Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

This will be short–I think that as Heidi’s arrival comes closer my brain continues to incrementally shut down.  At 39 weeks, It is hardly functioning now.  BUT, the house is clean, the taxes are done, and her newborn clothes are folded in the drawers!  Yes, nothing like delivering a child to ground us to the nitty gritty details of life.  I wish I could say I’ve done some in-dept Bible studies brimming with spiritual wisdom, but mostly I’ve just focused on taking a walk every day, giving Dutch special attention, and making sure the house is ready to show just in case I’m in the hospital the next time it does!  Earthly things…but necessary, I guess.

But tonight’s message, from Colossians 3:1-11 was perfect for my heart.  Today began in the most amazing manner, with the most encouraging, edifying, affirming, wonderful baby shower with my church sisters.  I left soaring.  Then our day got tossed around a bit by unexpected things, which kept Dutch from his nap and threw me for a loop, and then a little bit of discouraging news on our own trying-to-sell-houses front, and quite frankly I just felt like all the encouraging air that’d been pumped into my heart was pricked with the discouragment pin and seeped out as quickly as it came. 

(I have no idea why but I cannot make the rest of the post “un-italicize”…and I’m too tired to go ask Jeff.  Just pretend like it’s REALLY emphasized and go with it.  You can’t expect perfection when I’m this pregnant, right?)

It seems God has me on this theme … weakness.  First, the idea of working on our left–identifying our weakest areas rather than ignoring them enables us to grow and become more of a threat to the enemy.  This one seems fairly obvious, and it makes sense to me.  Work on weaknesses so that you can be stronger. Yes. I get that.

But what God’s been ministering to my heart since that last post has me surprised, yet it makes perfect sense.  My beloved husband, who is a walking library, suggested a book on leadership that has greatly impacted him.  It’s called Leading with a Limp, by Dan B. Allender, Ph.D.   I was instantly intriqued. 

The premise of the book is that most leadership books and strategies teach you to take advantage of your strengths and leverage power and minimize or diminish areas of weakness.  Instead, Allender maintains that the key to being greatly used  to glorify God is in taking full advantage of your flaws. Embracing weaknesses, authentically limping, refusing to protect one’s image makes a leader able to be used by God for great things, because self is no longer part of the equation. 

This struck me as an “aha!” moment, because it’s exactly what I see God showing me in my life.  Last semester, at the conclusion of the semester, we shared in our internship group what one verse characterized what GOd did in us that semester.  I shared 2 Corinthians 12:9, where Paul pleads with the Lord to remove a thron in his flesh, something that was apparently harassing him and making him desperate. The Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore Paul says, “I will therefore boast all the most gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses…for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  That’s exactly how I felt last semester–stretched to the limit. 

Perhaps it is also no secret that at this particular moment in time I feel the weakest I’ve ever felt.  All week all I could think was, “Why on earth did I agree to teach the high schoolers, AND teach a class at Multnomah, a week and a half before I”m due with my 2nd baby, while Jeff has church commitments almost every night this week, my son has a cold, I’m not sleeping, I feel like this baby is going to fall out at any moment, we’re scrambling to get our out-of-town house fixed up to sell as our tenants just moved out on Friday.  I am at the breaking point, Jesus!  How can I stand up in front of these seminary women and expect to teach them anything. I’ll probably burst into tears!  I’m certainly not at my best…” 

So today, I knew Superbowl Sunday was probably my best bet at having time to study and prepare, as we planned to spend the day at my parents house (read: Dutch would be occupied).  But one tiny little thing pushed me over the edge, and I found myself, this afternoon, in tears instead of studying.  I can’t prepare to teach when I’m feeling this weak, I thought.  And so I did the only thing I knew to do, I went for a walk with God, and poured out my heart to Him, waddling my way up and down the driveway. 

And as cheesy as it sounds–God showed me my waddle is my limp.  The fact that I’m almost 9 months pregnant and emotional and stretched to the limit is the power of God manifest in my life.  And I believe, by faith, that somehow in the midst of my weakness, GOd will be glorified in that classroom as I teach, and in my life.  The fact that I don’t have it all together right now means God’s beauty and glory can shine through this broken vessel.  At least that’s what I’m believing, by faith.  And if Paul knows what he’s talking about (and I think he does), then it’s true.  When I’m weak, then I’m strong.  So perhaps right now, feeling like I’m fraying at the edges, perhaps I am at my best.  God is at His best in me.  Perhaps that’s what He wants these seminary women to know.  Perhaps God really means what He says in His Word, that His strength is made perfect in weakness. Perhaps we should not only identify our weaknesses, but boast in them, embrace them, go with them.  Perhaps the Church would discover a power in reaching a lost world that could never exist otherwise.  Perhaps the secret is weakness. 

I’m only scratching the surface, but I’m beginning to think that waddling my way through the next week or two, feeling on the verge of tears at all times, is ok.  I pray that God will glorify Himself through my weakness, however that might look. 

From the time I was big enough to hold a basketball, up until I started college, sports were a pretty all-consuming part of my life.  That may come as a surprise to you seeing that I can’t even remember the last time I shot a basketball, but from about 8-18 that was my life.  With a dad who sleeps, eats, and breathes sports (and was our school’s athetic director, PE teacher, and coach), I guess it’s in my blood.

Basketball was probably my favorite sport, at least the one that was most all-consuming.  Not only did we have the regular season, we always had a huge pre-season schedule, plus summer-league, plus individual summer basketball camps, plus team camp.  I loved it.

And yes, I did really well.  But you know what? In retrospect I think the one thing that kept me from really being outstanding was that I never disciplined myself to work on my left.  My natural strengths were speed (at least relative to other high school girls), defense, and rebounding.  I had killer bony elbows that could clean out the bottom of the key in no-time flat.  But just like is so natural, I really only worked on my strengths.  My weakness was my left hand.

As a good defender, your job is to know your man (woman). Is she a good shooter? Can she dribble both ways?  Does she like to fake?  What are her favorite moves?  The better you know your opponent, the better you can tailor your defense strategy to capitalize on her weaknesses.  Someimes you might here a coach shout to his player, playing defense, “She’s got no left!”  Which just means you can exaggeratedly guard her right hand side, knowing that she can’t dribble to the left to save her life.  This gives you a huge advantage, obviously.

All that to say that I think what really makes an outstanding basketball player (and why I would never have qualified myself as outstanding), is that they know how to work on their left, so to speak. They know how to identify their areas of weakness, and take special attention to develop those areas.  I really never did that.  I liked to shoot baseline jumpers and free-throws, scrap like mad for rebounds, and make my opponent furious by guarding like a hound dog.  But a truly great player will instead focus on their weakness–they’ll work on their left.

I remember one particular circumstance where this was costly.  I played softball in junior high, but was horrible at sliding.  I could hit, catch, throw…not slide.  I could never get it right.  And instead of working on it, I just avoided sliding.  One game, I was stealing third and my coach was shouting, “Down down down!” (to slide).  I didn’t.  I was too scared.  And then I was thrown out.  “I told you to slide!” he yelled at me.  I hung my head and walked over to the bench.  How frustrating it is when we’re in a crunch situation and we’ve not prepared ourselves to meet the challenge.  How frustrating when we realize, “If only I’d worked on my left.” 

So this coming week I have the joy again of teaching at Multnomah.  This class is on Women’s Leadership, and we’ll be discussing character qualities of a leader.  As I’m studying through dozens of different key character qualities, the thing that keeps coming back to my mind is the importance of working on your left.  Being punctual, organized, enthusiastic, warm, and hard-working is not a challenge for me.  So it’d sure be easy if I just capitalized on those things and sat around feeling good about myself.  (And yes, there is a value in finding a work/ministry situation that revolves around your strengths–that’s common sense.)  But when it comes to, let’s see, patience, flexibility, going with the flow without an agenda, willingness to follow without clear direction, “wasting time” with people–those are my “lefts”.  And do I work on them? 

So I’ll write more later about the Character Qualities of a Leader.  But for today, our challenge is simply to sit down for a moment and evaluate–honestly–an area or two of weakness.  How easy it is for the enemy to “defend” us when he knows we’ve “got no left”!  How much more effective we would be as Christian ministers, parents, spouses, and friends, if we had the ability to “go either way”.  How much more confident we would be if we knew we could slide into third base if we had to.  What is it that you don’t want to work on?  What is your left?  And how can you become more of a threat to the enemy, and a more powerful weapon in the hand of our God?  Let’s work on our left.

Did the title get your attention?  This’ll be another chance for my spam-filter to work overtime.  I feel like I’m all backed up in my blogging–I have so many things stirring in my heart and mind, and yet somehow this time is so incredibly busy and hectic there is no time in the day and I collapse into bed at night and fall asleep.  It might have something to do with the fact that we are trying to sell two houses, one of which is now vacant which means trips there to clean/maintain/stage for showings,  living in a third house (not ours) that’s for sale, so showing it and having it ready, plus getting ready to have a baby any time now (!), corralling my toddler, keeping up with the innumerable (but wonderful!!) church events, teaching at High School group this week, and gearing up to start my internship this week.  Hm…  Sorry, just needed to get all that out. I feel better now.

But back to porn.  Right now at church we’re studying through the book of Colossians and it has been the most powerful series ever.  What I love is that each week we are confronted again with the wonder of the GOSPEL, every week I find myself weeping at our beautiful Jesus, every week I am contronted with the seriousness of my sin and how great a debt has been paid by my Savior.  Today Pastor Joel talked about empty philosophies (Col. 2) and how we tend to take the world’s “philosophies” or systems and ways of thinking, and mix them in with our Christianity.  He used several examples, but the one that stood out to me was consumerism.  Is consumerism and materialism a philosophy? Well, it’s certainly a way of life, a mindset, that drives our world. 

He introduced to us the idea of Consumerist Porn, and how it warps our minds.  It’s a strong term, but I think so accurately describes what so many of us do.  Consider the magazine industry.  How many of us have Pottery Barn catalogs?  Crate & Barrell?  Do we sit and flip through these magazines, fantasizing about things that we don’t have, in essence lusting after things we think will make our lives better?  What is it for you?  Joel talked about travel magazines, golf magazines.  What about Victoria’s Secret catalogs or whatever it may be.  What do we spend our “mindless” time doing?  And is it, in a way, unhealthy fantasizing about material things?

I realized lately that without my even meaning to, God had weeded my life from some of this.  As I was organizing our file cabinet, I found a manila folder with “House Ideas” on the tab.  Inside were torn out pages from–you guessed it–Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrell, Restoration Hardware.  The pictures were nice, I guess, but for some reason it seemed kind of silly.  Why would I purposely keep pictures of things I don’t need? Just in case I forgot?  Praise God I forgot!  Long long ago I quit getting Victoria’s Secret or any clothing catalogs of any kind.  Why?  Because I don’t know I “need” new clothes until I see them adorning some 6’2″ 105lb. retouched model.  Then I realize I need them! 🙂  And I am absolutely content with my body until I take a good look at that 6’2″ 105lb. model and then I realize how wide my hips are.  Fantasy? Perhaps. Lust? Maybe.  Unnecessary for my spiritual growth and Christlikeness?  Absolutely.

But this doesn’t just happen with magazines.  I was convicted as I listened because of…the house.  Yes, there is a house right by our church, that I have to drive by (oh darn) each time I go to church on Sundays.  It is a bank-owned Repo … and yes, it is gorgeous. It is beyond gorgeous in my opinion, and as I saw pictures online, I realized it has every detail that I love in a home–size, style, walking distance to church, elementary school, middle school, park, grocery store.  And, if we sold our homes and got a good deal, within our price range. I saved the ad for it on my web browser favorites, and for the first few days would go and look at it, again…just to see.  And no, of course there is nothing wrong with having an eye out for a house in the very location we hope to move, but it is a fine line between searching for a home, and lusting after the house of my dreams.   So with outstretched arms today I asked God to take my fantasizing about the house I love, and give me a surrendered heart consumed with a vision of Him–the One I love.

So I know the term Consumerist Pornography is pretty strong, but I like it. I like it because it refuses to let us call covetousness by a nice neat name that makes us not feel bad.   God gives us good gifts.  He is a loving Father. He may very well bless us with a beautiful home or a tropical vacation or what have you.  But perhaps too often we are guilty of letting ourselves buy the lie of this world, “If only I had that…”

Give us faithful eyes, Lord. Free from lust and fantasy. Pure hearts, pure motives, content with what we have.  Rid our lives of consumerist pornography and give us eyes for You alone. In Jesus’ name.

You’ve probably heard me mention my love for Therese of Lisieux and her “little way” of humility and sacred living.  Well our church’s high school group is doing a series on biographical sketches of some of Christianity’s greats, I have have the privilege (as the token woman 🙂 of teaching on Therese of Lisieux next Wednesday.  I’ve only scratched the surface of her character, but I’m realizing her life is a gold mine of treasure, especially with regard to the sacredness of the mundane.  She lived it! 

Her life is one of suffering and tragedy and mundane tasks. Her mother died when she was four-years-old, and at nine she already wanted to be a Carmelite nun.  After being rejected countless times because of her age, she finally was allowed to join the convent at Lisieux when she was 15.  At 15 her maturity and wisdom was amazing, and yet all was shrouded in a childlike innocence and faith that earned her the knickname the “little flower of Jesus”. 

Therese’ famous “little way” meant using every single ordinary task and assignment in her daily life as an opportunity to manifest her love for God and for others.  She showed no favoritism, took no part in gossip, despised no menial task.  She embraced the mundane things of life as a means for demonstrated her love for her Savior.  Her truly extraodinary life was filled with ordinary things. 

This perspective of hers changed the way she viewed everything, especially suffering.  A life wrought with sorrow, at the young age of 21 her health began to steeply decline.  In 1896, at 23 years of age, she began bleeding from the mouth as a result of tuberculosis taking a turn for the worse.  Her perspective on all this?  She said, “I have reached the point of not being able to suffer any more, because all suffering is sweet to me.”  A year later, at the sweet young age of 24, she went to be with Jesus. 

Though the Catholic church usually requires 50 years to pass between death and beatification/canonization, she was beatified, then canonized by the Catholic church only 28 years after her death. Though according to Scripture all God’s children are considered Saints, her recognition of Sainthood truly is a tribute to her unique devotion to God in the mundane things of life. 

I believe her message is a timely one for young and old alike.  Many youths are encouraged to “do great things for God!”  I would argue many need to simply do little things for God.   It is my experience that the little things require a depth of fortitude, resolve, humility, and courage, that many large things do not.  Little things provide no pats on the back–only the sweet knowledge in one’s own heart that God–who is the Object of all affection–is well pleased.

I’ll write more about Therese as I study more.  I’m fascinated by her life and have a feeling she will be walking through the pages of the Sacredness of the Mundane. 

Speaking of suffering, my blog was down for FIVE days.  I know.  Tragic beyond words.  It was touch and go, and I wasn’t sure I was going to survive. Yes, I know, I could have written just like a normal person, in Micrsoft Word or something, but somehow it’s not the same as sitting down here, with you, and sharing my heart.  So imagine my joy when just now I checked and that glorious black background came up, my familiar fog and bare trees reflecting off the dark waters.  Ahhh….home at last. 

So many sacred things happened this weekend. I will later write about the Sacredness of Showers, as I was incredibly ministered to and blessed by baby showers this weekend.  But first I had to reflect on the amazing message from church this weekend, from Colossians 1:24-2:7.  Pastor Joel focused on suffering in the life of the believer. 

We’ve all heard messages on suffering, and perhaps even have some awareness of the suffering endured by Christians in different parts of the world. Or perhaps we even have a vague sense of guilt that we don’t suffer while others do.  Or perhaps we are suffering in some way and cannot understand why God doesn’t deliver us out of it.

One thing that stood out to me was this thought–if we all lived happy, healthy lives, knew we’d live to be 100, and never endured any physical or emotional suffering, how many of us would really turn to Christ?  I mean, think back to the times when you’ve most grown in your faith, most relied on GOd’s strength, most seen Him move miraculously on your behalf, most felt His presence, comfort, and love? I know all of those have been during times of suffering for me.  And yet, we will do anything to avoid suffering.  We spend our life’s energy trying to keep our life free from as much suffering as possible.  While this is normal, and human, and understandable, it does strike me as interesting.

The thing we most loathe brings us to the Thing we most love. 

It is through the things we avoid and yet endure that we gain the precious intimacy with our beautiful Lord that our hearts long and yearn for, just as the labor pains bring the miracle of life.

I do not suffer, I have the most abundantly blessed life I could even imagine.  But there is a trial right now that this past week definitely got my eyes off Jesus.  That is another post–The Sacredness of Surrender. (I told you I have a lot bottled up right now!).  But how big I let this trial become! How all-encompassing. How discouraged and frustrated I felt!  How small my God became.  How I needed a change in perspective. 

At the end of Joel’s message, he shared the story of Pastor Kim, a pastor in North Korea in the 1950s.  I wept as he read this story.  I share it here not to ruin your day or cloud the beautiful sunshine we’re enjoying this week, but to give us perspective.  Oh how we do not suffer! Oh how much perspective changes everything!  If our life is hidden with God in Christ, we can set our minds on heavenly things, and the things of this world grow strangely dim.  I’m thankful for a refreshed perspective this week.  I’m also thankful for saints like Pastor Kim and his little flock of 27, who gave their lives for the gospel:

For years, Pastor Kim and 27 of his flock of Korean saints had lived in hand-dug tunnels beneath the earth. Then as the communists were building a road, they discovered the Christians living underground.

The officials brought them out before a crowd of 30,000 in the village of Gok San for a public trial and execution. They were told, “Deny Christ, or you will die.” But they refused.

At this point the head Communist officer ordered four children from the group seized and had them prepared for hanging. With ropes tied around their small necks, the official again commanded the parents to deny Christ.  Not one of the believers would deny their faith. They told the children, we will see you in Heaven.” The children died quickly.

The officer then called for a steamroller to be brought in.  He forced the Christians to lay on the ground in its path. As its engines revved, they were given one last chance to recant their faith in Jesus. Again they refused.

As the steamroller began to inch forward, the Christians began to sing a song they had often sung together. As their bones and bodies were crushed under the pressure of the massive rollers, their lips uttered the words:

“More love to thee, O Christ, more love to thee
Thee alone I seek, more love to thee
Let sorrow do its work, more love to thee
Then shall my latest breath whisper Thy praise
This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;
More love, O Christ, to thee.”

Let’s sing this song this week.  More love to thee. 

I was reminded today how sacred fellowship truly is.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m one of those closet introverts who can do a real good “extrovert act” but I recharge and am restored through alone-time.  I love being alone.  Before Dutch was born I had four months of being at home (and in school) without working.  And after Dutch was born I had six months home alone before we moved in with my parents.  I truly loved every second of it.   So sometimes it’s too easy for me to just do my solo-act and forget how much my spirit is nourished through sacred fellowship.

And today I was reminded how truly sacred fellowship really is.  We are social beings.  God created us to function in relationship.  God Himself, our Triune God, is in Himself ever and always in relationship within the Godhead and with us as His creation.  He placed us in families and calls us to congregate in local churches to function as His hands and feet in relationship.  We are challenged, sharpened, loved, edified, and exposed through our relationship with others.  I know the desert fathers were amazing people, but I truly do not know how you can dig down deeper in the love and knowledge of our Lord without the fellowship of other believers.  This is why I love the The Hawk and The Dove trilogy, because it highlights that even in the life of these devoted monks, who devoted enormous amounts of time to individual prayer and study, their growth, struggles, and epiphanies came largely through their relationship with eachother. 

So after being sick for two weeks, a couple other girls and I finally got together for a playdate with our five kids, four of which are little boys 2-3 years old.  You can imagine the orchestra of engine, explosion, and siren sounds in our little living room!  (But you cannot imagine the explosion of cracker crumbs under our dining room table! 🙂 Jeff walked in as I was sweeping and started laughing and said, “What happened?!”  I smiled and said, “Awesome playdate!” ) 

It was such a sweet and sacred time.  The kids played with trucks, went on a “monster hunt” through all the bedrooms, and stacked Legos to their hearts content.  We moms soaked up the rare treat of actually sitting down on the couch, with kids happily occupied, and being able to converse and encourage one another.  As always, I was amazed how similar our lives are–joys, sorrows, struggles.  We all are dealing with different challenges, yet each requires the same response on our part–faith and trust that our Heavenly Father is in control. 

So now I’m just soaking up the silence (kind of, Dutch is apparently having a dance party on his bed), and thanking God for the sacredness of fellowship. 

It’s 4:32am and I’ve been awake for 2.5 hours.  I’ve entered the 9th month of pregnancy and with it the inevitable season of sleeplessness.  Despite the fact that I’m exhausted every night–somehow I lie here, thinking, unable to find sleep.  I wonder what my labor will be like this time…I need to remember to pack my cereal this time so I don’t have to eat that awful hospital food…what do I need to do to get ready?…I should pay that garbage bill tomorrow…oh and I need to change our garbage to weekly February 1st since we’ll have two in diapers…I wonder if I should buy more newborn diapers, 2 packages will only last a week…in a week Jeff will be teaching at the junior high retreat, I need to pray for him…I pray that our houses sell, I’m so ready to nest and settle and feel some permanence…I wonder if the people who saw the house today will buy it…mortgage rates are sure low right now, I wonder what they are…ugh, these mild contractions are annoying…I’m so glad we have the humidifier on…I wonder if Dutch is ok without his humidifier…I hope we all get healthy soon…

You get the picture. 

First of all, sleep.  Sleep is sacred, sleep is spiritual!  I remember in college being so overloaded, trying to do so many things, involved in so many ministries, I was getting overwhelmed, discouraged, and burdened. I remember Ryan Sugai saying, “Kari, sleep is spiritual.  Get some sleep.”  I’ll always remember that.  Since then I’ve often though of Psalm 127:2 which says, “It is vain for you to rise up early,To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.”  Rest, peace, sleep, is a gift from God.

I also have been known to tout the benefits of “a nap and a snack.”  After Elijah’s famous victory (God’s famous victory through Elijah) on Mount Carmel, rather than running victory laps and dancing for joy, the legendary man of God finds himself overwhelmed by fear, exhausted, discouraged, despairing even of life.  “I have had enough, Lord…take my life,” is what he says (1 King 19:5)!  How’s that for overwhelmed and discouraged?  And what does He do?

By the grace of God, he lies down and goes to sleep.  Then an angel wakes him up and provides him with…food.  A cake of bread and some water.  Elijah needed a snack.  Then he lay back down and slept again (two naps!).  Then an angel woke him up and told him to eat some more (two snacks!).  And strengthened by this he traveled 40 days and 40 nights.  How’s that for restored?!  I’ve often thought how big the monsters seem when we are hungry, weary, and sleep-deprived. A nap and a snack may be the most spiritual thing one can do to persevere in the race of faith.

But then there are times like these. Sleepless times.  And these are sacred too. Jesus was known to spend all night praying on occasion (Luke 6:12).  As with sickness, God can whisper to us in these moments when all is silent and still.  I cannot say that I enjoy sleepless nights, but I do ask God for the grace to take my wandering thoughts, anxieties, and questions about the future, and turn them to him through prayer.  And in one short month, as I hold my new little daughter in my arms, another season of sleepless nights will begin, and another season of sacredness will begin.  So now it is 5am.  I think I’ll have some cheerios and take a quick nap before dawn…

Dutch and I have been sick for more than 2 weeks now.  In fact, between his burns, then my sickness, then his sickness, then my sickness again I feel like it’s been ages since we were full strength.  And honestly…it’s getting old.  A simple cold seems insurmountable when I’m 8-months pregnant.  Then adding a sick toddler, getting the house show-ready, and then some significant stresses from our other house situations this week, today I hit the breaking point–I was so tired from not sleeping and being sick and up with Dutch at night I melted into a heap of tears.  “I can’t do this anymore,” I cried to Jeff.

And all week I’ve thought, “Oh it’d be good to write a post called The Sacredness of Sickness.”  But you know what, all week I couldn’t think of one blasted reason why sickness is anything other than frustrating.  I missed play-groups, dates with friends, and now I’m missing the highlight of my week: Saturday night and Sunday morning church.  How can there be anything sacred about that?

And to tell you the truth I’m not yet rejoicing and saying, “Oh how good it is to be miserable and sick and tired!”  But I turned today to 1 Corinthians 12:8-9 to remind myself of what Paul said, when he was bombarded by some thorn in his flesh which God refused to take away: “Three times I pleaded with hte Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the most gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 

I will say that some of the most significant points in my life, where God has moved in amazing ways, have been at my lowest points, either physically or emotionally.  It was at a very low point when I was so discouraged with us not finding a job, that I made my facebook status, “Kari is discouraged.”  Through that a friend saw it, asked why, and when I explained he emailed us about a youth pastor job, which we applied for but didn’t really feel was right for us (and we didn’t get it), and in the process of that interview, our Multnomah professor overheard that we were looking, and she emailed her son-in-law who is the Lead Pastor of Willamette Christian Church … where Jeff now serves as Associate Pastor.  I can think of countless times I’ve been so weak and helpless and discouraged, and it was in those times that God stepped in, revealing His power, His perfect power. 

So right now I’m just writing that by faith.  I’m still feeling weak and discouraged, but today as I lay in bed and cried out to God, I knew that somehow He was pleased by my weakness, that there was a desperation that must please the heart of the Father.  The same way it blesses my heart when Dutch curls up in my arms and just wants to snuggle (which only happens when he’s sick).  Perhaps it creates a bond with my Father I would miss otherwise.

Wish I had a more heroic attitude, but I’m pretty wimpy.  But this is just my best attempt to ask God for His perspective and help me to quit worrying about the future and whining about the present.  And even if sickness is sacred, please remember to take your vitamins and wash your hands!

Earlier I referred to the Sacred/Secular duality which tempts each one of us to see our lives as consisting of two unrelated spheres–one which is sacred and matters to God, and one which is secular and does not.

This morning I was reading through the Sermon on the Mount, and came across what to me is the scariest passage in the Bible: 

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demonds in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”  And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart fro me, you workers of lawlessness.”  Matthew 7:21-23

This passage has always haunted me.  It’s sobering to think that there are those who will go to such an extent of compartmentalizing their lives that they are deceived into thinking that their “sacred acts” are pleasing to God, when really the vast majority of their lives was nothing but lawlessness.  Perhaps I’m misinterpreting this text, but it seems that it is duality taken to the extreme–a life spent doing “sacred things” without ever truly living for God.  A life spent looking spiritual, without truly consecrating one’s life to Christ.

Just recently I heard a horrific story.  Growing up, this person’s father would force all the children out of bed at 5am for enforced Bible reading.  They were forced to fast for long periods of time, as children.  They made their appearance in church every week.  He was Mr. Spiritual.  And then he would proceed to beat them–beat them mercilessly, and make them count their lashes out loud.  And afterward the children were forced to tell him they loved him.  It makes my eyes well up even now as I write, as I cannot imagine such a hideous abuse of authority.  This of course is an extreme case, but am I not committing the same sin, in a less degree, if I take take special care to “sacred” things and yet dishonor God in the rest of my life?

This was the very sin of the Pharisees that Jesus abhored.  In Matthew 23 Jesus rebukes them for tithing the most minute amounts of mint and dill and cumin (can you imagine tithing your groceries?!  Here’s 33 Cheerios and 4 tablespoons of milk!), but neglecting justice and mercy and faithfulness.  It is what Paul warns about in 1 Timothy 5:8 when he says, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  What Jesus, and Paul, are saying is that our faith is only as real as it is demonstrated in the mundane things of life–working, loving, living.

Often it seems that right when I begin to teach/write about something, God tests me in it. Right now I am in a … challenging situation.  Challenging is a gentle way to put it.  It is a business situation, and frankly I would like to handle things the way the world handles things.  Countless times I have found myself thinking about the “piece of my mind” I’d like to give, or the vengeful route I could take.  And over and over God keeps reminding me that the relationship is more important than the business transaction.  That how I personally choose to handle this is, even in the secret place of my heart, is of enormous importance.  Why? Because the mundane is sacred.  Because I am worse than an unbeliever if I do mighty works in His name and yet fail to respond to others in love, meekness, humility. 

This passage in Matthew is sobering indeed.  Please, Lord, keep us from the sin of separating our lives into sacred and secular.  Keep us from straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!  Keep us from the danger of duality.