The pain and blessing of discouragement – or where is that abundant grace?

October 27, 2010

Maria 2 Corinthians , , 2 Comments

2 Cor 9:8 – And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all-sufficiency in all things you may have an abundance for every good work.

This is my 3rd year teaching one particular French class and I have let this class color my school life. I live with daily discouragement.   When I teach their class, I feel inadequate as a French teacher. It’s partly because of their personalities and partly because I have not yet developed sufficient skills with TPRS® (teaching proficiency and reading through story-telling), the foreign language methodology I use for French.

They are a quiet group of students with little inclination to use their imaginations. Their lack of participatory energy makes my skills all the more necessary to carry the class.  I feel like a stand-up comedian whose jokes fall flat.  It’s uncomfortable.  My French 1s and 2s are very imaginative and eager to create stories.  It’s easy to work with their momentum and interest.  We play a mutual game, this tossing language back and forth.  Class with those two levels is productive and satisfying because the burden is shared.

My daily negative evaluation and self-talk is ongoing.  But so are my prayers.  My verse this week has been Paul’s encouraging words meant to assure us that we risk nothing by sowing a lot.  If we sow much, we will reap much, because it’s God who causes the increase.  Let me assure you that I sow plentifully and pour myself into this class and still feel pathetic as a teacher.

I’ve been talking to God a lot these days.  My conversation has been something like the elder brother – “Lord, I’m working really hard, reading what other practitioners write, trying new things and I’m frustrated. I pray continuously and acknowledge that I am helpless and needy.  You know that I have limited time and can only invest so much into lesson prep.  I’m offering the widow’s mite, the 5 loaves and 3 fishes, depending on you to make it be enough.  I’m not even asking for leftovers.  Just make what I have to offer be enough!!!!  Why don’t you help me?  It’s not fair!!”   I can be VERY whiny!!

But this morning I had a glimmer.  Something worked well in French 2 and I saw how I might be able to apply it to French 3.  Could it be that God is letting me just stew and struggle against the waves and find my way?  I don’t want that.  I want the rough waters to part. I want smooth sailing.  I want to feel like I’m a competent teacher with skills that always work.  I don’t like living like one of those salmon struggling to make her way up stream.  I don’t like being the caterpillar pushing against the cocoon.  In short, I don’t like on-going flailing, depending on God and waiting for His help.  But maybe more is at stake in my struggle than just feeling comfortable with my skills.

This morning I was reading in Charles Spurgeon about a time when a heaviness would not lift.  He had been feeling despondent and finding no sin to repent of, he wondered at his depressed state of mind. He repeatedly asked God to restore to him a state of thankfulness and joy.  As it happened, a very troubled man came to him for help that Sunday after services.  Because Spurgeon had been feeling so empty, he was actually able sufficiently to identify with the man’s feelings and offer him Gospel hope.  Now he saw why God had allowed him to remain discouraged.  He would not have been able to connect as well with the miserable man who sought him out.  Spurgeon’s conclusion was that sometimes God causes us to feel a certain way for the benefit of someone else.  If we belong to Him, we should submit to however God chooses to use us.

So, dear Lord, I will labor on and trust that you know what you’re doing with me and this French class.  May your will be done!

How to use Logic to make a decision

October 21, 2010

Maria Attitude, Thinking , 1 Comment

There’s a meeting I SHOULD go to, but I don’t want to.  And I feel guilty.  What to do?

As I was pondering this, I started thinking about why I feel guilty?  Doing so brought up some pre-suppositions that actually govern my life.

Since this is my 4th year of teaching (i.e. learning) logic to 8th graders, it occurred to me that I ought to flush out these unspoken major premises and see if they are legitimate principles for making decisions in my life.

What kind of meeting is the one I am angsting over?  A monthly women’s group.  The focus for November is to pull together baby scrapbooks for new moms from the Crisis Pregnancy Center.  Most of these brave mothers are financially strapped and providing a partially-started book is a tangible way to show love.  What a great cause!

Here are my selfish reasons for not going –

1)    I don’t like going out at night once I’ve come home from work

  • It means rushing dinner
  • It means missing an evening discussion with my husband
  • It means missing out on prized and precious reading time

2)    I don’t like doing crafts

3)    This is optional: I have no particular role to fill accept as attendee

So why would I go? – Here are some reasons

  • People expect me to attend
  • I like people to think well of me
  • I feel guilty when I don’t do what people expect of me
  • What people think of me is important to me

So my syllogism looks like this:

Premise 1 – I should do what I imagine people expect me to do

Premise 2 – I imagine that the women of the church expect me to attend

Conclusion – Tf, I should go to this meeting

*

If the above syllogism is sound (valid in form and true in its two premises), then why don’t I use that same reasoning for serving in the nursery?

After all, I did serve once.  I didn’t like it.  I haven’t been back and  – yet – I don’t feel guilty.

What is the difference?  I think it can be found in premise # 2 – I don’t imagine that the women of the church expect me to do nursery.  But the women’s group is different.  I attended most of the monthly meetings last year and haven’t since July, all for reasonable conflicts.  But I don’t have a conflict this time.  I just don’t want to go.  But the leader of the group and I interact occasionally.  There is no one with the nursery with whom I interact on a regular basis.  So I don’t feel ‘accountable’ to any particular person.  But this gal is different.  I know I would miss out on an occasion to encourage her in her service.

Hmm, now that I have thought this through, I actually want to go.  I want to go in order to support the sponsor of this group.  And that is a positive reason, not a reason born out of guilt.

Here’s the new syllogism

Premise 1 – Attending events in order to support and encourage the leadership is a good reason

Premise 2 – I can support this women’s ministry by attending in November

Conclusion – Tf, I will attend in November

 

About God’s glory – what I learned on my school’s retreat

October 12, 2010

Maria Acts, Attitude, Ephesians, Psalms, Uncategorized , , , , Leave a comment

Psalm 19:1-2

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge

So whose glory are you intent on displaying?  Whose knowledge?  If nature purposefully magnifies God, why don’t we?

These are questions I ask myself daily.  For over a year, I have been painfully aware that I am more interested in communicating my talents and my uniqueness, hence ‘my glory’ than I am about making God look good.  Yet my daily prayer is, “Give me this day Lord, an opening to say something that makes much of you”.  Rarely, do I achieve that.  Now, to be truthful, I pray in the morning and then the rest of the day I fall back into my natural thought patterns of wanting someone to find me fascinating and ask me about my life.  Yes, I am well aware that this is pretty pathetic and also sinful.  I am stealing God’s glory.  After all, the reason you & I are alive is to glorify God.  So daily, I am NOT fulfilling my God-given purpose.

Last week our school, Summit Christian Academy, dedicated 3 days to an off-campus retreat.  The schedule for teachers and 7th-12th graders included community service, outdoor activities, free time, a talent show, games, small group time and a speaker.

The pastor’s theme was something to do about living a radically different life.  But God’s theme for me was, “How NOT to Rob God of His Glory”.  I was primed.  The young man from Lynchburg spoke for 3 one-hour sessions and it was in the last 10 minutes of Session 3, that God gave me specific insight on how to accomplish my heart-felt prayer.

The text was Acts 19: 13-16.  There were seven sons of a Jewish priest named Sceva.  These sons were exorcists who had observed Paul invoking Jesus’ name and driving out evil spirits.  They tried to copy Paul, although they were not believers.  At one point during an exorcism, a demon spoke out, frightening the seven fakers.  He said, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” And of course, these startled and petrified men fled, leaving their very clothes behind them.

The pastor’s point (that God tailored to me) was that as long as we have our own agenda and are living for ourselves, we are NO threat to the spirit world, the world of demons. In fact, we are like the seven sons of Sceva, totally unknown to Satan’s minions.  Self-absorption, therefore, is a guarantee of totally ineffectiveness on behalf of the Kingdom of God.  I will add the other SELF-sins:  SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS, COMPLAINING, WORRY, SELF-PITY, DEFENSIVENESS.  You get the picture.  As long as we are just about ourselves, we are certainly not glorifying Jesus.

But, if we realize that by our living for God’s glory, we can ‘stick it to the spirit world’ as the pastor put it, we are fulfilling our purpose.  When we don’t complain amidst difficult circumstances, we are a threat to the dark side.  When we are praising God for who He is, when we are praying, when we are patiently waiting year after year – in faith for God to work in someone’s life, we are taking a stand for the worth of God’s glory.   In short, when our thought life is so immersed in God instead of in us, we are confounding ‘the spiritual forces of wickedness’.

Paul is explicit in his letter to the Ephesians when he says that our fight is not against flesh and blood, but…..

We are ….contending against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.

As you can see, this pastor’s words during our retreat were the practical ‘how-to’ I needed to actively glorify God instead of Maria.  What is SO encouraging to me is that in light of what my purpose is and equipped with these concrete steps, I can now see how every day matters.  There doesn’t have to be any such thing as a wasted day, no matter how my personal ‘stuff’ goes.  Problems, setbacks, failures as well as successes are ALL occasions to wait, thank God, trust Him and pray.   I can also encourage someone who is flat on her back in the hospital or constrained in a nursing home that her life also matters, no matter her physical limitations.  One’s good attitude matters, one’s prayers for others matter, one’s good cheer matters, and how one spends her waking hours DOES make a difference in God’s kingdom.

So thank you Pastor Matt.  I, too, will enjoy opening my eyes each morning and imagining the spiritual forces of darkness grumbling, “Oh no, she’s awake!”

 

You live where your thoughts go

October 3, 2010

Maria John, Life, Peace, Thinking , , Leave a comment

Remain in me and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (John 15:4)

You live where your thoughts go.  Jesus says that the only condition for having life is to be in Him.  How can we be in Him?  The only interpretation that makes sense to me is that we are in Him to the extent that He occupies our thoughts.  I live in my head, with my thoughts.  Most of the time, my thoughts center on me.  It’s no wonder I get bored, if my thoughts are about Maria.  Where’s the life in that?

But do we have control over our thoughts?   Well, we certainly can exercise will power and thereby replace thoughts that are not life-producing.  God did give us imagination.  If I don’t like a thought I’m having, I can choose to think about something else.  And the more emotion and color I give that replacement thought, the more real and powerful it becomes.  If you’re like me, you do this very naturally when you imagine how good some ice cream or a piece of chocolate will taste. Pretty soon desire builds and you can almost taste it.  I can even start salivating and justifying why I deserve that ice cream.  See? We DO have the skills.

I heard Robert Rayburn from Faith PCA in Tacoma talk about pride in a podcast sermon.  When we’re thinking about ourselves, whether how clever or how sinful we are or how uncomfortable our circumstances are, that is pride.  Our only way out of the incessant pride, is both to focus on and actively love God and our neighbor.  We have got to get away from thinking about ourselves.  Now if I connect that idea with the scripture above, I see that LIFE (i.e. energy, abundance, joy, anticipation, satisfaction, peace) only comes to the degree that my thoughts remain about Jesus.

And here is the bonus – Paul even tells us that if we cast on Him all the self-things that concern us, God is sure to give us His ‘eirene’ (Strongs # 1515)- His peace/bliss/blessedness.

This, dear ones, is a no-brainer:  Think about oneself, get bored  versus Think about Jesus, get life.

God, give us the grace to redirect our thoughts.

May God’s bliss (eirene) and life (zoe – Strong’s # 2222) be with us all.