Sacred Mundane: The Blog

My initial Summer Reading list was twenty titles long, most of which were classics.

Then I had the corn-planting epiphany and realized I was ridiculous.

But this is a battle for me because I just love to read so much. I could easily take to the lounger with my lemonade in the sunshine and ignore my family for hours on end. No bueno. So, I needed a way to focus and trim down my list. Plus, I needed a way to ensure these books were worth my time. So I researched–top novels of all time. Best reads of the 20th century. You name it, I read up on it. But unfortunately this just made my list longer and longer. I began creating my “holds” list at the library. But even as I began reading the first two “classics,” I didn’t feel they were worth my time. So, the question of focus surfaces again:

How do I focus on what’s really worth reading??

Insert my brilliant husband with one brilliant book recommendation …

Besides the Bible

That’s the name of the book: Besides the Bible. It’s a great compilation of 100 books (fiction and non-fiction) that have, should, or will influence Christian culture. Now, of course this is written by mere mortals, and you may be surprised by what made the list and what didn’t (CS Lewis, AW Tozer, Andrew Murray, and Henry Nouwen are all absent. What?!). But the key is, whether or not I agree with every inclusion or exclusion, these books have shaped Christian culture and I want to peruse their pages and figure out why. Plus, it’s kind of fun to go through the list and check which ones you’ve read. (I was surprised by how few I had read, so I’m starting with some must-reads I somehow missed growing up.)

So, if you’re looking for a fabulous resource to help guide your summer reading list (for many many summers!), this is a great place to start. My list is short but the books aren’t–two of them are over 600 pages each. This should get me through many tall glasses of strawberry lemonade:

The Brothers K  by David James Duncan

Pursuing Justice by Ken Wytsma

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton (the kindle edition is free!)

There are a few others I’ve been slowly traveling through for awhile: Love-Powered Parenting, The Mind of Christ, Bringing Up Girls, the 1,000 Gifts Devotional, and re-reading Screwtape Letters.  

Your turn: What’s on your Summer Reading List? Please share! And, with all the thousands of books you could be reading right now, thanks for being here and reading this. With love, Kari

It’s a miracle.

For the first time in … oh, probably six years, I accomplished every single thing on my to-do list today.

Now, if you lean in real close, I’ll tell you the secret:

A really short to-do list. 

(I know. Brilliant. I should write a book, right?)

Another recent divine unit-lesson from my Heavenly Father has been the issue of Focus.  Last month I read the book, One Big Thing (Thank you, Paul!), and was impressed by this: The reason many of us feel discouraged, confused, overwhelmed, and aimless, is that we’re simply trying to do too many things instead of focusing on doing a few things well. (The right things well!)

Yup.

Focus.

This proves true even in small, insignificant daily decisions:

Last week the kids and I were cleaning up the yard, weeding, and tidying up after having company over. I found a bag of seeds, leftover from our garden last year. There were corn, beans, some peppers, lettuce. I knew this was probably the last year we could use the seeds, and mindlessly turned over the package to inspect planting times, etc. Before I knew it I was scoping out garden-bed potentials, mentally measuring spaces, making notes to self to buy more potting soil. Then all of a sudden I came to my senses:

Why the heck am I planting corn???

I replied to myself: “Because otherwise the seeds will be no good! And I don’t want to waste them. And it will be a good learning experience for the kids. And we’ll save money on corn. And … and … and …”

Then I said to myself: “UM… since when it throwing away $.99 of seeds in order to SAVE three hours worth of a work classify as “waste”? You have a to-do list as long as your arm and you’re concerned about throwing away a half-used packet of corn kernels?”

“Girl, FOCUS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!”

I wonder if I ever give God a migraine with all my ridiculousness.

Sometimes, this call to focus means simply writing fewer items (the REALLY important ones) on my to-do list. Sometimes, this call means writing down all the things I’m already doing, and ruthlessly pulling a few out.

It seems I must do this every year, because last year I was doing this:

Last year, our ugly rental house had a lively patch of landscape adorning the front. There were lilacs, rhododendrons, irises, and a dozen other luscious green things which I cannot name. The whole huge patch was full of green and every time I arrived home I smiled–it just looked so full and flourishing and healthy!

But then one day I looked a little closer. 

The kids and I had been outside playing in the dirt. It was the perfect opportunity to admire the flourishing foliage of the front yard so I eased down into the grass and looked a little closer at the plants.

I blinked my eyes. Had I really never noticed? 

It was weeds.

All weeds. 

Sure, a few legitimate shoots were desperately poking their heads above the cacophony of noxious plants, but the rest–by far the majority–were nothing more than enthusiastic weeds.

Really?

My heart sank as I realized that all this time what I’d thought was beautiful, lush, healthy growth was really nothing more than a creeping commotion of impostors. And so wildly had all this commotion grown that the entire patch of landscape was literally overrun with green nets of tangled arms. This was no neat and tidy weeding job. There was nothing to do but set to work with trowel and dig out huge patch after huge patch of weed-infested earth.

After spending all afternoon weeding, I stepped back and surveyed my work. Most of the weeds were gone, it was true, but sadly the result was … ugly.

True, the real flowers were cleared away and no longer suffocated by weeds.But now the space looked sparse, empty even. The patches of bare dirt made the whole space look awkward and blotchy.

Honestly, it looked better when the weeds were there. 

I knelt back down in the dirt, sunk my trowel back in to unearth one last weed.

And I paused just long enough to listen:

This is what the church must do. 

Not my church, or your church–the church. That is, us. 

That is, me.

Bare dirt looks terrible. Almost as bad as blank space. Or empty seats. Or quiet calendars. (Or pathetically short to-do lists!) We must FILL. Must fill the space. Must fill the calendar. Must fill the seats at all cost. But I wonder, How much of that filling is fruit … and how much is a commotion of weeds? 

Commotion. 

I know this word is for me, but perhaps some piece of it can apply to you as well? The truth is that only true fruit will last. Only the real stuff. The legitimate plants. The weeds will be burned up. Gone. But in the meantime, sometimes we are content with our landscape full, flourishing, abounding. But what if it’s abounding with weeds?

Weeds: Any activity less than the pure, authentic, Spirit-led work of God. Any daily busyness other than the good, right, perfect will of God. 

What I was amazed by was how pretty some of the weeds were. I was tempted to let them grow until I googled them and saw how noxious they are. So too, some of our “ministry” can look so pretty, can seem so good, but I wonder–is it merely commotion? Does it choke out the real fruit? Is it simply something to fill the space because bare dirt just looks so ugly?

Plain soil isn’t beautiful.  Is it?

Plain soil is beautiful to a Gardener who loves to grow remarkable fruit. Plain, rich soil is exactly what our Father wants. Days with some white-space, some margin, are exactly what He wants.

His hands are full of seed and He is ready to plant.

Will He find any space to plant?

Is there any bare space in our lives for Him to plant His good fruit?

Or have we allowed the commotion of weeds to fill the space, because it looks better?

Because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Ugh, these seeds are getting poked down deep in my heart.

Poked down so deep it hurts just a bit.

How is your soil? Is it full of commotion? Overrun with weeds and activity? Is there any bare soil, just a spot, where the Gardener can plant his perfect fruit to glorify His name?

Perhaps some ruthless weeding is in order today? Or at least a shorter to-do list, making white space for whatever He might want to add?

Me too. Both.

Thanks for reading.

Sometimes it’s almost as if God has teaching-units. His instruction is never random, but carefully planned, like lesson plans. 

And apparently last week’s unit for me was this:

The best and greatest joy is found living outside yourself. 

Now, let’s be clear: I will likely need to learn this a thousand more times along this road of life. But last week it looked like this:

I wasn’t going to go. It was Compassion Connect–an outreach providing medical services for under-resourced people in Oregon City. Honestly, I didn’t want to go. Jeff was going to volunteer all day and I happily volunteered to stay home with the kids. My kids. (You know, the ones I like. Not other people’s kids.)

But then Jeff sprained his ankle, so at the last minute I threw on the purple issued volunteer t-shirt that read, “I volunteer because God loves you!”  but really it should have read, “I volunteer because my husband sprained his ankle and someone had to come do this …

… and I really don’t like wearing purple.” 

But to my everlasting wonder:

I came home FULL of joy. The privilege of seeing hundreds of people served. Of sharing the love and truth of Jesus with six blessed spanish-speaking folks who had never heard the gospel. I came home brim full. Delirious with joy.

But then Monday, I turned again to Self. Something triggered it and I picked it straight up like a tasty morsel, like a smooth, sweet piece of candy, and I slid it in my mouth. I tasted the self-pity. Let it melt in my mind. I could feel the insecurity, the desperate feeling for love and approval. I could feel my thoughts slipping further into self. Before I knew it I was tempted to try to think of something bad about another person–a condolence to make myself feel better.  I began to slide …

But God.  God’s gracious Holy Spirit stopped the slide. “Father help me live outside my self.” The simple plea slipped from my lips. And with the single, silent tear came His help, His presence, His answer:

“I love you. Let it go.”

I went downstairs, and what I “had” to do was read and watch a documentary on Intelligent Design and Creation. And even though it was so incredibly boring, and I didn’t understand half of it, it took me to Scripture and to the miraculous marvel of creation. To billions of stars and galaxies. To miraculous design. To His creation that speaks of His greatness. To all that reflects His glory.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Ps. 19:1)

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them? (Ps. 8:3-4)

And slowly my eyes were drawn up, out of self …

and onto Him.

And joy came again.

Then DHS foster and adoption training came this weekend. Who wants to spend her sunny birthday weekend sitting in a small room, blinds shut, to learn about horrific topics like sexual abuse, abandonment, fetal alcohol syndrome, and the like?

But again, to my surprise, there was joy. There was hope. There was a woman named Misty who stood before us and modeled to me the joy of a life outside herself. She has fostered 137 drug-affected infants. She and her husband have adopted 9 children. The ones no one else wanted. And she was plain to look at and wore capri-pants with slippers and I’ll just tell you straight up this lady didn’t spend much time on fixing up the outside.

But this lady was like pure joy bottled up in a body.

She loved those crack babies like nobody’s business. And she stuck with them when nobody else would take them. And she didn’t live perfect, but she lived outside herself.

And by the time she was done telling her story I wanted to be her when I grow up. 

You know her secret?

She knows Jesus.

See, when we truly know the love of God, when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are loved and accepted by Him. When our worth is not based on our performance, when we know that every ounce of our worth is wrapped up in the TRUTH that we are chosen, loved, adopted by God, we can then live outward-focused lives.

We can live outside ourselves.

And joy is found there. Life. Peace. Abundance. And now tonight I’m excited to attend the Door to Grace dinner-a ministry helping local victims of sex trafficking. I guess in some ways it doesn’t sound like the most fun thing.

But a bunch of us ladies are piling in the car and seeking hard after joy, going to this thing.

Living outside ourselves can be going to an event or just going outside our self-interest, just for a second. It can be serving a toddler her lunch with a smile, or bowing low (again) to pick up his socks on the floor. It can be fostering, adopting, writing, laughing, learning, loving, giving. It can be anything that lifts our eyes to others and to Him.

There’s a lot of joy to be had outside ourselves. 

{Here’s to a week lived outside ourselves. What’s one way you can step outside yourself and your interests in order to learn, bless, serve, give? Try to identify one concrete way. THANK YOU for your love and birthday wishes, and thank you for reading.}

…ALL of us because we are LOVED and have been adopted by the Father and chosen before the foundation of the world to be His beloved children.

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. (Eph. 1:5)

You, beloved, were adopted by God because it’s what He wanted to do, and because it gave Him great pleasure!  You are a delight to God! Hallelujah! Believe that and receive that today!

And, below are those who were chosen to receive the free copies of Richard Stearns new book, Unfinished. (Also, check out the DVD series that accompanies it!)

To you dear commenters, thank you for your kindness, and I wish I could send every single one of you a book (and I might, I just need to save up more money! It might help if I quit giving my e-books away free–ha!), but for now the winners are:

1. Joy
2. Brenda T
3. Erin Heins
4. Linda Bossle
5. Amy Boone
6. Susan T
7. Catie

How here’s what I need you folks to do: HERE please send me your name and mailing address so I can send you your book right away. (If you don’t send your address I can’t send the book!)

I pray you all have a blessed Sunday, seeking God and enjoying His people. We are being SO incredibly blessed by the DHS foster/adoption training this weekend. I had no idea how rich this time would be — I love it! Bless you, friends, and may you know His love more than ever before. May it change you from the inside out. Thanks so much for reading.