Practicing the Practical

I have been reading through Proverbs this week and it has been incredibly refreshing. I have always gravitated toward the Psalms when I just flip my Bible open but reading through this book has reminded me how much practical truths can inform the things I believe which in turn informs my attitude and my behavior. Some that stuck out to me on this read through (all in New Living Translation)

"Your own soul is nourished when you are kind, but you destroy yourself when you are cruel."

-Proverbs 11:17

"A worthy wife is her husband's joy and crown; a shameful wife saps his strength."

-Proverbs 12:4

"Those who control their tongue will have a long life, a quick retort, can ruin everything."

-Proverbs 13:3

"Each heart knows its own bitterness and no one else can fully share its joy."

-Proverbs 14:10

"We can make our plans but the Lord determines our steps."

-Proverbs 16:9

"A cheerful heart is a good medicine but a broken spirit saps a person's strength."

-Proverbs 17:22

"Beginning a quarrel is like opening a floodgate so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out."

-Proverbs 17:15

"Haughtiness goes before destruction, humility precedes honor."

-Proverbs 18:12

"A fool is quick tempered but a wise person stays calm when insulted."

-Proverbs 12:16

P.S. Winter can end now please. :-)

"Loving Into Lovability"

I was reading this blog post by John Piper called "Consider Loving Someone Into Lovability" where he discusses that God justifies His people as righteous before they demonstrate any goodness. God loves them and then, after such love, their heart is changed.

Piper then poses the question, "Can we do the same? Can we, by God's grace, love someone into lovability?"

What a difficult task. It's so much easier when someone is hard to love to just walk away. It's so much easier to make our relationships consumer like and avoid those are not very fun to love and serve.

When I read Piper's blog, two things came to mind:

First, if God looks upon me as now sinless because of the sacrifice that Christ has made, it means He also looks upon the person I find difficult to love as sinless perfection as well. Those I am frustrated or angry with are perfect in God's eyes. They are made in His image. They have been perfected by Him and His sacrifice. If we are both on the same plane in God's sight, then finding myself superior to someone is not a possibility. And if I do not feel superior in any way to that person, they become much easier to love.

The second thing that I thought of was how very gracious God is with us. We find it so difficult to love those around us who we feel don't "deserve" our time, effort and energy and yet we are unphased by the amount of sacrifice that has been poured into us when we were considered unlovable. We are so hard hearted that we look upon Christ's blood and sacrifice as cheap. Christ believed that in our totally depraved and sinful state, we were worth dying for. Yet we have difficulty extending grace, patience and love to that family member who is overly opinionated. To the checkout lady who we feel always gives us attitude. To the friend who always complains.

We know that love is supposed to be sacrificial but we often find it harder to make the small day to day sacrifices of loving those we find "difficult" than to make big sacrifices for those we feel are serving us well.

But the more we meditate on 1) our lack of superiority because of the Gospel and 2) the abundant Grace that has been given us by Jesus, hopefully(!) the easier it will become.

Warrior Women

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper
suitable for him."
-Genesis 2:18

A friend of my husband’s asked us if we would be willing to host a Bible study using our church’s study entitled Sex, Singleness and Marriage. It was a seven week study that unpacked some of the baggage surrounding all of these topics and, undoubtedly, brought up a lot of questions while it was answering others.

One of my favorite things that I learned, however, was regarding the above verse. I had perused several marriage books/articles/sermons about this verse and the verses surrounding it and listened to various opinions about what it all meant. What does it really mean to be someone’s “helper”? And am I only supposed to be a “helper” if I’m married? And frankly, being a “helper” sounded a bit boring.

From the Redeemer study:
“The English word “helper” is, unfortunately, a rather weak word. It connotes an “assistant”—
someone who is less capable and who simply runs errands and does menial tasks. However, the Hebrew word “ezer” is used in the Bible almost every other time to describe God himself, in a military context. For example in Deuteronomy 33:29, we read: Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will trample down their high places. All the citations of “ezer” (helper) in the Bible (including this one from Deuteronomy) illustrate that a helper is someone who helps out of strength, to fill up a need that is lacking in the other. And the Bible’s consistent use of “ezer” with a military reference has led to a consideration of women as warriors working alongside men to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth....


“For example, a broad interpretation of v. 18 is that:
God created the woman to be a warrior alongside the man in advancing, God’s kingdom throughout the earth. This is every woman’s calling, regardless of her age, marital status, or circumstances. Every woman is an ezer from birth to death. We are warriors for God’s purposes alongside our brothers in Christ. (Carolyn Custis James, The Gospel of Ruth, 211)”

If “every woman is an ezer from birth to death” then I should be a warrior for all of the men in my life. My husband, my brother, my father. The men in my life and at my church.

Around the same time that we were going through this study, I was reading through The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian. It made me think that the greatest way I can be a warrior for my spouse and the other men in my life is to be a prayer warrior. To take very seriously my role and responsibility as someone who is to be fighting for them…. And to fight with prayer.

I’m now trying to develop a habit of praying for the men of my life with a warrior mentality. With a mentality that acknowledges that part of the reason I was created is to fight for them in the battle of life because they need the support of their warrior wife, daughter, sister, friend.

They need the support of an Ezer.

(P.S. The picture is of Joan of Arc.)

Grateful

Its been so long since I’ve written I feel like I’ve gotten a bit out of the habit. But I’m on what feels like quite a long train ride (um, seven hours) from New York to New Hampshire (yeah, I don’t know why it is taking that long either) and the scenery is pretty gorgeous.

I don’t really have anything poignant and important to say.

But as I sit here and I listen to my music and I watch the beautiful, amazing green trees roll by in Vermont I’m just grateful.

I’m grateful because I know God Loves me.

I’m grateful because I in moments of great blessing (like now) and moments where the blessings aren’t so abundant, He is there.

And I’m grateful because He is Home.

He is Peace and Contentment.

He is Beauty and Love and Hope.

He is the key to my Joy. And yours.

I’m grateful for Christ.

I’m grateful for what He has done for my sins.

I’m grateful for my husband and my marriage, my friends and my community, my family.

And I’m grateful because God wastes nothing.

I’m grateful because the wrong things in the world will be made right.

“You will go out in joy

and be led forth in peace,

the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,

and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the Lord’s renown,

for an everlasting sign,

which will not be destroyed.”

-Isaiah 55:12-13

That’s all.

Redemption Vs. Perfection

Beth Moore on how an imperfect past need not burden us:

"We put a higher premium on redemption than perfection."

The Man Who Has Left All

"The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ."- Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

I read this quote in the book I'm currently reading, Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, which I would highly recommend. You can download and read FOR FREE. You can read any John Piper book for free at his website. Here's Don't Waste Your Life:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/onlinebooks/bytitle/1593_Dont_Waste_Your_Life/
But be warned, it will probably make you evaluate all of your selfish motivations for any of your life/career pursuits.

Complacent Comfort

"I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he will take away, and every branch that beareth fruit he will prune, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean, on account of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abideth in me, and I in him, beareth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. If any one abide not in me, he shall be cast out, and wither as a branch; and men shall gather it, and cast it into the fire, and it shall be burned." -John 15:1-6

I went to London to do a show and I had a hard time. I missed my husband. I lost my passport. I was around all new people. And I wanted to be home. I wanted what was comfortable. I wanted what was safe. I wanted what I knew. But while I was there, while I was uncomfortable, boy did I pray. I made sure I not only spent time with God but that it was focused, that it was attentive, that I was talking to Him about all of my needs, my concerns, my worries and my fears.

And then I came home. And since I got home, I have been coasting. I'm back to what is comfortable. I'm back to what has an illusion of safety and security. I'm back to not being dependent on God every moment because this illusion of comfort around me makes me feel like I don't need to ask God to help me in all of the details of my day. It deceives me into believing that things here at home are in control and that I have some control over them. As long as I do A, B, and C then D, E, and F will happen.

But when I'm not really pressing in to God, as the verses above demonstrate, I can do nothing. I can bear no fruit. How awful a thought. I can spin my wheels all day long of my own accord thinking I'm going somewhere and thinking I'm accomplishing something. But if I am not abiding in the Lord, if I am not dwelling with Him then my actions will bear no fruit. They are pointless. Because they are for myself. They are self focused and self motivated.

So, I need to be abiding not in my comfortable circumstances but in the True Vine.

I need to fully acknowledge that in my sinfulness and selfishness, I cannot bear any fruit in my day unless I abide in God and in His grace He uses me.

I cannot bear any good thing unless I am in Him.

Nothing.

Nothing can I bear on my own.

That thought should help remove the illusion of comfort. Knowing that nothing good can come without Him should be enough to move me out of a place of compalcency and into a place of Love. A Love that will result in service and not sloth, in passion and not apathy, in peace and not restlessness.

Here's to pressing in, pressing on and pressing upwards.