Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 41

My husband makes me laugh

Can't see the video in your RSS reader or email? Click Here!

That’s not my husband in the video, in case that was unclear. My husband was the thinker-upper of that little vignette. The director of the piece. The brilliant, or possibly diseased mind responsible for dreaming up that awesome moment with the five-toe shoes and the pen.

And anyway, you should come to the conference. It’ll be fun. And we’re doing another Femina mini-conference this year called Glory Makers. And you should all be there. You can wear your five-toe shoes and bring your Buddhist prayer flags.

Mother’s Day Sale!

Ahoy out there, all you people needing Mother’s Day ideas! Hot shopping tip! Here is a festive little bundle of books which Canon Press is selling for 50% off at the moment.

Heart-Guarding (and other ways to whitewash a tomb)

So there were a couple questions raised on the subject of girls being constantly told to “guard their hearts.” Ok yes, I know that the questions were actually addressed to Lizzie, but I am nonetheless horning in with two of my cents.

First: I’m sure all you girls are tired of hearing the older women say this. But as Lizzie astutely pointed out, once girls actually start listening to the advice the older ladies will no doubt stop offering it. The trouble, however, is that no matter how often people offer you this advice, it doesn’t actually make it any easier to do, does it? That’s where the real problem comes in.

Quick aside: If you don’t actually see the point of all this, if you’re thinking to yourself, “Guard my heart? Why on earth would I do that?” then hark back to the old truism about the tape. The first time you stick a piece of tape to something it’s good and sticky. If you then peel it off and stick it to something else it may possibly still stick. The third time, the corners are probably not staying down. Fourth time it’s only limply clinging on in a pathetic sort of way. Do this too many times and you find yourself with nothing more than a dirty, linty piece of cellophane. Similarly (in case you missed the inference), the more times you give your heart away, the less likely it gets that your heart will be capable of staying put. And it’s not just that something in you gets weakened each time this happens. As a matter of fact, something in you gets strengthened as well . . .  your ability to switch the object of your affection. You have trained yourself to have a roving eye – and that habit will certainly not stop simply because you get married.

Right then. Having thus established my street cred as someone in favor of urging girls to guard their hearts, I am now going to promptly switch teams and take issue with the phrase “guard your hearts.” (I’m fully acknowledging that is a Biblical phrase – I’m not disagreeing with Proverbs here. I’m disagreeing with a certain understanding of this which sometimes creeps in.) Here’s the thing. One of my pet peeves (along with boys in my family allowing their socks to droop off the ends of their toes) is people acting as if a young girl’s heart is a beautiful, innocent, tender, blushing frailty which needs constant tending to keep it from getting damaged or spoiled. Pardon me while I dance around in a fury just thinking about that. A young girl’s heart is actually . . .  we might as well be blunt . . . deceitfully wicked. (Don’t blame me – take it up with Jeremiah.) A girl’s heart doesn’t need to be “guarded” as if it’s a rare and beautiful flower that can’t be jostled. What it actually needs to be is saved, disciplined, rebuked, forgiven,  trained, sanctified.

That said, here’s a bit of a hit list on things you can do to train your heart.

1. Don’t allow yourself the luxury of thinking of your heart as an innocent and beautiful treasure which you will tenderly bestow on some worthy knight in shining armor. That’s just a cop out.

2. Just because you “feel” something doesn’t make it ok. We too often think that when we “feel” a certain way, that somehow validates it. If it’s something you shouldn’t be feeling, make yourself stop. Pray for grace. If your “feeling” is a sin, confess it.

3. Don’t be an idiot about stories. Letting yourself swoon and obsess about fictional characters (or actors) may seem innocent – it’s not. If you have problems with infatuations, take an honest look at what you let your mind and emotions do in books and movies. Your imagination is the training ground for real life. If you have swoony pictures of Johnny Depp up on your wall, go take them down. (Go on – do it now. I’ll wait til you get back. And as a spiritual exercise, once you’ve un-taped it from the wall, try taping it back up again and see how well it sticks.)

4. Don’t focus all your efforts and energies on impressing the guys, or getting admiration from them. As you are getting dressed and doing your hair in the morning, if  all your mental energy is expended on imagining what the guys will think when they see you . . . well I guarantee that you will be unable to guard your heart if and when any of your efforts prove successful. If all your conversations in real life and on facebook are conducted for the benefit of any guys who possibly be listening, you have officially given away the store as far as guarding your heart goes. If you’re constantly casting about in the hopes of male attention, well then I think we’ve pinpointed your problem.

5. If the guy is a wimp, a skeeze, a non-Christian, already married, or otherwise unsuitable . . . then no matter how handsome he is, or how complimentary he is about your eyes, don’t let your emotions go there.

But what if he’s not any of those things? What if he’s a great guy? What do you do about your heart then?

A couple things spring to mind. Are you 13 years old? If so then this is not the time to scope out husband possibilities – but it’s a great time for you to be working on training your heart. If he’s a great guy but courting someone else, then now is a great time for you to work on training your heart. If he’s a great guy but is clearly uninterested in you, then now is a great time for you to work on training your heart.

But what if he’s a great guy, and he’s a legitimate possibility? Well I would say that the main thing to keep in mind is that there’s a big difference between being optimistically open to a possibility, and allowing your emotions to gallop away into the rosy horizon of possible relationships. One is being open to something, and one has already closed on something. Incidentally, this one is quite difficult and takes a lot of wisdom. And if you’ve really stunk it up on the above list, it will be next to impossible for you to do this one right.

Lastly, what if you’ve done everything wrong on this list? What if you’re feeling a bit like an un-sticky piece of tape? Well that’s the beauty of forgiveness and grace. You can confess all that, and God will forgive all that. Nothing is hopeless about Christianity – especially not the state of your heart. God’s in the business of giving new ones.

Militant Virtue, a few questions entertained

Yesterday’s post on militant virtue inspired a lot of discussion, and rather than tag on a bunch of comments of my own I thought I’d just follow up with another post.

First of all was a concern that I expressed the need for positive virtue, but then basically described it all as defensive. A couple things on this. First, there are a great many things that a young woman can and should do to be proactive about these things. They vary however, very widely with her circumstances. There is no way to lay out a set of rules like “stop hanging out by the pop machine and looking needy”, although that would probably be good advice in some situations. Second, defensive responses do not feel like negative space when you use them. In other words, in actual practice it feels more like lobbing a water balloon into someone’s face. It isn’t invisible.

Another reason that I did not lay out specific responses is because these sorts of things vary widely by personality as well. My sister and I grew up in the same community, with exactly the same amount of protection and security. Still, we respond quite differently when push comes to shove. Back when she was in seventh grade (I was in third), there was a boy in her class who would call her to fuss and be pitiful about various things, mostly girls. She was aggravated no end by him, and dinner table conversations were had about handling the situation. My Dad coached her on what to do. Soon enough, the boy called again. Bekah was out, and I answered. He got tedious instantly  ”But where is she??”, “Rachel, how do you not know?? When will she be back?”

Having already had my fill of him vicariously, I rather pithily said “Matt, life is too short to talk to wimpy guys.” He was scandalized. “Rachel! I am going to tell your Dad that you said that!!” I was ready for that one. “He won’t mind, he is the one who said it.” And then I hung up. Now, say what you will about my methods (Matt did), I was four years his junior and felt fine about calling him a wimp and hanging up on him. Bekah was also actively on the defense with him, but it did not look the same.

Another set of concerns was about christian young men who have been brought up to honor women and employ certain sets of manners to do so. First of all – I have never in my life refused a man opening the door for me, and always reply with a  cheerful “thanks!” However, part of my great comfort with this arrangement is that it allows me to blow right past them and not have any follow up conversation. It is polite and kind in the most basic non-imposing sense. If the same man tried to help me push my grocery cart to my car and did not respond to me saying “no thanks, I’m fine.” No matter how selfless his motivations, he has intruded into my space and if he doesn’t scoot along he might get kicked in the ankle. I did say in my original post that sometimes these sorts of things are caused by “cultural differences.” That is where I would place these. I don’t want any man to cherish me who is not my husband or immediate family members. If some guy feels that the most basic of christian manners is to give me a back rub because I look tired, I am saying nothing about his essential motives when I tell him to back off.

Another small point: women are not to be honored and esteemed, no more than men are to be respected and submitted to. There are specific men that I respect and honor, and there are specific men who can cherish and protect me. As a group, christian men and women are not in wedlock to each other. There was a bad woman in Proverbs also, as you will all recall. There are a lot of men that you had better not let protect you. Under this heading would also fall the concept of just treating the young men like your brothers. I would say that the position of brother in the literal, familial sense is WAY too close for your average Christian boy. Just ask anyone to tell the story of “he was just like a brother to me…”, and it will almost always end with “until…”  You can certainly have male friends, but it will never last unless there is a solid distance maintained consistently. A real brother will be in the role of councilor, aggravator, friend, companion, and protector. General boys at church should certainly not have the same kind of access.

Someone also referred to making our young women paranoid about the sexual intentions of the young men. This may be a personal pet peeve, but I will share it nonetheless. When young girls get this way – “I would never wear this shirt, because doubtless I would stumble all the men at church,”  the problem is not really with her perception of the sexuality of the men. Her problem is all revolving around her own sexuality. She doesn’t need to worry about the interior of the heads of the boys, because she could do a lot more profitible work by looking into her own. For the most part girls get caught up in that sort of worry as a cover for how much they enjoy it. They like the idea of the boys being consumed in lust if they see their bra strap, and thus they spend a lot of time fussing to the other girls and women about what might happen and how much it upsets them.

Probably the biggest factor in “militant virtue” is to take responsibility for yourself. Just because you got a ride to the party and are embarrassed to ask about being taken home does not excuse your presence at it. Just because that boy started the conversation about nudity in art does not mean you should be there to hear it. Just because you weren’t sure what to do about it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have done it. This brings us back full circle to the first point. By and large the proactive things you should do are connected to the situations you don’t know how to get out of. Back it up a few steps and notice how you got there. Either come up with an effective response, or come up with a way to stay out of it in the first place.

Lastly, in terms of everyone being tired of hearing the same old “guard your hearts (you pitiful little girls).”  Instead of being the receiver of the advice, you should give it a whirl as a councilor. The reason these things are said over, and over, and over is because there are older women meeting with girls and kleenex boxes over, and over, and over. The council has not, for the most part, been heeded. When the episodes of unnecessary broken heart syndrome stop, so will, I imagine, the advice.

Militant Virtue

A common problem that we all have when thinking or talking about female virtues is that of speaking in negatives. As though female virtues were a sort of empty space. We think a gentle and quiet spirit is another way of saying vacant. We think modesty is simply the absence of inappropriate dressing. We think that chastity is the absence of promiscuity. We think that faithfulness at home is the absence of going out and doing other things. But scripture does not define virtues in terms of empty space, it is defined in terms of fruit.

Matthew 7:16 says quite simply “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”

Painfully straight forward I know, but do you notice how it does not say anything about knowing it is a grape vine by the absence of thistles. It’s the grapes that really tell the story. In the Fairie Queene there is a female knight named Belphoebe, who represents chastity. What a wonderful image! Chastity is a militant virtue. It requires an active defense.

Now the reason that I bring all this up is that many young ladies simply have no defense. Especially when it comes to the young men. I know I usually write more to mothers, but can you believe that there was a time when I also was in high school and college? It wasn’t even so long ago that I have forgotten about it. Of course much of this is still applicable to married women, because faithfulness to your husband is not the absence of wandering – it is the presence of a defense.

Forgive the possible tackiness of this metaphor, but if you have ever watched a nature film, or seen a dog on a walk, or really paid attention to life at all, you will have noticed a certain tendency among the male of the species. They mark their territory. They make a claim. They fight over the girl water buffalos. Men do exactly the same thing, starting somewhere around the sixth grade. They like to impose on women around them in a way that builds their territory, or their prestige, or their ego. Let me hasten to say that I am not here talking about what you should teach your sons about controlling this kind of behavior, I am talking about being the women in a world where this will happen.

One of the great skills of the female life is learning to be on the defense in these situations. It is about not letting men who are simply passing by you leave a mark. It is about not being a victim, not being vulnerable, and not being willing to be imposed on. I need to hasten to add one other qualification – when boys or men do this, it is not necessarily springing from any deep nefarious desires. Sometimes, it is just an accident. Sometimes it is a bad habit, or a different culture. Sometimes they aren’t actually paying attention when they impose. So don’t take this post as an accusation towards the men who impose on, or attempt to impose on you. These are all excellent opportunities for you to practice virtue.

Often times in Christian circles these impositions are super subtle, and seemingly completely innocent. Sitting down next to you on a bench which provides a suddenly private conversation. Patting your back and lingering for a little moment too many. Taking a sip out of your drink without asking. Asking for a ride that you might rather not give. Telling a joke that is based on subject matter you didn’t need to share with them. Texting in the middle of the night. Referring casually to your hormonal situation. Being just a little over the line, a little too casual, a little too friendly, a little too near, or just a little too everything.

The important thing that I wanted to communicate in this is that a response is required. It is absolutely necessary to female virtue. When some young man (or older, whatever) is imposing on you, you must not be imposed on. You do not just let these things happen. Smiling, laughing nervously, giving the ride, staying on the bench, or simply not resisting is how you let a mark be made.

It is also absolutely critical that you maintain a good sense of humor, not being self-serious, while somehow remaining entirely unmoveable. Young women have a great deal of trouble with the fear of being shrill, and if that doesn’t scare them they probably are shrill. I can clearly remember the feeling of not wanting to overreact to something that you were pretty sure was not seriously intended.  So the secret here is to not overreact, but to be perfectly firm and cheerful. Someone unwelcome joins you on a bench? Unjoin him. Stand up. Walk away.

I know another problem for the unmarried women is that they  might think that the young man, or young men are all interested in them seriously. They feel like these things would not be happening in Christian circles if the men involved had no intentions. They would not be getting rides with me, walking me to my car, making a show of having inside jokes with me, or otherwise giving me attention if they were not actually interested in me.

But here is the deal: there is a way to be the girl who is the fire hydrant on the corner. Nervous laughter, eager attention whenever he starts to tell you something, always being there for a conversation, lots of interested eye contact. These things do not make you a serious intention, they make you an easy target. And honestly, the whole fire hydrant situation never was about the fire hydrant. It was about how conveniently located it was to show the other dogs you have been there. When young men do this kind of thing, it is often not even about you. It is about them, and about the other guys.

And, lest my comparing young men to the neighborhood dogs inspire in you feelings of great contempt towards them, just keep it in perspective. It might be out of line for them, but it is in the ballpark of a girl who doesn’t pay attention when she bends over. Immodesty from women is distributed in exactly the same way. Maybe she wanted one particular guy to notice her, but she certainly didn’t have serious intentions toward every single man she walked by in that ensemble.

So if you are a young woman in this kind of situation, practice cheerful resistance. If the world of interaction between the sexes was a billiard table, be a bumper, not a pocket. Cheerfully, firmly, rudely  enforce your standards. You don’t owe him an explanation. Don’t get caught up in reasons you can’t give him a ride. Just say no. If he insists, pushes, tries harder, say “have a nice walk!”

Do not be afraid that this kind of defense will keep anyone from ever seriously being interested in you. If it is the right kind of man, this sort of behavior will bless him deeply. Would you be blessed by a man averting his eyes from an immodest woman? Or would you prefer him to have lingered there, worried that it would be rude to walk away? Worried that she might think he was being unfriendly? Worried that she might actually want to marry him and he was missing his chance? Return the favor now, and guard yourself.

False Comfort

My husband had the bright idea of reprinting some articles from The Hammer, a little magazine I edited for Community Christian Ministries in the late 80′s. This article of mine was printed in 1986, volume V, no. 1. It is slightly edited.

We are told in Ephesians 6 to put on the whole armor of God so we can resist spiritual adversaries and not fall to temptation. But I believe we often get “hit” with our armor off and our shields down because we are in the presence of our Christian friends. When we get together with the saints, we feel safe and are consequently unprotected and not alert. There is one temptation I have noticed that can come at such times undetected. It is disguised as sympathy or Christian compassion.

Here is an example. Perhaps you have  been swamped recently with company, and you have more coming. Some Christian friend says to you, “Are you having more company? I don’t see how you do it!” Up until that time you may have had a sweet, happy attitude about your hospitality. But this seemingly innocuous remark can lead you astray. You may remark, “Oh no. I’ve really enjoyed the company!” But later your friend’s remark may come back to you, causing you to think, “I really have had too much company. I should be exhausted.” You begin to feel sorry for yourself. Where you once had joy, you now have self-pity and resentment. Your well-meaning friend has stumbled you. Your guard was not up.

I believe remarks like this abound in Christian circles. “You’re doing Sunday school again? Isn’t it time for someone else to do it?” “I don’t see how you manage when you get so little time with your husband.” “You’re pregnant again? How will you ever feed them all?” “I don’t see how you do it with just one car. Don’t you get frustrated?”

All these comments are ringing with, “You poor dear!” Is this really Christian compassion? On the contrary, such comments are not Christian compassion, but rather snares. They encourage you to feel like a martyr. You may have been content (and not thinking about yourself) when suddenly you are caught up short. Your attention suddenly focuses on yourself instead of others. From there it is a short step to self-pity and resentment.

What can be done? First of all, watch yourself. Don’t go about “poor dearing” your friends. Rather, be an encouragement to them. Instead of remarking on the large amounts of company they have had, take a dessert over to help them out with the load. Thank them for doing Sunday school. Even better, offer to help. Are you genuinely concerned about how little time your friend gets with her husband? If so, then offer to babysit while they go out. Instead of planting the seed of discouragement and self-pity by commenting on their obvious need for a second car, offer to loan them yours or give them a ride when they are in need. And by all means, do not discourage pregnant sisters with your negative remarks. Take them a box of goodies or fruit to help out feeding the little ones and remind them how precious they are in God’s sight. A little bit of encouragement can go a long way.

We should not be responsible for stumbling our fellow Christians and causing them to sin when we could be helping them bear their burdens. “Poor dearing” is not bearing a burden. Fixing a meal or doing someone’s laundry is. Make your encouragement extremely practical.

But what can you do to keep your guard up so that you are not vulnerable to the unwise remarks of others? Be alert. Recognizing such remarks as an invitation to sin is the first step in protecting yourself. I am not saying that I believe these remarks are premeditated to cause you to stumble. Certainly not! But when a fellow Christian begins to extend this kind of “sympathy,” you should cut it short. “Don’t feel sorry for me! I am thankful we are having another child!” By recognizing the temptation and responding in a thankful, joyful manner, you will protect yourself. And pray that you will not be tempted over the remark later. When you least expect it, you may hear it rolling around in your mind. Resist it like any other temptation and continue to carry on as before.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29).

You Make Me Feel So Guilty!

Have you ever noticed how often people (okay, women) say, “I feel so guilty”? Or, “You make me feel guilty!” Or  “You shouldn’t feel guilty about that!” I think it happens quite a bit in casual conversation between women.  But first let me define guilty. Guilt is when you have committed a crime or broken one of God’s commandments. You have done wrong. It is a serious thing to be guilty. But often we use it to just mean that we feel bad. Let me give some examples.

Guilty Example #1. You ate something (delicious) and now you feel guilty. You tell yourself you are a big loser because you ate it. Your friend dashes by on her morning run, and you haven’t exercised in a week. You feel so guilty. Should you feel guilty? True guilt is connected to real sin. Did God forbid that you eat it? Did He insist on the exercise?  No, but you are counting calories, and that sent you over the limit. You let yourself down. So next time eat a carrot. But don’t convict yourself of sin over it. You can’t confess that kind of guilt to God, because He is not going to forgive you for something like that. What you may need to confess is making up rules for Him.

Guilty Example #2. You show your friend the curtains you made or the sweater you knit or the garden you planted or the bread coming out of the oven, and she says, “You make me feel so guilty!” Now there are several possibilities here. First, maybe she is trying to give you a compliment, and she doesn’t know how to do it, so she compliments you on making her feel bad about her own failings compared to your achievements. Not a very complimentary compliment. And I doubt that she is really thinking this through. Second possibility is that she is envious of your achievements, and so this is her response. She doesn’t want to give you a straight-up compliment, so you get a back-handed criticism instead. It seems in a way as though her comment is designed to try and make you  feel guilty for showing her your curtains, as though you were at fault for being so crafty. Then you will probably quit showing her the stuff you do, and you may even feel guilty for making her feel guilty. Not exactly helpful in any direction. How much better to leave her guilty feelings out of it and simply say, “Oh, they are gorgeous!”

Guilty Example #3. Let’s say you hear a sermon or read something about how you should be honoring your parents or respecting your husband or loving your kids. Your response is something like, “I don’t like his sermons because they just make me feel guilty.” Let’s look at this. If by guilt you mean that you are convicted of dishonoring your parents or disrespecting your husband or being mean to your kids, then you should by all means feel guilty. If this kind of guilty is a godly sorrow, it drives us to repentance, and that is a good thing. That kind of guilty is healthy. I would prefer that we call it conviction of sin. If you read an article against shop-lifting and you have never shop-lifted in your life, you should not feel guilty, you should not feel a conviction of sin. You are innocent of shop-lifting. But if a sermon reveals to you that you’ve been letting something slide, then thanks be to God! The Holy Spirit is convicting you and Jesus has made provision for your forgiveness. Go to Him and receive it. Christianity is the religion for us sinners! Christians ought to want to grow, which means getting rid of the bad things and adding new things. God cuts off the dead branches and causes fruit to grow. He uses sermons and books to teach us, and when we learn, we will learn what we should stop doing and what we should begin doing. This is not something to “feel guilty” about. We should identify conviction of sin as a good thing.

If you feel convicted by the sermon on shop-lifting and realize you have to return some stuff, and a well-meaning friend says, “Oh don’t feel guilty about that! I do it all the time,” you should not find comfort in her confession. We women sometimes tell one another not to feel guilty when we ought to leave well enough alone. True conviction of sin is good because it leads to repentance. Feeling guilty about eating that cookie is not conviction of sin (unless you stole it). So stop it. Enough with the guilt!

Here’s what I think the bottom line is on this topic. We ought to quit letting other women’s successes provoke envy or jealousy in our hearts. We should be content. Then we can enjoy and benefit from their fruitfulness rather than “feeling guilty” over it. We ought to quit feeling guilty over stupid things, and we should encourage one another, where there is real sin, to repent.

The Glory of Children

The glory of children is their father, and here is mine, all mine! Today he is 95 years old, and still going strong, by the strong grace of God. I’ve always been very proud of my dad. An Air Force pilot, he fought in two wars for our country. He was wounded in WWII, came home and married a beautiful girl in Wyoming. They’ve had a marriage that has spanned almost seventy years! I thank God for His many kindnesses to me,  one of the central ones being a faithful father who loves his family. A glory indeed. Happy Birthday, Dad!

The Littleness of Motherhood

I was chatting with Mom on the the phone the other day when she said, "Hey, do you remember that blog we used to write on?" It all came flooding back. I meant to write something on that blog! Of course this was probably a week  and a half ago by now, but in the meantime we have had a birthday, a holiday, a mini family reunion, and I have stared down the laundry with an unflinching gaze. There is always a lot to be distracted by, caught up in, and busy with. A lot of little things. And that is good!

The last few weeks I have been really focusing on the all-important issue of when to run the dishwasher. It's true. If I run it after lunch, it is perfect. But only if I unload it in the afternoon, so that it is empty when I start dinner. Ideally, I unload it at the same time I set the table for dinner – right around 4:00. But if I do not unload it in the afternoon, things start going south, because then I can't put the dirty things in while I am making dinner. If I didn't unload it early, I probably didn't set the table early, and if I didn't set the table early, then probably everything will feel spastic at dinner. When everything is spastic at dinner time, well then, that is what happens.

If we sit down without drinks, or with silverware slapped at odd intervals around the table, then the chances increase by possibly 400% that we will also be correcting children for standing up in their chairs and grabbing pasta with their fingers. But when I run the dishwasher after lunch, unload it early, set the table early, and pour drinks before we get there, we find Titus standing behind his chair waiting for me to sit down, children using all the manners that we know they know, and a general calmness descends on dinner. When this all goes right, the children are more than capable of clearing their places and putting their dishes in the dishwasher – a thing I don't want them to do when the sink is full of raw chicken juice, and the dishwasher full of clean dishes.

Organization and dishwasher running are not the only things that are little about motherhood. Your days are full of little questions, little answers, little puzzles, little problems, little concerns. Little disobedience. Big disobedience over little things. This can be very discouraging to any mother. What have I ever done that was important? What, in the course of my regular day, matters? Is this hot new system for containing playmobil really as big of an accomplishment as I think it is? What happened to me that I think this is important?

Even the temptations to sin are little. Getting huffy about water on the bathroom floor. Falling into full fledged worry over a diaper rash, a cold sore virus, or a teething baby. Stumbling into pride over potty training, homemade bread, or well dressed children. Getting selfish over a moment with your coffee. Feeling that somehow the smallness of it all justifies the sinfulness in your attitude. Feeling completely fine venting your little sin over your little problem, or indulging your little pride over your little accomplishment.

Because, after all, as we can all see, this is LITTLE. Can I not indulge in a little fuss? Can I not have a little harsh word? Who wants to spend their whole day focusing on something as little as an attitude? Who would ever think that my demeanor towards mopping matters? Don't tell me that this is a big deal, because I know about big deals, and this is not what they look like.

I am sure that most of us are familiar with the wonderful verse in Luke, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much" (Luke 16:10).

The thing that I have been thinking about lately is that this verse isn't just talking about the little things as though they are qualifiers for things that might actually matter. It isn't telling us that if we are faithful enough with little things, eventually we will get a shot at something that might matter. I think that a more accurate understanding of this verse is that the more we are faithfully disciplining  ourselves, controlling ourselves, confessing our sins that are tiny, the more the little things we do are actually big. They are not little anymore, when we are faithful in them.

God uses faithfulness to transform the little. It will not stay little in the presence of faithfulness. Conversely of course, lest we ignore the second half of that verse, unfaithfulness also transforms the little. A little sin, unchecked, has big consequences. A little indulgence, a little anger, a little selfishness, a little ugliness, these are the things that destroy lives.

This should be encouraging! What we are doing day by day is actually big stuff. And not just in the "way down the road, someday, something about this might turn into something." It is already something big.

As we all spend our days dealing with the little things, we need to see them as big things. Don't make excuses or ignore your little sins. Don't treat your little problems as though they are beneath your attention. Don't be ungrateful for the mental and spiritual journey surrounding turning on the dishwasher at the right time. God tells us that the little things matter over and over. He tells us that He cares about them, that He watches over even the tiniest of sparrows. He wants us to see the little too. Not in some kind of weird, narrow focus that makes no sense. But with faith, and in faith, knowing that in the presence of faithfulness, the littlest things grow.

P.S.

This:And this:Is a boy!