I'm packing for a 12-day Girls Night Out tour across Alberta, which I leave for tomorrow! If you happen to live in Alberta, do check us out! It's a fun evening of faith and fellowship, and I'd love to meet some of my blog readers!
But in the meantime, I'm inundated with laundry and suitcases, and so I can't really put a profound thought together in my head. And so I thought I'd just post some observations I have about life and things that I don't understand, and see if you can enlighten me!
1. Why do Catholic schools insist that girls wear kilts?
I asked this on my Facebook Page last night after driving by a Catholic high school yesterday when school let out. I saw at least fifty teenage girls in kilts, and none of them, and I mean none of them, came more than 3 inches below the underwear line. I'm pretty sure I could see some panties there. Now I know this school has a rule that the kilt has to be a certain length, but that rule is obviously not being obeyed. Why not switch to pants? You may want to encourage femininity, but this is going a little far. So I don't get that. I really don't. (Plus it's so COLD in winter!)
2. Why doesn't America just drill for oil?
Sorry for getting political, but this is something we Canadians don't understand about you Americans. We extract our oil--in Newfoundland, in the Arctic, in Alberta. We're your biggest oil supplier, I believe. But instead of drilling for your own, you put your nation at risk because of all the Middle East turmoil. Sorry, but I don't get it. And we all know American oil would be drilled in a more environmentally friendly manner than Nigeria or Venezuela or even Saudi Arabia drills it, so overall American oil would help the environment, not hurt it, if we stopped relying on these terrible states for oil. So I don't understand that one.
3. How can parents walk away from their kids?
I guess this one should be its own blog post, but I've been watching as formerly completely involved dads (and in one case, a mom) has stepped completely back from parenting after a marriage split. My own dad walked out and barely had anything to do with me (though he did send money). I just don't understand how a parent could WANT to live without a child. I like to think that if my husband and I split (not that we would), I would fight for every second with them. How come some parents don't?
4. Why do irresponsible people get so much from the state?
I'm quite close to a number of foster parents, and hearing how much the Children's Aid Society tries to keep families together--how much money they pay families, how much stuff they buy for families (even hiring maids to clean the house), just so that the kids don't need to be removed. Why is it that women who have 5 children by 5 different fathers, and don't feed the kids, and live off of welfare, can get a ton of stuff from the state, while married parents, where one parent stays at home, who survive on one low income by scrimping and saving, don't get the state paying for maids, or for cribs, or for clothes, or for transportation, let alone medical & dental. There's something wrong when people who play by the rules are penalized for doing so, so that there is no incentive to do what's right.
5. Why can't I always feel God?
Again, this one should probably be its own blog post, but I'm in one of those crazy periods in my life where I'm busy, and I desperately need His peace and strength, and I'm not feeling it. It's my own fault; I've let busy-ness crowd out too much of my quiet time. But I pray that sometime today I could hear that still, small voice again and feel strengthened, because I'm tired.
Those are some of the things I wonder about, in no particular order. Anyone have any answers for me?
Last week I took four teenagers (two were my own) down to New York for a Bible quizzing tournament. That means twelve hours, in total, in a car with these girls over the course of the weekend. And we got into some really interesting conversations.
One of the girls is a senior in high school who is very bright and very motivated. She finds it really difficult to process the fact that so many of her fellow students just can't write. She reads their papers, and thinks, "But you've been speaking English your entire life. You can speak a sentence. Why can't you write one?" She once got into a conversation with her English teacher about this, and her teacher said that there is a school of thought that in 100 years, tenses will disappear from our language. We're getting so lazy in the way we talk and write that difficult grammatical usages will slowly disappear.
We have more technology than ever, but people don't seem to know as much.
Around the same time as this conversation, I received an email from a university friend with a link to a Grade 8 final exam from 1931. It's got Geography, Civics, History, Literature, even Penmanship. Check it out. It's HARD! Way harder than we teach kids today.
I often get rather depressed at the lack of education kids get nowadays. I know that makes me sound like a fuddy duddy, but I think, with all of the problems we have to solve in the world, how can we do it when people can't handle more than a soundbite? When they don't know history to put things in perspective (ie. they don't know that Jerusalem actually has always had Jews living in it, for instance, and was the capital of the Jewish homeland basically forever). Or how can we attempt to even think about how to handle dictators today when most people do not know about Chamberlain's "peace in our time" speech?
But it's easy to attack the school system. My bigger issue, though, is that the church is doing very little to combat this. You would think that church would be a place which would emphasize learning; traditionally we have. Indeed, many denominations were born to be more "intellectual" compared with the "common people". Higher learning was originally all theology; everything flowed from that. It was assumed that to be a Christian meant that you were slightly more educated because you read the Bible and thought about it. And since Christianity encompassed all that you could know about God's creation, then higher learning all flowed from that theology.
But today in church we don't really require thought. We focus more on emotion. I find it difficult as a speaker to get past this; I do a much better job at weekend retreats when I can get more in depth into a subject than I do at the one-time events. But it is a challenge because people don't always WANT to think. And yet at the same time, our generation thinks that we are smarter than previous generations (despite that Grade 8 Geography Test).
One of my daughters' main complaints about Christian education, whether it be at church or at camp or at retreats, is that it always focuses on the same stories: David & Goliath, Noah's ark, Joshua, Joseph, Jonah. Rarely do you require kids to actually think. And the Bible stories are NEVER put in context. I read a study done recently of the incoming class at Moody Theological Seminary, I believe it was, and less than half could put these four events in chronological order: Moses, the exile of Judah, David, John the Baptist.
People just don't know the basics--even people who have been Christians their whole life.
And if we don't teach context, whether it be with the Bible or with history, then we aren't raising children to be really educated or to really be able to think. You'd think the church would be spearheading this, focusing on Bible memory and real Bible understanding, but instead we focus, too, on shallow things and entertainment. And then we wonder why twenty-somethings lose their faith.
I wish I knew the solution, but I don't. I think we were far smarter before there was TV and when families read together at night.
My only solution is for my own family: we don't have a TV, we homeschool, and we make our kids memorize. But that won't help the society at large. So what do we do? I really don't know. I'm at a loss. Anyone have any ideas?
I've had a variety of snippets of interactions going through my head over the last few days, which have led me to a certain conclusion. So let me share my thought process with you, and see what you think.
Exhibit A: I talked with a woman whose live-in boyfriend is becoming upset because her teens do no work around the house. He can't make them; he's not their father. But he gets sick of their laziness. She says, "they're teenagers!"
Exhibit B: An 18-year-old hasn't gone for his licence yet--even though he could have two years ago--for no apparent reason. I think he's just too lazy. When he's not at school, he sits around and watches TV. And that is his whole life.
Exhibit C: A youth group is attracting unchurched kids, but losing a lot of churched kids, because all rules have gone out the window. It's okay to swear, wear whatever you want, play whatever music you want, and doubt all you want. Church is about feeling accepted. Now the churched kids don't feel accepted.
Exhibit D: A high school student with bright, accomplished parents is suspended again. He is just skating by. He puts no effort in. They don't know how to motivate him.
I looked at all four of these stories, which hit me within a 24 hour period, and it seemed to me that the common denominator was a lack of expectations combined with unconditional acceptance. Everyone in these stories loves their children. There is no danger of that. But none of these parents or leaders are willing to put actual expectations of behaviour on their children--and the children are responding by simply not putting in any effort.
I look at the parents and leaders in these stories, and they're wonderful people. How is it that such wonderful people can be raising and leading such kids who are, for want of a better word, leeches?
Let's deal with the church situation first. I have spoken to some of the churched teens who don't want to go to the youth group anymore and their response is that it doesn't feel godly or safe. The message is, "church is what you want it to be". "God loves you no matter what". All of which is true. But it's also true that God has certain standards for behaviour, and that saying the F-word nonstop is not godly. The occasional swear word is not going to bother anyone; but no one wants to step into a church and have it feel like one is watching an R-rated movie. But more important than the swearing is the attitude towards faith: it's not something that is essential or that is something you have to work at; it's just what you want it to be.
If kids were being transformed, it wouldn't be an issue. But most kids aren't being transformed. It's become a "cool hangout". And the problem is that for Christians to grow, we need community--a community we will belong to even when we don't feel like it; in fact, especially when we don't feel like it. We must keep ourselves plugged in, or we risk going off track. And if a church doesn't teach that you must keep plugged in, then you're not really raising disciples. If it only teaches you should do what's fun and you should come if you enjoy it, then what's the chance that these kids are going to keep going when they're 23?
Now let's go to parents. A parent's job is not to get their child to love them or to give their child a good life. A parent's job is to raise a child who can live independently while also showing compassion and love. Letting a child skirt by with no chores and no responsibilities and letting them get away with everything is not compassionate and it's not good parenting. It's failing them.
It's hard to turn things around when children are teens, but you can prevent this from happening by one simple thing: have expectations on your children. Expect that they will do chores. Expect that they will speak and dress appropriately. Expect that they will do homework. Expect that they will succeed in life. Expect that they will love God. And communicate these expectations. When they start to move away from the expectations, change something in your family life so you promote it again.
What I have found is that it is the expectations of the parents so often that determine how the children turn out. Those who say, "teens will rebel. They won't enjoy church. They'll struggle in high school" tend to have teens who rebel, who hate church, and who struggle in high school. But I know other parents who expect that their kids will love God, and will try hard, and they do.
Now there's more to it than just expectations, of course. Those with these expectations set up family life in certain ways. They give chores, they make time for homework, they demand that kids act perhaps more maturely than age would expect. But the reason that they do these things is because they expect that their children will fulfill them and live up to them. And lo and behold, the kids tend to.
On the other hand, those who expect that, as moms, they will have to do all the laundry for everyone in the house until the day they die will tend to do all the laundry in the house until the day they die. Those who expect that, as moms, their kids will never do homework on their own but will always need a lot of help will tend to raise kids who sit passively waiting for mom to tell them the answer.
So I have a simple idea: encourage your kids to be independent, even in small things. Encourage them to pick out their own clothes. Encourage them to figure out 5 x 4 in their head without telling them what it is. Encourage them to pour their own milk or get their own cereal.
Stretch your kids; don't stretch yourself. Don't do everything for your children; encourage them to act responsibly, even in little things, when they are very young. They do have brains and arm muscles, you know, so they are capable of learning to tie shoes or of putting their coats on a hanger or a hook by themselves.
If we did this when children were 6 or 8 or even 10, I bet we'd see fewer 18-year-olds sitting on couches like lumps refusing to do anything that would even be beneficial in their lives. I see so many teens who are putting off things that would actually be fun because they can't be bothered. They have become addicted to doing absolutely nothing. They haven't understood the joy of accomplishment or independence or ownership, and so they have no incentive to go ahead and grow up and reach for that milestone.
Teach kids that joy. Teach them that you expect them to reach high, and then equip them for it. It takes a real mindset on behalf of parents, but believe me, you don't ever want to be in the situation where you sit across the table from friends talking about your teenage child, saying, "I don't know how to motivate him." You're right. It's awfully hard when they're a teen.
Of course, no matter what you do, some kids will go off the rails. Some kids will make poor choices even if you do everything right. But don't use that as an excuse not to try, because while some kids will go off the rails, most will not.
So to sum up: we are to unconditionally love our children, but I firmly believe the way to do that is to expect that they will live godly, independent lives. Put some expectations on them! Make some demands of them! It's not being mean. It doesn't mean you don't love them. It means you're equipping them.
An airy-fairy style of parenting where parents do everything for kids, or an airy fairy style of Christianity where we just want to get people in the doors does not serve the goal of growth or maturity. We have to find a middle ground where we love and attract people, but where we also point and motivate towards growth. And I think that middle ground is expectations mixed with encouragement: "You can do it! It's within your grasp! God is there to help you! Now let's get going!"
What do you think? Can you combine expectations with unconditional love? Let's talk!
It's probably the prayer Christian parents pray the most: "Please, God, help my child to grow up to love you." Sure, we want them to get a good job, a good spouse, a good home. But mostly we just want them to follow God.
And yet all too many of my friends and acquaintances spend their evenings checking out their children on Facebook, looking at pictures of drinking binges or statuses that they wouldn't even recognize as their own children, now that those kids have left for college.
These kids who used to go to youth group, and who used to seem so innocent, aren't seeking out a church. They're not finding Christian friends. Intsead, they're letting other kids pull them down.
That's not unusual. In fact, that's par for the course today. Most teens raised in a Christian home will not go on to live as Christians themselves when they're adults. That's the awful truth. I've seen statistics that say only about 18% of churched kids who went to public schools will still love God as an adult.
So what do you do?
I've spent the weekend talking to a couple of moms who are going through just this with their kids (isn't it amazing how Facebook lets us keep track of our kids like that?), and I don't have any real wisdom for them. I don't know what to do when a teen goes off the rails and starts to make poor choices. The only thing I can think of to share is how to lay a good foundation. So whether your kids are 5 or 15, these are good things to start looking at now:
1. Think hard before you let your child go to public high school
I know many of you don't have a choice about schooling because you don't have the money for a Christian/private school, and homeschooling is not an option. But before you absolutely decide this, really pray about it. The rates of kids who stay in the church are much higher for homeschoolers and Christian schooled kids, and it's not just because kids get into trouble in public high school. Most of them don't. It's something far more fundamental: they start choosing their closest peers from outside of the church. And once they do that, church starts to seem irrelevant.
If your child has to go to public high school, that's okay. But think about these next points even more then:
2. Make church a huge priority
Never skip church as a family. Ever. I know that sounds radical, but if you want your child to take God seriously as an adult, you have to model it. If you skip church, you give the impression that it is optional, and if it's optional, your child likely won't go.
I see so many parents of teens that I know only coming to church sporadically, but then they wonder why their kids date non-Christians, or don't seem to want to be involved in the youth group or help in Sunday School. It's because you haven't modeled it as a family! So find a church where your kids can both help out and be ministered to themselves, and then keep going. Don't slack off. Make it a major part of your family's life. Help there yourself! And then your kids will be more likely to stay plugged in.
Now, I also know many families who don't go to church often but who are Christian. They do church "at home". I respect their faith, I really do. But I think this is a mistake. The implication that you're teaching your kids is, "you can be a Christian all on your own in your home". What's to stop them, then, as adults, from saying, "I don't need to go to church to be a Christian. I can sleep in on Sundays and still be fine."
You certainly don't need to go to church to be a Christian, but the repercussions for not going to church are much greater on a young person than they are on someone in their forties who already has his or her devotions established and who has a whole history of walking with God. Make sure your children think of church as an integral part of their lives.
3. Encourage deepest friendships to be Christian
This is probably the most important point, and the reason that so many Christian teens end up leaving the faith when they get to college. Their deepest friendships aren't Christian themselves. Make sure your children are always surrounded by Christian peers first.
That means that you have to be involved in a good youth group, and if that's not an option where you live, start one yourself. If your child doesn't know a lot of Christian teens, invite families in for dinner. Cultivate those friendships. But raise your child so that it's natural that they should look to other Christians for support and friendship first.
That's not to say that they don't have non-Christian friends; we all need to be involved in the world. But too many people use this as an excuse to not have Christian friends. "I'm just witnessing!", they say, but then pretty soon they're hardly hanging out with Christians at all.
If our Christian teens start thinking that they don't need other Christians as friends, then they will fall away from the church. One of the primary reasons we need church is for fellowship. If they don't think they need that fellowship, they won't go. It's that simple.
So don't let your child date anyone who isn't a Christian. If their best friends aren't Christians, switch youth groups and try to find another source of Christian friends for them. And you yourself should model the importance of Christian friends by having them yourself.
Keep in mind that the danger is not just that your child will become involved with non-Christians and thus start drinking or doing things you'd rather they not. I've seen Christian teens become immersed with very upstanding citizens who aren't Christian, and that was part of the problem. They knew so many kids who were "good" who didn't go to church that they started to suspect that you didn't need to go to church to be good. And then church became superfluous.
4. Make Faith Natural
All of this hinges, of course, on making faith natural in your home so that your kids know it's not that you're worried that they won't be "good", it's that you want them to actually believe. Pray over problems. Talk about God. Don't keep God just for Sundays. Many of us aren't comfortable praying out loud, or praying spontaneously, but whenever something comes up in the family, stop and pray. Ask what God would think. Read your Bible together.
If faith is a natural part of your family life, your kids will see it's more than church. And then they're more likely to stick with it.
5. Be Proactive in Finding Christians on Campus
Finally, if your child is going off to a secular college, or moving to another city, help that child find a church or a Christian group on campus. Don't leave it for your child to do. Get on the internet and investigate before they go so that they know how to get plugged in.
A teen who finds the Christian group on campus in the first week is far more likely to make their first friends from that group than a teen who waits a few months. It's important, far more important than what courses they're taking or what college they choose. So don't let this one go.
Those are my thoughts. Right now I'm living with a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old who each do have deep faith, and I'm so grateful. But I still plan on doing all of these things to make sure that faith carries them through. It's my primarily responsibility.
Maybe your children aren't that old yet, but many of these things you can put into place now. Pray as a family. Put a priority on church. Make sure they have Christian friends. Do those things, and your kids are more likely to seek out those friends when they're on their own.
UPDATE: As was mentioned in the comments, I left out PRAY! Duh! Of course we need to pray for our kids. I guess the reason that I left it out (if I can offer any kind of an excuse for that) is that for many parents that seems to be the ONLY thing they do. They pray, but then they leave it up to God. They're not proactive in these other areas. So perhaps I should say this: Pray first, but then make sure you DO something within your family, too. Take the responsibility that God has given you!
What do you think? Any advice? Have you gone through this? Do you have a child who can't make Christian friends? Let's talk!
Last month I was at World Vision headquarters in Canada for a training session. As I walked towards the entrance, I saw this stone at the base of a tree.
I don't know who Brian Tizzard was, but I found myself tearing up nonetheless. I know nothing about the man, except that he was a man of God, and a champion for children.
I'm sure he's happy to be remembered that way. And then I started to think, how will people describe me? Will they say, "she was a bundle of energy?" Will they say, "She was always running around doing something." Will they talk about how busy I am, how much I do, how much I'm involved in? Or is there something more fundamental that shines through?
I am very busy this year with speaking, and with writing. And the thing that motivates me is twofold: one, in my work with World Vision, God's using me to get children sponsored. And given my love for Africa, I'm honoured to be a part of that.
But two: I'm speaking a lot on marriage. I'm writing a book on marriage. And the reason I do this? So that kids don't have to grow up without a mom and dad who love each other, like I did. So that kids can grow up feeling secure, and safe, and loved, because their parents love each other.
Think of what a difference we can make in this world if we do one simple thing: love our mates. And then encourage others to do the same. Family is the key to everything: it ends poverty, gives hope, teaches kids about God's goodness, and stabilizes our society, our hearts, our souls.
In sixty years, I hope under some tree there's a little plaque that says,
Sheila Gregoire Woman of God Champion for Children
That would make me very happy indeed.
What about you? What are your passions? What do you want to be remembered for?
My 15-year-old daughter writes a blog, and I read it, though I'm not sure she knows that.
Anyway, I was blown away by her post today. Here's part:
We believe in something we can’t see, can’t hear, can’t smell, can’t feel. But still we give our life to him. It’s like standing blindfolded on top of a table, when you’re told that there are friends waiting at the bottom, and jumping off and hoping they’re there to catch you. Christianity is that three seconds from when you jump to when they catch you. That freefall when you aren’t quite sure whether they’re going to catch you or not—but you still trust them. You still love them. You still have faith that they’re there for you. But you can’t hear them. You can’t see them or feel that they’re there.
Some people think Christianity is that time when you’re caught, and there’s that rush of relief and happiness—but I don’t think it is. I think that’s what heaven is. The transition, our life on this earth, is when you aren’t quite sure whether you’re right or not, but you have faith nonetheless. When we’ve finished this life, we’ll land into the arms of God with the knowledge that everything was worth it. The scariness was worth it. The uncertainty, the doubt, the fear, the ridicule, the pain, the choice to go the hard way—it was all worth it. Because now you’re in the arms of your savior, and there’s nowhere else better.
There’s a time to feel God, to see God, to hear him audibly—but it might not be now on this earth. This earth is the place where you have faith in the unseen, the unfelt, the unheard. Where you believe in God not because he’s proven himself to you, but because you just know that he is God. If it feels like you’re in a freefall right now, like God isn’t there to catch you, like you’re all on your own—you aren’t. God’s waiting to catch you, but it’s not time yet. But when you do land in the hands that hold the world, you’ll know it was worth it.
I love that. And I love it even more that it's coming from my 15-year-old daughter. Read the rest here. And if you have teens, send it on. I know she'd love more teens to read (and subscribe)! And she loves comments!
This October, during Simplify Your Life Month here at To Love, Honor and Vacuum, we've been talking about going to God to find your purpose, figuring out what you really want to do and are called to do, and getting rid of the rest.
Today I want to give you a quick bit of encouragement.
When you're trying to figure out your purpose, chances are you think of something big. That's what we do in our society; we measure things by size. We think, the bigger, the better! We want to accomplish a ton. We want our kids to be doctors or lawyers; we want to grow our churches to thousands of members; we want to afford a bigger house, have a huge ministry, have our kids get all A's and have all their friends want to hang out at our house. We want to do things large.
It's not a new phenomenon. Way back in the Old Testament, when the people of Judah had been in exile in Babylon and were permitted to go back home and rebuild the temple, the work was going slowly. The temple was smaller than Solomon's, and the people were sad and discouraged. And then prophet Zechariah asked, "Who despises the day of small things"? (Zech. 4:10).
God doesn't. God doesn't mind small things, for it's in those small things that God shows Himself. He isn't as concerned about your kids' marks as He is about their hearts. He isn't as worried about the size of your ministry as He is about the effectiveness of it. He's the shepherd who would leave 99 sheep and go after the 1.
So don't despise the day of small things.
If you're looking at your life, and you feel that your purpose is just to be home and raise your kids and create a nice environment for your family right now, that's fine. Don't despise the day of small things.
There's nothing wrong with dreaming big, and there are times when God calls us to do something big. But there are also times when God calls us to do something relatively small. My friend John Patrick, who is now a retired pediatrician and professor as well as quite the philosopher, has spent his career in missions and apologetics and starting a new Christian university. He has done many amazing things. But he was not raised in a Christian home. And he remembers, as a child, his neighbour in England, an old woman who didn't do very much, but who told him that she was praying that he would grow up to be a doctor who would do missions work. And he did.
That's all she did. She prayed. But God used those small prayers to do so much.
Some of us feel hectic and disconnected in our lives because we're doing too much, and we need to get rid of stuff so that we can simplify our purpose and live it out.
Others of us, though, are not necessarily doing too much but we still feel dissatisfied and not at peace. And sometimes that's because we haven't yet learned the lesson not to despise the day of small things.
If your life feels small, that doesn't mean it's not large in God's currency. So don't despise the day of small things. Don't worry if your life doesn't seem big enough. Simply go to God on a regular basis and ask for His direction. If there's somewhere else He wants you to go or something else He wants you to do, He'll tell you. He wants you to do it of course; it's up to Him to let you know. You don't have to turn yourself into a pretzel trying to hear some voice that may not be leading you any differently anyway.
Just stay in touch with God, and you'll hear when He wants you to change course. So until you hear that, have peace. You're doing fine, even if what you're doing seems like a small thing.
Have you ever longed to hear God's voice, and tortured yourself over it? Have you ever hda to find peace in doing small things? Let me know in the comments!
It's Simplify Your Life month, and this week I want to talk about big picture ideas: how when we know what the purpose of our life is, and where we're headed, it's so much easier to feel organized and on-track in our daily lives.
We know where we're going, and we're peacefully heading in that direction; we're not living in chaos, heading every which way, just trying to escape the whip that we feel is coming. We're not under punishment; we're being led.
But that's not usually the way we feel.
Yesterday in church, our pastor was talking about sheep. Basically, we're all sheep. We're a little bit dumb, we're awfully vulnerable, we need help getting through life, and we're followers, not leaders.
The question becomes: who do we follow?
And Jesus answered that question when He said,
"I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep...His sheep follow Him because they know His voice." (John 10:11, 10:4)
The imagery I love in that story is that of a shepherd leading the way, and the sheep follow. The shepherd's out front, and the sheep are happily following right along, because they trust the shepherd has their best interests at heart.
In contrast, when sheep have been sold to a butcher, they don't peacefully follow the butcher, because they don't know his voice. The butcher has to stand behind the sheep and whip them into shape to get them to go in the direction he wants.
That's the difference between being called and being driven. Being called is peaceful, with God out front; being driven means you're not sure where you're going, you just don't like the feeling that you're being swept away into the abyss, and no one is leading you.
I don't want to live my life being swept away, but that means I have to hear Jesus' voice. Part of the answer to that comes from this post last week about how to snatch time with God and spend time reading His word and praying. But let's go a little bit deeper today and ask: what is it that God is calling us to?
In our society, we're being called in many different directions. Here are just a few:
1. Perfect Moms
We're told we have to be perfect mothers--and the criteria for being a perfect mother is always changing. It used to be that a mom could have a birthday party by sticking all the kids out in the backyard with hot dogs and a cake and some bubble wands. Now we have to rent out the rec centre so everyone can go swimming. The criteria for motherhood has changed, and we have to recognize this or we're going to be swept away.
2. Perfect Bodies
What about the criteria for what makes a good woman? We all feel pressure to be beautiful. But if you were to actually do all the beauty techniques we're supposed to do--from exercise to waxing to cooking special foods to snacking throughout the day to facials and manicures and hair treatments--we'd never sleep. Here's a video I did on exactly this subject of how silly we women can sometimes be:
3. Perfect Homes
We need perfect homes, which means that we need more and more stuff and more and more money to buy the stuff (and bigger homes to hold all the stuff). Think of how many TV shows and internet sites revolve around creating a perfect home that is more and more expensive. How much time do you spend ogling home & garden magazines, wishing you had just a little bit more?
We can drive ourselves crazy trying to have a perfect home, and yet if you were to look at the homes most people lived in during the post-war period, I think we'd be surprised at how bigger families often had less space--and yet they survived. Today we have more space, and we work ourselves to the bone trying to pay for it. We spend less time at home so that we can afford a bigger home. It's silly.
4. Perfect Kids
If you haven't gone crazy yet with the demands for a perfect home, and a perfect body, and being a perfect mom, how about perfect kids? To have perfect kids, you have to raise well-rounded, well-adjusted kids, which means that they need to be in soccer, and hockey, and gymnastics, and karate, and piano, and French immersion, and special pre-schools. And the list goes on.
For our children to succeed, they need to try everything, the theory goes. Everything, of course, except actual boredom. It seems to me that if children are never bored, they never learn to use their imaginations. If they're never sitting at home with nothing to do, they never decide to play with their siblings, or to make up games.
Perhaps the truly successful child is not one who has been in all kinds of activities where other people tell them what to do and they blindly follow, but instead a child who has had permission to play outside, to explore the world, and to imagine and create.
Last week our friend Logan came over to spend some time with my girls. He's now 16, and he's on a quiz team with my oldest, and they needed to study. Logan was telling us how that day he and his brother had been out searching for crayfish in the river near where they lived, and they were jumping from rock to rock, holding onto trees for support, to see who could clear the most rocks without falling in.
It doesn't cost anything. Mom doesn't need to chauffeur. And Logan and Orrin were learning about nature, and appreciating the outdoors, and getting exercise, and bonding together. What's wrong with that?
In short, many of the reasons that we feel driven is because we're giving in to what society says our lives should be about: bigger and better. And bigger is not better. The more stuff you have, the more you have to pay to buy it, pay to maintain it and take time to clean it. It robs us of our most precious commodity: time.
I don't think that God will ever lead us into any of these things. God isn't worried about appearances. God isn't worried about "riches" on earth, whether they're money riches or status or experiences.
God cares about character: are you and your family members growing to look more and more like Jesus?
And what did Jesus do? He cared about others. He stopped and listened and laughed. He loved nature. He loved children. He took time to talk. He took time to care about people.
Of course, He also wasn't married and wasn't providing for children, so He could afford to be a little freer with His time than those of us who have these responsibilities! We do have to care about housing for our kids; He didn't. So we can't be completely as carefree. But our hearts can be in the same place: that our primary aim is for us to look more like Jesus, and for us to take our family, our friends, our kids, our neighbours, along with us.
It really is that simple. I know many of you have all kinds of plans for building bigger homes, or putting your kids in more activities, or getting a bigger high-powered job. I know many of you spend your life driving your kids everywhere, and you're thinking, "but you don't understand how much my daughter loves gymnastics! You don't understand what a witness we are in that gymnastics club! You don't understand how much we need me to work!"
You're right, I don't. And some families definitely do need two incomes (though I think the number that do are far fewer than we commonly assume). It all comes down to this:
Money + Stuff = Time
The more stuff you have, and the more money you want, the more time you have to spend to earn it and maintain it. The less stuff you want, and the less money you're willing to live on, the more time you have for people.
We all have to find our own balance in this area, and you need to ask God to show you how you can provide for your family's legitimate needs without wearing yourselves out.
But I encourage everyone of you to take another look at your lives. Are you spending too much of it chauffeuring, or doing housework, or calling repairmen, or working? Are you spending too much of it away from your kids so that your kids can have the best opportunities? Maybe you're sacrificing God's best for what the world tells you you need.
And the best way to figure that out is to ask yourself this question: do I feel peace with where I'm going, as if I'm following Jesus' voice, or do I feel like I'm being herded somewhere I don't want to go? If you feel herded, stop. Step aside. Our world has a herd mentality, trying to get everyone to conform to the "bigger is better" mantra, that every middle class family needs all this stuff. It's not true.
If you're not at peace, you're likely not following the shepherd. Don't be hard on yourself about it. He's not angry. Just decide that this week you're going to try to listen more. Talk to your husband more about where he thinks you should be heading. Talk to your kids, if they're old enough, about whether they're happy with the pace of your life. Start journalling and asking if you are all looking more like Jesus, or if you're looking more like every other family on the block: busy, harried, and abounding with stuff.
Having less means you live more on faith, which is exactly what Jesus did. There's nothing wrong with deciding to live with less, and relying on the Shepherd to lead you. There's nothing wrong with deciding to forget about what society tells you should be your aim, and deciding as a family to strike out in a new direction; that's what our Shepherd did, too.
I'm going to talk later this week about how to make decisions about whether or not to work outside the home; how to make long term goals for your family with your husband; and how to make long term character goals for your kids. But for today, I encourage you to ask: whose voice am I following? And if you're not feeling peace, maybe it's time to get off of that road.
One of the big challenges in this Simplify Your Life month is how to figure out the big picture: what is it that God is calling you to do?
Next week we're going to go through a journalling process to figure that out, but there's a more important preliminary step, and it's really quite simple. You've got to talk to God.
Really talk to Him.
I struggle with this. Do you? I'm one of those people who believes so strongly in multi-tasking that it's very difficult for me just to sit. I always think I should be folding something, or dusting something, or writing something.
But we can't figure out what our purpose is unless we get in touch with the one who defines that purpose. Often people try to figure out their purpose without reference to God--they look at their talents, and their desires, and they figure that these things together must constitute their purpose. But is there purpose to life if it's solely defined by what you like to do and are good at? That's not purpose; that's just a singular, self-centred life, and the whole reason for a purpose is that it transcends you, and makes you part of a larger plan.
And you can't have a larger plan without a Planner. So we need to get used to talking to God!
When I was a teenager, I took a summer missions trip to the Philippines. It was a difficult time, and I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend the same organization or opportunity for teens today. But one thing that they taught me that was invaluable was to do daily devotions. They gave us checklists so we could keep track of which chapters of the Bible we had read, so that eventually we could see when we had read the whole thing. I kept that checklist in my Bible for 7 years, during which I read through most of the Bible so many times that the checklist wore out.
It taught me organization, diligence, and just a thirst to hear from God everyday.
And then I had kids, and thirst for God fell to the wayside, crowded out by desperation for sleep. And even once the kids were sleeping through the night, I was still so desperate for time for myself that I have found it difficult to maintain the discipline I had as a teen.
I have decided, though, to stop feeling guilty about it and to figure out new ways to hear from God--new ways of doing my devotions that don't require it to be a chore, and that can relieve that thirst again. So here are some ideas, some of which I use, and others which I have used in the past, that may help you to focus again on God and find the time for devotions!
1. Journal, too
If you're a multitasker, like me, you may find it difficult just to read a portion of Scripture, because if you see something interesting, you think, "I should blog about that!", or "I should put that in a Facebook status!". What I've done instead is take a pen and a notebook with me while I read my Bible, and I write down things that strike me, so I can make use of them later. Then, at the end, I write down my prayers. A few months later I can read over and I can often detect a pattern of where God has been taking me.
2. Put a small Bible and a small notebook in your purse.
I spend so much time waiting--waiting for kids, waiting for oil changes, waiting while the car is being filled up, waiting at the doctor's office. Let's use some of that time and read my Bible then! It doesn't mean you don't read it when you have MORE time, but if you honestly are rushed, having a Bible and notebook with you can at least help you to snatch the time that is available!
3. Make it a family event.
We all should be talking to God individually, but if that is becoming difficult, what about reading a chapter together after dinner, and talking about it? Or reading a psalm together with your husband the last thing you do at night?
4. Work through a study
Not sure what to read? Pick up one of those Bible study books at a Christian bookstore that takes you in-depth into a particular book. That helps give some structure to your devotional time if you aren't sure what to read about, pray about, or learn today. It doesn't always help to sit down and then open the Bible at random. If you have something that is taking you systematically through a portion of Scripture, you're likely to learn more!
5. Get the Bible on CD
Why not listen to the Bible in the car while you're driving? If you commute, or spend a lot of time chauffeuring your kids or doing errands, you can always listen to some shorter passages, like the Psalms or the epistles while you're driving. Just hearing little bits of Scripture while you drive can be so helpful! Again, a Christian bookstore will sell CDs of the whole Bible, or you can download some off of the internet.
6. Have "Calls to Prayer"
I have a friend who used a siren, whether it was a police or ambulance or fire engine siren, to remind her to pray. Whenever she heard that sound, she'd pray for the emergency, but then she'd pray for her family, or her church, or her concerns. She lived in a big city, so sirens were quite common, and it caused her to pause throughout the day, at random times, to pray.
What's your random call to prayer? You could use a sound, like a bird's call or a siren, or you could use a task, like folding laundry, or doing the dishes. Whenever you do these things, you pray. You could even pick specific people to pray for--whenever you do the dishes, you pray for your children. Again, it just focused you throughout the day to think about God and talk to God.
7. Incorporate Prayer into Exercise
My mother takes prayer walks every morning. She walks quickly, to get some exercise, but that's also when she prays. Others I know pray on the treadmill, or while they jog. I love praying on walks because I'm out in nature, and that's often when I feel God the most.
8. Play praise CDs constantly
Fill your house with music that praises God--especially music that focuses on Scripture. Fill your car with that, too. Of course, silence is also very necessary at times, but the more we can hear God's word, the more it will impact us, and help us to remember it and hide it in our hearts.
9. Stop feeling guilty, and do what works
Finally, just stop feeling guilty. Many of us feel so guilty that we haven't managed to squeeze God into our day that we don't even try anymore. If you can't do the 30 minutes with God that you used to do when you were young, that's okay. But do what you can do. Snatch what you can. Find what works. And don't be afraid to do a variety of different things. Our devotional time does not have to look like a specific way. It's just finding time during the day to remember God, to concentrate on God, to listen to God, and to meditate on His word.
He wants to talk to us today; He doesn't want us to feel so guilty or so inadequate that we flee. If you're feeling guilty, that's not God's voice. So find something that works for you, and do it. And the more you hear God's voice, the more you'll find yourself feeling peaceful, grounded, and excited about life!
Do you have ideas that help you incorporate devotions into a busy life with kids? Share them in the comments!
I've spent the last week and a half hiking the Grand Canyon. It was incredibly majestic, and in the quiet I found myself often humming and singing to God. One day, as we were venturing down the canyon, the song "righteousness, righteousness, is what I long for..." started to go through my mind. Do you know that song? It has three verses: Holiness, righteousness, and faithfulness, is what I long for. It's what I need.
I always thought that song was a little weird, because it was saying that holiness was the one thing I longed for, but then the next verse said the same thing about righteousness. But of course, holiness, righteousness, and faithfulness are pretty much the same thing.
So last week, as I was humming it, I found myself asking, do I mean that? Is righteousness the main thing I pray for?
And I realized it wasn't. The one thing I pray to God for, over and over again, is fruitfulness. I want to make a difference. I want to use my life for something good. I want to be part of God doing something on this earth.
That sounds very noble, but is it really? Because it hit me then that by concentrating on fruitfulness, what I was really saying is that "God, in your economy I want to feel important." I want to feel like I matter.
And that's not really what God wants from me. What God wants is holiness. He wants righteousness. He wants faithfulness. And all that fruitfulness stuff are simply byproducts of the holiness. Remember John 15, when Jesus says "whoever abides in me will bear much fruit"? We abide in Him, and He bears the fruit. We don't bear it; He does.
So it really is righteousness I should aim after.
I have to admit, though, that I have a bit of a problem with that. I didn't grow up seeing things in black and white, right and wrong, and I got used to doing the expedient thing at times. I'm not saying I did huge things wrong, but I have always struggled with white lies, or envy, or sitting on the fence if it was possible.
My children seem to have much deeper consciences than I do, for which I am eternally grateful. But God has been making my conscience much more picky over the last decade, which is not a comfortable feeling. I know that I am not the same person I was a decade ago. I can't watch the same movies. I can't take any extra change at the grocery store if someone adds the bill up wrong. All kinds of things like that. But it's the big things, especially, that matter to me--whether I cause dissension in the extended family; whether I show love to those who are difficult; whether I am jealous or envious of others.
But it is a struggle, isn't it? So often we think we've arrived and we don't give any thought to holiness at all. But when we get to that point, then we're missing something. Because God is always trying to change us; if we think that we don't need it, and that our main aim now should be to be fruitful, then we've missed the boat. We've put ourselves in the driver's seat, instead of Him.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the church talked about sin perhaps too much--or at least they talked about it in a dysfunctional way. My mother remembers, as a child, being read passages from Revelation on how liars went to hell, which hardly made her want to do her devotions. The Bible became a source of punishment, rather than peace.
But today we have thrown out the idea of sin and replaced it with this transformational gospel--that our main job is to make the world into something better for Him. And we've forgotten that we can't do that without an honest look at our hearts.
I can recall several times when both girls have come into my room at night, after they've been tucked into bed, crying, because they feel guilty about something they've done and they've had to confess. Once it was 5-year-old Katie announcing that she had stolen some little tiny fake flowers from a craft store, because she thought they'd make a good bridal bouquet for her Barbie. We took them back the next day.
Another time it was Katie upset because she had watched a YouTube video about kissing she knew she shouldn't (I was so scared at the time it was more than that, but I checked it out, and her innocence was still intact. She thought something was worse than it was :) ).
And there were other things, too. Sad because they'd lied, or been mean to someone. And they had to tell me, or they couldn't sleep.
I want to be like that, and I think God is molding me in that direction. And so that it what I am praying for. Yes, I want to be fruitful. Yes, I want to make a difference. But I also don't want this life to be about me; I want it to be about Him. And that means that I have to seek Him--and His holiness and righteousness--before I seek anything else. And that will be my prayer.
I'm currently recovering from a weekend where I fed 15 extra people every meal and snack they ate, and housed 8 extra people in my house. My kids were having a practice for the quizzing team they're on, and while it was great fun, it was also extremely exhausting.
Last night, as my oldest and I were snuggling and debriefing, we talked about a propensity she has to get mad at herself when she starts making mistakes. I told her she had to learn to curb that, especially in a team situation. She replied that that was who she was; and she couldn't fix it, no matter what. It was part of her personality, even though she didn't like it.
So we talked about that issue a bit, and I mentioned that last year she was way worse than she was this year. This year she rarely broke down; last year she did quite frequently. So even though the struggle is still there, it has minimized. And there's no reason not to expect it to continue to get better, with God's help.
It's like that verse in Romans 8:29: we are being transformed into the likeness of His Son. It doesn't say we ARE transformed; it says we are BEING trasnformed. We're not perfect, but we're moving in that direction.
That's one reason why I think God often sees us in terms of arrows rather than pinpoints on a map. If you remember your senior high school algebra, we're vectors, we're not points. We're people with a direction and a momentum, not with a static place in the circle of what it means to be saved. And what God is concerned about is whether or not we're moving closer to the centre of the circle, not where we are within that circle. He's happier with a person who is barely inside the circle who is moving towards the centre than with someone who is close to the centre but moving away.
Take a woman who is exploring faith, for instance. She knows she needs God. She's starting to pray. She's questioning the major things in her life. But she's still living with her boyfriend; she still swears; she still gets drunk occasionally. But she's seriously searching.
Isn't God more pleased and excited about her than He is with a woman who is married, with kids, who has known Him for years, but who gets her entire Christian identity from going to church? She rarely prays, can't remember when she last read Scripture, is judgmental in her heart, and is often short and frustrated with everyone around her. She's not demonstrating grace or love; she's coasting on being a Christian for decades. She figures she's safe, so she just doesn't think much about God in her daily life.
I wish we could stop thinking of people as points on the circle of salvation and instead think of people as arrows, as I think God does. Often we dismiss those outside the circle, thinking they're hopeless, because their lives look so wrong to us. But if their hearts are searching, they're moving towards God. But we think we are safe just because we identify with God, without actually trying to be transformed at all.
I'm not talking salvation; that's a separate issue and far too deep theologically for me after the big weekend I've had. I'm just saying that I think we need to be ask ourselves, are we moving closer to God, or away from Him? I can look at my daughter and see the changes that God has done in her over the last year, even if she can't see them herself. I can see how she's maturing in Him, and how she prays, and I can see how she's working out difficult issues of faith. I'm proud of her. Is she perfect? No, but neither are any of us. But at least she's aware of that, and wants to continue to move in that direction, now that she sees that God is changing her.
But God doesn't change us unless we open ourselves up to Him. We can't rest on our laurels, assuming that we have arrived. I know I will never be perfect this side of heaven. I can see all the things I don't like about myself. But I think God cares more about whether I'm growing in Him than whether those things are there. I don't think He wants me to beat myself up as much as He wants me just to continue to seek Him out.
So which way are you going? Towards Him, or away from Him? What trajectory are you on? Even if you don't look like the "typical" Christian woman, that doesn't matter one bit. The main thing is whether you're starting to look more like Jesus. That's what God cares about, and it's what we should be concerned about, too.
Wouldn't you love to praise like this? Just keep watching:
I just love the innocence of children, and how much they really do love God.
When Katie was 2, she used to love singing in the backseat. She wouldn't pay any attention to us in the front, she'd just belt it out, too. One day I was very sick, and had to ask an older friend to take Katie for the day (Katie was still infectious and so couldn't go with any other children). So my friend, who was about 45 at the time, drove around with Katie on all her errands that day. And when she dropped her off the next day, she was chuckling, explaining how Katie sang "Jesus Loves Me" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children" at the top of her lungs, all the time.
Rebecca, when she was 3, used to make up songs on the subway. She was my little evangelist. Whether I wanted her to or not, she'd sing loudly, with her own words, "Jesus died for you. And He loves you. You just have to believe in Him. Because He died for you!" I got some looks, I tell you!
Children praise. They don't think about what other people are thinking. They don't look around to make sure they're doing it right. They just sing for His glory.
Tomorrow, when you go to church, how will you worship? Will you just sing for His glory, or will you think of what the woman is thinking who is sitting two rows up? Will you wonder what others are thinking of your clothes, your kids, your car, or will you just think about Jesus? Will you listen to the sermon and think about God, or will you plan your grocery list?
Tomorrow, let's just fix our eyes on Jesus, and worship!
Success is not getting a lot of stuff. Success is not being especially gifted at something. Success is simply allowing God to use what He has already given you.
A few days ago, I was talking to my daughter who was upset because she hadn't lived up to her expectations in terms of marks in a certain subject. As teens, we tend to define ourselves and take pride in ourselves in the areas that we believe set us apart from others--we're prettier, we're smarter, we're more athletic, we're very social. Whatever it is, we like to have something to point to and say, "that is who I am."
Hopefully as adults we become more mature, and realize that our worth is not in our accomplishments. Realistically, though, that rarely happens. We still tend to judge ourselves by our successes. Have I landed a good job? Do I have a bunch of kids? Do I have a nice house? Are my kids in a good school? Am I in charge of a ministry at church? Do we make enough money? We judge ourselves by the standards that our society has set, which is completely counterproductive, let alone wrong.
Have you ever looked at the Israelites in the Old Testament and thought, "boy, were they ever stupid"? Look at them! God tells them to do something, they do it, and everything goes right. Then they start doing the opposite, and things go badly. So they pray, God rescues them, and then the whole cycle repeats. And one of the things that God was so adamant about was that they not worship idols. They had to keep all those wooden idols out of their homes. And I often think, "you saw God part the Red Sea. Why would you go back to wooden idols?"
Yet I'm not sure they always realized what they were doing. The idols were all around them, in the cultures that they lived. They were everywhere. And so they mixed worshiping idols with worshiping God. We may not have wooden idols in our homes, but our culture has idols, too, and we are letting those idols infiltrate our homes. We are letting those idols influence us, without realizing it, because it's all around us.
And those idols come from our consumer culture, saying things like, "You deserve to be happy". "You should be successful." "You should be wealthy and have lots of stuff." And we start to define our worth that way, even though we know that's not how God sees us. We start to judge our ministries by numbers, rather than remembering that God sees the heart, and may be doing something important just for the sake of 1. We judge our families by our retirement savings, or our house size. And it's one of the things that makes us work so hard, so that we can buy more stuff, rather than work less so that we can be with our families more.
A long time ago, when I was reading a bunch of entrepreneurial books in my twenties, I made a pledge to myself. I said, "by age 40, I will make $X a year." I had a goal.
In two weeks I'm going to be 40, and I'm nowhere near that figure. And for a while, a few years ago, when I saw that I wasn't going to make it, I felt badly, as if I had let down my dreams.
Yet since I made that pledge, I also decided to homeschool. I decided to write and speak as a ministry. I decided to spend a lot of time raising money for an orphanage in Kenya. It's pretty hard to start a new business and make the kind of money I wanted to make while you're doing all those other things.
And so I am approaching my birthday with peace. I haven't lived up to my dreams because God has put new dreams in me. We must stop judging ourselves by the wrong things. Your status doesn't matter. I know so many families where both parents work and make good money and they're still always worried about money. I know other families who live in large homes that are gorgeous, but their kids aren't really following Jesus because somehow or other, even though the parents believe, they stopped making their children's faith a priority, and their jobs and sports became the priority.
Success, you see, is not in what we have. It's not in how much money we make. As I said at the opening, success is letting God use what He has already given you. It's taking the gifts and the things that God has given you, and leaving them open for Him. It's saying, "my time today is yours, Lord. Show me how I should use it." It's saying, "I want to raise these kids for you, Lord, so show me how to be a good mother." It's not being worried about whether there is enough money to give them the best; it's being able to put your kids as one of your main priorities (behind your marriage) in terms of love and attention and time. That's what leads to real success.
I am often saddened when I look at the women in the church that I know who are tired. They're running around, trying to reach some goal that God never set for them, so that they can have what they're supposed to have in this culture. We buy into our culture's consumerism and we don't even see it. But the size of your wardrobe isn't important. The size of your house isn't important. It's whether you're taking the time to talk to God, to listen to God, and to let Him use what He has given you.
Everything you have is His. It doesn't belong to you. It comes from Him. If we honestly understood that, we'd worry less about money. We'd have less fear about our children. We'd stop trying to compulsively plan everything and we'd start praying more. We'd stop hoarding our time and hoarding our home and we'd have more people in for dinner, or more people in just to talk.
Those who may not have beautiful homes, and may not have huge incomes, but who love people and love their kids are very successful. Mother Theresa was successful, because she simply said, "Here I am, Lord. Use me." And God did. She had no money, but God multiplied her ministry.
If you're feeling aimless today, and tired, why not stop, take a deep breath, pull up a cup of hot chocolate, and just talk to God about your life? Ask Him to show you what He has already given you. Ask Him to help you make fewer "success" goals and more prayers. Ask Him to help you see the immense worth that you are to Him, and that your children are to Him, and that your husband is to Him. You are His success story. And you will make that story even better if you keep focused on sharing what God has already given you--in terms of grace, and love, and time, and even money--rather than on accumulating even more for yourself.
In June, I'm planning on hosting "Use What You Have Month", to see if all of us can live without buying more stuff. It will be a week where we can focus on the abundance and creativity God has already given us, rather than turning to spending money, as out of habit. I think it will realign our priorities so that it's more about Him, and less about us. I'll tell you more about it soon, but I do hope you'll join me!
I don’t mean chuck your family; I hope you all know me well enough for that. I mean chuck this daily grind that we live and do something completely wacky and outrageous.
I read this story about Lucy Buck, a producer on Big Brother who gave up her job and her life and moved to Uganda to start an orphanage. After my recent trip, I understand that rationale.
Today, two years on, Lucy has not only set up her own children's charity, named the Child's I Foundation, but is about to open the doors of her own orphanage in Kampala. An incredible achievement for a girl who is just 32 years old.
With the help of a team of enthusiastic volunteers, she has transformed a once derelict house in a quiet suburb of bustling Kampala, the capital of Uganda.
Where once bricks were exposed and plaster was crumbling, now, bright jungle and underwater-themed murals cover the walls.
In just a few weeks time these newly-painted rooms will become home to Lucy's first tiny wards.
People’s biggest need, I think, is to feel purposeful. We want to feel as if we were created for a purpose, and as if we are living out that purpose. It goes along with our need for God. Without God there can’t be purpose; everything has to be random. You can recreate your life to make it meaningful anyway, as many without faith have attempted, but in the end we want to feel as if we are connected to something larger. We need to know that there is a greater plan than the one that we can see.
And there are days when I wonder if what I’m doing is really the best use of the 80-odd years I’ve been given on this earth (or however many I end up having). So many in history have risked all to live a big life, and I have to admit being very tempted towards that calling.
A few years ago our family made the decision to move to Kenya for the year. We had saved up money so we wouldn’t need to ask for support; we had found someone to live in our house; we had even found where Keith wanted to work. We had arranged work for me to do. And then doors kept closing in our faces. I won’t go into the details, but the final nail in the coffin was when our acceptance package arrived from the missions organization—and it had been burned to a crisp. It was in a plastic bag, in ashes, our address the only thing visible, with a note from the post office that someone had set the mailbox on fire, and this was all that was left.
It was our “burning bush” experience, except the thing burning was paper.
I surveyed a bunch of friends to ask them what they thought it meant. Was it more opposition that we were just supposed to overcome? Was it a sign that we weren’t to go? Or was it a sign that we were to persevere?
A very wise friend said to me, “If God wanted to get your attention, how else could he do it? Are you really saying to God, ‘could you just be a little more subtle?’” I decided he was right. We were already feeling as if things weren’t working out, so we said no. I was heartbroken, because I so wanted my kids to experience life overseas.
Then four months later the violence broke out after the election in Kenya, and houses were burned, and life was chaotic. We would have been smack in the middle of it, and I’m sure my mother-in-law would have had a heart attack watching the news. It was easy, in retrospect, to see why God didn’t want us to go that year.
And yet I feel as if our chance passed us by. Now that the girls are teens they are much more attached to our church, and to friends. It’s harder to leave for a year, and I don’t think we’d have their support in the way we did then. I do plan on going for an extended time, but it will be after they have grown.
Thus I am back here, questioning again the point of my life. I find myself so attracted to stories of people who have given up everything to live a more important dream. Not all of these people have moved overseas; some have simply taken in a bunch of foster kids; others have given up good jobs so that they could start an inner city ministry. I know one couple who felt so burdened by the plight of prostitutes that they gave up their jobs and started a ministry helping prostitutes find another way to support themselves and get off of the streets. They live in the red light district in Toronto; they have sacrificed much, and yet they see what effect their work is having.
I was thinking about the story of Esther lately. In that story, the king allowed Haman to issue an order to kill all the Jews, and Mordecai wanted Esther, the queen, to intervene. When Esther wrote to Mordecai saying she didn’t know if she could help because the king could kill her, Mordecai said something interesting. He wrote back:
Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance from the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this? (Esther 4:12-14)
I love that. It is not that God NEEDS us. If we don’t help, He will simply raise up help elsewhere. But He does want to use us. If we don’t step up to the plate, someone else will, but we will miss the blessings. How many blessings are we missing because we're content with a small life?
I am not saying that we all need to do something dramatic to be in God’s will. He may be calling you to be just where you are. But at times I feel that’s a copout.
There are 12,000,000 street children in Africa, and countless more in Asia and South America. There are hundreds of thousands of children in foster care and up for adoption in our continent. Who should take care of these children, except for Christians? If the church as a whole stood up and did its job, we wouldn’t have a foster care crisis. We wouldn’t have older kids who are eligibile for adoption languishing in the system because nobody wants them.
And yet am I willing to disrupt my family life to take any in? I’m not sure. I need to talk more to God about it. But if I’m not willing, who is? Why do we always assume someone else will?
I am in awe of Mary Ostyn, whom I interviewed recently, who has adopted many orphans from overseas, as well as some from here. Her love flows. Does mine?
Perhaps I am drawn to the dramatic out of a bit of pride. When you do something dramatic, you can “prove” that you love God, that you are a good person, that you make a difference. When your life is less dramatic, all those things may be equally true, but they’re not as evident. Perhaps I just want to be one that other people look at and swoon over me.
But I don’t think so. At heart, I think I want to help, I just can’t figure out how to do it. This world has so many needs, and I don’t think I should just be confined to raising my own children—as important as that task is. So I will keep praying, and keep talking, and keep thinking, until I feel a peace. Or until I see something else burning.
Are you a worrier? Many of us are. My grandfather fretted about just about everything. He was the kindest, sweetest man, but he still had two heart attacks in his 50s (which he survived) probably because he was a big worrier.
But usually when we're worrying it's because there's something important going wrong in our lives. And how do you turn off the worry if it's something important?
I think worry is based on two things: either we're afraid that we're going to lose something important, or we're afraid that we're going to lose control. We like to keep the illusion of control because then we feel like we can protect the things and people that are important to us. When the things that matter to our hearts are threatened, worry follows.
When I was pregnant with my son, and was told that he had a serious heart defect, I worried about everything. What would happen if I needed an emergency C-section, and then they whisked him off to another hospital to do surgery on him, and I couldn't see him? What would happen if he got put on the heart transplant list? What if he crashed at birth? Would we have to decide whether or not to intervene? I tortured myself with all of these scenarios. How would I make the big decisions with regard to his care? What would I do if.....
Often the reason that we worry is because we're playing possible scenarios in our head, sort of like an inner movie theatre, trying to plan our moves ahead of time, so that if something drastically bad happens, we're prepared. The problem is it doesn't really prepare you. It just scares the living daylights out of you, because you're imagining all these possible things that might happen that are absolutely terrible, and that's what you're concentrating on.
In the end, with my son, only one scenario actually happened of the dozens that we imagined. It's like that with whatever's on your mind, too. Only one future will unfold, no matter how much you think about all the other possible ones, trying to steel yourself to what may come.
And when we try to steel ourselves, we think that if we just imagine it, we'll make ourselves stronger. But then as we imagine it, we realize how weak we really are. There's no way I could handle losing a child! Losing a job! Losing my house! Losing my marriage! And we fall apart more. Besides, what we're really doing is saying that I need to make myself strong enough to handle it, so I will practice now. What we forget is that we can't make ourselves strong enough. In the end, our strength doesn't come from our own mental and emotional gymnastics; it comes from our ability to lie at God's feet and let Him help us.
In this context, let's look at exactly what Jesus said about worry. He told us two things: first, we shouldn't worry because God knows what we need before we ask, and He takes care of the lilies and the birds, so why wouldn't He take care of you? In other words, don't worry because God is there to take care of you.
But let's the back the truck up for a minute and look a little deeper at what this means. God is there to take care of you WHERE YOU ARE AT. He doesn't take care of possibilities. He doesn't take care of your scenarios or your what ifs. He takes care of you where you are. Perhaps the reason you can't handle all the scenarios that go through your head is because God isn't there. God is in the here and now, not in everything you can conjure up in your imagination. Only one scenario will actually occur, and in that scenario, God promises He will carry you. He will be smack in the middle of it. But He's not in the middle of all your fears.
With that in mind, let's look at the next thing Jesus says in Matthew 6:33-34:
But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has trouble of its own.
You might read that and think, "Oh, great. Jesus is saying that today is bad enough, so I have to focus on today or I'll never get through it to deal with tomorrow", but I don't think that's what He means. I think what He means is that you can't control what happens tomorrow. You don't know what's going to happen, or what you're going to have to do. And trying to prepare emotionally for it doesn't help because you don't know what it is that will unfold.
Instead, keep your eyes where they're supposed to be. Seek God, because He's the one who will look after you and carry you. And then concentrate on the here and now. God is in the here and now; He is not in all your imaginings of possible crises. He is here to carry you through what is real, and He will do that. If we're worried about tomorrow and playing all the possible bad things that can happen, we're missing how He's carrying us right now. His grace is sufficient for us, but it's only sufficient for us in the real; not in the imaginary.
So live day by day. Don't worry about tomorrow because you don't know what's going to happen. Don't flee from God, which is what you're doing when you start to imagine all the different things that can happen. Instead, feel God now. Learn to experience Him. Talk to Him. Take your worries about today to Him. Enjoy the blessing of the day that He has given to you.
The only thing that God wants you to do is to live today well. Live this day as He wants you to. He has given you enough time in this day to accomplish His purposes for this day. You don't need to do anything else. Live in the future, and the unknown, and you will miss those purposes.
It's interesting that in the New Testament when the apostles go through tests and crises, God shows up. But He only shows up in the middle of those crises. He doesn't give them strength beforehand; He gives them strength at the time. Jesus said that when they are taken before kings and magistrates, then the Spirit will give them the words. He doesn't give them the words beforehand; He gives them the words at the time. God works in the present, not in your fears for the future. He often doesn't prepare us until we need Him. So worrying about it doesn't work.
I spent a lot of time worrying about scenarios with my son that never came to pass. What did happen was that the decisions were far easier and more obvious than I thought they would be. We can always imagine far worse than what actually happens. But more importantly, God was there to carry me.
So don't worry about tomorrow, what you will eat, or drink, or who you will love, or who will love you back. Live today. Love today. Talk to God today. And perhaps, if we focus more on being alive and present IN the present, our problems with worry would go away.
Want more help with overcoming worry? My book, How Big Is Your Umbrella, walks you through how to handle storms that come. And my DVD set (which you can watch on your own or in your Bible study) takes us on a humorous look at the ten plagues of Egypt--and then turns more serious as we look at the things that can "plague" us modern women today.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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