Friday’s Fave Five

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It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

This is one of those weeks where nothing horrible has happened, but neither has anything that stood out, at least at first glance. Those kinds of weeks are a little harder to come up with five favorites. But it’s always a good exercise.

1. Wellness and mild cases. Just after our last day all together when Jeremy was here, Mittu and Timothy developed fevers and coughs. Jason took them for Covid tests, and the place did not have any of the rapid kind. They were tested on the 4th and just got back results Wednesday of this week that Mittu and Timothy tested positive. It’s amazing that with all the time spent together the week before, none of the rest of us got it. I hate that they didn’t feel good all week. But I am glad that they didn’t have breathing problems or any of the more severe issues of Covid.

2. Healthy birth. Our pastor and his wife were surprised with an unexpected, middle age pregnancy. My pastor’s wife has several health issues as well, which put her in a high risk category. She safely delivered their little boy this week. They have some issues doctors are monitoring, but all seems relatively well.

3. Unpleasant tasks done. My feeling towards unpleasant tasks (no need to go into details) is to avoid them or put them off. But I was motivated to get them over with so I didn’t have to think about them any more.

4. Convenience foods. I know, they are often not the healthiest. But they are better than burgers and fries, right? And we all have those days when something runs late or we’re tired. I had made ham and potato soup in December with the bone from our Christmas ham. We had lots of broth left, but no more ham. I found some cubed ham at the store, which wasn’t quite as good as our glazed ham at Christmas, but it worked okay for another round of this good, hearty soup. Then one day errands ran late, the last of which was the grocery store. It seems every grocery run these days requires two store trips to get everything as each has shortages. I got a microwave meatloaf, loaded potatoes, and gave mashed cauliflower a try (the latter was runnier than I would have expected and tasted more like grits). I made a salad while everything was cooking. It was nice to have those often for a quick meals after a busy day.

5. Zaxby’s salad. One afternoon, I fell asleep in my desk chair until dinner time. My husband suggested getting a Zaxby’s salad for takeout. I love their grilled chicken Cobb salad.

It’s hard to believe we’re about halfway through January already. January is supposed to be my slow, unbusy month! Oh, well.

Hope you’ve had a great week.

Be Wise (1 Corinthians)

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If there was ever a church full of problems, it was the one in Corinthians in the NT era. The church was divided over their favorite preachers. Blatant immorally was tolerated. They turned the Lord’s Supper into a feast which showed up who had plenty and who did not. They were proud of their gifts.

But Paul didn’t wash his hands of them, at least not without trying to help them first. He wrote them in one letter that we don’t have. They responded with questions, and 1 Corinthians is his answer to them

In Be Wise (1 Corinthians): Discern the Difference Between Man’s Knowledge and God’s Wisdom, Warren W. Wiersbe gives us some insights into Paul’s letter.

Wiersbe points out that “when you have proud people depending on human wisdom, adopting the lifestyle of the world, you are going to have problems. In order to help them solve their problems, Paul opened his letter by reminding them of their calling in Christ” (p. 20, Kindle version). Everything Paul would say to the Corinthians would be couched in and would spring from that truth.

Then Paul thanked God for them and commended them. This was not just a softening in preparation for the hard things he would have to say to them, but a recognition that God was at work in them. That’s a good reminder for us when we tend to have “all or nothing” views about people’s standing with the Lord. The Corinthians had some severe problems and some stern truths which needed to be pointed out, yet there was evidence God was at work in them.

Then Paul addresses the Corinthians issues while also answering questions they had sent him. He discusses their divisions, sexual immorality in the church, their ungodly way of handling disputes with each other, marriage, how to handle differences of opinion concerning food offered to idols, the Lord’s Supper (communion), spiritual gifts, and the resurrection.

All of these issues are vital for us today. Most of the world doesn’t have to deal with food offered to idols, but the principles Paul discusses are helpful with differences of opinions believers face over other issues today.

1 Corinthians also contains classic passages like chapter 13 on godly love (placed, interesting, in the middle of discussion about spiritual gifts) and chapter 15 about the resurrection (which we tend to hear a lot from during funerals, but we need its truths daily.

Paul wraps up his letter, as he often does, with personal greetings, news, travel plans. It’s easy just to breeze past this section, but Wiersbe points out good food for thought here as well. For instance, Paul mentions Apollos, one of the preachers that a “fan club” had developed around. The fact that Paul urged Apollos to go to the Corinthians showed that there was no animosity or competition between the men themselves.

Then Wiersbe gives a brief history of Timothy and Priscilla and Aquilla, who are also mentioned in this section, and how their ministries intertwined with Paul’s.

Here are a few of the quotes in the book that stood out to me:

Paul depended on the power of the Holy Spirit. It was not his experience or ability that gave his ministry its power; it was the work of the Spirit of God. His preaching was a “demonstration,” not a “performance” (p. 35).

To “have the mind of Christ” does not mean we are infallible and start playing God in the lives of other people. Nobody instructs God! (Paul quoted Isa. 40: 13. Also see Rom. 11: 33–36.) To “have the mind of Christ” means to look at life from the Savior’s point of view, having His values and desires in mind. It means to think God’s thoughts and not think as the world thinks (p. 43).

A mature Christian uses his gifts as tools to build with, while an immature believer uses gifts as toys to play with or trophies to boast about. Many of the members of the Corinthian church enjoyed “showing off” their gifts, but they were not interested in serving one another and edifying the church (p. 50).

Perhaps we cannot help but have our personal preferences when it comes to the way different men minister the Word. But we must not permit our personal preferences to become divisive prejudices. In fact, the preacher I may enjoy the least may be the one I need the most! (p. 57).

There can be a fine line between a clear conscience and a self-righteous attitude, so we must beware (p. 63).

Church discipline is not a group of “pious policemen” out to catch a criminal. Rather, it is a group of brokenhearted brothers and sisters seeking to restore an erring member of the family (p. 73).

Knowledge can be a weapon to fight with or a tool to build with, depending on how it is used. If it “puffs up” then it cannot “build up [edify]” (p. 99).

“A know-it-all attitude is only an evidence of ignorance. The person who really knows truth is only too conscious of how much he does not know. Furthermore, it is one thing to know doctrine and quite something else to know God. It is possible to grow in Bible knowledge and yet not grow in grace or in one’s personal relationship with God. The test is love, which is the second factor Paul discussed (p. 99).

It is interesting that Paul mentioned the offering just after his discussion about the resurrection. There were no “chapter breaks” in the original manuscripts, so the readers would go right from Paul’s hymn of victory into his discussion about money. Doctrine and duty go together; so do worship and works. Our giving is “not in vain” because our Lord is alive. It is His resurrection power that motivates us to give and to serve (p. 178).

As always, Wiersbe’s knowledge and insights were very helpful in navigating the important truths in this book of the Bible.

Treasures of Encouragement

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Although Treasures of Encouragement: Women Helping Women is not primarily about author Sharon W. Betters, the book grew out of her situation. Her teenage son and his friend were killed in a car accident within minutes of leaving the Betters’ home in 1993.

The book’s theme verse comes from Isaiah 45:3, where Sharon found hope in her deep grief: “I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.” Though God sometimes leads through dark valleys, treasures are there that can’t be found anywhere else.

Sharon writes:

The healing balm of encouragement eventually stopped the spread of despair’s infection and began replacing it with hope’s healthy glow. God’s Word was the healing balm, and God’s people applied it lavishly to sooth the searing pain in my soul. Biblical encouragement is soul work. God unleashes its mysterious power every time a child of God follows the Holy Spirit’s direction and steps into the suffering of another person (pp. 9-10).

Each chapter starts with one or two women’s testimonies about being either on the receiving or giving end of encouragement.

Throughout the book. two points are repeatedly emphasized. First, encouraging someone else spiritually is the outgrowth of our own walk with the Lord and time spent in His Word. Second, because we have those resources–God’s Word to inform and guide us and His Spirit within us—we have what we need to encourage others.

Part 1 of the book explores thinking Biblically: defining and exploring what encouragement involves and what our responsibilities are as believers to each other.

To ease the guilt of noninvolvement, we charge the church with the job of meeting needs. We forget that we are the church! (p. 18)

Biblical encouragers know that their role is part of a process; it is seldom, if ever, the solution. They understand God is doing soul work through the interaction of members of His body. They recognize that He uses circumstances to strip people of obstacles that keep them from knowing Him, and so they ask themselves, How can I help this person through the peeling process of sanctification without hindering what the Holy Spirit is doing?

Often we want to rush into a difficult situation and make everything better. But that is not God’s method. He uses the rough spots of life to sand away the rough spots in character so that the reflection of “Christ in us” becomes increasingly clear (p. 73).

Because of who our Father is, and because of the riches of our inheritance, we always have something to offer to others (p. 37).

Part 2 covers living Biblically: the necessity of prayer, listening well, helpful vs. non-helpful words, spiritual mothering, pursuing restoration rather than judgment, Biblical exhortation, letting God use your spiritual gifts in large or small ways, offering practical help.

The church, like a home, is not a place where perfect people enjoy each other’s company. It’s a place where spiritual nurture, training, and discipline help imperfect people take on the image of their perfect heavenly Father. The church is not a place for hibernation; it’s a place where we learn, grow, take risks, make mistakes, and get up and try again (p. 99).

Will it be easy? No. Initially, obedience is hard, but in the long run, disobedience is harder (p. 131).

When we have a clear picture of our own sinfulness and inadequacies, we may conclude that we are unfit to carry the great gospel message. But our wrong conclusions will not thwart God’s purposes. For reasons we do not understand, God has chosen us to spread His message of hope and redemption (p. 198).

Spiritual mothering often happens more around a kitchen table that in a structured study (p. 213).

Though the book can be read by individuals, it’s designed for a twelve-week group study. Each chapter ends with six day’s work of questions or exercises. On one hand, I didn’t want to take twelve weeks to read the book. But on the other, I didn’t want to skip over the “homework” between chapters. I felt the time exploring further or meditating on each chapter’s truths would help the ideas take firmer root. I did sometimes combine some of the individual days’ exercises, though.

One appendix shares 50 very practical ideas for extending encouragement to others. All 50 won’t appeal to or be possible for everyone, but they give a rich variety to choose from.

I appreciated the address to older and younger women in the church with encouragement to settle the differences that can sometimes arise between the two groups (pp. 137-138).

This book was originally published twenty-five years ago. It was updated and reprinted in 2021.

Just occasionally, I found the tone in the book got a little more authoritarian than encouraging. One example from the exercise questions after the first chapter: “Who will you encourage today? Write a brief statement about how Christ, through you, can encourage that person. Now do it!” (p. 26).

But overall, I found much good food for thought on both the necessity to be an encourager and the ways God can work in and through us. This is a book I am sure I will return to in the future.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Books Shape Our Thinking

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A couple of times in our lives, my husband and I attended churches where we didn’t quite agree with everything, but we felt these churches were the closest we could find to our own understanding of Scripture. The differences weren’t a matter of false teaching or heresy: they were areas where good people could differ and should be able to give each other grace. We felt as long as the Bible was preached and taught rather than a particular system, then everything would be okay.

In one church, over time, we began to notice that everyone from the pastor to Sunday School teachers to lay leaders began quoting the same authors. Then their vocabulary began changing to match the authors they revered. Concepts that used to be alluded to were now main points. Sermons and lessons changed emphasis to feature points from these authors, and Bible passages were viewed through their lens. When one man spoke about this belief system as being “in the club,” it almost seemed a little cultish.

In another church, the issue wasn’t a particular belief system. But every Christian bestseller that came along was eventually taught in our church. When we moved, I found sermon notes from our first year there which were rich and meaty and directly from the Bible. Later sermons were second- or third-hand thoughts from popular books.

One of my favorite writers reads and quotes authors that I am uncomfortable with because their view of Scriptural truth seems a little skewed to me. Instead of following standard hermeneutics, principles for interpreting Scripture, they twist things a little to get a different outcome more in line with popular culture. They are not quite heretical yet, but this subtle shift will lead that way if continued. This lovely author, with so much talent and potential, is getting more entrenched in this kind of thinking every year. It grieves me to see it.

We’ve seen a couple of young men we’ve known get caught up in belief systems that, again, I don’t think are heretical, but I don’t agree with. It wouldn’t be a problem except that these belief systems now dominate their conversation and online presence. They like to bait and argue over their points of belief. Even though they are not being heretical, their ministry and outreach has been hijacked into debating rather than gently persuading people of God’s truth.

We observed over the course of years a definite shift in thinking and beliefs in each of these cases. The speaker or writer didn’t come to their new views from their Bible reading, but from the books they read. Those books then colored their view of Scripture.

One of our former pastors used to frequently quote Charlie “Tremendous” Jones as saying, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.“

If that’s true, and I think it may be, we need to be watchful about what we read. Of course, these days many people read online articles and listen to podcasts as well.

Does this mean we should only read books where we know we’ll agree with everything? Not necessarily. It’s good to exercise discernment. Sometimes when we are entrenched in our own tenets and lingo, we can get a little myopic.

But we should filter everything we read through the Scriptures. The Bible tells us to “test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Early Christians were called noble because they checked everything even the apostle Paul said against the Scriptures.

We need to be careful not to swallow everything an author says just because they use Scripture or religious talk. The devil does that. “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). With Eve, Satan questioned what God said and then skewed His meaning. He quoted and misapplied Scripture when tempting Jesus. Peter said of Paul’s writing:

There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.(2 Peter 3:16-18).

Some writers don’t go that far–they are not exactly heretical. But a subtle shift in emphasis can skew their teaching, and therefore our thinking. Then a particular facet of their understanding becomes a hobbyhorse. So we need to be discerning not just with writing we might be prepared to be on guard with, but also with popular writing.

We need to make sure we are spending more time with the Bible itself than even books about the Bible. If we’re spending thirty minutes a day in a theological book and ten minutes in the Bible, we’re off balance. One former pastor used to say that bank tellers were instructed in discerning counterfeit money not by studying counterfeits, but by studying the real thing. The more familiar they were with legal money, the more easily they could tell when something was a little off with money they were handling. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). As we read and study, we need to pray with the psalmist, “I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies!” (Psalm 119:125). Then our “powers of discernment” will be “trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14).

We need to ask God to search our hearts, show us our blind spots, and “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18).

I love good books. I’ve had my thinking shaped in good ways by authors who faithfully studied and represented God’s truth shared in His Word. I especially love writers and teachers who, like the Levites in Nehemiah’s time, “read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8).

But we need discernment to know when a teacher is giving the sense of the Word itself or twisting it a bit for their own purposes or from their own mistaken understanding.

And we need to be careful that our thoughts, understanding, and resulting actions are shaped by the Bible itself.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

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Blog reading was hit-or-miss over the holidays while family was here. I’ve been catching up this week and almost have my Feedly account worked down. But this week’s list of noteworthy links might be a little longer than usual. Perhaps you’ll find an item of two of interest to you.

A Real Christmas, HT to Challies. I don’t think we’re too far from Christmas to contemplate this. “We gloss over the harsh, cruel parts of the story because they don’t fit the narrative we want. But aren’t those parts the point of it all? Jesus came because we needed him – need him still, as evil rages around the globe and even in our own backyards.”

End of the Year Journaling Prompts. There are some for the new year as well. Some would work as blog post ideas.

You Don’t Have to Read the Whole Bible This Year. “Reading the Bible is a glorious privilege; it is entirely worthwhile; it is revealing and convicting and strengthening and encouraging in ways we can barely imagine beforehand. But in the Bible itself we do not find any prescription for the amount we must read each day or year.”

We Should Trust God—But for What? HT to Challies. “I cannot trust God to answer every prayer exactly how I want them answered. I cannot trust him to orchestrate my life so there is no suffering, toil, or disappointment. I cannot trust him to give me everything I want. I cannot trust him to stick to the timeline I had planned for my life.”

How Are We to Live in What Feels Like Unprecedented Times? “Yet all these likely end-of-the-world scenarios have come and gone. G. K. Chesterton wrote, ‘With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.’ Our perspective is limited. We’re not God, we don’t hold the universe in the palm of our hands, and we just don’t know what lies ahead of us.”

Did the Pandemic Wreck the Church? Good news here.

Father In Every Way but One, HT to Challies. Beautiful writing here.

Let Us Rediscover the Power of Forgiveness, HT to Challies. “Is this Jesus so dangerous that a young woman finds in Him the power to want good for her father’s killer? Even that she might one day be able to tell him about Jesus?”

In the Darkest Night: Draw Near, Hold Fast, Consider Others, HT to Challies. “In the darkest season of my life, I was lifted decisively out of the pit by a passage in the book of Hebrews. The three simple commands embedded in it made all the difference.”

A Tale of Two Dogs, HT to Challies. This illustrates an excellent point.

Old Spiritual Journals—Keep or Destroy? HT to Linda. This article also shares another side of the issue: Why I Burned 90 Journals . . . And Still Journal Daily. The short answer: it partly depends on why you’re writing in the first place.

This is courtesy of Denny Burk’s Top Ten You Tube video list for 2021, HT to Challies. What a testimony—to play that song in the aftermath of such a storm.

Happy Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

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It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

This FFF button is particularly apt because we’ve had snow twice this week. Thankfully it wasn’t heavy and didn’t impact travel either time.

This first week of the new year ended up not being quite as back-to-the-routine as I was expecting. But overall, everything went well. Here are a few favorites.

1. Time with family and safe travels. We had one last weekend all together before my oldest had to fly back to RI. It’s always hard to say goodbye, but I so treasure those weeks together. Thankfully all his flights went as scheduled even though we heard of massive numbers of flights being cancelled due to staff shortages.

2. A hot water heater fix. On the last shower of the last day of Jeremy’s visit, the hot water heater went out. My husband cleaned out the motor area and took some things apart. He looked up the part he thought was needed, but it wouldn’t get here for several days. I began to think of all the ramifications of not having hot water for several days. He worked on it a good bit of the afternoon and got it going. My hero!

3. New calendars. One of my favorite things is setting up new wall calendars for the new year. I have two, one near my desk and one in the kitchen. I go through them and put all our birthdays and anniversaries in it before hanging it up. It’s such a pleasure to see those clean pages.

4. A good first doctor’s visit. I’ve had some digestive issues for a number of years which have steadily gotten worse. I saw a gastroenterologist when this all first started, but he was the kind of doctor who could only help if he found something he could cut out. When he didn’t, he referred me to the internet. :-/ We’ve moved since then, and I finally decided to ask my family doctor for a referral. I had my first appointment with the new doctor this week, and he was very easy to talk to and much more knowledgeable about the various facets of digestive troubles. He gave me a couple of things to try and scheduled a couple of easy tests. Then we’ll get those results and see what steps we need to take next.

5. A beautiful sunrise. Our house is positioned such that we don’t normally see sunrises or sunsets. Sometimes we’ll catch a bit of beautiful color in one window, but will have to step outside to see much more. And even then, we’re surrounded by so many trees that we only get what looks like a few feet of skyline before it’s gone. I had to leave the house while it was still dark one morning and was able to see the whole sunrise stretch across the sky while I was driving. It was so glorious and such a pleasure. I couldn’t stop to get a picture, but I enjoyed it immensely.

(Edited to add): Bonus: Help putting Christmas things away. The whole family comes over to help decorate for Christmas. This is our first Christmas without Jesse living at home, and I was not relishing putting everything away with just Jim and I. Thankfully, Jesse was willing to stay after Jeremy left and help, and Jason and Mittu also helped a bit before they had to leave. As tired as I was afterward even with help, I can’t imagine how wiped out I’d have been if we’d had to do it alone. It was also nice to get it done and not have all the totes everywhere for days.

I hope your first week of 2022 contained blessings large and small.

Reading Plans for 2022

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One of my favorite activities is setting my reading plans for the year.

For many years I just read whatever came to hand, whatever I was in the mood for. I like to allow for that and for reading new books and unplanned discoveries. But making plans for the year helps me be more intentional, work in the books I plan to “get to someday,” and broaden my horizons.

Reading challenges also help with those purposes, plus they are fun. And some offer prizes!

The reading challenges I plan to participate in this year are:

The Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate. This is one of my favorites. Through this challenge, I’ve been introduced to classics I never knew about before and authors I had never tried. My usual classics taste tend toward 19th century Britain: Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Elliot. These are the cozy classics to me, and I try to read from them every year. But it’s good to branch out, and Karen’s categories help me do that. The categories this year are:

  • A 19th century classic.
  • A 20th century classic.
  • A classic by a woman author.
  • A classic in translation.  Any book first published in a language that is not your primary language.
  • A classic by BIPOC author. Any book published by a non-white author.
  • Mystery/Detective/Crime Classic. It can be fiction or non-fiction.
  • A Classic Short Story Collection.
  • Pre-1800 Classic.
  • A Nonfiction Classic.
  • Classic That’s Been on Your TBR List the Longest.
  • Classic Set in a Place You’d Like to Visit.
  • Wild Card Classic. Any classic you like, any category, as long as it’s at least 50 years old!

Since the categories were just posted, I haven’t had time to think about them and decide what to read. But I’ll enjoy contemplating them! I’m sure I’ll continue with the next in Trollope’s Barsetshire series for the 19th century classic. I might delve into The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis for the nonfiction: I’ve been wanting to read that for a while.

Shelly Rae at Book’d Out hosts the Nonfiction Reader Challenge. She provided 12 categories of nonfiction, and participants choose which level they want to aim for. Thankfully, this year she has included a Nonfiction Grazer category where we set our own goals for how many and what kind of nonfiction to read. That will work best for me this year.

I’m going to plan on at least 12 nonfiction books. I usually read more than that, but many are in the same categories. This year I want to read:

  • At least one biography, autobiography, or memoir.
  • One writing book
  • One book of humor
  • One Bible study book
  • One Christian living book
  • One book of letters or journals
  • One book by C. S. Lewis that I have not read yet
  • One book on organization or productivity (I have 13 on my shelf! Some read, some dipped into, some unread.)
  • One book pertaining to a holiday (probably Christmas)
  • One book related to midlife or aging

Bev at My Reader’s Block hosts the Mount TBR Reading Challenge. The idea is to read books you already owned before the start of this year. Bev has made levels in increments of twelve, each named after a mountain, and we’re to choose a level to shoot for. Even though I’ve reached Mt. Ararat (48 books) the last couple of years, I think I will play it safe and stick with Mt. Vancouver (36 books).

There are a couple of other TBR challenges I have participated in for previous years, but the rules of each are slightly different. So, to keep it simple, I think I’ll just stick with this one. It’s such a feeling of accomplishment to get to those books!

These next to are new to me. They focus on books I usually read anyway, so they won’t require extra effort except for the record keeping.

The Audiobook Challenge is hosted by Caffeinated Reader. Last year I listened to 25 audiobooks, so I’ll aim for that again with the Binge Listener level at 20-30.

The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is hosted by The Intrepid Reader. I read 15 in this genre last year, so I will aim for that again with the Medieval level.

I’ve seen some other interesting-looking challenges with various categories, like this one. But I don’t want to get involved in too many to keep up with. I may have already! We’ll see how it goes.

Do you participate in reading challenges? Which ones?

When God Changes Your Plans

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Probably many of you have set plans or goals for the new year. I don’t usually have time to think about it much until the rest of the family’s first work day after Christmas. Then, when I have some quiet moments to myself, I can sort through what I’d like to do in the year ahead.

I don’t make resolutions. I used to be against them as a set-up for failure until I did a study on the “I will” statement in the Bible. Then I saw anew 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 where Paul prays that God “may fulfill every resolve for good.” So it’s not wrong–and in fact, it’s much needed—to resolve by God’s grace and prayer to make changes. We’re not going to float into godly living. We can’t do it on our own, but we need to “think on [our] ways” and then “turn [our] feet to your testimonies” (Psalm 119:59).

Still, though a new year is a good time to take stock, I am more likely to make those kinds of changes as I see the need for them rather than on Jan. 1.

But I do like to make plans for the year. Sometimes the tasks are mundane: reorganize the pantry or closet; complete the dress I started last year (or the year before. . . ), etc. Sometimes the listed items are more involved and will take a major shift, like the changes that will need to take place if I am ever going to finish this book I am trying to write.

I know better than to make plans first and then ask God to bless them. I try to remember to pray, asking God’s guidance as I make plans. I take into account James’ admonition:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet 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. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15).

When I pray and plan that way, I feel that any interruption or change of plans is a signal that something’s wrong. Did I sin? Did I miss God’s guidance? Is Satan trying to trip me up? Is someone else sinning against me? I prayed asking for God to guide me, so these plans must be His will.

But sometimes the change is part of the plan. I don’t know why God seems to lead people one way and then changes courses. Maybe to increase their trust and dependence, maybe because there was something they were to learn or do along the way. Sometimes interruptions are the ministry, not a hindrance to ministry.

Whatever the case, I am coming to learn that God’s highest blessing may not be having my plans and dreams turn out like I want.

Coming through this last Christmas season, I was struck once again by Mary’s willingness to have her plans totally overturned when the angel announced that she was chosen to mother the Messiah.

We don’t know what Mary’s plans for life were except that she was betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter. He seemed to be a quiet, godly man of character. They would not be well off, but I am sure Mary planned a cozy domestic life with a good man and a house full of children.

She did receive those things, but with a major twist. Her firstborn child would come before she knew a man physically, and that child would not end up leading a quiet, obscure life once He came to adulthood.

We don’t know if Mary realized everything that bearing and carrying Christ would mean: the gossip, the possibility that she would lose Joseph, the sorrow to come at Jesus’ death. But she was willing to do whatever God wanted her to do.

I think of Moses, who had thought he was supposed to help his fellow Israelites in Egypt. But that hadn’t worked out so well. Now he was resigned to keeping his father-in-law’s flock in Midian. Then suddenly God speaks to him from a burning bush. Yes, God planned for him to aid Israel, but He had a much bigger plan than Moses had imagined.

Numerous people in Scripture were stopped in their tracks to change course at God’s direction: Abraham and Sarah were sent from Ur to a land of God’s promise; David was called from tending sheep to being anointed king; Zechariah and Elizabeth found out they’d be having a baby at an advanced age; all the disciples were called from their occupations to follow Christ.

We knew a young couple on deputation to be missionaries when one of their children developed leukemia. One of our former pastors was in seminary when he was in a car accident that left him a quadriplegic.

I think Elisabeth Elliot probably assumed she would be on a foreign mission field all her life. And when Joni Earcekson Tada went diving one day as a teenager, she had no idea how her life was about to change. But where would we be without the testimonies of these two dear ladies that came about as a result of their changed plans?

Sometimes it’s hard to know when an obstacle to our plans is from God or Satan. Isobel Kuhn‘s mother was violently opposed to Isobel’s going to Bible college. Isobel received wise advice from a mentor about how to pray and wait for God to open the way. He taught her to pray something like, “Lord, if this obstacle is from you, I accept it. If it is from Satan, I refuse him and all his works.” This stood her in good stead in later years when she and her husband were on furlough, ready to go back to China, and they received word that the way was closed. The other missionaries were ready to acquiesce and take it as the Lord’s will, but Isobel felt strongly that God wanted them to go. She didn’t argue, but she went quietly into another room and prayed—and soon they received the okay to go.

So it’s good to pray and wait when a situation isn’t clear. But when a change in plans is obviously from God, we need to accept it. I’m afraid I am more like Moses, arguing with God, or reluctant like Gideon, or, sadly, sometimes even resistant like Jonah, whether changes are minor or life-altering. Oh, for grace to be like the disciples who dropped their fishing nets or left their tax desk immediately when the Savior called, or like Mary, who readily yielded herself to God’s will.

Often it seems that when God changes our plans, the end result is a greater usefulness and greater display of His power and glory than we had imagined. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Friday’s Fave Five

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It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week
with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

It’s the last Friday not only of December, but of 2021. My heart is full. Here are just a few blessings from the last two weeks.

1. Christmas, of course. We feel blessed to have all our immediate family with us. We enjoyed the food, presents, cards, and togetherness.

2. Family time. My oldest son is here for a longer visit than usual, Jim has been off for the last two weeks, and the boys have had some days off here and there. We’ve enjoyed lots of chatting and food and games.

3. Our 42nd anniversary was a few days before Christmas, and we went to a really nice restaurant because we had a gift card. I was amused that the waitress said, “We want to be your special occasion place!” Kind of an acknowledgement that it’s not the kind of place one can afford to drop into causally. We thought it was neat that they decorated our dessert plates with good wishes and a candle.

4. Rest. Christmas and the weeks before, lovely as they are, are also super busy. This week, I feel like I am getting a bit of vacation. We met the kids for lunch Sunday, Mittu made roast and potatoes and carrots Tuesday, we got take-out Wednesday, Jesse made lasagna last night. There’s talk of getting take-out tonight, and Jeremy offered to make a middle-Eastern dish tomorrow. It’s nice to give all of us a break by taking turns and then getting something out a couple of days.

5. Trying a new place for lunch. Jason and Mittu told us about a place downtown that’s like a food court, except without a mall. I guess all the restaurants in it had food trucks businesses and were asked to be a part of this. It has indoor seating with some tables outside. There were several options to choose from–I got a club sandwich, Jim got shrimp and fries, Jeremy got barbecue, Jesse got ramen (I forget the exact name of the dish he got). There is even a gluten free chicken and donuts place for Mittu and Timothy. It was nice to try a new place outside of our usual favorites, and it’s nice to know of this place for when we do things downtown.

My Facebook memories showed that I shared this quote a couple of times. I probably shared it here before, too, but it’s a good reminder.

“‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.’ I Samuel 7:12. ‘The word ‘hitherto’ seems like a hand pointing in the direction of the past. Twenty years or seventy, and yet ‘hitherto hath the Lord helped us!’ Through poverty, through wealth, through sickness, through health, at home, abroad, on the land, on the sea; in honor, in dishonor, in perplexity, in joy, in trial, in triumph, in prayer, in temptation–‘hitherto hath the Lord helped!'” Charles Spurgeon

Just as He has helped in the past, so He will in the future as we rest in and trust Him.

I wish you a very safe and happy New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and 2022!

December Reflections

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I wasn’t sure, at first, whether I’d do an end-of-December post. Probably many of our activities have been the same as yours, with getting ready for and then celebrating Christmas. But there were a few things unique to this month, so I decided to go ahead.

Family news

My oldest son is visiting, as he always does for Christmas. But he’s staying a week longer than usual, for two reasons. First, he usually leaves the Sunday after Christmas. This year, that would have meant leaving the day after Christmas, which would have been an abrupt end to our holiday togetherness. Plus, my middle son’s workplace is its busiest in December. On top of that, the temp agencies they work with this time of year promised 20 workers, but only two came. So Jason has been working nights and weekends for weeks. If Jeremy had left the 26th, he would not have seen Jason’s family much at all. So this week Jeremy is working from home here during the day, then we have more visiting time in the evenings. It has been nice to have the extra time together after the busyness leading up to Christmas subsides.

Jim and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary a few days before Christmas. We usually celebrate with a nice meal out and exchanging cards. This year we went to a ritzier restaurant than usual because when we sold our rental house earlier this year, at closing our realtor gave us a gift card to Ruth Chris Steakhouse. We had never been there before. It was very nice. I’m afraid I could get used to luxury all too easily.

Creating

This has been a banner month for card-making. I buy Christmas cards to send to extended family and friends, but I make them for immediate family. Plus we had some other occasions for cards this month.

This was for a friend’s birthday. The white part was done with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

This was for our pastor’s surprise party for his 50th birthday. I got the idea from Pinterest and used the Cricut for the numbers and window. The words were stickers.

This was for our anniversary. My husband was a physics major, math minor, so when I saw this idea, it appealed to me.

This was Jim’s Christmas card. The deer and trees were done with the Cricut. I printed out the words for all the Christmas cards on the computer.

I did think about saying deer/dear instead of love, but I resisted. 🙂

This was Jeremy’s. I usually do something with a fox for him. But he has a cat, so I decided to use the feline influence. The cat was made with the Cricut, the presents from scrapbooking paper.

His cat isn’t totally black: she has some brown/tan/gold colors in her fur. But there was no way I could replicate that, so solid black would have to do.

This was Jason’s. I wanted to use the fa la la paper in some way, and he’s the most interested in playing different instruments. The instruments were done with the Cricut; the frame was done with decorative scissors.

This is Mitttu’s. The door was done with the Cricut. I printed the wreath from some free clip art and cut it out by hand.

Timothy’s is supposed to look like a snow globe. I was excited to work with clear acetate for the top of it. I had some little plastic bits from a package of snowflake confetti that I used for the snow–the snowflakes themselves were too big. But static cling keeps the “snow” from moving around much. If I ever do this again, I’ll use sequins. The snowman and trees were stickers.

Jesse’s contains something of an inside joke. For his white elephant gift for a young adults Christmas party, he found some pizza socks—a set of socks decorated with different pictures of pizza toppings, folded all together in a pizza box. So, I thought, since a pizza slice is the same shape as a Christmas tree . . . I’d use that as the base of his card. The pizza slice was done on the Cricut.

This year’s Christmas cards are some of my favorites.

Reading

Since last time I have completed:

  • Christian Reflections by C. S. Lewis. His thoughts on literature, culture, church music, ethics, subjectivism, and more. Challenging, but good.
  • Be Available (Judges): Accepting the Challenge to Confront the Enemy by Warren W. Wiersbe
  • The Nature of a Lady by Roseanna M. White. I had just finished this last month but had not reviewed it then. Lady Elizabeth takes her maid to the Isles of Scilly to escape the marriage her brother is trying to arrange for her. But she is mistaken for another Elizabeth and given strange notes and packages. The local vicar—the other Elizabeth’s brother—works with Libby to try to decipher the messages and find his sister.
  • Chapel Springs Revival by Ane Mulligan. reminded me of I Love Lucy, but with a Southern accent. Not my favorite, but if you like that kind of humor, you’d probably enjoy this book.
  • A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas, a Civil war-era novel. A women makes a quilt for her husband while he is soldiering. It comes back to her in an unusual way. Plus her beliefs are tested when she is asked to shelter a runaway slave wanted for murder.
  • A Christmas by the Sea by Melody Carlson. A woman plans to update a seaside cottage she inherited in order to sell it. But her son wants to stay there.
  • Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb. Four friends plan to meet for Christmas in Paris after WWI ends. But it lasts much longer than expected. Several decades later, the last of the four travels to Paris for his last Christmas to read the one unopened letter remaining from their correspondence. Excellent. One of my top twelve of the year.
  • The Yuletide Angel by Sandra Ardoin. Victorian novel about an anonymous benefactor, the man who secretly guards and admires her, and another not so friendly stalker.
  • The Ornament Keeper by Eva Marie Everson. Separated after twenty years of marriage, a woman unpacks the special ornaments her husband had given her every year, remembers their lives together, and tries to figure out if they can get past the resentment and lack of forgiveness.
  • Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien wrote letters to his children as Father Christmas for several years, complete with disasters set off by the kind but bumbling North Polar Bear. Delightful.

That looks like a lot, but most of the Christmas stories were novellas.

I’m currently reading:

I posted my top twelve books of the year here and all the books I read this year here.

Watching and Listening

My husband and I aren’t binge watchers. He can barely stand to spend two hours viewing something. We started watching the last season of the remake of Lost in Space on Netflix here and there. Then one night, after a long and busy day, we got pizza and watched the next episode. And we had to find out what happened next, so we watched on . . . and on until we finished it. It’s such a good series. I love the emphasis on family. It’s much more intense than the original version.

We also watched A Castle for Christmas, a pretty cute movie about an author who travels to the castle where her father’s family worked in Scotland and finds out its for sale. The owner needs to sell but doesn’t want to, so he tries to sabotage her plans. Then we watched Elf with Jesse and Jeremy and found out later that Jason and Mittu had also watched it. I’ve seen it once or twice before, but still enjoyed it a lot.

I listened to a podcast series by Audible set up like an old radio serial: The Cinnamon Bear: A Holiday Adventure. It was a little too much at times—a little loud and bizarre. And the opening note of its intro music is the worst in the history of intro music. But it was cute and clever in places.

Blogging

In the last month, I have shared:

Writing

Of course, writing has taken a back seat this month. But in January I want to map out time to make it a priority.

Sad News

I wasn’t quite sure where to mention this. We found out a few days before Christmas that my husband’s second oldest brother died from Covid and his wife was in ICU with Covid. It’s been something of a shock. He’s the first of any of our siblings to pass. We’re still processing and waiting to hear more.

Looking Ahead

December has been a full month. I enjoyed the time with family so much. But I am kind of glad the Christmas hoopla is over and the last few days have been more relaxed (for me anyway—maybe not so much for those returning to work). We’ll still have some time together this weekend. Then it’s on to new calendars and a bright shiny new year.

I’ve shared this before, but I love this quote from Captain Jim in Anne’s House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery:

“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke died away.
“I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates.
I reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best
the Great Captain has for us.”

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)