The Stakes Are High

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Elizabeth

From my high school band director days:

Mrs. Giger! My bassoon solo actually sounds good now!!

Well, I’m glad. What did you do differently?

I finally followed your advice to practice the song. And it worked!!

Aha.

It is something I’ve been trying to teach my seven year old. Working hard at a challenging task brings such a sweet reward.

Any excellent and beautiful ending is the result of working hard at something difficult.

We know this in our adult lives ~ we feel most satisfied after a day full of meaningful challenges that we tackled wholeheartedly; challenges that ended with accomplishment.

Why do we think that life should be different?

If this life is preparation for the life to come, why would we expect it to be easy? Shouldn’t we expect it to be more like boot camp?

…suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…

We think that life should be comfortable, full of the things and people we desire.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

We are offended and outraged when things don’t go as planned.

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.

We decide that this is too hard.

Life is too lonely, too full of hurt, too saturated with grief.

True.

And this loneliness, this hurt, this grief can have purpose.

For it was fitting that (God), for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Eternity is high stakes. We shouldn’t be surprised that the preparation can be grueling.

Each day we have a choice. We can choose to accept what we are given and let God use it to mold us or we can dig in our heels and choose to look for the easy way, the way of least pain and effort, the way of bitterness and discontent.

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. ~ C. S. Lewis

Life is. We can fight against it and live in a state of war. Or we can surrender to God and be molded into someone who is perfectly ready for eternity.

The stakes are high. Are you ready for the challenge?

Go Act Like It

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Elizabeth

Sometimes, when I forget who our King is, this world makes me want to run away and hide.

In a week when refugees number in the millions,

In a week when a friend, a friend with a wife and three small children, dies much too soon,

In a week when fellow believers choose to scream about gay marriage across the country rather than to do something about the poor on the other side of town,

It is easy to believe the lie that I can do nothing against the darkness of this world.

It is easy to believe that the darkness is too strong.

It is easy to believe that ISIS wins, that cancer wins, that politicism wins.

In a week like this, I want to give in to despair. To give up. To gather my babies around me and sit and wait for Jesus to come back and make all of this right again.

And then I remember.

I remember that Jesus calls us to fight. He calls us to be a royal priesthood. A people who rule on His behalf and a people who represent Him to the world around them.

If we hide from the darkness, the darkness will certainly overcome. At least, it will overcome those to whom God asked us to be the light. Perhaps it will overcome us as well.

God is light and He has commissioned us to bring that light to the world.

I often tell my children:

You are beautiful. You are loving.

Now act like it.

So now I tell myself and I tell you:

We are royal. We are priests.

We should act like it.

Go dish out food at a soup kitchen.

Go babysit the children of a parent who has lost someone they love.

Go take a meal to an elderly friend who broke their hip.

Go have patience with that tantrum-throwing child one more time.

Go bake some cookies and take them to the gay couple down the street. Without a note that tells them how wrong they are.

Go find out how to help those refugee children who are lost and hungry and afraid (here’s a good place to start: http://wewelcomerefugees.com/).

We are royal. We are priests.

Act like it.

Be the light that overcomes the darkness.

And take heart; Jesus has overcome the world.

Clutching at Gold Stars

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Elizabeth

We’re moving, so I’ll be fetching from the archives for the next two or three weeks. Enjoy!

It is a difficult and forever-long process, this learning how to make everything sacred.

It is also beautifully rewarding.

Learning how to make all things in your life sacred takes focus. It takes the sort of focus that teaches me how to be single-hearted towards God.

She is good at being very focused and single-minded, my youngest. Especially when she needs something.

The dreaded event of all mothers everywhere, her special lovey simply had to be washed at bedtime one night. She just couldn’t understand why she didn’t have her bunny.

“Bunny?” “Bunny is taking a bath, darling. I will bring you Bunny as soon as she is dry.” “O-hay.”

“Can I read you a bedtime story?” “Bunny?” “Bunny is taking a bath.” “Bass? Bunny?” “Yes, a bath. I’ll bring you Bunny when she is done.” “O-hay.”

“Let’s talk about our day, shall we?” “Mommy? Bunny?”

I sigh in frustration, yet feel a small stir in my heart.

What if I were that focused in my pursuit of God, my pursuit of making all things in my life meaningful?

What if I blocked out more of the mindless stories I read and the meaningless discussions I have online in order to pursue God? What would that look like?

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You. ~ Isaiah 26.3

I read about a mother and daughter on a trip together through the world. During their journey, the mother speaks of a friend who accomplishes a marvelous amount of things during a day:

What’s allowed her to realize her dream where so many others fail, including me for many years, is how carefully and sanely she chooses exactly where to spend her time and energy…Kristin’s life illustrates that it takes more than passion and a lot of work to make a dream work–it takes focus. What you think about matters, a lot. Your thoughts drive your actions.

The mother continues to talk about the myriad of women who choose to please others, to accommodate others, rather than choosing to stand up for themselves and their families.

She says that many of us choose to be “good girls going for gold stars, instead of clasping tight the gold of our lives by living as we truly desire.”

This has the scent of truth that makes me pause. If I substitute “living as God desires”, this touches something deep in my heart.

How many times have I said “yes” to an activity, to a time commitment, even to a service opportunity, simply to please someone else or to create a certain image of myself?

So many times those “yeses” have cost me and my family. They have kept me from clasping tight the gold of obeying God’s desire that I should, for this season, focus most on these little disciples running around my feet.

I want desperately to be single-hearted. I desire to chase after God, to pursue and focus on only what He has called me to do rather than to fritter away my moments on activities that attempt to please others.

What does this look like? How do you do this in your own life? How do you carefully and sanely choose exactly where to spend your time and energy?

Do you have a goal, a purpose or mission statement for your family? Do you have a lens through which you filter every request, every moment’s choice?

The mother in my book says that “change happens in the small moments, when a sliver of light finds its way through the cracks”.

To help herself to focus, “I wrote down every single thing I did in fifteen-minute increments for three entire weeks…I asked myself a thousand times a day before acting – and, miraculously, speaking – What am I creating with this choice right now?”

I want to see everything around me as sacred, to be single-minded in pursuing God and His desires for me. I want to choose with intention rather than feelings, excuses, or circumstances. I want to please God rather than man.

I want to clasp tight the gold instead of aimlessly grasping for gold stars.

When This World Becomes Just Too Much

Posted on July 3, 2015 by Elizabeth

ISIS

Ferguson

Tunisia

Greece

Our world is broken. It is fallen.

Cancer

Infertility

Loneliness

Joblessness

Our lives are broken. They can be dark.

That there can be ugliness in this life is not questioned by anyone. No one would argue with the idea that we all go through times of darkness, times of weeping, times of where in the world, where in all of this hurting world are You, God?

If the question then is not will I suffer, then the question must be what will I choose when I suffer.

When I hurt, will I believe that God works for the best in everything or will I wonder whether God is working at all? When I ache, will I believe that God is most present when I am at the end of myself or will I wonder whether God is really in anything at all? When I don’t know how long I can hold on, will I believe in God when I cannot see Him through the dark or will I wonder if the darkness is all that there is?

What do we do when we are sinking, when we are drowning, when we are at the end of ourselves and are pleading for relief?

Paul pleaded with God to remove his thorn. He begged God three times for release. The first two times? Heaven was silent. The third time? God said no.

Jesus asked if there was any other way but the Cross. God’s answer? No.

Why do we think it should be different for us? Why do we think that we should be exempt?

If God is most present and works most powerfully when we are at the end of our own limits, then shouldn’t we want to lean into our suffering rather than try to escape it?

Paul chose to boast of his weakness, to be content with his hardship. He chose to immerse himself in his thorn in order to gain more of Christ.

We don’t have a choice about whether we will hurt.

Our choice is in how we will respond.

Will we spend our time begging for respite? Will we beg God to take it away and then curse Him when He does not?

Or will we receive our suffering as a gift? A gift with a purpose, even though we may never know the purpose. A gift with a promise, a promise of grace and God’s presence.

When God says no, when God says My grace is sufficient for you, instead of arguing with Him about it, instead of fighting Him with all of your strength, ask Him to help you get to the place where you can receive your adversity as a gift from a loving Father.

A gift that brings you more of His grace. A gift that brings you more of Him.

I have learned to kiss the waves that dash me against the Rock of Ages. ~ Charles Spurgeon

Art credits: The Apostle Paul sketch from 1514 A.D.; Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane by Orazio Borgianni; The Three Crosses by Rembrandt

Choosing Our Activities

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Elizabeth

Our world is a busy place.

There is a lot of pressure on young families (very likely on those in other seasons of life as well – I can only speak to what I know) to keep our children as busy as possible. We are presented with a myriad of activities for our kids and are given the impression that we deprive our children if we choose to opt out.

Your kids won’t be well-rounded! They will fall behind their friends! They won’t learn as much, be as good, become as successful!

Whether the reference is to sports, the arts, languages or STEM, the implication is that if we love our children, we will give them as much chance for success in their later life as we possibly can.

If God is in all things and in Him all things hold together, if we are to view all pieces of our lives through a Christian lens, if there is no separation between sacred and secular, then even the activities we choose for our children should be considered carefully in light of our faith.

I have heard much lamenting from Christians recently about the busyness of our families, about how we should spend time together in our homes building character into our children rather than ferrying them around from activity to activity.

The argument is that it is much more important for our kids to know and love Jesus than to become successful in the eyes of our culture.

I don’t disagree at all with the impetus behind the lament. I fully believe that to know and love Jesus is the most important thing we can teach our children.

I also believe that it is important to teach our children to show Jesus to the people in their circle of influence.

And there is my dilemma. If the people who see us view us as failures, can they be receptive to what we have to say about Christ?

If God created arts, if philosophy and math are ways of looking at the world He created, shouldn’t we be helping our children to become well versed in such things?

For people who do not know God to respect what we have to say about God, they must also respect us. Yes, much of that will occur when they see how well we love them and each other. But some of that also comes with how successful we are in whatever tasks we set ourselves to accomplish.

So what do we do? What is most important?

Do we keep our families at home, focusing completely on helping them to love God and each other?

Do we sign our kids up for multiple activities, helping them to become successful and thus securing a foundation for their future witness to those around them?

Perhaps the answer lies in a balance between the two. This is often the case in our lives in Christ. We are not often asked to do solely one to the exclusion of the other; maybe that is true here as well.

If we are deliberate about carving out time to spend together as a family, being sure to be intentional in how we teach our children in that time, and also are intentionally wise in choosing a few activities for our children, being sure to consider the God-given passions of each child, then we should be able to fulfill both tasks set before us.

We should be able to help our children both to love God and those around them, and to gain the respect of their future friends and colleagues, laying the foundation of their ability to show Jesus to those around them.

Will you take a turn and share with me? What ideas do you have for not staying too busy as a family and yet at the same time helping your children to succeed?

Choices

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Elizabeth

“Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”

Jesus and Barabbas before Pilate

And the people chose Barabbas.

I’ve always wondered why.

Why would they choose a murderer over a savior?

What would push them into making the choice of one who steals life over one who gives life?

We could talk about mob mentality; we could point out the way they lived under the sway of priestly authority.

We can never know for sure.

One thing we can know for sure, though:

They made the same choice that Jesus would have made, if the choice had been up to Him.

This is His choice

Jesus would have chosen to give Barabbas his freedom and his life, knowing that it would cost Him His.

It is what He chose for us.

It is hard to understand both choices: the choice of the crowd and the choice of Jesus.

Yet to understand both choices is to understand the gospel.

Frederick Buechner put it well when he said that to grasp both of these decisions is to “grasp what the New Testament says about Christ being our Savior and about people badly needing to be saved.”

God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Art credits: Jesus and Barabbas by Bernhard Rode; Let Him Be Crucified by James Tissot; Jesus Scourged by Phillip Medhurst; photo of Christ with the cross by Asta Rastauskiene

The Sacredness of Bad Attitudes

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Elizabeth

I sit at Panera, laptop open in front of me, staring out the window at snow drifting down.

I come from a morning full of harsh words and impatience, full of angry attitudes and frustrated responses.

I watch the fat flakes piling up and am struck by the beauty of the view, struck by the sacredness of a dirty world turning white.

I sift through my memories of this morning and wonder why I am unable to also see those parts of life as sacred.

It is easy to see the sacredness of snow. It is difficult to see the sacredness in a child’s anger.

When life is beautiful, when I gaze at spring flowers or at a little girl reading to her sister, I have no trouble in seeing God.

It is when my children fuss and yell, when they shove each other and bang angry fists on the piano and Mommy hollers back in return, that God seems to vanish.

Yet if I truly believe that there is no separation between sacred and secular, if I believe that the fullness of life is sacred, if I believe that there is no difference between kneeling before God in prayer and kneeling in service before a dirty toilet…

Then there is sacredness even in my child who is storming away from me in anger and frustration.

There is sacredness in a fussy toddler, in a stubborn preschooler, in a huffy elementary school child.

It is easier to react with impatience than to see God in these things. It is easier to speak harsh words in response than to pause long enough to search for the sacredness and speak words of Love in answer.

I am trying to figure out how to hold on to the truth that there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular, between the body and the soul. I am trying to figure out how to hold on to the truth that God made this world and made this life and uses every piece of both to bring me to Him.

I am trying to figure out how to “become more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.”
(Barbara Brown Taylor in An Altar in the World)

It is this, this living of real life in the real world while focusing myself on God, that will change me, change my life, change the way I live my life.

Which, in turn, will bring me closer to God.

And that is indeed truly sacred.

When Praise is a Sacrifice

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Elizabeth

Sacrifice is hard.

I suppose that is clear from the very definition of the word.

The idea of a sacrifice of praise seems a strange sort of concept. We tend to view praise as spontaneous, as rising from our rising and joyful emotions. How can such praise be a sacrifice?

: Easy to praise

That sort of praise is not such a sacrifice. But what about the praise that comes from a woman who has just lost her child? What about the praise from a man who does not know how he will feed his family? What about the praise from Christ-follower who lives every day in fear of torture or death because of Who he follows?

Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name. (Heb. 13.5)

The praise of the one ravaged by cancer, the praise of the one dying inside from loneliness, the praise of the one who isn’t even sure that God is really there…these are a sacrifice. These are that sacrifice of praise.

: Steph – Suffered years of illnesses and still chose to try to praise God

: Kristina – died of cancer, leaving her husband and baby behind, yet still sought God while alive.

But how? How is it even possible to praise God while living through such circumstances?

Through Him

Through who?

Look back just one chapter.

…looking to Jesus…who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Heb. 12. 2-3)

How? By looking to Jesus. By looking to the One who was able to offer up His own sacrifice of praise while enduring the physical pain of the cross, while enduring the emotional shame of the cross, while enduring the heartbreaking separation from His own Father.

: Jesus – crucified, humiliated, abandoned, yet still offered praise to God

By keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, and therefore off of ourselves, we are given courage and strength to do what we think is impossible. We are kept from growing weary and fainthearted.

By fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, we are able to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise. An offering of praise that endures all time and all circumstance. An offering of praise that is beautiful to God.

Art credits: Sunlight through tulips photograph by Kirk Sewell Photography; photograph of Jesus carrying the cross sculpture by Asta Rastauskiene

Be Right or Love the Person?

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Elizabeth

“Is it more important to be right or to be loving?”

I ask her the question as she stands with her hands on her hips, righteous indignation quivering through every inch of her little body.

It seems an easy question when put in such stark terms, but which of us answers it correctly in each one of our little choices every day?

Certainly not me.

I find myself struggling with whether loving the person or desiring to be right is more important. I wrestle with the decision of whether having the perfect event or loving the person is better. I fight hard against the desire to let my agenda, my task list trump the to-do of loving the person.

Love God. Love people.

It is that simple. It is that hard.

Pride stands in our way. Desire for an experience to be amazing puts up a wall. Need to feel accomplished plants its roots.

Yet it truly is simple. Will we obey our own desires or will we submit ourselves to God?

“To be loving.” The answer barely escapes through her gritted teeth. She doesn’t want that to be the right answer.

I know, my darling. I know. I, too, want a different answer. I, too, want to protect myself, to protect my perceived interests and rights.

The trouble is that when you commit yourself to this God of power and love, you commit to letting Him defend you. Your job is to obey. In this case, that looks like love.

It is making yourself vulnerable in order to love the person. It is making yourself nothing in order to love the person. It is making yourself a servant in order to love the person.

Love God. Love people.

It is that simple. It is that hard.

Tolerance or Love?

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Elizabeth

Listen to them argue. Watch as each shakes her head and smiles condescendingly while the other is speaking passionately about what she thinks is right. It often seems that surface level respect doesn’t go very far. Those who support each group seem to vilify the other, speaking out ugly words of disrespect and hate. There will always be someone with whom we disagree, someone we are vehemently sure is wrong.

What do we do with this? What do we do when we disagree, both with those we call brother and sister and with those who do not believe? We are exhorted by our leaders and our culture to be tolerant to those around us. Everywhere we turn we are pleaded with to show tolerance to anyone who is different, anyone who thinks or behaves differently than we do.

And what does that tolerance look like? We are told by our world that we are to stay open-minded, that we are to live and let live, that we should not put up any claim to truth. We are told by the world surrounding us that we can disagree with anyone we want, can believe anything we like, as long as we keep it to ourselves.

This is what our world says. But what about us? Is this what we who are Christ followers are called to be? Tolerant? Is this really all that we can manage, all that we can aspire to do? Tolerance is easy. It doesn’t require anything of either party. It relieves us of all responsibility. It costs us nothing. Tolerance shrugs its shoulders and walks away, leaving you to your own devices. Tolerance doesn’t care.

“And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” ~ Matthew 22.39

Love is much harder. Love costs our comfort and our time. Love affirms the reality of the other person, culture and way of life. Love takes the trouble to get to know the other person and find out what makes them beautiful. Love wants what is best for that person or culture.

It was love that brought the world to oppose an apartheid regime in South Africa, not tolerance. It was love that lead Martin Luther King to pursue civil rights, not tolerance. It was love that drove William Wilberforce to lead the British parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade, not tolerance.

It was love that sent Jesus to the cross on our behalf, not tolerance.

We live our lives in contact with people who are different. We are surrounded by those who look, dream, think, and believe differently than we. We therefore must pray for strength to choose the harder way. If we are to be Jesus to those around us, if we are to make a difference for Him in this world, we must have the strength to choose love rather than tolerance.

“Love must confront Tolerance and insist, as it has always done, on a better way.” ~ Tim Keller in Generous Justice

Why is love so much harder than tolerance? Why does it require more from us? Part of the reason is that love is asks us to be discerning. Love sometimes asks us to work toward change yet sometimes asks us to see the gray in others rather than viewing the world in black and white alone. It is difficult to see in gray. Life gets harder when you see things from other points of view. Straight lines get hijacked and carry you off to the unknown. Solid perspectives grow a little blurry and you begin to take a softer view of those you disagree with.

The more we meet people who were raised differently and the more we read authors from other places and times and faith traditions, the more we begin to catch a glimpse of how much our view of God, of the Bible, of the world around us is colored by our own place and time and faith tradition.

Just as with every place and time and faith tradition, there is truth to be found and there is misunderstanding. Tolerance allows us to be lazy, to choose what we believe and let others walk on their own path. Love requires that we listen, that we look at those before us with wisdom. As we take the time to know another and love them, we begin to realize that there is something even more important than figuring out what is right and what is wrong.

No human here on earth is my enemy. We who claim the name of Christ are all trying to love Jesus and obey God’s words. Rather than those who disagree with us being the enemy, being one who is deliberately misinterpreting God’s words, being one who picks and chooses what they will believe, those who see things in a different light are mostly just trying their best to follow Jesus.

Just like we are.

Perhaps they are interpreting Scripture incorrectly, but perhaps we are the ones who are wrong. Grace. It is easy to receive and devilishly difficult to dole out freely. We spend so much time either being determined to get it right at the expense of our relationships or trying so hard to tolerate the differences around us that we quit looking at the person with whom we differ. Yet when we look closely and intently we can see the gray shades of Jesus in the face of the person before us.

And then it is easier to love.

Edited from the archives