Week 3 - Fail/Succeed

We had a mixed reaction to this chapter. Love it or leave it, I think there were good words said all around. I felt encouraged by our discussion that focused us onto God's sufficient grace and our need to depend on him. Because we fail when we try to do it on our own, right?! My favorite line from Jill Phillips' "Nobody's Got It All Together": What good is it to say, Please, Savior, come, if there is nothing you need rescue from. Only when we realize how desperate for a Savior we are (like the list in the chapter) and be real about it, can we experience the freedom and peace of being rescued.

I shared bits of the book, Dangerous Journey, the illustrated "children's" version of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress based on the TV/movie version. (You can watch the video on www.answersingenesis.org/kids/videos). I was flipping through it again today and came to the part with the Giant Despair. Hopeful and Christian do their best to encourage one another. And the Giant, sensing they are "sturdy rogues" shows them the pile of bones of other pilgrims he has dispatched with. Lacking food and water, Christian starts to fail. But Hopeful reminds them of past battles they have fought: "My brother, he said, Apollyon couldn't crush you, nor the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And remember how you played that man in Vanity Fair. Don't forget I'm in the dungeon with you, a far weaker man by nature than you are...So let us exercise a little more patience, and bear up as best we can, and keep on praying." And then Christian suddenly remembers the key in his pocket. And the key that sets them free--Promise.

We need to remember the battles the LORD has fought for us, not despair at the past failings, keep encouraging friends around us, and hold onto the Promises of God.

Looking at Naomi and Ruth, I saw their failures fall into a failure to provide and a failure to expand or increase. In a famine, without husbands or sons, they have reached the end of themselves. Some of this is beyond their hands--Naomi can't make it rain in Bethlehem; Ruth is unable to have children for 10 years. Some may be their own sin. The blessing of rain in the Promised Land is connected with the obedience of the children of Israel. But they do have a responsibility in how they respond. And they choose to turn towards God, on the road to Bethlehem. Naomi, in her sadness, proclaims the LORD'S hand in her life. Ruth proclaims her loyalty to the God of Israel.

And God moves. There is rain in Bethlehem again. Ruth meets the most influential and wealthiest man in the land and he provides food for them in abundance. "The lowly he sets on high and those who mourn are lifted to safety" (Job 5:9-11). And God expands His family--first with Ruth the foreigner who has "come and pray[ed]" (1 Kings 8:41-43) and then by giving Ruth conception (Ruth 4:13).

After considering the concept of "success," what it looks like in our culture, how it's defined, and even whether it's the best word to define our Christian walk, we talked about what success really is. I liked Trish's comment that it is being completely dependent on God, 100%. We discussed the idea of "pretending" and how appearances set us up to fail when we compare ourselves or think that everyone else has things figured out. We also discussed how Satan holds our failures up to us, time and time again, reminding us of when we've failed and telling us not to even try again. But the Gospel has an answer for all of this! God has already won! We can rest in His grace with peace, not fight on our own.

Much of this comes back to the topics we've discussed earlier--the sin of self-focus and the lack of single-focus on God. Doing so can cause us to remain in "failure" mode (pg. 71). But the Holy Spirit, who does convict us, also comforts us, moving us past failure and encouraging us to persevere.

So persevere we will! Moving on, the next chapter looks at Proceed/Wait. We'll rotate vacationers so Bon Voyage to those who will be gone next week and Welcome Home to those returning.

Resources Another plug for The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges (I know many have read this. I feel like I should have read it years ago), and the encouraging music of Jill Phillips' CDs Nobody's Got It All Together and The Writing on the Wall.

"D" is for a Dynamite Daddy-Daughter Date

Saturday was D-day with Daddy.

Lunch at Steak 'n' Shake.

Then her first movie theater movie--"Horton Hears a Who" at the dollar theater, complete with popcorn.

F is for Finding Flowers and for "ish"

I was given permission to stray from the alphabetical order for our Summer A to Z. Seriously, I voiced my concern out loud about whether I could skip D and E, move on to F, and come back to them later. ("D" will be this weekend, "E" I'm stuck on. So, LL, suggestions please.)

For "F", I got the kiddos in the car and after dropping off the dry cleaning and getting R to guess as many things that begin with "F" that we could do, we stopped by Green Acres Nursery which the Diva had previously blogged about. It was a great, non-big-box store nursery, family owned, rustic. The young kids of the owners were racing around on their four-wheelers, several rusted Radio Flyers are available for your shopping, and the coo-coos of doves resonated around the yard. There's even a rescued baby opossum.

R was less than enthusiastic, to say the least, since this outing involved being outside with dirt and bugs. I'm admiring a beautiful butterfly that's rested on a dark pink penta and she's slapping at the bugs that are in the vicinity but not actually on her. Oh, I did I mention that I had a scavenger hunt type list of a flowers to find like "find a flower with 3 petals," "find a flower that smells good," "find something you could eat." Here she is standing next to "find a flower taller than you." Can't you see the excitement on her face? Gotta love that kid.

She did think the peppermint plant was pretty cool so for $2 I let her buy that. I think I'll get a few more sweet smelling plants like chocolate mint and bee balm and make a planter for her.

And since we were so close to the Diva, we popped in for a visit and to drop off a carrot cupcake from the previous night's Bible study. We ended up staying for Monkey Munch/Puppy Chow/Muddy Buddies--whatever that delectable concoction of cereal, peanut butter, chocolate and powered sugar--and a bit of catching up. Then after lunch at CFA and a quick trip to Home Depot it was home again, home again.

I sat B up on his changing table to take his sandals off and he folded himself over and rested his head on the changing pad. Tuckered out! But speaking of the boy, we may have a breakthrough in his lack of speaking. A day or two ago, R was reciting the "when I wish to wish for fish..." bit from Red Fish, Blue Fish. B actually started saying "ish"! We got him to say it a couple more times throughout the day and even when we pointed to a fish in a book. So "F" is for "ishes" too!

Week 2 - Be Tolerant/Intolerant

This chapter dealt with being tolerant of people and circumstances in our lives and being intolerant of sin, specifically gossip (and I added complaining and criticizing as additional sins of the tongue), self-focus, fear, and mediocrity.

We looked first at the lessons that Naomi, a widow, and Ruth, a barren woman, teach the church--men and women, young and old, Bethlehem and Central Florida. I loved this part of James's book and it reinforces our study of the hard things God calls EVERY woman to do. The universality of these concepts comes back again and again.

Naomi and Ruth offer a few lessons for us as they lived with, even tolerated, difficult circumstances.

• We never have all the answers and nothing balances out right.
• God meets us in our pain. (I loved this quote from John Wolterstorff after the death of his son: "I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.")
• We understand our impotence and our inability to do anything without God.
• We share in His sufferings and thus are able to reflect His image.
• We are changed by through prayer in our sufferings. Rarely do our circumstances just, poof, change!

As we moved into our discussion about tolerance of people, it was amazing (a total God-thing) how much of what else we've been reading or listening to intersected. The sermon on Sunday on self-righteousness. An excerpt from Blue Like Jazz about the need to ask God for His love for others--moving beyond tolerance to love. Our self-focus and selfish motivation. The concept that our tolerace is based on what motivates you was a concept that stuck out to me. All coming back to grace--our need for it, our call to extend it to others. Grace changes how we see ourselves and others.

I liked the authors analogy of lactose intolerance and our sin. What would our lives look like if we truly tried to reject sin and be unable to digest it? If we hated sin as much as our holy God does? If we didn't "put up with it" and "accept" it, to use some of our definitions of tolerance. What do we simply tolerate in our lives that we really need to look at with God's perspective? Should I be tolerating this?

We observed that the four areas the author mentions, areas of sin that tend to slip by unnoticed, have connections. We are self-focused with a healthy dose of self-pity and that can often lead to fear and tolerance of the status quo resulting in mediocrity. Our tongues, whether through gossiping, complaining, or criticizing, tear others down and whine about our situations. So much trouble in that one little tongue. "Your tongue, when unregulated, is a natural disaster" (52).

For me, the section with the most impact was on being intolerant of mediocrity. I can so easily play it safe, be content with the status quo in my faith, my marriage, my parenting, my witness. I don't want to rock the boat and I'm certainly not about to get out of the boat. But being tolerant of mediocrity can stifle us. God has so much more for us in store.

In our class on parenting a few months ago, Carl Smith left us with an observation that has chilled me. He said (as best I can remember), "I have never seen a deeply committed, sold-out Christian kid come from nominal Christian parents." Nominal. I don't want my kids to be nominal Christians. But that means I can't be nominal either.

Silence and Sara Groves

So I did manage about an hour of silence--no music, TV, talking--that afternoon. Just the voices in my head.

And the refrain from an old (well, the 90's) Susan Ashton song, "You don't have to suffer, suffer in silence." HA!

But I did listen to what my heart and head get a chance to say when there is no other input coming in. And that head talk can be frightening so it gave me a chance to think through why those were the thoughts that day and maybe, just maybe, deal with them a bit.

I've been trying to be better about not having to have something on, especially when I get a chance to pick what I want or I'm actually able to hear it over the chatterbox and the grunter.

But, ironically, R saw a pile of CD's out that I had been going through with a friend and insisted on playing her favorites. At least that includes Jill Phillips, Caedmon's, and, again, ironically, Sara Grove's Conversations.

That CD was the one that sold me on her voice and her lyrics and I hadn't listened to it in a while, having played her more recent material as she released them. Her honesty and vulnerability connect with me. If you ever get a chance to see her in concert (or watch the footage from the What I Know extras) you know that what you hear on a CD is her life. Her liner notes even reference what she was reading or inspired by that generated the songs. And the CD became the soundtrack to what I've been contemplating during this book study and preparation.

So, get the CD if you don't have it already (I also highly recommend Jill Phillips for the same reasons--beautiful voice, honest lyrics) and here's a sample of some of the lines that impacted me this week.

Conversations: "I don't claim to have found the truth, but I know it has found me. The only thing that isn't meaningless to me is Jesus Christ and the way he set me free. This is all that I have. This is all that I am.

Painting Pictures of Egypt: "It's not about losing faith, it's not about trust, it's all about comfortable when you move so much...I've been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacked. The future feels so hard and I want to go back. But the places that used to fit me cannot hold the thing I've learned, and those roads were closed off to me while my back was turned."

Hello Lord: Right now I don't hear so well and I was wondering if you could speak up. I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person and hear what you're saying, but right now, I just can't hear you. I don't doubt your sovereignty, I doubt my own ability to hear what you're saying and to do the right thing, and I desperately want to do the right thing. Somewhere in the back of my mind I think you are telling me to wait, and though patience has never been mine, Lord I will wait to hear from you."

This Journey is My Own: When I stand before the Lord, I'll be standing alone. This journey is my own. Still I want man's advice, and I need man's approval. This journey is my own. So much of what I do is to make a good impression. This journey is my own. So much of what I say is to make myself look better. This journey is my own. Why would I want to live for man and pay the highest price? What would it mean to gain the world, only to lose my life?

How is It Between Us: "When I wake up I am on my way, reinventing the wheel and saving the day. I have learned this lesson a thousand time, I am the branch and you are the vine. Apart from you we are mice and men, with our fancy dreams of grandeur and no way to get there. Oh I can think about you now and then, or I can make a mark on eternity. Lord, first of all, how is it between you and me?"

The 7 Hardest Things God Asks a Woman to Do - Week 1

I'm going to post a bit of a recap and reflection on our summer Tuesday evening study each week. With vacations and just life interruptions, I know people will be in and out and this is one way we can stay connected.

I want to echo Patti's great observation that while this is a pretty simple book it is universal and practical--this is for every woman at every stage and gets to the core of our daily walk. Thus, the exemplary lives of Ruth and Naomi as the thread that will run throughout this "book study" fits despite the differences in culture, ages, situations as we examine how they answer God's call to do these hard things. And as we observed last night, we have more in common with them than we might think.

They endured a relativistic, immoral culture under often weak leadership, economic struggles, and the inability to provide for their family. They suffered the tragedies of women--widowhood, single parenting, death of children, barrenness.

This week, the reading dealt with having a single focus and I saw anew that theme in the lives of Naomi and Ruth. Naomi, in her pain, never loses sight of the sovereignty of God. She acknowledges his right in her life to give and take away. She says his hand has gone against her but that he has also "visited his people" by giving them bread. Her decision to go back to Bethlehem testifies to her belief in God's sovereign hand.

Ruth's decision on the road to Bethlehem is a radical one as she places her only hope in God--a God she knows only by the witness of Naomi and her family. Her decision to go to Bethlehem (where almost certain widowhood awaits for a Moabite woman without a father) is less about loyalty to Naomi or family responsibilities than a faith in the one, true God. Unlike her sister-in-law Orpah, she doesn't return to her people and her gods. She turns, redirects her heart, and never looks back. Carolyn James in The Gospel of Ruth sees this as the legacy of Ruth:
“This is the gospel of Ruth—a shaft of light across the empty blackness of a broken life—a woman’s radial faith that refuses to say, “So much for your God.” Ruth’s brand of faith is not some free-floating optimism or a Cinderella belief in a “happily ever after” that awaits…Ruth’s faith is grounded in the God who created her and who reveals himself in creation, in history, and in his people…Ruth is a powerful reminder that the most important thing in all of life—the purpose for which we were all created—is to know the God who made us and to walk through life as his child, no matter what is costs us.”

As we turned to the week's reading, here are some of the questions we discussed:

• What responsibilities, activities, distractions, or attention-absorbers make it most difficult for you to consistently focus on him?
• What do you do to refocus on Jesus (see pg. 19)?
• He is focused on us. He is El Roi, the God Who Sees, the name Hagar called Him from the desert. How does knowing that affect you?
• "Our spiritual multi-tasking list is really a "to be" list (page 23). How does that shift in thinking--from "to do" to "to be"--impact how we view our call?
• Looking at the "to be" list, which comes more easily to you? Which is more difficult?
• Has God brought to your mind other important characteristics that you want him to manifest in your life?
• How are our single-focus and our multi-tasking "to be" list related? What is the danger of only attempting one or the other?

We talked a bit about some of the practical ways we get our focus back or remind ourselves to be content or gracious. One comment that has particularly stayed with me is our discussion of silence. I'm challenging myself--and anyone who will take it up with me--to seek out silence this week. Of course, I'm listening to Andrew Peterson as I write this! But I'm about to do some repetitive, kinda manual labor for the next hour of naptime and I will attempt to do so in quiet. As soon as this song is over....

I welcome your comments, those who were there last night and those who couldn't make it!

See you all next week!

Vacation Bible School

I totally cheated and made "B" for Bible school!

R went to her first VBS this past week. She loved it, had a great time. It was a bit weird though handing her off to someone for five mornings. I guess it gears us up for school. She would come home and start singing all the song she had learned that day and I'm like, "When did you learn that? You know that?"

Friday evening was a little closing program and ice cream social. R didn't freak out on stage but as you can see from the video, didn't do much else. She's on the right, in the pink headband. She spent most of the time watching the girl behind her and we could only see her profile or the back of her head. But trust us, she knew all the songs.