Making decisions – God’s way

January 3, 2010

Maria Prayer, Reflections , 1 Comment

Prov 16:9 – A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure.

Prov 21:31 – The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance and victory are of the Lord.

Psalm 33:22 – Let Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, in proportion to our waiting and hoping for You.

Lamentations 3:25 – The Lord is good to those who wait hopefully and expectantly for Him

My question as I start the New Year – when do we submit and assume that present circumstances, however painful they are, are from the Lord and are being used for our sanctification?  And when do we work to change our circumstances?    Or to pose the question another way – do we do nothing in a trying situation and trust the Lord to bring about change?  Or do we do something and trust the Lord that He will guide our strivings?

Maybe I’m committing the fallacy of bifurcation, setting the question up as an either/or dilemma.  It’s hard to know.

In past decisions that we have made as believers, my husband and I waited for a sign and then acted, all along trusting that God was in the whole process, guiding it.  For example, three years ago I asked God for a sign to leave my former school and it eventually came (the waiting and trusting part).  Then I had to find another job (the action and trusting part).  More recently, we wanted to leave our former church.  We waited until my husband felt the time was right.  We looked (action) for another church and settled in quickly.

Now we are in a situation that feels heavy with import.  My husband is in a job that is unbearable most days – it sucks his soul dry.  He dreads it.  Through it all, he has depended on God for a good attitude and to help him to make a contribution.  And God has sustained him.  Is this ‘wrong’ job part of the sanctification process and therefore it would be a mistake to seek out something else?  Or maybe the whole trusting God through the job search adventure is the sanctification process?  Scripture seems to counsel both:  waiting and doing.

I think a situation similar to ours would be one in which a couple would like to have children but can’t seem to get pregnant.  Do they take things into their own hands and try fertility treatments?  Do they start the adoption process?  Or do they just accept they are childless and leave it as being their ‘chosen, assigned portion’, their cup or lot.   What do we do with those desires – the desire for a child, the desire for a job that brings joy?

At times I don’t know what to think.  As a wife, I want to give my husband good, biblical counsel.  I don’t want to steer him wrong and fall into traps similar to those that tripped up our first mothers (Eve, Sarah, Rebecca).  I can be encouraging to him one night and then fearful in the morning.  Nonetheless, here is how I leave the dilemma at the end of each day.  I remind myself and trust myself to God’s hands and His unchanging sovereignty.  After all, we are just pilgrims on His journey.  He IS directing the journey.  He put us on this planet at this time, in this country, among these people, with this skill set and outlook.  He, alone, has the plan.  This impatient traveller wants a glimpse at the map!

Why baptize babies?

December 28, 2009

Maria Colossians, Reflections, sacraments , Leave a comment

Colossians 2:12 Having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead.

We are new to the reformed faith (PCA) and have been learning a lot about baptism and why infant baptism is practiced. I came out of a ritualistic, liturgical church where many people believe that the baptismal rite itself has the power to insure entry into Eternal Life for recipients. I rebelled and took up the view that baptism should be reserved for those who make a profession of faith. After all, Jesus commissioned his followers to disciple all people groups. Following that imperative, He then mentioned two component parts of that process: a) baptism b) teaching. I interpret the Great Commission as an activity whereby we share the good news about what Christ has done. People repent and put their faith in Christ’s work on the cross and in God’s promises of present spiritual gifts and in future grace. They are baptized as a sign of that transformation and they continue to be taught.

But what about infant baptism? Where does that fit in ? Why baptize a baby if he hasn’t repented yet because he hasn’t HEARD that he’s under God’s wrath? Why baptize a baby if he has yet to learn the way to escape God’s wrath, thus fleeing to Jesus?

A clue came to me today as I was meditating on Colossians 2:12. I am enjoying the process of memorizing the Book of Colossians. It’ll probably take me 6 months, but every moment spent on it is worth it. Memorizing Scripture as opposed to reading Scripture is like walking instead of driving by a place. You see so much more because every word has to be chewed on and placed in one’s memory.

Maybe infants are ONLY buried with Christ in baptism. They are raised to life later when given faith (faith comes from hearing…) and that faith is actually exercised. Verse 12 says that we are raised from death when we believe that God actually raised his Son from the dead. At the point we understand and believe God we get LIFE. So baptizing a baby is a good thing. It’s like Part One. It doesn’t magically impart eternal life. But it does bring a baby into the family of God and bodes well for the baby. Hopefully he is discipled so that faith can take root and grow. A crucial component of the infant baptism process in the PCA church is that only believers’ children are offered baptism. So the sacramental ceremony is a reminder to the parents and the wider covenant family of the church that they are undertaking the responsibility to train up this child in the faith.

How do we have peace when we’re caught up in anxiety about XYZ!

December 24, 2009

Maria Peace, Prayer, Reflections , 2 Comments

John 14: 27 b – Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

14:27a – (because)….Peace I leave with you: My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.

I’ve switched the order of verse 27, you’ll notice.

My husband is anxious about his job.  In fact, he hates his job.  It has been a source of intermittent disappointment and frustration for years.  His mood goes up and down depending on what happens at work.  His body manifests physical reactions when he especially feels stuck in his job.  In sum, he views his whole life through the lens of his feelings about his work.

As I have journeyed with him for almost 30 years, I have learned a great deal.  Today, as I was meditating on what seems like unanswered prayer, it occurred to me that every believer has something in his or her life that can be a huge distraction to peace with God.  We could have a child born with autism.  One of us could have cancer that doesn’t respond to treatment.  We could have an aging parent with Alzheimer’s.  Our children could be without faith.  So how does one obey Christ when he commands us NOT to fear, NOT to be anxious?  How does His imparting peace to us make a difference?

My conclusion, today, is that we have to compartmentalize the pain, to contextualize it in such a way to gain Christ’s perspective.  He has told us that each will have trouble in this life, but that He has given us His peace.  How are we to learn to RELY on His peace, unless we have very distracting trouble?  His peace cannot be made real to us, unless we HAVE to depend on it and see for ourselves that it is enough.  This is called living by faith.  The peace we all seek out, however, is the kind the world gives, circumstantial peace:  in my husband’s case – a solution to his career disappointment (a satisfying job).  In the other scenarios – a ‘normal’ child, a cancer-free spouse, an alert aging parent, born-again children.

How do we live so that His peace is real to us?  I think that we have to take time each day to soak in truth: to mediate on the grace we have been given, to look forward to the hope that is stored up for us in heaven, to remind ourselves of the promises/the guarantees that God has given us in faith.   Recalling these truths has to be the first thing we do each day, along with asking through prayer that the Holy Spirit remind us of the reality of Jesus’ promised peace.  Then as we are assaulted throughout the day by fear and doubt and discouragement, we can respond with faith as Jesus did when confronted by Satan.  “No, it is written…”

So, dear brothers & sisters let us seek to nurture Jesus’ peace in our hearts.  Let us make it ours, continually.  Just as soldiers are not passive, neither can we be passive in our pursuit of peace.  Nothing is static.  We are either moving toward God’s peace in our thoughts, or we are moving toward the discouragement that Satan sends our way.  His discouragement, based on lies, SEEMS to be the truth, because we live in his world.  However we don’t belong to the devil anymore.  As exiles in his world, we are living members in the Kingdom of Light (Truth), though for now living in the world controlled by Satan.

Well at least I’m thin!

December 21, 2009

Maria Reflections Leave a comment

….Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Pet 1:13

What do I set my hope, my happiness on?  Twice a week I go to the gym.  Depending on how I’ve eaten during the week, I am either looking forward to or dreading getting on the scales to verify my weight.  Donning the same workout outfit each time guarantees that the number will be accurate.  I’m extremely happy when the scale registers 131 or less.  Recently it has hovered at 133.  Attributing that 2 pound discrepancy to cold weather increasing my appetite or the start of the holiday season, I have decided that at 133, I am relatively happy.  Higher than that, I would be depressed.

Reading Peter’s admonishment to Christians to base their hope (and therefore, their joy) on something so dependable as God’s promise made me reflect how tenuous is the source of my happiness.  Doesn’t the status of my body fall into the category of ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ in Matthew 6?  Yet I allow my well-being to hinge on the status of something very temporary!  Jesus goes on to admonish his audience NOT to care so much about food and clothes, things the body needs, for even the Pagans run after those things.

So when I allow my whole mental attitude for the day to be based on how thin I feel, I am doing just what the world does.  How does that glorify God or even point to God?  It’s all about me feeling good about myself based on what I have done.

Lord, help me to wake up tomorrow morning and choose a different way to evaluate my mental status.  In that fog of checking to see if there are any real anxieties facing me, remind me of the grace you have given me.  Only then can I hope to rejoice in something far ‘weightier’ and more permanent (and absolutely guaranteed) than the pounds I carry.

Worse than I thought, but more loved, too

December 13, 2009

Maria Reflections Leave a comment

Recently, God has been bringing to my awareness, painfully, my dark nature.  This is an almost daily occurrence.  I think I have always known this aspect of myself, the selfish me that would horrified if another person were privy to my thoughts.  But I have to deal with it now.  I do repent and ask forgiveness.  But I am still shocked that I’m not seeing a diminution of my selfishness.

This morning I was wallowing in disgust and despair – not a fun combination.  But thanks be to God, He reminded me of what I have heard several times – that we are FAR worse/horrid/black-hearted than we can imagine but far more loved as well. Whew!  I realized that maybe this is part of the purification process..the heat has been increased and the dross increasingly is rising to the top …more to burn off.  But all in a secure context of safety and maximum love.  It still surprises me, however.  I didn’t grow up Christian: I don’t have an older woman in my family who has told me to expect this.    I wonder, what is the next stage?

My life verse

December 3, 2009

Maria Disciplines, Reflections Leave a comment

I’ve settled on Ephesians 1:5- 6 as my life verse (for right now!). “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

Paul is encouraging me to really understand that I exist solely so that someone can look at my life and see how marvelous God is for providing Jesus to create a way to be reconciled with God, have peace with Him and have a perfect record credited to one’s account.  These two verses are very challenging!

Every day I pray one of John Piper’s prayers:  Lord, may the words of my mouth and the actions of my hands serve to magnify the infinite worth of Jesus Christ and his death.

The only problem is that I haven’t yet lived a day and done that!  I tend to end up magnifying myself.  Yesterday, I chatted with the truck driver who delivered our Florida fruit for the Sophomore Class fruit and peanut sale.  I asked him how he spent his hours on the road.  When he mentioned that he liked to listen to Howard Stern, I launched into my sales pitch about podcasts and how there is so much rich material one can download from the internet.  I signed his delivery paperwork, he left and I realized that I had wasted an opportunity to make a plug for how marvelous Jesus is.  I actually was motivated to show him how marvelous Maria is.

This is the story of my life up through yesterday, but I live in hope that one of these days I actually will witness to Christ.  Not what he has done for me, but just what he has done, in history.

What we find difficult to accept in the Bible

November 30, 2009

Maria Reflections 2 Comments

Have you ever found it thought-provoking what hangs people up in the word of God?  For some, they can’t quite believe in a virgin birth.  For others, it’s the idea of a 6-day creation.  Still some stall out at the idea of characters in Genesis living for a really long time.

What I find curious is I’ve never heard anyone question how we’re going to be turned from dust in the ground to a newly resurrected body when Jesus comes back.  (1 Thess 4:16 –   For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.)   Now that is amazing!  One blast from God’s trumpet and particles of dead flesh, in different stages of decay, will reassemble in a split second.  I love to picture that scene.  It’s a different version of God speaking order into chaos at creation.  The power in God’s words doesn’t penetrate my everyday thoughts.   I don’t marvel enough.

At a more mundane level, an application for me these days is to remind myself not to fret if material things are wearing out, like the wallpaper that is beginning to peal in my kitchen.  Or even my 52-year old skin.  As a red-headed child, I blithely lay out in the sun .  Now the skin damage is visible.  Oh well!  Who cares about the wallpaper.  But I’m thankful that I will get a new body.  I wonder what I’ll look like!

Live the Gospel versus Explain the Gospel

November 26, 2009

Maria Reflections Leave a comment

Whew!  I’m relieved.  After reading one of Michael Horton’s books, (Christless Christianity), I found out that the way to share the Gospel is to open my mouth and witness to the objective, true, historical reality of what Jesus did for us.  For years, I had heard it said that we should follow Francis of Assisi’ life motto, essentially live out the Gospel and only use words as necessary.  That sounds great..until one actually looks at one’s life.  I mean, I’m a believer.  But I’m also very selfish (sinful, in Christianese).  And I’m sure there are many non-believers who are more neighborly and caring than I.  I don’t have to go far to be reminded of our neighbor: ‘Super George’ – he helps EVERYone.  I don’t.

At one school where I taught, the Latin teacher was Jewish.  People often quipped about this kind lady, “She’s more Christian than most Christians”, referring to her unselfish, neighborly behavior.

But being kind to one’s neighbor doesn’t always get them to say, “Gee, there is something different about you, tell me!”

So we are commanded to explicitly proclaim the good news.  I can do that, with God’s help.  Truthfully, the Gospel is not about my transformed life, but about what Jesus did on the cross so I could have peace with God.  My sin was put on Jesus and Jesus’ life perfectly lived out was credited to me.

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