There are things about God that I don’t understand. There are things about life that I don’t understand. And when faced with those things, sometimes it’s best to engage in something else I don’t understand: Fasting.  A few thoughts about this F-word that’s sadly more taboo than others in our culture.

:: Jesus speaks of fasting in the same manner as prayer and giving. A common question is, “Do Christians have to fast?” Well, no. We don’t. But we readily acknowledge that we are to give and we are to pray, and Jesus speaks of these three things in the same breath in the sermon on the mount (Matt 6). He says,

“When you give …” (6:2)

“When you pray …” (6:5)

“When you fast …” (6:16)

Jesus never tells us exactly how many minutes a day we are supposed to pray. He never tells us exactly how much money we are to give. And He never tells us exactly how much He wants us to fast. But He assumes that we will pray, will give, and will fast.

Then why don’t we?  We often think that the “touchiest” subject to address is money and giving, but perhaps in our society addicted to physical comfort, perhaps fasting is even touchier. Richard Foster says,

Why has the giving of money, for example, been unquestionably recognized as an element of Christian devotion and fasting so disputed? Certainly we have as much, if not more evidence from the Bible for fasting as we have for giving. Perhaps in our affluent society fasting involves a far greater sacrifice than the giving of money. (Celebration of Discipline, 66)

Wow. That hit anyone else squarely in the gut?  I can attest that that is true of me. It is way easier for me to write a check than go without food. How about you?

:: Biblical fasting must center on spiritual purposes. Fasting or “cleanses” are very popular now, for good reason. Naturally the disciplines that God designed have stood the test of time and proven beneficial for our health. But biblical fasting must center on spiritual purposes. Which is why I personally suggest that anyone who struggles with abusing their body through starvation, that a different form of fasting be observed (from media or people or another everyday habit). However, truth be told very few of us struggle with starving ourselves.  And, truth be told, “starving” is a word tossed around in our culture that we know nothing about.  Going without food for a meal or a day will starve nothing but our flesh.

But that said, we must be so careful for our motive. Why am I doing this fast? Ultimately the goal of fasting is always intimacy with God. Drawing near. Going without the things satiate our souls so that we can hunger for Him and taste and see that He is good.

:: Fasting is a beautiful way to close the gap between sacred and secular facets of life. What better way to remind ourselves that it is through this earthly body that we are supposed to commune with God. How beautiful that we can dig deep into the spiritual center of our souls through simply pushing aside the plate of food for the day? We don’t have to leave our ordinary duties or buy a new book or go to some conference. A fresh encounter with God is as close as the close of the refrigerator.

I sometimes wonder if God patiently and graciously endures all of our great and grand seeking of Him through contemporary means.  As much as I LOVE worship through music, I’m the first to admit that it is a very flesh-satisfying way to seek God. I love the sound, the feel, the experience. It fills me up, gives me energy, gets me going.  It’s easy. Fasting is the opposite. There’s nothing about it that satisfies my flesh. It’s hard, makes me tired, and makes me feel humble and dependent.

No wonder God prescribes it.

–

With no guilt, shame, or condemnation, what are your current thoughts about fasting? Scared? Intimidated? Unsure of where to start? Richard Foster has some great words in Celebration of Discipline.

My thoughts? Start small. I began by fasting between meals. You laugh, but it’s true. A step is a step no matter how small. Thanks for reading.

 

I believe that the unbelieving world, as opposed to the church, can at times give us the greatest insight into what is lacking in our Christian faith.  This is one of the reasons I love reading secular books (and should more often).  This time, a message hit me not from one, but three angles in the past week.

Last weekend, in a great sermon on godly parenting, Joel gave an interesting illustration that’s stuck with me all week. He made the rather bold point that if we, as parents, are just giving our children a little tiny dose of Jesus we may be doing them more harm than good. We may, in fact, be preventing them from wholeheartedly trusting and following Christ as adults.

Consider immunizations.  When we give someone a flu shot, we’re actually giving them what?  A little tiny dose of the flu. Give them just enough and it will keep them from getting the full-blown flu.  The natural reaction of the body is able to ward off and render harmless the flu virus.  Is it possible to immunize our children from Jesus?  Studies have often shown that those who are soured most on Christianity are not those people who have had no exposure to church and the Bible,  but rather are those who, as children, either had bad experiences in the church or parents who sat in pews on Sunday but showed zero evidence of living out that faith the other six days of the week.  They had a tiny dose and therefore were apparently immune to the full-blown effect of the risen Lord.

Why is this?  Because a parent who models a half-hearted or Sunday-morning faith is essentially saying, “I know all about this Jesus guy and He’s not significant enough for me to actually change my life.  It’s just not that big of a deal.“  That, friends, is a scary message to give our children.  It’s not just that we haven’t given our children enough religious experience, it’s that we’ve proven by our lives that there are no real-life implications of believing in God.  Kids aren’t stupid. Why would they want to believe in something that doesn’t matter?  So they abandon ship.  Of course, they hold this stance only until they have their own children.  Then they decide they want their children to “have religion”, so they wind up doing the exact same routine as their parents.  No real faith, just going through the motions.  And in these motions, another generation is immunized from faith in Christ. Frightening.

Along this same vein, a paragraph from Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood stuck out to me tonight.  Dillard, a secular author, beautifully articulates this from a perspective outside of my own.  Here she reminisces her fond memories of summer Presbyterian church camp:

“The adult members of society adverted to the Bible unreasonably often. What arcana!  Why did they spread this scandalous document before our eyes? If they had read it, I thought, they would have hid it.  They didn’t recognize the vivid danger that we would, through repeated exposure, catch a case of its wild opposition to their world.  Instead they bade us study great chunks of it, and think about those chunks, and commit them to memory, and ignore them.  By dipping us children in the Bible so often, they hoped, I think, to give our lives a serious tint, and to provide us with quaintly magnificent snatches of prayer to produce as charms while, say, being mugged for our cash or jewels.” (p. 134)

Did you READ that?  I read it over and over. The women is a literary genius, of course, but she’s also hitting the nail on the head, and the conviction is well-earned.  If our lives have not been transformed, utterly and completely transformed by the power of the gospel, then what are we doing teaching it to our children?  The gospel is scandalous; its claims are spectacular, it is “wild opposition to the world”.  How tragic it would be if we taught our children to study Christ’s claims, “commit them to memory, and ignore them.”  Wow. Is that not what we are doing when we ourselves ignore them?  Are we not then merely giving our children’s lives a “serious tint” and giving them “quaintly magnificent snatches of prayer to produce as charms”?

That is cause for fear, parents. For all Christians, for that matter.  The friends, neighbors, co-workers in our lives learn about Christ the exact same way our children do--by watching us.  That is reason to evaluate the way that we live out the gospel, to get on our knees and spread God’s Word before us and pray, “Do this to me!  Do this to me!”  We must not immunize our children from the beauty of Christ by living as if He matters little or not at all.

In the middle of all this I am also reading The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns.  I’d rather you read it yourself than hear me do it injustice in a summary, but in short–this one man’s life was transformed from success to significance when he put into practice the claims of Christ and followed the clear calling on his life.  He boldly asserts that we will not be able to reap a harvest of souls converted to Christ until we cultivate the spiritual field of hearts by living out the gospel of love, compassion, and social justice in our world.  How many thousands of lives have been touched simply because this one man decided to really act on the claims of Christ. It is humbling, challenging, inspiring.

Few of us need to learn much more.  We just need to do what we know.  My prayer, my goal, my personal challenge, is to obey every Word that I read each morning. That might mean reading less.   But I pray that our children would be more than spiritually immunized and have more than quaint religious charms thrust into their hands. Let’s ask God what that means for us today.

 

God knocked me on my backside tonight.

I never cease to be amazed at how God’s Word is just that, God’s word, and how it is living and active, how it pierces our hearts, speaks to the moment, convicts and encourages and teaches and guides.  And sometimes, it catches me off guard and about knocks me off my feet.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been a bit discouraged with parenting.  Specifically, with my three-year-old’s behavior in Sunday School at church.  We’ve done sticker charts, we’ve done rewards, we’ve done treats, we’ve done corporal punishment, we’ve done time-outs, we’ve done praise and applause and jumping up and down.  We’ve talked about it, cried about it, prayed about it.  And something still just isn’t working right, and quite frankly it has me discouraged and a bit weary.    Though I love worshipping with God’s people, I find myself  dreading every trip to church, dreading the check-in time when inevitably Dutch will morph into “dangerous shark terror”, dreading the pick-up time when I hear that Dutch took off his shoe and threw it at someone (yes, that was yesterday), dreading the look on the teachers’ faces when they see Dutch arrive.  I feel like going to a therapy meeting and saying, “Hi, I’m Kari, and yes, my son is ‘that kid’.”

So today I hit a low point and caught myself in the comparison trap, and not only the comparison trap, but an even uglier version–the prideful comparison trap.

“Why this, Lord?  I’m busting my tail at parenting. I read all the books, try all the methods, pray pray pray.  I study the Word, I teach him Bible verses, I don’t work so I can spend all day with him.   This is humiliating and I feel like everyone’s an expert on this except me. Why am I apparently the only one failing in this area?  I don’t want to be the mom of the bad kid!  How on earth can I be a women’s ministry leader and Bible teacher if my son clocks people in the head with his shoe?!!”

Then I remembered something a friend (who can very much identify with my situation), said the other day: “It’s very humbling to have ‘that kid’, isn’t it?”  Oh boy is it ever.

So after my little hissy fit, tonight we were doing our little family devotional time with Dutch.  We were all snuggled in bed and Jeff was reading from the Jesus Storybook Bible.  The story, which I’d read to him a dozen times before, was of Naaman, the very important commander of the Syrian army, who was sick with leprosy, and sought the healing prayer of Elisa the prophet.  But instead of Elisha coming out to greet him, bowing down to Naaman in honor, Elisha doesn’t even come out of his house, but instead sends out his servant who tells Naaman to simply wash in the stinky, smelly Jordan river seven times.  Now Naaman was ticked, saying,

“I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.  Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?”  (2 Kings 5:11-12)

So then he turns in a rage and storms off.

Do you hear the pride?  Naaman wanted God to heal Him using Naaman’s methods, methods that reinforced his own pride and met his expectations of what miraculous healing should look like.

Who finally speaks some reason into this prideful heart?  Interestingly, Naaman’s servants:

“But [Naaman's] servants came near and said to him, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it?”

In other words, “God has given you a clear directive for your healing and restoration.  Are you really telling me you’re too proud to do it?”

Am I too proud to do it?

How many times have I prayed, “God heal me of my pride.  God sanctify me.  God grant me humility.  God grant me a teachable spirit.  God help me connect with the real needs of women around me. God help me grow in maturity and wisdom. God reveal areas that are sinful that need Your touch. God heal me of my selfishness, heal me of my insecurity, heal me of myself.”

Go wash in the Jordan.

Go wash in the murky, stinky waters of a toddler’s rebellion and embarrassing misbehavior.  Go wash in the murky water of trial and error, of charting unknown waters, of trying new things that oftentimes don’t work.  Go wash in the waters of humility, in the waters of asking others for help, in the waters of exhausting repetition and consistency.  Go wash in the waters of faith and not of sight.

“But Lord! I’d rather wash in the crystal clean waters of Bible Study.  I’d like to grow in my sanctification by…hmm…how about blogging? That’s a fun way to grow!  Or perhaps by really successful speaking engagements, that’s fun too. Or by really encouraging, deep, meaningful times in the Word each and every morning. That would be fabulous. Or perhaps I could even just read a few good books, underline a lot, and then have the whole thing down pat.  That’d be great. But these waters? The waters of the Jordan? These are stinky and smelly and humiliating.”

But these are the waters of life.  Finally, Naaman saw the error of his ways, and in verse 14 we read,

“So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”

Ok, Lord.  I’ll go. I’ll wash–seven times.  I’ll keep praying for this boy, keep persevering with consistency, keep listening to the advice that comes way, keep praying for creativity and wisdom.  And even if you’ve called me to have “that kid”, I humbly receive your directives and pray you’ve give me the grace to submit to these waters of sanctification. They may be smelly, but I believe I will emerge, at some point, restored, renewed, and healed of myself.

 

I was up early this morning. My eyes popped open, as if I’d just blinked last night instead of slept,  and thoughts still full of last night’s message.  Last night was our March Adorn, our monthly time for women of our church to get together, hear a speaker, enjoy some treats, and get to know each other. We set up the room in 14 little “living rooms”, 6 people in each, with couches, chairs, lamps, candles, flowers, and harp music in the background.  People must have been praying because from the moment women began to arrive, it seemed that God’s Spirit was just on our time in a special way.

The topic was The Influential Woman.  Becky Doel, a seasoned, wise woman of God, spoke, and I felt like a sponge, on the edge of my seat, wishing I could somehow physically take her words and tuck them into my heart and soul, make them my own, make them work in me that things God’s done in her.

Her words were simple.  She’s the first to announce her influence comes not from degrees or prestigious job titles.  She is “only” a wife and mother. She’s homeschooled her children, loved her husband, and biblically influenced the women around her. She has embodied Titus 2:

“Older women likewise are to be reverence in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled… so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”

Women, this is our job description.  All of us. I think so often I make influence, mentoring, discipling, whatever you choose to call it, too complicated.  One thing I loved was that Becky thinks there is an “older woman” and a “younger woman” in all of us.  We can all learn from each other.  But those with the life experience of walking with Christ need to share with the younger women around, teaching them.  And what are they to teach them?  How to love their husbands and children, how to be self-controlled and pure, how to work at home and put their time and attention there, how to be kind, how to submissive to their own husbands.  So that God’s Word would not only not be reviled, but that it would be adorned, adorned by our beautiful lives, made attractive to the world by our pure conduct and by our love.  Women, that’s what we’re called to do.

As a young woman, I can vouch for the fact that we younger women are hungry, starving for godly mentors.  I wanted to climb into Becky’s purse and have her take me home so I could learn everything she had to offer.  Older women, please know we want to learn from you.  Becky admitted she feels insecure, especially around some of us younger women who are educated, “accomplished”, confident in speaking, etc.  She feels like she’s not sure of what she has to offer. Hogwash!  Good grief, older ladies, you have so much to offer.  Those of us who have been married 7 years want to hear from you who have been married 37 years.  Those of us with 3-year-olds want to hear from you with 30-year-olds. My mom knows this, she is (as a wise mother/mother-in-law should be) always cautious of giving advice, so I usually have to beg her to give me wisdom, twist her arm to tell me what I should do! As I write that though, I realize that is one of the things that makes her so attractive.  We’ve all been around women who are so eager to tell you their advice (I can be one of these obnoxious sorts), you leave wanting to do exactly the opposite of what they said.  God’s influential women listen, support, care, empathize… and share the godly wisdom and counsel that God has laid on their hearts.

I for one am praying and pleading with God to raise up the older generation of women to be pillars of wisdom and beauty in God’s house, strengthening the younger women, encouraging, exhorting, praying for, believing in.  Though it’s always been a passion of mine to be an influential woman, I was so inspired last night to, Lord willing, help empower those older influential women around me.  We’re calling you, we love you, and we need you.

Please share with us. Please reach out to us.  We’re listening.

 

The final five insights are presented as Pitfalls to Avoid.  We know what to do, let’s consider briefly what not to do.

11. Avoid Making “Mini-Me’s”. Yes, we want our disciples to imitate us, but only as a means of imitating Christ.  My goal is to make Christians not Karians.  If in any way you sense that you are leading your disciples after yourself instead of after Christ, stop, reevaluate, and redirect your ministry.  As Professor Clemen prayed for me once after speaking at a retreat: “I pray that Kari would fade away and Your Truth would remain.”  Fade away.

12. Avoid Wanting Them to Do Well, But Not Too Well. Sadly, it is possible for us to feel threatened when a disciple of ours flourishes spiritually or has talent in such a way that they exceed us.  I’ve had to accept this often!  Caila quickly proved to be an incredibly gifted writer, speaker, actor, and Bible teacher. Even now, I read her blog, and think, “Man, she’s so much cooler than me!”    But this is the goal! Our goal is that our disciples would be humbler, stronger, and more effective followers of CHrist than we are.  We decrease.  They increase.  Jesus said we would do even greater things that He did.  We must desire that our disciples do even greater things than we do.  This can be hard when your disciples become super spiritual leaders and forget about you! I remember once feeling hurt because someone I spent years pouring into seemed to become so lofty and forget that I’d been anything to her. But I soon realized that was nothing but my pride rearing its ugly head.  We give not so we can be appreciated or celebrated.  We give so others may gain.

Again, my mentor professor is an excellent example of this.  She’s given me incredible opportunities because she explains that she is not in the position she’s in (as a female seminary professor, a rare privilege), to revel in her own glory. She is there to open doors for students like me. That is why I’m even getting to teach this class!  Because she’s not afraid to kick open the door and let those below her dream and flourish.

13. Avoid Loving the Love. The truth is that your disciple(s) will probably fall in love with you.  And chances are they will probably tell you how great you are.  Thank them, praise God, and then forget about it.  Constantly guard your heart against living for the praise of people. As Paul said to his disciples, “Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others” (1 Thess 2:6).  Know your identity in Christ, your worth as a daughter of God, and receive your praise from Him.  It’s certainly not wrong to receive and thank girls for encouraging you, in fact I’m SO THANKFUL for people who encourage!  But the minute you start being fueled by praise is the minute you’re on the wrong track.

14. Avoid Making People into Projects.  Jeff once had an older man tell him, (after he criticized Jeff openly in front of the rest of the team) ”We [the ministry team he was on] are just here to help build your character and grow you up.”  Awesome. I feel the love.  No one likes to be a project.  If you are trying to “fix” people, don’t disciple.  If you love people, you’re on the right track. Of course we’re hoping for our disciples to grow and change, but talking to them like they are a project won’t open their hearts to you one bit.

On a similar note, if you ever find thinking about your disciples as if they are projects, stop and pray and ask God to change your heart. They are people.  Think about the way you’d like to be treated.  Love is the greatest motivator. Love them into change.

15. Avoid Only Discipling People Just Like You. I learned this lesson in Loving Rebecca (under Featured–I’d encourage you to read it!).  Rebecca opened my eyes to seeing that I tended to only disciple girls who were just like me.  She enabled me to see things about myself and stretched me in ways I’d never experienced.  While we naturally tend to be drawn to those who are similar to ourselves, don’t hesitate to disciple someone who you know will stretch your limits a little.

Thank you for reading.  As parting words I give you the Apostle Paul, whose life embodied these principles, who was possibly the most effective non-Deity discipler of all time.

4 But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. 5 For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children. 8 So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. 9 For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged^[b] every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.  1 Thess. 2:4-12

 

More insights on Discipleship…

6. God’s Word Changes Lives.  While girls don’t “just” need a Bible Study, they need life and love and an example to follow, your passion and committment to God’s Word will be contagious if it is real.  One thing we always committed to do was open up God’s Word, no matter how briefly, and allow it to shine its supernatural light on our hearts.  Isaiah 55:11 tells us that the Word of the Lord (spoken in the OT, written down for us now), “shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”  Do you really believe that God’s Word supernaturally changes lives and accomplishes far more than we could ever do?  If you really believe that, not just in an intellectual assent but in a passionate conviction, then we can trust that consistantly teaching the God’s Word will change their lives.  If what we teach is not firmly based in the Word of God, then don’t teach it! And, even if you feel like the Bible study portion of your discipleship is dry or boring, teach it anyway.  Preach the Word!  Even if you never stand in a pulpit on a Sunday morning, you are called to Preach the Word (2 Tim. 4:2), and you do so in word and deed.  We’ve already discussed the deed part, make sure you do the word part as well.

This opens up an entire topic, but for the sake of space, suffice it to say that the more you get them to dig into the Scriptures with you, the less they will depend on you and more they will depend on God.  Make them bring their Bibles, read with them, ask them questions, have them look up verses. Even the most shy and beginning follower of Christ can read verses.  Get them to open up the Word themselves and find out the gems.  The same way that lessons are more powerful to them when you’ve learned them yourself, lessons are even more powerful when they learn them themselves.  Teach them to learn and teach them to love God’s Word!

7. Pray, pray, and pray some more. The same way that we model the study of God’s Word, we model prayer.  Praying to open, praying to close, and praying throughout builds a habit that the girls will not likely forget.  I love how my mentor professor always closes in prayer: She takes my hands and says, “You want to pray first, last, or not at all?”  You’d think in seminary we have a more “spiritual” way of being led in prayer, right?  Wrong. I love how she takes all weirdness away in one quick question.  By using this method with girls, if they are not in the mood to pray or don’t feel comfortable praying, they can say “not at all” with no questions asked. By saying “first” or “last”, you can eliminate the awkwardness of sitting there wondering whether you should go or not.  This is especially helpful when you’re first getting to know girls and want to make them feel at ease in prayer.

And of course, pray for them.  Pray pray pray.  The trick that always helps me, when someone says, “Can you pray for this?”  Is to say, “Sure! Let’s pray right now.” and then pray with them right there. That way, even if I totally space and forget later, it’s been covered at least that one time.  When I was leading small groups, I always wrote the girls names on index cards, praying for different ones on different days of the week.  That way I knew that during the week these precious little lambs were getting some prayer coverage!

Related to this was a great point that Caila brought up:  “Don’t let them dwell excessively on themselves or others. Women have a tendency to feel sorry for themselves, or gossip about others. When this happens, never give in to the train of conversation. Always guide them back to Christ and surrender.”  Use prayer to do this.  When listening, you can discern when the talk is no longer necessary or edifying.  Never never never entertain gossip.  Absolutely refuse to hear it.  If you sense a conversation is headed downhill, turn to pray.  It’s hard for girls to gossip to God.

8. Don’t Forget that Fellowship is Spiritual Too. One of the things I used to struggle with was feeling like having a party night or fellowship night was “less important” than our nights of Bible study and prayer.  While we don’t want to abandon or neglect the study of God’s Word and of prayer, don’t forget that fellowship is spiritual.  Caila pointed out that “fellowship is extremely important in women’s discipleship. Men are more task-oriented; they enjoy it when church leaders give them something to DO.  Women learn more from relationships.”  This means that purposeful fun events, doing edifying and wholesome things, can teach just as much as Bible studies can.  Again, this goes back to the idea that discipleship is living life together.  Have a game night.  Make homemade pizzas together.  Take young moms to the zoo with their kids.  Watch a movie like Joan of Arc, Les Miserables, Babette’s Feast, or Bella.  Give the ladies an opportunity to just relax and enjoy each other.  Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding–I think they probably had a great time with all that wine.   (in moderation, yes

9. Leave the Results to God. For those of you who followed the retreat notes or my studies on Expectancy without Expectation–insert that here.  The moment you try to control the ladies you disciple, the moment growth stops.  You cannot control them.  Part of discipling is learning the process of surrender, again and again and again.  We must surrender our disciples, entrusting them to God’s care, even when they make bad decisions or seem off track.  I remember my dear sweet Elisa sitting on the couch listening to me talk about a boy.  Deep down I knew this boy was not the one, but I was having so much fun and enjoying myself and really liked having him around.  She listened, smiled, was patient, and prayed for me.  And I believed she prayed him right out of my life! She never tried to control me or tell me what to do, even when she saw red flags, but she prayed and asked probing questions, questions that made me see for myself and perhaps I was not in the very center of God’s will.

In this way discipleship again is very akin to parenting.  My mom was the ultimate example of the uncontrolling mom.  Despite innumerable stupid decisions, she faithfully loved me and prayed for me, choosing rather to pray and only give advice when asked.  Because of her open-handed surrender, I believe God was able to faithfully steer me away from my own stupidity and back into His will.

This also means that we accept both successes and failures.  Not every discipleship relationship will be a success.  Not all mine were!  Sometimes I think back to certain girls and think, “What did I do wrong?”  ANd perhaps there was something I did wrong and need to learn, but I also have to accept that God is God and is in control.  Jesus was the most successful discipler in history, and even one of His went bad.  Trust the will of God.

10. Know When to Let Go. No discipleship relationship lasts forever.  Just as you parent a child in the hopes that they will one day grow to be a self-sufficient adult who can drive, work, and have a family of his or her own, so we disciple women so they can grow up in Christ and disciple others.  We recognize they are not ours, but God’s. He blesses us with lending them to us for a season, but it is only a season.  It wasn’t long before I knew Caila was all grown up on her own.  The same thing happened with Elisa and I when I got married.  She discerned and knew that I was all grown up in a sense. Of course we remain friends, but the disciple-discipler relationship has changed, just as a parent-child relationship becomes one of being peers.

One of the greatest joys is seeing someone you have invested in, poured into, loved, prayed for, discipled, spread her wings and fly.  Seeing Caila flourish in so many ways, Krista become the chaplain for House of Charis, Kristen lead Bible studies of her own, Jane teach women’s small groups, and Tana excel in the school of ministry and as a teacher.  Everytime I think of them I beam in my heart.  I’ve let them all go, but they bless me with their lives every day.

Last five to come…

 

My beloved mentor Professor loves to assign what she calls the “15 Best Insights” assignment at the end of each class.  Students are to peruse their notes, hand-outs and assignments, and gather together what they consider their 15 most powerful insights they gleaned from the class.  They can be personal or universal, profound or simple (but isn’t it the simplest things that are profound?), and they don’t even have to be from her! They can be from fellow students, guest speakers, or jewels of truth derived from study during the class.  I’ve enjoyed this assignment, and applied it to the “Discipleship Class” that God has had me in for the last ten years.  Several of these are from Caila, since I figured she’d be a good resource to figure out what “worked”!

1. If you want to disciple women, your whole life must be an example. In 1 Corinthians 4:15-17 Paul says, “Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.” (emphasis mine) As Paul consider himself a father in the faith, so we must consider ourselves mothers in the faith.  He urges them to imitate him.  Later in 1 Corinthians 11:1 he exhorts them, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” The point is that as Paul models his life after Christ they can model their life after him.

I remember my first semester of leading Bible study, I attended a “mugger” at Varsity House, a Christian boy’s house on campus at OSU. These “muggers” (instead of “keggers”) were dance parties with root beer floats.  I attended, and since I love love love to dance, I was dancing my heart out. But I was also dressed provocatively, perhaps not for a regular college girl but provocatively for a Bible study leader and one who was devoting her life to helping other girls follow Christ.  A remember a bunch of my Bible study girls showed up, and I had this sinking feeling in my stomach the whole night, realizing I wasn’t being a very good example.  I went home early and couldn’t sleep.  The next day I took the entire day and went out into an open field, with my Bible, and wept before the Lord and asked Him to change me.  I asked Him to help me to live in such a way that I was always an example, not in a proud or self-righteous way, but in a humble way, understanding that others may but I cannot.  Something changed in me that day.  I haven’t always lived as an example, but I have seen growth by the grace of God.  After that incident, when friends would go out together to dance clubs or bars, though I knew I had the freedom in Christ to go along, wisdom told me to avoid even the appearance of evil, and to never do something I wouldn’t wholeheartedly encourage my Bible study girls to do themselves.

When we consider that others are watching everything that we do, this should motivate us toward Christlikeness!  Related to this idea is…

2. You Cannot Teach Others What You Do Not Know Yourself. This is related to the above point, but as disciplers, we will find that God will strategically allow us to walk through certain things in life, so that we are prepared to share and help others later on as they go through similar things.  We can only take our girls as far as we ourselves have gone.  This is why I was stubborn in my Bible studies and only taught lessons that I wrote. Obviously the first year it was great to have a book of Bible studies to follow, and I did once take a group through Experiencing God, but I feel like that was the least impacting thing we did.  The most powerful lessons were the ones I owned because God had written them on my heart.  And, it never ceased to amaze me how God had them perfectly timed for the girls in the group. In fact, the joke was always that Caila could see exactly what was coming in her life in six months, because it was what I was going through at the time.  Without fail, I’d go through a trial or experience, share and teach about it, and then six months later she would find herself in the exact same trial or experience!  She even had gave birth to her son six months after I gave birth to mine!

They say that a teacher is primarily a learner.  This has become a theme in my life, as I identify myself primarily as a learner, one who goes through things, learns, gleans, and then hopefully is able to help others along the way.  More is caught than taught.  We disciple others by living in such a way that lessons are being developed with every breath we take.

3. The Most Effective Discipleship Takes Place Living Life Together. Jesus didn’t have little one-hour meetings scheduled with his disciples.  He lived life with them!  He ate with them, drank with them, ministered to others with them, and performed miracles in front of them.  They spent every waking hour together, except for the times when Jesus needed to be alone with the Father (more on this later, each of us requires a different amount of alone time).  His life was given to these men. This was his method.

This doesn’t mean that more formal methods of mentoring have no value.  My weekly meetings with Professor Clemen are invaluable to me–she is a mentor for a specific area: an academic internship.  But real life discipleship, as Jesus did, cannot take place in neat little one-hour slots.  Real discipleship takes place in the nitty gritty details of life.  This is where most things are learned.  This cool thing about this is that you can disciple someone this way without them even knowing it!  By simply living life as an example, you are discipling all who come in contact with you.

I remember early on in college I struggled with what would be called an eating disorder (I just like to call it sin).  Darcy never brought it up (at that point), but I remember she invited me over to stay the night at her house once when her husband was away.  We stayed up late talking, then in the morning got up and had our quiet time.  She silently modeled for me having a daily time in the Word and in prayer, and then I remember she showed me how she made healthy home-made lentil soup in her crockpot, and then made us big bowls of delicious home-made oatmeal for breakfast before I went home.  It sounds silly now, but I was astounded by this.  Darcy was trim and healthy, and modeled for me what it meant to eat in such a way that honored the Lord.  I remember going home and trying to think of healthy things to eat so that I could honor God better with my body.  That’s discipleship!

Elisa was the ultimate example of this kind of discipleship.  In fact, we never had a “meeting” in a traditional sense.  We always met up at one of our houses, and she always had her kids with her.  I remember when she took me with her on her monthly Winco/Costco shopping day, helping her push her enormous cart loaded with a month’s worth of groceries for a family of five.  After a long day, we lunched at Sweet Tomatoes and talked about life. She modeled so much for me–how to feed a family of five on a tight budget, how to make healthy food choices, and how to meal plan for an entire month!  I have to smile right now as I realize that I do the exact same thing–meal plan for a month, make a once a month trip to Winco and Costco, and stay on a tight budget.  That was discipleship!

Elisa even chose to disciple me in the most intimate of topics–childbirth.  As a youngest child, and one who wasn’t necessarily big on kids to begin with, I was clueless about babies, and terrified of childbirth.  When she became pregnant with her fourth child, she invited me to go with her to one of her check-ups. I got to learn about pregnancy, nutrition, infant development, and a host of other topics.  Then, when it came time to give birth, she invited me to join her husband in the room where she delivered!  Some of you are thinking, “No way would I do that!” I don’t think I would either. But we had a special relationship, and I cannot explain how much that experience helped me not be fearful about my own delivery.  I even got to hold their son just minutes after he was born. I was humbled, honored, and privileged that she would choose to let every life experience serve as a teaching tool for me.  There aren’t words to express how thankful I am to her.

4. Life Discipleship Requires Vulnerability and Humility. The experiences above required Elisa and Darcy to be incredibly vulnerable.  When we open up our lives to our disciples, we are opening up ourselves to the possibility of pain, criticism, and betrayal.  Jesus knew this better than anyone, and chose to be vulnerable anyway.  Just before Judas betrays Christ, we see the John 13 example of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet.  And what does he say, ”If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (vv. 14-17).  Jesus chooses the path of vulnerability and humility even though it would cost Him his life. Even though He was God (Phil. 2: 5-8).  He humbled himself for the men who he loved, and made himself open and vulnerable to them.

There will be times when in your attempt at living life together, in your attempt at vulnerability, that a disciple will hurt you.  This is guaranteed.  They will criticize you or perhaps talk about you behind your back.  Give grace.  Forgive.  Disciple them even by your response to their hurtful act.  In fact, your response to the hurtful situation will preach louder than any sermon you could share.

It’s also possible that as you open your life to your disciples that they will see things that you need to change!  Just as our children point out ways that we err (my brother used to make a deafening siren noise from the backseat whenever my dad would go over the speed limit), so our disciples can be tools of God’s purifying and sharpening us (Prov. 27:17).  I remember when one especially difficult girl (read Loving Rebecca under Featured) pointed out how I always greeted everyone else more enthusiastically than I greeted her.  I had unknowingly made her feel like she was an obligation, something I had to do, rather than a cherished and loved daughter of God.  When she confronted me, I agreed and asked forgiveness. She was right.  This is the not-so-fun part of discipleship…having dozens of little eyes on us to point out our flaws. But it’s good for our character, and leads us to godliness.  We do well to be quick to acknowledge our weaknesses and move forward.

5. Sanctified Favoritism is Ok; Jesus did it. The hardest lesson I learned the first few years of discipling was that I couldn’t have this kind of relationship with everyone. I used to have 10-15 girls in my small groups, and would try to meet with every single one of them during the week (this was on top of being in college full time and working part-time!).  What I found was that I was able to give them all a little bit, but not able to give anyone a lot.  In my attempt not to play favorites, I wasn’t doing anyone any favors.  Jesus models a different sort of system.  He did play favorites, in a sanctified sense.  He had the multitudes, He had the seventy (Luke 10:1), then he had the twelve disciples (Luke 6:13), He had the three whom He singled to be with Him on special occasions: Peter, James, and John (Mark 9:2), and He apparently had the one: John (John 13:23).  If Jesus had this model, who are we to think that we should do something different?  Once I quit feeling guilty and began praying for supernatural wisdom with who to specially invest in, God began to single out girls, girls who were Faithful, Available, and Teachable (yes, this is the FAT acronym but girls don’t really like to be called FAT so I spell it out).  It was these girls who I spent special time investing in–these girls who I now have to marvel at when I see the great things they are doing for the Lord.

Want a quick way to burn out and get frustrated?  Don’t do this. 

We’ll stop there for today.  More to come…

 

When I came back from summer break, I met with Darcy to discuss the possibility of leading a Bible study.  Over the summer, as I’d thought and prayed about it more, I really became excited, though still scared.  As I thought through who I’d like to have a BIble study for, the only thing that was clear in my mind was that I did not want to have a Bible study for Greek girls (sorority girls), for the same reason that I was not interested in Jeff Patterson whatsoever (he was the president of Lambda Chi).  In my little mind sorority girls were shallow, vain, and prone to passed-out-drunkenness.  No thanks.  (I’ve since become a little less judgmental I promise!).  So, during my first meeting with Darcy, what does she say?  “So I’ve been thinking about it and would really like you to join with another girl and co-lead a Bible study for sorority girls.”  What?  Why me? I was not a sorority girl! What on earth would I have in common with them?  I had to shake my head at this, at God obviously pushing me past my judgments and prejudices…to minister to the very girls I’d been prejudiced against.

Meeting Caroline, my co-leader, put my mind at ease.  She was wonderful!!!  She had been in a sorority but was now living out during her senior year, and we hit it off immediately.  Within a few weeks, our Bible study was announced, and we began meeting in her little one-bedroom apartment off campus.

I was terrified. Fortunately Caroline was more experienced, so each week we would meet to pray and prepare our lesson, then go back and forth sharing parts, opening discussions with the girls, and praying with them.  We divied up the girls so that we’d each meet with several of them one-on-one during the week and generally “keep tabs” on them, so to speak.  Darcy would meet with us periodically to see how things were going, pray for us, and help disciple us in our own walks with the Lord.

At the end of Fall semester, Caroline graduated, leaving me on my own.  She’d gone out of her way to pay special attention to one girl in particular, a quiet, little blond girl from Hawaii who looked scared out of her wits.  Her name was Caila.  Caroline insisted that Caila had something special about her, and asked me to please keep meeting regularly with her now that she would be gone.  I didn’t have much of a connection with Caila, but promised her I would.  I don’t remember things necessarily taking off right away.  She was quiet and seemed shy, and didn’t seem too eager to open up her life.  I’d visit her at her sorority, try to talk to her about her personal life, and meet with her for coffee whenever possible. But weeks would go by when I wouldn’t hear from her, and I wasn’t sure that it was really worth the effort.

Something changed Caila’s sophomore year. You’ll have to ask her for the details, but Caila became transformed as she fell more and more in love with Jesus.  During her four years at OSU, and then her three years on staff with Real Life, she quickly became my prized disciple and friend.  It didn’t take long for her to surpass me in wisdom, maturity, and excellence in teaching the Bible and leading others.  She soon began her own small group, discipling shy little freshmen (she wasn’t shy any more!!) girls just like she had once been.  She joined me on a mission trip to Brasil, acted with me in the Real Life Spring Dramas, and after college, she became the House Manager for the House of Charis, a Christian girl’s home, where she oversaw, mothered, and shepherded more than 50 girls each year.  She now excels as writer, mother, wife, woman of God, and discipler of others.  I could never have dreamed how God would use Caila’s life for His glory.  To Him be the glory, who sees what we cannot.

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I share these stories because it illustrates for me, again and again, why a simple life poured out is worth it.  Countless times I have had girls come up to me and say, “Thank you for pouring into Caila. My life is changed because of her.”  Is that not the coolest thing?  And I have to just say, thank you for Elisa and Darcy (among many others!), who have poured into my life.  And they have others to thank, and we all ultimately thank our Lord Jesus, who so brilliantly uses imperfect men and women to raise up other men and women to walk with Him.   Because of Elisa and Darcy, God let me minister to (and learn from!) more than 50 girls in small group discipleship groups through college, then more while on staff through Real Life.  Of course, only a few were close discipleship relationships, but through Caila’s life alone at least another 100 lives have been touched and changed and transformed by God’s grace in her years of college ministry.  Do you see what happens?  Divine multiplication, transforming lives by His grace.  Is this because we are great? No!  It is because God in His grace chose to use simple women to help us along the way, and then we respond by letting Him use us, simple women, to help others along the way.  This is discipleship, and this should be our life.

Not all of us will be in a formal disciple situation.  But we’re all called to disciple (Matt. 28:18).  In the next few posts, we’ll look at just a few of the principles and pitfalls that have emerged from the years described above.  I learned a lot by failure, and I cringe when I look back at how often I did it wrong!  But God! But God is so good, so big, so able to use our feeble attempts for glorious results.  I pray we’d never let fear of “doing it wrong” keep us from helping others along the way.

 

Just a few months after beginning my new adventure as Elisa’s disciple, my roommate and I decided to quit the solo Christian act and actually attend a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting.  We’d begun hanging around Crusade (CRU) circles, and over and over I’d heard the name Darcy mentioned.  Apparently this woman named Darcy was every girls’ hero.  She seemed to have “discipled” (the word now rolled right off my tongue without any effort) innumerable girls and was the stellar pick of the group.

Once again, I marvel at my roommate’s and my willingness and eagerness to jump in with both feet.  At our very first CRU meeting (at which, I might mention, Jeff Patterson was the emcee and I remember thinking “That’s the kind of guy my mom would want me to marry.”), we heard the announcement for the annual Cove Palisades trip.  Without hesitation, we both signed up to go (now you couldn’t get me to go camping with a bunch of strangers if my life depended upon it…sad how we change with age).  I can still see the expression on Darren Holland’s face when we went to sign up.  Now I can read his thoughts, “Wow, this is your first time here and you’re signing up for the trip!  Awesome!”  He was delighted.

As we picked up our bags and got ready to leave, a little wide-eyed, curly-haired, doll-faced girl came up to me.  “Are you Kari?” She asked.  My eyes were wide. How did she know me?  “Yeah,” I said cautiously.  “Oh! I once had a horse named Kari!”  She said with enthusiasm bubbling over.  I nodded slowly.  She continued, “I’m Darcy. It’s nice to meet you.”  Aha!  This was Darcy. I relaxed and held out my hand, wondering again why she’d singled me out.  We chatted for a moment, then I was off.  There were only a few more weeks until the end of school, so I headed off for the summer without much more connection with her, although she asked for my home address…

Later that summer, a letter arrived in the mail.  A five or six page letter (again?!), from Darcy.  Apparently she knew, like Elisa, that openness and vulnerability is the name of the game, because she too shared her whole testimony with me, including her long struggle with an eating disorder and the victory she’d found in Christ.  I was amazed, once again, at her honesty and humility, and found myself shaking my head wondering, “Why me?  Why would she single me out?”  As he letter ended she suggested to me that I pray about leading a Bible study the following year.  Me?  Lead a Bible study!  I’d only started attending!  What did I have to offer?  I’d only just heard about “disciple” being a verb and now I was supposed to start “discipling”?  THough it scared me a bit, something inside me knew this was exactly the direction I was supposed to take…

 

This coming Monday I have the joy of teaching a class on Women’s Discipleship at Multnomah.  As I’ve been praying, brainstorming, and recollecting, I’ve been blessed remembering the women who have taught me to so much through their lives poured out.  My dear friend, Caila Murphy, has shared her thoughts as well, as I asked for her input from her own experience.  Over the next few days I’ll post what stands out to me–the stories, the lessons, the pitfalls to avoid.  I pray it can be helpful.

———–

I remember the first time I heard the word disciple used as a verb.  I’d grown up in a Christian home, had gone to church all my life, and knew the basic Bible stories and why Jesus died on the cross.  I knew that there were Jesus’ disciples, and I knew that as Christians we were in a sense called to be Christ’s disciples.  But my freshman year of college, when I finally began to grow in my walk with God and fall in love with HIm as my Lord and Savior, I heard a girl in Bible study mention that she was “discipled” by so-and-so.  Hm? Discipled? What does that mean, I thought.  I love looking back at my precious freshman faith. I was so eager to grow and learn I was like a sponge. I’d recently broken off a long-term relationship and felt like I was a brand new baby in the Lord:  Everything was new.  I began reading my Bible constantly, naively talking to drunken frat guys about Jesus (!), and inviting girls in my dorm to the little “Bible study” my roommate and I began (most of the girls who attended probably weren’t even believers…even better!).  So, when I heard that there was apparently some sort of “discipling” taking place that I knew nothing about, I wanted to do it too!

I deduced from her explanation that discipling basically meant being mentored in the things of the Lord, being helped along on one’s journey in Christ.  That made sense. So, I figured that whoever discipled me (as she called it) should be someone that I wanted to be like, since that’s kind of what mentoring is, right? I mean Jesus’ disciples’ goal was to be like Him.  Well after scoping out the possibilities, I decided that Elisa Smith was the one I wanted to be.  Amazingly godly, stunningly gorgeous (I know, shallow me), and she loved her husband and three children admirably.  Yes, I want to be like her, I thought.  I hardly knew her at all, had probably only talked to her once in my life, but I quickly decided to give it a shot. I wrote her a letter that basically went something like this:

Dear Elisa,

I heard about this cool thing called “discipling”.  Will you “disciple” me?  I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

Love, Kari.

That was pretty much it.  I’m sure she thought I was crazy.  But about a week later I received a letter back from her, explaining that she would be honored, blessed, and delighted to “disciple” me, but only under one condition.  Only if we would be friends.  She wanted to just be my friend, and then see how the discipleship part would play out as God saw fit.

I was stunned.  My friend?  She wanted to be my friend? Beautiful, godly, mature Elisa wanted to be my friend?  Well I’ll be!  I was already getting more than I bargained for.  I happily wrote her back and said thank you and yes please and oh yes I would do whatever she wanted.  Since we lived 1.5 hours away, getting together regularly posed sort of a problem, but again she wasn’t concerned.  She said God would work out the details in time.  I thought about this.  Lesson #1.

Within a few weeks she wrote me a letter, about a five or six page letter, all hand-written, sharing her life-story with me.  Once again, I was stunned. She was perfect, right? But her story revealed pain, heartache, struggle, failure. You mean she wasn’t perfect?  You mean her story was really just one of God’s amazing redemptive grace?  Lesson #2.  And she was willing to be honest and humble and vulnerable with me?  Already?  She was willing to let me see her imperfections, to open her life up to me?  She was basically opening her arms, allowing me to step inside the sphere of her life if I wanted.  She was inviting me to do the same, to open up my life, to reveal the wounds, the pain, the imperfections.  Perhaps, I thought, perhaps God could write such a story with my life too.  Perhaps He could.  Perhaps He would.  Lesson #3.