Still Crazy After All These Years

I saw a post on a friend's Facebook page today that was asking about the perfect women who have it all together.  You know the woman.  Her hair always looks good.  She's just been to the gym, but didn't sweat enough to mess up her make-up, just enough to stay in those size two jeans.  She cheerfully totes her kids to every activity: Awanas, Soccer, Music Lessons and has a gourmet, gluten-free meal in the Crock for when they get home to their perfectly clean home.  After supper she writes for her fabulous blog and then she spends the rest of the night making her husband happy he married this amazing woman.  She doesn't exist.

We marry real people.  We are real people.  Ideas like the one above, or the "Christian Version" of her (perfect in ministry, helping the poor on all occasions, never raising her voice at her children, teaching Sunday School, sitting in prayer with friends, her Bible open on her lap every free moment of her life, able to balance her life as a mother, wife, friend and homemaker with her devotional and serving life) just do. not. exist.

We are real.  We are sinners.  We have limitations.  Our spouses are real.  They are sinners with limitations as well.

You Are Loved - Open Your Arms to Receive the Gift

How many times do we hear that we are loved?  I know there are lives where this isn't said often enough.  But, the saying it may not matter as much as the seeing it.  As I was growing up, my family would shout, "I love you" as any of us were leaving the home.  It was like a tradition and almost became a rote way of saying, "Goodbye."  But the living it out was a challenge for us.  My dad was ill and my mom was frazzled.  Beyond that my dad came from a traditional German family and he basically had two emotions: Happy and Angry.  There was this sort of neutral emotion he had as well.  My mom covered the rest of the emotional spectrum that my dad did not seem to touch.  Lopsided.  Through years of perfectionistic expectations and harsh parenting approaches and the unavoidable distance which occurred when my dad was extremely ill, I didn't feel the words that were shouted as loudly as I felt something was missing -- in me.  My parents loved me.  They did.  They just had very broken ways of expressing love because of the denied brokenness inside of each of them.  A child can't see these truths.  A child thinks something is wrong with me.

But God, He already knows something is wrong.  He knew it when He formed the earth from shapeless nothing.  He knew it when angels rebelled and longed for power and position instead of peace and provision.  He knew about me then.  He knew about you.  It is a mind boggling process to imagine and wrestle with the knowing of God.  It is too lofty for us, but it is important not to shrink away from the imagining.  We must stretch up as a child stretches towards a father and try to glimpse the before time began love of God.  Back in the void when no thing was yet He loved enough to plan sacrifice.  Love is sacrifice.

Be Yourself

This post is part of the Faith Barista - Faith Jam Thursdays

where Bonnie encourages us to write on a prompt and join in sharing our hearts in community.  This experience is different from the spontaneous, unrehearsed writing for Five-Minute-Friday.  Bonnie gives us a week to write on her prompt and no time limit for our writing.  It's all about being real and healing togehter.  You can join by clicking the link above.  

Today we are writing on "Be Yourself" so buckle up, this one has some hairpin turns:

I sit here pondering all the different people I have met in my life:  Different.  Unique.  Not one like another.  So many variations flutter in my memory like snowflakes past a windowsill.  God has made each of us to be unlike any other.  There will never be another me -- another you.  I have been pondering this special "self-ness" of each of us.  Created, Crafted, Chosen.  You could spend a silent day going around looking at each person and thinking, "God made you just as you are because you can reflect Him as only you can and you can experience Him as only you can."  Granted, not one of us is either reflecting Him nor experiencing Him to our full capacity and some are falling woefully short, but consider how each of us are like points in a diamond, created to reflect the light in the way that only we can.  That is self.  Uniquely made and loved in that uniqueness.

Truth

Truth.

The Truth will set you free.  Free.  No one knows what free tastes like until they have lived in bondage and suffered the suffocating lack of freedom which comes from a lost and broken life.  Freedom.  Jesus said it was for freedom that He set me free.  And He won't stop His relentless pursuit of that freedom.  You see, I'll settle for less.  I'm fine with good enough if I get comfortable.  But, not Jesus.  He's just not willing to let me settle -- not when He has a wide open meadow of goodness and I could run unabandoned into His wide open love.  That's Truth.  The Truth is that He bent low and came to this earth for each one of us and He lived the normal life of an inconspicuous boy in a carpenter's home in a backwards little town and then He started to move into ministry.  All this to seek and save lost and broken people like me.  But then He went to my cross.  And He bore my sin.  That's the Truth.  And for what?  For the joy set before Him.  What joy?  The joy of my freedom in Him.  Can we wrap our brains around this gift?  Can we fathom the Truth of this unfathomable love?  He has freedom in mind -- in heart and soul -- for each of us.  The way is the way of the cross.  He endured the cross.  We go to the cross with Him and we nail our sin-filled hearts and allow Him to touch them with His loving care and we become transformed into increasing freedom.  The cross is the place of unavoidable pain.  The cross is the place of forgiveness, healing, resurrection, transformation.  Truth.  Truth sets us free.  Unearth the hidden places and allow the breezes of His love to move through for the freedom He died to bring to you. 

Stop. 

Grace

This entry is part of a sweet weekly experience hosted by Lisa Jo Baker.
She posts a word.  Just one.  Anyone can blog on the word.  Write for five minutes of blogging without interruption or editing.  Stop.  Post.  
Join us over at Five Minute Friday

Go.  
 
Grace.

It happened a year ago August.  I had left a sweet meeting with my dear mentor and I was unglued in the best sense of the word.  We had gone into the depths of some painful memories and I had wept and been freed up even more.  Jesus is relentlessly, yet patiently excavating my heart and digging out the remnants of old hurts and bringing up the wounds so that He can breathe healing all over them.  Each time I meet with my mentor in this way more and more of that old gets sloughed off and there is a fresh wind of peace and joy blowing through the open spaces.  But the wounds are often fresh when I leave her and I feel more vulnerable and tender for a time.  Healing is like that. 

This meeting was no different and on the way home -- my long two-hour drive back to my life and family -- I was looking for something to listen to as I drove.  I finally turned on my laptop on the passenger seat and pulled up my audiobooks file.  I have this habit of downloading free audiobooks whenever they are available so I quickly scanned the list.  Not knowing who wrote what, a title struck me: "All of Grace."  I hit play.  As the author's name was spoken, I thought, "hmmm ... maybe not."  I know this author, C. H. Spurgeon.  I have his devotional, "Morning and Evening."  I do respect him and gain so much from his writings, but he is also a person who was very exacting at times and I knew I was a bit tender and needed kid gloves that night.  I reluctantly continued to listen and bit by bit the message sunk in.  When we are vulnerable, there is not much to defend us.  What is heard sinks in without a wall to keep it out.  I can't find words to explain what happened as I listened, but it was as though the very voice of God were speaking these words of grace to me, personally.  I drove those two hours, hearing from God through the most unlikely and unsolicited source. 

I heard God say that He justifies the ungodly.  It comes into all our minds -- and it surely had come into mine -- that somehow we need to be good enough for God to want to have anything to do with us.  And I have spent years doubting the true love of God for me.  But, there, in the dark of my car, alone on the freeway home I heard it:  God does not come because we are just, but to make us so.  This old truth was made new to me that night.  It is simply impossible to convey the miracle of an awakening.  I had knowledge of this truth, of course, but in this unexpected moment, grace broke through.  And it broke through like a dam breaking.  I felt the rush of newness and the freedom of Jesus' forgiveness.  In the same book Spurgeon says that we can have a recumbant relationship with God.  I think of that often now.  How I can lean back as in a chez lounge and find rest.  It is because of grace that I can relax into God.  Dallas Willard used to say grace isn't just for the sinner -- the godly burn it up like a jet burns up fuel.  We need that grace and we have it in abundance.  Can't you just feel the wind of freedom and joy?  It is not just wishful thinking, it is the ground on which I now firmly stand.  I've had a grace awakening, and I just can't be the same again. 

Stop.

Our Little Daily Crosses

Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." I've been thinking lately about those daily crosses. Into daily life come little inconveniences which require me to set aside what I planned to do and remind me to look to the needs of others.  Some seasons have larger crosses -- when health fails or finances dwindle and resources are tight; when children suffer or friends have burdens that weigh heavy on the mind.  The crosses of relational harm and misunderstanding leave scars and wounds too painful to ignore.  And yet, to be His disciple (student, follower, imitator) I am to take these up and follow Him.

Jesus echoed this idea six times in scripture and may have said it other unrecorded times.  It obviously was and is a vital message to his followers.  One of these incidents gives me pause:  We call him the "rich young ruler" and when he came to Jesus calling Him good and asking what he must do to be saved, this is what happened: Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." As I read through this passage in Mark 10:21 today I was struck by something I hadn't made note of before.  Jesus, beholding him, loved him.  Jesus loved him.  Jesus loves you in this same way.  And, everything he says to this young ruler was said from that eternal, incomprehensible, self-denying love.  He says, "you lack something," in other words, something stands in the way of your heart coming freely to me.  He says that to you and He says it to me.  We have little idol factories in our hearts and without thought we manufacture things to worship and those things block the way to Jesus.  We must be rid of them.  For this man it was wealth.  We can idolize our children, our marriages, our friendships, our fitness (or the striving for fitness), finances, addictive behaviors or substances.  And those things must be named and they must be given away so we can follow Him. They must take their rightful place in order that He can take His. 

Jesus then admonishes this man to "take up his cross" and follow Jesus.  He says this same command and instruction again in Matt 10: 37-8, Matt 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23 and Luke 14:27.  Sometimes he adds that we need to take up our cross, deny ourselves and follow Him.  Other times He says we won't be worthy (equal, congruent with Him) if we do not do this.  When Jesus calls us to deny ourselves He means for us to to "forget our self, lose sight of our self and our own interests" (in the Greek).  How do we lose sight of ourselves?  It's like me telling you not to think about elephants.  There you go.  Thinking about an elephant.  We don't forget something by thinking about it.  But, God knows this and He gives us alternatives.  He tells us to fix our hearts on the things above, not of this earth (Col 3).  He tells us to have the same mind as Christ had, thinking of others as more important than ourselves (Php 2) and He tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb 12).  Self-forgetting means God-remembering.  When we are fixed on Him, we are not distracted by self.

What does this self-denial look like in the day-to-day of our lives?  It means when my four-year-old comes and wants to play Candyland (which to me is akin to Chinese-water-torture), I fix my eyes not on my own comfort or desires, but on his desire to connect and play something he enjoys with me.  I set aside my wishes for his.  It means when my husband wants to talk about details of his day and I really want to check my Facebook notifications, I set the computer down and give him my undivided attention because he matters and I love him.  By letting his need be more important than my little habit of social media, I am dying to self and showing him (and Jesus) love.  Little crosses.  Little deaths to self.  Insignificant as these seem, they are the way of the cross.  The cross-centered life means giving up of my way, my wants, my desires, my comfort so that I can love you and thereby love Him simultaneously.  And we all have daily little crosses. 

Sometimes the crosses are heavier.  They are more burdensome.  There are offenses and rejections from friends and loved ones that sting like a barbed arrow into our heart.  There are afflictions like cancer, MS, or other illnesses which beset us or our loved ones.  And still Jesus encourages us to take them up.  In Greek the word for take up means to "raise up" or "bear."  As it is used in the verses in Matthew it means "to take what is one's own, or to take to one's self and make one's own."  I need to make these burdens my own as Jesus made the cross His own.  He bore it for me -- for you.  I can bear these afflictions for Him.  I have a few friends whose children are seriously ill.  One friend has a son with diabetes.  She gets up many times each night and checks his blood sugar, administers medications or protein, prays, serves and sacrifices.  Her life is one of constant vigilance for his sake.  She is taking up her cross.  I have another friend whose daughter suffers from severe eczema.  Her daughter wakes scratching herself and crying from the pain of itching.  She wakes and gives her daughter a bath to soothe her.  My friend is tired and weary of the constant giving and her own sleep deprivation, but she is taking up her cross.  She is making the suffering of her daughter her own.  She is bearing it

Matthew Henry said, "We must accustom ourselves to all instances of self-denial and patience.  This is the best preparative for martyrdom. We must live a life of self-denial, mortification [putting ourselves to death], and contempt of the world; we must not indulge our ease and appetite, for then it will be hard to bear toil, and weariness, and want, for Christ. We are daily subject to affliction, and we must accommodate ourselves to it, and acquiesce in the will of God in it, and must learn to endure hardship. We frequently meet with crosses in the way of duty; and, though we must not pull them upon our own heads, yet, when they are laid for us, we must take them up, carry them after Christ, and make the best of them." This type of self-denial and death to self is no longer popular in our world -- even our Christian circles.  But, Jesus isn't about popular.  His message is the same today as it was when He walked among men and said these life-shaking comments years ago. 

Strong's defines the cross as "a well known instrument of most cruel and ignominious punishment, borrowed by the Greeks and Romans from the Phoenicians; to it were affixed among the Romans, down to the time of Constantine the Great, the guiltiest criminals, particularly the basest slaves, robbers, the authors and abetters of insurrections, and occasionally in the provinces, at the arbitrary pleasure of the governors, upright and peaceable men also, and even Roman citizens themselves."  The cross isn't cozy.  It is a tool of death.  It hurts.  It is uncomfortable.  It is sometimes shameful and lonely.  Why should our cross be any different than His? 

We must take up this instrument and to it we must affix our own self.  And we take it up as Jesus did.  In Hebrews 12: 2 we are told Jesus took up the cross and thereby "finished our faith" and He did it "for the joy that was set before him."  He "endured the cross, despising [disregarding, thinking nothing of] the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."  This is the promise of the cross.  We can take it up, as painful as it may be, and we can do it with joy set before us.  The cross is the precursor to resurrection.  There must be a death before there can be new life.  We must die to self and in that dying we will be reborn in newness and more Christ-likeness.  The cross is never the final word for Christians.  It is a pathway to freedom and joy and wholeness.

Mike Donehey of the band, Tenth Avenue North, said,

The cross is evidence to our minds, and balm for our souls that our God is a God who brings beauty out of pain. Art out of chaos. Beauty out of ugliness. Or as some of the poets have said, He conquers death by death itself. Our Redeemer beat Death at his own game.

Hope rises.

When we trust Christ, and the mysterious work on Calvary, we trust that He’s always up to something good even in the darkest days. In fact, that’s probably when He’s up to the most good, because that’s when the most good grows in me.

Each cross has its purposes and every cross promises blessings as fruit of our suffering.  In 1 Cor 1:18 Paul reminds us that the cross seems foolish to those who are perishing (the ones who are rejecting Jesus), but to us who are saved it is the power of God.  The cross is the way of power.  As in most things in God's kingdom there is this upside-down way.  We go to death and we find power.  We let go of our way and we find strength.  We suffer and we are freed.  It seems foolish in the world's eye to let go of our way, to yield to the troubles life brings and allow them to have their way in our heart and character.  But, in God's economy, this is the way of peace and life.  It is the crushing of the wheat that produces flour which has so many uses.  It is the crushing of our will that produces great usefulness as well. 

Paul reminds us in Gal 6:14 that through the cross we are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to us.  We can boast only in this cross -- the cross of Jesus.  It is the gate that leads us to relationship with God and it is the act which showed His love like nothing else before or since.  Ultimately the cross is a tool of reconciliation (Eph 2:16).  Through the cross Jesus reconciled us to God; He reconciled all people to one another; and He offered forgiveness to all.  Through my crosses I can do the same.  I can offer forgiveness because it was offered to me and at a great price.  I can show love -- and I can show it at a cost to myself.  But, unlike Jesus, who was forsaken for our sakes, when we take up our crosses we are not forsaken, but we are united to Him even more than before.  So, whether it be inconveniences or burdens we can bear these crosses with an eye to what they hold: the joy set before us as we grow in Him and His love.

Character vs. Conduct - Part III

So far in this series we have been looking at the developing of a noble character in our children.  In my first post we looked at what character is and in my second post we looked at the process by which God develops character.  We left off thinking of character development being rooted and grounded in love and we looked at the vital role of parental modeling by way of our own abiding relationship in Jesus as we acknowledge that more is caught than taught.  I mentioned at the end of my last post that I was going to tackle the concept of consequences and what role (if any) they play in character formation.  

As I thought and prayed about this post, I really spent time thinking through my own experiences – what has brought around significant change in my character throughout my life?  And I thought about my two sons – what areas do I see strength (even nobility) in their character and what seems to have brought that to pass?  These are really interesting questions to ponder.  I encourage you to think them through. 

One thing that has become evident to me as I have been thinking through character and conduct is that I think we tend to confound two different aspects of parenting.  One aspect is the necessary role of discipline or instruction of our children and the other aspect is the cultivation of character.  I think there is a good reason that we mingle these two together – at least the more I looked at my own tendencies, I found out some things which were important to see.  If I believe that something I do is bound to produce a lasting character change in my child, I feel more of a sense of control.  Parenting is a wild ride to say the least.  From the moment of conception we are profoundly connected to another human being and that person is dependent upon us in a way that is truly overwhelming and precious.  From birth onward their lives are intimately woven into our souls.  Now, top that off with some normal issues like the need to have others like and approve of us or the need to feel like we can keep our children from harm, and we have a formula for needing a sense of control.  The more fear we feel, the more we need power over them and their lives.  So, we are tempted to grasp onto parenting beliefs and methods which help us quell those fears and give us a pseudo-comfort.  One of the things we are bound to do is to tell ourselves that the discipline approaches we choose are invariably going to lead to positive outcome in the character of our children.  And, when we see immediate results in their conduct, we feel better.  We tell ourselves that this compliance is good fruit.  

Discipline (instruction) is necessary and I am sure I will go into that further in future posts, but for our sake here, I want to sort of set it aside because the more I look at it, the more I see that we will never create good character through discipline alone.  There are several good reasons this is so.  

For one thing, outward conformity (conduct) is not a proof of inward transformation.  We ask our children to practice certain habits and demonstrate certain behaviors, but those habits and behaviors in themselves (though very good) are empty, according to Jesus if they are not rooted in a relationship with Him and fueled by our love for Him and His grace and love for us.  Remember the Pharissees?  They were called "white-washed tombs" because they were perfect in their conduct, but they lacked character to support the conduct.  No one wants to be in the business of instilling a Pharisee heart in their own child, but too much emphasis on conduct will do just that – it is legalism plain and simple.  

Dallas Willard said we must become the type of people who would easily do the things that Jesus commands us to do.  That is character: when our knee-jerk reaction is to bless and not curse or to tell the truth or to give and sacrifice.  And, as Dallas taught (echoing teachings of the wise Jesus followers from many previous generations) character like that comes by practicing spiritual disciplines in an abiding life.  As we dwell with Jesus, He leads us into an ever deepening relationship with God and from that relationship comes the power to be the people He wants us to be.   This is true for us, and it is true for our children.  

We desire a deep and pervasive goodness in our children and we must know that much of that territory is not ours to touch.  Just as the internal organs are "out of reach" and "protected" from the direct touch of a human being, God has placed the character of our children out of our direct reach.  We can touch the "skin," but not the essence.  That territory is His alone.  

"Eternal living is an interactive relationship with God that touches us to the deepest core of our being and gives us the strength not only to envision what is good, but to live for it. Walking in that relationship transforms the inner dimensions of human personality. That’s what is called integrity. Integrity is a matter of all the dimensions of yourself being integrated with one another so that they function together because you have brought your will to trust in God and through that, every dimension of your personality—your mind, your body, your feelings, what your body is ready to do, and the depths of your soul, which is normally fractured by sin—is healed." ~ Dallas Willard (quote via Elane O'Rourke)

Our children are fractured as we are.  We all have sin in our hearts.  Nothing – no great parenting approach, no educational method, no group of godly friends and perfect environment – will ever heal that fracture.  The only restorative agent in the entire universe is the love of God at home in that same fractured heart.  And, when a person does allow Him in, the healing begins and persists because it is for freedom that He sets us free and He just won’t settle for less than that.  He is relentless about our character development.  It is His very will. 

As Charlotte Mason wrote, “… character is original disposition, modified, directed, expanded by education, by circumstances; later, by self-control and self-culture; above all, by the supreme agency of the Holy Spirit, even when that agency is little suspected and as little solicited … character is not the outcome of a formative educational process; but inherent tendencies are played upon, more or less incidentally, and the outcome is character.”

I hear this: character is a part of God’s original design and we don’t have to pour it in or train it up as much as we have to draw it out.  He already created character within your child and mine.  It is in His image and yet uniquely them.  Yes, it is marred by sin, but it is also present and alive.  And it will be impacted by circumstances, and expanded – yes expanded – by education, but ABOVE ALL the Holy Spirit will act upon the character of a child in a subtle and imperceptible way over time.  God breathes through us, so completely and so gently we hardly feel it.  And, hear this, what I heard: the process is not overt and formulaic.  It is somewhat nebulous and unseen.  

God is at work at every level to transform us once we are His.  And this is true of our children as well.  We are given the privilege of partnering in that process, but let us not fool ourselves into thinking our contribution to be greater than it is.  God is at work in our children to will and do His good pleasure.  It is not our parenting which will render a character, but His good and perfect will and His loving touch.

Character development is much like cultivating a garden.  We till and amend the soil, we plant good seed, we water, nourish, weed, and in due season we see fruit.  The fruit of child rearing may not be in the season of planting and tending.  It may come much later.  And, as in gardening there are all sorts of variables which will bear influence on the process and the outcome.  

I'm harping on this fact -- the fact that so much relies on being in right relationship to God (the child coming into that relationship sincerely and then growing bit by bit in an interactive relationship) because I know the temptation to take a more prominent role in the process than is right or good.  Character development in a child may be boiled down to trust.  It may simply come down to our abiilty to entrust our children to their loving God and then to fix our eyes on Him and on our own walk with Him.  It involves by way of practice the allowance of natural consequences -- with no need on our part to enhance, highlight nor diminish those -- and it must be bathed in prayer.  

If you are like me and after all this talk about letting go and knowing it is God at work you still crave some marching orders, I would say this:  if you want to develop a noble character in your child, abide in God's love yourself; keep your eyes on your own walk; love others (including your spouse and your children) despite their failings; allow natural consequences to have their impact unhindered; and pray.  

I truly intended to talk about consequences, and yet, God took me down this trail instead.  I am relatively sure my next post (and final in this series) will be about the role of education in character formation and what we can do (oh, how we want to do something!) to help shine a light while the fruit of character is growing in unseen places.  Join me here for more in a few days if you will …

Character vs Conduct - Part II

We are exploring the wonderful and trepidation filled process of helping our children to develop noble character.  In the first post we looked at what a character is and the process God has highlighted as the means for developing character.  The process is grounded in God’s love for us while we are sinners.  He died in our place and demonstrates His love on the Cross – so that His love is given to us at the right time when we are yet powerless.  Then, as life goes, we encounter trials and burdens and we can rejoice in the trials because they bear the fruit of perseverance which develops our character which makes us the type of people who can hope in the trustworthy God – because He proves His love as He transforms us through trials and we grow closer to Him and resemble Him more as we endure.  

So, what does all this have to do with our children and their character development? 

I think there are several important things we can look at and apply well and confidently:

First of all, we can see that character development starts with love – God’s love.   He gives that love, not according to our merit or worth or performance or conduct.  He loves us while we are sinners.  As a matter of fact, He doesn’t just love in a touchy-feely, “I love you” type of way.  He actually goes to the lengths of ultimate self-sacrifice while we are powerless sinners.  We all have heard of this unconditional love and we give it a good Christian head-nod.  How long has it been since you sat in His presence and pondered the depths of truth contained in this all-too-familiar story of sacrifice?  God’s love is not a love that says, “Did you clean your room?”  “Ok, then, come give me a hug and we can do something fun.”  His love is given – freely, fully and with great cost to Himself – before we ever do anything worth loving.  Unconditional, sacrificial, holy love is the ground upon which character-development begins.  Always.  Real and meaningful heart-transformation, below-the-surface changes come from being rooted and grounded in His love.  

Consider our role as a parent.  The children in our care will look to us for leadership and guidance and Jesus has said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  When you think of parenting do you see it this way?  Do you imagine emulating Jesus and serving those in your care – even to the point of giving your life?  Do you do this when they are powerless and still stuck in sin?  That is the foundation of the love that develops character.  Jesus didn’t come to be served, but to serve.  We are encouraged by His example to “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”  Can we parent like that?  Can we, in humility consider our children as more important than ourselves and look to their interests instead of our own?  This is the high calling of motherhood.   Real transformation occurs when God’s love moves through us and the reality of His care is transmitted to our children while they are powerless sinners.  

We cannot muster this humility nor can we muster the love and delight God has for us.  But, we can access it, be transformed by it ourselves and then we can be vessels by which He reaches them and they come to know the truth and security of His deep and eternal love for each of them.  That brings me to the second key to character development in our children.  

The passage in Romans talks about gaining a proven character as we persevere through trials rooted and grounded in God’s unconditional love for us.  And the result is that we have hope that doesn’t disappoint.  We must focus on our own character development.  Don’t miss what I am saying here.  It seems to me, that once I had children, this shift took place in me wherein my focus became about them instead of about me.  Now before you give me the Nobel Peace Prize for altruism, know that self was still at the hidden center of this shift.  I was, of course, in love with my sweet boys and I wanted to care for them and give them all I could.  But, side by side with this pure mother’s love was this desire to see them be perfect accompanied by a fear of all the things that could go wrong in their lives.  That's a Molotov cocktail for parenting.  In the early years of motherhood I saw my child as a reflection as myself and their behavior as a statement of my worth as a mother.  I wasn't consciously aware of the depth of this skewed outlook, though I had glimpses of it.  If my two-year-old was throwing a tantrum at someone’s home, I felt a tad mortified that I didn’t have “control” of my child.  I was concerned that his normal (albeit sometimes sinful) behavior would make me the brunt of judgment and rejection.  What happens?  We moms (and dads to a lesser extent) become susceptible to the temptation to make our children into little projects.  We seek to control them and control the variables that we think impact their lives.  We stop trusting God and we start playing God.  When you read through the Romans passage, you don’t see God expressing his desire to fix us and make us whole so He will look good.  He gives love – He gives Himself – before we do anything to deserve it.  

So, we have to be aware of this insidious urge to see our children as a project and then to “work on them” all the time.  God expresses His relationship to us in words of delight.  He says we are the apple ofHis eye ; He says He delights in us ; and He doesn’t just say it, He shows it.  He is mindful that we are dust and doesn’t expect us to do what we just cannot do without Him.  And if you will remember here, without Him we can do nothing of value.   How would we expect more of our children?  

The proverbial saying that more is caught than taught is true.  How many times have you heard your children speaking to one another using a phrase or tone of voice either you or your spouse use?  The modeling we do as we live life is a large part of what will shape their personality and character.  God asks us, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  When we focus on our children and their conduct, we can end up exacting behavior from them without even mastering that behavior in ourselves. 

As parents, we need to look at our own lives and our own character.  We need to focus on ourselves at least twice as diligently as any correcting we do of them.  And, likewise, we need not view ourselves as some project of God’s.  He surely says we are His workmanship, but He makes it abundantly clear that His love is unmerited and everlasting regardless of our behavior or progress.  He also makes it clear that we are His workmanship – as we abide in Him we will bear fruit.  He will do that in us as we abide.  Yes, we do participate in our own sanctification, but His love preempts any transformation and is never contingent upon our conduct.  He is in the business of "cleaning us up" but it isn't so that He will find us lovable. 

I’ll share a story here.  I have a dear friend from England and she is a delightful person to be around.   She is calm and sweet and very loving.  Long before I had my own children, My husband and I were with her family one day.  Her four-year-old at that time was worn out and as she was getting him into the van, he turned to her and vehemently said, “I hate you!”  She turned to him and said, “Oh, dearie, I love you.  I am sorry you feel you hate me right now.   How can I help you?”  I have to confess that I was in shock.  As my husband and I got in the car I told him that I, for one, was never going to have children who said, “I hate you” to me, and if they did, I would not allow it (you will remember I had not yet had children and I had a LOT of growing to do).  I still loved and admired my friend, but I just couldn’t imagine that she would answer such defiant and ugly behavior with such a tender and loving response.  I thought surely she was only permitting this behavior to go on and get worse.  Well, a number of years later (after I had my second son) these same friends were in the States and we all got together.  All three of her children were so calm, sweet and very loving.  They were the picture of her and her husband.  They carried themselves in much the same ways as their parents.  Each of them was unique, but they all bore a mark – a character – which was strikingly alike to their parents.  More had been caught than taught.   And since my friend was not one prone to raising her voice, expressing resentment or retaliation, but instead offered sympathy, care and concern for her children, they showed the mark of that care and gave it readily to others without any thought.  It was a part of who they were to act with sincere tenderness, as she did.  It had become their character.  She didn’t “work” on building this up in them.  If she “worked” on anything it was her own humble relationship to God and her ability to grow in Him and His love and to reflect His love to her own children despite their failings.  There were consequences in her home, but they were never primary and they were based in love, and they were given when needs had been factored in and security and love had been conveyed.  

So, for now, I’ll leave you with these two thoughts: 

Character development is rooted in love – God’s sacrificial love for unworthy, helpless sinners.  We can demonstrate that love to our children.  We’ll not muster it, but we can be the vessel by which He pours His transforming love out into their lives and hearts as we cling to Him and allow Him to work through us.  

More is caught than taught.  Our children will emulate our example and our hidden value systems and our quirks and so much more.  They will certainly learn from experience and from many other factors around them as well.  When it comes to character development, developing our own character is paramount to ever helping them develop their own.  We must resist the urge to turn our children into a project and instead embrace them and delight in them as we focus on our own abiding relationship with God.  

In my next post I’ll be discussing the role of consequences in character development …

Ordinary

Ordinary.
Plain old me.
I wanted to be ordinary when I was little and my parents knew I was "gifted" and allowed my teacher to skip me ahead a grade -- a not even five year old attending 1st grade.  I could do multiplication and read at an eighth grade level, but when I went to first grade -- with sweet Mrs. Booth -- the kids there looked at me with a look that told me I was anything but ordinary.  When I had to leave the classroom during reading time because the other kids were learning to read and I was reading chapter books -- big ones -- to go to the library to read to the librarian, I had one longing.  I wanted to be ordinary.

I didn't want to stick out, be different, be "bright" or "gifted."  I just wanted to fit in and be like the rest of those children.

I wanted to blend in.  I didn't want to claim the me He made me to be with quirks and insights beyond my years.  I wanted to fit and meld.   

These days I feel very ordinary much of the time.  I wake up and take care of my children, clean a kitchen (sometimes), do laundry (sometimes) and teach my boys at home.  I have a husband, two cars and a dog.  We're pretty ordinary.

And yet, God steps into the ordinary and calls out the extraordinary that He designed in the beginning. 

The manger was ordinary and obscure.  Riding there on a donkey was ordinary.  Being a boy from Bethlehem, a small town with no notoriety -- pretty ordinary.  Yet, from that ordinary and plain beginning, God Himself came in the form of a baby and rescued the souls of those who would be saved.  He, the extraordinary God stepped into humanity and provided Himself so that any and all as dark and broken as they may be can come and be transformed.

And He steps into our ordinary whenever we invite Him.  He is the God Who stoops to bless.  He'll come into the mundane world of laundry and Candyland and two-year-old tantrums and mommy burnout and touch those moments.  Extraordinary love piercing the ordinary and transforming even now.

STOP.

Validation

My husband and I were watching The X Factor (we tape it and watch it when we want a diversion on occasion) and this girl with an amazing voice got up and sang her heart out.  She was 29 years old and has been trying to break into the country music scene for years.  As the judges were about to tell her whether she got a "yes" or "no" vote from each of them, they stared, relishing power.  She looked nervous and filled with anticipation.  They gave her such accolades and she held back tears.  As she went off stage into the arms of her friends she said, "All my life I've been waiting for this.  Now I feel validated."  It was a sweet moment -- sweet, but somehow sad.

Paul asks in Galatians: "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."  I watched that contestant rise up on the swells of the opinions of four people just because those people had a status in the world and were sitting in the chairs of judges.  Validated.  She said they validated her.  Our great need, our hunger, our longing summed up in that one word: validated.  To validate something is to make it authentic; to confirm or substantiate; to approve.

What that singer longed for and found only momentarily in the eyes and words of those judges is ours in abundance in God through Jesus.  He sees the lost, the lonely, the broken which is in each of us and to that person He says, "yes."  His yes is not momentary.  It won't change with mood or situation.  He said the "yes" as He knit us specifically and uniquely in our mother's womb and sealed the "yes" on the cross.  His love goes on without measure and is for each one of us as though we were the only beloved He knows.  What that contestant will find is that the happiness of human approval has an underbelly.  Our approval lasts but for a moment or a season.  Human love is not the love of God.  It is prone to be fickle and imperfect.  But, God IS love.  His love is so much a part of Who He Is that He IS Love.  His love goes beyond our performance to the depth of who we are. 


We can have misguided longings which cause us to look for love and approval in frail and empty places.  We can hang our hat and our internal sense of value on the opinions of others.  We will come away empty because we are not wired to fill through anything but God.  All substitutes will disappoint us one way or the other because they are just that -- substitutes.  I am reminded of the children's tale of Two Bad Mice written by Beatrix Potter.  In this story these two mice find this doll house and they are overjoyed at the seeming bounty within the home.  They go to take a bite of the amazing fare on the table and are immediately incensed that the food is made of plastic.  They try something else and are equally frustrated.  As their frustration mounts, they begin to destroy the doll house out of disgruntled anger.  If only they knew that the house was not intended to be a supply of food.

 Nothing on this earth was meant to sustain us and fill us as God's love -- His very Self -- is meant to do.


Waylan Jennings said it in his song: "Looking for love in all the wrong places; Looking for love in too many faces; Searching your eyes, looking for traces of what I'm dreaming of..." And more profoundly, St. Augustine of Hippo said, "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee."  Only One can truly validate.  All other validation will ultimately leave us hungry and wanting for Him. 

Intention

She put a photo at the top of her blog of a whiteboard bursting with the words "intention" and "intent" marked all over it.  Scrawled out were heart-felt wishes and dreams ... trying to tie them up, capture them, live them out fully.  Be a good mom.  Honor my husband.  Serve God.  Minister to others.  Educate my children.  Live Healthy.  Ideals and goals of intention crying for fulfillment in her. 

I know that ache pulsing inside my heart: crying out to fulfill lofty aspirations where it matters.  Lately I am acutely aware of being called (by God and through friends who love me) to be intentional.  Doesn't that word get used up? But, still, it is so true -- we need to determine what matters, what really matters, and go for it. Life can get just used up with the "to dos" and the "shoulds" and the laundry of it all -- washing and rewashing and wishing and rewishing.  Nike's onto something.  But, then again, there is more to the "doing it" than just doing.


I'm at this juncture where I have to jump off -- like a boat is leaving the dock and there's just no way around it.  I either jump on the boat or stay on the dock and either way I don't do the other.  There's no more straddling left.  And what is it I straddle?  It is the need to grow further in trust and faith and to do so requires just "doing it."  My other foot clings to what is known and seemingly sturdy but just will not take me out where I need to go.  I hear Him call like a voice through a wooded glen ... echoing softly through my soul.  He is saying, "take this next step" and I must.  How can I not?  You'd be surprised where it leads.  It's not to more doing -- but more to my gracious undoing and not doing.

Sometimes the less is the more.  God is asking me to release frenetic planning and come away to quiet places.  I feel it strong.  The pull to be still and know.  He woos and I must go to Him.  There are sloughs between us in this wood -- sloughs of fear and past wounds, of defenses long-lost of their usefulness and of habits chosen once and now imposing.  But, He is greater than all of those.  He is the persistent Hound of Heaven.  He wants me wholly and will not  be hindered in His pursuit  He died to set me free and I all too often I will settle for half-freedom because it is good enough and comfortable enough.  But the way of the cross isn't like that.  The gospel record of His call is not a half-baked, come when you will, do just a bit, go bury your dead and take some time off type of call.  He calls and He comes and who can stand against that fire without feeling the heat?

How gentle and severe He is and He is calling me to join Him in real, abundant life.  Always there is a cross before the resurrection.  Always the cross.  Do we sweat the death so much that we would not take the cup?  We will come, as He did, to the place of "not my will, but Thine" and even fearing what that could mean, we can go with Him.  And when we do, as He did, we find the joy set before us in Him.

Will I go?  Will I do it -- be undone, be less in the doing and more in the being?  I am on my way.  Lacing up the Nike's and running to the arms that hung for me.  

And, I hope you do -- I trust you are going and will go.  What else will we take from this life but that very place we run to, that very Person who calls us, and the very person we become in the going? 

Imperfect Progress

I am reading through a Bible Study called "Unglued" by Lysa TerKeurst and I was struck by a revelation about what she calls "imperfect progress."  You know when you think to yourself, "I am going to do better next time."  "Next time I'll just eat what I planned."  "I won't yell at my kids ever again."  We make these self-promises when we blow it.  I truly feel so lousy after letting myself or someone else down and I bathe resolve in good intention.  My promises are destined for failure before they are conceived.  I make those resolutions all year long.  Who needs New Years Day?  I resolve and I fall and I get frustrated.  I'll try harder.  I'll get it right if I read the Bible more, pray more, get more sleep, go to the next mom's night out ... 

Our pastor shared a few weeks ago that we just can't overcome the flesh with the flesh.  Do we see the futility?  I do it almost without consulting myself.  I make the resolve.  I mean it fully.  I have a heart bent on seeking Jesus and I am serious about loving Him well.  And, I simultaneously can convince myself that I can conquer my own sin and failings by just resolving and trying harder.  And when I fail, I am disappointed in my inability to hold fast.  Is this the Gospel?  That we, who could not save ourselves, encountered Him who both could and would, and when we lay down our trying we find that it is finished and we are reconciled.  Where is the Gospel in all this trying and resolve?  Where is Jesus when I get myself back up and dust myself off and try even harder? 

He patiently waits for me as I spin this cycle.  And I must come to the end of myself.  What is it that happened at Babel?  They thought they could build a tower and be like God.  We try to build our own towers all the time.  I'll be a good mom.  I'll lose weight.  I'll serve more.  I'll think of myself less.  But what we miss in this equation is the very heart of God -- the heart of Christianity -- the heart of the Universe.  We miss that God made us for relationship and that relationship is based on connection and dependence and communication.  Communion.  It means intimacy.  It is connection in relationship -- sharing.  When I go off on these self-reliant resolves, I leave behind the very heart of life.  I miss the connection, the intimacy, the communion because I believe in my errant heart that I must clean up before He would even be willing to give me the time of day.  Yet He already gave me so much more -- God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  He just isn't waiting around with His arms folded waiting for me to get it right so He can crack a smile and feel good about saving me and calling me His own. 

I grew up thinking I had to get it together to be loved and accepted.  I translated that to God and I find myself still turning to old habits and forgetting.  I forget that He did already do the needed work.  I forget that He delights in me.  I forget that I already am His beloved.  What He wants is not about behavior, but about a person -- He just wants me.  As Dallas Willard said, “We must understand that God does not "love" us without liking us - through gritted teeth - as "Christian" love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what He is to the core - which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word "love".” (The Divine Conspiracy).  

God permits imperfect progress because He fully knows that I am human.  He doesn't forget,as I am so prone to do, that this whole life is about love and coming together with Him for intimacy.  He made the way on the cross and He makes the way for me today.  When I turn around and look back on the road I have walked, as Lysa so graciously illustrates in Unglued, I can see the progress, bit by bit, and what's more, I can see the knitting of my heart to His -- one stitch at a time.