Category Archives: Thoughts From Scripture

Lead Me Back

Posted on by
For all who need to come back home —
“I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions,
and, as a cloud, thy sins:
return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.”
Isaiah 44:22
Lead Me Back
Lead me back to my home, I have wandered far away.
I’ve been gone for far too long. Will You welcome me today?

Is it possible You can hear me after the way I turned from You?
Is it possible that You’re near me, that You never went away,
And You’ll lead me back today?

The life I spent, the days I lost, I have lived them all in vain.
Now I hold nothing to show but a heart that is full of pain.

Lord, I know that You will hear me although I turned away from You.
Lord, I see that You were near me, and You never went away,
And You call me back today.

Lead me back to my home, I have wandered far away.
I’ve been gone for far too long. Will You welcome me today?

Now I come to You today.

~ Words and music by Pepper Choplin

As sung by the Steve Pettit Evangelistic Team on their CD, Creator Of It All.

Book Review: His Ways, Your Walk

Posted on by

HWYWHis Ways, Your Walk by my friend Lou Ann Keiser focuses on Bible passages written specifically to women. It grew out of Lou Ann’s long experience as a missionary wife, counseling many women and seeing the types of problems and struggles that regularly arise, and out of her years of Bible reading and study.

It covers a lot of ground for 244 pages: how to become born again, how to know God’s will for one’s life, singleness, romance, marriage, motherhood, women in the church, spiritual gifts, dress, entertainment, dealing with emotions, abuse – and that’s not even half the topics discussed. There are “application” questions after major sections, to process and apply what one has read. It is very practical, straightforward, balanced, chock full of Biblical wisdom, and laced with humor.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is that most of the time, when Lou Ann is discussing a passage, she includes the whole passage right there in the book rather than just a reference (though sometimes references are listed for further study).

One of my favorite quotes is in the chapter on dress: “We shouldn’t call attention to ourselves by looking tacky any more than we should call attention to ourselves by wearing too much bling. We need to find balance” (p. 152). Another, in a section on the husband’s headship over his wife, quotes I Corinthians 11:3 (“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God”), and then observes, “Is it negative to have a head? Obviously not, since Christ has one! Here, we have a glimpse of God’s order of authority. God the Father is in a position over Christ. Is God the father more important or better than Christ? No. They are equal; both are God! But Christ was obedient to His heavenly Father” (p. 72).

This book is good not only for personal study, but it would be good to share with daughters, a Sunday School class, or in a mentoring situation.

This book also represents a few firsts for me: this is the first (and only, so far) book I was asked to read and critique before publication, the first book in which I was listed in the acknowledgments, and the first book in which I am actually quoted. Thanks, Lou Ann!

You can read more of Lou Ann’s writings at her blog, In the Way.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Why I Wear a Hat to Church

Posted on by

Every now and then someone sends around those “getting to know you” questions, and I’ve answered them a few times on my blog. Sometimes one of the questions is “What is one thing people might not know about you?” One good answer to that question is that I wear a hat, or headcovering, to church, but I have never mentioned it on my blog because I don’t want to be thought weird or misjudged because of it.

But in real life, of course, a hat in church is obvious and sticks out like a sore thumb, even though I try to keep them unobtrusive and not overly decorative. My husband and I don’t want to make it our “pet issue,” soapbox, or hobby horse by bringing it up and discussing it excessively with people, so we usually only explain it when asked. I don’t think we have ever been asked, though I was once accused of “formalism” by someone who pronounced that judgment without trying to find out our reasons.

Online discussions of those who wear headcoverings often pronounce them as legalists. Since I am neither a formalist or a legalist, I thought perhaps an explanation would be in order.

The practice comes from I Corinthians 11:1-16, which I’ll include here for easy reference:

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

There are several different ways of interpreting this passage, so I’ll just go through them to explain the conclusions we came to.

1. It’s a cultural issue. I’m told that in the days in which this was written, respectable women wore veils in public and women of ill repute did not, so it was a matter of good reputation to be veiled in public. While that may be true, that’s not the reason given here (and the apostle probably would not have needed to encourage them to do what they were already practicing as a culture anyway). The reason given here for a woman to wear a head covering is to illustrate that her husband is her head and she is honoring him, and she is specifically to have it on when she is “praying or prophesying” in a public assembly of the church.

2. It’s just talking about hair. Verses 14-15 cause some people to attribute the whole discussion to hair length. There are a few reasons I don’t agree that that’s the case. The phrasing of the passage seems to indicate that this is an example of the same principle in nature, not the culmination of the discussion. And if it is talking about hair, wouldn’t it be saying that men should be bald when they pray (verses 4 and 7)? When it says a woman should have her head covered when she prays or prophesies, that seems to indicate something she puts on at that time.

3. Women should cover their heads all the time. Some people who do believe in using head coverings take this view because a woman needs to be ready to pray or prophesy (verse 5) at any time. However, the context of the passage is public worship (verse 1 talks about keeping the ordinances, then the remainder of the chapter after this discusses communion [or the Lord’s Table or the Lord’s Supper, whatever you choose to call it]). The early New Testament church participated in the Lord’s Table much more often than modern churches do (I was told once that they did so every time they met, but I don’t know how to find out whether that is true). Therefore, since the context of the passage is public worship with both men and women present, I don’t wear a hat around the house or at the grocery store or to women’s meetings at church.

4. A head covering in Bible times is like a wedding ring now, just a symbol that a woman is married. They may both indicate marriage, but the instruction in this passage seems to me to go beyond just being married, particularly since the head covering seems to be something they put on while meeting together, not something that is kept on all the time.

5. Woman should wear a headcovering in a public assembly of the church to illustrate that she is under the headship of her husband and honoring him. That’s obviously the view that I hold.

What is the verse about angels referring to (verse 10)? Some think that is a reference to pastors, as the angel of each church in Revelation is its pastor. Some think it refers to actual heavenly angels and that God shows something of Himself to them through us (“so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places,” Ephesians 3:10, ESV).

To me the cultural difference comes in the type of head covering. Woman in Western societies don’t wear veils, so at some point they began wearing hats. Amish and Mennonite women wear prayer kapps. In some Eastern European churches, the woman wear scarves over their heads. Some of the women who wear headcoverings all the time here use a bandana style, though often they use white fabrics.

Women wearing some type of head covering in American churches was practiced up until the 50s or 60s, not that long ago. Somehow the practice fell away, maybe because it was no longer taught. Gradually people forgot the basis for it, and then didn’t see a need to keep on with it. Or maybe the practice was rejected because the world in general rejected the idea of man being head over a woman. Oddly, society has kept the practice of men praying with their heads uncovered. You do still see men removing their hats when during public prayer, though I think even that is beginning to decline.

There are some fundamental Biblical issues for which there is no wiggle room: the Deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith, and others. But on other issues, Romans 14 has instructions for those who come to different conclusions about what the Bible teaches in those issues that aren’t fundamental to the Christian faith (though the passage is discussing weaker brethren, I think some of these overarching principles apply). Some people can read the same passage, like this one, and come to different conclusions about what is taught or meant. Each should do whatever they do as unto the Lord (verse 6), not judging or condemning each other, (verses 3, 10,13), being fully persuaded in their own minds (verses 5, 22), remembering they’re accountable to the Lord (verse 12), not being contentious about it (verses 1, 17-19).

As I said at the start, this isn’t a soapbox issue and I rarely mention it. I don’t judge other women who don’t wear hats or headcoverings because I understand that they may read the passage differently. But because I see the passage the way I do, I need to follow what I believe it is teaching. I thought perhaps explaining where the conviction comes from would help others not to judge the practice unfairly.

This post will be also linked to Women Living Well.

Myths and Maxims of Ministry

Posted on by

IMG_1791

Recently a friend told me that she was somewhat overwhelmed with the details of a particular ministry she had started and had trouble finding joy in it until she reminded herself of the reason she began it in the first place. That got me to thinking about some of the misconceptions I had about ministry over the years, and  I thought I’d share some of those here. I’m not talking about “the” ministry: the paid professional, full-time minister of some sort, though some of these may apply there as well, but rather I am talking about the average Christian who participates in some ministry and then gets dismayed with it.

Here were some of my faulty assumptions:

1. Since this is being done for the Lord, everything should go smoothly. I can picture some of you smiling. Though I don’t see the devil behind every little problem, we do have an active enemy behind the scenes, and we do live in a fallen world where things break down and problems occur. The icemaker doesn’t know it’s in a church and shouldn’t fall apart just before a banquet that has been planned for months (just one of my “things gone wrong” scenarios.) The microphone makes an excruciating noise just as the soloist steps up, the babysitter forgot she should be there, etc. etc. It just happens.

2. Since we’re all Christians here, we should all agree on how everything should be done. If you read through the book of Acts, you see that the early church leaders had to hammer some things out. Even Barnabas and Paul had a major disagreement, causing them to part ways (and the Bible doesn’t really say who was right and who was wrong there. Some have faulted Paul for not being gracious, but maybe John Mark needed to know how serious his previous failure was. At any rate, they all reconciled later and God used it to multiply the number of people sent out). Leaders should not expect a panel of “yes men” (or woman), no one should be oversensitive about their proposals or ideas, we should all be open to differing opinions but be prepared to stand firm when something needs to be done a certain way.

3. Since we’re all Christians here, we should all have the best attitudes and act in an exemplary way. We should. But we don’t. We’re sinners. That’s not an excuse, but it is a truth. We fail. We disappoint each other. We display selfishness. We need to react to each other with grace, remembering our own faults and failures and need for grace. We might get our feelings hurt, but we need to take it to the Lord: we might need to go to the other person and let them know and try to explain and apologize to each other, or we might need to just let it go, but what we should not do is get bitter and drop out of church or avoid that person forevermore.

4. I should always feel joyful in my ministry. There are times when we get bogged down in details, feel overwhelmed, get tired of it, just don’t enjoy it, wish we hadn’t signed up, etc. And if we think about it a minute, we can feel that way in other areas of life as well. We don’t always respond to our loved ones with love and joy, though we want to and strive and pray for help to. We can get bogged down in the daily duties at home and get irritable about them instead of lovingly ministering to our families. A lack of joy in a ministry may be an indication it’s time to make changes, but more often than not it just means we’re human and, like my friend at the beginning, need to remind ourselves of why we’re doing what we’re doing and for whom we’re doing it. And I usually find that the joy comes not before or even during a task, but afterward.

5. If God calls me to do something, I should always feel sufficient for it. I have found just the opposite to be true. Usually, like Moses, I feel insufficient for it even before I start, but sometimes even if I am asked to do something that I feel God has equipped me for, there is always a point where I feel overwhelmed (I mean locked in the bathroom crying type of overwhelmed). But that’s a good place to be, because that’s when we learn by experience and not just principle that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

6. If this ministry is in God’s will, there should be plenty of people willing to help with it.  Not necessarily. A lot of ministries end up being understaffed because others don’t catch the vision or feel just too busy. Once when I needed to round up some helpers for a particular endeavor, I asked someone who looked to me like she’d have time, but she didn’t feel she did. Then another lady whom I would never have asked because she had so much on her plate volunteered. You just never know, but instead of getting frustrated, just pray about whom to ask. In some cases, it might need to be laid aside until enough people get burdened for it. Once when we were part of a Christian homeschooling ministry, the lady who had started it had her seventh child and just could not carry on with it. We went without it for a year, and then several ladies volunteered to take it up again, breaking it into more manageable pieces for each one rather than having the whole thing on one person’s shoulders. Praying for laborers isn’t restricted to the mission field.

Those are some myths, or misconceptions. Here are the maxims, which will overlap a bit with the above.

1. Something will go wrong, some times worse than others, no matter how well you plan. Take it patiently and pray for wisdom about what to do. God’s given me some marvelous ideas right in the midst of a crisis. And on the other side, if a lady comes tearing out of the church asking you if you’d be willing to go buy some ice because the icemaker  stopped working and the banquet starts in half an hour and 100 ladies are coming — please don’t act grumpy and displeased and take 20 minutes to get going (yes, that happened). You don’t know what a balm you can be for someone in the throes of a major problem. And if you come to an event and it’s starting late, don’t be critical: you never know what has happened behind the scenes.

2. Disagreements will occur no matter how much you prayed beforehand. But don’t just dismiss them: sometimes they are God’s way of showing you an aspect you may not have thought of. Even if you can’t make a change and do what the other person suggested, you can make sure they feel heard and respond graciously.

3. You won’t always feel like doing whatever it is you’ve agreed to do. Pray for grace and do it anyway. You’ll probably feel better about it afterward.

4. Realize you can’t do it on your own. Jesus said, “without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5b), but “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

5. People will fail you. They failed Jesus, too. We have failed Him and others. We may need to discuss the specific matter with the person involved as part of their growth and training, but we also need to forgive as we have been forgiven.

6. People will surprise you with sometimes with their willingness to pitch in and help, to support you, to do what needs to be done, to have a great idea just when you can’t think any more, to say a word of encouragement to edify you.

7. Ministry will stretch you. If we never venture out of our comfort zones, we’ll never grow. It’s scary, but we can find God meeting us in our need and providing in the most wonderful ways when we let Him stretch us.

8.Get adequate rest before or in the midst of extra-busy or pressured times.

9. Delegate. Easier said than done sometimes, but pray not only for helpers, but the right helpers. Be prepared that they might not do everything just the way you would and pray for wisdom about when to insist on something being done a certain way and when to go with the flow.

10. Sometimes it is best to say no or step down. A principle instilled in me early on is not to say “no” unless I’ve prayed about it. But sometimes the answer should be No, and sometimes the desire to step down from the ministry is from the Lord. I don’t know how to tell you five easy steps to discern that, but as you walk with the Lord, He’ll show you. Don’t throw in the towel at the first sign of weariness or problems, but take it to Him to see whether he wants you to lean on Him more to carry on, or whether He wants you to make way for someone else to step in.

11. There is nothing like seeing God provide strength and ideas and and even tiny barely-significant details that make you marvel at His attention and care.

12. There is nothing like being used of God (which is what ministry comes down to: allowing God to work through you in some way to minister to another). When someone lets you know that they were blessed or instructed or encouraged through some small thing you said or did, and you know it was only through His grace that it was accomplished, it rejoices your heart, encourages your faith, and spurs you to minister for Him even more. And even if no one else notices, you can be sure that God does.

13. We’re all called to ministry. We may not be a part of an official ministry within the church, but all those who know God are called to minister to one another, to exercise the spiritual gifts He has given, whether in an official church-based capacity or just quietly behind the scenes.

14. Keep first things first. Like Martha, we can be “cumbered about much serving,” “careful and troubled about many things,” and forget the one needful thing: fellowshipping with our Savior. Serving is no substitute for engaging with Him, getting to know Him better, growing in love for Him, believing in Him. Sometimes weariness in service is an indication we’re off track just here.

A beloved former pastor, Jesse Boyd, once said:

Worship without service is a hollow farce.
Service without worship is a hectic fervor.
But worship which issues in service is a holy force.

There is much more that can be said about ministry: there are whole books written on the subject. But I hope some of these thoughts help encourage you in your ministry for the Lord.

What have you learned about ministry along the way?

Other posts about ministry here at Stray Thoughts:

Am I Doing Any Good?
Women in Ministry.
Why Older Women Don’t Serve.
How Older Women Can Serve.
God’s Help for God’s Assignment.
Whose life is it, anyway?
Mentoring Women.
Church Ladies’ Groups.

This post will be also linked to  Women Living Well.

Save

Book Review: Betrayal

Posted on by

BetrayalBetrayal by Robin Lee Hatcher is the second in her Where the Heart Lives series about three orphans who were separated and try to find each other as adults. Each book focuses on one of the siblings: the first book in the series, Belonging, reviewed here, featured older sister Felicia.

In Betrayal older brother Hugh Brennan has just been released from prison where he had served as a result of his father’s betrayal. He has heard that Felicia is in Idaho and sets out to find her, but then his horse is injured and he has to stop for a while. He comes across the ranch of Julia Grace who, though wary, offers him food, a place to stay, and a few days work while his horse heals. Hugh, of course keeps his background as private as possible.

Julia has secrets of her own. She was plunged into a marriage of convenience to escape a lifetime of shame, but her husband abused and belittled her. He has passed away, and her one security is the ranch he left her, which she steadfastly refuses to sell to her husband’s brother.

Can these two wounded souls ever come to trust each other with their futures as well as the  secrets of their pasts?

I enjoyed the story and the journey Robin led Hugh and Julia through and the things they learned along the way about trust and true security.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Comforts From Romans

Posted on by

ComfortsComforts From Romans: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time by Elyse Fitzpatrick wasn’t originally on my radar, but I saw that the True Woman site would be going through Romans 1-8 in the four weeks preceding Easter, using this book as a supplement. I had been wanting to do something a little different in my pre-Easter reading, and I had been wanting to read something by Elyse Fitzpatrick, so I ordered the book. In the meantime, I decided to do a different reading plan for Easter, so I saved this book for afterward and caught up with the weekly discussion about it at True Woman (under Romans Reboot).

The book is not a thorough exegesis or commentary of all of Romans 1-8, but rather a “devotional taste” of its truths. Elyse mainly just pulls out those parts of it dealing with “the absolutely shocking message of grace” (p. 13). The gospel isn’t just for the obtaining salvation at the beginning of our Christian lives: we need to hear it and think about it daily. Why? To stir up praise and gratitude to God for it, but also to remind ourselves, because we’re too prone to forgetting that our relationship with God is based on Jesus’ righteousness and not our own even after salvation.

If you’re familiar with Romans at all, you know that the first three chapters start with very bad news: the fact that we are all sinful, that our sin deserves judgment from God, and there is nothing we can do in ourselves to deliver ourselves. Even if we could perfectly obey every command of God from here on out (and we can’t), that won’t erase the sin we’ve committed up to now. It’s hopeless — which is why the gospel is very good news: Jesus kept every law of God in our place, and because He was perfectly righteous and the eternal Son of God, He was the only One who could take our sin and punishment in our place so that we could be saved when we believe in Him. Elyse discusses all of these factors in more detail: our “ruined righteousness,” our inability to keep God’s law, the great grace of God in Jesus Christ, what He accomplished in our salvation, and the implications of grace in our everyday lives. It is very refreshing and encouraging: even having known these truths for decades, it has been good to meditate on them again, to be reminded of the freedom we have in Christ.

One aspect of that freedom that particularly resonated with me was when she discussed receiving an email from a friend about something she had done wrong. Elyse writes that she was able to receive the criticism, acknowledge its truth, confess and apologize for it without negative feelings for the messenger: “Because the gospel tells me that I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, I am no longer entrapped in trying to prop up my former flawed identity…I can freely admit my failure without needing to cover up, be defensive, or beat myself up…Rather than raking myself over the coals, wondering, How could I be such an idiot and sin like this? I am now free to say, Of course I sinned like this! It’s just God’s grace that I don’t get e-mails like this every day! I am, after all, a very great sinner…but I’ve got a very great Savior” (pp 79-80).

There are a few places I have some quibbles with. One is in an otherwise very good series of chapters about “One Man’s Obedience,” Jesus’s having fulfilled all of God’s law perfectly every single day of His life. How He interacted with His siblings is conjecture, of course, since the Bible doesn’t say much about His childhood, but we can imagine what He must have encountered showing love to His siblings, yet being laughed at, misunderstood, sinned against, and so on. When she gets to His baptism, however, she says, “At that moment He knew without question who He was and why He’d come” (p. 86). I don’t think He doubted it or didn’t know until then: I don’t think His Father’s voice saying, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased” was meant to reassure Him, but rather to be a testimony to those witnessing it. She goes on to say that “The Spirit, His Spirit, was finally released and flew to Him like a dove, granting Him the power to live and die and rise again.” I don’t think that’s what the Spirit was doing, but what exactly was going on and signified at Christ’s baptism is a discussion for another time, and I do understand good people can differ in their opinions about it.

In another place, she’s discussing the righteousness we have in Christ and the joy we should feel because of it: “Be done now with all your stupid efforts to approve of yourself and to look good…Be revolted by your own goodness and your love of reputation!…Dance a lot. Brag a ton about how righteous He’s made you. Show off your new clothes! Be as free as a drunk to look stupid and hop about for joy. Weep over your sin. Rejoice over His obedience…All those lessons about how to keep your religion dignified and presentable will be completely blasted away in the raucous party that will be known as ‘heaven'” (p. 100). I get that when we really grasp that we have the righteousness of Christ, when we really comprehend that as much as we’re able, we’ll be exceedingly joyful, but I don’t see anything in the glimpses of heaven the Bible shows us that compare it to a raucous party. Yes, the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7), but I don’t see that rejoicing as “raucous.” Not a big deal or a big quibble — we’ll see when we get there what it’s like. 🙂 I also cringe a little bit at “hopping around like a drunk.” I grew up in the home of an alcoholic: I have seen happy drunks (and other kinds as well), and to me it’s incongruous to think of rejoicing in Christ’s righteousness looking like that. Yes, I do know the Bible says “be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) as a comparison of being under the control of something else, and that may be the kind of allusion Elyse means here, or she probably was just getting at the idea of rejoicing with abandon. It just kind of rubbed me the wrong way because of my background, but again, it’s a small quibble, taking more time to explain that it is probably worth.

Another quibble is the interchangeable use of “law” and “rules.” The verses in the Bible about “the law” are referring to the commandments given to Israel in the first five books of the Bible. Much of Romans deals with the fact that we’re no longer under that law, but that doesn’t mean we’re no longer under any “rules,” that rules are evil, etc. The New Testament is full of commandments. I delved into that more here. We don’t keep rules, or even commandments, in order to be saved, because salvation is by grace through faith. We don’t keep them to be “made” or “kept” righteous even after salvation: our walk, our growth, is by faith, not by our own works. But we don’t ditch the NT commands to love our neighbors as ourselves, etc., either: we seek His grace, His power, is strength, His love, to enable us. Commandments and laws can’t produce righteousness, but they show us what it looks like so we can see where we fall short and how much we need help.

The one area I had a big problem with, though, is when discussing Romans 6:12-14, she says, ” My guess is that you’re feeling a little nervous right now and that you’re tempted to ask the same question that Paul does in the next verse: ‘Yes. yes, but, but…are we to sin because we are not under law, but under grace?’ to which I respond, ‘You can if you want to. But God forbid that you would want to in light of all He has done'” (p. 112). She then says very much the same thing at the beginning of the next chapter. I do see the “God forbid” in Scripture, but I don’t see the “you can sin if you want to.” That totally threw me.

I wish she had talked a little bit more about sanctification in the book. She does somewhat. She discusses that we “serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6), that we’re motivated to live for Christ not by heaping on more rules, but out of gratitude for what He has done, that we’re dead to sin, etc. I really would loved to have seen a discussion of Romans 8:13 about mortifying the deeds of the body through the Spirit. I’ve mentioned before that there are action verbs in the New Testament that indicate effort on our part, though it is not an effort to earn righteousness but rather effort springing from His righteousness in us. But I still wrestle with all of that, with what’s my part and what’s His part.

Probably one of the most helpful statements in the book, which ties together much that I’ve mused on here, is this, in a discussion of what it means to have died to sin: “This happened through our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection as is demonstrated at our baptism. Paul doesn’t give us new, more stringent rules to live by. No, he tells us who we are. It is the realization of our new identity that will ultimately and at heart level transform us” (p. 102).

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

To You the helpless commits himself

Posted on by

I was searching through Scripture this morning, mainly in the Psalms, to try to find something that would both express what was going on in my heart concerning the bombings at the Boston Marathon plus guide my thoughts aright (the Psalms are very good for that). Here is one passage that helps, from Psalm 10 in the ESV:

2 In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor;
let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised.
3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul,
and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.
4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him;
all his thoughts are, “There is no God.”
5 His ways prosper at all times;
your judgments are on high, out of his sight;
as for all his foes, he puffs at them.
6 He says in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
throughout all generations I shall not meet adversity.”
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
8 He sits in ambush in the villages;
in hiding places he murders the innocent.
His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless;
9     he lurks in ambush like a lion in his thicket;
he lurks that he may seize the poor;
he seizes the poor when he draws him into his net.
10 The helpless are crushed, sink down,
and fall by his might.
11 He says in his heart, “God has forgotten,
he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
14 But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.

16 The Lord is king forever and ever;
the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted;
you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Though the poor were not the target in Boston as they are in this Psalm, there are many similarities. Verse 8 particularly seems to describe the cowardly bomber: “He sits in ambush in the villages;  in hiding places he murders the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the helpless.”

A verse I left off is verse 1: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” We know, as the psalmist did as well, that God does not hide Himself in trouble, that He is not far away. Other Psalms affirm His nearness in trouble. But it can feel like He is far away, and here the psalmist reasons from his feelings to the facts he knows, that God does see, is just, and will some day set things to rights. A good example for us.

And in the meantime, we can rejoice in those who stepped up to help and pray for people to turn to the Lord.

I had particularly wondered about the older racer who fell to the ground at the first explosion: The first and last paragraphs here tell about him: he got up and finished the race.

 

“What God Ordains Is Always Good”

Posted on by

“It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting:
for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.”

Ecclesiastes 7:2

I’ve been laying some things to heart after watching the recording of Julie Herbster’s funeral. Julie was a youngish (39) wife and mom who loved music, sports, literature, and especially her family. But above all she loved her Lord. She passed away just before Easter after a ten month long battle with cancer.

I did not know her well. We “met” on an online Christian forum, where I appreciated her humor, intelligence, grace, wisdom and balance. Her husband was on the staff of The Wilds Christian Camp, which I’ve linked to before, where my kids have attended for many summers. The Wilds was not too far from where we lived in SC at the time, and I invited her to speak at one of our church’s ladies’ luncheons, and she graciously accepted. I was delighted to find her online persona and her real life personality were the same.

I was very sad to hear of her cancer diagnosis last spring, sadder still to hear of her passing. She had five children, ranging from about 8 to 15 in age. I appreciated her pastor’s comment to her husband in the funeral message (I’m paraphrasing). “You’ve wondered how you’re going to minister and live without Julie. I have no earthly idea. But that’s why we’re going to pray for God’s grace for you.” I appreciate a man of God who is honest that not everything in this life makes sense or is to be faced with a smile, and yet affirms, as he also said, “Understanding God is not a prerequisite to trusting Him.”

I was touched by Julie’s having always wanted to be a mom and how she poured her life into her children. Though her husband was in a public ministry, she enjoyed staying in the background. I appreciate how her pastor wove her love for literature, especially Lewis, Tolkien, and MacDonald, into his funeral message, with Lewis’s themes of this life being the Shadowlands and the real world beyond it. I’ve never read MacDonald, but the pastor said Julie saw in her cancer fight and chemo treatments a parallel with his The Princess and the Goblin (which I have never read but now want to), with the goblin mines being the cancer and chemo, but the golden thread that Princess Irene held on to to guide her through them representing Julie’s clinging to the truth of God’s Word to sustain her through this time.

I had never heard one of the sings that was sung at her funeral, but it speaks volumes:

What God ordains is always good:
His will is just and holy.
As he directs my life for me,
I follow meek and lowly.
My God indeed
In every need
Knows well how he will shield me;
To him, then, I will yield me.

What God ordains is always good:
He never will deceive me;
He leads me in his own right way,
And never will he leave me.
I take content
What he has sent;
His hand that sends me sadness
Will turn my tears to gladness.

What God ordains is always good:
His loving thought attends me;
No poison can be in the cup
That my physician sends me.
My God is true;
Each morning new
I trust his grace unending,
My life to him commending.

What God ordains is always good:
He is my friend and father;
He suffers naught to do me harm
Though many storms may gather.
Now I may know
Both joy and woe;
Someday I shall see clearly
That he has loved me dearly.

What God ordains is always good:
Though I the cup am drinking
Which savors now of bitterness,
I take it without shrinking.
For after grief
God gives relief,
My heart with comfort filling
And all my sorrow stilling.

What God ordains is always good:
This truth remains unshaken.
Though sorrow, need, or death be mine,
I shall not be forsaken.
I fear no harm,
For with his arm
He shall embrace and shield me;
So to my God I yield me.

By: Samuel Rodigast

Book Review: Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story

Posted on by

Joni and KenAt 36, Joni Eareckson felt that marriage was probably not in God’s plan for her, not only because of her age, but because of her paralysis resulting from a diving accident in her teens. Who would be willing to take on all that would be involved?

After Ken and Joni met at church, then got to know one another, then started dating, Ken felt he could. He knew he loved her and he felt their marriage could work.

Joni was afraid he idealized her. He had read about her before meeting her, accompanied her on mission trips, heard her speak, and even though she tried to be realistic about herself and her humanness (when the leg bag collecting her urine broke in public while on a tour behind the Iron Curtain, she quipped that that was God’s way of not letting the attention and acclaim go to her head), she was afraid some people thought of her more highly than they ought to.

But after much time together and discussion, they married, And though they loved each other dearly, after some years the relentless details involved in Joni’s care began to wear on Ken. He began to pull away, to need time to himself to get away from it all. Soon their lives were on nearly parallel tracks, rarely intersecting. She had had a ministry and association before he came on the scene, and he felt unneeded in her world: he had his teaching and coaching and fishing trips.

Then unexplained and excruciating pain descended on Joni, not only requiring more care, but causing frustration because nothing seemed to help. And then came a cancer diagnosis…

Marriage has its rough spots anyway, but add all these to the mix, and any of them could break a marriage. In Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story, with Larry Libby, they want to make clear that what pulled them through was not their own strength, but God’s grace when they came to the end of their own strength. They don’t want to come across as super-saints, but as real people who found God’s grace sufficient in the most trying of times “to attain a new level of love rather than simply surviving or grimly hanging on” (p. 15).

I loved Larry Libby’s preface, talking about fairy tales and sad love songs, then musing:

We all dream dreams and know very well that they don’t always work out. Life is particularly hard on high expectations. Things hardly ever fall together the way we would have scripted them. The fact is, if we put our hope in a certain set of circumstances working out a certain way at certain times, we’re bound to be disappointed, because nothing in this life is certain.

So what’s the solution? To give up on dreams?

No, it is to realize that if we belong to God, there are even bigger dreams for our lives than our own. But in order to walk in those bigger dreams, we may face greater obstacles than we ever imagined and find ourselves compelled to rely on a much more powerful and magnificent God than we ever knew before (p. 15).

I know it’s the style these days to have a book jump back and forth in the time line, but it is somewhat confusing and choppy, and I think would have flowed much better maybe by opening with one incident and then flashing back to the beginning and progressing from there to the current time.

There is one kind of odd spot in the book when Joni had a horrible night suffering from pneumonia and prayed that Jesus would manifest Himself to her in a special way. As Ken ministered to her, suddenly she said.”You’re Jesus!” She went on to say that she could feel His touch through Ken’s, could see Him in Ken’s smile. That I can understand, but manifesting Jesus, being a conduit through which He can work, isn’t the same thing a being Jesus. And I think that’s what she ultimately meant.

I scanned some of the reviews on Amazon and was surprised to find some criticism that the book didn’t contain enough or reveal enough. I thought it was quite gracious of the Tadas to reveal as much as they did in order to show God’s grace and to encourage others: the rest really is none of our business.

Overall I loved the book and would recommend it to anyone.

I linked to this speech of Joni’s before, but it shares a condensed version of some of what is in the book.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Time Management

Posted on by

clock

Susan and I are thinking along the same track this week. She wrote about time management and I was thinking on the same subject this morning. I’m going to copy borrow her idea and share a bit of what I have learned along the way.

1. A process, not perfection. With both time management and household organization, it helps to think of it as a process of growth. If I have as my goal to be perfectly organized and scheduled all the time, I’m setting myself up for disappointment. When I fail or find flaws in my system, instead of beating myself up over it, I can use it as an opportunity to try another approach.

2. Adaptability. No one system works all the time for everyone. We all have different personalities, families, responsibilities — and before we can get fully settled, life changes: we move, the kids become teenagers, etc. Our own system needs to be adaptable through the seasons of life – and sometimes through any given day.

3. Gleaning. Some people find a particular book, person, or system and follow it exactly. I tend to be more of a gleaner: I pull different ideas from different sources. Either way is fine: just use whatever approach works for you and your family.

4. Priorities. It helps to sit down and establish your priorities and then come back and revisit them from time to time. For instance, time with God is a must: if I don’t make that a priority, then I can get caught up in other things and neglect it. For me that means spending time in the Bible and prayer as one of the first things of the day. Also, my husband is the head of the family and I’m a help for him, so when he asks me to do something that crowds out what I had planned for the week, I need to remember that those hours when everyone is at work or school are not my own to do as I please. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it and work something out if there is a genuine conflict, but it does mean I should not be selfish with my time or schedule things without regard to the rest of the family.

We see Jesus exercising priorities throughout His earthly life, but one clear place that shows this is Mark 1. After a busy day of healing and casting out demons, “in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed” (verse 35), and then when the disciples found Him and told Him people were looking for Him, instead of going back into town to heal more, He said, “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth” (verse 38). Healing was one part of His ministry, but the higher priority was preaching the gospel. And spending time with His Father was the first priority of the day.

5. Scheduling. Some years ago I came across a few women online who didn’t believe in scheduling their day: they felt they needed to be open to the leading of the Lord and let Him arrange their time. But being open to the Lord’s leading doesn’t negate planning. James 4:13-17 says, “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” That doesn’t say don’t plan anything: it says keep the Lord’s will in mind when you plan.

I don’t know about you, but if I don’t have some kind of plan for the day, I’ll just float along and not accomplish much of anything. Ephesians 5:15-16 says: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Proverbs 13:4 says, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” While not talking specifically about time, obviously a diligent person is busy. Proverbs 21:5 says, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.” Have you ever had to act in haste because you didn’t plan ahead, and then were impoverished in some way because you forgot something or lost your temper and acted impatiently with your family?

When I was in college, I didn’t know how to plan my time well and ended up rushed, with lower grades because I kept turning things in late. In high school I had stayed up til 1 or 2 a.m. doing homework: that wasn’t an option in a Christian college which required lights out in the dorms at 11 p.m. (and that was probably good for me.) I think it was my junior year that I had a course in time management, and I felt that should have been a freshman course! One exercise the teacher had us do was to try different ways of scheduling. One was a minute-by-minutes schedule: that is probably too tedious for most people, although keeping a journal of how you use all your minutes for a few days will help you see where most of your time is going and help you know what areas you need to improve on. That kind of schedule might be helpful in isolated times, like preparing Thanksgiving dinner, when you need to plan what’s going to be in the oven when and try to have everything ready and hot at the same time, or a program, or a wedding, etc. The next was an hour by hour schedule, and that worked well for college when most of my time obligations were parceled out by the hour. I don’t remember the name for the last one, but it involved broader time frames: morning, afternoon, an evening. That worked well as my children were growing up. My schedule is a bit “looser” in my present season of life.

6. Lists. I couldn’t schedule much of anything beyond the everyday routines without a list of some kind. Lists can be frustrating to some people, but it helps to remember it’s not binding, and you shouldn’t feel guilty if you can’t check everything off at the end of the day. It’s a guideline. It helps me prioritize which things have to be done and which I can leave for another day. If I just do things off the top of my head, I may spend quite a bit of time something good but forget something critical.

One of the requirements for each of the schedules I mentioned above was that we keep a list of “5 minute tasks” that we could do if we found a few minutes free here or there, like clipping nails, sorting mail, etc. I’ve expanded that to keep a list of tasks that aren’t urgent but still need to be gotten to some time, and that helps me when I am in a slump and would otherwise gravitate to the computer.

7. Interruptions. Once I started learning the value of scheduling, I would get highly frustrated if something interrupted my day or threw me off course. That’s when I needed to remember the “if the Lord wills…” part of James 4:127, along with, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:8). What helped me the most with this was the realization that Jesus healed the woman with the issue of blood right in the middle of going to see Jairus’s daughter. Jairus and Jesus were on their way to Jairus’s home when a woman touched the hem of Jesus’s garment, and Jesus stopped and asked who it was. He was calm and unruffled. Nothing is mentioned about Jairus’s state of mind, but it’s not hard to imagine that he might have been distressed, perhaps even impatient. And then he heard that his daughter died, and he could well have blamed her death on the delay. But Jesus said, “Be not afraid, only believe” (Mark 5:36). And then He brought her back to life, an even greater miracle than healing. Sometimes God has greater things in mind and will get greater glory by what He has planned rather than what we had planned.

8. Don’t compare. My biggest discouragements about my own housewifery came about when I compared myself to others. “How come she gets so much done and I can’t?” “How come she is so much more organized than I am?” I had a friend in early married days with the same number of young children I had, yet she worked part time, sewed her own clothes and her daughter’s, made her own curtains, her house was always (when I saw it) not only clean but also nicely decorated, and she was active in several ministries at church, while I felt like I could barely keep my head above water between dishes and meals and laundry. She was one I most often compared myself unfavorably to. One time she invited our family to dinner, and I realized for the first time that she rarely sat still for long. She was constantly up and down, getting something, doing something, going, going, going. It was hard as a guest to relax because she didn’t seem relaxed. It dawned on me that it was ok that I had a different style and temperament. My energy level, metabolism, priorities, and best time of day to do certain things will vary from others. I could learn from her and from others, and probably should have asked her for some tips, but I didn’t have to try to be just like her or lament that I wasn’t.

Similarly, another friend who was known to be highly organized said one time that she had one type of soup and sandwich for lunch Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and another type Tuesday and Thursday. That saved time planning for lunch each day, but it sounded totally boring to me. If it takes me a little longer to look into the open refrigerator to decide what to have for lunch, that’s ok with me. She also was on a committee involved with doing projects for missionaries the church supported, and she wanted to do the same exact thing for each missionary family: that way she only had to plan once instead of planning something different each month a different missionary was focused. That would be good except that each missionary didn’t have the same type of ministry: some had children’s programs, some were involved in translation work, some ministered to college students. Sending children’s stories would work for the first one but not the others. That’s when I learned that sometimes there are higher priorities than efficiency.

(This is not to talk down about either of these ladies: it’s just to say it’s okay if we each do things differently.)

9. Know your strengths and limitations. If your sleeping habits are regular, you probably have regular parts of the day when you have more energy, and parts of the day when you don’t. Plan accordingly: don’t plan something that’s going to take a lot of mental or physical energy in the afternoon if you experience a bit of a slump then. Likewise, if having people over on Saturdays leaves you too tired for church on Sundays, see if there is some way to rectify that: maybe have guests another night, or meet earlier in the day, or plan simple meals, or do as much cleaning and cooking as you can ahead of time. Hospitality is important, but some people can handle it more often that others. Some people like to constantly have things going on; some of us like time to regroup at home with only occasional outings or activities.

A part of this is learning when to say “No” to certain activities, even good ones, even ministries. Some people say no too easily, some don’t say it often enough. I used to think that anything anyone at church asked me to do was the Lord’s will. Well, one can quickly get snowed under that way. Over the years as I learned more of what my inclinations, gifts, and aptitudes were, I had more of an idea of which ministries to participate in. Sometimes I said “Yes” to something I didn’t really have a desire for, yet I just didn’t feel the liberty from the Lord to say “No,” and I saw Him stretch me out of my comfort zone and enable me in marvelous ways as I learned to depend on Him. Other times I’ve felt no qualm at all about saying no except for feeling bad for the person who asked me, and then saw God bring someone else along who did a wonderful job, much better than I could have: I would not only have robbed the person of the opportunity but the results would have been poorer if I had done it. Part of that discernment comes with time, but part of it is just walking with the Lord and asking His guidance for what He wants you to do.

10. Prevent problems as much as possible. Prevention is probably my biggest watchword in housekeeping: I’d much rather prevent a mess than clean one up. I used to lay my clothes on a trunk in our bedroom when I changed at night, but then they’d be all wrinkled the next day: if I took a few seconds to hang them up immediately, I could maybe wear them again, or if they needed to go  in the hamper, they were taken care of instead of having to sort through them later. Putting something back where it belongs when done with it avoids clutter and avoids losing it. When my family puts dishes in the sink, I ask them to run a little water in them: that makes them easier to rinse when I load the dishwasher later than than if food or drink has dried. If someone pours coffee down the sink, I ask them to rinse the excess off rather than have a coffee stain I’ll have to scrub out later. If I hang up or fold clothes right away after they’ve been dried, I have very, very little ironing to do, plus I am not overwhelmed by a mountain of laundry needing folding. Tossing junk mail away when I first bring the mail in saves having to sort through it all later. Preventing piles of papers by putting them where they need to go immediately is easier than sorting, filing, or discarding them later. Etc., etc. Someone once shared with me the OHIO principle: Only Handle It Once. When it is possible to do that, it prevents much of the need for decluttering.

One thing to remember with all of these is not to get so fanatical about any of them that you drive your family crazy. You have to work not only with your own personality and temperament, but with everyone else’s as well. Gentle requests or reminders are better than nagging, and some things you might have to just let go of or only do yourself rather than insisting on them for everyone. Explaining why you want something done a certain way during a calm moment, not in the heat of a disagreement, might help.

I’ve gone on much longer than I intended to, but I hope some of these things I’ve learned along the way will be helpful for you, too.

What has helped you manage your time?

This post will be also linked to “Works For Me Wednesday,” where you can find an abundance of helpful hints each week at We Are THAT family on Wednesdays, as well as  Women Living Well.