Archives for June 2014

I roll out of bed and pad into the kitchen. I want to keep sleeping but time is limited before the party and things need done.  I drink my caffeine fix and begin carrying the stray items from the living room to the bedroom where it should be.  I clean off the dishes from my desk. The spoon with peanut butter on it, now smeared in a spot. The ice cream bowl with a puddle of melted ice cream. The glass of water still half empty.  I gather them in the kitchen sink and sigh when I realize the dishes in the dishwasher are still dirty.  I have to run that cycle and then wash the dishes in the sink. I glance over at the pile of sheets in front of the laundry room.  Three beds worth high, all making crinkled wrinkles, waiting to be folded.

I don’t want to wash dishes and I don’t want to fold sheets.  What’s the point anyway? I’m going to get them all dirty again and then have to do this all again. I’m tired of the cycle.

Scott walks in the kitchen and he’s dressed for a day in the yard.  It’s where I should head when the dishes and laundry are done.  “I just don’t feel like doing anything today.” He agrees, but he throws his cup in the sink and exits out the garage door to do it all anyway.

I look across the house and see all the things out of place. I think about the dirty bedrooms and the bills that need paid and the errands that need run.  I just can’t today.  What is the point? We do it all and for what? So we can keep doing the same thing over and over and over?

I sulk back to my bedroom, throw the covers back over myself and turn on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube and decide I just can’t.  I watch a few more episodes, disappointed when Darcy still hasn’t made an appearance and decide I need to exercise.  It’s the last thing I feel like doing but endorphins and all.  I need some this morning and it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?

I manage to get dressed and make it in to the living room.  I squat and burpee and think about all the reasons I shouldn’t be having a bad morning.  I have a wonderful, hard working husband, two beautiful girls, my dream job, two good cars, I work out every day, have good friends, have sex regularly, I can fit into a size 2 for goodness sakes.  Isn’t this what the magazines tell me should make me happy?

I high punch and then squat lower and low punch and I keep punching and punching and punching and as fast as my arms are pumping, my eyes start doling out tears.  What is the point? Why am I not happy?  Punch, punch, punch. I feel frustrated but feel guilty that I am.

I cry and tell God to help because I can’t today.

He tells me these feelings are good and I’m surprised.  He reminds me that it’s true, there is more.  There is a place where things don’t get dirty and people don’t feel sad and women don’t cry in the middle of their workout and they don’t even need to workout.  It’s a home in heaven and this tension, this emptiness I feel is a reminder that I’m only passing through here.  My heart yearns for more because there is more.

“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:2-3

But why? Why do I have to go through all the mundane?

I’m reminded of Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

He has plans and  a purpose.  It is all pointless without Him.  Nothing—not one thing—on this earth can make you happy.  I have enough of it all to tell you.  That job, those clothes, that house, that bank account, those kids—not one single change will make you happier.  Only in Christ and his purpose and hope can do it.  If he didn’t have plans for me, I wouldn’t be here.  And if I have eternal plans and the mundane is a part of it, I can do it.

I go sit at my desk, my workout, both of my body and tears over, and glance at my desk calendar.  Arianne Segerman’s words are a balm.

These chores, these tasks, these burdens carried—they never go unnoticed.  Each bead of sweat for God is counted and known… . I want to have my faith pull me into places and heart-positions I never expected.  I want to always be reaching. I want to be noticed by the One that holds it all in His hands. I want to build a life of memorials.

Tears threaten again, but they’re happy tears.  He sees.  He saw.  In just minutes, he has given me words to let me know I’m not alone in all this.  He’s holding it all together and working it out for good.

Do you ever have days like that? Where you feel depressed and hopeless and just tired of it all?  I do.  All the time, I do.  These three things can help.  Remember:

1. This world is not our home.  We aren’t satisfied with this world because we aren’t supposed to be.  Let it be a reminder of our eternal hope.
2. God has a purpose and plan for us while we’re here that yes, includes the mundane too.
3. God sees all our efforts, even when no one else does.  Those tears shed?  He’s counting them.

Maybe my Saturday is your Monday today.  Take heart.  It’s not just me and it’s not just you.  We’re in this together.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adoption lately. And not just about our adoption, but our spiritual adoption as Christians.

There’s a child somewhere that we will eventually adopt, but right now he’s not a part of our family.  We don’t call that child our son yet and we don’t treat him as our son. We have to go through the adoption process and then we will begin grafting him into our family. We will begin doing all the things that parents do.

Even though an adult doesn’t give birth to a child, when he provides for, protects, trains, teaches, looks after, favors and advocates for that child, then that makes him the child’s parent. 

But it is the adoption that is the turning point.  At one time he is not our child, the adoption happens and then he is our child.

I thought about the implications of that spiritually and realized there’s a statement that gets tossed around that’s simply false: We’re all God’s children.

We’re not.  We are not all God’s children.

Yes, we are all created by him and loved by him. Isaiah 30 even says he longs to be gracious to us. But that does not immediately make us his children, just as a biological father is not necessarily the one to actually parent a child.

I started thinking on this because those feel like strong words.  It feels icky to think about one person being in while another one gets left out.  It doesn’t feel very loving to say you’re not a child of God.

I started doing some reading in the Bible to see what it has to say.

First, let’s see the concept of adoption.  We know adoption simply means that at one time a person is not a part of a family and then at some time, he is.

Ephesians 1:5 says, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”

This confirms the idea of spiritual adoption and explains that it comes through Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself explains this spiritual adoption as a spiritual rebirth in John 3 “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit give birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’”

Romans 8 explains who children of God are by saying “…those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’.  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

So, not only do we become children of God through faith in Christ, but the Holy Spirit helps us know that we are children of God.

1 John 3 really drives home the point, though, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”

And so, this is telling us some people are children of God and some are children of the devil.  Those are hard words!!

So why do I bring this up?  It seems sort of depressing, right? 

Well, in an attempt to be accepting and loving to everyone, I think our culture many times has either replaced the gospel message or simply forgotten how powerful it is.  The gospel says we must be adopted into God’s family through faith in Christ to be a child of God. 

As Christians, we need to be aware of that truth first (and rejoice) and then, that should burden us to share the true gospel! 

Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

That’s the turning point and the good news!  It’s EASY to be adopted into God’s family.  No paperwork, no interviews, no money.  When we believe, we are grafted into God’s family. God is then the one that spiritually feeds us, protects us, His word trains us, His Spirit teaches us, Christ goes before the Father to advocate for us. He becomes our Abba Father. And we can know it.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us,
that we should be called children of God. 1 John 3:1