Sacred Mundane: The Blog

The other day a dear friend was over with her two small boys (Just now Dutch looked up from his excavator and dump truck and sounding exasperated said, “I’m trying to work!” haahaa).  So she came over with her boys who are almost two and almost four, and we watched in amazement at the blur of blond-hair whirling around the house chasing, wrestling, playing trucks and trains and zoo animals. 

Near the end of the visit, the almost four-year-old came up to me and said with a huge grin, “I’m getting a dinosaur for my birthday!”  My eyes widened and I looked at his mom.  “He’s been asking Jesus for a toy dinosaur for his birthday,” she explained.  “Yeah,” he chimed in, his eyes sparkling, “I’m getting a dinosaur!” 

That’s stuck with me all week.  It’s been an emotional roller-coaster of a week. We move tomorrow. Our house is in boxes. Tuesday was probably the most discouraged I’ve felt in a loooong time…and unfortunately for Jeff I decided it was his fault. 😉 Our hot water was out, things were crazy at home, and basically I was just a big mean person.  I felt confused by conviction, wanting to surrender everything to God yet feeling discouraged with even how to do that.  Everything just felt awful. 

Then Wednesday our house sold (that we’ve been praying for more months to sell!). Yeah, talk about swinging up to the heights of celebration!  It’s amazing–though we try not to be influenced by circumstances, let me tell you I certainly am!  We were bouncing off the walls we were so excited.  This meant we could try to buy a house! This meant an end was in sight to the craziness!  YIPEE!!!  Now all we can say is how faithful God is, how good He is, how amazing He is (and He IS!). 

Yesterday in the midst of my enthusiasm, a totally discouraging curveball came our way.  Within the hour I was back down the dumps of discouragment…no, actually I was angry.  Fuming is more like it.  I felt like after committing to do good it had got me stabbed straight in the back. Rather than keeping my eyes fixed on how good and gracious and faithful and wonderful my Heavenly Father is, I was stewing and frustrated.

Jeff was just the solid pillar that I needed. And he reminded me, “Hon don’t let this steal your joy.”  And I knew that’s what I was doing, letting a circumstance steal my joy. So, I turn the only place I know to turn: God’s Word. I opened my BIble to where I was reading in the NT and guess where I was?!  Luke 6: 

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer your other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.  And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.  If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you?  For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to recieve, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

Ouch. Yeah, I like to be good and gracious and giving to those who are good and gracious and giving to me.  Ouch ouch ouch.  This is a wonderful passage to read.  Cloaks and tunics don’t mean much to us.  Sure I’ll give someone my jacket or t-shirt. No big deal.  You can even slap my cheek if you want.  No biggee.  But what if “cloak and tunic” did mean something. Much more. Much much much more.  What then?  What about when the nice flowery passage might cost you something?  Grr… Ok, Lord.

But as I prayed and asked God to change my heart, somehow by some miracle giving me a heart of love and grace, I was reminded of the little boy whose eyes sparkled with joy as he told me he was getting a dinosaur for his birthday. 

Of course he’s getting a dinosaur.  Later his mom said, “We’re so excited to give him a dinosaur.  it’s been so sweet to see him asking Jesus.”  Now yes, there will be plenty of times when this little boy won’t get what he wants.  But with his precious little childlike faith, which totally surpasses my own, he looked forward with delighted anticipation of the dinosaur he was getting.  He didn’t stress or worry. He didn’t check his parents’ checkbook to see if they’d purchased it yet. He didn’t fret about the economy and whether there would be money enough in his parents’ account. He didn’t shop online to make sure the dinosaurs didn’t get sold out.  He didn’t look frantically for coupons on the newspaper for discounts on dinosaurs. He just asked Jesus, and waited patiently, know the character of God and the character of His parents.  And of course I thought of Matthew 7:11

“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

God is not my genie. He is under NO OBLIGATION whatsoever to grant any request I ever ask.  In Christ I have all I ever could need.  But I can also rest assured, just like the four-year-old boy, that what we ask for will be provided. It might not be in my timing, and it might not be exactly how I want it to look. But it will be good.  Because God is good. Because His character is good. Because He is always doing that which glorifies Himself. Because the best place for us to be is right in the center of His will.  Because joy and pleasure and true riches are found in Him.

So by faith today I’m just saying, as best as I know how, with a sparkle in my eye, that I’m getting a dinosaur.  Not sure when, and not sure what my dinosaur will look like. But I bet he’ll be big and scary and awesome because that’s the kind of Daddy I have.  I’m sure thankful for the inspiration of children…and speaking of, I have one on my lap right now who wants to read a fish book. Time to go…

I remember a pastor joking once that he was reading a book and it was so convicting that he had to quit reading it.  I can totally relate.  It’s like sometimes my soul is craving that truth, that hard truth that kicks my teeth in and brings that true repentence, and yet I hate it too. I hate conviction because there is one thing that repetence always requires: change.  The word repent literally means to change direction, as in a military term where you stop, turn around, and march the opposite direction.  I hate stopping and changing directions.

We had a VERY convicting sermon this weekend. VERY convicting. Too convicting. Usually when Pastor Joel is gone I only go to Saturday night service (confession!), and use the opportunity get a break on Sunday morning, but this time I had to be there again to get every last tidbit.  We heard from Pastor Chuck Bomar of Colossae Church.  The topic was hearing God’s voice, and the gist of it was that we might say, “I want to hear GOd’s voice” or “I just want to know what God’s will is so I can do it.” 

Really?  Do we really want to know what God’s saying so we can do it?  Really? 

He used an excellent illustration from Jonah, and how often we use the “counsel of circumstances” to lead our path instead of God’s voice.  God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah. But going to Ninevah is neither desirable nor comfortable, so perhaps Jonah tells himself that’s not really what God wants him to do.  So he goes the opposite direciton and perhaps he says to himself, “Well I’m going to go in this direction and God can always stop me if it’s not His will.” (sound familiar?)  Then he finds a boat and pays the fare and gets on it.  Perhaps he says, “Hey! There’s a boat ready right when I need it. That’s God providing for me, right? And look, I have the fare to pay! That’s God providing for me financially, right?  Great confirmation. Here I go!”  So as long as things are going great Jonah continues living in the dilusion that perhaps he is ok (Now Scripture doesn’t say that Jonah tells himself these things, but by way of illustration it’s powerful because we do things like that all the time. We look at circumstances and assume that if it “works out” then it’s God’s stamp of approval.) 

How did things “work out” for Jesus? Paul?  Stephen?  Peter? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an “m”. Martyrdom. Yeah, circumstances didn’t “work out” how we might think. That’s not how they determined God’s will. 

So all of this to say that I’m convicted about how much of my motivation and direction seeking is at the heart purely selfish. I look for things to line up in a way that seems good for God and good for me…ok mostly for me. And quite honestly, right now I’m so tired that I feel like I don’t have the strength to be unselfish.  Anybody ever feel like that?  Last night I told Jeff, “OK, so my desire to have a beautiful home where we can just settle down and never move again is probably selfish. But I’m so stinking tired of moving and trying to be strong and packing up these STUPID boxes that I don’t care of it’s selfish, I’m too tired to be unselfish.”  Anybody? 

So in the midst of my “too tired to be unselfish” feelings, God throws me a challenge today (I hate that!).  I really have to be vague about it but hopefully I can convey the gist.  What if God called us to give up something that we really want/desire for our family so that someone else can have what they really want/desire?  And what if that thing is really big?  And what if that other person actually has a face and a name and is someone that I don’t think deserves it?  (I know, I have an ugly heart) What if that other person is a thorn in my flesh?  It’s one thing to give of our money to some precious bright-eyed shoeless orphan in Africa or to some charity and increase our tax deduction.  But what if we need to give in a way that doesn’t gain us any warm fuzzy feelings or decrease our taxable income.  Giving in a way that actually deprives us of something so that someone else, whom we might not even have the warmest feelings toward, can have what we don’t.  What then?  And what if my sense of entitlement is screaming at the top of its lungs that that just wouldn’t be FAIR? 

And as soon as my ugly heart utters the word, “fair,” my vision scans to my sweet Jesus, hanging on the cross, bleeding, dying, weeping, suffocating.  Fair.  Unfair.  My utter wretchedness. My undeservedness.  I am the thorn in the flesh of His brow. And yet He suffered.  Oh Jesus help us.  Help me.  Change my heart.

You know I don’t know exactly what God will ask us to do. But I do know that today, and any day, that God issues us a challenge, I pray that He would give me and grace to respond,”Yes, Lord.  Thy Kingdom come, my kingdom go.  Not my will but Yours be done.” It’s so easy to say. So hard to do. 

So while I hate conviction, I’m thankful for it.  And thankful for His grace, and thankful for–as Dutch’s children’s Bible calls it–His “never-failing, never-changing, always forever love.”

I think I spend a huge portion of my life singing the wrong kind of Hosanna.  The other morning at church we sang, “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.”  Hosanna means “Save us!”  As Palm Sunday approaches we think of that first century day when the multitudes waved their palm branches and lay their clothes on the road crying out those very words, “Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:6-11).   I think how interesting it is that as we sing the very words from the first century, so we make the same mistakes they did as well.  See, the disciples and the multitudes were expecting Jesus to establish an earthly reign.  They wanted an earthly Kingdom. They wanted freedom from the oppression of the Romans. They wanted Jesus to forcefully seize control of the political realm and establish an earthly reign in Jerusalem.  And this kick-off event of the Passion Week reveals their anticipation that Jesus would indeed be their new king.  They wave the branches and lay down their clothes, getting ready for Jesus to take over and reign.

But then He goes and dies instead. 

See it’s easy for us to think how foolish they were. All along Jesus kept emphasizing that His Kingdom was not an earthly one. He kept upsetting their expectations.  Kept turning everything upside down. The least is the greatest. Humble yourself to be exalted.  When asked by Pilate if He is king of the Jews, Jesus responds plainly: “My Kingdom is not of this world.”  But no one seemed to understand all this until He rose.  Then as He meets once again with the disciples, after His resurrection, He opens their eyes, and “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). They finally get it. 

Do we?

His purpose all along was to reach down to earth that He might bring deliverance to His people and populate The Kingdom of Heaven.  We know all this right? I mean we know that Jesus isn’t running for President of the United States of America.  We’re going to heaven, and this isn’t it.

But how mixed up I become! How often I seek the wrong kind of salvation. How often I forget that Jesus didn’t save me in order to set up a glorious happy Kingdom here in this life, on this earth.  This earth and everything in it is passing away–merely a breath.  I spend probably 90% of my life and time and energy praying and thinking and asking for blessings here on earth. And don’t get me wrong, I want to receive them! But how much better to pray, as one godly professor of mine put it, “Thy Kingdom come, my kingdom go.”  Yes, God loves to do miracles such as provide houses, lower interest rates, give jobs, heal sickness, and answer the multitudes of prayers that we offer up to Him.  But I need to be reminded that I’m not on this earth to be special, I’m here to be useful (thanks Beth Moore for reminding me).  It’s fun to be God’s chosen princess, to believe in Him and be the recipient of amazing blessings. But I”m not here on this earth to experience earthly deliverance from hardship, I’m not here to sit with my hands open and just receive His treasures and sit around and look at them and celebrate how fun they are. I’m here to work! I cry, “Hosanna–Lord save me!”  and if I were really to spell out what they means in my heart it’s probably, “Hosanna–Lord save me by providing a house for me and by giving me more sleep and by making my husband really happy all the time and by giving us a wonderful marriage and by making my children behave and not embarrass me and by making it so we don’t have financial stress and by helping me lose those last ten pregnancy pounds and by making me not so stressed and emotional.  Yes, Lord! Save me!”  Ugh. See my point?  Anybody else feel so consumed by triviality that the Kingdom of God becomes the last thing on your to-do list?  Just like the multitudes two-thousand years ago, I think perhaps I sing the wrong kind of Hosanna. 

Two weeks from today is April 1st, 2009.  Big deal, right? It’s a big deal to me!  As many of you know, on April 1st of last year I began a one-year clothing fast.  Click here to read the details.  It began a one year series of LiveDifferent Challenges, which I admit have sort of petered out over the past couples months as my LiveDifferent Challenge was simply to survive this crazy season of life!  But the first challenge was to go without buying any clothes for one whole year.  The humorous part was that right after beginning the fast, I got pregnant! Then, I became a Pastor’s wife in West Linn of all places, the capital of all Well-Dressed-dom.  But, I am excited to report that I’ve kept it!  There are many many generous friends to thank, who helped me out a little by getting me a few cute items here and there for birthday and Christmas.  But as far as the requirements went, I kept it, and I can now say with all confidence and conviction … that I loathe every single piece of clothing in my closet.  And, I pretty much need to burn my sock drawer.

Really though, it’s been a great journey. I’ll write more later about what I’ve learned, but I wanted to write two weeks in advance to extend an invitation and allow you some time to think about it.  As part of the fast, I decided to donate, at the end, $500 (estimating that that’s probably what I would spend on clothes for a year) to Gospel for Asia to buy livestock or supplies for those in need.  I also issued an challenge for anyone who was willing to match me dollar for dollar to do the fast. My brother matched the donation, so now I’m excited that on April first $1,000 will be donated! Yay! 

But as I went to the Gospel for Asia website today, I had a blast looking around and thinking about all the fun things we could buy for people in need.  Click here to see their donation website.  And as I looked around it dawned on me that perhaps others would want to join with us and contribute to the April 1st GFA contribution. You don’t have to do $500.  Even a dollar can buy something.  For example, a few Christmases ago, per my brother’s request, I bought two chickens and two rabbits for a family in Asia for his Christmas present.  With $1000 we could buy two water buffalo!  For a little more we could buy 3 cows!  Or, if we had another $200 in donations we could even buy a motor-scooter which could provide transportation for two missionaries.  So many possibilities!

So, I invite you to check out the donation website and see if there is something on there in your price range. And if God puts it on your heart, join with us these last two weeks and let’s celebrate the fact that God has abundantly blessed us, and given us so much that we’re able to give to others.  If you’d like, fast something for the remaining two weeks (i.e. lattes or sweets or gum or eating out), and give that amount that you would have spent.  Whether it’s $1 or $100, two weeks is easy and you never know how much you can bless something in need.

Two more weeks to think about it and decide.  And I’ll admit, April 1st you might be able to find me perusing the clearance section at Nordstrom Rack… 🙂