God doesn't love you because God is God. He loves you because you are you.

​Do you have someone in your life who knows you? Truly knows who you are?

I'm not talking about someone who knows your hobbies - or someone who knows what color shirt you like to wear to work on Mondays - or even someone who knows your favorite flavor of ice cream - as interesting as all of those things are to learn about someone.

No, I'm talking about someone who knows YOU. Someone who knows your flaws and your failures. Someone who knows the hurts you've experienced and the hurts you've caused. Someone who knows the reasons you hate to look in a mirror. Someone who knows not just the secrets you've told but the secrets you hold.

Do you have someone who knows THAT you?

And then that person who knows THAT you, chooses to love you not in spite of but because of it all.

If you have that, you have the greatest blessing this world can offer. But more than that, you have a beautiful glimpse into the world beyond this one.

You ever wonder why God, if his sole purpose in life is to love us and to be loved back by us, you ever wonder why he came to this world as a human and not as a God? You ever wonder why he arrived as a frail baby in a dirty manger and not a God floating above us all in robe and halo?

I wonder if it's because God so desperately wants us to know he loves us because of our humanity, and not in spite of it? I wonder if that was God's way of saying I don't need you to be a God, I just want you to be you.

And oh, Gods says, oh, how I want to to know and love the you that is you.

Sometimes I think we see the Christmas story as an invitation to love God because he is God. I wonder more these days, though, if it's actually an invitation to love God because he loves our humanity when so much of humanity struggles to do the same.

Maybe the manger scene was God's way of saying I need to be perfectly clear here. I understand humanity. I understand frailty and failure and fatigue and fear and forever feeling unlovable. I understand all of that - and I love you because of it not in spite of it.

Is it possible that was God's way of modeling humanity? Loving because and not in spite of.

The Christmas story, let's be clear, is definitely a story about God. But maybe that story about God isn't as different from a story about humanity as we sometimes make it. Maybe we're all supposed to be a little better at loving because of and not in spite of.

Maybe the manger scene is an introduction to the world beyond this one - where everyone loves because.

Because of our humanity, not in spite of it.

A very Merry Christmas to you all. God bless you and keep you and deeply smile upon you always - because of who you are - not in spite of it.