Last week my husband was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray — a book that neither of us had read before, though we assumed we knew what it was about. Turns out our preconceptions were a bit off, LOL. As he was reading, he would update me on what was going on in the story and the thoughts he had about it (those first chapters were just FULL of quotables!). And at one point, as the title character was drawn into the corrupt world of indulgence and hedonism by the point of view character, David said, “You know, Oscar Wilde makes it really understandable. Because vice looks so interesting. And virtue looks so boring.”

He likes to say these sorts of things to goad me, LOL.

Well, I was quick with a comeback this time: “No–imitation of virtue is boring. Real virtue is absolutely fascinating.”

I may have come up with it as an off-the-cuff retort, but it settled in my spirit. Because I think it’s so very true.

We’re living in a culture that was built on Christian ideals, and though said culture has shifted away from those values, they’re still present enough to be recognizable…but also to be undesirable by so many. Why? Because generally speaking virtues are pitched to us as a bunch of negatives: don’t drink, don’t curse, don’t overindulge, don’t be prideful, don’t be vain, don’t be selfish, don’t lie, don’t have sex, don’t party, don’t…don’t…don’t…

We all know what human nature says to a list of Don’ts though, right?

Here’s the thing, though. Virtue isn’t about what we don’t do. It’s about what we do. This is what I absolutely love about reading the Gospels–Jesus, too, lived in a society that was all about the Don’t. And He shook it up by focusing instead on the Do. Do good on the Sabbath. Go the extra mile. Give more than people demand. Love your enemy. Love your neighbor. Be born of the Spirit.

Real virtue looks like doing the illogical thing for love. Real virtue looks like crazy selflessness in order to demonstrate who Christ is. Real virtue looks like choosing the radical way instead of the fashionable way.

And that, my friends, is fascinating indeed. Christ didn’t have crowds of thousands following him because he was boring, or because of the things he didn’t do. He had people following him everywhere he went because of what he was doing. He was healing, casting our demons, making a feast out of a famine. He was challenging people to demand more of themselves, to go a step further, to not just ACT right (imitation) but to BE right (in their hearts).

Where are we just imitating the right actions today but not really meaning them? Where are we just saying the words without actually living them out? Where are we content with having a portrait of faith in our lives instead of a live-action version?

Following the rules for the sake of being a rule-follower doesn’t ever change the world. And isn’t really virtue. It’s just an imitation. A counterfeit.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have a counterfeit faith, an imitation of faith. I don’t want to face my Savior at the End and have him say, “But what did you do? Who among the outcasts did you love? Who saw Me through you?” I don’t want people to look at me, wrinkle their nose, and say, “Man, being a Christian looks boring.”

Being a Christian should be edge-of-your-seat excitement. Because it should mean going where others are afraid to go, doing what most people would never do, living on faith instead of “security.” Being a Christian should be completely fascinating to those who aren’t (yet). If instead they’re looking at us and calling us boring…maybe we’re doing it wrong. Maybe we’re not really living out the true virtues of Christ…maybe we’re just a faded imitation.

Where do we need God to breathe some life into our faith today?

Interruptions. We all know them. And we all hate them (unless of course we’re being interrupted in a task we don’t want to do, LOL). They are distractions. They are things that keep us from doing what we want to be doing, or what we should be doing. They are those annoying, frustrating moments that pull us out of our groove, throw a wrench in our works, or otherwise discombobulate us.

Interruptions are life’s hiccups. And we ALL know how annoying hiccups can be!

Back in September, one of my devotional readings from Live in Grace, Walk in Love by Bob Goff was all about interruptions. I read it while I was away on a writing retreat–one of the few times of uninterrupted writing I manage in a year–so I was especially aware of how far I will go to avoid those dratted interruptions. When I returned from my retreat, I took the time to muse about this topic to the #BeBetter group, and it was something we could all agree with. A few days later, my life was seriously interrupted by a 5-day hospital trip and diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes for my son.

For the next few months, I was left feeling like all I had left were interruptions. My plans, derailed by health issues. My days, interrupted constantly by the need to check blood sugars. My sleep, thoroughly broken by the same. I’ve always loved uninterrupted spans of time in which I can just work. Just be. Just do what I feel I need to do. (Which makes it rather ironic that we chose to homeschool and have both of us working from home. Because lemme just tell you, there is no such thing as a day without many, many interruptions, LOL. As in, the interruptions even have interruptions, until I sit back down hours later and don’t even know what I’d originally been doing! Bet we can all commiserate with that too, right?)

But here’s the thing. Maybe…maybe we’re looking at it all wrong. That’s what Goff pointed out in the devotional, and it’s something I’ve been pondering for months since.

He points out that Jesus was met with constant interruptions too. He was on His way to help one person when He’s stopped by another. Or was on His way to the mountaintop for a much-needed retreat and refresher when He’s interrupted by crowds swarming Him. He was trying to enjoy a nice meal when someone came in to pour oil on His feet. His life was a life of constant interruptions too.

But how did He react?

Well, we don’t see Him complaining. We don’t see Him pushing the interruptions aside. We don’t see Him sighing and getting overwhelmed by frustration.

We see Him pausing. We see Him being constantly “moved by love” for those interruptions, those people so desparate to touch even the hem of their garment that they’d haunt Him through the streets. We see Him recognizing that every single interruption is its own appointment. Not just a distraction from what He was “supposed” to be doing–but a worthwhile task in itself.

Do we view our interruptions the same way?

I’m trying to do that, to view things in a new way.

That the phone call is an unexpected conversation, not an interruption.
The kid at my elbow is a chance to love on one of the most important people in my life, not a distraction.
The email that comes in, filled with demands and exclamation points, is a chance to serve someone in a moment of need, not just something taking me away from my to-do list.
That 2 a.m. blood sugar check is an act of love for my son and a chance to pray, not a half-hour of missing sleep.

What would change in our day if we started viewing each interruption as its own appointment, ordained by God? How much less frustrated would we be if we realized that our time is not our own, and so when our scheduled activity is forced to pause, we recognize it as God tapping us on the shoulder? What if we could seriously view each unexpected thing as a chance to serve Him by serving others and showing His love?

When that woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of His garment, the man who’d been taking Him to his house to heal His daughter no doubt called it a devastating interruption. But the woman called it a life-changing miracle. And Jesus called it another chance to show the love of the Father to a hurting heart. He still healed the little girl–brought her back from death, even. He performed a bigger miracle because of the interruption. And another besides.

We serve a God whose love is not divided by interruptions–it’s multiplied. So let’s rejoice in that assurance…and try to remember that each moment matters…whether it’s filled with what we’d planned or something else entirely.

In the book world, there’s a lot of talk about whether it’s worthwhile to give things away for free. People are of multiple mindsets on this. Some think it’s a great way to draw in new readers. Others think it devalues our work. What I know is this: when I get something for free–by which I mean the item simply has no cost assigned to it–very rarely do I actually read it. Why? Because I have so many things waiting to be read that I paid for, or to which a definite value was attached. For instance, one of the perks of being an author with the Baker Group is that we get to pick out a few books from the catalogue each time we’re in it. But we’re given a set value. So I know every title I pick means another that I don’t. There’s still value there. The same goes for if I get a coupon or store credit/cash. It’s a set value. Each item I buy with it means another I don’t. There’s still a cost.

And then there are gifts. They cost us nothing. But we know there’s value, right? We know that someone who cares about us paid something for that item, or invested time in the creation of it. When Judith from church gave me hand-knitted tea cozies for Christmas, it wasn’t just a matter of the ten dollars of yarn, it was a matter of the hours upon hours I knew very well it took her to create that. It has value. It has worth.

Then there’s salvation. It’s free…but it’s not just free. It’s a free gift–paid for by Jesus. And my friends, it’s COSTLY. So, so costly. He couldn’t just offer us salvation with no cost to himself, because then it wouldn’t have value. It wouldn’t satisfy the debt that was owed. He paid it. And then He gave it. Free to us, but certainly not free to Him.

We know this, obviously. We use all the right words when we talk about it. But so often…so often I feel like we toss it around like a free download without really thinking about the value. Or at the least, without putting that value above everything else. We talk about the price Jesus paid, but because it isn’t a cost to us, we offer that so freely and yet don’t give of our own resources unless it’s convenient. We stop giving before it hurts.

He gave until it killed Him.

As we enter the season of Lent, those forty days leading up to His sacrifice, will you join me in really contemplating the cost of this free gift? Let’s pause each day to enumerate the cost.

• Instead of a life of comfort, He chose the life of a wanderer
• Instead of the security of a family, He chose to find family among the people who needed Him so desperately
• Instead of making friends with the powerful, He brought the touch of Heaven to the weak
• Instead of using His authority to bring Himself riches, He gave up everything to suffer with the poor
• Instead of hoarding what He had to provide for Himself and His disciples, He took a little and multiplied it to feed the masses
• Instead of seeking a peaceful life that ended in an easy death at a ripe old age, He offered His life up for us in His prime

Life is the most sacred thing in this world. It is so much more valuable than anything we can purchase with money, isn’t it? Who among us wouldn’t trade everything we have if necessary to keep our child or our spouse or our parent alive? Let me just tell you, when your baby is struggling to draw breath and fighting for consciousness, you don’t care how much the helicopter costs, you just want him to get the help he needs. Life is sacred. Life is precious. Life is beyond price.

And that’s what Jesus gave for us. Everything. Absolutely everything. Let’s make sure we pause to really appreciate that this year.

Over the weekend, I had a dream that my kids were little again. That Rowyn was maybe 18 months, and he was crying from another room. I heard him so went to find him, and he looked up at me as he did in reality a million times, saw me, stretched up his arms, and just cried, “Mama!”

In my dream, I scooped him up on the move. I held him close. He stopped crying. But I was still moving, and I tripped. I felt myself going down in that slow-motion way of dreams. My only thought being to keep him from harm. So in typical dream physics, I twisted and bent and held him up and tried to force my mind to put me back on my feet. I couldn’t bear the thought of my baby hurting. I just wanted to make it better. Not be the cause of any more harm.

In reality, while I was dreaming this, we were having a blood sugar battle. The same amount of insulin that usually kept him on the low side of normal had done nothing that night, it seemed, and his numbers were way too high. So I was worrying, and it came out in my dreams. These dreams that were total wish-fulfillment–I just want to be able to make it all better!–and fears–because I can’t.

I woke up with the image of that adorable little boy still in my mind. That mama still in my heart. It didn’t take a degree is psychology to understand why I’d been dreaming about Rowyn as a toddler, when all it took to make the world right was a cuddle in mama’s arms.

Today my baby turns 13. He certainly doesn’t hold his arms up anymore and beg to be picked up, or cry out for mama in that way that says, If you just come, everything will be better. Today my baby turns 13, and I know that life will never be what it was on other birthdays, in other years. He can’t just grin and cut himself a piece of leftover cake for breakfast or eat a spoonful of extra icing for the fun of it. Every gram of carbs that go into his body must be counteracted with insulin. His life will never be what it was before…but it’s all the more precious for what we’ve gone through in these last four months.

As a mother, I’m keenly aware of all I can’t do for him. All I can’t control. All I can’t make better. But then I remember the lessons I would dwell on when he was a baby and a toddler, and I was so exhausted from those constant calls for mama. I remember falling asleep in our old wooden rocking chair, him cuddled in my lap, and realizing that this was how we should approach our Father in heaven. With that certainty that He can make everything right. And that even when He doesn’t change the situation, it’s okay because He has us in His arms.

Do we still have that perfect trust? The certainty of a toddler in his mother’s arms? That calm assurance that the storm doesn’t matter, as long as we can weather it with Him?

Do we cling to that child-like faith even as life wears us out and wears us down? Or do we stop lifting our arms? Stop calling out, “Abba!” the moment we sense something going wrong?

Children grow up. They become independent. They turn into young women and young men with dreams beyond the walls of their parents’ house. And I love watching that process. I love seeing who my babies are growing into. I don’t have to share all their dreams or even understand them. I don’t have to force my own dreams on them. I can just love them and commit them every day to God and trust that even when my arms aren’t holding them, His are. I can pray that they keep clinging to Him long after they stop clinging to me.

So today, we celebrate the birthday that wouldn’t have been, had we lived 100 years ago. We celebrate the first birthday with insulin as our best friend and worst enemy. We celebrate a milestone birthday with injections and carb counting and in a world still shut down with a pandemic. We celebrate with a smaller cake than usual and our only party being hanging out online with friends. But we celebrate with so much joy. Because Rowyn has the chance to keep growing, keep becoming the young man God intends him to be. And we celebrate with that certainty that though mama’s arms can’t fix it all, Abba’s can. We only have to abide there with Him. He may not change our circumstances–but He’ll change us to be victorious through them.

Hold us close, Abba God. And thank you.

“Our faith isn’t all the things we say we believe; it’s what we do next.”
~ Bob Goff, Live in Grace, Walk in Love

That. 😉 I feel like I could just leave you with that quote–shortest blog post ever, LOL. Because really, it says it so well, doesn’t it? It harkens to that “walk the walk” adage. It appeals to James’s “I’ll show you my faith by my works” line. It sums up pretty much all the commentary on living out what we believe, day by day and step by step.

I read this in Goff’s devotional several weeks ago, and it’s stuck with me. And as usual, it’s combined with other things I’ve been reading or otherwise coming across. The idea of loving our neighbors, truly loving them. The idea of loving our enemies. Of loving the sinner. It’s about what happens in our lives and in our hearts when the rubber meets the road.

In Dream Big (also by Bob Goff), one of the questions in the study section issues this challenge: Take your average Tuesday. List the things you do during that day.

How does it declare your faith?

Why is this profound? Because our lives aren’t lived in the big moments. Our faith isn’t proven only in a crisis or a victory. Our witness doesn’t rely on how we act at special events. It’s the everyday, the now, that really determines who we are and how we love God. So what’s in your Tuesday, or your Monday, or your Thursday afternoon? How does it shine His light into the darkness? What are you going to do in the next 30 minutes? The next hour? The next four? How does that intersect with your faith in the one true God and the Son who gave His life for you?

I think all too often we just mark time–we’re standing there, marching in place, waiting for the boring everyday stuff to be done so that we can get to what we really want to do. The weekend. The summer vacation. That big holiday. The mission trip. There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to any of those things, obviously…but they’re not what life is made of, are they? Life is more than the big moments. It’s ALL the moments in between. Our characters, our hearts, aren’t just definied by those big days, but rather by all the “meantime.”

The challenge that Goff issues, and which I’ve long tried to live out as well, is to live EACH day as if it’s the one you’ve been waiting for. Each normal, ordinary day is a chance to give glory to Him. It’s a chance to choose what we’re going to do next. It’s a chance not just to talk about our faith, but to walk in it. It’s a chance to chase our dreams. It’s a chance to mend a bridge. It’s a chance to try something new.

Make a call. Send an email. Write a letter. Bake cookies for those neighbors you’ve never met. Go out of your way to give lunch to the homeless man on the corner. Write that story you’ve been meaning to get started on. Or hey, just write down that epiphany from the other day in a journal. Do something nice for your most annoying coworker. Give away something to someone who knows how much it means to you, to prove to them that they mean more. Take the first step toward that off-the-wall, crazy dream that won’t leave you alone.

Do something. Do something today to be more like Christ. Do something today to give feet to the words we say so easily. Do something to make today special.

Don’t just say you believe in Jesus. Prove it. Prove it today.