flesh to dwell among us. But what might come across to us as a beautiful and eloquent introduction to John’s gospel is actually more like a verbal hand grenade. You and I stand far removed from the people who first received John’s gospel, and the chasms of time and culture have deadened the punch. But the power of these verses still rumbles just under the surface.

Seasons of wading into the rubble and rebuilding must happen if we’re going to survive, let alone thrive for God’s purposes. God knows it. He does it in and through us. As the hammer flies and the new structure takes shape, we pray for a quick, efficient, and orderly finish. After everything we’ve been through, can’t THIS, at least, come easy?

Lesson One on rebuilding God’s way: we have to look back to see what went right and what went wrong before it all fell apart. Using what we learn in looking back, we should carefully choose what seeds to plant as we rebuild. It would simply make no sense to just clean things up and try everything all over again the exact same way, expecting different results. That is the definition of insanity, you know. Sure, life is messy and will always need a clean up on this side of heaven, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn and rebuild better and better each time.

I’m in a bit of a fumble. As in tripping and falling and getting a bit scraped up on the way down. It’s just that kind of season, and I’m don’t have the energy to pretend that it’s not. You, too? Yeah…as they like to say in the commercials, we’re all in this together. But could we fumble forward towards faith instead of completely dropping the ball? When we find ourselves stumbling, even flat on our faces, can we still find that we’ve moved closer to God instead of away from Him?

There’s danger in our silence, our reluctance to engage in the painful process of lament and the hard work of calling out injustice. When we sigh into the reflection and then walk away, we show the world an unruly mess, undermining our credibility as God’s reflections and followers of Jesus. We can’t just leave it alone or wait for others to untangle the mess.

I bet I’m not the only one with questions for God these days. The stormy season we’re in makes it hard to find God, let alone understand what’s He’s up to or where He is.

But, everything Jesus says and does centers on this one goal: helping people know Him. That’s the eye of whatever storm we face. It’s the place of calm and serenity that makes even a modicum of sense in the middle of the crazies and the pain and the “what-the-crap, Lord?” happening all around us. The louder the storm, the greater the opportunity to know Him for ourselves. And the only way to get to that center, that eye of the storm, is through it.