Romans 1 and 2 Has Something for Everyone

06 Monday Jul 2015

Tags

Condemnation, Gospel, Homosexuality, Judging, Paul, Romans 1, Romans 2, self-righteousness, Sin, Something for Everyone, Supreme Court Ruling

It has been my intention on this blog to stay away from controversy for the sake of controversy and simply focus on encouraging my sisters in Christ to love the Lord, obey Him, think biblically, and live for His glory wherever He has placed them.

And so when my newsfeed exploded with hysteria last week after the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, while I made a few thoughtful posts about it (and quickly deactivated my Facebook account in order to avoid all the mess for a while), I thought I’d just not bring it up on the blog. Let this be a more peaceful place. An encouraging place without all the fuss.

And while I still want this blog to be a place of encouragement and peace, it has occurred to me that sometimes the most needful encouragement meets us in the place where we are most troubled and confused by the world around us.

Tackling Romans chapter one on this blog wasn’t on my agenda at all until I saw that, as I was about to start a new Bible-read-through plan this July, the first two readings just happened to be from two of the most hotly-contested passages of our day: Romans 1-2 and Genesis 1-3. Huh, that’s timely, I thought.

And so, with the boxing match of current public discourse as a backdrop, I have been meditating on one of the very passages at the heart of the debate being had among professing Christians: What is Romans chapter one talking about? Are homosexual acts sinful? Or are they permissible within “loving, committed relationships”? And what of the warning to those who judge in chapter two? Is there any room for judgment at all?

The Line-Up

What I have seen hashed-out online lately is a match between two very different interpretations. In the Left Corner we have the more recently-developed view that Paul had in mind some kind of abusive relationships that were common in his day but which are foreign to the way most people practice homosexuality today. Along with this often comes the assertion that the whole passage is focused primarily on idolatry and not the list of behaviors themselves. After all, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” I mean, it even has an “Amen” after it. This, they would say, was Paul’s main concern, not some behavioral by-product or object of idolatry. And besides, even if you read this passage as though homosexual acts are sinful, the opening paragraph of chapter two says, “You have no excuse, you who pass judgment… You who judge practice the same things.” So come off it already! Don’t judge!

In the Right Corner we see the old “tried-and-true” and “red, white, and blue” conservatives who read chapter one and see only homosexuality and its condemnation. Just one reading of this passage ought to deliver a knock-out punch, they figure, but alas, people have come up with all kinds of ways of doing interpretational gymnastics to avoid the obvious conclusion that homosexuality is sinful, because: a) “professing to be wise, they became fools” and b) “God gave them over to a depraved mind.” And let’s not forget this jab at the end of chapter one: “Though they know that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only practice them but give hearty approval to those who do.”

But is that the knock-out punch?

Sadly, when we debate issues such as this one, regardless of which “side” we’re on, we tend to resort to proof-texting, even when looking at and mostly sticking to a single passage (such as Romans 1) with our opponents. I believe that if we let Paul speak for himself, in his own context, we will have a much greater understanding of the situation and see that there have indeed been some blows landed by both sides, while the would-be knock-out punch, as far as Romans is considered, has been largely ignored.

Round One

Enter Paul, the referee of this boxing match. As we get started in this first round, or chapter, we’ll begin to see what he has to say, backing up to 1:15 to really get a feel for the context:

So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Our competitors on the Right and Left are likely both nodding along with a verse that they have enjoyed memorizing out-of-context sometime in their youth: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel!” Never mind the details, I’m not ashamed! Woot! Go Jesus! Yay, gospel!

I think these verses are extremely important—not just as a quick shot for boosting our morale in standing up for our faith, but for understanding where Paul is going in his unfolding discussion. So please, keep this bookend in mind. The details here are invaluable: Paul is about to “preach the gospel” to his Roman audience, and he says this gospel is for all people—“to the Jew first and also to the Greek”. Suffice it to say that Paul has in mind an audience of both Roman Jews and Roman gentiles, and we can gather from verse 7, which directs the letter’s greeting to “the beloved of God in Rome, called as saints”, that these are believers in Jesus. Hold on to that fact as we move forward.

Now on to verses 17-20:

For in it [that is, the gospel], the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made…

Chew on this for a moment. Paul says that the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel, and His wrath is revealed from heaven. This passage is getting pretty legit. Righteousness and wrath. Seen in the Good News and the Creation. This is serious business. Not your typical lovey-dovey, feel-good message. This should get our attention. Paul is building up to something big, don’t you think?

…so that they are without excuse.

Whoa. No room for excuses? This is getting serious! But who are “they”??? To answer this question, we have to look back to verse 18, where we see who this pronoun “they” is referring to: “men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness”. So it would seem that the plain reading here is that the people who “suppress the truth of God” (which from this passage includes God’s “invisible attributes” and “eternal power and divine nature”), and who practice “unrighteousness and ungodliness,” are without excuse because of what God has revealed to them in His creation.

Now step back for a moment to consider Paul’s audience. Who are they again? Roman Jews and gentiles who have decided to follow Christ, right? So who’s cheering at this point? That’s right, the Jews. “Here, here! You tell them, Paul! We have always known the God who created everything, while the Greeks have long suppressed the truth in their wickedness! Totally tracking with you, Paul!” The gentiles, hopefully most of whom have left behind their former paganism and accompanying life of sin, may be feeling a sting of judgment, perhaps regret for where they’ve been, perhaps also, though, joy for having been rescued from the wrath of God mentioned here. Either way, both groups are attentive, the Jews to hear more affirmations of what they already believe, and the gentiles to find out, “Just where are we going with this?”

Next Paul expounds further on “they” in verse 21 through the end of the chapter one:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise they became fools…

Interjection from the Right Corner: “There it is! They think they’re so wise, but they’re fools!”

Left Corner: “Oh, yeah, you speak of yourselves. Just wait for it…”

Back to Paul:

and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

Left Corner: “Told you this was about idolatry! Who’s foolish now? Take that!”

Right Corner: “Of course it’s talking about idolatry right now, but that’s just to show the root cause of what’s coming. Wait for it…”

Paul:

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

Right Corner: “See? We’re talking sexual immorality now!”

Paul:

For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Left Corner: “Like I said before, idolatry. BOOM!”

Paul:

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

Right Corner: “God gave them over to homosexuality—which Paul calls ‘degrading passions’—because of their idolatry! Don’t you see it? This kind of defiling behavior is a judgment from God. Not to mention the fact that AIDS and other STDs are alluded to in this passage…” SMACK!

Left Corner: “You’re just reading your conservative opinions into this passage. If we look at the historical context, ‘degrading passions’ and ‘indecent acts’ are clearly referring to something other than the loving, committed relationships that gays desire to have today. Plus, the textual context is still idolatry. Here it comes…”

Paul:

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer…

Left Corner: “See? Told ya so.” BAM!

Right Corner: Eye-roll. “That didn’t even hurt.”

Paul:

…God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;

Left Corner: “Yeah, I know a few people like that.” Glares at the Right Corner.

Right Corner: “Yeah, I do, too.” Glares at the Left Corner.

Paul:

and although they know the ordinances of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.

Right Corner: BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! “Don’t you see? Homosexual sins are worthy of death! And clearly we are not to ‘give hearty approval’ to them! This is a no-brainer!”

Left Corner: “What about that list Paul just ripped through in verses 29-31? Oh, did you forget about those sins?” UPPERCUT!

Whew! That’s quite a fight! Forgive me for allowing the passage to get highjacked by those debaters!

Please permit me for a moment to remind you that we are not the only audience to have heard this message. Remember our friends back in Rome? The Jewish and gentile believers Paul was writing to? They’ve been listening to Paul, too. The Jews have interjected a few times with “Three cheers!” and “Amen!” to all that Paul has said thus far. The gentile believers, while some have been freed from their past idolatry and sin, are sitting somewhat uncomfortably in their seats as they hear the quick, confident Amens coming from their Jewish brethren. Perhaps they’re thinking, “Thanks, Paul, this is really helping them to accept me in the Lord. Now they’ll never let me get over my past, nor will they ever stop insisting on my becoming Jewish. Sheesh.”

We need to remember for a moment that Paul wasn’t writing directly to our current political situation (nor, dare I say as a student of history, to a question of whether or not homosexual acts are permissible as long as we call them “loving and committed”). The Scriptures are, of course, timeless, but they were written in time to a particular audience with particular needs. So while they do have application to our lives, and indeed our every situation, we must take care that we do not merely use them to make a point, but search them out to understand what God is saying to His people. So, without further adieu, let’s move on to round, I mean, chapter two.

Round Two

Here’s how Paul kicks off the second chapter:

Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment…

The Jewish believers in Paul’s audience must now be thinking, “Wait, what?” I suspect some in the Right Corner are thinking the same thing. The Left, of course, knew this was coming because it’s one of their favorite proof texts in this passage.

Paul keeps it coming through verse 3:

…for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

Whoa, them’s fightin’ words. The Jewish Romans might be thinking now, “What’s going on? In chapter one it looked like Paul was on our side.” Ah, but Paul isn’t on anyone’s side. He is speaking forth the word of God. He has a purpose for all that he wrote in chapter one, but it wasn’t the purpose that you had, folks. Those who stand only to condemn others with what is written in chapter one have fallen for the bait Paul set for his Jewish listeners. Did you fall for it, too?

Those in the Left Corner feel pretty victorious at this point: “Told ya. You have no right to judge, you hypocrites!”

What’s this? Has the Left landed the knock-out blow?

Hardly. We aren’t even there yet.

If Paul’s purpose for writing chapter one wasn’t merely to decry the sins listed therein (though it does, in fact, decry them—all of them), then what is his purpose? What is he getting at?

This is where I think today’s discussion of this passage usually falls short. Both sides feel satisfied with their own “punches” even if the other side doesn’t feel that any were landed on them. Both usually walk away a little miffed but also a little more indignant, all the while missing the real gold to be mined in Romans. Instead of meditating on the word, they walk away rehearsing their punches.

And truth be told, both sides did land some legitimate punches. The problem is that neither side stops long enough to listen to Paul because they are far too busy using his words for their own purpose. Much, perhaps, like the Jews and Greeks in Rome.

Some less noble-minded Romans in Paul’s audience might have liked this sudden turn from talking about them (past or present) to talking about the Jews. Instead of hearing Paul’s rebuke of idolatry, immorality, and unrighteous attitudes and actions as it applied to them, they are now taking that passage and applying it to their competitors. Thus, as this letter is being read aloud in the ancient city of Rome, the hostility in the church there continues…

Is this Paul’s design? Is he trying to pit these two groups against each other? To make one group mighty uncomfortable and then make the other completely furious? What is he getting at?

Herein lies the problem with ending our discussion of Romans chapter one somewhere in chapter two. Most of the time, we’ll argue about what it means when Paul says, “you who judge practice the same things” and “Will you escape the judgment of God?” Maybe someone will even point out that “the kindness of God leads you to repentance” from 2:4. But we certainly don’t take our debate into the heart of Paul’s case against the Jews in the rest of chapter two—that would be totally off-topic, wouldn’t it?—so we miss much of their condemnation and the lessons to be learned from it, such as in verse 12: “For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law” (because, of course, chapter one established that these were “without excuse”), “and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law” (this would be what Paul introduced in 2:1-3); “for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” Or perhaps in verses 21-24: “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ just as it is written.”

Ouch.

But this isn’t it yet. We haven’t quite gotten to the knock-out punch. But we’re close. So very close. Hang with me.

You see, wrangling about Paul’s words, drawing our own conclusions without hearing his conclusion isn’t doing justice to the scriptures.

So just tell us! What is his conclusion? I’m glad you asked.

Round Three

Let us begin Round Three. That is, let us look at chapter three, where Paul concludes this first, very foundational portion of his message to the Romans.

At first Paul consoles the freshly beaten-down Jews: “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what benefit is circumcision? Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God…” And he asserts in 3:3-8 that, though the unrighteousness of their ancestry and even their own current sorry state may give opportunity for God’s righteousness to be demonstrated, their unrighteousness is still unrighteousness, and God is still just in His judgment.

Now here comes the kicker in verse 9:

What then? Are we [Jews] better than they [the Greeks]? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin…

Did you catch that? Paul just told us what he accomplished in both chapters one and two. This is hugely important if we are to interpret these passages as they were intended. “We have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” That’s it. That’s the knock-out punch. All the comments about Paul’s judgment of idolatry? True. All the comments about the sinfulness and shame of homosexual lust and acts? True. The insistence that Paul was only speaking of abusive, promiscuous, or idolatrous homosexual acts? Well, that one needs to be called what it is: rubbish. And historically and intellectually dishonest. But let’s continue: The accusation that many of us all-too-easily gloss over the list of sins in 1:29-31 that also come from being “given over”? True. The assertion that all who practice these things will be judged? True—whether we were the ones giving “hearty approval” or the ones speaking out against them. Paul’s argument that merely teaching what is right and having a religious heritage will not rescue you on Judgment Day? True.

Here is something very important we need to realize: neither “side” has landed the knock-out punch. Only Paul has. And he’s landed it on all of us. The title of this article is “Romans 1 and 2 Has Something for Everyone” for a very specific reason. There is only one thing that Paul gives to all of us in these first two, and even two-and-a-half chapters. Have you figured out what it is yet? That’s right. It’s condemnation.

Paul opens his letter to the Romans, a likely-divided group of Jewish and Greek believers, by leveling the playing field so that he can deliver the good news, the gospel of salvation which is for all people.

So as we engage on “issues”, let’s not lose sight of the much, much bigger picture: The truth that Paul wanted to drive home in order to calm the bickering among God’s people. The truth that he labored so carefully and logically and diligently to deliver so that we would, all of us, see our desperate need for redemption.

And so, in the closing remarks of Round Three (Romans 3:10-31), Paul ties together this condemnation with the believer’s new standing in Christ, bringing peace between two groups of people whose previous dealings have also been described by Paul in Ephesians as “enmity”:

’There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one’. … Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness… so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. …Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.

Let all of that sink it. Re-read it if need be. That is where Paul has been heading all along.

Did you catch some wording in there that reminded you of our first bookend back in chapter one? “The righteousness of God has been manifested…”, “even the righteousness of God through faith…”, and “to demonstrate His righteousness”? What has Paul done with man-the-creature’s righteousness? He has abolished it. The immoral gentiles are called unrighteous, ungodly, truth-suppressors, fools, dishonored, indecent, in error, of depraved mind. But the would-be righteous Jews, the only people on earth who had been entrusted with the Law of God, are likewise called out for practicing the same things, being stubborn, unrighteous, unrepentant, storing-up-wrath, selfishly ambitious, disobedient, the cause of God’s name being blasphemed. The only righteousness upheld is God’s. In fact, there should be no mistaking it: the only righteousness to be found is God’s.

Knocked Senseless to Become Sensible

Now that we’re all laid out on the floor of the boxing ring with our eyes looking above (where they should be), let’s go ahead and swing full-circle and again discuss how any of this is relevant on a Christian woman’s blog. Like I said, my goal is to encourage my sisters in Christ to glorify God in all they do, and a part of that includes thinking biblically. While this Supreme Court ruling may not affect many of us directly, it has sparked a lot of discussion within the church–and within our own families. So most of us have been thinking at least somewhat about this topic. Many of us have either been celebrating sin or loudly protesting while ignoring our responsibility to vigilantly hate and put to death our own sins and to carefully and rightly divide God’s word.

There are, to be sure, many saints who are older and wiser than I am who have known these truths and been living them for much longer than I have been alive. I hope this has simply been a refreshing and encouraging read to you, and I welcome your wisdom to be added to this discussion.

But for those of us still defending ourselves, it is my prayer that we would have an ear to hear what Paul says to all of us. Refusing to repent of our own sin or way of thinking about sin is a grave mistake, regardless of what side we would have most-closely identified with at the start of this discussion.

I hope this article has challenged you to see God’s word for what it is, and not only through the lens of our current situation, not only as a tool for proving a point. Every passage of God’s word is powerfully instructive to every one of us. Romans chapter one (and two) is not just meant for “sinners”.

Well, I suppose it is, so long as we all recognize ourselves in that category.

As a wife and mother, I have found it helpful to examine this passage and to mine out its treasures so that I can renew my mind in God’s word rather than continue to allow it to be conformed to the “world” of opinion that bombards my newsfeed (whether that be a liberal or conservative “world”—God’s word is higher than those distinctions and their feeble boundaries). A fresh understanding of God’s truth, as it applies both to homosexual sin and my own pet sins and blind spots (be it my cursory glossing-over of the list in chapter one, or being unloving or unmerciful towards my husband and children), helps me to see that the only hope for “them” is the only hope for me—the glorious, infinite righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And it reminds me that while there is a universal condemnation of sin—and even a universal condemnation of sinners—there is also a universal declaration of love in the gospel—“For God so loved the world” and “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”—which is equally capable of taking repentant sinners, both of the outwardly-idolatrous-and-immoral sort and of the self-idolatrous-and-righteous sort, and making both into something completely new.

Hallelujah.

*Though this article is rather long, it is not an exhaustive treatment of this subject (it is not intended to be). So if you would like to take another look at this passage and read a perhaps more straight-forward and less interrupted-by-a-boxing-match handling of today’s common arguments, may I also suggest this article: https://carm.org/does-romans-1-condemn-homosexuality *

Things I’ve Learned in Our First Year of Homeschooling

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home Education

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

education, expectations, faithfulness, homeschooling, math, sanctification

My husband and I each knew we’d homeschool our kids before we ever met and married. And while in one sense you could say we’ve been “homeschooling” all along since our first child was born, it has only been this past year—when my oldest turned five—that we have “officially” begun to get our feet wet with more intentional schooling. Having looked forward to teaching my children at home for many years, I felt quite confident and had certain high expectations. Below, I reveal how it all has panned out.

Things I’ve Learned in Our First Year of Homeschooling:

Homeschooling is both easy and hard. It is both delightfully fun and, at times, painfully stressful. It seems it is like any other worthwhile pursuit. It takes time. It takes work. Blood, sweat, and tears. And prayer—lots and lots of prayer. I knew it would be work, but now I know it is work!

Daily discipline is probably the hardest thing. We don’t exactly at this point have our days perfectly laid out. I don’t even have our meals ready at the same time each day (working on that)! But this work is worth it, and I know the discipline will come in time, with practice. That’s essentially what discipline is, isn’t it? Practicing the right things over and over and over. Training (myself, in this case) to do what is right and to do it at the appropriate time. I’m learning right along with my kids.

I have so much more respect and appreciation for classroom teachers. I volunteered to teach a Spanish class for our homeschool co-op. I only had a class of about 14 children, but they ranged in age from five to nine years old. I can now sympathize with my public and private school counterparts on a few things:

1) Lesson planning takes a lot of work! I only had to plan five 45-minute classes—and they were spread out with at least a week between each one—but it was still a lot of work! I’m sure it gets easier to find a rhythm once you’ve done the same class for more than one year and have already done much of the preliminary planning, but I now have a small taste of just what goes into preparing for a class (minus any regulatory paperwork—you have my deepest sympathy, there).

2) Even when you think you’ve made the perfect plans, kids can highjack your attention and throw you all kinds of wrenches! Not the least of which is simply saying straight-up, “I really don’t want to do that.” I know how to handle those kinds of situations with my own children, but in a classroom setting?!?!? Which leads me to…

3) Maintaining discipline and order in the classroom is extremely challenging. I’m not sure if the fact that these were young homeschooled kids made this aspect more or less difficult.

4) Maintaining the interest and attention of students, especially when each one may be at a different level of development or understanding, is quite difficult.

5) It is truly a delight when you hear from parents that a kid loved your class, has been practicing what he’s learned, thinks you’re the best teacher ever, and can’t wait for the next class! Yeah, so that one isn’t a negative. That’s what every teacher wants to hear! And it makes those moments when you want to pull your hair out worth it. Whether it’s in a public, private, or co-op classroom, consider this my hat tip to you, my teacher friends.

Sometimes my personality and preferences will clash with what my child needs. I was excited at first about the math curriculum we had chosen because it offered so much hands-on learning, which both my husband and I thought was important for forming a basic understanding of math and how it works. What I didn’t expect was the semi-scripted lessons telling me I had to cut this out, make copies of that, and grab a small pile of different manipulatives or stacks of cards each day to accompany our lessons. Nor did I foresee the fact that my desire for efficiency would struggle with the concept of doing something with manipulatives just for the sake of “experiencing” math. Yes, I get that the purpose is for the child to have a greater understanding, but is it really necessary for him to make nearly forty “hundreds cards” that he will only use once?

The concepts and strategies taught in this curriculum are different than I learned growing up, and they feel a bit extraneous at times. I’m a bit more of a math traditionalist, and I liked math just fine that way. Numbers and symbols are concrete to me, so working with abstractions early on just seemed insane. But, I’m learning that…

Math is more than facts and rules. And it’s more fun this way. The goal, I have slowly come to realize, is to learn the concepts and the facts while simultaneously gaining a deep understanding and appreciation for them—and we’re even learning to do more mental math than I’m used to doing as an adult! So I now see the value in all the “extras” that fill up our lessons.

It is an opportunity to die to myself in service to another. I’m not particularly patient, and I like to get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time possible. So the lessons still sometimes annoy me. And while homeschooling certainly affords me the freedom to build or find a curriculum that works for both my teaching style and my child’s learning style (read: I don’t HAVE to stick with this curriculum!), I am also responsible to do what I truly feel is best for my child, even if it means I have to swallow my pride, deny my own tendency toward laziness and high efficiency (the two go together, don’t they?), and press on with a program that my child enjoys and which is indeed challenging him to think in new ways and make his own discoveries as he explores the world of mathematics.

I can’t wait until we can switch over to Saxon 54 (our plan all along) and my boys can work independently on math in a more disciplined and traditional way, but what we’re doing now will give them a great grasp on the how and why of math, which I think will be a great foundation on which to build! The struggle is worth it. I can learn to adapt for their sakes.

A little stick-to-it-iveness goes a long way. I started and stopped this particular math curriculum twice already (“trying” it the first two times involved one two-week stint in the beginning before giving up on part-whole circles, and another four-day “trial” five months later). This third time around, I’m motivated by the fact that if we’d just paused at part-whole circles, given it a week to be mastered, and then jumped right back in, we’d be on to the next grade-level by now.

My attitude changes everything. I let on right away my disgust for the cheesy little kids songs used to teach some early math equations, how to write numbers, etc. For the record, I’m not a fan of most little kids’ music. I found that very quickly my children shared my sentiment, and we gave up on the songs. When the program introduced part-whole circles before introducing written math equations, I stiffened up, made a bewildered face, said, “What?!?”, and then my son didn’t like them either (and probably lost any interest in trying to figure them out). And this is why we threw in the towel the first time. I think my attitude made all the difference in the world.

Now, having reintroduced things a second and third time with a much better attitude, and having worked with my son to conquer part-whole circles (we did introduce equations first), he now comments on how much he loves part-whole circles (and now we all seem to love those cheesy math songs! Both my boys beg for me to put the cd on!). I set the tone. I can be the greatest help or the greatest hindrance to my child’s learning. Attitude is everything.

What I assumed would be the easiest subject turned out to be the most difficult. I’m not done with that math curriculum yet! Can you see that math has been my Achilles’ heel this year? I sure didn’t expect that when I started the year with a child who loved math and seemed to be pretty good at it! But neither of us had done a formal curriculum, so we each had quite the learning curve. That boy still loves math and is indeed good at it, but I have had to learn that just because he’s got a good mind for it doesn’t mean he will pick everything up on the first try (or even the second). He’s only five for crying out loud! The process is still line upon line, precept upon precept, a little here, a little there. My prideful expectation that my son would be a supernatural wiz kid in math and always understand everything the first time I introduced it to him had to be slammed down. Not because my son is any dummy, but because I was being the dummy! Math has been the hardest subject for me, not for him, because it has been the thing that has most upset my expectations. Praise God for upsetting my expectations!

Treating this as a practice year has been incredibly important for my sanity. My son’s birthday falls right on the cutoff date. He could have started kindergarten this year in the public schools, and if we were sending him there, we’d have signed the waiver to keep him home an extra year so that he’d be the oldest in his class rather than the youngest. So, that’s just what we did as homeschoolers—instead of filing an Intent to Homeschool form, we just filed our paperwork to waive kindergarten. But as far as I was concerned, we were starting kindergarten at home. So I jumped in with a great reading program, that math curriculum I have already loved on so much in this article, and a plan to read lots of good books together. While we’ve really had a successful year, and there was math learning going on in the five months after we initially dropped the curriculum (mostly learning and practicing addition and subtraction facts with dollar store workbooks—not a bad method, might I add), I still felt like I had cheated my son of so much more in math since I didn’t stick with the program. I wish I had just done it. Take a break where needed for extra practice, but then keep going. But I didn’t. And here we are starting up again in lesson twenty-something at the end of the school year. Never mind that it’s at an advanced kindergarten/traditional first grade level. Never mind that many kids would be starting kindergarten at five and half or nearly six years old—so the only reason I feel behind is because of where my son’s birthday falls relative to an arbitrary start date. I still felt like I was behind.

Then Nathaniel and I discussed what we should do with the paperwork this year. I had already been treating my son as a kindergartener in our homeschool group, even though we waived kindergarten as far as the state was concerned. We could file our first Intent to Homeschool form this summer with a kindergarten designation or a first grade designation. Our homeschool group wanted us to give them the same designation. So I was torn. But as we discussed it and as I heard from another mom who has all her babies in either July or August, she just always signed them up as the lowest grade level that fit their age. That way, they could go at their own pace, as far ahead as they needed to be, but if they weren’t advanced or were even a little slow in some areas, they could also proceed at their own pace without undue pressure. So we made the decision then and there to declare our son as starting kindergarten next year.

It’s such an arbitrary designation, really, but it has taken a huge weight off of my shoulders! Instead of feeling like I had to scrap any hopes of picking up where we left off with the math program because we were already too far behind, it freed me to evaluate the situation in terms of: What do I really think would be the best course of action so that my son will really get it when it comes to math? What will give him the best foundation? Taking the pressure off of me to keep up with some mythical standard I had set up for myself allowed me to focus on my child and take that pressure off of him as well. What a beautifully freeing thing!

Summer Break is there for a reason. I had originally thought we’d school year-round. I thought if we kept at it all year, then we could just take breaks whenever “life” happened throughout the year. And while that is a wonderful blessing of homeschooling, I have found in this our first year that, as we move into the summer months, “life” just tends to happen more often. There are more outdoor activities, swimming lessons, late family evenings, road trips to take, and home projects demanding our attention. So, even though we are somewhat continuing our more formal studies (math and reading, in particular), summer has broken up our routine of its own accord, and I am just going to roll with it and enjoy summer as a fun time to learn especially by doing, and by doing fun things together as a family. And I certainly don’t mind the down time beside the pool while the boys learn to swim. 😉

Even when life slows us down, we still have put in a lot of work this year. My oldest son has learned to read. My youngest has decided he knows how to read, too, but that’s another story. The boys have developed a love for science and history and telling stories and building their own enormous creations out of their train set and Legos and blocks and toilet paper rolls. We have enjoyed and memorized several poems and passages of scripture. We have settled into our math program and are enjoying it, firmly committed this time, and growing in our understanding together. We’ve gotten plugged in to our local homeschool group and have thoroughly enjoyed the new relationships it is providing. And, to whom it may concern, we have logged well over 180 days of school. Not bad for a “practice” run. 😉

How about you? What do you remember from your first year of homeschooling? And what lessons have you learned along the way since then? I’d love to hear from you!

A Time for Everything

20 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Living Faith

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Tags

childbirth, devotional, Ecclesiastes, seasons, Who is my neighbor?

As I type I am anxiously awaiting a phone call. A sweet friend of mine is expecting her firstborn son. Her due date has passed, and her usually intermittent contractions have been intensifying today. I have the incredible privilege of being on the “first-call” list, even (hopefully) getting to play a support role in the birthing process.

You’d think I was in the earliest stages of labor. My anticipation and excitement is through the roof, I’ve been busy today trying to focus on the ordinary things that need to be done (like laundry, the dishes, schooling, and food prep) while also scrambling to make sure my bag is packed for the hospital—with personal items I may need, lotions and massage therapy tools that may be useful during labor, snacks, a Bible, my journal, a notebook for keeping track of labor’s progress and hopefully soon baby’s stats.

Bags packed, I finally got a text saying they were in town walking to encourage things to move along a bit more quickly (apparently the going has been slow). Sigh. Ok. Not needed yet. Hang in there, Lauren. Don’t get too excited. This could still go on for a couple of days. Just move on with your day and be ready whenever the call comes.

It’s a beautiful day, so I decided to walk down our long drive way to check the mail. The boys were in bed for nap time, and I usually like to step outside at this time of day for some fresh air. The grass and ivy, ferns and flowers, trees and bushes are all so lush and bright with color. Spring is a beautiful time of year, reminding us of God’s promise of new life. What a wonderful time of year to have a baby!

As I walked down the driveway I saw that the large trashcan was at the curb. Yes, the trash truck had been by and now the can was empty. I’ll get to pull that back up to the house, I thought. It wasn’t a hard job, but something about the slight physical exertion required sounded perfect to me right now. It would give me an opportunity to exert some of my pent-up energy. As I drew closer to the mailbox and the dumpster, I took a look down the road to our next door neighbors’ house. We had collected their trash in our can so that we could help them out during the difficult time of trial they’re facing.

It suddenly struck me that I could be celebrating the birth of a precious newborn and comforting a grieving widow this week. I do not know what the future holds exactly, of course, but it is a possibility. Our next-door neighbor, George, was recently diagnosed with both lung and brain cancer. About a week and a half ago, his wife Carolyn had to drive him to the ER as he suffered a heart attack. Just this past Saturday, when we stopped by to check on them, we found out they had just returned home from an overnight visit to the hospital—the cancer in George’s lungs had metastasized and began causing internal bleeding that had to be dealt with immediately. Carolyn is weary but hopeful that the Lord will deliver them from this trial. Our prayer is that we can be a blessing to them, that the Lord would intervene on George’s behalf, and that most of all they would hope in the Lord no matter what happens.

And so I walked back up to the house, mail in one hand and the handle of the trashcan in the other, remembering how, about six years ago, and about this same time of year, Nathaniel and I felt many of these same emotions. We lived next-door to a woman named Evelyn. At about the same time I gained a husband, she had lost hers. And with her husband, she had lost the will to go on. I visited her from time to time. We’d sit and have a snack and talk, or I’d sit with her while she watched TV. It was a very hard decision for both her and her daughter when they finally sold the house she had shared for decades with her husband and moved her into a nursing home, but one bad fall when Evelyn was home by herself sealed that fate. I continued to visit her in her new home—and Nathaniel and I were glad to share the news with her—we were expecting our firstborn son. I had hoped Evelyn would get to meet him, but we told her goodbye in the nursing home a couple of months before he was born. Life and death. Rejoicing and grieving. I remember how stunned I was to experience them so close in time.

Once the trashcan was back in its proper place, I gazed at the irises that had already bloomed and withered next our front porch, and I considered how fleeting life is. How beautiful, but how fleeting. Like the flowers that spring up as the days grow warmer, but fade ever so quickly away. We enjoy their radiant beauty—a reminder of the creative splendor of our God—but soon they whither as the cycle of the seasons moves on.

So, too, does the cycle of life move on. It can be a bleak meditation to consider that just as life seems to really get going, we begin to realize that our parents are aging, our friends are aging—we are aging. And not only this, but we see that when one person dies, the rest of the world just keeps on going without them, the majority of people unaware that someone has died at all. Our own insignificance and mortality begins to stare us in the face, and we wonder, what’s the point? We’re here for such a short amount of time. Much like the Preacher of Ecclesiastes, we ask, Why do we go about our work or pleasure just to leave it to another? Our lives are so fleeting, a vapor. Where is the significance that I long for?

But oh, when I consider the creative beauty of God, and His purpose in ordaining the seasons—both the natural seasons of each year and the changing seasons of our lives. There is much beauty to behold. And its purpose is not merely to grant us some bit of pleasure here and now, as precious a gift as that is, but to point us to the true and lasting beauty that is the Lord Himself in all of His glory and perfections. As we ache for the changing of winter into spring, so too our hearts long for the eternal spring to one day relieve us of every dark and dreary winter. He has set eternity in our hearts. He is not far from each of us.

And so this mixed up time of anticipation—in which I both delight in the thought of a friend’s new baby and fear the impending death of a dear neighbor’s husband—I remember the wisdom God has given concerning such things:

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—

A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search and a time to give up as lost;
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear apart and a time to sew together;
A time to be silent and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate;
A time for war and a time for peace.

What profit is there to the worker from that in which he toils? I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves.

He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14

There is indeed a time for everything. Including that phone call. I suppose now I can take a deep breath and continue on with my day.

The Perfect Words

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by Lauren Scott in Living Faith

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Peace, The Perfect Words

Sometimes I find my mind won’t let go of a particular conversation. It keeps replaying in my head ad nauseum.

It was nearly six months ago. We had just met some folks and I so badly wanted to make a good first impression. I kept thinking ahead of time what I might say that would be kind, courteous, friendly, etc…the perfect words that would not be weird or awkward or otherwise scare off our potential new friends. But when the time came, I said something that didn’t come out the way I intended. And while I don’t think it really was a make-or-break kind of comment, it did make the situation a bit awkward, and in the aftermath I have thought numerous times how stupid of a comment it was and how I really goofed up the whole evening.

Being a perfectionist is hard sometimes, especially when you’re a perfectionist who loves language and precision but who fumbles so badly in real-life conversation (or at least I think I’ve bumbled badly…then again, that could just be the perfectionist in me talking).

So for some reason all of this resurfaced this morning, forcing me to eat my words yet again and relive the perceived shame and embarrassment of that moment. I sat on the couch wondering what hope there was for such a mess like me. One scripture came to mind: “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.” (Psalm 42:11) Yes, that was helpful. Hope in God. It’s the refrain I’ve been studying and which the Lord has been using to renew my heart in so many ways lately.

Yes. My words miss the mark. But God’s don’t. Hope in God.

Still, the weight was heavy.

After a few more moments of replayed conversation and renewed guilt, I remembered the words of the apostle James in the third chapter of his epistle: “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well.” (James 3:2) What a comfort that even amidst all of James’ rather strong exhortation to use our tongues wisely, comes this statement of reality: we all stumble when we speak.

If I sin I know I have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus the Son of God who died for me and now intercedes on my behalf. But sometimes I’m weighted down not with a particular sin but with yet another haunting failure to live up to my own expectations, and my own expectations can be a harsh taskmaster. Even so, God’s word has hope for me. Even putting sin aside, I am not perfect, not so suave and eloquent as I’d like to be, not so in control…but my Heavenly Father is.

“Why are you in despair, O my soul? …Hope in God!”

“We all stumble in many ways.”

It seems that at times God is much more understanding of my less-than-perfect condition than I am: “For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.” (Psalm 103:14)

My perfectionistic pride and imperfect performance may fling me down into despair, but God’s mercies are new every morning, and His grace lifts me up to new heights of love in His arms. And so my heart, troubled as it may sometimes be, can find rest and reassurance in the presence of my Savior. My words fall flat all the time. Only He has the perfect words—the words of life that speak truth, hope, and peace.

Even Receipts Can Tell a Story

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family

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I haven’t been writing much lately. The New Year has come and come hard and I’ve found myself spending copious amounts of time in the kitchen preparing nearly everything I eat from scratch in order to comply with the elimination/gut healing diet I’m on, I’ve jumped right back into schooling the boys with an added preschool curriculum on top of what we were already doing in the fall semester, and I’m trying to get caught up on finances so that I can crank out our taxes next month.

And when I say I’m trying to get caught up on finances, I mean I’m entering receipts that date back a full year. Yes, we track every purchase, and yes, I am that bad of a procrastinator in this area. I’m highly motivated to catch up now and stay on top of it from here on out, but for now I’m swimming up to my ears in receipts, statements, bills, and other miscellaneous papers.

As I was rolling along today through more receipts than I usually have the time to enter in one sitting, so much of 2014 flashed before my eyes. The big birthday parties we hosted this year–for Nathaniel’s 30th, the boys’ double birthday party, and my 30th birthday. All we really bought for these was food…but still, it adds up! Good thing we don’t have any “big” birthdays coming up in 2015. That’ll give our budget a rest.

Then there were the receipts for frivolous things like frappuccinos, clothes, impulse snacks on the go. You know, the kind of things that seem like a great idea at the time but later you wonder if they were necessary.

And there were about a hundred other such instances of entering receipts for groceries, gas, gifts, and all things necessary for fixing up our house which we bought in the Spring (I don’t so much have a receipt for that as I have a piece of paper that says it’s ours).

Those were much what you would expect. And then there was a series of receipts that made my heart skip a beat…and a knot form in the pit of my stomach. At first I couldn’t figure out why we’d spent a night in Little Rock back in February. Why did we both eat at the airport? Was Nathaniel traveling for business? Was I just there to pick him up or did we fly somewhere together? I didn’t think I had been on a plane since before our eldest son was born. At least not until…Oh. My Grandpa. Mi Abuelito. I had been in an airplane since then. When we flew to San Antonio for his funeral.

I had been thinking about him recently, thinking I need to double check the date he died and be sure to give my mom a call on that day and maybe send her a card ahead of time. Silly me, I might get the date mixed up, but I knew she wouldn’t.

Anyway, while my Grandpa and my Mom have been on my mind lately as the anniversary of his Home-going is getting close, I still wasn’t prepared for a pile of old receipts to walk me through the emotions of that trip. I didn’t expect receipts to tell such a moving story, to remind me of the sweet little old man who prayed for me, whose prayers were a part of God’s nudge for me to trust in Jesus, who wrote to me in Spanish, loved all things Mexican (especialmente la comida y cervezas), who loved adventure, and who loved Jesus and others.

I didn’t expect receipts to remind me of my mom’s labor of love: overseeing my Grandpa’s finances, paying his bills (I have a hunch she didn’t get so behind on his finances as I am on mine), making sure he was well taken care of, and making the five-hour drive to visit him as often as she possibly could. Her faith in the Lord through the grieving process, and the way her face beamed with joy as she read a passage of Scripture at his funeral–looking forward to the return of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead in Christ to life eternal–her light shined so bright, even while his was dimming.

This trip was the first time I’d been that far away from my precious children for any length of time. It’d have been over ten hours had we driven. So we flew. And thus the receipts from the airport restaurant and parking service that began this cascade of emotion for me just half an hour ago.

Even receipts can tell a story. I’m thankful that today mine have told a particularly good one.

My New Years’ Resolutions

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Lauren Scott in Living Faith

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Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil. Proverbs 3:5-7

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me. Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. … Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:3-16

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Matthew 6:33-34

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:30

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. 1 Corinthians 9:24

Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor. 1 Corinthians 10:24

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31

Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

…That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 5:1-2

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Ephesians 5:15-21

Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Colossians 3:2

And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3:12-17

Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men; knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Colossians 3:23-24

Encourage one another, and build one another up. … Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:11,16-18

Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:13

…Let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 1 Peter 3:4

To sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil, or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. 1 Peter 3:8-9

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence… 1 Peter 3:15

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. 1 Peter 4:12-13

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge; and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness; and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 1 John 3:18

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25

I have a feeling I will be “working” on these “resolutions” for the rest of my life.

The Grace of Grape Tomatoes

29 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Living Faith

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

clumsy me, devotional, grape tomatoes as a means of grace, grocery shopping, He Remains Faithful, Jesus, love, meditations, motherhood, weaknesses revealed

I was on my period. I hadn’t had enough to eat. It was about 11am, and I was at the grocery store with two little boys. We grabbed some bananas and carrots, and then I saw them: organic grape tomatoes. With the exception of one picky eater, my family enjoys snacking on these little red gems. So I picked up a package to examine it. Some of the tomatoes looked a bit wilted, so I placed it back on the temperature-controlled shelf and began to reach for another box.

And that’s when it happened. The box didn’t exactly like the way I had set it down, apparently, so in protest it decided to slowly lean forward until it fell to the ground, bouncing from cauliflower to lettuce to floor, where the box finally burst open, allowing over half of the precious fruit to scatter on the icky grocery store tile. Since there was no store clerk around to tell me, “Oh, it’s ok, I’ll take care of that,” I bent over and picked up every last tomato, closed up the box, and put it dutifully in my cart, with the words, “You break it you buy it,” spinning around in my head.

I thought at this point God was trying to teach me something: despite my being a bit of a grump about the whole thing, at least I did the right thing by picking them up and paying for the potentially damaged goods. But God wasn’t done with me yet, nor was He done with the grape tomatoes.

We meandered through the store, grabbing the things on my list (or was this the day that I went in for nothing more than peanut butter and made a list in my head as I shopped and ended up with half a basket full of groceries?), until we finally made it to the checkout line and then headed home.

My blood sugar levels were dropping by now and my muscles felt a bit weak. But we had to unload and put away the groceries before sitting down to eat lunch, so I got to it. I rearranged a few things in the fridge, managing to make room for the abundance of groceries I hadn’t planned on bringing home today (but when you’re out on Monday you might as well make the most of it and try to get what you need for the week so that by the time Thursday rolls around you can be at home doing something productive instead of having to go out to the store again, right?).

Then there they were, the last item to put away, those floor-germ-infested tomatoes. I figured I’d give them a preliminary rinsing off before putting them in the fridge using just water, until I thought better of it and pulled the vegetable cleaning spray out from under the sink. Spray, spray, spray. Toss, toss, toss. Rinse, rinse, rinse. That wasn’t so bad. Maybe I’ll just do this again before serving them so I feel confident that they’re clean.

And then it happened again. As I was turning toward the fridge, my limbs defied me and, after bumping into the refrigerator door, I dropped the box of tomatoes onto the floor…the kitchen floor that didn’t get cleaned last Friday like it was supposed to. And, sure enough, the box opened on impact and all those clean tomatoes went rolling on the floor, under the lip of the fridge, the oven, and the dishwasher.

I started to get angry. One of those less-than-justified “Why, God?!?” moments. But then I felt the tension in my clenched fists subside as I realized this was from His hand—not a curse, but an opportunity. An opportunity to see that I don’t have it all together. Not only am I not as physically in control as I’d like to be (hello, dropping the same box of tomatoes on the floor TWICE in the span of about 90 minutes), but neither do I really have things together emotionally or spiritually. I was ready to raise my fist at heaven, figuratively speaking, to whine and complain and throw a grown-up tantrum…over some tomatoes. Forget that I “did the right thing” in purchasing them at the store. I grumbled against the God of heaven. These tomatoes were simply a small chisel in the hand of a master craftsman, working to chip away at the hardened, bitter stone of my heart, in fact rebuking my self-righteousness by revealing to me that there was work to be done there at all.

On many occasions this kind of scrutiny, though private, would cause me to despair because I wasn’t living up to the perfect standard that I so desperately desire to meet. But in this instance, those tomatoes became a means of grace for me. As I washed them off again, with tears beginning to form in my eyes, I realized that Jesus came to save sinners. He came to die for sinners, to make them clean. And I am one. There is hope for me. There is grace for me, a sinner.

Like those tomatoes that needed washed yet again, so did I. What a joy that His gift of forgiveness, love, and cleansing is not given begrudgingly, as I grumbled at first to clean the tomatoes, but freely. In the very moment that I knew my sin and unworthiness, I also knew that “It is finished,” and I am redeemed, restored, and loved.

There are a lot more elaborate ways the Lord could choose to show me my sin and His love. But this simple little demonstration was sufficient to show that my attitude in such a small thing revealed big things about my heart. But “where sin abounded grace abounded all the more.” His mercy and grace are infinitely bigger than my sin. And so I thank God for the grace I found in an ornery package of grape tomatoes.

The Rich Young Ruler

28 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by Lauren Scott in Living Faith

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asking the wrong question, blessed are the poor in spirit, devotional, humility, Jesus, Let it go, Love God, Love Others, meditations, Rich Young Ruler, self-righteousness, that evasive Jesus

From Luke 18:18-30

Hearing that the great Teacher was in his neighborhood, a rich young man comes to Jesus asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Being a well-mannered man of high society, he begins this dialog politely by addressing Jesus as “Good teacher.”

Instead of commending him for his platitude, Jesus immediately recognizes the man as a flatterer.

“Why do you call Me good? There is no one who is good but God.” If this man calls Jesus good, whom the rich young ruler only sees as a mere man, a “good” teacher, Jesus can likely perceive that this man would be willing to call himself good. And that’s exactly where Jesus takes the discussion:

“You know the commandments…”

The young man could be beaming and hopeful at this point, “Yes, I have kept them from my youth!”

“What you lack is this: sell all your possessions, give to the poor, and come, follow Me.”

But the man goes away sad, because he owned much property. He’s just unwilling to let it go.

This rich young ruler came to Jesus asking what he could tack on to his self-professed squeaky-clean life in order to secure salvation for himself. Jesus pointed out to the man that it wasn’t something he could do, something he could add on, just one thing more for extra credit. What he lacked was the willingness to be lacking in possessions for the greater treasure of following Jesus—he was unwilling to let go.

Jesus basically told the guy, “He who does not forsake all to follow me cannot be my disciple.” “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.” “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”

Certainly the good deed of giving to the poor was a good and right goal that Jesus put before the man, but it was also a device to reveal the man’s heart—he had not, in fact, kept all the commandments. He’d blundered the two most important ones. He didn’t love God or the poor, he loved his honor and his riches. He didn’t have faith in God, he had faith in his own assumed “goodness”.

I wonder if the man went on in self-righteousness after that point, or if Jesus’ words eventually opened his eyes to see that he wasn’t so good after all.

I wonder if he clung even more tightly to his wealth, bearing the misery of an old miser to his grave, or if he finally did let it go, embracing instead life and joy and peace with God.

I wonder if we will recognize our own tendency to love our stuff more than God, more than our neighbor.

I wonder if we will take the blinders off and see our own spiritual poverty, despite what material riches we may possess, and trade it in for the true riches Jesus offers to those who are humble enough to see their need of Him.

Books Read from July 2012 to June 2013

13 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by Lauren Scott in Books, Home and Family

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children, devotional, Home and Family, Jesus, motherhood, parenting, Reading List

I have, for quite some time now, wanted to keep a record of the books I’ve read each year. What better place than on a blog? I started keeping track of this in 2012 in my day planner, but now here it is making its debut on the interwebs.

Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp Excellent overview of parenting and child-training according to biblical commands and principles. At the time I had a one- and three-year-old, so it was a good time to take a first pass at this book.

The Autobiography of George Mueller Incredible testimony to God’s grace and provision, not to mention a great example of faith and prayer. Must read.

The Hand of God by Alistair Begg This book was given to me by my youth pastor when I graduated high school. It’s a look at the life of Joseph, eleventh out of the twelve sons of Jacob (Israel), sold into slavery in Egypt, raised up from the dungeon by God to save his people and declare God’s good purposes in it all. It’s a Romans 8:28 kind of story. And one that I’ve read through twice now.

Managing God’s Money by Randy Alcorn Very thorough look at the Christian view of stewardship. Challenging our usual perspectives, freeing us to give generously and manage our money well so that we can use it wisely for God’s purposes (because, as the title suggests, it’s all God’s anyway). I only slightly disagree with the handling of the subject of debt, being that my husband and I have a conviction to never go into debt–even for a house.

Loving the Little Years by Rachel Jankovic I read this little gem of a parenting book twice that year. Encouraging. Hilarious. Spiritual heart-surgery for moms.

Lose Your Mummy Tummy by Julie Tupler Having a one-year-old at the time and recently discovering that my stomach muscles were not quite where they used to be, I picked up this book and have been doing the exercises (when I think of it) and have indeed significantly improved my condition.

Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot One year after giving birth to my second son, I had just gotten off of prednisone, and the darkest year of my life was finally giving way to somewhat brighter days, but the struggle for joy, vision, and stability continued. Elisabeth Elliot’s words in this devotional pointed me to tough, trusting stability in Christ and in Him alone, helping me to crawl out of my pit of depression. God bless Elisabeth Elliot.

The Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson Dealing with depression you can hardly see straight enough to motivate yourself to do anything, much less inspire your children as you care for and train them. This book by Sally Clarkson gives fresh perspective on motherhood, encouraging moms to give grace to their children, looking to the life of Jesus as our example.

Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon This would be a follow-up to Nourishing Traditions which I must have read the previous year. They promote properly prepared grains and legumes, whole foods, low sugar, and healthy fats (particularly coconut oil and cod liver oil) to aid weight loss and alleviate health problems. Good read, but many of the recipes are far fetched for my lifestyle.

Preschoolwise by Gary Ezzo Love ’em or hate ’em, I have read most of the Babywise books. I don’t necessarily endorse them, but have found them helpful in establishing order (generally more so with toddlers and older) and especially for the tools I can add to my child training toolbox (blanket time, anyone?).

The Pilgrim’s Regress by C S Lewis Listened to this as an audiobook. Fascinating exploration of ideologies that compete with a biblical worldview. The “regress” section of the book, however, is quite disappointingly short, but that is understandable since Lewis penned this book shortly after becoming a Christian himself. He couldn’t write what he didn’t yet know. 🙂

Oh, For Real! by Heavenly Homemakers’ Laura Coppinger This is a cookbook. And it is a wonderfully practical whole-foods cook book. Yes, I do read cookbooks. This one has a great bunch of introductory information and tips.

Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst As you may have noticed, there are a couple of cook books on this list. So you might safely assume I have a thing for food. And that explains the need for this book.

Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman I revisit this book regularly. It’s a great read every time, and a great resource when I need to refocus on one particular area of my life as wife, mom, homemaker–so much is covered in this book. It is a manual for life. I believe this was the second time I read it.

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry The follow-up distopian novel to Lowry’s The Giver. Nathaniel and I read this together on a road trip. I still need to find a copy of The Messenger to complete the series…

The Jesus StoryBook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones I have read this through I don’t know how many times with my boys. What a joy to cover the stories of the Bible from beginning to end, all with an eye to the main story of redemption through Jesus Christ. It is beautifully and whimsically illustrated. While I enjoy this book with my children, I do feel that at times it does a bit more interpretation than I would have liked, especially in the way it puts words into Jesus’ mouth that are not even real paraphrases of things He actually said. Creative license? Yes. Main message remains unchanged? True. But it is still an area in which I think we ought to exercise a bit more caution. That is all.