Lessons from a Baby #12: What Has You Captivated?

On Thanksgiving Day, we shared a meal and an afternoon with my son and his wife and my granddaughter, Bella. Sometime after the big meal was over, my husband took Bella back to our master bedroom to watch some of her favorite cartoon shows while I cleaned the kitchen. Later, I went back to check on the two of them and she was stretched out on the bed with a pillow behind her head and her eyes fixed on the television set.

I curled up beside her and tried to talk to her, but her attention was totally captivated by the action on the screen. No matter what I said or did to engage her, she did not respond.  Her eyes and her mind were on her favorite entertainment. I would have enjoyed having a moment to cuddle with her or to have what passes for a conversation with an almost two-year-old, but she wasn't having it.

This morning our pastor talked about "radical Christianity".  He said that someone who is radical for Jesus will not trade anything for what they have in God while a nominal Christian will allow many other sins and distractions interfere with that relationship.  If we are serious about our relationship with God and the calling that is on our lives, we must be willing to put Him before anything else.  The obvious things that we should lay aside are things that most people recognize as sin, but sometimes there are seemingly innocent pastimes that He may call us to put down in order to know and serve Him better.

Just like Bella can block me out if her cartoons are on, we can easily be captivated by hobbies and interests which are not immoral, yet they can interfere with God's best plans for our lives. How many times have we missed an opportunity to really communicate with a God who would enjoy having that moment to pour into us and talk with us, but we weren't having it?

I certainly do not even pretend that I have dealt with this completely in my own life.  Most of the time, God isn't even asking me to put something totally out of my life.  He just wants me to have a balance - to limit my time spent on certain things - in order to invest time in my relationship with Him.  Seeing the situation from God's point of view when I tried to spend time with Bella made me realize the importance of spending time engaged with Him.

The apostle Paul addressed it this way, "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify."
1 Corinthians 10:23

Even successful worldly people know how to prioritize and use their time to achieve their goals.  How much more should we, with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, order our lives to become all that God has purposed for us?

Lessons from a Baby #11: Lock It Yourself!

Since I've had a busy toddler in my life for a while, I've learned there are certain places in my house she wants to explore.  I take that back - she wants to explore every space in my house.  There aren't enough high shelves in my home to put everything out of her reach, so some cabinets now have nice little plastic locks that keep those curious fingers from digging everything out of that space.

I'm not really trying to restrict her curiosity or curtail her freedom. I'm trying to protect her from items in my house that could hurt her.  She doesn't need to play with glass bowls or small appliances with sharp edges, as intriguing as they might be to her.

During the week when little Bella is safe at home with her parents, the locks are left unlocked so that my husband and I don't have to open them each time we need to access the contents of a cabinet. Lately, I've noticed that when Bella comes into our house and heads for the kitchen, the first thing she does is go to those open locks and attempt to lock them herself.  She is restricting herself instead of taking the opportunity to get into all that mystery stuff in the kitchen!

God knows that certain things in this world can hurt us.  He doesn't use locks to keep us away from those things though. He only tells us in his Word to be obedient to Him and shun the sin that would separate us from Him.  He gives us free will to choose Him or choose sin.

If we use the wisdom of a toddler when we see situations and temptations the enemy has designed to entrap us, we should engage those locks ourselves through prayer and the Word and in some cases, by physically walking away from an opportunity to invite sin into our lives.  It could be a certain TV network which has programming that you know entices you to watch something that weakens your walk with God.  It could be an old friend who invites you to join in the things that Jesus has already delivered you from.  It could be any number of open doors where you know exactly what is on the other side.

The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that " No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it."

Sometimes that way of escape lies in your own decision making - using wisdom to avoid those triggers that lead you away from God instead of deeper into a relationship that will not only bring joy, power, and strength into your life, but will allow you to bring those things to those that God places in your life to influence.  Lock those doors!

Diamonds in the Dark?

This morning I was sitting in church, listening to the announcements that were made before the sermon began and I glanced down at my hands in my lap.  On my left ring finger was my thin gold wedding band and above it a diamond ring which is composed of one small diamond in the center surrounded by six additional small stones - a diamond cluster. As I moved my hand just a little, the lights in the church sparkled as they were reflected by the gems on the ring.

Have you ever looked at a diamond when the light is dim?  It's rather unremarkable.  Without light to reflect, it may just as well be a piece of glass.  To display its beauty, it must be in full light.  Without the light, its a diamond in the dark, without any loveliness of its own.

In fact, a raw diamond often looks like just any other rock.  It's not until someone recognizes the potential in that stone - seeing what it really is - that it can begin to be transformed into a sparkling piece of jewelry.  It must be cut and shaped by the hand of someone who has mastered this craft.  The diamond must be examined carefully to determine the orientation of its crystals.  Then the gem cutter must consider any flaws in the stone to decide how it should be cut to remove them.  Facets are cut into the gem to help it reflect as much light as possible. It is then polished to a high luster and placed in a setting that displays it in a way that emphasizes its beauty.

A diamond is a lot like a person.  We may look insignificant and common, but God sees us for what we really are. He sees the potential for beauty in us when nobody else does.  Unlike the diamond cutter, God already knows us inside and out and He knows how we are designed and is acquainted with all of our flaws.  Armed with that knowledge, through the Holy Spirit, He begins the process of shaping us, removing the flaws, and designing the facets of our lives so we can reflect as much of His light as possible.

We have two responsibilities in this process.  The first one is to submit to the Holy Spirit to let Him do His work in our lives.  The second is to stay close enough to His light that we can be a reflection of Jesus in this world.  If we spend our time in the darkness, there is no light to reflect.

The ring that caused all these comparisons in my mind today is not really an engagement ring. When my husband and I were engaged, neither of us had much money. I was content to marry him using the wedding rings that my mother and father had worn throughout their marriage.  Both my parents had already made heaven their home years before my wedding.  We engraved our initials and wedding date beside theirs and prayed that our union would be as solid as theirs had been.

One day months later,  after a church service, a woman came up to me and said, "God told me to give you this" and she put this very ring in my hand, closed my fingers around it and walked away.  When I looked at it, I was astonished to find that the gold band on which the setting was mounted was an exact match in width to the wedding band that I wore, making a perfect set.

That summer, I distinctly remember being at my grandmother's farm, walking around in the beautiful sunshine of a country afternoon and looking down to see the sunshine reflecting from that ring.  I asked God then why He gave this to me and I heard in my heart so clearly, "I just wanted you to know how precious you are to Me."

Each of us is a precious, unique jewel to our God.  If we continue in Him, it's amazing to think what He can create in us and how much His light can shine to others as we reflect His amazing love.

Back to the Basics

When you stop and think about it, the skill of reading the English language is really very complex, yet even children as young as preschool age can begin to learn the names of the letters of the alphabet and their sounds.  I recently began tutoring a young boy who is struggling with reading, even though he is very intelligent and has great math skills and mechanical ability.  

As his mother observed us working together last week, she mentioned that she had worked with him on all these same skills in the past and she wondered why he was having such difficulty mastering those skills the way her other children had. I could spout a lot of educational and psychological jargon to explain his difficulties, but I believe that with the right teaching approach, he'll be able to master what he needs in order to be a competent reader.

In my own academic life, there were skills like that for me.  In the third grade, I had a terrible time figuring out how to read an analog clock.  Algebra was a nightmare for me, but as an adult when I did some team-teaching with a math teacher, I was finally developmentally ready to understand. We're all at different places with our readiness to learn things and there are always prerequisite skills that we need first in order to build new knowledge on the old. 

As I was thinking about going back to square one with this little fellow, I started comparing his reading journey to my spiritual journey right now.  Just as we all sometimes do, I have been through a period of time when I've been a little on the "spiritually lazy" side. As I've asked God to help me understand the roots of this hiccup in my spiritual walk, He's begun to show me that I need to go back to some basics of spiritual literacy - to study some things that I should have "mastered" and to see them in a fresh light. Just because I was raised on John 3:16 doesn't mean that I never need to read it again or to meditate on what it means to me and to those who I encounter in my life.  

I haven't used the algebra that I learned in many years, so I doubt if I'd be very successful with it now.  However, if there was a necessity for me to relearn it, I could go back to the beginning and be reminded of the principles, rules, and skills I'd need to put back into practice.  God is showing me that where I am weak, I need to repeat some lessons and that there is no shame in that.  The shame would be in maintaining false pride and insisting that everything was just as it should be.  All of us need to be reminded of Kingdom principles from time to time when we are not living them out in the way that we know is best.

We all need to maintain a teachable spirit and to ask the Holy Spirit, who is our Teacher, to make "lesson plans" for us - to teach us what He knows we need to learn.  

Whose Truth Sets You Free?

It amazes me that in a cynical, sinful world that is scornful about the things of God, I frequently hear snippets of Biblical sayings in television shows, movies, and songs and see quotes in books and articles.  I hear God's name and the name of Jesus spoken - not necessarily always in vain.  Characters will even "pray", after a fashion, asking questions of God or asking God to help them in a situation.

I heard one such reference the other day in a television drama.  The main character was confronted with the real story of an event from her teenage years and in that new knowledge, she had to face something she didn't want to know about a family member.  She, as the narrator in this scene, said, "They say the truth sets you free......," and continued talking about what she had learned.

John 8:32 And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

John 14:6  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

But "the truth" that she was referring to is not the same as Jesus being "the truth"  Truth is not just facts or a motto that you live by or even a scripture. Truth is a Person.

Truth is more than a set of principles.  It's more than a body of knowledge.  All the principles and knowledge in the world cannot free you from the mess that you, being human, have created.  Facts can't forgive your sin, free you from your bondage or guide your future.  All facts can do is contribute to your human reasoning.  I think we all realize how fallible that can be.

Jesus is the Truth - not a truth, or one of the truths, but THE TRUTH.  Yes, He will use the "truths" in His Word to mold and shape us, but the first truth we have to know is that He is THE entry point; the one who all of the facts and mottos and scriptures have to be viewed through to make any sense in our lives. 

You've probably heard people in the media talking about "Living Your Truth" like it's some sort of new religion - and in a way, I guess it is.  The way that people have twisted and manipulated real truth from the beginning of time has created a maze of ideas and creeds and slogans and lifestyles until there is total confusion in the minds of many. Our own "truth" is flawed from the beginning and trying to live it leaves us just stewing in the same cesspool in which we've always been immersed.

The quote that "Christianity isn't a religion - it's a relationship" may be overused, but it's certainly not over-experienced.  Even many who go to a church that's considered a Christian denomination may still never have really met "The Truth" or had their lives changed by Him.

It doesn't take much to see that the world needs real truth, because each of us living by our own is causing nothing but pain, stress, conflict, and foolishness.  I don't know how many times in the last few years I've either heard or said, "The world's gone crazy".  We all need the only real truth that has ever existed - the person of Jesus.

Don't Sweat the Details

I am an organizer.  I like to sit down and plan all the little details of a project or a vacation.  Maybe part of the reason for my desire for order is a need to be in control.  Writing those lists of steps makes me feel ready to begin an undertaking, while just jumping into the activity seems too frightening without those boundaries written down in black and white.

The weekly Bible study group that meets at our house each week is doing a study on prayer.  One of the aspects we discussed last week was having "childlike faith".  I began to think about what childlike faith really looks like in real life. 

When I was a child, our family was fortunate enough to take many trips - most of them in an RV to various state and national parks.  Whether the trip was a weekend in a campground an hour away from the house or a two-week vacation to the American West, my parents always had full responsibility for preparing for the big expedition.

Mom and Dad would tell us that we were going somewhere on a specific date and then my sister and I just went about our normal childhood lives until the day it was time to leave and then we'd jump in the back seat of the car and just go.  I don't recall ever asking my parents if they had a map of the route (pre-GPS) or if they had cashed a check for expenses (pre-ATM) or if they had packed enough clothes for me to wear.  I didn't worry about the logistics of dealing with four people and a dog and all their needs.  I didn't fret about the itinerary or the car or RV maintenance or tickets to any attractions we'd visit.  I was just a passenger in a vehicle that would ultimately take me to my desired destination. I believed the promise of my parents and I just trusted that everything would go well.

How many times in my own life have I worried and wondered about how God would take care of a situation?  How many times did I despair in financial need because I could not imagine how in the world He would bring the provision to me?  Just because I can't see the planning He does behind the scenes does not mean He isn't using His own divine strategy to bring about a result that is far superior to my earthly solutions.

If you have a problem with your vehicle and you take it to the shop, you don't go back every morning to drive it around to see if you can pinpoint the trouble.  You leave it in the hands of the repairman who has the knowledge, tools, and expertise to diagnose the problem and restore the car to working condition.  Taking it out of the shop's hands every day just delays the resolution and potentially could cause more damage to your car.

When you take a situation to God, you have to leave it with Him.  If you keep taking it back to worry and strategize and fuss with it, you aren't giving Him the time to solve it and you could be causing more harm to yourself and others when you don't trust His plan.

I don't claim to understand God's ways or His timing or His reasons for doing what He does.  I only know that in those situations where I can back off and give Him complete control, He brings about the right answer at the right time.  I don't have to sweat the details - I can leave them in His hands.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8-9

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.   Proverbs 3:5-6

See Them the Way God Sees Them

A few months ago, I walked into the sanctuary of my church and was pleasantly surprised to see someone I had not seen for quite some time.  There had been a moral failure in this individual's life and the details were common knowledge.  I was happy to see they were back in church because I knew that, failure or not, they would be loved and encouraged into a right relationship with God.

I went to tell my husband about seeing this person.  My husband is not always great with remembering the names of people.  I often have to describe someone's appearance or tell him where they sit in the congregation or remind him of an event or a conversation with the person so he can put a face to the description. On this occasion, I found myself describing the person by what they had done wrong, but almost immediately the Holy Spirit reminded me that God sees this person through the blood of Jesus - spotless and acceptable to Him.  God sees the potential in their life - the purpose and plan He has for them.  

I know that repentance is necessary for forgiveness and I'm hoping that has already taken place, but we as Christians also need to look at those who have fallen with those same eyes of compassion, remembering the times that we also have failed.  If you described me by my failures and sins, you'd be missing the big picture. You'd be seeing something that is past; something God chooses not to remember anymore.  You'd miss the amazing vision that He sees for my future.

1 Samuel 16:7 says ".......For the Lord does not see as man sees; for a man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  

I don't know what is going on in the life of this person, but God does and though the failure may end up being part of a glorious testimony, I resolve that I will not look upon them as the person who sinned but as the prodigal who returned to the Father.