Category Archives: Comforts and Calls

Sometimes when I am listening to the “she said, she said,” of the day, I daydream about how to apply Jethro’s advice to Moses in my home. Are there judges for hire instead of babysitters?  Don’t I have better things to do than to rule on whether or not referring to a fellow person as “Taco Sally” was meant to incite rage or giggles? Probably not.

What better way to spend my time than peacemaking. It is, after all, a fundamental characteristic of being a child of God. I spend so much time dealing with sisters (and on more rare occasions their brother) sinning against each other, I went to the oft quoted Matthew 18 passage that addresses just that topic.  Of course the way to peace is forgiveness.  I wrote down my observations about forgiveness in a brainstorm:

Forgiveness from Matthew 18 is:

1. To be given repeatedly.
2. Not to be withheld.
3. Does not demand payment, but incurs debt.
4. Secured by Christ either through his blood or his judgement in hell.
5. Comparatively small to our own need for it.
6. Seeks opportunity to be given. (i.e. does not wait idly for an apology)
7. Fruit looks like it being given to others.
8. Leaves safety to bring back the one in danger.
9. Increases in intensity (e.g. witnesses) as it seeks to have victory.
10. Hateful of sin and wants to see it cut off.
11. Evidence that we have been forgiven.
12. Undeserved.
13. Accompanied by pity.
14. From the heart.

I came away with a renewed sense that to gain another person by forgiveness is a privilege. To forgive our brother from our heart is to understand God’s world and our place in it rightly. And it’s not just for my kids’ skirmishes.

I’ve had this post sitting in my drafts for a month now, not sure how to finish it. Here are some thoughts about forgiveness, but how do we do it? And why is it so hard sometimes?  Yesterday, I had a lovely talk with some ladies about what it means to be the chief of sinners. It means to compare ourselves to the holiness of God, and to see grace upon grace to our undeserving souls. It is to know that there is no sinner, not Cain, or Job’s friends, not Judas, or Paul, or Hitler, or Stalin, not your gossiping friend, or your adulterous husband, that you are not capable of becoming were it not for the sovereign grace of God working in you. This is where the work of forgiveness really begins. It starts with, “Lord have mercy on me!”

May is the time of year to plan for the next.  School has wrapped up, and like grocery shopping on a full stomach is wise, so it is to make next year’s decisions while the fatigue is fresh. I generally start with a vision renewal- a “wait, what was I doing in here again?” kind of reflection.  Then after a little refresher on the big picture of the glories of providing my kids with a custom-made, Christian education I feel revived to get back to the guts of it.

The process generally looks like asking myself several questions regarding the value ratio of the last year’s choices. I compare the time, effort, financial costs to the critical thinking and social-relational benefits earned. I ask my friends what they’ve learned or plan to do differently.  And I look to successful school models to tweak and borrow ideas from. One of my favorite models is Logos School in Moscow, Idaho, a classical Christian school started by a man whose principles, methods, and fruit I admire.

This year while I looked through the elementary curriculum, I took notice that this school, started by one man’s vision, is now run and operated by many other like-minded people. Even more impressive than the 6^th grade literature list, is the study in good leadership that the school exemplifies.

We are all leaders in one role or another and my dad would say, “Leadership leads whether it wants to or not.” Our vision or lack of, our joy or stress, our enthusiasm or boredom will overflow and trickle down the path of least resistance- those under our care and influence.

Planning for next year, curriculum and activity choices are important, but the best cost-benefit ratio to me and my husband, children, and friends, is to spend myself on my personal holiness. M’Cheyene’s appeal to fellow pastors easily applies to anyone in a position of influence:

“Study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, for your sermons last but an hour or two; your life preaches all the week. If Satan can only make a covetous minister a lover of praise, of pleasure, of good eating, he has ruined your ministry. Give yourself to prayer, and get your texts, your thoughts, your words from God.”

The best plan in the world void of God will be a waste of life and worthy of His wrath. Without gospel hope, I will carry out all plans seething with stress. I will slop this mess over onto my kids, teaching them that learning is pressurized and joy is passively had in fleeting pleasures and performances. So I must fight the right fight. That I will overflow is a given, part of how God made the world.  I can’t stop the trickle so I will fill myself with God. Through his word and prayer He will spill his blood on me and fill me with himself and then I will be blessed to spill his work on those around me.

This photo has nothing to do with this post.  But is does prove that summer has existed once, and if once, perhaps it will visit us again sometime.

I have a tricky relationship with sugar.  Or really it’s not tricky, I would just prefer to eat like a 6-year-old who gets paid in Sweet-tarts for working in the Snickers factory.   We swim in the white stuff in this time and place; the only natural shorelines are body image and health. Vanity is no godly motivator, though looking your best is not sin. And we live in a culture obsessed with health and safety, which of course reacting to by reckless living would be foolish.   I rebel against an asceticism that will not change the heart, and yet I take that too far to rationalize my own indulgence.  So maybe it is a bit tricky or more biblically put, requires wisdom.

All that to say, I committed this week to 6 days without desserts or snacks.  Self-denial is not my strength. Give me an action or inflict pain and I’ll take it like a woman, but ask me to wait without… NO!!  Anything but that!

So why torture myself in this way?  First, to gain the perspective that this hardly qualifies for torture. I have much to be thankful for.  Second, because self-control is a fruit of the Spirit that overflows to all of my life and produces more worship to its rightful Owner.  And third, because I have little people following me whose spiritual senses have barely tasted the sweet fruit of righteous living, but who increasingly face the bitter enticements of the world.

I think one of the most legitimate frustrations kids can feel is knowing that the parents who are to lead them can not say “follow,” but instead insist on “you go first.”  It’s pretty sick when you think about it- burdening a child with a weight you won’t carry.  Or I’m often guilty of the reverse- we’ll all just stay down here and wallow together.

In order to lead our kids, we have to go first.  This week, I’m tasting what I haven’t for too long, the hard fight of self-discipline.  And the result so far has surprised me.  I am calling my kids to higher standards with more mercy because I know the climb is grueling, but I can also assure them the view is worth it.  You can’t call someone further up and further in from behind.

We had a lovely dinner with good friends tonight.  The kind where the food was great and the company even better.   We talked the gamut of topics and for a while landed on thankfulness, that familiar platitude we teach our kids to say and sign our messages with.  But though the phrase is frequent, the virtue can be hard to come by.

I read somewhere recently of a pastor visiting the US from a developing country, and when pressed to give one constructive criticism of Americans he said, “I think, because you have so much, you complain so much.”  Ouch.  Our sin is always more obvious to those around us, and we’ve just been called out for entitlement.  What are we to do?

Be thankful.  I didn’t come up with that solution.  You can’t get through many pages of the Bible without running into some variation of the command to be thankful.  As my friend pointed out, in just 3 verses in Colossians we are called to be thankful 3 times!  God is never redundant; he is kind to make sure we get what we need for life and godliness.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Col 3:15-17

What are we to be thankful for? Well, everything.  Have you ever thanked God that your orange comes in a protective peel until it’s ready to be eaten and then it’s already pre-divided into bite size slices?  It’s amazing!  Do you thank God for your shoes or for your bed that you spend most of your time in either one or the other? Are you thankful for medicine and science?  For grocery stores and pre-butchered chickens?

How about for the freedom to worship with hundreds of fellow believers on Sunday morning?  Are you thankful for singing?  For the word of Christ to flow out of you so gently that even your admonishments can be sung?  It’s hard to be harsh with a thankful heart.

Are you thankful for the Bible?  I love the book of Ezekiel.  I’m thankful for the poetry and the imagery, and for the intense picture of God’s wrath.  (I’ve not always been able to say that.)   I’m thankful for the affection for Christ that swells into my heart when after my stomach starts to turn and my jaw clenches and my knees shake because I don’t deserve to escape,  I remember that Jesus sweat blood and drank the cup of God’s wrath for me.  He was forsaken, he suffered, he died, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God (1 Peter 3).

Therein lies the basis of all thankfulness.  As Pastor Jason reminded us Sunday, grace then obedience, grace then obedience.  When we draw from the filled well of His grace, we will find ourselves pulling up buckets of thankfulness.

Who has time to blog with all these cuties to raise?  I sure haven’t lately.  But, I bet the laundry can wait another day (it has heartily survived several already) to send out a little encouragement today.

Born out of my own waning motivation to think hard lately, I fought back by picking up Van Til’s pamphlet, “Why I Believe in God.”  It got the blood flowing again.  I highly recommend the read. It’s potent enough to stimulate brain activity and short enough for a busy mom.   The pamphlet is a response to Bertrand Russell’s “Why I Am Not a Christian,” in which Van Til does not set out to show that Christianity is merely reasonable or more probable, but boldly asserts, “unless you believe in God you can logically believe in nothing else.”   It’s important stuff to think about- worship and obedience provoking stuff.

And an application I found along the way was a reminder not to waste my time with my kids.  As parents we’re having to constantly go between our wide angle lens and our zoom, aren’t we? And sometimes we get caught up in the details. Especially with school, I have settled into a rut of, “finish your math problems, read your science book, check, check, check, check,” missing opportunities  to preach the grandeur of our Creator.  As we fly through our checklists week by week, I’m reminded that time is short and a little dull. But when I look up to behold our God, I’m reminded that our time is but a vapor, I have no time for twaddle, and that we are privileged to have a lasting mission in a grand adventure.  I want more than top ACT scores and college acceptance letters. I want little Van Tils.

“In it [his Christian school]  I learned that my being saved from sin and my belonging to God made a difference for all that I knew or did. I saw the power of God in nature and His providence in the course of history. That gave the proper setting for my salvation, which I had in Christ. In short, the whole wide world that gradually opened up for me through my schooling was regarded as operating in its every aspect under the direction of the all-powerful and all-wise God whose child I was through Christ. I was to learn to think God’s thoughts after him in every field of endeavor.”
-Van Til from Why I Believe in God