Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 13

Fight for Us.

When we are suffering in a difficult situation, or working through a trial, or tempted by a besetting sin, one of the first things that we think is how alone we feel. We feel alone because we are the only person we know who is struggling with depression. We feel lonely because we don’t see other people dealing with chronic illness. We feel lonely because we want people to be right beside us as we work through something. And the easiest thing in the world is to blame the rest of the church for not knowing. For not understanding how we feel. For not struggling the same struggle with us. For saying things that were unfeeling. Do they not love us?

I’m sure all of us are familiar with the illustration that Paul uses about our different gifts being like different parts of a body. Some are gifted with one thing, and they do that on behalf of the whole body. But today I’d like to write about another aspect of this that we often don’t think about – suffering, temptations, afflictions, and any other kind of struggling. Whatever part of the body of Christ you are, your gifts are unique. And so are your struggles.

It is easy to find an abundance of articles accusing Christians of not handling the problems of others the right way. Whether it is “20 things to never say to a woman with a dirty house,” or “15 phrases to avoid using around childless couples,” or “10 mean thing churches do to single people” – it is easy to busy ourselves with itemizing the ways that other people failed to help us in our time of need.  These sorts of articles always hit some kind of a mark too. People gather around them with praise and comments about how many stupid people said just this thing to them when they had just this problem.

Now I’m not differing with some of the actual advice in these articles – it may or may not be helpful. And I’m certainly not trying to say that we shouldn’t bother ourselves with trying to understand other people’s trials. We should. I’d just like to try to paint this picture differently for a minute.

The body of Christ is full of people who have problems. Each of us has our own unique burdens. Some of them might be obviously visible to anyone who looks – but it may very well be that you are carrying a tremendous burden and  even your close friends don’t notice.

But here is the beauty of this – whatever burdens you are carrying, you are carrying them on our behalf. The fight you feel alone in – you are fighting it for all of us.

When the sorrow of infertility is pressing in on you and you turn to Christ, you are being Christ to us.

When you face depression, and turn your mouth to praise the Lord, you are being Christ to us.

When you lose a loved one and yet still bless His name, you are being Christ to us.

When you get the victory over petty sin – you are being Christ to us.

When your marriage falls apart, and though your are embarrassed and humbled, you faithfully confess and repent of your sins – you are being Christ to us.

When you fight through cancer in the joy of the Lord – you are fighting the physical battle for yourself and the spiritual ones for all of us. You are being Christ to us.

When some infection takes over a small part of the body – there is one place that the battle rages, but it is a battle that is being fought on behalf of the whole body. When that victory is won through the grace of God, it is won for all of us, and it ministers to all of us.

Often times in the wake of some tragedy, we are all shocked by the way the people closest to it bear up under it. A widow grieving, and yet still comforting her comforters. A mother of a child in a graveyard, ministering to the whole body of Christ not just through her bereavement, but with it. The way you handle the sorrows in your life is a means of ministering to others.

The truth is that the role of comforter is not the only way to be Christ to others. The role of the afflicted and still victorious is exactly what Christ was for us. Tempted in everything that we are, and yet not falling.

We need you. Not after you get over whatever thing it is you are dealing with and you feel ready. We need you to be getting through your burdens now, for us. We need you to fight faithfully, now, for us. We need you who have the best view of that threat that we are all facing – to fight it for us. This is a means that every Christian can use to minister to every other Christian.

Depending on your circumstances, this may sound harsh to you. Chances are good that if you have felt embarrassed of your temptations, or embarrassed of your situation, or simply alone and tired of fighting, that you don’t want to hear about how you can help us. You want to read a list of things that everyone is doing wrong to you. But remember – this principle means a lot more. You are part of the body of Christ – your problems are very literally our problems. We need your victory because it is ours, and you need ours because it is yours. WEeall have the victory because we are His.

This is not something that we can attain to only if we are black-belt level Christians. All you need for this is Christ. He literally took all the battles we will ever face and ultimately won them for us. Never forget that He is the head of this body – he does know exactly what you are dealing with. He does feel the pain in a way that the rest of us simply can’t. He does know, and he is with you.

 

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Two Houses

I must have learned the little song about “The wise man built his house upon the rock…” (complete with hand motions) way back in my Sunday school days. It’s  so familiar that we can (at least I can) miss some very important details. It comes at the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Let me repeat the text here for reference:

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

The first thing to notice is that Jesus is using this metaphor of the two houses to describe two kinds of people: those who hear Him and do what He says, and those who hear Him and and do not do what He says. Our first question ought to be, “Hear Him say what?” Since this passage comes at the end of His Sermon on the Mount, it is safe to say it applies to the whole thing. If we hear the words of His sermon and do them, we are building a rock-solid house. If we hear the words and brush them off, we are putting ourselves in a mighty dangerous position.

What kinds of things do we hear from Jesus in this sermon? Here are the headings taken from my Geneva Study Bible: The Beatitudes; Believers are Salt and Light; Christ Fulfills the Law; Murder Begins in the Heart; Adultery in the Heart; Marriage is Sacred and Binding; Jesus Forbids Oaths; Go the Second Mile; Do Good to Please God; The Model Prayer; Fasting to Be Seen Only by God; Lay Up Treasures in Heaven; The Lamp of the Body; You Cannot Serve God and Riches; Do Not Worry; Do Not Judge; Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking; The Narrow Way; You Will Know Them by Their Fruits; I Never Knew You; (and then last) Build on the Rock.

If we are seriously taking these basic Christian principles to heart and applying them to our lives, we are building a house (our life) on a very sure foundation. If we are picking and choosing between the ones we like and the ones we don’t like and obeying God in an anemic, half-hearted way (if at all), then we are making a wager that either the winds won’t come at all or they will be mild winds, not at all the kind that will blow things over.

Now notice that both houses get blasted with storms of rain, floods, and winds. Note to all: the Christian life is not a storm-free, cloud-free, or flood-free life. But neither is the non-Christian life. Trials of all kinds will come to all, guaranteed. But if we are hearing Jesus’ words and doing them, our houses will not fall even though they get pounded. We might have thought the part about the storms in this parable was just figurative and not really meaning that houses built on rocks would have to endure wild and crazy storms. But they do. The storms, in fact, test the strength of the house, revealing the wisdom of the builders.

The other kind of houses, the ones built by those who have taken Jesus’ words lightly, are blown to smithereens in a spectacular way. Either way, the storms are a given.

So this should be a strong encouragement to us all to hear and do Jesus’ words. His words are our protection and life and comfort and peace. When the storms come, we know the house will hold. When the floods rise up, we know we have a sure footing. When life gets dark and thunderous, we have a strong Savior, and He has guaranteed the foundation. The wise man’s house will get very wet, but only on the outside! The inside stays dry. And that is a very important distinction!

Constant Love

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her

 

So today is Valentine’s Day and I wanted to write a little something on the topic of married love. That time when you were first falling in love was a very heady time. Chances are good that if you are a few years out from that, and have kids, and life has somewhat eclipsed your romance, that you are not currently in a phase where your husband calling you makes your heart race. In fact, you may even answer the phone with a complaint about your day, a comment about something he forgot to do, or just something incredibly mundane. Truthfully, things could be at a point where you are seeing him as an extra chore on your list. Maybe when you see your husband you see the things you wish he was doing, a life you wish you had, or a long list of failed expectations.

Luke and I were once watching something where the pastor was telling husbands to date their wives. And I told my husband that I really, really don’t want to be his girlfriend, I want to be his wife. The idea that you need to go back to a time of infatuation instead of settled married love is a sad one. Infatuation is like a crazy waterside – it is wild and fun and makes you feel things that you didn’t know were possible. But the thing is, like any good water slide, it ends. Married love is not a fast and furious exciting ride. It is as though that water slide emptied out into a great lazy river – the depth and breadth of which puts that little slide to shame.

No matter what we are discussing, it is important to spend more time thinking about how you can change things for good than we spend thinking how others should. It is easy to look at our marriages and make a mental list of things that our husbands could change that would be nice. But this is more than unhelpful, it is downright damaging. So I wanted to look at things that wives commonly do – not because I think husbands can do no wrong, but because we are not them.

The heart of her husband safely trusts in her. Does that sound like dating to you? Isn’t part of the thrill of dating the unknown? The idea of being “Old reliable” to your husband may not interest you, but it should.  I know that a lot of people have a bad attitude about this Proverbs 31 woman, but I want to talk about her anyways. Because she is held up in Scripture as the ideal wife. And if you are a wife and you love the Lord – this is a role model that He has provided you.

The obvious point is that the heart of a husband should safely trust that you are not wandering. You affection should remain steadily with him. He should be able to trust you to not be fantasizing about other men, even if they are only fictitious – Mr. Darcy comes to mind. You shouldn’t care about Mr. Darcy. It doesn’t matter if the man you are dreaming of is a man of character and dignity, he isn’t your man and you should stop. He should be able to trust you to be faithful. Faithful to him, faithful to God, faithful to your vows.

Your husband should be able to trust that you are not playing hard to get. You need to consider yourself already gotten. Every day is not a new chance for your husband to earn your affection and respect. He should have it. I think women want to be wanted – which is natural. But the trouble comes in when you think making your husband jump through hoops and show his love for you is the only way he can show you he loves you, and the only way he can earn your love for the day. The same is true of respect. Respect him all the time – not just when he has a really respectable moment. There is an old and wonderful word for this – constancy. Be constant.

When you have a trouble, or a need, or a grief – give it to him plainly. Do not let these things come between you or threaten your love. If you like to set up barriers that he has to battle through every night when he gets home – you are the one creating distance. Busyness and children are notorious for creating distance – look past that to him. Do not expect him to get through it all to you. I don’t even know how many times I have heard people casually refer to men as the more sexually needy. And yet this behavior of women’s is extremely needy – acting like he really wants something that is yours to give, and yet you will not think of giving it unless he goes to great lengths – what is that? Lying in bed at night, acting like you are way too busy for your husband. Leave me alone. I’m BUSY. Watch me doze off, and yearn for a better tomorrow. Seriously women –  fight for intimacy with your husband through whatever barriers you are finding in front of you. Let him fight though his – don’t make him also battle his way through your selfishness or tiredness or indifference. Do your part to make this part of your marriage thrive. If your husband wants it more than you do, want it for him more than you do.

Related to this – be honest. Many women strike a pose of sexual indifference because it gives them some kind of serene majesty in the bedroom. Don’t do this. Do not hide your interest or talk later as though you didn’t care one way or the other, but since he is so needy…. Think if your husband did this to you. Think of if he always mentioned conversations that you had where you really connected as though he seriously could have done without that. If he joked about not needing to hear how you were feeling ever again. That is simply unloving. One of the ways we become one flesh is through taking on the needs and strengths of the other. What he needs, you need. What you need, he needs.

The heart of a husband should be able to trust that you are not going to generate drama between you so that you can feel some sort of catharsis over the resolution. Sometimes women fall back on this as an escape from what they see as the monotony of marriage. If we all feel the same about each other all the time, how boring would that be? This is simply a lack of faith in God’s plan for you. A marriage without drama does not mean a cold marriage. People always talk about where the spark has gone in your marriage, as though a spark is the ultimate achievement. Well ideally, it has turned into some red hot coals. No drama does not mean no heat. Sparks are not always an indicator of things being alive. Sometimes it is just someone trying to light a damp log with a sparkler.  We should be pursuing in our marriages a kind of deep, unrelenting, steady heat. True love is not showy, it is reliable.

Most importantly, your husband should be able to safely trust that you are in submission to God and seeking to grow, and be challenged. He should be able to trust you to be wise and not reactive. He should be able to trust you to help him and not accuse him. He should be able to trust you to deal with difficult things and remain with him. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her.

 

Let it Rise.

I was chatting with a friend the other day about abortion- specifically those videos that go around on Facebook. She was feeling tremendously frustrated because while these videos will make all of us cry and feel angry, they seem to make pro-choice people simply dig their heels in.  The complete blindness to the obvious personhood of babies can be horrifyingly frustrating. Knowing that she and I are not the only two Christian women who find this whole issue overwhelming and frustrating, I thought I’d share with you all some of the things that have helped me process it.

First of all, and this can not be overemphasized, the whole discussion is not about arguments. The world does not need one really good argument, but it really does need good news. They do not need new evidence for the personhood of the unborn, they need new hearts. They do not need to see the baby as it is, they need to not be blinded by sin. So while it is not pointless to be sharing these things – the reason that it is important is because it is important to be declaring the Gospel. One part of the Gospel is the reality and depth of our sin. One part of the Gospel is the freedom of forgiveness. One part of the Gospel is transformation of darkness to light, hopelessness to hope, sorrow to laughter, filth to righteousness. So in as much as these things are declaring some part or all of this – they are a Gospel declaration and well worth doing. And they may very well fall on deaf ears – but it isn’t an intellectual argument. The argument isn’t for the ears, it is asking God to move in hearts. God tells us to declare His word, His gospel, His son – and when we do  He uses that on the hearts of those who hear. It is His ordained means of saving people, and it is different than the means we would have chosen.

Sometimes we chafe against God’s means. We are like the Jews who wanted Jesus to come riding in like a military hero, and we aren’t satisfied with His method of laying down His own life for us. We want some argument about abortion to go off like a thunderclap with instant results, but that is not how God set this up. He told us to obey, and that faithfulness in our lives is like leaven in the world, and it will work its way out.

It is easy for us to shrug off the work of faithfulness that is closest to us and still feel righteous because we are concentrating on the sin of others – the horrors of abortion can provide a convenient foil. We would rather get indignant about the sins of unbelievers than be indignant about our sin. Maybe we like to think about the big ticket sins in the world because it helps our own besetting sins look smaller. What is a little unkindness towards your children, or disrespect towards your husband, or poor entertainment standards, or envy, or bitterness when there is so much worse happening down the street at the Planned Parenthood?

But sin, any sin, confuses. When we allow sin in our lives, we are allowing blindness in our lives. And we who are children of God are sinning against a greater light. When we fail to submit to God’s word on some issues, we are failing to submit to God altogether. So this is my challenge to all of us who are pro-life. Let us ask God to use our lives in this particular fight. Let’s ask Him to make our obedience a blow against the world’s disobedience in this issue. Ask Him to make our lives a declaration of the Gospel that cannot be quieted. Ask Him to use us like leaven.

And while we are doing that – lets stop and honestly look at our lives. What are the things that have been laid out before us over and over and we have refused to hear? What have we let sin blind us to? What things have we carefully avoided reflecting on? In what areas of our lives are we afraid of the truth? Has there been truth that was inconvenient to us, so we smothered it? Has there been some obedience that we thought would make things harder for us, so we pretended it wasn’t any thing other than a clump of petty sin? Are we angry at women who won’t carry a baby to term because of selfishness, and yet we wield that same selfishness on a smaller scale every day? Are we despising the sins of others while nurturing our own?

The truth is that the Gospel has to change us completely – it has to work through our own lives like leaven. It has to find those spots in our lives that we are trying blindly to keep it out of. And when we have completely yielded to it, it will have nowhere else to go but out.

 

Curlers (and stuff)

Have you ever noticed that when people self-describe they’re almost universally wrong?

Well ok, perhaps I’m being a bit pessimistic with “almost universally.” Suppose we re-phrase that into something a little less off-puttingly negative. I’m going to take another stab at it, and this time I’ll be much more encouraging and optimistic.

Have you ever noticed that when people self-describe they’re very often wrong? (I think that was much more delicately and tactfully phrased.)

I don’t mean when people say things like, “I just finished reading a book on gardening,” (which I did, coincidentally) or “I cleaned the bathroom today,”  (which I ought to have), but more when they say things like, “I’m just a really ___________ kind of person.”

This can manifest itself in anyone from the marriage counselor who’s had 4 divorces (“Seriously! I’m an expert on this! Let me offer you some life-coaching!”) down to the lovely and well-meaning woman who always brings that rather revolting casserole to church potlucks because she’s convinced that it’s her specialty. (“I just knew that everyone would be so disappointed if I didn’t bring my famous Nevada Pie with extra kidney beans!”) And then of course everyone at the potluck takes a helping because no one wants to hurt her feelings, and mothers plop a serving onto their offended childrens’ plates while shooting them That Warning Look . . . and the poor deluded woman goes home perfectly satisfied in the knowledge that her Nevada Pie is treasured and loved.

I’ll never forget the man who announced that he was the “musically gifted brother” in the congregation, and a more painful musical performance you could never hope to witness than when he struck up a tune for a special number at church, which he did with excruciating frequency. It may have only been twice, but believe you me, that was excruciating frequency. (That of course was back in the good old rollicking days of my youth when we had special numbers at church. And now that I think about it, it may actually have been the musically gifted brother who was the under-girding cause of our liturgical shift I don’t know . . . )

I’m sure you must have seen this happen a lot. The man who pontificates about how best to play a guitar is painfully average. The girl who is so sure she’s irresistibly alluring is often more funny than anything. The kid convinced he is a great scholar is often noticeably uninspired. Everyone else in the room has a very different impression of them than they have of themselves. In Christian circles perhaps the delusion can persist longer (indefinitely?) because everyone is so cautious about hurting the poor chump’s feelings.

I’m absurdly sensitive when I run across someone else who is in that awkward place of not seeing themselves the way others see them. I cringe for them. I get inordinately embarrassed. I worry that maybe I’m doing it too and no one is telling me because they’re all just so nice . . .

Talent shows can be unbearable. Someone clambers up on to the stage, clutching their hula hoop, or their trombone, and I slide a little further down into my seat. I can’t quite look at them. As the trombonist starts limbering up his lips and clucking his tongue and licking his teeth, I shuffle my feet and clear my throat and twiddle with my ring and prepare to be mortified. The suspense is awful. Is he right, or is he wrong about his tromboning prowess? After the first few bars of the tune I either cringe still further, feeling embarrassed for him with all my heart, or I look up . . . wondering . . . could it possibly be? . . . is he actually good? And then I can unclench my jaw and my calf muscles and sit up and enter into the spirit of the trombone-a-thon.

As a matter of fact I’ve begun to feel rather pessimistic about mankind’s ability to assess ourselves.  It’s as if great chunks of humanity are living their entire lives like the woman who shows up to the dinner party with her best smoky evening eyes, rhinestones glistening, dress perfect, shoes expensive, hair amazing . . . except for that one curler she forgot to take out of the back. She walks into the room, confident of the impression she’s making . . . but completely oblivious of the impression she’s making.

Yes, this has gotten terribly long and rambling and strangely autobiographical, but it seems to me that the human race is peculiarly susceptible to this. We want to make a particular impression, so we think we are, in fact, making that impression. We want to possess a particular talent and so we think we do. We want to be the kind of person who is a fount of knowledge whom everyone turns to for advice, so we put instructional videos on youtube and think we’re Martha Stewart. Perhaps our American mantra of “You can be anything you want to be and don’t let anyone tell you different” is partially responsible for reinforcing the problem. But if we so readily do this with things like our appearance or our talents, how much do you think we might do this with our sins? How often do we have a sin clinging to us like that forgotten curler, but we’re so busy admiring the rest of our outfit that we fail to see how adversely that one crucial detail is affecting the rest of the picture.

Today I was reading Psalm 19 and this jumped out at me, “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep thy servant also back from presumptuous sins . . .” There seems to be a distinction between the presumptuous sins we commit – the perfectly obvious ones which we saw ahead of time and stomped our way into them anyway with a nasty belligerent look on our faces . . . and the sins that we don’t even see. The ones we miss because we’re not looking there. Who can understand his errors? Who can see that curler on the back of their own head? Well, obviously, the person who’s using one of those medicine cabinet mirrors that have two doors that open so you can look at the back of your own head, that’s who. And of course James tells us that God gives us that mirror in his Word. If you’re looking in it, you’ll see yourself truly;  all the way around, secret errors and renegade stowaway curlers included.

I sometimes wonder if it might be a healthy exercise to swing out those mirrored doors from time to time and take a glance at the back of our heads. The place we haven’t looked in a while. Or, galloping bravely into another metaphor without so much as a pause, pull out the couch in our soul and take a glance at what old socks, dust-bunnies, stale remnants of PBJs and secret errors may be lurking beneath it.

What kind of person do you think you are? Say to yourself, “I’m a really __________ kind of person.” What do you instinctively put into that blank? Introverted? Outgoing? Rational? Emotional? Hospitable? Artistic? Then step back and ask yourself it that’s the whole picture.

“I’m a really organized person.” Now pull out that mirror and ask yourself if there’s any corresponding sin you missed. Such as, “I snap at my husband when he doesn’t put things back where they go and honestly sometimes he can’t see or appreciate my organization because all he can see is my petty nagging, selfishness, and lack of charity.” There you go – you’ve found your curler.

“I’m a really laid-back person.” Pull out the mirror . . . are all the positive aspects of your character (the ones that you see and like to focus on) being blurred for everyone else because of a sin you’re overlooking?

The lovely thing is, you don’t need to get morbidly introspective as I have frequently done, and you don’t have to wonder if you might have succumbed to a horrible sin that you never even knew about and never could possibly know about. We have an answer key. We have an infallible mirror. Ask God to show you your “secret faults” and He will. And He’ll cleanse you from them too . . . which is downright comforting when you think about it.

Joy Farmers

If you have seen much or any of my writing I think you know that I am no stranger to messes. My children are specialists. I told my husband recently that I think I need a ref’s shirt and a whistle because that seems to be my main job these days. Throwing penalty flags for dress-ups on the stairs. Trying to stop myself from just clearing the table, wiping up the milk, picking up socks, and trying to actually track down the child responsible so that they might learn the rules of play.

But sometimes I think that the emphasis I put on dealing joyfully with mess and mayhem may lead people to believe that I just dig dust bunnies and static filled sweatpants. And I don’t. But I guess I would rather people erroneously think that of me than have me glue a veneer of togetherness on my very real and gritty lifestyle, and then talk about how everyone should be joyful.  I could, in theory, take a picture of a clean, light filled place in my house and make it seem like we never have finger smudges and random bloody noses. Maybe I could make it look like my three year old never shows up in inside out tights- as- pants and like I never let that happen for two hours before I find her jeans. If this is what women are looking for, there are whole worlds on Pinterest devoted to this, and they certainly don’t need me to provide it. And since the real message that I care about is joy and faithfulness, I think it would be counterproductive to try to make it look like I always the perfect circumstances for that kind of joy. Well I don’t, and neither do you.

What I think Christian women need is to find joyful reality. We need to live in that place where the beauty of the Gospel meets the reality of our lives. We’ve been trying to pick the splinters of reality out of our visions of happiness for so long now that we are all confused. We think that joy is present in perfection and through camera filters, but certainly not in midnight encounters with the stomach bug. You know how precious that little duck down curl is at the back of your baby’s neck? That’s real. You know what else is real? The times he runs his sticky wicky hands through that adorable curl and clogs it up with lunch. You know that beautiful Easter dress you sewed and the adorable pictures you took of your daughter sitting with the white fence and the light shining on her just so? That was real. But so was the hole in the knee of her tights and the huge dribble of jelly bean drool down the front of it. You know the miracle of new life – a whole person growing within you – the precious gift? That’s real. And so were the ten thousand times you puked because of it. And in all these beautiful moments and surprising lows, joy is required of you.

Gratitude, laughter, joy, faith, obedience – these are not seasonal things that should make short appearances in a Christian home. These are year round crops and your home ought to be the perfect environment for them. But many of us have gotten caught up in the impression that these things are flowers that we want to get so we can put them in a vase on the mantle. The truth is our job as christian wives and mothers is the job of faithfulness. The job of trusting God and rolling our sleeves up. Our work is in a farm that grows the flowers, not with the woman who waits for a delivery at the door. God gave us soil. He gave us oh so much fertilizer. He gives us water and sun and He gives us the seeds. But the work is for us to do. When we are faithful these flowers surround us and sometimes this beauty is so fragrant and so rich that it threatens to overwhelm us. And sometimes it is just rows and rows of soil and seeds, and the sky is dark, and the day is long. Our lives aren’t supposed to be either all flowers beautifully arranged or all manure piles waiting to go in. We are to know our way around it all, and be faithful in our work around it all. When we pursue obedience, God will give us the increase.

 

 

 

 

Sabbath Hearts

Back when I was in high school my Dad became convicted that we should be honoring the Lord’s Day more than we had been. Having grown out of a Jesus people kind of church that met in the parks sometimes, we were growing into Christian traditions that were much older and unfamiliar, and often seemed painfully stuffy.

It was true that Scripture clearly said the Sabbath was for rest. Of course we all had visions of Little House on the Prairie and very serious times past. It seemed to us that the only people who would be Sabbatarian were people who would wear horsehair shirts, scowl at children, administer discipline for laughter (as well as most other things), eat only boiled food, have no fun, and probably cause routine church splits about whether the bulletins should be tri-folded to reflect the Trinity or not.

In the midst of some angsty discussions around the dinner table Dad pointed out something that has stuck with me all this time “But what about homework, Dad? Are you saying that I’m not allowed to do homework on Sunday??!” He responded that it wasn’t that we didn’t get to work, it was that we got to not. It was hard to ignore this. I am not normally chafing at the bit to do homework, yet tell me that I may not and my desperation to do it becomes unbearable.

But at the end of the day we all just found it hard to argue with one of the Ten Commandments. It it is abundantly clear that the Sabbath day is a whole day to be kept holy, and a whole day to rest. We began implementing some guidelines, which we mostly still follow, that were simple rules of thumb. If it is your normal work, don’t do it on the Lord’s Day. We begin our Sabbath at 6:00 on Saturday and celebrate it through 6:00 on Sunday. So Saturday is a crazy day at the end of usually crazy weeks, and often times when we all roll into Sabbath dinner, we do it in a manner that we call “Crashing into Sabbath.”

Preparing and cleaning up Sabbath are part of the celebration of the day, not the normal work of life. And so we are willing to spend a big chunk of our Saturdays getting ready for Sabbath. Making food, getting our house ready if we are doing it here, getting children showered in the afternoon, making sure enough laundry is done for everyone to wear clothes in the morning.

Sabbath dinners have, by God’s grace,  grown into us. My parents began doing these dinners back when Ben and Bekah were newlyweds, and truthfully things began picking up speed pretty quick after that. At the beginning it was an effort to still see each other regularly even though our adult lives were starting to spread us out. And now it  has grown into something that is as much a part of us as it could be. We order our lives around it. If we go out of town, we hope to make it back in time. My kids think of it as the beginning of worship, as the best part of the week, as a destination, as a bookmark, as the ultimate comfort food,  and as who we are.

But something else happened to me along the way. It was one thing to lay down your schoolwork on the Lord’s Day – but come now. I am a mother of six children. They don’t stop. There are dishes and laundry and floors to sweep and toys to sort and all kinds of things that always need to be done. I found myself saying things to myself about not being able to stop, because it doesn’t work that way anymore. I still considered the Sabbath a day of rest, but I had slowly let it be a day of rest plus. Rest plus talking about how I couldn’t stop. Rest plus maybe a tiny bit of resentment that there doesn’t seem to be such a thing for me anymore. Rest plus unrest. Clearly this was not right.

At some point, chatting to my husband about this, he pointed out that obedience comes first. He told me just to start by laying it all down, by not thinking about it, by letting it go, and see what God does with that. And you know what I discovered? I discovered that what I didn’t see was what kind of rest I really needed. Obedience without excuses has a wonderful way of giving you better perspective.

To be clear, we still aren’t people who blow an air horn if we see someone loading a dishwasher on the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. But something that I have grown to see is that God was offering me something that was so much better than what I was hoping for. I visualized some kind of pure retreat somewhere where everything is clean and you forget that you ever have worked. What God has given me is totally different but so much more refreshing. Honoring the Lord’s day with all of the “inconveniences” that brings to a busy household has given me all of the energy I need for that busy household.

When six o’clock rolls around on Sunday night, I love the sound of the dishwasher starting and the laundry rolling and the smells of the work week coming at us. Taking the day off on Sunday has given me a deeper love for the days on. Monday morning enthusiasm for housework and routine. Digging out of the celebration of the Lord’s Day is in itself a refreshing thing. Turns out, greater obedience in this area gave me greater insight into what kind of rest I actually need. I don’t need a clean space, I need an obedient one. I don’t need a perfect haven of restfulness, I need a heart of rest. I don’t need all the external resources to celebrate the Lord’s Day without consequences. I need the consequences of the Lord’s Day for the rest of the days to be joyful.

I just found that picture up at the top in my old photos. My Grandpa’s well-worn, always-warm Naval Academy ring. A summer sabbath at our house, and it reminds me of one of his favorite old Navy quotes, “Goodie goodie, Monday morning, and another week in which to excel!”

Of course I would change it only slightly to another week in which to obey.

 

Zealous for Good Works

I often speak with women who want to be involved in “service” of some kind, and they wonder what they should do and how to find it. This is a good and godly impulse; in fact, it is a God-given impulse that identifies us as His very own. Paul tells us in Titus that we were made for good works for God “…gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works” (2:14).

We are God’s own special people. This is a tremendous fact. He has redeemed us from sin, He has cleansed us from sin, and He has made us His very own.  He redeemed us from all the bad works we were doing (lawless deeds) and now as “His own special people” we are eager and hungry for good ones.

Later in Titus 3:8, Paul says “This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.” And in 3:14 we have it repeated: “And let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful.”

We can gather several things about good works from these two passages. First of all, we are to learn to do good works. That means we are not naturally skilled at good works, but we can learn. Titus 2:11 says the grace of God is our teacher. We learn from His Word,  we learn by observing others, and we learn by much practice.This is part of the curriculum in Christ’s school.

Second, we must be careful or attentive regarding good works. We must take this seriously and not have good works be something that we add to our busy schedules to make us feel good about ourselves. Good works are not a little box we check off on our good days. They require our care and attention.

Third, we are to maintain good works, or keep them up, persevering in them. “Do not grow weary of doing good” (2 Thes. 3:13).

Fourth, we must affirm constantly, or talk about good works regularly, keep them on our radar, and make this a way of life.

Fifth, we are to be zealous! We must give ourselves to these good works with eagerness and readiness, not dragging our feet. Remember, they are good works, so we ought to be cheerful not grumpy or bitter or lazy.

Finally, we are to pay particular attention to urgent needs. These cannot be put off till a more convenient time. They must be done now. These might be meals for the sick, visits to the hospital, cleaning or babysitting or running errands. These are not fancy needs; they are urgent.

All we have to do is ask God to open our eyes to the many needs, especially the urgent needs, that surround us every day. Most of these are not glamorous. Few are rewarded with praise and thanks. In fact, most of these good w0rks that God has prepared in advance for us to walk in (Eph. 2:10) are found in our ordinary, day-t0-day lives.They are humble tasks, and they are things we have the skills to do.

Dorcas was a woman “full of good works and charitable deeds” (Acts. 9:36-43). What were some of those deeds? Sewing tunics and garments. We do not have to go further than our own homes to find many good works waiting for us in our domestic duties. We simply fail to recognize them as good works because we have renamed them “duties” or “drudgery.”  Remember who we are: God’s own special people, created and purified and zealous for good works. Rename some of those things you do every day that are good works. Look at them, commit them to God, be eager to do them as a response to His work in you. Why are they good? Because God’s grace is in them.

 

 

Spurgeon on Contentment

“A man’s contentment is in his mind, not in the extent of his possessions. Alexander the Great, with all the world at his feet, cries for another world to conquer.”

“You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.”

“I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water. Lifting up her hands, she said as a blessing, ‘What! All this, and Christ too?’”

“No heart of a child of God will ever be satisfied with an object or person short of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is room for wife and children, there is room for friend and acquaintance, and all the more room in one’s heart because Christ is there. But neither wife nor children, nor friends nor kinsfolk can ever fill the believer’s heart. He must have Christ Jesus. There is no rest for him elsewhere.”