F is for Finding your pace {white space for your weekend}
I think we’ve finally found our pace.
{at least for now}
This fall will be three years that we’ve been at our church/job, and although of course we have our good days and bad days like any other family, I feel like we’re finally in-stride with our family’s pace. I stepped away from my role as Director of Women’s Ministry and now get to focus on leading Bible study, and we’ve whittled down our evening commitments to only 3/week. Mind you, I love our commitments, but when there’s too many of them we begin to resent the very things we love.
Thinking about this pace that feels so good reminded me of a phenomenal book, Margin, that I read a few years ago. If you’ve never read it, check it out! A few thoughts from the archives…
Americans have reached an all-time high point for depression, anxiety, suicide, stress, burn-out, abuse, and divorce. While life-expectancy is at an all-time high, perhaps quality of life, that is happiness and contentment, is at an all time low. Something is wrong. Perhaps it is that we have reached a limit and we’re in desperate need of margin.
Margin is defined as the space between your load and your limit. On a piece of paper, the margin is the white space between the written words and the edge of the page. As a grader in seminary, let me tell you that my #1 pet peeve in grading is opening a paper and seeing that the student has done one of three things: used size 10 font instead of 12, snuck in 1.75 line space instead of double, or changed the margins ever so slightly so the words creep over dangerously close to the edge of the page. They might think I don’t notice…but after reading 25 of them, I notice! And far from being impressed by their covert ways, I am annoyed because what this tells me is that they were incapable of completing the assignment in the given space. So, they have to cheat by doctoring margins. That bugs me. I have been known to write across the top of the page, “Ah! Give me some white space!”
So we have done this with our lives. In the name of diligence, we have clicked on those margins and dragged them closer and closer to the edge of the page, instead of simply acknowledging the appropriate boundaries necessary for mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual health, and respecting those boundaries. Instead we have arrogantly assumed that the rules of margin aren’t for us, and we’ve packed our lives to the point of breakdown.
If you’re not convinced that this is an epidemic, check out these stats from the doctor who authored the book: “Adjusting for population growth, ten times as many people in Western nations today suffer from unipolar depression, or unremitting bad feelings, without a specific cause, then did half a century ago. Americans and Europeans have ever more of everything except happiness.” In one morning, nine of the eleven patients this doctor saw where on antidepressents. We are truly living in a “deteriorating psychic environment.” He observes that “millions of suburbanites seem to find that ‘the good life’ is only endurable under sedation.”
Not only are we sad, we we are overfed, under-exercised, sleep-deprived as well. We are in more debt than ever before. We have less leisure time, even though it was predicted in the early 20th century that by this time we would be down to a 2-3 day workweek because we could produce all that we “need” withing that amount of time. Ha! Whoever predicted that took no classes in human behavior. We don’t work for our needs. Instead, the workweek has risen rapidly over the past 20 years: “The average work year for prime-age working couples has increased by nearly 700 hours in the last two decades.” Exhaustion, burn-out, stress, and mental breakdown have become the norm.
I know it’s not simple, but I pray this weekend you and your family can enjoy some white space.
We’re actually camping at the beach right now — sand in our toes, smoke in our hair and s’mores in our teeth.
A little white space is good for the soul. Thanks for reading — happy weekend.
Believe in their belief (How to share the gospel with our kids)
“Mommy, I became a Christian!”
I stopped chopping onions. Turned around. Looked at my blue-eyed blond-haired wonder sitting at the table. He, our “challenge”, our boy who has kept me on my face for 4 1/2 years, who entered the world full of vim and vigor and has been on mission to seek out every loophole the world may offer.
He is wonderful. I adore him. I’d do anything for that crazy bug. But he is a challenge. Often.
I, of course, responded with excitement, but also wanted to see if he knew what he was saying. I quizzed him a little, and he explained that one night, while he was in bed, he prayed to God and told Jesus, “I give you myself.”
“And now,” he explained,” Jesus will help me to do good.”
Yup, that pretty much sums it up.
Later that week he reminded me, “Mommy, I’m a Christian! Why do you sometimes forget that?”
Do I believe my son is a new creation?
How can I be sure? Does he understand the gospel? What about lordship? Do I keep asking and questioning him or trust that his decision is real? I soon discovered that all my share-the-gospel-with-my-preschooler questions were shared by many other moms. So here are a few tips (from others more wise than myself) on keeping it real:
- Celebrate! If a pre-schooler makes a commitment of faith–rejoice! If that is what the angels in heaven do, then we should to. There will be plenty of opportunities for re-teaching and double-checking. Right now, rejoice that a little bud of faith has blossomed!
- Clarify. As time goes on seek opportunity to clarify what it is that your preschooler believes. The ABCs of faith is a great, simple overview of the gospel. Admit that you are a sinner (have done bad things). Believe that Jesus died and rose again to save us from our sins. Confess your sin and trust in Jesus, and Commit your life to following Jesus and obeying all that God shows us in His Word.
- Repeat and restate. Again and again and again. We all learn things progressively. If we had to know everything before we were born again, we’d all be sunk. So after our child makes a commitment to Jesus, we are wise to continue to share the gospel, daily, often, whenever possible, and restate it and repeat it. The more we talk about it the more they’ll get it.
- Use Scripture. The rule that applies to adult-evangelism applies to children as well. Only God’s Word has the power to save, the power to open blind eyes, the power to birth faith. Use scripture as often as we can with our kids.
- YOU are the best messenger. When we feel insecure about sharing the gospel with our kids we tend to resort to a book or a show or a video to help us do the work. That’s not bad (I’m going to suggest one below!). But remember that any prefabricated presentation may miss your child’s individual needs and may not speak to their heart the way that only you can. You are the perfect missionary, sent by God, to your child. Relationship drives influence. They will remember your words more than anyone else’s. Use them well.
- Make it the real deal. I love this quote by Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “We must be careful that we do not modify the gospel to suit various age groups. There is no such thing as a special gospel for the young, a special gospel for the middle-aged, and a special gospel for the aged. There is only one gospel, and we must always be careful not to tamper and tinker with the gospel as a result of recognizing these age distinctions. At the same time, there is a difference in applying this one and only gospel to the different age groups; but it is a difference which has reference only to method and procedure.” Same gospel, applied in individual ways. None of us will do this perfectly, but it’s worth consideration.
- Disciple them. The “next step” is always discipleship. Now that junior is a Christian you can jump in with age-appropriate discipleship (otherwise known as parenting) and humbly and confidently continue to teach and train him according to God’s Word. The best place to start is on our faces, then on our knees, then in our Bibles, then back on the floor playing Legos and teaching and training through the details of life.
What a privilege we have to share the love of Christ with these little lambs. Here is a great little resource you may enjoy. What advice / resources / words of wisdom can you share with us on sharing the gospel with our little one and cultivating their little seeds of faith? I’d love to learn from you; please share!
When it's time to make adjustments
It was June 6th. I opened the fridge. Almond milk, some turkey bacon, some apples. A few eggs.
That was it. Hmmm…
We do our monthly budget from 15th to 15th, so that meant nine more days with nothing but beans and rice, almond milk, and some turkey bacon.
“Mommy, I’m hungry.”
We had company coming over the next night for dinner, and the following weekend family arriving from out of state.
“Do you think they want beans and rice?” I half-joked.
I checked my wallet again. Change, no dollars. This wasn’t going to work.
Time for adjustment.
Just then my cell phone rang. My friend, with whom we’re doing the Family Garden, gave me the news that we couldn’t do the garden in the soil, as planned. We’d need to build raised beds. I’d just posted this, about the lessons of redemption and sanctification through this new identity gardening process.
Time for adjustment. (This one was welcome because it would be way easier!)
Earlier that day I packed up the kids for a playdate at the park. We walked there, and just as we arrived, I got a call that our house was showing in less than one hour.
Time for adjustment.
Grateful for amazing friends who watched my kids and let me borrow a car to run home and hurriedly clean. I couldn’t do the top-notch job as normal, instead resorting to shoving all the laundry in the washer, filling a basket with all the random items and hiding it in the garage. But you know what, it was fine.
Knowing when to make adjustments. Isn’t that what wisdom is?
Grocery prices are soaring and our growing kids are hungry. Time to up the food budget to $250, give ourselves some room to breathe. Skip the back-breaking labor and build a raised bed garden. There are plenty of other things to break our backs over. Clean the house a tad less than perfect, ignore the fingerprints all over the fridge, and trust that when the right person comes, they’ll love the house, fingerprints and all.
A wonderful, uber health-conscious friend of mine, a mom of seven, recently went on a women’s retreat. While she was gone her family ordered 19 pizzas.
And she was all smiles.
Because she’s a wise woman who knows how to have high standards, and when to let those standards *ahem* adjust.
Wisdom.
Sometimes we can be more committed to the idea of something than the good of something. I am committed to our frugal grocery-budget as long as it is good for our family (and sometimes going without is the greatest good there is!). I am committed to busting my behind cleaning this house for every single house-showing as long as it is good for our family (and sometimes the good is that my kids know how to beat feet and clean up their messes!). But I am praying for a heart filled with heavenly wisdom. A heart that knows when to stick to my guns and when to let it all go. A heart that sees things from His perspective.
A heart that’s not so blinded by my own ideals that I can’t see His ideas.
Like Peter.
God points to all the unclean animals and says, “kill and eat.” Peter says, “Surely not! I’ve never eaten anything unclean!” (Acts 10)
Ha! Don’t you love it when our ideals contradict God’s ideas?
And His ideas are so far beyond ours. They are beyond our imaginations (Eph 3:20).
Yes, this is just about the grocery budget, I suppose. Adding $50 to our monthly tab isn’t earth-shattering news. But isn’t that the beauty of Sacred Mundane, that the details of life are the whispers of a Savior…
Because everything matters.
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Are there any areas in your life that may need some divine adjustment? Where are you tempted to stubbornly stick to ideals rather than humbly listening for His ideas? Thanks for reading.
Who Could Stand?
“If You, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O LORD, who could stand?”
Ps. 130:3
The British Museum. Four enormous statues of Buddha lined the far wall. They towered, enormous, yet frozen in place. Mere idols. Powerless. I turned the corner to head out, into another gallery, then noticed that Jeff was intrigued by something else, clicking a photo with his phone.
Two tall statues stood on either side of a walkway. Shiny with glaze, standing tall and proud with Asian faces and elaborate Chinese dress. The one on the left held a hefty book, probably 8-10 inches thick, like two or three phonebooks all put together. His face looked severe, judging.
The other statue held a slim booklet, more like a magazine, rolled up into a small cylinder in her hand. The plaque explained that in the first century AD the concept of hell was introduced into China. From where it was unknown. But from that time on it was clearly understood that after death there would be judgment. The severe statue with the thick phone-book type volume was holding the person’s evil deeds. The statue with the magazine rolled up was holding the person’s good deeds.
They got that part right.
If You, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O LORD, who could stand?
Where, I wonder, have we lost the reality of guilt? Today guilt is a dirty word, something we’re encouraged to shake off, leave behind, free ourselves from.
But isn’t guilt a critical component of the gospel?
Isn’t guilt the black backdrop that allows the glorious diamond of the gospel to be seen in all its glory?
If I didn’t understand guilt, how could I understand grace?
This is perhaps the primary obstacle to sharing the gospel in our western culture. As I read Revolution in World Missions it strikes me that the reason that the gospel is so powerfully impacting Asian nations is that even those who didn’t know Christ were bringing to the table a very foundational and real understanding of guilt.
But how does the gospel shine as good news to a culture whose conscience is seared? To a culture who has, in effect, erected statues that portray the books in swapped position? That believes our good works rest like heavy phone-books and our evil works fill merely a slim magazine?
Who needs a Savior when the books are that size?
So then how do we preach the gospel without first clearly exposing that “all of our works are filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) and that our “hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:7), and that “the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5)?
To tell you the truth, I haven’t preached that in a while.
How crazy does all that sound in a “follow your heart” culture? And how judgmental will we sound?
Can we really win souls telling this truth?
Naturally, no one will want to hear this.
Perhaps that’s our greatest clue that it is an critical component of the gospel.
A gospel that can be understood and accepted by natural means is not the gospel. A supernatural gospel requires supernatural power to enable supernatural faith.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. 2:14
That’s why evangelism must begin on our knees. We cannot convict, convince or change a person’s heart. But God by His Spirit can, and I’m challenged and convicted afresh that we must not forget which book is the biggest. Let us firmly fix in our minds that our iniquities reached to heaven, but He has removed them as far as the east is from the west. He nailed the phonebook of our sin to the cross of Calvary and gifted us with glorious grace beyond comprehension. This is good news!
If You, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O LORD, who could stand?
No one could. That’s why He stood in our place.
That’s the gospel: How sweet the sound.
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In what real way are you thankful for the gospel today? How has He saved you? Let’s fix on our minds on His greatness and His grace throughout this day. Thanks for reading.