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Girl, You’ve Got a Problem (and so do I)

08 Saturday Jan 2022

Posted by in Living Faith

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This article continues the discussion on how we deal with sin, guilt, and shame. Find the first part of this series here.

In our world today (and perhaps in humanity in general) we tend to confuse results with character. We tend to admire the folks who are “making it” and shake our heads at those who don’t. This mode of judgment turns inward on ourselves, too.

Am I failing at what I set out to do? Am I feeling not-awesome? “I’m bad.”

Am I achieving success? Are things going great? “I’m amazing.”

We carry guilt and shame (or else self-justification and pride) over these self-assessments, often ignoring an objective moral standard in favor of our own or society’s ideas about “success” and what we should be, do, or achieve.

Success failure God's standard freedom sin problem

This became shockingly evident to me when I read the results of a Barna poll from 2012. When Christian women were asked to choose what they struggle with the most, they rather staggeringly cited the modern “sins” of disorganization (50%) and inefficiency (42%), with traditional biblical sins like anger, selfishness, envy, and lust ranking much, much lower.

For the majority of respondents, it would seem their self-evaluations are guided more by extra-biblical categories than by scripture.

This focus on failures that undermine our personal success rather than sins as defined by God means our emotional heap of guilt and shame is often clouded, confused, false, or misplaced. And it means our confidence is on rocky ground, as well.

It’s no wonder women-focused memes often try to pick us up out of our pit of despair by telling us we’re beautiful and amazing and enough. That we can do it. Just follow this five step plan.

But these memes operate in the same muddied realm as our misguided guilt and shame.

To really be free from the disorienting weight we carry, we need clarity not congratulations, true relief not trite reassurance.

Heaping praise on ourselves usually just creates further shame and dissonance when we inevitably fail again.

Clarity comes when we look to a higher court of opinion than the flighty world around us or our fickle heart within us.

We feel weighed down with guilt, shame, and anxiety. Then someone tries to talk to us about our sin, our moral failings. What?! “I’m beating myself up enough already, thankyouverymuch.” In the moment, it feels better to talk about our struggles in non-moral/non-sinful terms. We assume that to go in that direction is an attack on our person, a hindrance to our well-being and self-esteem.

But what we don’t realize is that the world and our own hearts are harsh and inconsistent taskmasters. And our heavenly Father, who calls us to a higher standard, also grants us mercy and compassion. And in Jesus, we see that our God, who “will not break a bruised reed,” calls the weary to come to Him for rest and to find that His “yoke is easy and [His] burden is light.” (See Isaiah 42:3, Matthew 12:20, and Matthew 11:28-30.)

You see, our God is specific enough about actual sin, actual spiritual and moral failing, that we can know right from wrong–what pleases Him and what doesn’t. His commands have much more to do with love and faithfulness than with getting results or being productive. God’s call to righteousness is very different from the world’s call to awesomeness. The world focuses on outcomes, but God is most concerned with the substance of our daily living.

By submitting to what God’s word says is right, we can see real sin and guilt more accurately and deal with it promptly, freeing our conscience from a lot of weight and confusion–and freeing us to pursue faithfulness while trusting the outcomes to God.

If we allow our general feelings of success and failure to rule, either fearing others’ or our own scrutinizing judgment rather than fearing God, we will find an ever-present cycle of self-exaltation and self-condemnation. A crazy cycle that doesn’t bring the peace that God intends when He calls us to humble ourselves, confessing and turning from sin, and resting with confidence in the righteous Savior Jesus.

Other posts in this series:

Sorting through Our Sin, Guilt, and Shame

Sorting through Our Sin, Guilt, and Shame–an Introduction and Invitation

02 Thursday Dec 2021

Posted by in Living Faith

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Ever felt weighed down with guilt and shame? Ever decided it was all your fault because you’re just the worst? Ever decided it was all a lie because you’re just too awesome to be down on yourself like that?

It’s easy to respond to the weight on our conscience with either total self-condemnation or total self-justification. But neither tends to help us see clearly. Both tend to muddy our vision. Both tend to miss the bigger picture.

sin guilt shame
Photo by Jou00e3o Cabral on Pexels.com

I’m working on a project that confronts our tendencies around sin, guilt, and shame. As I share some of those thoughts on this blog, I’d love to hear what you think. Here’s your first opportunity.

Self-condemnation and self-justification are two very natural responses to our experience of guilt and shame. And the guilt and shame that we feel may or may not be in response to sin. If we’re Christians, we know we’re to fight sin. But we may get wounded in the battle. The lines may get hard to see. The truth may be hard to feel.

Our battle with guilt and shame and the fight against sin are actually two sides of the same coin. It’s been well-said that “we must be killing sin or it will be killing us.” Sin brings consequences–to our selves, to our relationships, and especially our relationship with our Creator.

But perhaps an overlooked way sin kills is that it can heap guilt and shame on us without remedy. The enemy of our souls loves for Christians to be weighed down with sin…or with guilt over things that aren’t sin, so that we are tempted to despair and also so that we are paying attention to a decoy instead of the real enemy. Let’s explore this for a bit.

I hope I don’t have to convince you that feeling guilty over doing wrong is right. Feeling shame over unfaithfulness to God and others whom we may have betrayed makes sense.

But feeling guilty over not measuring up to a vague or non-moral standard isn’t necessarily right, and it may actually be wrong, weighing us down when we are meant to have joy and be free.

Feeling shame over merely personally embarrassing and non-moral situations, or as a habit developed under an abuser, is not right–or at least it isn’t right to hold on to it. There is a kind of shame that we don’t have to carry.

In any of these last two cases, if we are concerned with our perceived and misplaced guilt and shame, we may be blind to our actual sin, or we may launch headlong into some sinful response as a way of coping or grasping for control. By falling for the decoy, we can’t see our sin very well because we’re looking in the wrong direction. By falling for the decoy, we may use our misguided feelings as justification for actual sin in the future.

Again, Our battle with guilt and shame and the fight against sin are two sides of the same coin.

But if we have guilt and shame over non-sinful things, how do we deal with them? We know that we’re to go to the cross with our sin. But what do we do with our misguided feelings and merely human frailty?

In dying for our sin, Jesus didn’t leave us alone or unaided in our experience of guilt and shame. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He bore not only our sin but our shame on the cross. Do you think this was only a transaction for sin? His death certainly was a sacrifice for sin, but consider what Jesus endured in that process:

The accusation of blasphemy by the Jews (false accusations of guilt)

The humiliation and mockery by the Romans (a shameful experience)

Being stripped naked in public (a shameful experience)

Becoming weak so that a man was asked to carry His cross for Him (physical weakness and inability)

The insults of the convicts (false accusations of likely both guilt and shame)

The disciples’ disappointment that Jesus, who they thought would become King, was now being crucified as a criminal (the shame of disappointing others, though Jesus knew exactly what He was doing)

Being abandoned by almost all of His followers…and then by God the Father (the shame of abandonment and loneliness)

Suffering crucifixion (brutal and lethal public shame meant to intimidate onlookers)

Jesus died for our actual sins. But He also identified with our weaknesses and experienced guilt and shame that was not rightly His own. To be sure, He experienced these things without being defiled or deterred by them, without giving in to them or being brought to despair. But He did experience agony in the garden in anticipation of all of these things. He sweat drops of blood. He knows anxiety, too.

Dear sisters, the cross calls us to deal with our sin. To lay it down. To turn from it. The kindness of God leads to repentance, and that kindness is most definitively shown in the love of God demonstrated at the cross. Repentance isn’t a word that ought to conjure up mental images of an angry preacher. It ought to bring to our mind the sweet wooing of a lover: “Turn from all those things that won’t satisfy you and come away with Me.”

But the cross and kindness of God calls us to turn away not just from obvious sin, but from all the weight we carry, whether for sin or not. Repentance means primarily “a change of mind” or a “turning”. If we are carrying false guilt and misguided shame, we can bring those to the Savior as well.

Turn from being your own judge on these things. Recognize that Jesus knows what it means to bear guilt and shame that doesn’t belong to you. All your feelings of failure, whether they are based on sin or not, or some mixed up experience of sin-and-not-sin that you can’t pick apart–bring all of it to Jesus. He’s a great high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. Not just our moral failures–our weaknesses, our humanness. He knows. He understands. And He calls us to come.

This whole big, beautiful Creation was subjected to futility after the fall in the garden of Eden. No wonder we may feel like we fail even in instances where there isn’t an obvious sin to point to (or at least when one’s not on our radar).

I think it’s important to recognize that some of our feelings of failure are just part of the fall in general.

He has set eternity in our hearts, but death cuts our lives short. And we feel it. We feel that we won’t have time to accomplish all that we desire. And so on a given day, especially in a modern world that so preaches and values productivity, we feel the pain of not getting things done. Interruptions and weakness and distraction rob us of our ability to be “awesome” and do what we set out to do. And we feel that failure in much the same way as we feel moral shame. And so, interestingly, women report on surveys that they see their biggest struggles with sin are in their lack of productivity or organization. (More on this in a later post.)

We often have a lot on our plates, and yes, we ought to manage things well. But let’s be clear about what is sin and what isn’t. Is it a sin to be lazy? Yes. But is it a sin to not get everything done that we imagined we would? No. Emphatic: NO.

Not getting all-the-things done or being as organized as a magazine cover may result from several things: maybe life is just hectic right now—you’re caring for a baby or aging parent or juggling some combination of work, school, or family that makes it inherently hard to keep up; maybe your expectations are unrealistic and you need to reevaluate what you’re capable of in this season; maybe your schedule is unrealistic and you need to cut some commitments and activities from your calendar; or maybe you have actually been lazy, binge watching shows and socializing with friends instead of doing the dishes, your homework, or your taxes; maybe you’ve been scrolling social media instead of changing that nasty diaper that you first smelled an hour ago.

Sin may be (and likely is) a part of the equation. But our feelings tend to lump it all together into one big heap of guilt and shame over the result: “I’m so lazy/unproductive. Look at the mess! I can’t keep up with the house, I can’t figure out how to calm the baby. I’m a failure at everything.” This is what it looks like to heap on guilt and shame without biblical discernment and without remedy.

Instead, what if we recognize the situation for what it is: “Sigh…I really shouldn’t have zoned out on social media while the baby was crying. Lord Jesus, forgive me. That was wrong. And it didn’t help me get the house picked up either. Lord, please give me the strength to get up and make the best of this. The baby may not calm down quickly, and I can’t get the house perfect today, but I can decide to do the right thing right now and do what I can. Help me to be faithful.”

Part of my goal in this long-term project is to help us sort out the difference between actual sin and false guilt and shame, to help us respond to the nitty-gritty struggle within us in a biblically appropriate way so that we live lives consistent with God’s truth, empowered by His Spirit.

That’s a big goal far beyond the reach of this first article, but here’s a takeaway for today: the remedy for our consciences, weighed down with guilt and shame, whether real or imaginary, is the same in either case. “Cast all your cares on Jesus, because He cares for you.”

I’m not all-knowing. I may not ever figure out where exactly the line is between my every actual sin and my mere failings and not-awesome shortcomings. And that’s ok. Jesus knows and He has dealt with it. Come to Him.

As noted above, this article is the tip of the iceberg. It’s nowhere near a comprehensive treatment of this subject! I hope you’ll follow along as I seek to define terms, develop ideas, and dig into the scriptures in future articles.

Please comment with your thoughts, questions, challenges, and suggestions. 🙂 Your feedback will help as I develop this project going forward. I’d really love to hear from you! How do you grapple with guilt and shame? When it’s justified? When it isn’t? When you can’t tell the difference?

Other posts in this series:

Girl, You’ve Got a Problem

April Foolishness ~ New Living Books Consortium Video Chat!

01 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by in Books, Home Education

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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. 

Join us as we indulge in a little foolishness!

living books april fools homeschool literature

What kind of foolishness do we find in living books? And what role does it play in our favorite stories? In this chat we take a tour of literary folly: starting with the childish charm of Frog and Toad; to the growth away from foolishness in coming-of-age novels like Anne and Little Britches (and the lack of such growth in Tom Sawyer); and finally to the full-grown foolishness that wields its destructive power in Austen and Shakespeare.

Growth from foolishness to maturity often comes by way of trial–in literature and in our own lives. As we consider the characters in the stories we read, we find insight and inspiration for navigating the crises we face with wisdom and courage.

When it comes to fleeing danger, where’s the line between wisdom and selfishness? In facing danger head-on, what’s the difference between courage and foolhardy recklessness? We hope you’ll join us and find encouragement–both for your family’s literary adventures and for the real challenges you face in these trying times.

For Easy Navigation: 

00:00 – 00:54    Introduction
00:54 – 03:48    Charming, Childish Foolishness
03:48 – 04:52    Foolishness Grows Up a Bit
04:52 – 14:53    Foolishness to Maturity in Coming-of-Age Novels
14:53 – 27:46    Manifestations of Folly in Austen and Shakespeare
27:46 – 37:20    Facing our Current Crisis with Wisdom and Courage
37:20 –  End     Wrap Up

Books Mentioned

The Bible, especially the book of Proverbs 🙂

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne

Paddington Bear by Michael Bond

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Little Britches by Ralph Moody (audiobook linked below)

Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

Jane Austen:

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Emma

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

King Lear by William Shakespeare

 

Check out our past episodes:
Chat #1  Introducing the Living Books Consortium
Chat #2  Living Books Meet Real Life–Letting the Magic Happen
Chat #3  Living Books in the Large Family–with Amy Roberts

 

On Being “At Home”

02 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in Home and Family

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Some days the house just gets to me. Too many unfinished projects, too much clutter, too much to clean.

Life gets to me. When will I ever find the time or the willpower to drop those 20 pounds and feel strong again?

The temptation to despair of life in this body, in this house, arises from thoughts like these. And that’s ok, right? Because I’m supposed to be looking forward to my eternal home. So this hum-glum existence until then is just par for the course. A right of passage, you might say.

Or is it?

After recently wrestling through such thoughts, I’ve come to see that in order to be actually looking forward to our eternal home, we need to learn to be grateful for the home we’re in now. Let me back up a couple weeks to explain…

learning to be at home warm content

I stand at the window on a crisp, February morning, staring out through two panes of glass into 30-degree weather.

And I am warm.

This is a good house.

It’s a timely reminder that halts the grumbly thoughts in my head, and I take a deep breath. The knots on my forehead begin to unravel.

As I consider the cold that I am not feeling, I begin to notice how my hands are resting firmly–one on the window sill and the other against the corner of the wall, framing the window. I take a moment to really feel that wall.

It’s sturdy. It’s withstood 70-mile-per-hour winds and little boys ramming into it.

This is a good house.

In the midst of the mess and hustle and bustle of a family that lives, learns, and works at home, and especially ten months into a “five-week” exterior remodeling project, it can be hard to enjoy just being at home.

It can be hard to see the beauty in the home that I’m making when unfinished projects crowd my view. But if I take a moment to sit and observe–not with a critical eye and a running to-do list but rather with eyes enlightened by grace–I begin to see not my work nor my lack of work but gifts of God.

I can wonder at how well we are provided for. Not only by my husband but by the mind-blowing development of things like running water, central heating, and washing machines. And the incredible blessing of dirty little hands, red cheeks and noses, and piles of clothes that signify the beautifully rambunctious lives that fill this place.

There’s another temporary house I’ve been given, and sometimes (many times?) I look at it with the same kind of scrutinizing fix-it-up mentality that I use to greet my dirty linoleum-tile kitchen floor.

My body isn’t as young or strong or capable as it once was. My knees give me trouble, and I’m currently four weeks into a bout with some combination of cold, allergies, bronchitis, and asthma. I’m well enough to function, but I’m not functioning well.

While there’s work to be done for my health and strength (and time required for recovery), I’m finding that there’s also a desperate need to learn to rest–not just physically, but to simply be in this body, just as I have to learn to be in my home, dilapidated as each may seem.

Whatever degradation may come, this body has run races and climbed mountains.

This body has carried, birthed, and nursed two sons–not without complications, but still, it has.

This body has given hugs and held hands.

And it still seems to get me from point A to point B pretty effectively.

It can still kneel prayer, sing in worship, and offer hands to serve.

It’s a good body.

It’s a good gift.

If we are to serve the Lord with gladness there is a real sense in which we need to learn to be at home in our houses and in our bodies. Not in some self-exalting or self-excusing way, but in a very real and contented and Christian way. We need to learn to be at home in our houses and bodies because they are the primary places and primary tools we have for worship and service. And they are gifts that the Lord not only gives but also fills.

He’s not afraid of nor ashamed of broken vessels. In fact, He delights to redeem them.

My house, my body–these are places to be filled with the grace and love and Spirit of Christ. They are not forever, of course. They are a mere shadow of things to come. But as we embrace the “homes” that our Father has graciously given now and by faith see how He transforms and fills them, we are in a better position to truly appreciate and anticipate the Kingdom Home He is preparing for us–a new creation and a resurrected body that are both whole and wholly filled with His presence.

Too often we look with discontentment at our earthly state and say with a grumble, “Well, I’m glad I’ll get a new body and a new home someday.”

But the eyes of faith see the good in God’s gifts both now and in eternity–because the eyes of faith focus more on the goodness of God Himself than on the frailty of our here-and-now. We need not spurn His hand in this life in order to treasure it in the next.

May we have such eyes to see and receive God’s gracious provision–to be at home where He has us now, gladly doing His will until He calls us to that better Home in glory.

on being at home christian mom body image homemaking

Godly Homeschool Planning

02 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by in Home Education, Living Faith

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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. 

It’s planning season for many homeschool moms, myself included. While there are a lot of wonderful practical posts and resources out there to help with dreaming and scheming for the coming school year (and a couple excellent resources I’ll recommend at the end of this article), it’s easy to get focused on the logistical side of things and forget that even the most perfect planning system can fall short if it’s not humbly oriented toward the Lord.

Godly planning, of course, requires more than considering our children and taking stock of our resources. It requires considering our Creator and taking stock of our hearts.

That’s the essence of godliness–being mindful of God and aligning our hearts and lives to Him, for His glory. 

But how do we do that? How are we to be godly as we plan for the future?

Let’s dive in by first looking a little more closely at our definitions and purpose. Why before How (I promise the How is coming!).

Why: Two Kinds of Righteousness

It’s important to remember the difference between godliness and righteousness and how these terms apply to our planning process. Godliness is a life-altering devotion to God. Consider these words from Christian author Jerry Bridges: 

For the godly person, God is the center and focal point of his or her life. Every circumstance and every activity of life, whether in the temporal or spiritual realms, is viewed through the lens of this God-centeredness. …Everything we do is to be done to the glory of God. That is the mark of a godly person.

Righteousness means justice, or more simply doing what is right. It’s a good, noble, and necessary goal. But there also exists this thing called self–righteousness, which ought to soberly remind us that the motivation for our right actions, or our right plans, makes a big difference. Godliness ought to be the source of that motivation. 

When we Christian homeschool moms make plans for school, we’re often aiming for righteousness. Often motivated by convictions about what is right–both before the Lord and for our families. This is good.

But if we pursue that righteousness as an end in itself, we can easily begin to operate solely in the practical outworking of our convictions, forgetting why we came to them in the first place. We risk swapping God-centeredness for work-centeredness, which can easily become a kind of self-centeredness.

My children. My plans. My time. My results. My reputation. My … glory.

It was supposed to be about God’s reputation. His glory. But righteousness without godliness becomes self-righteousness.

Let’s say that again: Righteousness without godliness becomes self-righteousness.

Planning without God-centeredness becomes self-centeredness. If we’ve gone down that path we know we need to repent, turn around, turn to God.

Jerry Bridges continues:

…Such a God-centeredness can be developed only in the context of an ever-growing intimate relationship with God. No one can genuinely desire to please God or glorify Him apart from such a relationship.

The first “step,” if you will, in godly planning is being in right relationship to God and growing in God-centeredness. If you know Jesus as your Savior, you know the gospel or “good news” of what Jesus has done to save you from sin is what puts you in right relationship with God. Keep coming back to that. Rest in that. Rest in grace. If you’re not really sure what all of that is about, please check out this simple and straightforward presentation here.

To sum up our WHY, we must be oriented toward God in our planning if we are to truly honor Him. The best-laid plans can either be tools for God’s glory or temptation toward our own. Keeping our hearts in check is essential to maintaining the good intentions of our convictions.

plans godliness home education

How: Looking Up and Following Through

At the risk of creating yet another checklist, here are five “steps” from my own reading and study to encourage you in godly planning–whether you’re just scratching down the first details or are about to tie it up with a pretty bow (or custom cover).

When Planning, Look Up:

ONE: Trust God’s goodness.

It’s difficult to align your priorities with someone you don’t trust. Now, we probably don’t wake up and say, “God isn’t good, I’m not going to trust Him today.” But we may find ourselves forgetting God is good, which can land us in one of two ditches along the path of godly planning: self-sufficient overconfidence and anxious worry. The remedy for each is to remember God’s goodness is still there and look up. 

The weight of our responsibility as moms and educators can overwhelm us. Real challenges may weigh on us. We think we’ve got to shoulder it ourselves, and we don’t feel up to the task. Enter anxious worry.

The lure of shiny curriculum can distract us with exaggerated promises. The act of making plans can make us feel like we’re in control. Like we have some power over the future. Like we have this thing whipped before we start. Enter self-sufficient overconfidence. 

We can even find ourselves hopping from one ditch to the other in the midst of the same planning season. Anxiously despairing of our situation turns to confident expectation that these new plans or new curricula will solve all of our problems. When things don’t go according to plan, we jump ditches again.

Without a good and sovereign God in view, we tend to celebrate our sense of control or else mourn the lack of the same. Looking to ourselves, we’re unstable, swinging from one ditch to the other at the whim of our circumstances or emotions as they waver from day to day or season to season.

But keeping the faith by remembering the goodness of God will steady us for the long haul.

The book of James has a surprising amount of continuity when it comes to the goodness of God. Look at this line up from chapter one:

We are to “count it all joy” when we face trials. They test our faith, but they’re also for our growth and endurance. This is the good that God intends in the trials He allows.

We are to ask for wisdom in faith that God “gives to all generously and without reproach.” God is a generous giver. He isn’t stingy with what He knows we need. He’s good.

There is a crown of life for those who persevere under trial–God has promised reward to those who love Him. He’s good.

We’re to recognize that temptation springs from within us–not from God. He doesn’t tempt anyone. In fact, every good thing given comes from Him. He’s good.

The anger of mom doesn’t achieve the righteousness of God–His ways are better. He’s good.

Behind James’ every call to repent and endure is a deep confidence in the goodness of God. Let’s make our plans with that same confidence, climbing out of the pitfalls of overconfidence and anxious worry to stand on solid ground. 

He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in His arms
and carries them close to His heart;
    He gently leads those that have young. [1]

Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust. [2]

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord. [3]

When we see that God is good, we’ll want to seek His wisdom and aim for His glory…

TWO: Seek God’s wisdom. 

Many homeschool parents recognize that education ought to be more than filling our kids’ minds with information. We want them to know how to properly sift through and apply information, whether in an academic setting or real life. What we really want for our kids is wisdom. And we’re bold enough to think that we can give it to them. But this is a tall order. Anyone who’s been at this parenting gig for a little while knows that children push the limits of what we thought we knew.

If we desire to raise silly kids into wise adults, we need to model the wisdom we wish to pass on. We need the wisdom of God.

If we are to wade through the sea of educational advice and resources available to us today and choose what fits our family and convictions without being “driven and tossed by every wave,” we must practice discernment. We need the wisdom of God.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so we ought to start there. In simple terms, the fear of the Lord is being mindful of God as He is in all His attributes and responding to Him with appropriate fear, awe, wonder, and respect.

The practical fallout of such a disposition toward God is to recognize that this wise, good, and powerful God has ordered the cosmos such that there are consequences for our actions. Orderliness and cause-and-effect relationships are woven into the fabric of the universe. There is purpose, there is reason, there is beauty, and there is Truth by which we ought to live our lives. Failing to live in accord with this Truth brings on the one hand hard knocks in this life and on the other judgment in the life to come.

Remembering that godliness is being God-centered in our thoughts and deeds, it’s clear that the fear of the Lord, and the wisdom derived from it, is an indispensable part of a godly life. 

But we’ve got to bring this lofty pursuit of wisdom down to desk-level, don’t we? How does this touch my planning pages and curriculum guides?

Wisdom involves putting things in their proper place, in their proper order–differentiating between the things that are truly important and those that are enticing red herrings.

God has revealed to us in His word what is right and good in His eyes. What does He have to say about children? About discipleship? About marriage and family life? If you’re a wife and mother, there’s pretty clear instruction to consider your husband, your children, and your home in this process.

It’s easy to think that our children and our selves are the only people involved in this education thing. But be careful not to cut your husband out of it. Biblically, he’s accountable for the training of his children. Make room for him, see what he thinks–you may find a great source of wisdom (or at least a sounding board) and freedom from all the voices on the internet that make you feel like you aren’t keeping up.

The scriptures don’t spell out a particular method of education, nor do they prescribe any kind of schedule. But they do give us principles, goals, and boundaries upon and within which we can order our homeschools in freedom. We don’t have to all choose the same method or materials, but we do need to make sure that the ones we choose (and how we plan to use them) are informed and perhaps even transformed by scripture.

To circle back around to James, if we need wisdom, we’ve got to ask. God is good. He will give it as we trust and seek Him for it.

THREE: Aim for God’s glory.

Trusting God’s goodness is good. Seeking His wisdom is, well, wise. But even in these we may think the purpose of God’s goodness and wisdom is all for us–to make us feel better and to smooth out our lives. It certainly can do those things, but the trajectory isn’t inward on self. Rather, the goodness of God and the wisdom we employ ought to show that He is good and wise and glorious. Aiming for our own comfort and saintliness as an end in itself means we’re exchanging the glory of God for our own. 

Likewise, in our planning and in our homeschools, we do well to recognize that we’re not raising children to be trophies of our success but arrows for the kingdom of God.

We know we want to be that city on a hill, the light of the world. And sometimes we make plans that are so idealistic it’s as though we think that the way to glorify God is to have perfect Ivy League children, a spotlessly clean house, and gourmet meals on the table each night. Wouldn’t that be shiny?

But when we come down from our ivory tower with our plans, we find that we can never reach that goal. The kids … aren’t perfect. Who knew? The house … is just mostly maintained. The meals … well, somehow we eat each day.

Maybe the purpose of God is not to get glory from self-satisfied creatures. Maybe what really glorifies God is not a family that looks like it has everything put together, but a family that gives thanks and praise to God as they seek to honor Him in all the ups and downs of ordinary life.

Maybe we need to adjust our aim.

As we realistically work out the details of our year, our months, our days, seeking to choose books and activities that honor God and fit our family, we’d do well to build on our trust in God’s goodness with thanks and praise, glorifying God with heart and voice.

Thank you, Father, for the people you’ve put in my charge. Thank you for the home you’ve given us. Thank you for the opportunity I have to be intimately involved in the growth and learning of my children. Thank you for the abundant resources I have at my disposal. Thank you for your Word and Spirit to guide me.

You are a Good Father, a wise Creator. You’ve made me and those around me in your image and for your praise. You’ve infused the world with order and beauty for us to enjoy and explore and discover. You are good and do good. You establish justice and You are the definition of love and righteousness. You supply our needs and give grace unmeasured. You are bigger than I can imagine, and yet you care for little ol’ me. You have given your Son for my salvation. You are good and gracious and kind. 

A godly heart recognizes God is worthy of thanks and praise in the midst of a serious planning session. But it also carries those things forward. Here’s where our WHY rolls up its sleeves and meets the mess of life. Godliness greatly effects not just HOW we make our plans, but also HOW we hold and execute them.

Plans in Place, Mind Your Follow Through:

FOUR: Hold those plans loosely and humbly.

“If the Lord wills we will live and also do this or that.” James reminds his readers in chapter four that our confidence doesn’t need to be in what we think we can make happen in the future. Our confidence ought to be rooted in … wait for it … the goodness and sovereignty of God.

“God is good” and “God is in control” can almost seem cliche in modern meme-saturated church culture. But that’s only the case if we don’t stop long enough to actually consider these truths. If we’re not meditating on the goodness, wisdom, and glory of God, knowing that His plans trump all and that His plans are, indeed, better than our own, we will struggle miserably when things don’t go our way.

We’ll likely struggle anyway, to be honest, but we can only struggle well if we have a godly perspective.

When it comes to the plans in our hands, we need to do more than look at what’s slated on the calendar. We need to number our days “…so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Our plans may be ideal, even godly, but our expectations must also be in line with reality.

James calls our over-confident planning “arrogance” and insists “you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

Those words might not make us feel good. But we have a choice. We can either take such conviction as a downer and ignore it, continuing to allow the clouds of emotion and pride to obstruct our view, or we can take it as the wind that blows them away so that we can see clearly.

If we see God ruling for our good and His glory, we can more easily clear the air, relax our fists, and halt our grasping for control. Once we take a deep breath and accept reality, we begin to actually rejoice that God is in control and we’re not. A truth that didn’t feel good at first can become one of our greatest comforts.

Remembering we are faulty and finite puts us in a position to move forward with humility and good humor. 

Imagine your life is a folk dance. The fiddle begins to sing. And you begin dragging your loved ones across the floor, steamrolling them if they get in the way of your carefully choreographed moves, and grumbling when one trips or steps on your toes. This is a likely enough outcome if you imagine yourself as the caller. As though they’re all supposed to keep in step with you.

But God’s the Caller and you’re just another one of the dancers. A dancer who steps out of line sometimes. A dancer who has little feet following behind her own.

You know a lot more of the moves than your kids. You’ve practiced them longer. You’ve even made plans to optimize the effectiveness and enjoyment of the dance. But when the Caller changes the pace, you’ve got to follow. Insisting on your own way will only make a scene and get someone hurt.

Imagine the same scene with a humble heart:

When a little one gets their right and left foot mixed up, you remember what it’s like to miss a step and help them set it straight–but you do it with a laugh and a nudge to get back up, listen for the Caller, and enjoy the dance.

The freedom to enjoy the dance, to adapt to each change in the music, comes when we hold our plans loosely and humbly–because we trust in God’s goodness and know that He’s in control.

FIVE: Execute those plans with kindness and gentleness, by God’s grace.

Holding our plans loosely doesn’t mean we never look at them or try to make them work, and it sure doesn’t mean it’s cool to be lazy or haphazard. Putting our plans into action requires intention and consistency. But as we march forward, plans in hand, we seek to implement them in line with the fruit of the Spirit and in light of the fact that our priorities as homeschool moms are ultimately relational and not mechanical in nature.

When I think of not just the planning but the managing of our days, one of my favorite places to find inspiration is that often-resented Proverbs 31 woman:

Strength and dignity are her clothing,
And she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom,
And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.

Here’s a strong woman who wears a smile, pays attention, and gets things done. But  those two lines in the middle point to something more. Her joyful hustle and bustle to the tune of productivity isn’t off in some corner where she can enjoy the solace of personal achievement free from smudgy fingers and untimely interruptions. Nope. There are other people in her household, and her words to them are marked by wisdom and kindness. 

Ooph. Does that knock the wind out of you, too?

Our buddy James echoes this Proverbial link between wisdom and kindness–and he introduces it with a surprising warning: “Let not many of you become teachers…”

Woah, wait. Too late. We’re teachers.

Ah, but that means we ought to pay even closer attention to what he has to say:

With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

…Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Show? Deeds? …Gentleness? Where’s the dispensing of wisdom with many words and lectures? James doesn’t seem to mention that. It would seem true wisdom is clothed in our friend from the last section: humility.

The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

Tall. Order. Sounds an awful lot like the fruit of the Spirit, doesn’t it?

Is our teaching characterized by kindness? Do we pause our reactions and consider how to answer with the gentleness of wisdom, according to the need of the moment, to give grace to those who hear (Eph. 4:29)?

Does our kind intention toward our children permeate not just our lesson plans but also everyday ordinary moments?

The two greatest commandments are to love God and love others. If we’re at home with our families most of the time, it’s pretty obvious who those “others” are. Maybe that’s why Titus two urges older women first of all to encourage the younger women “to love their husbands, to love their children.”

We ought to plan to love our own but still love them even when those well-meant plans are foiled. 

I don’t know about you, but I need some help in this department.

This is why we sought God’s wisdom to begin with, and why we won’t be done with that practice anytime soon.

To act on our plans in keeping with the rule of love, we need the fruit of the Spirit. We need kindness. We need the gentleness of wisdom. And for it all we need the grace of God.

If that doesn’t motivate your prayer life I don’t know what will.

Apply: Condense, Remember, and Be Ready to Troubleshoot

Let’s condense the big ideas we’ve covered so that we can remember them in real-life situations. We said at the outset that godliness means being mindful of God and aligning our hearts and lives to Him, for His glory. In keeping with that, I’ve outlined five steps or concepts:

Trust God’s Goodness
Seek God’s Wisdom
Aim for God’s Glory
Hold Plans Loosely and Humbly
Execute Plans with Kindness and Gentleness, by the Grace of God

The first three big ideas involve “looking up”—-there’s our being mindful of God. And the last two apply to our “follow through”—-aligning our hearts and lives.

As a memory aid or perhaps a motto: We can be mindful of God in our planning by trusting God’s goodness, seeking God’s wisdom, and aiming for God’s glory. An easy way to keep these in order is to recognize that they (intentionally) correspond to a very familiar and very relevant passage (Prov. 3:5-6):

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.

To remember the specific outworking of the last two steps, imagine you have all your plans on a clipboard (or a smartphone or tablet if you’re techie like that).
What are you doing with them? You’re holding them.
What are you doing when you take a step forward and give marching orders to your minions? You’re executing them (the plans, not the minions, mind you).
If you can visualize holding the clipboard and marching forward with it, all you need to do is ask how?
How do we hold our plans? Loosely and humbly.
How do we execute those plans? With kindness, gentleness, and grace.

And so we have another motto: We can align our hearts and lives for God’s glory as we hold our plans loosely and humbly and execute them with kindness and gentleness, by His grace.

That may seem repetitive, but it’s how I’ve been able to use these ideas to keep my heart in check (or reel it back in) this planning season. I hope it’ll help you, too.

Mamas, we can make the loveliest plans, but when lessons don’t come easily, chaos ensues, or the February blues strike, those plans aren’t what will make us godly. Our focus and response to those things will be the determining factor.

Watch over your heart with all diligence as you plan, and watch over it with all diligence as you move forward (Prov. 4:23). So that whether your plans roll out smoothly or blow up in your face, you maintain the disposition of a sinner saved by grace, of a daughter looking expectantly and dependently to her Heavenly Father, giving thanks and praise to Him.

I’m praying toward that end. May He give us grace to do it.

Recommended Resources

If this article has resonated with you and you’d like to dig deeper into how heart attitudes intersect with everyday life as a homeschool mom, I highly recommend The Art of Homeschooling e-course (accessible through Simply Convivial Membership).

If you’re still chomping at the bit for very practical help with school planning, check out Plan Your Year–I’ve used this process for several years now. Plan Your Year provides a step-by-step guide so that you can take these godly-big-picture why’s and how’s and translate them into the particular-day-to-day why’s and how’s of your unique family situation.

This article was inspired by my study of the book of James and by reading Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. I heartily recommend both books. 😉

See more articles on this topic:
The Love Chapter for Homeschool Mamas
Wisdom in the Book of James

 

 

Learning to Enjoy the Journey

27 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in Home and Family, Living Faith

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Are you one of those people that gets so focused on the destination that you forget to enjoy the journey?

I sure am.

There’s something to be said for determination and focus, but when it comes to living life well and joyfully these would-be virtues can sabotage the whole thing if they’re allowed to put the pedal to the metal without some reasonable restraint.

Sometimes that restraint comes from a fellow passenger encouraging you to stop and smell the roses with them.

And sometimes that restraint is a child in the backseat who has to pee. Right now. Or, closer to my experience of late, who happens to be puking.

I think we all know there are fun ways to “slow down” that we would do well to implement before the more catastrophic pauses are forced upon us.

But what I’ve been learning lately is not just to stop and smell the roses, and not just to slam on the breaks to care for a sick child.

What I’m learning lately is that if the destination is worth it then the steps it takes to get there are worth it, too.

A couple weeks ago my husband and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. [Insert shouts of jubilation!] We had two nights at home without the kids.

It was glorious.

But we stayed up late the first night watching a movie. And this after being rather low on sleep for the past several weeks.

I don’t function very well on low sleep.

And the next morning my husband had to drop his truck off in town a bit early while I took a little longer at home to get ready for the ballroom dancing class we took that day.

Because when you’re close friends with the lady who teaches the ballroom dancing class, you can do things like have it scheduled for the day of your anniversary. Yep, she’s a good friend. 😉

Anyway, I have this history of getting stressed about having to get ready to go somewhere. Especially when I have to get little people ready to go somewhere. Our anniversary was different, of course–no kids!–but the anxiety still threatened to steal my joy. I worried about what to wear, changing outfits about five times. I worried that I would be running late and that my husband would be upset with me.

I think I was able to identify what was going on with me on this day, however, partly because it was such a special day that I knew I ought to just enjoy, and partly because I’d just read a chapter on anxiety in a book called Fututre Grace.

I didn’t think I had an issue with anxiety until I read that chapter and found it quite convicting. Quite.

My tendency to overplan? That’s just me trying to maintain control, which stems from fear rather than faith.

My tendency to run through all possible outcomes and plan for every contingency? Yep, anxiety. I might flatter myself that I’m just some kind of planning mastermind (that would be called pride), but God’s word tells a different story when I come face to face with its call to live by faith, casting all my anxiety on Him because He cares for me.

This concept of living by faith in future grace helped me to see things more clearly on a temporal level as well.

As I drove into town, mulling over these things in my heart and mind, clear thinking finally broke through.

I’m going to enjoy my anniversary with my husband. He’s not upset with me, he’s happy to be with me. Even if I am running a little behind (which it turned out I wasn’t!), I’m the one who signed us up for the ballroom dancing class. Not him. He won’t be embarrassed if we’re late. He’ll just go with it. I’m the one putting this pressure on myself. 

If I’m excited about what I’m getting ready for (a date with my husband) why shouldn’t I enjoy getting ready??? 

This was a pretty defining moment, concentrating a lot of big ideas and messy struggles down into something I could remind myself of when stress builds in places it shouldn’t:

If I’m going to enjoy the outcome then I ought to appreciate the steps it takes to get there.

A new Bible reading plan has me reading rather large passages in the Old Testament in one sitting. I have to admit, some mornings it’s been a little hard to feel up to it. But I love the result of having taken in much of God’s word and seeing it in a sweeping movement of history and redemption. And so the day-to-day plodding through it is worth it. I can even take joy in it.

Similarly, I’ve managed to set myself up with several deadlines for projects that require a lot of reading, research, writing, planning, and people-coordinating. And these each are culminating in social engagements.

I’m doing a lot of extroverting for someone who is such a die-hard introvert.

While I often enjoy reading, researching, and writing in their own right, I usually do them on my time, my whims. Adding the time constraint and the social aspect to the mix makes for more demands on my time, energy, and mental resources than I am used to handling.

And my husband has been out for work travel these past two weeks.

And the past two days there’s been the puking.

But again, in each of these cases, there’s an end goal in mind that is worth the discomfort.

I love getting together with my sweet friends for a book study. The refreshment it brought made all the preparation for leading it so worth it. And seeing this ahead of time helped me to enjoy that process (and the resulting refreshment!) all the more.

I love getting to share what I’ve learned with others, so the presentation I’ve been working on, though it has been challenging, especially given the timing of craziness in our family right now, has been one giant exercise in learning to enjoy the nitty-gritty work and headaches that are just a part of producing something worthwhile.

And as a mother, oh, as a mother, the “interruptions” of sick kiddos are also worth it. So, so, so worth it. Because I love them and responding to their needs is just one “stop” along the road–a road that culminates in, well, not so much a destination as in a story. A story of learning to love them the way God loves me.

It’s a story that involves a lot of mistakes and repentance, but I think you get the idea.

In the past I’ve just done the grit-my-teeth-and-bear-it thing telling myself somehow it will be worth it in the end, all the while giving in to complaining and anxious, faithless worry. I’m learning that not only is this sin that needs repented of, it’s also not that effective in the long term, either. Go figure.

If I take no joy in the journey, will I be able to fully enjoy the result? Won’t I still be begrudging much of the discomfort it might have cost me if I have allowed myself to indulge in the habit of kicking and screaming through the whole process?

Yep. Better kick that bitterness at the process before it steals the joy of the end result.

I’m thankful that the Lord has been at work to convict me and bring growth through what could have been an utterly overwhelming and stressful couple of weeks. He’s good.

The refining that He ordains for us isn’t always easy, but we can take joy in it, too, knowing that the result of being made more like Christ and bringing glory to Him–well, that is certainly worth it.

Materialism, Faith, and the Heart of the Matter

16 Monday Jul 2018

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I tend to be swayed, not by the arguments of atheists, but by their habits of mind. Just going on autopilot I end up living out my “Christian routine” with a heart set on this world, as though this were all there is.

Materialism in the existential sense gets hold of me by way of materialism in the pragmatic sense.

I slip into a callousness to spiritual things quite easily when distracted by my own work, relationships, etc–and by the many voices to which I daily choose to expose myself.

But they aren’t voices making logical arguments. They’re voices saying, “You want this” or “You need that” or “This is urgent” or “important” or “valuable”.

These voices slip in by emotional or physical appeal and sheer force of influence. And I let them in without thinking because they come at me so fast and so many that my defenses are worn down. Viewing and deleting an email advertising more make-up from the brand I prefer seems harmless, but when I deal with ten such emails a day, plus ads and other people’s posts on Facebook and Instagram, every image and urging builds in me more and more of a materialistic worldview. Circumventing my reason in a sheer battle of attrition, they go straight for the heart.

It’s hard not to be a default materialist in a world of constant consumerism.

But when I examine my hands–real, tangible, sensory things–and consider that these real, non-digital hands can bend and move and twist and point and snap and anything else I might think of the moment I think of it, I can’t help but marvel at the ingenuity.

Not mine, of course, but God’s.

faith doubt materialism hand

Ah, but it takes a very intentional pause from my daily routine and my daily news and email feeds to be able to remind myself that I am not a materialist.

Every time I stop long enough to examine that perspective, to try it on, if you will, I find it utterly untenable. I don’t believe that what I see is all there is. I don’t believe my hand, with all its precision and dexterity, could have come about by mere chance. It’s too beautifully and brilliantly crafted. Like a machine, only so much more than a machine. Like a work of art, only so much more than a work of art.

So why this disconnect between what I know to be true (not just in my heart of hearts, as the expression goes, but in my most clear-headed moments of the mind) and the flying on agnostic-at-best autopilot? Why this practical atheism?

While I could again mention the nature of our modern world, it seems this is a human problem afflicting the ancient world as well. Why else would the Apostle Paul find it necessary to exhort his readers to “keep seeking the things above” if not for the fact that it is so darn easy to fall for lesser things?

Worldliness, idolatry, and the patterns of thinking and behaving characteristic of each are not a new enemy of faith and reason.

Col 3 Materialism Faith Heart of the Matter

It’s hard to set your mind on these things when you’ve sated your senses on the world, leaving no room–and no taste–left for the things above. Even this time of meditation and writing has not been entered into without a struggle.

But it started with prayer. Or rather with fighting for it. And praise–though I have to admit I’ve been out of that practice as well, outside of the usual routine.

Trying to pray and praise when your heart is cold–and because you know that your heart is cold–is an uncomfortable and difficult place to be. But, praise God, He met me in that place and is answering my cries for help to pray and to praise Him.

I started off praying, “God is good,” etc, while wondering inside whether I actually cared.

If He is real and He is good, then I ought to care. The dullness I felt on the matter led me to examine my hands and question my base assumptions, and finally come out aright again.

He is real. He is there. He is good. He is personal. He is a magnificent, intelligent Creator.

Yes, I care about those things. Yes, I want to know Him. Yes, He is worthy of praise.

That may not amount to a deep theology, but it is the foundation for everything else, at least in my experience. All the details of salvation are moot points if I’m not sure about spiritual reality to begin with.

But once I am, all the rest of it matters.

 

 

 

40 Things I Love More than the Internet

12 Saturday May 2018

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The internet is a blessed tool of information-hounding and long-distance connecting. But if we’re honest, we know it can literally suck the life and love out of our day-to-day existence.

Whether it’s bouncing from one interesting article to another, scrolling through a newsfeed, browsing a slew of pins and pictures, or succumbing to the seemingly endless litany of emails, private messages, and texts that come at us, we have to be intentional to pull away from it all in order to enjoy moments of fully present, unplugged living.

That’s what prompted me to list all the things I love more than the internet. As though I have to be reminded, right? But I’m finding that I do. And it helps.

40 things love more than internet list unplugged

If the way I choose to spend my time doesn’t reflect the things I love most, something’s amiss. This list will look different from person to person, but I hope what I’ve come up with will be relatable and at least get the juices flowing for exploring what you think is worth unplugging for.

The top ten are people–my people–because while the internet does often help to connect us with others, it can also distract us from those with whom we ought to be most concerned (read: who should receive our greatest love and attention).

  1. My husband

    Nathaniel+Lauren#59.jpg

    Credit: Capturette Photos

  2. My kids

    Nathaniel+Lauren#26

    Credit:  Capturette Photos

  3. My parents
  4. My brother
  5. My grandparents
  6. My other extended family
  7. My in-laws
  8. My church family
  9. My friends
  10. My neighbors
  11. Reading a book with real pages

    A person reading a book under a blanket

    Credit:  Alice Hampson

  12. Writing, especially with a pen
  13. Running
  14. Walking
  15. Biking
  16. Hiking
  17. Creating something tastyIMG_0002.JPG
  18. Sharing something tasty
  19. Journaling (Bullet or otherwise)
  20. Drawing
  21. Singing
  22. Teaching
  23. PhotographyDSC_0142.JPG
  24. Live Music
  25. Shared Meals
  26. Deep Conversations
  27. Organizing
  28. Storm Watching
  29. Playing Games
  30. Camping/Backpacking20170916_102750.jpg
  31. Taking a hot bath or shower
  32. Literally stopping to smell the roses (or any other lovely flower)DSC_0029.JPG
  33. Thinking my own thoughts
  34. Quiet moments on the front porch
  35. Book Store Browsing
  36. Hand-written letters
  37. Deep Breathing
  38. People Watching
  39. Planning and Problem Solving
  40. Not being behind on financial record keeping (or other area of life management)

    Credit: Oleksii Hlembotskyi

The internet may at times be a means to some of these ends, but it is not one of the ends itself. That distinction is an important one to keep in view.

What I’ve listed above are wonderful but temporal things. Let’s not forget the transcendent, the eternal. As a Christian, the greatest privilege I have is knowing God through the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the good gifts of this life (many of which are listed above) come from Him and are vehicles through which I can appreciate and adore Him.

Beyond (or should I say above?) these things, seeking the Lord in prayer, worship, meditation, and Bible study are to the spiritual life what eating and breathing are to the physical. And while the internet does indeed provide tools that can enhance these activities, it is at best no replacement and at worst can rob these pursuits of the quiet that is necessary for discerning God’s voice above any and all others.

So what about you?  What do you love more than the internet?

If you would like to dive deeper into this subject, I highly recommend 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke.  It’s a fantastic read.

Wisdom in the Book of James

27 Friday Apr 2018

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I’ve recently begun a Bible study in the book of James. Unlike other guided studies which lean heavily on leading questions, this one focuses primarily on prayerfully engaging with the Word of God itself–allowing the Holy Spirit to be the only intermediary. It’s been a blessing to shut out other voices and tune into God’s voice alone speaking through the pen of James the brother of Jesus.

letter book of james proverbs wisdom bible study

One of the earliest themes to arise in this epistle is that of wisdom. Muddy-headed from an exhausting week and not-quite-enough sleep, when I came to my bible time this morning I wasn’t sure where to jump in. I read the first few verses on wisdom, and it hit me–that is just what I need!

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God.

Well, that seemed a great place to start.

As I pleaded with the Lord to give me wisdom, I remembered that James deals with it twice in his short letter–in chapters one and three. I thought perhaps I should take a closer look.

Here’s the passage in chapter one:

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

And again in chapter three:

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Words of Wisdom

I have the book of James printed out so that I can highlight, circle, and underline to my heart’s content. My pages were already marked up before today’s time of study, so I began taking notes in my bullet journal based on patterns and connections I had observed previously.

wisdom book of james bible study

Jotting down all the words associated with wisdom in the book of James proved to be very helpful.  Some are prerequisites, like recognizing our lack of it, having faith in God’s goodness and unchanging nature, and asking Him for the wisdom we so desperately need. We can also see very clearly wisdom’s source: “from above”.

Many of the rest of the positive statements about wisdom help us to understand what it produces. Good conduct. Meekness. Purity. Peaceableness. Gentleness. Reasonableness. Mercy. Good fruits. Impartiality. Sincerity. Righteousness. These aren’t too far afield of the fruit of the spirit, now are they? It struck me just how relational most of these words are. Some uses of the word wisdom in the Old Testament imply doing things with skill. It seems a big part of what wisdom is in the book of James involves skillfully (and righteously) relating to other people.

There are also a few things we can discover about wisdom that aren’t directly stated. Since doubt and a lack of wisdom produce instability (James 1:5-6), we can infer that faith and wisdom produce stability, so that we aren’t tossed about by every wave. This has immediate relevance to how we hold up in times of trial and testing (that’s the context of these verses!).

Later in chapter three, we learn that two of the characteristics that are opposed to wisdom, jealousy and selfish ambition, lead to disorder, allowing us to infer that true wisdom will lead to order. I can’t help but relate this to the classical concept of ordering the affections, meaning this has much more to do with how our hearts are aligned (read: what we love most) than with the amount of clutter in our homes (though it’s wise to stay on top of that, too). Godly wisdom will help us to prioritize, and as we can see from the words James uses in this letter, people are higher on the list than things.

Many of the words James uses in chapter three illustrate what wisdom is not. These are every bit as instructive as the positive list–perhaps even more so considering how easy it is for us to assume we have wisdom by simply agreeing with its propositions. This intellectual assent can blind us to the ways in which our lives demonstrate the very opposite of godly wisdom. Spend some time with this list of what wisdom isn’t and ask yourself the question James posed to his readers: “Who among you is wise and understanding?”

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Wisdom Hits Home

This little letter is humbling. But that’s a good thing. It reminds us to throw ourselves on the grace of God offered to us through Jesus Christ, seeking Him as we plead for wisdom to live in a way that’s worthy of the gospel.

As this exhortation meets my daily life, I know I need to be grounded in the foundational truth that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Also, consistent with James chapter three’s focus on taming the tongue, it’s good to remember the example laid down in Proverbs 31:26: “She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” My husband and children have a front-row seat to my application of godly wisdom. When it’s lacking, they feel the effects of it.

book of james wisdom proverbs

Ultimately, what I see in the book of James is this: To be wise and understanding is to be like Christ. Jesus is the answer to James’ question: “Who is wise and understanding among you?”

Seeking wisdom merely for our own benefit or as an intellectual exercise misses the point.

The heart of wisdom outlined in James chapters one and three speaks to every other issue in the epistle: trials, temptation, relating to others in either anger or peace, doing rather than just hearing the word of God, keeping ourselves unstained by the world, not showing partiality, putting hands and feet to our profession of faith by loving others in deed and truth, using words appropriately, loving the eternal God rather than the temporal world, using our money to bless others rather than take advantage of them, being humble before God and others, submitting plans to the Lord’s will, waiting for the day of the Lord, and praying for and lifting up the lowly.

Whew!  You bet I need God’s wisdom and grace for these things!

Seems to me that at the end of the letter of James, we ought to circle back around to the beginning:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all generously and without reproach.”

Our good, gracious, dependable God will answer this prayer. He’s the one who has invited us to pray it, after all.

 

What have you been learning from the Word lately?

Self-Doubt, God-Doubt

15 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Living Faith

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We humans are funny creatures, we can look at our own performance and find it wanting and then look up to the heavens and ask, “God, are you even there?”

self doubt god doubt woman sad

I originally wanted to wax eloquent on this topic, but I’ve recently found myself smack in the middle of it.

Life has been a bit heavy lately.  February brought with it several weeks with a house guest, an impending but yet-unsettled job change, my grandma in the hospital, and a whooping cough scare in our family and close friends.  Just when things seemed to ease up, there’s more emotional heaviness, my husband’s grandma in the hospital, a running injury, a minor car accident, and my house is a wreck as we prepare for my husband to start working from home.

I can count my blessings, to be sure—the Lord has been good to us.  But the past few days as I’ve been trying to keep up with schooling the boys, supporting others, reorganizing all the things, and nursing my physical injuries, I’ve just come up short.

This out-of-control season, with its full load of stress—good and bad—has gotten to me.

I’m not strong enough to bear it.  I’m not together enough to catch up on the cleaning, the cooking, the financial planning, the interrupted school days, you name it.  It seems there are so many plates spinning and people needing and I’m failing them all.

Yesterday I couldn’t really enjoy anything.  I was dull to any feeling but sadness.  Emotionally needy.  Physically hurting.  Spiritually exhausted.

And my pride doesn’t like the feel of it all.

At times like these it’s easy to get discouraged.  My glaring limitations stare me down, and I allow my personal gloominess to cloud my view of the Sovereign God who loves me.

The truth is, I’m finite.  Limited.  Small.  That’s part of what it means to be a creature in contrast to the Creator.  And while it might shock me at times when I’m faced with my limits, God isn’t surprised.  “He is conscious of [my] frame, He is mindful that [I am] but dust.”

But all too often instead of looking up to see the One who is strong for me, I continue to look within and mourn my lack of God-like power over my circumstances.

When my self-confidence wanes, I find my wayward heart can project that same lack of confidence onto the Lord.  Have you ever done the same?

“Things aren’t going my way!  I can’t get control of this!  I can’t seem to get control of myself!  God, are You even there?”

That’s not exactly a rational train of thought, is it?

On our good days we might think of ourselves as “independent”, “self-sufficient”, “got-it-together”, “responsible”, “emotionally stable”, and, let’s be honest, just plain “awesome”.

And then when things fall apart, “I’m failing at everything.” “I’m a burden to others.” “I’m a hot mess.”  “I just can’t even.”

Been there?

Sometimes our confidence fails because it was misplaced to begin with.  Sometimes our faith falters because we took our eyes off the Lord long before things went sour.

I’m not necessarily saying the hard times and our failings are caused by this misplaced confidence (though sometimes that might be the case).  What I’m saying is that when our confidence is shaken, it may be that we’re upset with God not because He has failed us, but because we aren’t as awesome as we thought we were.

When we’re brought to the end of ourselves, the world’s counsel is often to dig deeper within. “Believe in yourself!”  “You’re stronger than you think!”  “You’ve got this!”  And while it’s healthy to silence the voices that accuse and condemn with the promises of forgiveness and life in Christ (see Romans 8!), we can’t ultimately combat our short-comings by looking within.  God doesn’t intend for our struggles to lead us to despair of ourselves and then stay there.

Check out the exhortation in Isaiah 40:26-31:

Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing.

When you feel out of control, don’t project that uncertainty on the Lord by thinking that you’re the only one who can fix your situation.  Look up!  Your God is the sovereign Lord over all the universe!  He made and sustains the stars and He made and sustains you!

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God’?
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
His understanding is inscrutable.
He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the Lord
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary.

When self-doubt strikes, don’t project that doubt onto the Lord by continuing to wallow in your own weaknesses and failures.  Look up!  Your God is strong and gives strength to the weary!

Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.

When you’re afraid and think no one notices, don’t project human ignorance onto the Lord by assuming He’s forgotten you, too.  Look up!  Your God knows the hairs on your head, and He who watches over the sparrows cares even more for you!

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.

When help is hard to come by and your situation and yourself seem helpless, don’t project that hopelessness onto the Lord by forgetting to run to him with your need.  Look up!  Your God is your “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46)

While this season has been hard and humbling for me, bringing with it more than a fair share of tears, I’m riding the waves more smoothly than I have in the past because these truths have been much more at the ready and I’m quicker now to cast my cares on the Lord.

I’ve heard it said recently, “Trials can make you bitter or better.”  For the Christian, the “better” God intends for us is to be strengthened in our confidence in Him.

Our human resources may fail us, and while it humbles us to realize that we can’t ascribe greatness to ourselves, let’s not forget to ascribe to the Lord the greatness due to His name (see Psalm 29).  We’ll find our confidence will return when it is grounded in the right Person.  And we’ll find the next storm of self-doubt and disappointment, while still painful, will have less impact on our faith when it is firmly rooted in a God who doesn’t disappoint those who hope in Him.

Here’s to growing in grace.