Wednesday Wisdom: Empty Me

3 Comments / August 22, 2012

Yesterday, I sent my daughters to get a head start in a clothing store, while I made a quick stop at the AT&T store.  As I crossed the aisle to find my daughters, I saw a tall, thin, older man walking with purpose.  He had a thick head of grayish white hair parted to the side and big, dark-rimmed glasses and looked quite dignified.  I hesitated, thinking he may let me step in front of him, but not wanting to assume anything.

He barreled towards me and as he got close, he glared at me and said in a hard voice, “you’re wrong if you think I’m moving” and continued walking past me.  I don’t think I have ever been so surprised in my life!  To be so rudely treated was surprising but for it to be by someone so dignified-looking, well, I think you could have knocked me over with a feather.  Well, at least after I yelled after him that he was quite a gentleman!  (probably shouldn’t have done that…)

This world is so full of people who only care about their agenda, their purposes, and their lives.  And the scary thing is– if I am not careful, I can quickly become one of them.  It is so easy to get caught up in my own selfish world.

A few years ago, a young man named Chris Sligh sang the following song.  I can never listen to this song without feeling convicted of my selfishness.  I think how true it is that selfish ambitions are vain and that pride is like a poison and then I sing along with Chris, “empty me of me, so I can be filled with You”.

EMTPY ME

I’ve had just enough of the spotlight
When it burns bright
To see how it gets in the blood
And I’ve tasted my share
Of the sweet life
And the wild ride
And found a little is not quite enough

I know how i can stray
And how fast my heart could change

Empty me
Of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition
And the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me
So I can be
Filled with you

I’ve seen just enough of the quick buys
Of the best lies
To know how prodigals can be drawn away

I know how I can stray
And how fast my heart could change
Empty me
Of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition
And the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me
So I can be
Filled with you

‘Cause everything is a lesser thing
Compared to you
Compared to you
‘Cause everything is a lesser thing
Compared to you
So I surrender all

Empty me
Of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition
And the poison of my pride

Empty me
Of the selfishness inside
Every vain ambition
And the poison of my pride
And any foolish thing my heart holds to
Lord empty me of me
So I can be
Lord empty me of me
So I can be
Filled with you.
Filled with you
Empty me

 

You can listen to this song here.

24 Years

6 Comments / August 20, 2012

24 Years ago, I sat on my parents’ porch in the early morning hours, wondering if I knew what in the world I was doing.  A few hours later I was wearing a beautiful white dress and walking down the aisle to marry the love of my life.  We were two kids in love, ready for adventure!  24 years ago, we were quite clueless as to what the word “marriage” really meant.

We are no longer clueless.

For 24 years I have looked at the same face when I have gone to sleep.  For 24 years, I have seen the same face come home at night.  We have had 24 years of rejoicing, fighting, laughing, and arguing with the same person. 24 years of changes and more changes. Changing houses, changing cars, changing employees, changing churches. For almost 22 of those years, we have had children in our home and have prayed, cried, and cheered as they grow into adulthood.  For 24 years we have run a business together, sometimes disagreeing about how to spend money, who to hire, and how many hours to work.  24 years of making tough decisions and hard choices — but always discussing them together.  For 24 years, he has tried to love me and I have tried  to submit to his loving leadership.  Both of us have failed often in our biblical roles, but we dust ourselves off and continue to try. 24 years of talking about our feelings, talking about our problems, sharing our hearts, being careful not to leave any grievances fester for too long. Some of those years have been tougher than others. We don’t always agree. Although, ironically enough, the older we get the less we argue.  For some funny reason, we are becoming more alike as we age. For 24 years we have found marvelous friendship in each other.  24 years of love and passion with just one person. 24 years of completely trusting one another in the vows made so long ago. For 24 years, we knew that neither of us was going anywhere, no matter how bad it got.  Sure, sometimes, one of us would angrily cry out “I guess I’ll just leave!” but we both knew it would never happen. Not in a million years. For 24 years we have watched each other grow older and fatter and, yet, it has not diminished our love for each other. In fact, if anything, we love each other more. We are so far from perfect and yet, somehow, we love, forgive, and grow closer.

How can this be?  It is the marvelous mystery of marriage. What a wonderful gift from our Creator!

Tomorrow, I may, once again, feel really frustrated about something my husband does or says. But for today, I feel tremendously blessed.

Polluting the River

1 Comment / August 16, 2012

The river meanders, bright and crystal clear, through the valley.  And then, one day, a man comes and dumps a bag of trash into it. Oh, well, one bag won’t hurt. It continues flowing, but it now has one bag of disgusting, grimy trash flowing in its depths. And then another man comes with a truck load of trash. And then another.  Soon the clear river turns into the town’s dumping grounds and becomes a contaminated, foul flow of water that is no good for anyone. The river, one of the town’s best assets, becomes a liability.

Dare I suggest that this is exactly the same thing that occurs with our children?  Why do we allow the minds of our children to be contaminated by the world every day and then expect them to grow up with hearts passionate for God?

-We let TV shows  into our homes that go against everything the Bible teaches.

-We allow music on their iPods that goes against everything we believe.

-We let them hang out with worldly friends who teach them dirty jokes and where the best parties are.

-We let them go to movies, school dances, parties, and concerts where God’s name is blasphemed and sin is glorified.

And then we expect them to have a heart for God?

There isn’t any fancy psychology here. It’s just pure, simple logic:  Garbage in, garbage out. Don’t let anyone tell you that what you take in doesn’t affect you. It does. And I could give dozens of examples to prove it.

I beg of you, if you love your children and you love God, remove these things from your home. Stand up for your children. I know what the modern day church’s philosophy is on this subject of worldliness and I couldn’t disagree with it more! Don’t let anyone bully you with fancy words and vain philosophies into allowing things in your home that you know God hates.  Don’t let your kids talk you into letting them go somewhere that will hurt them spiritually. Your kids are too important.

What does God think? That is the only question that truly matters.

 

I’ll climb down off my soapbox now! ;)

Wednesday Wisdom #9: The Sin that No One Escapes

Leave a Comment / August 15, 2012

This past Sunday our pastor spoke on a subject that affects us all.  In fact, he said something like “if you don’t think you struggle with this, it means you probably do.”  He went on to share some very convicting and challenging points regarding this issue.  So this week’s wisdom comes from Pastor Wayne Burggraff and the subject?  Pride.  The sin that no one escapes at one time or other.

His sermon was based on the life of Joseph and he first gave multiple reasons why Joseph could have been proud.  Think about it.  He was shown special favoritism by his parents (with a multi-colored coat to prove it), he was made head of his master’s household in short order,  he was good-looking and desired by the master’s wife, he could interpret dreams and visions, and he ended up being second in command, second only to Pharaoh, in the great civilization of Egypt.  And yet, Joseph gave the glory to God and concentrated on serving Him (Genesis 39:4, 40:8, 41:16).

So how did Joseph manage to do this? How did he not get all caught up in how wonderful or powerful he was? Pastor Wayne gave six ways to keep this sin far from our lives. I would like to share them with you here, followed by a few comments of my own in italics regarding each point.

1.   Lean on the Lord (and not on yourself!) if we lean on the Lord, we never have to think how amazingly resourceful we are, because we know the truth: God can strike us dead at any moment. He can move men’s hearts. He is Sovereign and He is the one in control. We aren’t all that amazingly resourceful, after all.

2.  Lift up the Lord  (and not yourself!) Pastor put it this way: Deflect any credit to God.  I had never quite thought about that before. But any good thing we can do, anything in our lives of which we are proud, is only because of His gifts and by His grace. He should be praised!  

3.  Lift up others (not just yourself) Pastor made the observation that selfish people feel threatened by other people’s successes. You know, that’s true. If we are prideful and selfish, we don’t want good things to happen to other people. But someone who is genuinely concerned about others will be happy for their successes and sad at their losses — not the other way around.

4.  Labor hard at your job (instead of becoming slothful or lazy) There isn’t much time for pride and “self-esteem” conversations if you are laboring hard at your work and focusing on what you should be doing.  

5.  Let go of your past and its’ hurts (and its’ successes, too) The past is past. Yes, it has shaped us, it has molded us into who we are, but hanging on to it, whether looking back at the glory days or looking back at the hurtful days, is not beneficial to anyone, and least of all, to us.

6. Live a holy life.  Never assume that you can live as you like just because of your successes or position in life.  Many of us do this.  We think because we are such and such in the company or church, or because we are the star of the team or we are popular, that we deserve special treatment. But, no matter where we find ourselves, we need to be willing to serve others willingly and whole-heartedly.  No matter what position we have or how big our house, if we are focused on holiness, it helps us to remember that we are a sinner, saved by grace alone. Living a holy life keeps pride far from us.

I don’t know about you, but I found this message challenging. I wasn’t aware of just how much pride creeps -oh, so subtly- into my own life. As I listened, I spotted troubling areas that I need to confess and change. I wish I could play the whole message for you, but I guess the six points will have to do. Unfortunately, I forgot to write down all of the Bible verses that went with the points.  Most came from the story of Joseph in Genesis. If you are looking for something new for your devotions, his life is certainly worth reading again.  He is an amazing example of a godly man.  At any rate, I hope that some of you are challenged, just as I was, even though Pastor Wayne’s presentation was so much more thorough and better than mine!

Constant Gardener

3 Comments / August 13, 2012

Big mistake.  Big, big mistake.  At least when it comes to the world of gardening.  I remembered  looking through the seed catalog several years ago.  It is always one of my favorite winter activities –poring over the colorful garden catalogs.  That particular year I made the fateful choice  to buy a packet of seeds labeled “Grandpa Otto’s Morning Glory”.  Oh, if only I would have known.  If I had had even an inkling of what was to come, I would never have bought that seed packet.

This past  Saturday night, I spent the evening, yet again, ripping out morning glory plants that had grown up all through my square foot garden boxes. What has made this summer so much more frustrating is that this spring we had built new boxes.  We had laid down a weed barrier and then had dumped  layers of fresh, virgin, seedless soil in them. There shouldn’t have been a morning glory seed anywhere around my boxes.

When I saw the first heart-shaped leaf early this summer my heart sank. No! You have to be kidding me. That stupid, invasive, beautiful plant was back. As I became busier in the month of July and didn’t have as much time to keep after the garden, the morning glories saw their chance and grew with a vengeance until they had climbed up through the sweet peas and raspberries. Their tendrils wrapping around and choking my peppers and my strawberries. What had started out as an innocent act of planting a tiny packet of seeds years earlier had turned into a gardening nightmare that would never go away.

Of course, many of you have probably already guessed where I am going with this. You see, sin is so much like that packet of seeds. It looks so beautiful, so small. It looks way too innocent to ever cause much grief. But the seed of a little sin, just like those annoying morning glories, grows and grows and then blossoms and eventually it sets fruit. And then the seeds start spilling out from the fruit and we find the sin multiplying on every side of us.

Some people just give up and let the sin continue to grow and multiply. They decide to just try to survive the jungle growing around them the best they can.

But, as Christians, we don’t have this option, do we?  And, so we are called to be very careful about what seeds we plant.  Are we planting good seeds or bad seeds?  Galatians 6:7 tells us: Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.  We fool ourselves if we think we can plant just a bit of evil in our lives.

Of course, most of us make the mistake of planting the wrong packet of seeds a time or two. I can look back in my life and see many times where I planted the wrong thing and I am still paying for that today. It is frustrating and discouraging to see the wrong fruit growing in the garden of our life. Especially when it seems to be over-taking the good fruit.

And, so, as Christians, we become the Constant Gardener.  We have the responsibility to constantly be searching and pulling the sin and the fruits of that sin from our lives and nurturing and growing the fruits of the Spirit. But, by doing so, we experience the immense joy of living a life that is hopeful and fruitful, instead of muddling through the jungle.

I guess we should all spend a little time gardening today!

Trading for the Trivial

Leave a Comment / August 9, 2012

Do you remember Esau?  Yes, the guy in the Bible.  He was the older twin brother of Jacob.  One day he came in from the field weary and hungry.  His brother was in the midst of making a delicious red stew.  When Esau asked for some, Jacob saw his opportunity.  He told him that he would give him some stew in exchange for his birthright. In those days, this was a big deal.  The older son was much more privileged than the younger son and by trading his birthright for a bowl of stew, he was giving up his inheritance. You can read this story for yourself in Genesis 25.

I have always thought of Esau as very foolish!  What man in his right mind would exchange something so important for a bowl of food?  And then it hit me.  I do that almost everyday.  I am in the habit of regularly exchanging self-control and a healthy body for a bowl of ice cream or a serving of french fries.  When I think about it like this, I realize that I am not all that different than Esau.

We also do the same thing when we trade:

–our financial well-being for a car we can’t afford

–our spiritual well-being for 2 hours of ungodly entertainment

–a healthy marriage for a moment of griping and complaining about something trivial

–our children’s well-being for the temporary moment of peace that comes when we don’t discipline them

–our Christian testimony for a glass of beer or an hour at the gambling table

–our integrity for a few bucks on a tax form

–a healthy body for an hour of laziness and tv-watching

Most of us are trading what is most important for what is trivial almost every day.  We wile away our entire lives on the unimportant, never realizing the great sacrifices we are making to do so.

Quite frankly, I can’t even relate to what Esau did because it is not part of our culture.  We couldn’t trade a birthright in our culture, even if we tried.  And so this story has always remained rather an enigma to me.  And, then the other day, as I was reading it once again, it was made so clear to me.  I can see how I am just like an American style Esau.  Trading what is most important to me almost every day for something really stupid.

Some of the things I am trading aren’t even sinful in and of themselves.  A bowl of ice cream or an order of fries isn’t sinful.  Buying a new car isn’t sinful.  But it is the attitude.  It is the habit.  It is the lack of self-control.  It is the desire of self-gratification over the desire for doing what is right.

I don’t know about you, but I will never read that story in the Bible the same way again.

 

 

Wednesday Wisdom #8: Thoughts on Church

Leave a Comment / August 8, 2012

 The Grace to You ministry has been so helpful to me through the years.  John MacArthur preaches the truth of the Bible without compromise and yet with so much love and humility.  I remember someone once told me that they think he is so “harsh”.  I find myself wondering if anyone who says that could have possibly ever listened to him?  Sure, he says things I don’t like, too, but he bases all he says on the Word of God.  His humility as he teaches the Word of God is unseen in many pastors.  The other day we were listening to a question and answer time with Phil Johnson and John MacArthur.  In this particular Q&A time, the discussion centered on the modern day church and all that’s going on there right now.  After we heard what I have written below, my husband remarked that every Christian should hear this.  Hence, my decision to share it with you all today.  We can never let down our guard when it comes to this matter of church.  

The whole interview would be so worth a few minutes of your precious time.  You can find it here, along with all of his other MP3s, which he provides on the Grace To You website for free.  Here is a brief excerpt of that interview:

First of all, you’ve been worshiping with us, right? For four days. What you experience in the way we worship here would have been exactly what you would have experienced if you had been here twenty years ago…or thirty years ago. You heard me preach. What you heard me say today and the last three days, you could have heard me do the very same thing thirty-five years ago. We pay absolutely no attention to the pop culture, we couldn’t care less. We don’t care what they’re doing.  It’s irrelevant. We have a fixed point of reference: the Word of God. And I don’t want to link arms with the culture. I want to link arms with the history of the church. I want to quote the great theologians. I want to sing the great hymns that generations of believers have sung and the reason we’re still singing them is because they were so good. I want to link arms with the past. I want people to know that we’re some…we’re a part of something that is multi…multi-national, multi-generational and multi-millennial. It goes back several thousand years. I don’t want people to think we just invented this.

I can tell you everything I need to know about a guy who says he’s a pastor by how much he gives honor to the work of Christ through faithful men through the history of the church and how much he wants to be among them and not an invention of his own. It’s just a problem.

I mean, look around at Grace Church, we’ve been taking in people, we often say this, I don’t know, what 75-80 new members a month for years and years and years and we think about 85 percent of them are thirties and under and have been for at least ten years. You know what? The Lord is reaching those people in a church that pays no attention to pop culture. We don’t drink beer openly, publicly. We’re not trying to play with the culture. We don’t want people to walk in here and say, “Wow, this is cool. This feels comfortable to me. It’s like a nightclub.”

We want people to walk in here and say, “What in the world is this? I’ve never experienced anything like this anywhere in my life.” We don’t want the world to come in, we want heaven to come down.

The mouse, the hibiscus, and a lesson in resilience

Leave a Comment / August 6, 2012
The tree is still blooming away

Late this spring I purchased two beautiful hibiscus trees at Sam’s Club to replace the ones that had died in our greenhouse last winter.   They were covered with bright reddish-orange flowers.  But when I brought them home the weather was still too cold to put them outside permanently.  My husband decided to slide them into the garage for protection until we could put them outside.   I would peek in at them once in awhile to see how they were doing and one day I noticed the one tree drooping considerably.  I gave it a good drink of water. It continued to droop and started to look like it was dying.  And then one day I found it outside our garage.  Eric had noticed the drooping tree, as well, and had investigated.  What he figured out was a surprise to both of us!  The roots of this poor tree had been eaten away by our resident mice.  We knew they were there and had been working to be rid of them.  But who knew that mice liked to eat hibiscus roots?

We considered the tree a goner.  So little of the root system was left that it would topple over at just the slightest provocation.  Ironically, the mice had not attacked the other plant and that one was doing just fine.  We removed both of them to a safe place and we waited.  And we watered.  And we watched.

And then one day we saw the struggling tree push forth a bloom.  And then another one.  Until it rivaled its partner.  The hibiscus tree had a spectacular recovery even when it was attacked at its very life system…its very core.

I have seen people like this, too.  They have been terribly abused or devastated — hurt in the very core of their being.  While others curl up and die inside, filling their lives with bad choices and even worse consequences, they are the resilient ones.  The ones who refuse to let someone else destroy their life.  And so they limp along trying to live life, bleeding and bruised, turning to the Lord in their grief and pain, until one day they send forth a bloom.  And then another one.  Until we can see that they have defied the odds and are living an amazing life that is truly blessed, because of one simple decision: they refused to give in to bitterness and fear.

When we submit ourselves to God and release our anger and unforgiving spirit, no matter what the situation – abuse, betrayal, death, disease — we give ourselves the opportunity to bloom again.  If we hang on to it, we will stay closed up and dormant, eventually dying inside.  I know a lady like this.  It breaks my heart.  She went through a terrible tragedy many years ago.  All of these years later, she is still often in tears and bitter words spew from her mouth.  She has chosen not to move on.  I feel for her children.  They live with a mom who lives in the past.  Her world is still so incredibly dark.  But I don’t judge her – who knows what I would do in her situation?  There, but for the grace of God, go I.  I just feel so sorry for her.

As I think of the two contrasts  — those who move on and those who don’t — it isn’t hard to see that how we respond to difficulty can absolutely change the outcome of our lives.  I don’t know what you’ve been through and you don’t know what I’ve been through.  May we provide each other with much grace and Christian love as we all work through the tough stuff in life.  But, most importantly, may we grab onto the grace and mercy of Jesus and let go of the bitterness and anger.  Only then will we live a life that brings glory to God. 

Leaving it to the Expert

Leave a Comment / August 2, 2012

We are doing a small kitchen remodel and I decided that I would help my husband by installing the new hardware.  This seemed like a simple task that I could accomplish to help him out.  I grabbed a screwdriver, summoned all of the elbow grease I had available to me, and got started.  I had only finished one door when Eric came in the kitchen and viewed me skeptically.  He left and returned a few minutes later with his drill.  Now I could get going!  Who needs elbow grease?  But as I busily started using my new tool, I realized that it takes a bit of skill.  I wasn’t used to the drill and ended up breaking and stripping several screws.  I looked at the screws hopelessly.  Now what?  I felt totally inadequate.  Sure, I could do the job if nothing untoward happened along the way.  But when things started going a little awry, I was a bit lost.  I decided to worry about them later and kept working.

When Eric came through the kitchen, I told him of my dilemma a bit shame-facedly.  He picked up the drill and removed the stripped screws immediately  (I still can’t figure out how he did that!) but it sure did make me think.

Why do I always think I can fix things?  Why do I always think I have to?  If there is an expert around (in this case, my very handy husband), why not ask for help?

Aahh.  Yes.  The same thing goes in life, too.  If God is there waiting to help us, all-powerful and all-knowing, why do I want to rely on my hopeless, measly skills to remove myself from a jam or a problem?  I have a few ideas why we do this–

1.  Pride – I don’t want to admit that I need help.  I can do this on my own.  We behave like little two year olds who scream “I can do it myself!”.  It sounds silly to write, but many of us think it, even if we have learned that it is socially inappropriate to speak it.

2.  Arrogance – A word very similar to pride, but just a little different.  We have been taught that we can do anything we want to do.  We are amazing and talented and beautiful.  We can do anything we set our minds to and we certainly don’t need supernatural help to do it.  This common theme is heard across this great land.  You can be anything you want to be and nothing can stop you.  What a rude wake-up call when we find out we can’t do everything and Someone certainly can stop us!

3.  Biblical Illiteracy– Most of us are not spending much time learning more about God’s Word and filling our minds with godly sermons, songs, and exhortations.   We are letting ourselves starve spiritually and instead focused on feeding ourselves with the world’s food.  We don’t really think about the ramifications of this until we find ourselves in a place of suffering.  All of a sudden, we realize we aren’t close to God at all and we have no idea what to do or how to pray.

4.  Misplaced Focus – When we are trying to figure out a problem or work out a relationship, we spend most of the time focused on ourselves.  I need to fix this because I am hurting.  This needs to change to make my life better. I can’t bear this pain.  How could God let this happen to me?  But the Bible tells us that trials produce patience and  perseverance and character and hope in us (James 1, Romans 5).  We need to remove the focus off of ourselves and place it on to God.

As I write, I know that I am guilty of these four things so very often.  Unless I take time to check my heart and mind when I am going through a trial, I am very apt to fall prey to one or more on this list.  But I realize that, unless I turn to God in my hoplessness and devastation, I will end up with the impossible.  Only God can fix the “stripped screws” of my life. If you aren’t a believer, you may be skeptical.  But I am here to tell you that I have seen God do amazing things that can only be attributed to Him.  If only we would turn to Him sooner and more often!   May we be teachable and focused on God.  May we be thirsty for His Word and growing spiritually in the good times, so that instead of hopelessness and frustration in trials, we can instead turn to Him with confidence and patience.

Wednesday Wisdom #7: For Our Children

Leave a Comment / August 1, 2012

Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom!  Amy Carmichael is one of my favorite missionaries.  As many of you know she served in India for many years, especially ministering to children, raising many of them as her own.  She was also a wonderful poet.  Many of her poems are compiled in a book called “Mountain Breezes”.  It is well worth the purchase.  Below is one of her beautiful poems on praying for our children.

For Our Children

Father, hear us, we are praying,
Hear the words our hearts are saying;
We are praying for our children.

Keep them from the powers of evil,
From the secret, hidden peril;
Father, hear us for our children.

From the whirlpool that would suck them,
From the treacherous quicksand, pluck them;
Father, hear us for our children.

From the worldling’s hollow gladness,
From the sting of faithless sadness,
Father, Father, keep our children.

Through life’s troubled waters steer them;
Through life’s bitter battle cheer them;
Father, Father, be Thou near them.

Read the language of our longing,
Read the wordless pleadings thronging,
Holy Father, for our children.

And wherever they may bide,
Lead them home at eventide.

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