Pray for Afghanistan

Over the last few days as the Afghan government has fallen to the Taliban and American troops have withdrawn, there has been a great deal said about the politics of it all. Fortunately, there have also been many who have rightly recognized, at least to some degree, that what is truly needed at this moment is not politicizing, but prayer. Everywhere across social media and online I have seen calls to pray for Afghanistan, and I appreciate those reminders a great deal. Rather than merely add to the voices calling for prayer, I would like to briefly provide some biblical suggestions for the substance of those prayers so that we might avoid the rather useless “thoughts and prayers” attitude so prevalent today and truly seek God’s face together regarding this tragic situation. Here are some suggested topics for prayer that quote or summarize scripture in a way that focuses on what is currently happening in Afghanistan but can certainly be used in a variety of situations.

• Pray that God will rise up on behalf of the helpless and innocent as the poor are plundered and the needy groan and provide the safety for which they long. (Psalm 12:5)

• Pray that believers will not fear or be dismayed because their God is with them and will strengthen, help, and uphold them with His righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

• Pray that since God is faithful, He will strengthen and protect believers with all power, according to his glorious might. 2 Thessalonians 3:3, Colossians 1:11

• Pray that God would make all grace abound to them, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, they might abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

• Pray that despite suffering, believers may be filled with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit they may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)

• Pray that the Gospel would advance, that the Word of the Lord would speed ahead and be honored and that God would consider the threat against His servants and empower them to speak His Word with great boldness. (2 Thessalonians 3:1, Acts 4:29)

• Pray for the terrorists that they might find redemption and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus; that they would rid themselves of anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language and become one of God’s holy and dearly loved children, clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; and that they would come to know and possess the ruling love and peace of Christ in their hearts. (Colossians 1:13-14, 3:8, 3:12-15)

• Pray that the name of the Lord Jesus will be glorified through believers and that through him the church will give glory to God throughout all generations. (2 Thessalonians 1:12, Ephesians 3:21)

Abundance of Joy

Any parent will tell you that there is something incredibly special about the first time you hold your newborn baby in your arms. I remember that moment almost 12 years ago when the doctor turned and said, “Come on dad, take him” as she placed our firstborn son in my arms. I clearly remember thinking, “Wow! We made this. He’s so awesome. So little.” I was in awe of the little pink creature that I held in my arms. That sense of awe and wonder never really goes away, no matter how many children I have. 

Just a few days ago as I held another newborn son in my arms and stared down into his beautiful baby eyes and observed his cute, round head and chubby little cheeks, I was again overcome by a sense of awe as I thought, “Good Lord, I have six kids!” I know it isn’t nearly as profound as what was running through my head with my firstborn, but it isn’t as far off as you might think. You see, it is somewhat hard to believe that God chooses to bless us with the incredible gift of children even once, much less as many as 6 times. 

It is this abundance of blessing that fills my heart and mind today as my wife and son come home from the hospital and our entire family is all together for the first time. I know it will get hard and I know I will not always feel blessed. i know there will be sleepless nights and long days and an increased number of sibling arguments to referee.  But for today, all is joy.

The joy of new life.  The joy of good health. The joy of first hugs. The joy of introductions. The joy of good friends. The joy of generous church families. The joy of community. The joy of new beginnings and fresh starts. The joy of a baby sleeping on my chest as I type this. And most of all the joy of a generous God that sees fit to bestow generous blessings on someone as undeserving as me. 

That is the thought I cannot escape as I think about my newborn and enjoy my family this afternoon. Not just that God is good and generous, but that he is always good and generous. It may be easier to acknowledge God’s goodness when I am experiencing pleasant feelings, but that is a flaw in my perspective not in his character. While I naturally tend to consider God’s goodness and generosity when I feel good, I must train myself to act on the confident belief that God is good even when I may not feel it. The more that I practice this, the more I will discover that I can experience joy even if my circumstances don’t seem to call for it. 

This is real joy! As I enjoy the peace and wonder of new life and the blessings of family today, I can be assured that the same joy is possible in the chaos, laundry, and dirty diapers of tomorrow. 

Always and Everything

As with most holidays, the significance of Thanksgiving is almost as varied as the people who celebrate it and the traditions they associate with it. Most people will celebrate through feasting, parades, football, Charlie Brown Thanksgiving specials and a variety of other customs and festivities. Many people also recognize the opportunity to express gratitude for all they have and will pause in the midst of their day to give thanks to God for His blessings in their life.

The reality is that we all have a great deal to be thankful for every day of the year and not just on Thanksgiving. Truthfully, I have been reflecting on this fact a lot lately as God has been trying to take me to another level of gratitude in my life. What I mean is that I am generally an appreciative person who gives God credit for the good things in my life, but I have been challenged lately by the truth that I should also be thankful for the things in my life that I do not usually consider to be blessings, or even good.

Though I’ve probably always known this to be true on an academic level, the practical realization of this has taken place just recently. The defining moment came as I was making my way downstairs to my home office one evening to do a little more work before going to bed. My office is in the corner of the unfinished portion of our basement and to get there I have to make my way through the playroom that is at the foot of the stairs. Though this room is used exclusively by the kids, we generally expect it to be picked up to at least minor disaster area status. On this particular evening, I had been working all day and was exhausted, so when I came down the stairs and saw the complete and total destruction that lay before me in the playroom, I immediately felt the anger start to rise within me. “How could they do this? How is it even possible to make this big of a mess?”

Of course, as a parent of five these were not new questions to me and neither was the anger I felt at their behavior. However, something new did occur in that moment. Almost as immediately as the anger arrived, another thought came into my mind. “Thank you God that I have kids to make such an impressive mess.” Then I laughed. Out loud. All by myself. It was just too ridiculous of a thought to happen on its own, so I said (once again out loud) “OK, God. I get it. I need to be thankful.” And I knew it was true. I had to be more thankful. So, I continued into my office and thanked God for the damp,ugly space that I often complain about and refer to as my dungeon. I finished my work and went to bed feeling better and much less frustrated with life, even though the room was still a disaster and my office was no different than it was before. God had simply changed my perspective.

While I can’t say that I have since been thankful for every bad thing and circumstance in my life, I can say that it has been on my mind a lot since that night. I have been much more aware of the need for us as believers to go beyond mere gratitude for that which we consider good. We must go to the next level of thankfulness and give “thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:20). “Always and everything” includes those things that are hard and bad. To help provide some understanding of what this means, as well as to do my own heart good, I want to take this Thanksgiving Day as an opportunity to share some of the difficult things in my life right now for which I’m thankful.

• I am thankful for pain that proves God has blessed me with life.
• I am thankful for failure and loss to make successes and victories taste so good.
• I am thankful for the complete and total chaos of having a large family that brings love and joy beyond measure.
• I am thankful for strained finances that force me to rely on my provider God.
• I am thankful for vehicle problems and home repairs reminding me that God has blessed me with a home and transportation.
• I am thankful for struggles in my job that reveal God’s grace in allowing me to work at something that I love.
• I am thankful for difficult and challenging people who make me appreciate the grace I am shown by so many others.
• I am thankful for changed plans pushing me to trust in my sovereign Father.
• I am thankful for brokenness that requires and allows for God’s healing.
• I am thankful for rejection that drove me to seek acceptance from God alone who accepts me for who I am and could not love me more or less than He does.

My list could go on, I’m sure, but you get the idea. God has blessed me in many ways beyond the usual blessings and provisions. Indeed, many of those things for which I am ultimately most grateful started out as something I might think of as bad or at least unwanted or uncomfortable. I challenge you this Thanksgiving to take an inventory of all the things in your life that you have to be thankful for and start with those painful, frustrating blessings you’re not sure you ever wanted. They just might be the most significant!

What Am I Pursuing?

“Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless,until it rest in Thee.” Tradition tells us that St Augustine once spoke those words regarding the futility of man’s search for happiness and satisfaction in anything other than God. The wise King Solomon also spoke to this in the book of Ecclesiastes. At the beginning of this book he records his pursuit of satisfaction through pleasure, money, possessions, power and a variety of other means. Afterward, he made this observation: “Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:11).” At the end of the book, Solomon comes to the same conclusion as Augustine: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13).”

Though mankind throughout all history has sought to fill the emptiness in their hearts with anything and everything they can imagine, only a life lived in the pursuit of God will actually bring satisfaction. Jesus summed this up in His sermon on the mount when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (Matthew 5:6).”In the very broadest sense, this means to desire or long for a right relationship with God. True satisfaction will only come when God is what we are longing for. If you pursue him, you will get him and he is enough.

This begins with pursuing and receiving the righteousness of Jesus that God gives us at salvation, but it does not end there. Pursuing righteousness also means that we are pursuing and living a holy lifestyle – a lifestyle that reflects Jesus. It also means to fulfill the expectations of Micah 6:8 to “do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” This kind of life is what Jesus promises to reward with satisfaction. It is this kind of life that the genuine believer will strive to live.

Since this goal is not one that can be perfectly achieved during our life on earth, it would serve us well to spend some time in evaluation. Is this the life we live? Is it even the life we want to live? How do I know whether or not I am pursuing God with my life? I believe there is great value in simply asking the hard questions of one’s self. A willingness to ask honest, evaluative, difficult questions of yourself reflects, in itself, a desire to pursue righteousness. To help in this evaluation, let me leave you with a few questions you might consider:

1. Have I identified specific areas for spiritual growth in my own life? If I am truly pursuing Jesus, than I am not going to be satisfied with my current level of spirituality. I can never believe I have arrived. I must look at particular areas for growth and improvement.
2. Are material things of low priority to me? I am not saying that we cannot have and enjoy material things. I’m not even suggesting we can’t ever have more than we need. However, I must always be aware that material things can take a stronger hold on me than I think they have. I have to regularly evaluate the priority that material possessions hold in my life.
3. Do I desire to spend time in God’s Word? How regularly do I read the bible? How important is that time to me? I have to have a regular time set aside from the rest of life to spend time with God through the reading of His Word. Additionally, I should integrate scripture into my life in as many ways as possible as often as possible.
4. Do I find genuine value and enjoyment in spiritual things? If I am pursuing God and His righteousness, than spiritual things will never be a bore or a drudgery to me. Church, Bible reading,worship, Christian music, spiritual conversations, etc will never be mere routine or ritual. These will be the defining points of my joy and happiness.
5. Am I willing to sacrifice anything and everything to be more like Jesus? I know this one is tough, but am I ready to make the hard choices in my life? Will I give up a promotion, a relationship, a career in order to do the right thing?

These questions are just a beginning, but I would urge you to take a long, hard look at your life through the lens of these questions. The process may be tough and uncomfortable, but the end result is one of immeasurable blessing. This commitment to pursuing God and His righteousness through a process of commitment and evaluation is the proper response to the beautiful invitation that God offers in Isaiah 55:1-2. “”Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes,come, buy wine and milk without money and without price…Listen carefully to Me, and eat [what is] good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.”

Hungry Hearts

On the way home from a church dinner I was explaining to my kids that when we got home it would be nap time and quiet time. This is pretty routine for a Sunday afternoon at our house, so there really wasn’t much push back. Not much, that is, except for the 2 year old who blurts out quite forcefully, “No! No! No! Nana (banana). Cheese. Apple.”

Now I know that a toddler’s obsession with food is pretty cute, but I’m starting to get concerned that this might be a serious problem with my kids. They will eat a meal, cry “I’m stuffed,” and literally 15 minutes later want to eat something. We recently went out to eat for our daughter’s birthday. She was turning 5 and she wanted to go to a buffet. After eating a fantastic meal, as much as she could hold, she looks at me while we were getting in the van to go home and says very sweetly, “when will we eat lunch?”

While my children seem to experience it in an extreme fashion, this cycle of eating and fullness followed by hunger is a relatively normal and acceptable part of our lives when it comes to food, but unfortunately it also describes the desperate way that many men and women go through life with a deep sense of longing for something that they can never seem to find. Jesus spoke of this desperate longing in terms of hunger and thirst in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

This sense of desire is a universal trait of the human heart. In fact, Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God “… has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” We have a natural, God-given emptiness within us that we try to fill with pleasure, accomplishments, stuff, substances, and on and on but the longing remains. It is not satisfied. Maybe you have felt that longing before. Maybe you feel that way now. You have a hungry heart. Your soul is starving for something out there that you desperately have to have. This desire is God’s Spirit calling you to himself, but most of us will turn away time and again to other means of filling the void.

We find temporary pleasure, but then it is gone and we are chasing that high, that feeling of satisfaction again and again. The Bible talks about some of the deceptive desires that we pursue. In His Word God warns us against pursuing things like power (Isaiah 14:13-14), glory (Daniel 4), possessions and pleasure (Luke 12:17-20), worldly success (Matthew 4:8-9) and money (Matthew 6:24). While not all of these things are completely bad, they all fail to satisfy when they are our sole pursuit in life. Consider the following thought from C.S Lewis:  “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

This longing we all have is not meant to be satisfied by the fleeting pleasure of this world. Instead, it is a reminder that you were made for something bigger than this world. You were made for a kingdom not of this world. You were made for God! As you contemplate the desires and pursuits of your own life, I challenge you to let those desires, whatever they might be, draw you to the loving God that created you to want and need Him.

Learning to Love

Sometimes when God is trying to teach you something, He sends the same thought or message to you multiple times or in a variety of ways over the course of a short period of time. A wise believer will notice the theme and begin to ask what God is trying to teach them. I recently noticed this familiar process taking place in my own life regarding the theme of love.

It began three weeks ago when a guest speaker at church spoke about the Good Samaritan and our need to love others even when it is inconvenient for us. Our church is currently going through a pastoral transition, so the following week we once again had a guest speaker and once again he spoke on the Good Samaritan and the need to love everyone. As I sat in that service I began to smile as I remembered a conversation from earlier in the week in which my friend who would be speaking the following Sunday had shared that he would be preaching about loving our enemies. I thought, “We must all need to hear about love right now.”

When I got home from church, after eating lunch, I headed downstairs to my office to do my daily scripture writing and the passage was the passage about loving others from 1 John 4 that ends with these words: “Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.” Now I’m thinking, “wait a second, maybe I need to hear about love right now.” With that thought in my mind, I wake up the next morning to do my scripture reading and it was the passage describing God’s love in terms of the shepherd leaving the 99 to look for the one lost sheep. A couple of days later, I opened my Bible app for my daily reading and the assigned passage included Luke 10:27, “You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself.”

As you can see, God was bombarding me with the importance of loving others and that fact was certainly not lost on me. The problem was that even though I felt like I appreciated the reminder, I didn’t really feel like I needed to learn the lesson. I mean, I know that I should love others. I know I have to love everyone. I know I need to love my enemies. I know God commands it. I know I want and try to love others. I know! What could God possibly be trying to teach me? And then it hit me! After listening to the third sermon in a row about love, I finally began to realize the answer to that question. He isn’t trying to teach me about the need to love others. He is trying to teach me to evaluate the way that I love others.

While I still have an enormous amount to learn about love, I want to share three specific lessons God has taught me about love over the last couple of weeks.

• Love others because of who God is – not because of who they are or who I am. Most of the time when I feel or show love toward someone, it is about them or me or a combination of the two. We love those who do, give or feel something for us. Or we love those who make us feel something such as pleasure, pride, sympathy, compassion, etc. While none of those things are wrong, none of them are truly the reason for loving others. The need, desire, and motivation to love others is all about God’s person and character. He is love and love originates with Him (1 John 4:7-8). He commands that we love both Him and others (Matthew 22:37-39), yet he measures our love for Him by whether or not we love others (1 John 4). As I contemplate the need to love others, it should not be about whether or not that person deserves my love nor should it even be about me and my desire to show them love. Instead, love toward others is really a matter of worship to God. I experience His love and then respond by loving him. The practical outworking of that love is loving actions toward others regardless of who they are and what they’ve done.
• Love in a way that reflects God’s love. Not only should God’s love be a motivator in my love for others, it is also my example. So much of what I classify is love is very superficial. It is what should more rightly be considered nice or even merely courteous. Instead, when we love others, we should love in a manner that reflects the selfless, sacrificial, practical, and serving love that God has toward us. I was reminded of this by an incident involving two of my kids earlier this week.

We were on our way out to eat to celebrate a birthday and this particular restaurant gives drinks to the kids with the purchase of a meal. Unfortunately, my wife had spent most of the drive dealing with one particular child’s attitude and behavior issues and finally said, “Ok. As a consequence for this behavior, you are going to drink water and miss out on choosing a drink.” While this may not seem like a big deal to you, trust me when I say that in my family this is roughly the equivalent of the biblical 39 lashes or perhaps water boarding. It’s a big deal. That’s why it was an even bigger deal when immediately our oldest speaks up and says, “Mom, can I take [their] punishment for [them]?” My wife and I glanced at each other in surprise and I quickly said, “yes, buddy we can do that.” I felt that the lesson learned by this act of love was more valuable than the consequence would have been. Sure enough, that child’s behavior turned around much quicker than I suspect it would have otherwise.

That wasn’t easy, convenient, self-serving love. That was God’s love at work. It was love that saw a hurting, struggling, sinning person and felt compassion and desired to show mercy. It was a love that chose to endure pain and suffering (from a child’s perspective) in order to alleviate that of another child. I was moved and convicted as I continued to ask God what I needed to learn about love. I knew that in order to love in a way that demonstrated my love for God I must love in a way that reflects his love. I have to those who are unlovable. Love when it isn’t convenient. Love those that hate, hurt, or even persecute me. Love those who are in my family and church family. Love those who reject faith altogether. Love those who are the same and love those who are different. I must love those who Jesus loved in the way that Jesus loved.

• Love in a way that brings people closer to God. This is always going to be the result of genuine, Christ-like love, but this fact can serve as a standard for judging whether or not my actions are indeed loving. This kind of standard is necessary because we have so many wrong ideas and misunderstandings about what love is. For instance, a few days ago I had to discipline one of my children and through their tears they angrily spat out this statement: “You don’t love me!” I calmly held that child and responded, “Actually, it’s because I love you that I had to correct you.” Correcting someone is not generally enjoyable for either party involved, but it is the loving thing to do. When we face difficult decisions about our own actions toward others, it is important to remember that the short term ease or comfort of either party is not the test of love. The test of love is whether my actions will bring them closer to God or drive them further away.

These thoughts will by no means be the final word on Christ-like love, nor will they likely be the final lessons that I learn about this deep topic. They are simply meant to be a few more ideas for us to consider together as we seek to fulfill the command that Jesus left us with: “…as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35).”

 

photo by Nick Youngston used by Creative Commons license

Blessing Upon Blessing

 

 

I recently spent a morning out in my yard raking leaves. At my house, this is no small task. We have quite a few large trees in our yard and combined with a lot of recent rainfall and a busier than normal schedule, we had quite the leaf problem to deal with. So, with the rain holding off and nothing pressing on the schedule, I grabbed a couple of the kids and started passing out the rakes and gloves. It didn’t take long to have a large portion of yard finished and a dozen garbage bags of leaves sitting on the curb. As we were about to finish I was taking a break, sipping some coffee, and surveying the work we had done when I noticed that while we were working the wind had begun blowing leaves back into the yard we were just about done raking. Though I was fully aware that this was a job that would need to be done several times over the course of the next month, there was something about the futility of it all that struck me. I thought, “Isn’t that just like life? Just when you think you’re done, it piles on some more.”

Maybe you’ve felt that way from time to time yourself. Not just about a yard full of leaves, but about life in general. Sometimes the difficulties of life just seem overwhelming. One problem piles up on top of another. You feel like you just can’t get one problem under control before another pops up. The futility of life’s problem can sometimes be overwhelming.

Those were the thoughts running through my mind as I finished raking and went about the rest of my day. However, later in the day as I thought again about the same incident, a completely different thought struck me. “That’s just how God’s blessings are to me.”

Maybe you’ve felt that way before, too. He piles blessing upon blessing upon blessing. You can’t get finished with one blessing before he is passing out another. Sometimes life is just so full of wonderful, incredible, unbelievable blessing that you just can’t wrap your mind around it. The enormity of God’s blessing can sometimes be overwhelming.

While it is natural to focus on the first observation and bemoan life’s problems, it is more healthy and honoring to our Lord to dwell on the second. The difference between these views isn’t circumstance. It is choice. I have to make the choice to see life through the lens of God’s blessing. In order to make that choice, I have to be confident that He truly is a God that blesses. Fortunately, the Bible is filled with passages that demonstrate this. Here are a few of my favorites.

• For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. – Psalm 84:11
• And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. – John 1:16
• And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. – 2 Corinthians 9:8
• Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 1:3
• And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19
• Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. – James 1:17

These verses are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bible passages that speak of God’s willingness, desire and plans to bless us. I would challenge you today to begin diving into God’s Word to discover these promises for yourself and then take a look at the world around you to see that you are already so very blessed!

A Map for Life

My children recently discovered an enjoyment of maps. While we were traveling, they picked up several different of those folding paper maps that are distributed for free at rest areas and, in this case, park offices. They were so cute pouring over those maps talking about the places they were going and how they were going to get there that I chose to ignore the fact that I knew for a fact they would end up torn to bits all over my van! Their fascination did cause me momentary concern though when they came to me one afternoon and asked to walk down to the playground in the campground where we were staying. They assured me that they could get their on their own (and it really wasn’t far) and in fact they had already been there and found their way home “because, dad, we have a map.” Their argument made me smile because there was a childish confidence to their statement that actually contained some logic. The problem I had was this: their map was a map of the state and it barely registered our campground as a blip on the page. It was completely useless to get them to the playground, but this fact wasn’t about to stop them as they set off down the driveway “headed to Allegheny.” They may have made it there and back, but their map did nothing more than aid their imagination and make them feel like grownups.

As I consider this incident that I honestly found quite adorable, I find a real life parallel to the lives of many Christians. We as Christians have also been given a “map” for life – the Bible, God’s Word. Unfortunately, many Christians are living their lives by their own terms, taking whatever path they feel like and then attributing their results to the Bible, saying as my kids did, “look, I have a map!”

Think for a moment about the map my kids had. It was useless, but at no fault of its own. It was a good map. It was accurate and readable and generally well done. But because it was being used improperly, it was useless. In the same way many of us render the Bible virtually useless because we do not know how to use it properly. We know it’s important. We read it and maybe even study it. But when it is all said and done, we treat it in much the same way my kids treated their map – we believe that just having it around and consulting it from time to time will get me the right results. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Here are few tips to making sure you are using God’s Word in a way that will allow it to properly impact your life.

• Read it – this ought to be assumed, but it is painfully obvious that for many Christians it isn’t. When we talk about reading God’s Word, we need to clarify that we mean it should be read regularly and not sporadically. While the Bible can certainly be beneficial when it is consulted about specific situations, it is not meant to be a topical index to life. If I read it regularly, I allow its message to permeate my heart and life. This regular reading of God’s Word also allows for exposure to all of God’s message for you and not just certain favorite or popular passages. Start today reading God’s Word everyday in a consistent, organized way. There are an abundance of reading plans available. Pick one and stick with it!
• Understand it – the fact is that at times the Bible can be difficult to understand. We must be willing to put some time and effort into making sure that the Bible says what we think it says. I have personally seen people use verses of scripture to support all kinds of ridiculous beliefs and actions mainly because they were too lazy or disinterested to check out what it really means. You can ask questions, get a commentary, compare it to other scriptures and even use Google! Whatever you do, be willing to put in the time to understand the Bible.
• Apply it practically, not mystically. Once the Bible is understood, it should be obeyed and applied. The application though is meant to be practical. God’s word will shape the way you think and act if you let it. However, it is not to be applied like a magic eight ball in which I open it up and look for an answer to jump off the page. It is also not a fortune cookie to be dissected for statements or mantras that somehow give guidance. Sometimes these individual snippets of God’s Word are still helpful, but more often than not they are stripped of their full impact by not being considered in a broader context. Instead, I should apply God’s word as God intended it. Sometimes this is literal and specific – “do not murder.” However, sometimes the practical application is to my thinking and decision making process more than to the specific action I am taking. As you read God’s Word ask yourself “how should I change or what should I do if I believe this to be true?”
• Conform to it, don’t conform it to you. Many Christians are guilty of doing whatever they want or feel like and living no differently than an unbeliever and then turning to God’s Word and looking for some justification for what they have done. We must always look at God’s Word as the guiding force for how I live my life, which means I must look to it FIRST. Next time you have a decision to make, prayerfully consult God’s Word before you decide what to do.
• Let it transform you not just inform you. One of the biggest mistakes we make as Christians is that we approach the Bible as if it were merely information to be learned. It does contain fantastic information and it is all completely true. However, it is not first and foremost an information source. It is not a text book. It is not a self-help manual. It is the living and active word of God and it is meant to permeate your heart and soul and change you. As you read God’s Word, actively and intentionally submit yourself to its authority over you as you read.

While this is certainly not a thorough explanation of Bible study and application, if you begin to approach God’s Word with these principles in mind you will find that it can and will change your life. The Bible will truly become a roadmap for your life that leads to all the many blessings that God has in store for you!

 

 

photo taken by Ryk Neethling shared by license

Life Lessons from Build-a-Bear

Yesterday morning, my family and I set out for a day of fun and adventure, the first stop of which was supposed to be Build-a-Bear Workshops to take advantage of a promotion we had heard about a few days prior. It was a “pay your age” promotion in which kids could get a stuffed critter for merely the price of their age and for a family of our size this promised to be a deal that was just too good to pass up. Apparently we were not the only ones to think so, because before US stores even opened the Build-a-Bear Workshops corporate offices had to issue a statement apologizing that they would be limiting the promotion because of unexpected turn out. Well before noon, they issued another statement essentially shutting the whole thing down. Personally, I was relieved to not have to stand in line all morning. My kids were disappointed, but kids are resilient and easily bought off with Chic-Fil-A and ice cream so it was kind of a win – win for me. Not so much for Build-a-Bear though as they found themselves the rare victim of an idea that was so successful it became a complete and total failure.

Ordinarily, it takes a pretty slow news day for something like this episode to make much of an impact, but I find myself continuing to think about it because of two important questions that it raises in my own mind. While you may have no concern whatsoever with Build-a-Bear or its failed promotion, I think it will serve you well to contemplate these two questions.

Am I prepared to deal with the consequences of my actions?

Everything we do has consequences and some of those consequences are more predictable than others. It is good practice to think through any decision and try to determine some of the potential consequences you may face and be sure you are prepared to deal with it. Life is filled with unexpected consequences, but many of the consequences we face on a daily basis are totally predictable. For instance, you may not be able to predict being in an accident on your drive home, but you certainly can predict that if you are driving while intoxicated you have increased your odds of an accident.

I believe that each of us as individuals is responsible for the consequences of our actions and that it is wise to consider ahead of time whether or not you really want to face those consequences. This is exactly the type of thinking I try to teach my children on a regular basis. I frequently tell them something to this effect: “I cannot make you be kind to your sister, but if you are unkind this is the consequence that you are choosing for yourself. If you choose this consequence, you are doing it to yourself and you cannot be upset with me. Got it?” They always agree and they still usually get upset when they face their consequence, but we are attempting to help them grasp at a young age something that many adults still don’t understand – they are responsible for their actions!

What if I succeed?

Consider what it is that you are currently investing yourself in as it relates to your time, energy and finances. What are you trying to succeed at? Are you trying to get a business off the ground? Are you trying to save up to by a home? Are you trying to finish college? Or maybe you’re just trying to get your kid to stop eating day old toast that got forgotten under the table. It doesn’t matter; we all have something that we are trying to accomplish. We have endeavor, be it big or small, at which we are trying to succeed. Often times we consider the possibility of failing at those endeavors, but I challenge you to consider the possibility of succeeding. What impact will success have on you? What impact will it have on others? Will it make a difference for eternity? I am totally fascinated by the fact that what went wrong with Build-a-Bear’s promotion is simply that it went so right. It was a tremendous success. Everyone loved it. It was great. Until it wasn’t.

I just wonder if there are things in my life and yours that we want so badly that we do not see the potential negative outcomes of success. Do you get that promotion and lose your family? Do you build that house and lose everything because you can’t afford it? Do you raise perfectly well-mannered children who feel unloved by you because all you cared about was stuff and rules? I once heard a man say that his greatest fear was not that he would fail, but that he would succeed at things that didn’t matter. This challenges me to constantly evaluate my life and my goals to make sure that I am pursuing things that are actually important.

Seek first the kingdom!

We can never predict all of the consequences we might face and we should never live in fear of either success or failure, so how do I live a life that is both fulfilling and honoring to God? I think the answer lies in Matthew 6:33 where Jesus says that we are to “seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.” “All these things” is the stuff of daily life mentioned in the previous verses. For a Jesus follower, the priority of your life should be God’s kingdom. That means you put God first and pursue His will and plan. If you make that the aim of every decision, every goal, every action that you take, then He will take care of everything else. He will guide your steps and enable you to have the best possible version of your life!

 

photo credit to Doug Kline used by permission.

Teaching Our Children Through Hurt Feelings

In my role as family pastor I frequently talk with parents who are concerned that their child is being treated unfairly at school, on a team, or even at church. Usually, the conversation revolves around the parent’s attempts or desire to “fix” the situation and force the teacher, coach or leader to be “fair.” Honestly, as a parent I can sympathize. It is tremendously painful to see our kids deal with hurt feelings and it can break our hearts to see them faced with the harsh realities of real life. I have seen my own child hurt because another parent pulled strings to get something for their child that mine was told was unavailable. I have seen the pain and confusion in my child’s eyes when he discovered he was excluded from an event his friends were a part of. And in those situations and many others I have faced the same temptation to protest the unfairness and step in and “fix” it.

However, I am convinced that we do our children a terrible disservice when we do choose to step in and manipulate people and circumstances for their benefit. I am not suggesting we should not protect our kids from physical harm and do all that we can to ensure their safety, but I am suggesting that there are worse things than hurt feelings. As parents, we are given the responsibility to shape the heart of our children toward God and teach them what it means to be a follower of Jesus. We must prepare them to live real life in a manner that is pleasing to God. That means both introducing them to some of the realities of real life and teaching them how a follower of Jesus should respond. If we “fix” every situation we deem unfair, we train our kids to believe that this is the reality they should expect in life. They begin to believe that they can only function properly if everything is stacked in their favor. Perhaps even worse, by always protecting our kids from all potential for hurt feelings and painful or uncomfortable social situations we miss out on an incredible opportunity to train our kids in one of the most difficult aspects of real life – responding properly when you are wronged.

Let’s face it; even as adults this is one of the most difficult things we ever do. Most of us can handle doing the right thing when life is going our way. However, it is when we are wronged, mistreated, or slighted that we struggle to act as Jesus would. This is something we must all work at! Because of that fact, I want to challenge you parent to parent to consider embracing your child’s difficult social situations rather than fighting them. Instead, use the opportunity to teach them some valuable lessons like:

• Life isn’t fair. I know it’s cliché. I know it’s very grumpy old man of me. But it is true. Most of the time, life is not going to be concerned with treating you fairly. Can your child handle that? They will need to in order to succeed in life.
• Consider another perspective. Oftentimes I feel hurt even though it was not someone else’s intention to hurt or offend. Teach your child to consider a perspective other than their own when they feel they are being treated unfairly.
• Turn to Jesus. This is not meant to be a trite, churchy answer. This is an invaluable lesson we must all learn and should certainly teach our children. When you experience, pain, suffering, or mistreatment of any kind you should always turn to Jesus for comfort. Go to him in prayer. Seek comfort in His Word. Teach your children to lean on Jesus rather than to depend on retaliation or any resolution for our well-being.
• Respond with kindness. Retaliating to unkindness just make things worse. We should teach our children to respond with kindness, especially to minor offenses and slights. The Bible even says to respond to evil with blessing (1 Peter 3:9).
• Be humble. When my child is mistreated, I can use that to remind them of the pain we sometimes cause others and help them consider the grace and forgiveness they want to receive when they are the offender.
• Calmly confront. Many people grow to adulthood without ever learning the important art of biblical confrontation. Teach your child how to respectfully and peacefully confront an offender. This will take him or her far in life.
• Show God’s love. The Bible constantly urges us to show love in all situations and relationships, including everyone from your neighbor to your enemy (Luke 6:27-31; Gal 5:14). We must teach our children that the responsibility for showing God’s love does not end just because we are treated unfairly.

This is not in any way an exhaustive list of what can be learned from difficult or unfair situations, but I hope that it challenges you to consider the tremendous benefits of allowing children to face some of the natural discomfort and unfairness of life rather than always swooping in to protect them from reality. I hope you will consider that since reacting to mistreatment from others is so difficult for us as adults, we certainly can’t expect our children to magically figure it out once they are grown. They need practice now, even though that practice may mean some hurt feelings in the short term.

So, next time your child comes to you with an interpersonal or social problem, pause before you give in to the impulse to “fix” it for them. Perhaps instead you could take advantage of the opportunity to simply comfort, pray and teach. It might be hard at first, but the reward in terms of life-lessons learned and Christ-like character is well worth it!

 

photo Unfair CC BY-SA 3.0 Nick Youngson