garden acrobatics
She’s reaching out, hanging on tightly.
Dear Christian brothers,
Look, I know it’s summer. I know that as the days get warmer, the female attire gets skimpier and more revealing. I know that it poses a bigger battle in your constant struggle with your thoughts and desires. I get it.
I also know I get weary of your whining.
Here’s something to consider.
Females are more than breasts and legs and butts. Attractive women are more than stumbling blocks. Provocatively dressed girls are more than tempters.
They are also souls.
What if you prayed for every female who happened to catch your eye? I don’t mean a weak “Oh God, keep me from temptation” weenie prayer. I mean a valiant, warrior’s prayer on her behalf.
What if you brought her before the throne of grace and plead for her redemption? What if you asked God to fill her with His Spirit that she would know of His saving power? What if, instead of yearning for carnal pleasures, you yearned that she know Jesus?
Perhaps your view of beautiful women would be changed. Maybe you’d see them as slaves in need of freedom from bondage instead of simply seductresses out to mess with you.
Because even if nothing changed and she continued in her ways, you’d be the one transformed by the Holy Spirit to have your worldview altered in a practical, obvious way. There will always be sexy women, but you have been given eyes that can see beyond this life. You’ve been given spiritual eyes to see the needs and true value of people around you. Even females.
Maybe, just maybe, you should get your focus off yourself and back on to what truly matters.
As my dear husband Robb likes to say, It’s not about you.
Seth Godin recently wrote in Selling vs. inviting of the difference between trying to sell something to people (and then making excuses when they aren’t interested) and having a product so good that you merely invite people to purchase it. Of course he writes from a business/entrepreneurial perspective, but there are certainly principles to be gleaned that we can apply to our lives as believers.
Consider 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”
As believers, we are to live out the gospel in such evident ways, that people are drawn to the truth that we proclaim. It doesn’t matter how much we try to persuade or plead. If our lives are a mess, people are going to wonder why on earth we think we have anything to offer.
Now, I’m not saying that our lives have to be perfectly ordered or (God forbid!) free from sickness or suffering. In fact, God may allow those very things to be what draws people, as we respond with supernatural joy.
I am saying that we are to be walking in victory through the power of the Holy Spirit, lest our very lives discredit what we supposedly believe.
(In saying this, I’m all to aware of the danger we then have of veering too far the other way, and depend too heavily on the over-used and abused “Preach the gospel always, and if necessary, use words.” No. Just… no. Just like the verse above says, we are also called to sincerely speak the word of God.)
Let us not be people who only proclaim truth with our mouths to the detriment of developing friendships and relationships with those we are seeking to preach to so that they witness the transforming power of that truth in our lives. Let us not be people who simply hope unbelievers look past our disorderly, undisciplined, unfruitful lives instead of seeking to grow and mature in our walk towards becoming more like Jesus.
Let us be people who are a fragrant aroma of Christ to all around us.
Tags: Christianity, religion
Loving who he is
It is good to be thankful for what God has done and is doing for me.
I do well to remember that every blessing I have is from him. I do well to always give him the glory. I do well to continually consider the biggest gift he gave in the form of his own Son. I do well to remember grace.
It is even better to be thankful for who God is.
To deeply desire digging in his Word and spending time in prayer with him. To yearn for a deeper understanding of his ways, his mind, his heart. To simply be enthralled with his presence.
I’m still learning this. But oh, how I am feeling a greater need for it!
Then, when the time comes that it’s difficult to see the blessings, when his ways seem beyond my comprehension, when my knees give out from the terrible news I have just received, when the question of “why” is ripped from my chest…
I will still trust him. I will still remember his faithfulness. I will still love him.
It’s only through loving God for who he is that I can truly love him for what he does.
Tags: Christianity, spirituality
Remember Hannah Poling?
And yet this is how Julie Gerberding, the director at Center for Disease Control (CDC) explains how vaccines and autism are in no way linked to one another, immediately after explaining how they are linked to each other.
And (not that this is important or anything) but did you know that Julie Gerberding is now the president of Merck’s vaccine division?
I am a yo-yo
So, I want to be a good Christian.
I want to continually learn more about God, produce more and more of the fruits of the Spirit, and reflect more of the life of Christ.
I want to be a loving wife, a great mom, a caring friend, and a helpful neighbor.
I want to be more organized, more cheerful, in better shape (heck, I just want to be skinny), a better listener, and better at keeping my emotions in control.
Good, more, better.
Most of the time, when I think about all my personal aspirations I’m more than a little overwhelmed. I know that I really can’t do it on my own, so I pray about it.
Oh, God! I say. Please help me be the wife and mother and sister and friend you desire me to be! Spur me on, and grant me wisdom and strength!
And then, satisfied in doing my part, I wait for a miracle.
One day melts into the next, and amidst the dishes and school books and petty arguments I vaguely notice that there isn’t any real change. Not only am I not experiencing any change, I am also not even any more motivated than I was when I offered God my halfhearted plea.
Failure.
Other times, knowing that God calls me to be obedient to His word, I set up a scheme to attain all my goals. This time, I think, it will be different. After all, I’m all studied up on Titus 2 and the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31.
Some days, I feel quite smug. Those are the days that I actually got up early to workout, completed reading all my assigned chapters in my “One Year Bible Reading Plan”, and even wrote in my prayer journal. I managed to only squawk at my kids once as I prodded them to finish all their chores on time, got dinner on the table right on schedule, and had a clean house all prepared for Bible study that evening.
Pride.
More often though, I experience great frustration when nothing goes according to my plans. There is usually some wrench that gets thrown in there, which justifies my utter failure as I resort to barking at the kids because they just aren’t listening and giving my husband the cold shoulder for being such a dolt. But then realization sinks in, and I have to honestly confront my own responsibility in flunking at my own life.
Despair.
And so it goes. The never-ending vacillation between trusting in God’s power and carrying out His commands.
Up… God will do it all. Let go and let God… right?
Down… I must be found doing what He has called me to do. Faith without works is dead… right?
Up. Laziness. Down. Legalism. Up. Down.
Each way of looking at growing in my relationship with God has their roots in Scripture, and that’s what can be so confusing. God calls for both, not either/or.
I am to trust fully in Christ’s finished redemptive work and the empowering of the Holy Spirit
AND
I am to be faithful and obedient to what He has revealed to me.
Tags: Christianity, homelife, marriage, parenting
Laundry room update
This is how the laundry room looked when we moved in a couple plus years ago. Plaid wallpaper and dusty rose cabinets.
It *only* took us two years, but we finally got around to finishing the makeover. The cabinets are black, the walls are tan and the trim is white. You can’t really see because of the sunshine, but there is a black and cream toile valance in the window.
Tags: decorating, house
Fear not.
One of the most frequent concerns of the women I talk with is fear.
Worried over having enough money to pay the mortgage, concerned about husband’s computer habits, terrified something will happen to our child, fretting over arguments with family members, freaking about over the latest flu scare, and on and on.
Where is the peace we are promised? Why don’t we know of the rest in His care that we read about?
After all, our fears make sense. If only we do things this certain way, and make sure we avoid that, then it’ll be okay.
And how dare anyone suggest that we are being irrational or silly. They just don’t understand, and they’re being reckless, and they’re not respecting our feelings. If they would just listen then things would be handled correctly and we wouldn’t have to freak out.
Right?
Except for the part of Jesus telling us over and over to “Fear not”.
Ladies, fear is sin.
When we are anxious or alarmed about something, most likely we cannot truly blame it on just being a woman who cares, or a mother with concern. So, the first step is acknowledging that we are not justified in our fears.
Then what? Most of the time, when we try to view our fear as sin, whenever we feel it welling up inside of us we attempt to manage it. We tell ourselves it’s wrong, and we try to think about something else, and then we start doing something even worse.
We try to modify the wrong behavior ourselves by seeking to control and manipulate the situations and people around us.
The problem with this is, well, that is sin, too. Jesus isn’t into the behavior modification business, and he really isn’t impressed when you turn into a well-meaning shrew with a mile-long list of restrictions and instructions designed to ensure that everything is just so. So, you know, you don’t have to worry. Because worrying is sin. Gah.
And, if by some chance you did happen to every now and then calm your own fears, you will not be able to help but rejoice in a little self-righteous satisfaction in a job well done. Pride is sin, too.
We overcome sin with the power of the Holy Spirit, given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the cleansing of His blood.
So smash your command center residing in the headquarters of your heart. Pushing all those buttons and levers isn’t going to change anything. You’re just making things worse.
Our view of sin and how we deal with it changes when we have the correct view of ourselves. We have to understand that our standing with God has nothing to do with us. Nothing. It has everything to do with Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. When that actually grasps our heart, we can finally understand that there is no way we could ever fulfill what a justice God demands of us.
And that is what brings us to that place where we simply fall on our face at the Cross in thankfulness and adoration, trusting in his finished work for our salvation. Any victory in our life from then on is simply an act of his grace on our road of sanctification, and he gets all the glory.
If we are believers of Christ, then the Bible says that God has given us a new heart. He gives us the ability to see things as he does, to hear his Word, and to understand it.
As I’ve recently heard, “If it’s out of your hands, don’t be fearful. Be faithful.”
Tags: Christianity, spirituality
Lately we’ve been discussing the effects our foundational beliefs have on our response to problems.
Take, for example, agriculture and food. If your foundational belief is that all was created by a Creator and designed with purpose, the problems of weeds and animal waste are approached differently than if one believes we are just a result of chance and split cells.
So, one side uses the natural balances that are found in nature and seeks to maintain them for optimal health of both the land and the animals and people that reside and partake of the land. Think composting, manure, bacteria, crop rotation, and on and on.
The other side tends to see things as separate issues and attempts to solve them accordingly, resulting in answers like raising animals on cement floors, pumping manure into holding ponds, and adding massive amounts of antibiotics to their food.
We can respect the simple yet complex system of many different aspects working together to maintain natural balance for optimal results, or we can break each process down to compartmentalized actions.
Then, further down on the road, if the rate of childrens diseases and medical issues like ADHD, autoimmune diseases, and food allergies start rising, we just begin to produce drugs to treat symptoms like hyperactivity and bowel issues, instead of looking at what is in our food and how it is raised or produced.
Suddenly, waterless hand sanitizers and Lysol are the weapons in every good mom’s arsenal. She fears germs and dirt, even while she smilingly serves them Juicy Juice and chicken nuggets. We are content to slather our children in cancer-causing chemicals as long as the bottle contains “real lavender”.
When I found myself in a world where drinking raw milk and questioning vaccines is paramount to insanity (or at least child abuse) but taking my child every few weeks to sit in doctor’s office for a few hours was normal, I had to take a step back and rethink the initial presuppositions that helped everyone around me arrive to those conclusions.
Now that my interpretations and opinions have changed on so many things, so have my verdicts.
Tags: health, idiocy, parenting, presuppositions, worldview