Posts Tagged "faith"

How I Know I’m Growing {Despite the Failures}

Posted in Parenting | 5 comments

I like steady and predictable.

Until I get bored, and then I want some excitement and shiny-newness.

It’s the same with my spiritual life. I have steady forward movement, a little climb to the top, and then some crashing descents thrown in for – I don’t know – humility? Variety?

We’re always trying to have dialog with our kids about discipleship and growth, and I’m inwardly assessing my failures and multiple shortcomings, my try-and-fail life and all the things I’m not, yet.

Can we point out the highs and disregard the lows?

I’m still trying to be all the things I’m trying to teach, and I fight off the dreaded H word because I know what to do, I want to do it, but sometimes I just don’t.

My husband was telling me about a job he looked at the other day. The couple wanted some remodeling done, a deck built, some holes patched.

There was a hole where a smoke alarm should have been. There was a hole in the bathroom door where the previous owners had shoved a fist through. There were holes in odd places from odd things and the oddest thing of all was that they were each covered by a picture of Jesus.

I don’t know what to think of that. Someone covered up flaws and outbursts and mistakes with Jesus. I don’t know whether to make a positive analogy of that or to pull out that H word, hypocrite,  and ask why they didn’t fix the broken places? A little putty, some paint?

Had the holes just piled up so deep that they didn’t know where to begin? Just hang a picture, a nice religious one, right over it and I’m sure no one will notice. 

I talk to my kids about how to be a disciple and that same sarcastic voice shows me holes. Impatience and covetousness and discontent and go ahead and just hang Jesus over that. You’ll be fine.

It’s the accusing voice that I recognize for its lies. It’s accusing me of being victory-less and hopeless, self-condemning and who-are-you to think you could show Jesus?

I tell that liar that I’m looking for small victories now. Little mole hills of overcoming and baby steps of progression. I move away from his holey-voice and I know. I know I know I know that I’m victorious in Jesus.

This refining life is slow and steady work, and while I’m all for slowness and I love His steadiness, this long-enduring walk is death to me at times. As it should be.

Looking for small victories helps me inch along. Here are a  few inches I’ve noticed:

• I looked through an entire homeschool catalog and only marked 2 things that caught my grass-is-always-greener eye. Two things! And I eventually tossed the catalog in the recycling and ordered nothing. I guess that after 13 years of this I’m finally overcoming the need to try every new thing.
• I took my daughters to the craft store and bought nothing. No. Thing. I spent 45 minutes looking at all the amazing-things-I-could-do and walked away just fine and content.
• I refused dessert. Oh yes. That feat of all feats.

These were small,  overcoming-my-flesh type things.  I have bigger issues to get over, yes. But small victories surely strengthen us for the bigger ones to come, and I have to rejoice and build brick upon tiny brick, filling in the holes with Jesus and not just covering them.

Mommy fails. Jesus doesn’t.

Sin is that irritating kid that comes along to knock down your tower, just because. Victory is building again, Right. In. His. Face.

Linking up with The Better Mom, Grace Laced Mondays, Playdates with God, The Mom Initiative, Soli Deo Gloria, and Titus 2sdays.

When You Need a Walk Break

Posted in Parenting | 11 comments

One million things cry out for your attention today.

Another billion quietly lurk in the shadows, waiting for their opportunity to pounce, waiting for your resolve to lapse for just a moment.

And you already know this, but you will never meet everyone’s needs once-and-for-all.  You will never truly finish your to-do list, never run out of errands, never get “enough” housework done,  and unless your family stops wearing clothes and eating food, you’ll never completely be caught up.

At some point today you will have to throw in the proverbial towel (thus making more laundry) and go to bed, because what’s left to be done will still be there in the morning.

Sorry.

It’s true for everyone.  Moms, dads, singles, even our kids can feel the weight of work pushing down on their shoulders.

It’s crazy and it blows my dreams right out of the American waters, but even retired people tell me that they are swamped.

There’s no magic remedy for all the busy-ness.  You can read all the books and practice all the coping-techniques, but life is work and even our vacations can drain us.

All I can think of is Colossians 1:10 -

that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; – {Col 1:10 NKJV}

Walk worthy of the Lord. If life feels like a marathon, realize that lots of people take walk breaks.  There’s no shame in slowing down, just keep walking.  Look for the aid station, have some water, and resolve to keep going, albeit slower than you’d like.  Grab some encouragement because there are others who are walking, too.

Walk worthy by slowing down enough to fight off discouragement and bad attitudes, by checking your motives and gaining perspective.

Fully pleasing Him. Which is just mind-blowing, and impossible without faith (Heb. 11:6). It’s not our efforts, but His, that are pleasing to the Father. Not our to-do list or our spotless house or genius kids or exhausted service. We are already pleasing to Him if we are in Christ.

So chill.

Being fruitful in every good work. Like folding that laundry, reading that story, working that job, making that phone call. Every work you are called to today can be a good work if done for His glory. The work of a faithful servant is always glory to God.

Increasing in the knowledge of God. Because He’s relational and He made us in that same way, and all of our knowledge counts-for-nothing if He’s not the center of it.

I don’t think that when Paul said he could “do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, that he meant that he would do all things. Pretty sure he had to prioritize and delegate and let go of some things he would have liked to do, in order to do the things God was strengthening him for.

You and I are no different, and if we’re going to walk worthy we also have to walk light, lighten our loads and let go of some things.

Like trying to be everything to everyone. 

Let your kids see today that you are one person, but Jesus is everything and everywhere for everyone.

Linking up with The Better Mom, Grace Laced Mondays, Playdates with God, The Mom Initiative, and Titus 2sdays.

Five Minute Friday: Opportunity

Posted in Five Minute Friday | 0 comments

It’s Friday and five minutes of mad and scattered writing is back. Are back? Whatever. Today is the day we don’t edit, just write. If you are new to Five Minute Friday, check out Lisa-Jo’s post about it here. Then join us with your timer and the one-word prompt:

OPPORTUNITY.

Sometimes it comes and it’s not what you wanted. Not the chance you hoped for or the luck you wished for.

It’s the opportunity to grow. Maybe your mother always spoke to you in terms like that, saying how hard times are for growth and how struggle makes us stronger. Or maybe it was your gym teacher that said that.

But it’s true. Trials, struggles, challenges. They grow you more than ease. They shake you out of stupor and force you on, like a shove in the back.

The opportunity comes to seek Him in a new and specific way. You can now read the Word with struggle instead of complacency and duty, and you find Him again.

As if he was ever gone from you?

This thing, this dream-turning-out-differently, is your opportunity and your new start and there is no such thing as chance or luck.

So take it. The dream has changed and you have to wake up your sleeping-self. It’s just what you need, really. Just the jolt your tired faith needed to let Him be alive again.

The Word-made-flesh had died to you and now He’s risen because you needed Him. He waited and now the earth thunders because finally, the opportunity, the cry and the seeking have all lined up. He’s coming because you called. {Psalm 18, with goose bumps}.

Welcome, struggles. We’re glad you’re here.

When You’re a Stranger in a Strange Land

Posted in Perspective | 1 comment

My words are caught in the back of my throat because there’s not really much more that needs to be said, so I try to stop them. What I really want is to just cry in the middle of their town, to just sit there and hold weeping mothers and scared children.

I want them to know that this grieves You.

Sometimes all the answers I have are inadequate. I am frustrated, because times like this seem like fuel for unbelief and all Your mockers gather to point and they think tragedy is one more disproof, one more reason not to see You.

We all want answers and reasons and 3 steps to prevent it, but Lord, this world is evil. Lord, this fall of man has been such a long descent. We want you to come now.

There are no disillusions left in me of making a heaven on earth, Lord. I get it. This strange place is not home, this is not happy-ever-after and your-best-life-now. And You know how the cynic in me struggles, how anger and exasperation have to be pushed down. But use this in me, Lord, to remind me of Home.

Lord, I pray You’d keep me broken and soft and protect me, protect us all, from a depressed love. When there is no answer and no solution, let us love the ones we’re with. Let us love them more because hate has increased in this world and the only way to defeat it is to love it out. Even though I want to lock up every suspicious character, or stay locked up in my own suspicious character. Help me to love.

Forgive me for complaining about wet beds and long lessons. Thank You for every mundane and frustrating task, for a noisy house and overflowing laundry. Thank You for giving hope and for loving the children.

I leave justice to You, Lord. I join with thousands, with millions through the ages, who remind You with loud voices and quiet tears to bring it. Bring justice. Bring peace on earth. Bring the Right to all our wrongs. We are messed up and messing up and all this world is ready for judgement. Thank You, Jesus, for being my righteousness.

 

He shall judge the world in righteousness, And He shall administer judgment for the peoples in uprightness.
The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, A refuge in times of trouble. – {Psa 9:8-9 NKJV}

Linking up with Emily and Emily.

When Your Silence Needs to be Louder {Five Minute Friday:Quiet}

Posted in Five Minute Friday | 3 comments

He had said that I shouldn’t take this for granted, the fact that we are family and he loves me and I love Jesus.

What he meant, what I heard from the most quiet man, was that I should be quiet.  Stop talking about faith and God and Truth.

Quiet is easy for me.

I prefer quiet corners and early morning stillness and peaceful-easy-feelings.

I thrive on peace-making and not causing a stir.

But the kind of quiet he wants is a lie. The heavens declare, the rocks cry out, and the little ones, my own precious children, can’t be silenced about nose-on-your-face Truth.

So it’s a noisy, deafening quiet – this chasm between us. Just a shaky rope bridge of relation.

I love him with all filial affection but not with the silence he wants.  Not with stuffed glory or muted praise. I will love loud, though I cherish quiet.  I will be uncomfortable and I won’t fill the chasm with feeble pleasantries.

Because, much as I love quiet, some things are worth shouting.

{This is another Five Minute Friday post, and the prompt is: Quiet.  What can you come up with in five unedited minutes? Click the link over to Lisa-Jo’s and join us!}