Longings and disappointments – a middle-aged perspective

December 24, 2010

Maria Ephesians, Hope, Peace, Psalm 16, Thinking Leave a comment

Psalm 16:11  You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

Sometimes I think about my dreams, the things I still long for but realistically probably won’t see or experience now that I am 53.  I love foreign languages.  One of my most favorite things to do is to speak and learn more about a language.  French is the language I know best, so I love it the most.  Then comes German, for I lived in Germany several times as a child and young adult.  I studied Russian in college and have recreationally played with Spanish.  Any of them are fun and I would probably feel the same way were I to learn Turkish or Chinese.  The pleasure that comes from communicating with others and discovering interesting aspects of the language runs deep with me.

My teenage dream was to marry a Swiss man, not because there is anything inherently special about the character of the Swiss.  What the Swiss have going for them are 4 national languages.  If I lived in Switzerland, my children would have been at least tri-lingual, or so my pipe dream went.

But thanks be to God who superintends and directs my life.  I am grateful that before the foundation of the world He selected Michael to be my husband.  And Mike does speak some German and is very willing and eager to grow his French vocabulary.  He is a dear man who encourages me.

Yet, here I live in Newport News, Virginia.  It’s not France.  But I do work in my area of passion.  God has been kind and provided a vocation of teaching French.  I have travelled some and both our sons learned French. Yet….my dream still is to live again in a French-speaking (or other language) area, where I could speak daily in a different language.

So I was pondering longings, gifting and God’s reason for blessing us with them.  I’m sure each one of you could quickly talk about something you had thought you might be doing by now, an unfulfilled dream.  Maybe it is for a certain family status, or career position or opportunity to use a talent.  Maybe you expected your health to last longer.

Here is what I have concluded.  This life, as the Bible teaches us, is brief and fleeting, as James reminds us in 4:14 – Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

But, for believers, for those redeemed and rescued by Christ, we have eternity with God to look forward to.  And maybe, just maybe, the interests/talents/desires/longings planted in us might be meant for fruition in the later life, the one that will last forever.

Maybe my facility and enjoyment of foreign languages will be satisfied when I share in praising God with brothers and sisters from other tribes and nations?  Maybe my husband’s joy in singing and using his voice will find its full expression in heaven. Maybe his pleasure in thinking and writing clearly will be heightened beyond his expectations as he records God’s thoughts or communicates something required by God.

Randy Alcorn has written a book about Heaven, entitled just that.  He paints a picture of saints being very busy in the next life.  His scenarios are biblically based even if they are a bit stretched or amplified.  But who is not to say that the good work that God began in us here on earth is not part of a much larger blueprint?  Is it unimaginable that our particular personality, skills and interests would be part of a master plan that goes WAY beyond what we have thought?

So let us choose NOT to be discouraged, NOT to sigh with longings unfulfilled and NOT to settle for the ‘realistic’ view.  Remember that God is able “….to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph 3:20-21)

Merry Christmas!

 

Is cleanliness truly next to godliness?

December 20, 2010

Maria Attitude, Colossians, Thinking , Leave a comment

Set your heart on things above…..set your minds on things above, not on earthly things….Col 3 : 1-2

My relationship with housecleaning :

  • Off and on for many years, I paid someone to clean every week.
  • For years I scoffed at my husband’s standard of cleanliness and attributed it to growing up with a super-zealous mom.
  • We had marriage problems and I repented of having minimized something important to my husband.
  • Then money got tighter and I started cleaning myself.
  • Then I started identifying myself with how clean my house was.
  • Then podcasts took over my life and I looked forward to cleaning on Saturdays and filling up on sermons.
  • Then one day I heard something on a podcast that helped to shift my focus on what is truly important.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a picked up house and I do invest 3 hours a week in systematic but minimal cleaning.  But I don’t look at the baseboards.  I don’t look at the grime on the blinds.  I don’t look at the chipped paint of the indoor window sills.  Why?

In view of eternity, this house of mine (actually not my house, the bank lets us live in it as long as we keep up with the mortgage payments) will not last.  It will get burned up when we get a new heavens and a new earth.  So why attempt to hold to a standard of ‘new-looking’, if what we have on earth will not last?  If entropy is a natural law set in motion by God, then it makes sense that physical things (houses as well as humans) will deteriorate.  Physical things wear out over time.

So I clean every week, grateful to have a house, grateful to have the energy and time AND podcasts to keep me company. Yet I clean within reason, within the context that I need to be a good steward of possessions, yet husbanding my resource of TIME as well.  My identity does not derive from being an excellent housekeeper.  That would be idolatrous!

This eternal mindset is useful in other areas.  Mike and I dream of a retirement house in the hills of Virginia.  We often rehearse with one another the specifics of this mountain retreat.  It will be smaller than where we live now, but it will be sturdier, built to last, good quality materials.  All of a sudden, today, I pondered:  Why?  Why does it need to be of better quality (read more costly) materials?  Why would I want it to last?  It’s going to be burned up, too!

Didn’t Jesus say that about the temple?  When he mentioned in passing, as recorded by the gospel writer John, that he would destroy the temple and raise it up in 3 days, the people laughed at him.  The temple, renovated by Herod the Great for the 2nd time in history, was too solid, too well-built for that!  Hmm…so what was the point of fortifying a structure?   Was anyone obeying God specifically here?

So, if the temple was not meant to last forever, neither is anything else.  That means my house won’t last, my body won’t last, my collection of XYZ won’t last.  So why make something temporary so critical to my happiness or even my identity?

Instead, God calls us to focus on what WILL last, “things above”.  Paul reminds us Christians that we have already died. How is that?  Our old natures have died and our old way of thinking has died.  We have died to the mindset of this world that says what is tangible and visible will last forever.  Wrong!!!  All that will get burned up.  But we who are born again into a living hope have our lives safely hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ appears at the 2nd coming, we will also appear with him, in GLORY!!! (Col 3:4)

And that kind of glory needs no polishing.  I don’t have to work at it.  That is GREAT news.  So…let us hold loosely to stuff. Instead, let us invest our time and energy in people.  They are what matter. They will last forever, in one place or another.  The more people with whom we share the Gospel, the more permanent friends we will have in heaven.

PS:  I still look forward to our mountain home, but I hope we will use this reasoning to guide our selection of building materialsJ

“Far as the curse is heard” – applying Oswald Chambers

December 13, 2010

Maria Peace, Prayer , , Leave a comment

First – here is Oswald Chambers’ post for 13 December – I’ve cut just a few sentences to make it shorter.

“Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” Luke 18:1

You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption;  (otherwise – my word) you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings…… In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance. ……..

Our work lies in coming into definite contact with God about everything, and we shirk it by becoming active workers. We do the things that can be tabulated but we will not intercede. ……

The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul is patched up, a soul must get through into contact with the life of God. Think of the number of souls God has brought about our path and we have dropped them! When we pray on the ground of Redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.

My application –

Reading this exhortation to pray on the basis of the redemption made me realize how SHALLOW are my prayers.  Normally I pray, “Dear God, please bless Sally and help her with her busy day.”

That’s a wimpy prayer.  Come on, Maria, you can do better. Put some muscle in that prayer! Pray like you mean it!  Here are the two options, depending on my friend’s status with God:

  • Lord, you have paid the price to rescue Sally from being under the curse of God’s justifiable wrath.  She now has peace with God and access to His throne and you as her heavenly intercessor. Awaken her awareness of all the spiritual blessings and promises of future grace at her disposal because of the work you did at the cross.  Help her to remember THIS TREASURE. Remind her of your promise to provide all the grace she needs for each need this busy day.

Or for a friend who is not yet a believer

  • Lord, thank you for the painful need (whatever the circumstances) in Sally’s life.  Continue to make her aware of her inability to handle life on her own.  Open her eyes to the real and present danger of living under the curse of God’s wrath.  May she SEE Jesus and realize that through his death on the cross, he absorbed the judgment due her.  May she embrace and receive that act on her behalf as the most amazing gift of all.  May she then treasure her new relationship with God and learn to come frequently and easily to your throne with each detail of her life.  May she learn EARLY that she is not meant to handle life on her own.  Thank you for this circumstance in her life that you are using to bless her.

Please pray that I may care enough about my friends and family members to invest this kind of time and energy in praying for them.  And pray for me this way!

What if we were enemies of God?

December 10, 2010

Maria Attitude, Doctrine, Gospel, Life , 2 Comments

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  1 Pet 1:3

Being a Christian is not just about having eternal life. I don’t mean to minimize that inexpressible gift, but I want to highlight how belonging to the family of God makes a difference while we are in this earthly, natural body.

Imagine for a moment what it would mean in your life and mine if our relationship with God were different.  You do realize that everyone has a relationship with God.  You are either an enemy of God or a friend of God.  This is no ‘either-or fallacy’.  Those truly are the only two choices. Friends of God enjoy significant benefits during their 80 + years.

Once God has reconciled us to Him through faith (that is: knowing, believing and relying on His work at the cross), the benefits kick in. To appreciate what they are, let’s look at the life of someone who does not belong to God, someone who has not been born into a living hope.

  • He has no over-arching purpose in life that is bigger than him.  Life is just what he makes it.  He creates his own meaning.  But this imaginary meaning is meaningless because it is not anchored in any reality.  It cannot be anything other than wishful thinking.
  • When troubles, violence, pain come, he has no way of making any sense of them.  He is at the mercy of all that may upset his fragile life and harm those whom he loves.
  • By the time he has launched his family and is on the other side of the career curve, he begins to ask himself, “is this it? …so now I just look forward to retirement and then death?”
  • The above point applies only to those who are honest.  Most people push those hard questions away and fill their lives with  ‘stuff’ or ‘experiences’ or a new relationship, trying to generate some ‘joie de vivre’
  • He has nothing and nobody but himself to rely on in the final analysis.  An honest enemy of God lives with existential loneliness.
  • He has no access to any supernatural power.  He is left to battle sin in his own flesh.  Psalm 16: 3-4 quotes God as saying,

“As for the godly (the saints) who are in the land, they are the excellent, the noble, and the glorious, in whom is all my delight.  Their sorrows shall be multiplied who choose another god; their drink offerings of blood will I not offer or take their names upon my lips.”

I can’t imagine anything worse than to have God deliberately choose to remove himself from my life.

 

As adopted children of God, however, we are blessed more than we realize.  Here are a few privileges of belonging to God’s family:

  • We have access to EVERY spiritual blessing in Christ  (Eph 1:3)
  • We have been given fullness in Christ  ( we don’t lack anything)  (Col 2: 19)
  • All the promises of God are a resounding “Yes!” in Christ (they are available to us)  (2 Cor 1:20)
  • We can ask for wisdom when we need it (James 1:5)
  • We have already been given GRACE, PEACE with God and everything we need for life and for godliness (2 Pet 1: 2, 3)

The list could go on and on.  But what I treasure is an understanding of the purpose of life, how to make sense of life.  Life delivers hard, painful blows (Jesus even promises this) but we know that nothing happens without God allowing it.  His Word tells us that He uses all our experiences, bringing out of them good for us (and others) and glory for Himself.  I can trust God.  I don’t have to understand why things happen, but I know WHO is in charge and that He is trustworthy.

Furthermore, the fact that average earthly life of 3 score and 10 years of is just a blip compared with the REST of unending life with God in a different dimension  both anchors me and fills me with joyful anticipation.  The best is yet to be.

The Gift of Waiting

December 4, 2010

Maria Peace, Prayer, Psalm 40 , , Leave a comment

Ps 40 :1-3  I waited patiently for the Lord.  He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud & mire. He set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.   He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

**

I’ve been waiting a long time for God to act in my husband’s life about a particular need.  He’s always felt frustrated with work. He hasn’t found a place YET where the fit was good, where he could blossom, grow and contribute in a way that brought him joy.  Nonetheless, he has continued to work hard, amply providing for our family.

So I have prayed for years and waited, watching expectantly.  I have learned how to pray, how to nurture that humble attitude that commands us to cast all our cares on the One who loves us.  As I have matured during this wait, I have practiced casting those anxieties back onto God.  My prayers for my husband have grown very specific, that by this provision of an appropriate job, God would open rivers on bare heights, bring dead bones to life, turn his gloom into noonday and exchange mourning for joyful oil.  And I wait, patiently.  Through years of learning to pray, trust and wait for God to reveal His solution, my confidence in Him has grown.  Here is how that has transpired.  And I think this may be one benefit to waiting.

While God tarries in this situation, I am encouraged each time He DOES answer prayers among brothers & sisters in Christ.   I am blessed to be attached to a church family, part of which is Calvary Reformed Presbyterian Church in Hampton, VA and part of which is the wider body, the near and far-flung Christian friends & family.  I hear answers to prayers on a regular basis.  Each time God acts in someone else’s life, my faith in Him grows deeper.  He IS who He says He is.  He DOES act according to His word.  Hallelujah!

Even though our verse of the new song hasn’t been written yet, the larger choral number is nevertheless being assembled as more and more Christian friends are pulled out of their own pits.  And I keep my voice warmed up to sing that hymn of praise about our particular need.

Evidence of empty pits

  • Recently conceived triplets for a couple who has prayed long & hard
  • A teacher to fill a school vacancy.   The 2 ladies who did double duty to ‘cover’ that class have kicked off their shoes to dance the King David Jig
  • A recovered West Point ring for a friend’s son
  • A reconciliation and warming among two elders in another church
  • Business leads and contacts beginning to come in for a young entrepreneur
  • A report of ‘no more cancer’ for a student’s mom
  • A friend’s change in medication that has made a big difference in chronic fatigue
  • A local job and promotion for a student’s dad when he was going to have to move away
  • Deployed friends’ safe returns
  • The miraculous arrival of an unpilfered container to missionaries in Africa

Each time God answers one of these prayers, I rejoice and my resolve to ‘hypomeno’ (persevere, abide, endure with joyful patience, hold on TIGHT) grows.

I know that God has our best interests at heart, even if that means that He doesn’t answer this prayer the way I have asked.  Thus I can rest in the fact that we have the God of Jacob, the Lord of Hosts sovereignly at work in our lives.  Surely the lessons learned in the process are priceless treasures.

And speaking of treasure, in closing I’ll quote a curious verse that is growing dear to me:

Is 33:6 – And He (Yahweh – the Lord) shall be the stability of your times; a wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.  The fear of the Lord is your treasure.

This fear of the Lord refers to a CORRECT view of God and thus treating Him as He is: sovereign creator and Lord of us all.  When we begin to value and love God for who He is, then we begin to realize the treasure we have.  Who would not want to be in the correct relationship with the Creator/Artist who designed and chose us?  Since we are His creation, He will ensure that we fulfill the purpose for which He designed us.

Be at peace.

 

Following my own advice when discouraged

November 16, 2010

Maria 1 Thessalonians, Attitude, Faith , , Leave a comment

Rejoice always, pray continuously and in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for Christ. 1 Thess 5:16-18

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”, so goes the folk wisdom. Only in my case, what I’m preaching to my gander, I need to follow myself.

My beloved is depressed due to a job he can’t stand and much uncertainty surrounding it.  He feels stuck because he needs to endure 3 more years in this job to qualify for a small pension from the government.  His body reacts with physical symptoms due to his dark gray feelings. His body’s response deepens his depression.  It feels like a vicious circle.

I spend time searching scripture to encourage him with God’s word.  Verses like:

  • Ascribe to the Lord power and strength  (i.e. don’t build up the circumstances and make them seem insurmountable)  (Ps 68:34)
  • But as for me, I will look to the Lord and confident in Him I will keep watch; I will wait with hope and expectancy for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me! (Micah 7:7)
  • Though the fig tree does not blossom….. (my version – though life is REALLY HARD right now)….yet will I rejoice in the Lord.  (Hab 3: 17….19)
  • As a man thinks in his heart, so he becomes (Prov 23:7)
  • I can do ALL things through Him who strengthens me (Phil 4:19)
  • I pray that the eyes of Mike’s heart may be enlightened in order that he may know …….. his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead. (Eph 1: 18-19)

But when my husband doesn’t respond to my encouragement, I can fall into feeling down too!

But wait a second!  I’m being two-faced then.  Who am I to succumb to my feelings?  If I am called to be my husband’s Ezer, his companion to help him, then God has equipped me.   I don’t have to battle his depression on my own!  I don’t have to let it bring me down.

If I’m encouraging Mike to change his self-talk, then I need to listen to my own advice.  I need to talk to myself, tell myself Truth from God’s word and not listen to my feelings which are based on incomplete knowledge.  I need to rejoice that God has given me the power to encourage Mike.  Paraphrasing Paul in 1 Cor. 15 “I worked hard…yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me!”  When I feel weak like I can’t summon up any more encouragement for Mike, I MUST tell myself the truth. I don’t have to succumb to discouragement.   Yes there is trouble in life, but Christ is with me to fight on.  I might not sense that I have the resources or energy to be an encouragement tonight, but I CAN trust God that He will provide manna for the evening, not now, but IN THE MOMENT.  “As is my day, so too is the STRENGTH, the REST and the SECURITY that God provides” (Deut 33:25) I can count on Him to provide manna in the moment.

Putting on my belt of truth and lifting up my shield of faith in Christ to ward off the fears and doubts with which the enemy so delights in barraging me.

“Your faith has saved you; go in peace”– or whose faith is it?

November 9, 2010

Maria Faith, Forgiveness, Luke Leave a comment

First some context : Here is the tail-end of Jesus’ remarks in Luke 7:50 to the Pharisee who invited him to dinner      Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”  The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

I’ve been learning about what faith is and what it is not.  In the above story one could commend the woman for having faith.  After all, Jesus refers to it as HER faith.  Something she possesses.  But did she originate the faith?  Should she be praised for something that she stoked, nurtured and exercised in seeking out Jesus?

What would we think of a person who enters a marathon in a wheel chair and completes it entirely thanks to someone who pushed him?   Would we say, “Congratulations!  Your fast finish has qualified you to place!”

No, we would clearly see that his finishing the race was entirely due to this other person.

So it is with the faith of the ‘sinful’ woman.  This pistis (Greek) or faith was given to her by God.  That is what regeneration is, what being born again is all about.  It’s when God opens our eyes and ears and deposits faith in our soul.  Then we can see the need and feel the compelling desire to repent; then we can feel safe in approaching Jesus.

What is remarkable is that since WE ourselves don’t generate this faith, we don’t have to fear losing it.  It is a gift placed in us by God. Furthermore, He deposits the Holy Spirit in us, to assist our use of that gift.  If you have faith no bigger than a tiny seed, it is enough.  Imagine nuclear power and the miniscule fission process that spontaneously occurs.  But the outcome is huge.  So it is when God makes us alive, gives us faith and provides the Holy Spirit as a helper.

I’ve been meditating on Jesus’ prayer to His Father in John 17.  He commends the disciples as those whom the Father gave to him and men who obeyed God’s word.  We quickly think of Peter and his denial of Jesus and the brothers James & John who were concerned about their right-hand positions in the Kingdom and the fearful group in the boat faced with the threatening waves.  Do these actions qualify as obeying God’s word?   Of course not.   So what could Jesus mean?

I think Jesus is referring to the fact that the disciples retained their faith.  They continued to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s son.  Their actions didn’t always comport with the behavior one would imagine of a proper disciple.  But in God’s book, they were men of faith and that is the grid through which He judges us.

But….it’s a rigged system!  We can’t possibly fail!  God gives us faith.  He gives us supernatural help, guaranteeing our success exercise of it.  Finally, He commends us for keeping this faith.  It’s a win-win situation!

There’s a verse in Jeremiah 31: 6b where God promises His people that, “…. your work will be rewarded……”    We have the best deal possible.  What God requires of us, we can’t possibly fail to do, because His constant resources, although invisible, are a guarantee that we will please Him.  On top of His approval, He will also reward us.

The supreme work we are to do for God is to believe Him, to exercise the faith with which He gifts us.  All else is subsumed underneath that raw trust.  We have to get the order correct.  Believe, rely on Him and do what He commands, trusting that He will enable us to please Him.  We can’t measure the outcome and determine if we have pleased Him, if we have exercised faith ENOUGH (whatever THAT means!).  But we can trust that what warms His heart and makes Him rejoice and beam as a proud Father is our toddler-like stabs at faith. Picture Him applauding us for walking in faith while our hands are being held by the Holy Spirit.  Selah!

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!”

 

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