Poor Master

14 Thursday Mar 2013

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“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” ~ Luke 16:13

One of my neighbors recently got a new dog.

Now, in the neighborhood I live in, this isn’t particularly unusual.  It seems like just about everyone has a dog.  These neighbors already have a smaller dog (which stays inside the house all the time), but apparently they felt that a little dog wasn’t enough – they bought a Husky.

Now, it’s a beautiful dog.  A gorgeous, full-grown dog with a magnificent black & white coat and blue eyes.  However, it seems that what my neighbors didn’t realize when they bought just one Husky was that Huskies are pack animals.  And pack animals need company.

So when my neighbors are gone all day, which happens when they go to work, this great big dog is left all alone in his tiny backyard.

And he cries, and cries, and cries.  For hours on end.  It is both heartbreaking and incredibly annoying.

It’s heartbreaking because it certainly isn’t the dog’s fault that he’s been penned up in a really small yard with no company.  It’s his owners.  They are being poor masters of this dog, and the dog has no choice.

In American life, we generally don’t have a master, unless it’s of our own choosing.  We have the opportunity to work wherever we can find a job, to fill our time with whatever hobbies we like.  Sometimes we choose wisely, but sometimes we choose poorly.

We must be careful with what we allow to master us – because as this verse in Luke points out, you can’t serve two.  If we choose poorly, we will allow something to master us that will eventually lead to misery and heartbreak.  But if we choose to serve God as our one and only master, we will be given an eternity of joy.

Always remember, you have a choice in whom you serve.  Choose wisely.

Yours & Mine

24 Sunday Feb 2013

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“’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’
declares the Lord.” ~ Isaiah 55:8

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” ~ Romans 8:28

Last night was a typical rowdy Saturday night at my house.  After giving my son a bath, watching a little Thomas the Train, and putting him to bed, I spent the evening watching something on Hulu, putting together a few scrapbooking layouts, and answering work emails.  Not a bad night, but certainly not what I had pictured my life to look like at this point in time (I had at least planned on not spending evenings by myself.)

I realize that by most standards, my life is pretty good.  Boring, at times, but really great at other times.  I am blessed with a home, family, and friends.  In fact, sometimes I catch myself thinking, “Wow, I have such a great life.”  Unfortunately, the snarky voice in my head almost always immediately follows that thought with, “Yeah, except for that whole part about having a husband who died.”  Which sort of kills the count-your-blessings moment, in case you were wondering.

I think so often we look around and think, “This isn’t what I imagined.”  The young couple who face the news of yet another miscarriage.  The medical tests that come back with confirmation that what they’ve found is cancer.  The mother in the hospital being handed her baby for the first time, and only to realize immediately that her child has Down’s Syndrome.

Painful moments.  And not ones we ever pictured happening to us.  Maybe someone else.  But never us.

We cry out to God, from the very depths of our hearts, “This isn’t what I wanted! Why me?  Why is this happening?”  Sometimes He answers; sometimes He comforts us with only His presence and no words.  He may explain to us why we are going through what we are during our lifetime, He may not.

Yet God promises that He has good for those who love Him.  These moments certainly do not feel like love.  They may initially feel like blistering pain.  When the nurse stood in the hallway of the ICU and told me my husband could die from the bacterial meningitis, I certainly didn’t think about how God was showing His love for me.  I kind of felt like He had taken the day off.  And yet He has demonstrated endlessly through my situation He unending love for me and my little boy.

Our ways are not His ways.  He promises good to us, and wants us to grow in the spirit.  Sometimes that is through gentle life lessons.  Sometimes it is through much more challenging, life-altering experiences.  I know to knock the rough edges off of me, I’m sure God feels like He needs to use a belt sander sometimes, instead of just a little emery board.  But He accomplishes what He needs to in each one of our lives, through whatever situations come our way.  I certainly don’t mean God causes us harm to make us grow, but rather than He uses tragedy to bring good about.  Which is something only He can do.

Whatever is hurting you right now, give it to God.  Cry with Him, mourn with Him, and allow Him to turn your tears and heartache into something beautiful.

Bloom

17 Sunday Feb 2013

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“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” ~ John 15:4

In my house, I have lots of plants.  Over a dozen, actually.  I like the green and living appeal of having plants all over the place.

I have one, however, that is quite scraggly.  It was given to me as a housewarming gift, and it has kind of dragged itself along every since.  It doesn’t really respond to pruning, so I’ve just let it go whatever direction it feels like.  I make sure it gets water and sunshine regularly, because that seems like the most I can do.

Three days ago this little pitiful plant provided me with a surprise.  Drooping over and all, there are little pink blooms on the it.

Now, this was a surprise, because in six years the plant has never bloomed.  Not once.  And here, after taking care of it consistently (but not extraordinarily), it produced flowers.

I think it can often feel like this in our walk with Christ.  Sometimes His work in us can take many years, and we might not be able to see what’s happening.  But stick with Him, and He will produce fruit in our lives that will be a beautiful witness to others.

Monkey Mind

06 Wednesday Feb 2013

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“We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” ~ II Corinthians 10:5

My Bible study group has decided to spend the next several weeks using a study designed to encourage a contemplative prayer life.  Part of the purpose is to get to the point in prayer where God can speak to us, instead of just rattling off a list of wants to Him and going on with our day.

To be honest, I really struggle with quiet times.  I may be an introvert, but sitting down to quietly focus on prayer and study of God’s Word means suddenly my brain is running off in a million directions.  My friend Polly uses the phrase, “monkey mind” to describe it – that your mind is jumping all over the place, and I think that is a very accurate description.  My brain goes especially monkey mind when I’m trying to go to sleep, whirring and buzzing late into the night.

However, I can’t help but notice how self-centered my monkey mind is.  The focus is always me, me, me.  This is another reason that I think working on the discipline of bringing my thoughts under control when I pray is important – because it means the focus is no longer on me; it’s on God, where it belongs.

We are called to destroy the obstacles that keep people from knowing God and to take every thought captive.  Even though my brain isn’t thinking evil thoughts when it goes monkey mind, my distractedness is preventing me from knowing God better.  And knowing God is what we have been called to do, so I’m working to be able to do just that.

Evidence of Pain

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

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“But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” ~ I Samuel 16:7

Today’s post involves a bit of oversharing – sorry about that.

I am currently having a plantar wart removed from the bottom of my foot.  All home remedies have failed, so I ended up turning to the big guns and went to a dermatologist.  Yesterday was my second treatment – apparently it was thicker than the dermatologist initially estimated, thus forcing her to freeze it for a second time (and threaten me with the possibility of a third).  Now, the first time she did this, it was relatively painless.

Not so, yesterday.  In fact, by the end of the day, I was limping; it hurt so badly.  The doctor had told me to expect blisters with the pain, so as I reached the end of the day I was prepared to see some searing wounds, to go along with the pain.

Imagine my surprise when there was literally nothing to see!

My toe looked as benign as could be, with absolutely nothing to show for the fact that I was walking around with my foot flexed to avoid touching the ground with it.  I felt like such a wimp, that something could cause so much discomfort, and yet be completely invisible.

It brought to mind today’s verse, and the way we often treat other people.

Oftentimes, we only afford grace to those who we see as needing it – that their lives outwardly reflect the suffering they are going through.  But many times, people suffer in silence, living through difficult situations without a word of complaint – or a smidge of support.  We see that they have a nice house or good job, or any other trappings of success, and deem them unworthy of our sympathy.  They haven’t shown us enough evidence of pain.

But God looks at our hearts – and He knows what we’re going through.  He sees and understands our hurts and heartaches.  Even when it is invisible to all around us, He is deeply moved by what we face each day.  It’s why He sent His Holy Spirit, to follow after Christ returned to heaven.  God knew we would need help – and need it often.  He didn’t want to leave us alone.

Wherever you’re at, whatever you’re going through, God is there by your side.  He sees each tear that falls, and wants you to know that you are loved.

Victory in Hand

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

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“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~ I Corinthians 15:57

I received a text message from a friend the other day, telling me she was off to see her students play basketball against the team from the school I work at.  I texted her back, asking her to cheer on our team a little, too – they were rolling to a ten-game winning streak.  She wrote back that meant it would be a long night for her team – they hadn’t won a game all season.

Ooof.

It WAS a long night for her team.  She sent me a text at half time – our team was winning, 40-5.  Needless to say, I didn’t bother asking who won.  For an undefeated team, blitzing over a winless team doesn’t take much.  In fact, I think everyone on our bench scored points in that game.

Our team was basically guaranteed a victory in that situation – all they had to do was show up and play.

As followers of Christ, we have the same sort of guaranteed win – we just need to show up and live it out.  Thanks to the sacrifice Jesus made for us, God has given us victory over sin and death.  But too often we forget to live it, or else we think we need to somehow earn it on our own.

If we are part of a winning team, why on earth wouldn’t we act like it?  God has promised us victory.  Our job is to claim that promise.  If we don’t, it’s like ignoring a victory that’s already in hand, and choosing defeat instead.  And why would we live a life of defeat, when we’ve been promised the win?

‘Peshal One

18 Friday Jan 2013

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“They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.” ~ Malachi 3:17

Lately, my son has asked me to read, over and over again, the Max Lucado book, “You Are Special.”  He will pull me into his room, demanding I read the, “’Peshal One! ‘Peshal One!”  And we sit and read the story of the Wemmicks and Punchinello.

If you haven’t read this particular children’s book, you really should.  It never fails to get to me – even after reading it many times in a row!  In brief, Punchinello is a little wooden man, who lives in a land full of wooden Wemmicks, all carved by a wood carver named Eli.  The Wemmicks go around putting star stickers and black dot stickers on one another, as an outward symbol of judgement.  Punchinello is clumsy and silly, and has only dot stickers, no stars.  But through another Wemmick (with no stickers at all!) named Lucia, he discovers the secret to not caring what other people think is to spend time with Eli, the one who made him.

I think sometimes we forget that God loves us.  He created us and He loves us.  Yes, we’ve sinned.  Yes, we’ve fallen far short of the mark set for us.  But God loves us so much that He bridged that gap by allowing His own Son to be put to death.  To me, that says He thinks we’re very special, regardless of what other people think of us.  And I think we could all stand to hear that more often.

Next Time

11 Friday Jan 2013

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“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” ~ Luke 16:26

Every now and again, my brain runs a “next time” scenario on me.

Maybe you’ve experienced this, too.  Something didn’t go quite according to plan, and you find yourself thinking and rethinking all the things you would do differently…next time.

Except that I have discovered we don’t always get a “next time.”

The thought has crossed my mind more than once in the last two years of what a better wife I would be to my husband now.  More thoughtful, considerate, thankful – you name it, I would be it.  I feel bad about the fact that his death is what caused me to grow up in so many ways – ways he would have benefitted from a great deal, had I done the growing up long before he got sick.

In our society, our lives are packed with chances to change.  You hair, your job, your location, your name, even your nose – with a little willpower or enough money, you can change just about anything.  Nothing seems permanent.

But death sure is.

In spite of all my wishing, I can’t go back and re-do things with my husband to make them even better than they were.  I don’t get a second chance.  In a world where it seems like the fat lady is never going to sing (thus, nothing is really over), death steps in to remind us that, in fact, some things cannot be redone.

Death also marks where we will spend eternity.  At the time of your death, you fate will be decided by whether or not you have chosen to accept what Jesus did for you on the cross.  As today’s verse from Luke indicates, there will be no second chances.  Your fate is sealed the moment you draw your last breath.

It’s difficult to imagine no second chances, from our vantage point.  Even more so, is the fact we do not know when our time here is finished.  I’m sure my husband thought he had many more years ahead of him, never imagining that his time on earth would be finished after twenty-eight years.  In light of that, be sure you have taken the time to put your soul right with God – it is the one thing there won’t be a next time.

Year in Review

03 Thursday Jan 2013

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“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” ~ James 1:23-24

One of the projects I’ve worked on this week is a photo book of my little boy’s year.  I made one last year, too, and I thought it was a project worth repeating.  I end up ordering five, for the grandparents and great-grandparents.  My son’s great-grandparents live far away, so they don’t get to see him very much.  The photo books provide a way for them to see what has happened during his year.

This year, I was particularly organized and put together photos for every month.  Initially, I picked out over 100 photos for the year, but I managed to whittle it down to 50 so I could afford to buy the books.  Thankfully, Snapfish always does a half-price sale after Christmas!

Beyond creating something fun for family members, I discovered this year that the photo books serve an even bigger purpose for me.  I’ve mentioned before that I often feel the crunch of single parent guilt.  I feel bad that there is only one person that my son has the option of going to – that if I’m tired or grumpy, he doesn’t have his daddy to go hang out with to escape.  He’s stuck with me.  I also worry endlessly that I’m not doing enough with him; not providing him with all the opportunities he should have.  Creating these books is a wonderful way to correct that thinking in my head.

When I look through the finished books, I see a whole year of fun that my son has had.  Times with friends and family, lots of time outside and visiting the farm (he loves all the animals).  But most of all, I see dozens of photos of a smiling little boy, happy with his life.  It’s tangible evidence that things are not nearly as bad as they seem in my mind.

To me, this illustrates today’s verses very well.  You have to do things to make them a reality.  And you also need to pay attention to the things you are doing, or it’s easy to forget.  You don’t forget what you look like when you look in the mirror, but how often do we forget all the things that God has done for us?  When I look back at all the photos of our year, I see what an amazing job God has done taking care of both my son and me.  I need that reminder.  We all need to be reminded sometimes.

Don’t forget all God has done for you.  If you keep His blessings in mind, you’ll find it much easier to get out and do things for Him – like the Word says.

Intention

30 Sunday Dec 2012

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“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” ~ Colossians 3:17

It seems nearly impossible that 2012 is coming to a close.  When I sat down two years ago to begin blogging, I had no idea what sort of journey was ahead of me.  It has certainly been an unexpected sort of adventure.

And while I haven’t blogged as much in the past two months as I would like, I am thankful to have the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Over the past several days, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I approach the days and weeks I have been given.  Often with work, I spend time creating detailed to-do lists, with specific goals that I want to accomplish.  But for regular life, other than chores and housework, I don’t really seem to do anything like this.  I just kind of let my days slide by, getting the “important” things done, but not really putting any concerted effort into other things I value.

And as a result, I spend countless hours frittering my time away on meaningless things (yes, Pinterest, I’m looking at you).

My goal for 2013 is to dedicate time to some of the pursuits I’ve allowed to slip by the wayside.  Not a lot of time – for some things, maybe just 10-15 minutes per day during the week.  While that may not sound like much, as the end of the year it will be hours and hours, much more than what I accomplished this past year.

I hope your year is coming to a peaceful close and that you are enjoying time with family and friends.  As you look to setting resolutions for 2013, I encourage you to make some small ones.  Often they can make the biggest difference.

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