More Cookies, Please!?

What do you mean, “No”? I want them.

How frustrating it is to realize that what we think is right and good isn’t necessarily right or good. The world tells us to “trust ourselves”, our instincts. Yes?

Truthfully, no.

Proverbs 3:5-6 instructs us to

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.”

That’s why we need to pray, Lord, teach me your ways. Teach me your paths. Teach me what is best for me. Keep me open to learning and being corrected by You because otherwise,

I am a fool.

My reality is tainted. God’s reality is truth. I want to be healthy, wise, and strong in Him. Because God does not force wisdom on us. He does allow us to make choices and live with their consequences.  Who of us doesn’t know that….I sure do.

Even with good upbringing, there’s no guarantee that our own kids will heed all our warnings, is there? I was sure my parents didn’t really get me. My husband and I laugh that even though our families growing up took different approaches to eating sweets, we ended up with the same cursed sweet tooth. At my house, there wasn’t really a limit but goodies weren’t around all of the time. In his house, the rule was you could have one, maybe two cookies and that was it. Neither of us learned moderation, though we could have, because we didn’t want to. We knew better…. and now as adults we struggle all of the time to eat well. We could have listened to our parents and saved ourselves a lot of struggle later in our lives. But, no, we were sure we knew best.

Although that may seem a rather humorous example, down deep, it really isn’t that funny. God reminds us so often in the Bible about the way we should live life. He is the Good Father. Perhaps He at times can sound like we do with our kids…you didn’t pack a lunch? Go do it. You’ll never have enough energy without it. You packed what….a block of cheese and a bag of cookies?! I don’t think so! Do it again, vary the contents! Where did the second bag of chips go? Why are there wrappers in your room? Let’s go over this again, the night before works really well to pack our lunches for school. And on. And on. And on. We don’t give up because we love our kids and we want them healthy and wise.

Likewise, God does that with us. Whether it’s food or rest or relationships or how we view God, whatever it is, He continues to remind us what is right and best. You’re spending too much time and energy here, let’s adjust. No, you don’t really need that, do you? Hand it over. You need to meet with me, how about now? And on and on He goes. Praise God He does that. He loves us too much to allow us to head to destruction because we are thinking poorly or deceived.

Like a child should heed his parent, let’s heed God. Let’s ask God for His way of seeing life, our job, friends and family, pleasure, pain, sorrow, all of it. We feel we get life and that our viewpoint is right Yet,  Proverbs 14: 12 tell us,

 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

But, we can be encouraged because James 1:5 reminds us

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

Mind Over Matter?

We relate to God in many ways…mentally, emotionally and spiritually to name a few. When things are going well, we are growing in all of these ways and it’s possible we don’t even notice what order they are in. However, when life gets harder, so does our ability to handle the situation well.

Today, I’m thinking specifically about my mind versus my heart… knowing things mentally versus feeling them were spiritually and emotionally. My mind has always been much more domineering than my heart. I’m sure it goes both ways depending on the person. Usually I’d say having a domineering mind is good, because we need to know God and all He has done. Whether I feel He is near or feel strong or feel secure, these are all still reality. We immerse ourselves in God’s Word to know Him better which becomes the bedrock of our faith. From there, we know ourselves and others better as well. Ideally our hearts keep up and all is good. But big surprise, this doesn’t always happen!

Personally, my heart has been pretty starved and weak most of my life. Thankfully, God has been catching it up and growing it exponentially these past years but, there are still some obvious deficiencies. I do want to rely on both mind and heart and have them complement one another so I know God loves me, and I can rest in his presence and actually sense and feel He does. Win-win.

Sometimes though, my mind can just be a bully. That’s not the best situation either. Can you relate?

My heart hurts and needs God’s comfort….

but after a while, my mind just takes over and says,

Enough already.

Suck it up.

Get over it,

or the immature answer of  frustration, “WHATEVER!!!”

If I go along with my mind at this point, my heart gets completely stomped on and I immediately turn my emotions off and proceed. 

From the outside all is well. I’m DOING what I should. I’m not a crying mess. But in reality, nothing was resolved, learned or gained. Just another wound, not even from others, but from myself. I did not receive the comfort God had for me. Just “WHATEVER!!!”

So, for me, I need to get my mind to lighten up a bit. Maybe you are at the other extreme. God intends to grow us in all ways!! It is good to have our minds able to take over when there’s confusion, because feelings are fickle and sometimes our hearts just will not cooperate as they need to. It doesn’t take long being a Christian to find that sometimes God does seem to hide from us a bit and

we must rely on truth to get us through.

God is faithful. God is with me. God loves me. God is good, and so on.

Yet, I can say from experience, walking with God only on a mental level is a pretty dry walk. God does relate to our hearts so much. The Holy Spirit does comfort us and not just mentally. He speaks to our hearts. He is growing us always, even in the realm of emotion and feeling. The Holy Spirit brings the words of God to life and speaks uniquely to every person. So we should see to know God with our minds and also with our hearts. God can make that reality!

Love God, Love Others

The two greatest commands – love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, seem pretty straight forward. Oh, is that all I have to do, we may think. I’ll figure this out in a day or two then I’ll move on to the “hard stuff.”

Rude awakening, we can go an entire lifetime and not achieve both…. or even one. My mind gets it but every effort to do either seems to be completely impossible in my own strength! 

The presence of sin in my heart and in this world taints everything.

Even my best intentions, I realize, somehow are rooted in my own pride and selfishness. Without God’s constant intervention, I have no chance of loving Him or people well at all. The Good News is that He did intervene in sending His Son to die in our place, for our sin. So, now there is a way to truly love God and others as long as it’s through Him.

Our sermon at church yesterday ties into this subject. I don’t see life as it really is. I see life through this distorted “me “lens. It colors everything, and not for the better. What looks right to me is everyone living life my way. And to you, living life your way seems right. We all assume we are the center of the universe and everyone and everything was made to make me happy. Either I continue viewing life through that “me” lens, or I willingly give it to God and accept His perspective instead.

Slight problem…um, I really still prefer my lens. My mind, again, tells me God’s way is better but I don’t naturally like anything about it. The colors seem off. It’s blurry and gives me a headache. It will take my whole life to appreciate God’s perspective and ways as I should! It’s a purposeful choice to give God our naturally distorted “me” lens to Him permanently.  

It’s true, with God’s lens before me, I strain to make out things. I get headaches. Sure, what I have managed to see is amazing, but will it ever feel right, be clear, be my lens of choice? The answer is yes – when I choose to see life through God’s lens all the time, I do begin to get used to it and eventually prefer it! I must choose to permanently give God my rights to those old distorted lenses of mine. But, then the real transition can be made, when I’m done switching back and forth and making myself sick doing so. God works in and through us to accomplish His two primary commands, to love Him first, and love others next.  Without God’s help, we would have no hope of doing either.

Can We Manipulate God?

Relationships can be very complex, can’t they!? Our hope is to be wanted and loved, but it seems even more urgent to be needed. Being needed seals the deal. Now I am not optional and can’t be rejected. I know I have worth, value, and security. 

Forced security of this type can easily get off track. Security should be rooted in trust, assurance and faith. Being “needed” sounds great, but what we often do is manipulate people to make ourselves feel better. It sounds terrible and we may be completely unaware we are doing that at times, yet we pick up these tactics from others and find they can work quite well. We do whatever is necessary to feel the most needed, wanted and loved. Unlike God, unconditional love does not come easily to us. I’d wonder if at least half of the time, we are unknowingly using rewards, punishments, threats and even scare tactics to “encourage” others to treat us in a certain way. 

This desire to be so needed can really bring out the worst in us! The security we really are looking for comes from God alone. Ironically God does not need you or me! Hearing that bothered me at first. Why? Because I am completely at His mercy and that means I have no “control.” I can’t manipulate God so I feel powerless around Him.

God created us, chose us, wants us and loves us, and THAT IS MORE THAN ENOUGH! He doesn’t NEED us and that’s fine. He is complete in Himself…Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He promises to always be with His children and never forsake us. He has always kept His word and always will. God does not need us yet it’s a perfectly secure place to be.
Have you ever tried to make God change His mind by throwing a fit? How about holding your breath, refusing to go to work, being terribly grumpy or angry? I know I have, but none of these tactics, or any others, work on God! They usually leave me feeling foolish and can cause me problems and hurt others. But eventually we hopefully learn, we cannot manipulate God. We can speak with Him and share our hearts and feelings. It’s ok to plead with Him. But our fits and rages and attempts to punish or reward Him really do nothing. 

God is wise and all-knowing and we eventually need to come to peace that we aren’t going to understand everything He’s doing. He is trustworthy and good and is enough. no matter how good or bad things appear that day.

Perhaps we can even transfer some of that understanding and wisdom to our earthly relationships and simply enjoy wanting and loving others without manipulating them behind the scenes. We can ask God to reveal our motives and help us pinpoint our reactions and choices that could be changed for the better. And don’t worry, He will! I am thankful that our security in our amazing God makes us much more able to deal with the inevitable wounds of those around us. How nice to simplify our relationships and model God’s unconditional love! We can also allow ourselves to be more vocal about our love and appreciation for our friends and family. With God’s constant guidance, we can find all sorts of ways to model His unconditional love in all our relationships, too. Truly, we are blessed to be a blessing!

Mother’s Day… Thoughts on the Proverbs 31 Woman

Reading Proverbs 31, about a wife of noble character, has had differing impressions on me through the years. Sometimes it just feels an impossible goal and I really can’t stand this lady. I feel shamed and wonder if there is even one thing in this amazing account I can do well. Hopefully the fact my family is fed and clothed at least counts for something, right?
Other times, I’ve read Proverbs 31 with pride. Maybe it’s a time things are going well, and everyone seems fairly happy. I think, yeah, that’s me! I am right on track.

But today I read it and feel I hopefully am understanding it as I should – as both a challenge and an encouragement. We as women are called to bring good things to our world, to those around us. We are called to live a life of intentionality and purpose. We can reach out to those hurting around us as we faithfully serve our direct family and friends.

It’s not a checklist, though, Proverbs 31, so we don’t have to feel shame that we never live up to this amazing description. It is a challenge to us to bring good things to those around us in every way we can. There is much to do, and we are called to serve well, generously, sacrificially, wherever we are in life, with whomever we are around. We can bless these people daily.

It’s pretty clear that we are not meant to be idle – vs. 27. Definitely we do rest and have space and time daily to meet with our Lord and to be ministered to by those that love us. But, there’s not room for wasting time and following meaningless pursuits. We can ask God to identify what those meaningless things are to each of us. God has purposes for every life and we have the ability to fulfill them when we prioritize our days as He leads us.

There is no room for pride. I know for many women, wives, moms, single women, pride is usually beat right out of us naturally through life. As hard as I pursue my “noble” goals, I can’t achieve them without God’s direct and ongoing involvement. We seem to all find that it is true – I am not enough. I will fail those I love. I will fail God. But really, it’s not an all bad realization. It keeps us far from pride, which truly is our worst enemy. And it keeps us really relying on God. There’s not a more blessed and powerful place to be than aware of all our weaknesses (and there seems to be no end to them… at least I’ve yet to find one) and asking to be entirely filled with the Holy Spirit to overflowing. We have no reason to be prideful and we find God accomplishes amazing things through a surrendered heart. There is no limit to how much He’ll use us as women, and all people, if we stay in this seemingly weak yet never more powerful place. Then we can truly read Proverbs 31 and say, yeah, with God, I can be that woman.

Search Me

I Corinthians 2:10 …the Spirit searches all things

God doesn’t need to do a search to know any of us better or to know what’s going on in our world. He knows it already! He exists outside of time and already is in both our past and future all at once. So, why do we ask Him to search us? 

One of my favorite songs starts off with the lyrics, “Search me, know me “. It seems more an indication of our heart towards God. 

God is not a bully. 

He came up with boundaries and He respects ours, even the ones that keep us from knowing His love and blessing as much as we could. It’s really a bit ironic. But God gives us this control, this ability to ask Him to know us and likewise know Him better.

Asking God to search us is our  permission to please reveal to me what I may not be aware of. Asking this question acknowledges we want to be humble before God, and consider whatever He would like to reveal to us. We will take His promptings seriously and allow Him to make changes as He wants.

It’s mostly scary until we develop a history with God and find personally that He is always good, and gentle and wise. Then we can actually be eager to ask Him to search us. 

How can I know you better, God? 

How can you make me more like You and purify my heart some more today?
So much of God has to do with revelation – revealing what we don’t know. And one of the biggest mysteries after knowing our eternal, amazing God just one bit more today, is knowing ourselves one bit more. So much of our own motives and desires we hide from ourselves. And how can we grow and change if we refuse to even be honest with ourselves? “But I know there’s a lot of bad stuff buried in me,” you may think. “What if revealing it makes things worse? Will God still love me? Forgive me? Why stir up pain that I can medicate and hide? I am already used to this after all.”

True, God does stir up things in our hearts and in our hurts. But, He then comforts us and walks in it with us until it is all properly healed and we are not wasting time hiding what we’re ashamed of. We find healing and freedom. What seemed like a scary and dangerous request ends with even more assurance that God can be trusted and knows the best way to help us live with joy and freedom. So let’s make it a daily, hourly prayer – Search me, Lord. 

Listening to God, Part 2

Resignation to Emptiness

To me, my teen years went pretty well from that point on. I found interests I enjoyed and thanks to my perfectionistic tendencies, experienced success in them. I had a couple of good friends that I spent time with and listened a lot to, but had no idea how to share anything deep about myself with them.

Although mostly legalistically, I did try to pursue God. I kept a mental checklist of what He must expect because I didn’t want to let Him down: read my Bible every day (it seemed He would require at least one chapter, but the more the better), go to church with friends regularly, pray for those around me, plan that He will require sacrifice of me. (Hide my real dreams for sure, because they’d be the first to go, I’d guess.)

Something wasn’t right and I had no idea what it was. I didn’t know how to find out, couldn’t even form my despair into words to ask for help. I knew God loved me and saved me but He seemed far off, unapproachable, uninterested. But, wouldn’t that make sense, I would think. We are all sinful and He is perfect. How could I expect Him to engage more with me? I am just lucky He saved me. He certainly had no obligation to do more.

God puts up with me, I would think.

He doesn’t stomp on me like He could. He was my Savior but not at all my friend yet. He seemed like a parent too busy for me. I just tried to be a good kid but my heart seemed to neither accept any more from Him or be able to give any more to Him. Just maintain status quo. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t make God unhappy for sure.

I went through life in this place for many years, going to college, getting married and starting a family. Decades passed. I accepted God’s aloofness. Life had wonderful parts like my family, being a wife and mom. I was trying so hard to let go of that uneasiness and just be happy with life as it was. Why couldn’t I figure out joy? What was this lingering anxiety and fear I constantly had to repress? My already melancholy temperament lingered close to depression, but Christians shouldn’t be depressed, I’d think. They should be happy, so I would try to be happy.

I couldn’t even fathom the thought that God pursues me, adores me, wants my love and adoration. That was the furthest thing from my mind. That wasn’t the God I knew….yet!

(Don’t worry, things start to get better soon! Part 3 is the turning point!!)

To be continued….

Listening to God, Part 1

Why Do I Even Listen to Myself?

It is wonderful that God is always speaking to us through the Bible. We can know Him better – His amazing character, how He deals with us as sinful, needy people. He tells us truth about life, love, purpose and meaning. We are never alone. He is always with us. 

Always with us, I wondered as a kid? Always with me?

“How with me is God?”

That’s been my long-time question since I accepted Christ back in middle school. He created everything. He created me. Nothing is impossible for Him. So does He communicate with His children individually, personally? God gives us the Holy Spirit, who is God, Who knows the very thoughts of God (I Corinthian 2:11). Will God, can God, communicate directly to us, then? I’ve heard so many variations of answers to this question.

It’s taken over 30 years, but finally I think I may have come up with the answer that makes the most sense to me, just the tip of a massive iceberg. I will share in hopes of helping even one person in my shoes, desperately longing to hear from God, but feeling unable to. Because, God does care, He did care, and will continue to care. God does speak to us, He did, and he will continue. God speaks to us far more than we’ll ever be able to hear or understand. It is absolutely worth the effort to figure out how to listen and to God because the truth is He really is a constant companion and friend to each of us.

My story begins as a kid finishing a pretty grueling elementary school life. I realized one day,

I really don’t like my thoughts.

I want to do new things, take risks, figure out how to enjoy life, but all I think about is how stupid I am, how much I lack, how I will fail so why try. I feel I am my own worst enemy, constantly condemning myself. I just got sick of it. I knew I was missing out on life and becoming increasingly fearful and withdrawn. So, no more listening to myself I decided. In fact, if possible, I will try to do the opposite of what I think and see what happens. (I am very tempted to go on about the Seinfeld episode in which George does this and finds it wonderfully helpful, but I’ll skip that.)

What I found, like George, is that the approach was wonderfully helpful. A condemning, horrible thought would pop into my head and adios, I pushed it right out, not giving it the time of day. I wished I would have done this sooner! The condemnation was mostly gone and I was feeling braver. What I didn’t get is that it’s not just removing something bad that changes things, but more importantly replacing it with something good. I missed that crucial step. 

To be continued….

But My Knees Hurt…

Pride…how it trips us all up. Pride is really the root of all our sin against God, thinking we know better than Him, choosing our path over His. We often take our first prideful steps without even realizing it. There we all are, kneeling before His throne as we should be, worshiping the Almighty God with every thought and desire, when, we think, wow, kneeling isn’t really very comfortable.

And we look around.

Once our eyes are off God, things only go downhill. Hey wait, I see someone way over there standing! And he seems ok. So I stand up, and God doesn’t seem to do anything and I do enjoy standing. Then I think, how cool God’s throne is and how nice it would be to be closer. So I take a step that way, and God seems to do nothing. On and on I continue to try Him, until I am at the first step of His throne. And I think, maybe I could just sit on this bottom step…so I can watch everyone worshiping God, like I am. (Personally, I don’t think God would ever let us go this far, but let’s say He does.) Yep, up one step, up another. Soon there I am considering sitting on His throne, with Him, of course. Well, maybe it would be more comfortable if He moved.

Pride is on my mind this morning as I read Acts 12:1-2 – pretty straight-forward verses really. “It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.” But what popped into my head, (my moment of glancing around and thinking about standing up) was wow, this guy dedicates his life to God and his death is given 13 words and that’s that? I mean, even Judas has a small section about him dying and he betrayed Jesus.

It seems he deserves more credit.

Indeed, James was a faithful servant and served God well. I’m sure he received his reward as a Christian, eternity in heaven with God, probably a “Well done good and faithful servant”. After all, it is

God that deserves the praise, not ourselves.

But, that’s the problem, living a humble life is just plain a constant challenge for all people.

No matter how good or bad life is at the moment, there is always someone whose life is worse. That temptation to make ourselves feel better by comparing ourselves and looking down on others is hard to get past. It’s just got to be a

constant prayer

of ours that God keeps us humble and content. The more honest we are, the more we can admit, pride is usually running rampant in our hearts and minds. No worries, though, because God certainly has His ways of reminding us of our true position, below Him, and equal with all our brothers and sisters. It’s not that God finds any pleasure in watching us trip and fall on our faces. But, in truth it is

God alone

that rightly deserves ALL glory, praise and recognition. Every word. Every praise. All His. If God chooses to lift us up, that’s His decision. But there is not a circumstances that we should seek our own glory, whether it’s in our minds alone or just receiving praise from a well-meaning person and not immediately deflecting that back to God.

We need to get comfortable on our knees, in the dirt, last in line, with the smallest portion. We can work on thinking less of ourselves and more of others. Look at that person in complete despondency, in the depths of sin and bondage, and practice knowing… we are no better, because we aren’t.

God values every human life.

Your life is worth just as much as that ruler and that drug addict. No better and no worse. There are not levels of people in God’s eyes – we are all on one level and He is infinitely above us. Our attempts to get up higher than any other person is a complete waste of time and absolute foolishness. It’s an insult to our awesome God. Let’s get comfortable on our knees, really, really comfortable. It truly is the only position we should know.

So, God….What’s the Plan?

I find I am always coming back to this question. That’s how I naturally live my life, after all.

I plan

so I can prepare

so I can be successful.

Sometimes it drives me crazy that God’s plans often seem so mysterious and unobtainable to me. If I don’t know the plan, how can I prepare, and then won’t I fail? Only on my own…not together with God! He knows everything about all eternity. He knows my next thought, and what will happen today at 5:23 p.m. and every single second of every single day of every single life. He exists in the past, present and future simultaneously, not in the constructs of time. In everything, He is in absolute control. Nothing about our world or the future overwhelms Him. He is all-knowing and all-powerful.

So, why do I feel so clueless all of the time!!

I’ve come to realize, I don’t think it’s accidental! And, maybe I don’t mind it as much as I used to.

God arranges life as our daily tour guide, an amazing one I might add, but I find He doesn’t seem to give us a daily itinerary. My only option is to trust Him continually, to come back to Him to find out what’s next…a lot!  I wake up and say,

“What will we do today, Lord?”

What would we do if God did give us a play-by-play schedule and a plan for our whole lives up front. I hate to say it, but I think I would thank Him for the schedule and probably say, “I’ll be in touch” and who knows when I’d be back. It’s in our own best interest that God keeps us close and absolutely reliant on Him. I think it takes that level of dependence on Him to keep my attention and focus on Him. I admit, I can easily wander. Like the hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” rightly says,

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

It’s not true though, that God gives us no plan. That’s exactly what the Bible is…the history of God as He relates to man and what we can expect in the future. I don’t have to say,

I wonder what is important to God,

because it’s right there in black and white in the Bible. What matters to God is that He is glorified as He should be and that we know we were made by and for Him. His plan is that we love Him first and foremost, and love people next. It’s just that when sin entered the picture in the first few pages of the Bible, the whole story became much more complicated and costly.

God is altogether good and we can trust Him absolutely. Never once has he screwed up or had a melt-down and lashed out at us with insults and hurtful words. Nor will He slam the door in our face when we come to Him for help. He is kind and has more patience than we will ever know. And He is always faithful! He promises us He’ll never leave us or forsake us and He never will, not even once. We can rely on Him for all we need, and know He will take care of us and direct our paths.