growing in belief

Its not the circumstances that affect our attitude abut life, its our certainty of what is to come. Our belief about the future affects our attitude about today's trials and joys. If I'm in a tough one and can't imagine what the outcome might be, I will groan and cry and curse and squirm. But If I know that I know that God has a definite goal to this season, that His will is being accomplished through my groaning, and I believe firmly in His goodness, then unbelief cannot touch me. I will be satisfied with His provision as painful as it might be as a 'momentary light affliction'.

Here is an illustration: Courage can come from hearing the bugle, the anthem over the hills of help coming. In the battle I may grow so weary that my hand drops my sword and I am literally stopped from any offensive or defensive action. Then I hear the sound of a bugle announcing the arrival of fresh troops that I had given up hope on. Then even before I see them coming, or have their actual physical aid to join me in the fight, I find that I have a surge of energy and hope and passion again. Now I can pick up that dropped sword and start using it. Just the knowledge that this help is coming is enough to change me, as if it were already here.

My children, keep yourself free from idols

Something I have been mulling over is something I have read and re-read in Isaiah 44. The portion where Isaiah goes off on the lunacy of taking one tree and using half as a source of fuel to cook food and the other half to be carved by man's hands into a form that then becomes one's god. The thoughts that I have are these: Jehovah God was the one who gave us the tree in the first place as a good thing that is useful. We can praise God for its provision. But to then make it into a source of life, one that you go to for nourishment, for protection against bad things, for pleasure or escape, for answers when feeling lost, for power over foes...well then, it has now become a futile idol.

One litmus test for me is to ask myself, is this relationship, this position, this item, this exciting plan, one that God intended to bless me with, but I have now turned it into a source of life for me? Do I grow afraid at the thought of losing it? Do I value the thought of it more than God? Do I spend inordinate amounts of time thinking, defending, pursuing it? God gave me this thing (strength, money, a friendship, a love of beauty, a love of sports, a love of words) but never to become a source of life for me. He wants me to step away from the intensity of my emotions, and hold the 'idol' loosely, and ask Him to reveal anything unwholesome about it and let Him transform it from idolatry to a recognition of this being just one of His provisions.

What God does well

Ever wonder what God had in mind when He mercifully and creatively led you into a difficult season? Or allowed you to fall? At the end of his life King David said, 'Bless the Lord who has redeemed my life from all distress.' Which isn't to say that God has made all of the distressing things go away or to not be true. But that He redeems them. I like this definition:

Redemption=“to purchase back for the sake of restoring. To return that which was sold away, tarnished, given up, ruined, left for dead. To reclaim in such a manner that the resulting state is stunningly more wonderful than what would have otherwise been.”

what does surrender feel like?

The other day a friend and I were talking and I asked her to write down the emotions of a soul right before surrender occurs. And then what it feels like once you do cry 'uncle' to God.

Clinging to rights. Logical inner argument. Indignant. Self-deserving. Self-justifying. Frustrating. Exhausting. No brain rest/circling thoughts.

And then mercy steps in and reveals the real fight and we feel:

Healthy grief/sadness. Loss. Lifting of an immense burden. Relief. Illogical yet healthy letting go. Expectancy and wonder for what God will do next. Sensing room for God's sovereignty.

When we find that our struggle is not really about another person; that its really about our response to a difficult situation, then we are given spiritual energy to surrender. To give up the expectation that someone will apologize, or agree with me, or recompense a loss.

Its called freedom.

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Prov 4:23

Proverbs 4:23 says, 'guard your heart with all diligence'.

Today it occurs to me that here is something I don't do much but I should do more. After all, it does say, with ALL diligence.

When my life is wafting along in a serene sorta way and then something comes to upset me; let's say bad health. or financial pressure. or conflict in a relationship. I will struggle and thrash and ache and fight. My mind will be a perfect whirl of thoughts and scenarios and ways that I could try to elude this trial (if I can) or diminish its effect on me. And then God always steps into a greater visibility. Usually He doesn't make the ick go away. But He reminds me of true things and I discover the incomparable sweetness of Emmanuel forever more right beside me. 100% of the time I have discovered myself grateful for the situation that had caused such turmoil, because it has revealed to me better views of this glorious God. How admirable He is!

So what does this say about those in between seasons of the serene wafting? God is there. Always there. Plenty dazzling and glorious and the giver of all that goodness. He has generously formed my life to be jammed full of good people, a good life, a worthy calling, provision for all I need. I love my life and the days of my life. But I am in no little grave danger here of being satisfied with only that. To hug myself with joy over the things in my life and the situation I am in is to miss out on how glorious it is to have Emmanuel here. To be free from distraction to admire this Good God is my goal. But God doesn't have to remove everything in order for me to be clearer sighted. I need to seek His provision to be free from idolatry. I John 5:21 says, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

I want to learn how to do that.

Hannah Coulter said, "When they were young I suppose all my thoughts about the children started with knowing that they were mine. Because they were mine, I had to think of what I should do for them, of what we could do for them to get them started in the world. Of what they needed." (Wendell Berry)

Solomon said, "Train up a child in the way he should go...."

Training isn't merely telling a person something. It isn't just hoping they catch it by observation. Its repeated telling, repeated demonstration. Its age appropriate. Its creative. It includes ides that one gets from God Himself and by observing other families that have learned how to do this on one way or aother.

So we begin with what our children will need built into them before they leave home and then work back to where they are now.

I am going to being with only four basic topics here. I may get around to some others.... Anyway, Staying connected to God. Money. How to fail and then to get back up again. Relationships.

1. How to stay connected to God. This will serve them every day of their glorious and inglorious life. Let them see this because it is in your life in maturing stages.:

He is an invisible God who is all around them

He is sovereign

He is good

He satisfies

He hears us when we pray. He ALWAYS answers us. Sometimes with a 'no'.

Be satisfied in Him. Let Him heal you of your addictions and idols. Live transparently because your children are seeing your life more than your words.

II. Money

Give them money to save and spend. Talk about money. Read them from Proverbs about money and how god sees it. Let them hear you converse together and how you decide to buy things. Let them know (appropriately to their age) when things are tight and how it affects your spending. If you are greedy or materialistic, ask God to HEAL you.

High schoolers: give them in cash what you would have spent on them clothes, entertainment, personal hygiene, fast food, etc. (if you normally would expect them to get a part time job for their own list of things that they want to own, then encourage them to do that) Teach and demonstrate savings, charity. Spending and no debt.

If this is a weakness for you, then repent and ask others to help you mature here. This is not a good time to stay stuck in such a crippling mindset. Your kids could be FREE, if you desired to be free yourself.

III. You fail, I fail, we all fail, we will fail. Don't panic! Hannah Coulter said, "When you have gone too far, the only mending is to come home." What is the way back? Its easiest to teach them when they are small, but its never too late to speak healthily and gratefully of repentance. John Piper says instead of Christians being known as 'good works doers' we should be better known as 'repenters'.

When accidents happen, or there is a failure, don't panic! If you ever over-react, and punish and scream and yell, then REPENT. Get the non-reactive parent to show you how it could be done. When you terrify the child with your reaction you make it a scary place to confess faults. Or a child that is afraid to ever make a mistake. We have seen way too many examples of mad-parent syndrome.

Don't judge others. Teach them to not judge. Be very careful not to think judgmentally because it will come out in words. If you are free from a judgmental posture it will be easier for you to own up to your own sins and mistakes.

Maturity is not to ever need someone's help ("I am 18 now and can make my own decisions, and live my own way"...) but rather its to know when and where to ask for help. We never stop needing community and help from others.

IV. Relationships. Gazillions of personality types. But basically your kid is either a thermostat or a thermometer (thermostat: has a ability in its design to control the temperature of a room. It tells the furnace or air conditioner and fan when and when not to activate. Thermometer only measures the temperature of the room. Has no ability to alter what it finds.)

Allow your kids to think things out for themselves. Don't react when they utter nonsense. They need to learn to discern and that comes from weighing in on both sides. You do not want your kids to merely parrot you, but to discover how to compare new ideas with what is unchangeable truth. So bring up topics to discuss. Don't shy from controversy. The other adults in your children's lives might have different (but not wrong) views. That's not a bad thing.

Your kids were given their breath of life by God in order to bless and share and nurture and provide and lead and correct and celebrate and be the light that leads the lost home. If they are God's then they already have the fulness of the Spirit within them. So beginning small and growing stronger and stronger they can be trained to repent of any hint of being a taker, a predator, a passive conspirator, a defiler.

Make Kindness and Wholesomeness a celebrated trait. One that you value in them more than your desire for them to be a good student, athlete, a good wage earner, obedient or popular.

Proverbs 31:12 is written about a woman but the truth applies to men as well. Use it as a yardstick to let your children measure themselves. To do the spouse good and not evil all the days of their life. Like right now, no matter how young or old they are.

1 Samuel

There is a place in I Samuel where David has run away from Saul so hastily that he needs to drop by the tabernacle so that he can scrounge some bread and a weapon. Ahimelech is glad to offer what he has to David. And then the story goes very very sad. One of Saul's men is there to observe the whole thing and reports it to Saul. Not too long after this Ahimelech is killed alongside a number of his other priest friends, and then all of their families. One of Ahimelech's sons survives and runs to David to tell him what happened.

The strangest thing happens. Instead of Abiather being completely insane with bitterness against David he blames the right guy. Saul! The king who had his father and all of his family killed. This is who he blames. And when David offers him protection and provision saying, 'The man who is seeking my life is also seeking yours. But don't be afraid. You will be safe with me', Abiather accepts.

From that point on he lives and runs alongside of David and his men. The band he aligns himself with will protect him and provide for him as he serves them as priest. Their enemy, who seeks their destruction, is his enemy.

What strikes me is that we are so often bitter at the wrong person. Instead of the one who has meant us harm, we hate the one who clumsily hurts us, or the one who speaks truth. The one who has no malice. Such an enormous waste of life!