God, Nietzsche, and feeling like Christmas

Three days of decorating a little at a time was tiring but tonight as I drove home from campus, I walked from outside darkness into inside cozy... and Christmas.

I'm not certain just why, perhaps because I'm a very visual person, but the tree and the sentimental stuff and the color and the sparkle and the red and the green all came together to wrap me in their Christmas wonder and I began to feel... Hope and Grace and His Love... all in the midst of the busy-ness of life. 

I had been doing a favor for Christopher this evening, searching through the.... ummm... hippy bookstore for a Nietzsche book he needed for his philosophy class.  The other campus bookstores were sold out but we both figured they would have plenty on their shelves.  We were correct.

We met at the McDonald's by the Engineering Building tonight where I read John Piper while he was in class studying atheist philosophers.  I would look up from the words once in awhile, searching the sea of students until I saw the familiar face (and the 300 pound backpack... or so it seems) arriving through the front door. 

We talked about his class and about Nietzsche and God and Darwin and how ideas have consequences.  I recommended Schaeffer (Francis, not Edith) for the one thousand three hundred and twelfth time... give or take one or two.  There was not much time to chat but I enjoyed hearing his thoughts and opinions about atheist philosophers and God.

Was it really so long ago that these same ideas were discussed by the parents of this family... long before we became a couple and certainly no thought of children and grandchildren.  We knew so little back then except the most important knowing of all... we had met the One Who Created Us and that changed everything... who we were and who our children would be and then onto the next generation.

But we weren't thinking of that at the time... the consequences of ideas chosen and made real in the life of two people much in need of Grace.

All of this was going through my mind as I arrived home tonight and walked from the darkness of the surrounding forest into the light of my Christmas filled home.  Thoughts of a God who who came to this planet to rescue man.  A God who would enter this realm as the infant of Christmas and follow the path set before Him to the Cross of Easter.

As I hung up my winter coat, I noticed the Bible and devotional book on the coffee table, waiting their turn in my busy day.  Here it was long past dark and they were still waiting.  He was waiting.  He always waits.

Thoughts tumbled through my mind of ideas which led man away from God as well as those which drew men closer.  The choice of Nietzsche or Piper.  Choices made long ago and playing out in life today.

Talking about atheist philosophers caused me to embrace Advent close to my heart and enjoy that which goes beyond the sparkle of a house decorated for Christmas.  No matter what my bank account says or the doctor's report or any circumstance I face... He is Real and comes with gifts of salvation and provision and mercy and grace.  I see it and I know it and I feel it.

Forever and ever, amen.

Picture:  Season of Peace; allposters.com