Letter.

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"Tell Him what you like about Him..." - Francis Chan, Crazy Love.
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Father, Rabbi, Almighty God:

1. I love your heart for history. I like it that you thought to put Jesus in a place like Israel, where it's dry and hot and dusty, so that memories and pictures and places from His life could be preserved. I like that you gave us archaeology, I really do. It makes me excited that we can know Jesus better because of it...(plus, it's fun to dig things up). I really like the things you're allowing us to learn because of the way you kept Israel protected from too much modernity. You knew what you were doing, hiding all that stuff in the sand. Thanks for letting us find some of it in my lifetime.

2. I love your sense of adventure. I like it that I serve a God who isn't so safe. I like that you ask us to risk. You plant and deposit so much RICHNESS into life, and then you ask us to go and find it. I like that your call is scary and mysterious sometimes. Your world is a place full of culture and spontaneity, and I like that you give us a spirit that desires that adventure.

3. I admire your creativity. How there is color everywhere. How you infuse poetry throughout the world. People, places, ideas, things, from big to small, everything is different and new and mysterious and beautiful. I like that you give us the desire and ability to be creative too.

4. I'm proud to follow You because you speak truth that doesn't let us off easy. You see potential in us and demand much from us, even our best. I love it that your truth is always laced with kindness, but never relents. It makes me better, the way you push me and the example that you set. You are brave in life and you are brave in truth, and it challenges me.

5. I love your ability to tell stories. Glory, honor, betrayal, sin, mystery, humanity, redemption, humor...your Word is full of them. You know us well and you speak to us in a way we understand and you use people we can relate to. Your stories are full of broken people and the way you work through them...and that inspires me.

6. I admire your intelligence. I am amazed Jesus, by your ability to speak so plainly yet challenge so fully, all at the same time. I appreciate and enjoy the levels of wit and humor you root in people. And I really like what you have allowed us to discover about your world. It's so intricate and full and complicated and big. The detail of it, the intelligence behind it, is astounding.

7. I love your JOY. The way you delight in us, despite it all. How you send us good things, every day. Your LIFE, all around...abundant.

Thank you for all of it.

Your history, your adventure, your creativity, your truth, your stories, your intelligence, your joy.

Your mere presence.

And help us, Father,
not only to SEE you,
but to rejoice in you as well.

Today.
Tomorrow.
The next day.


***P.S. Thanks, too, for the printing press... for the ability to make A LOT of BOOKS.
That, God, is one of my favorites.