Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

“All the things that make for the enriching of this present life are sacred gifts of God, but we spoil them by our misuse of them. If we want to know the reason why, it is because we are always entertaining the delusion that we will go on forever in this world. The result is that the very things which ought to be of assistance to us in our pilgrimage through life, become the chains which bind us.” -John Calvin

I just got done running two miles.  I know, not a lot. But it’s a lot for me.  You see, I’m a “Runnabe”…a wannabe runner.  I like to think of myself as someone who likes to run, but the bottom line is that I like to, well, walk.  So, Jeff and I have been talking about how much we need to make it a priority to get more exercise, as “sedentary seminary” has taken its toll and we just want to be healthy and have an active lifestyle. So, he’s been riding his bike to work each day, and loving it.  And as I mentioned, he is taking the 100 push-up challenge.  This week he did 181 push-ups total.

So in the middle of this new motivation, I get a random email from my dear friend Candi (from the Road to Santa Clara) saying that they had a runner drop off their Hood-to-Coast team and she wanted me to join. (Hood-to-Coast is the largest running relay race in the world, 197 mile relay from Mt. Hood to the Oregon coast).  Ok, I will admit that I once said that I wanted to do Hood-to-Coast, but that was pre-baby when I was actually running regularly…a long time ago!  And, most people train for months and months, but the race is only 2 months from now!  So immediately my response was Absolutely No Way.  No way did I want to give up my summer to train for something that would absolutely certain to hurt…a lot.  Any amount of running that causes thigh chafing and loss of toenails does NOT sound like a fun time to me.  Plus, I don’t have that competitive edge anymore.  I am completely content these days to sit and sip iced tea while the world around me competes for the athletic prize.  But I told her I’d sleep on it and pray about it.  And I did.

And it kept nagging at me. Again and again.  And again. I hate that! I hate it when you feel like maybe God wants you to do something and so you can’t quit thinking about it and no matter how many reasons you think of against it, you still feel like it’s what you’re supposed to do.  I hate that. So I came up with a million reasons not to do it. It’s the same day as my 10-year High School reunion that I was actually really excited about attending.  I don’t have a great place to run, other than just laps up and down our driveway.  I’m breastfeeding.  And, the biggest reason: I’ve never ran a 10k in my life and this relay would basically be 3 of those in one day.  Totally out of my league.

You probably think I’m blowing this way out of proportion, but I’m telling you sometimes I get this feeling like something is a big deal, like God wants me to do something and there’s something at stake, which makes me not want to do it more than ever. So I was laying in bed one night, praying about it, and I had this picture in my mind of God dragging me by my arm like a toddler off the playground, and me shaking my fists like a spoiled brat and shouting, “But I’m not a runner! I’m not a runner!” (I know, that’s probably a symptom of some disorder).  But then I began to get this sense that God has something for me in this.  I don’t care about my mile times or proving anything or getting a t-shirt. I do care about getting to do something totally bonding with my precious friend Candi, which I think will be the highlight. But most of all, I think maybe God wants to teach me some stuff, definitely challenge me, maybe bless me. I don’t know, and I actually haven’t made my official decision yet…but I can feel my resistance starting to crumble.  I know it sounds totally dorky to say I’m running for Jesus, but that’s the only way I know how to articulate it.

So this morning I started “training” with a big whopping 2 mile run.  I am the reluctant runner, but I’m trusting there’s a reason God’s dragging me onto the track. He’s so good, so trustworthy, and I guess He’s promised to run with me, right?  I don’t know.  I’m still a little scared…

If you asked me what one area of ministry most fascinates, intrigues, and energizes me, I would without a moment’s hesitation respond: Soul Care.  I really believe that the nourishment and care of one’s soul is presently one of the most neglected areas of life.  We spend our time, energy, and resources tending to the things that are visible.  I often spend more time washing, dressing, and making presentable my body than I do cultivating my inner soul each morning.  I have countless times been convicted realizing that I have entered the house of worship to sit before the King of Kings, and have spent more time contemplating my clothing that setting apart my spirit for the presence of God.  Basically, our souls are too often neglected.

By soul I am speaking generally of what some would refer to as both the spirit and the soul. I mean the spirit, intellect, emotions, basically all that is unseen and incapable of measure.  Of all the four areas we will examine (emotional, physical, time, and financial), this is by far the hardest to quantify.  While we can objectively look at our checkbook and determine whether our financial margin has disappeared, who can so easily sit down and look at one’s life and determine that the emotional reserve is eliminated and overload is imminent?

So how do we know if our emotional margin is gone?  I remember situations in ministry where I was overjoyed when someone canceled our appointment.  That should have been a sign.  I have personally seen pastors leave ministry, even abandoning their wives and children, because they didn’t recognize the dangerous symptoms of burnout.  Depression, anxiety, substance or other kinds of abuse, compulsive overeating (or compulsive anything), are all symptoms that something is not emotionally right.

I feel a bit of freedom in this area right now because of my circumstances, so I must confess that this is not a huge area of concern for me at the moment. However, I have lived without emotional margin, and it’s HARD!  Circumstances change, so my prayer is that when my circumstances do change (i.e. we’re back in “full time” ministry), I will have already set up the emotional margin in my life, so that I know my limit and can keep a good 1.5″ away from the edge of the page.

So what are ways that we can promote our emotion margin, so that when crises do come, when someone does need help, when God knocks and has a challenge for us, we can respond with grace, easily drawing upon the emotional reserves, rather than collapsing and breaking down, unable to muster up any emotional energy.

Here are our LiveDifferent Challenges this week for restoring Emotional Margin:  Choose one or two to focus on; and I’d love to hear responses or other ideas.

1. Reconcile Relationships: “Broken relationships are a razor across the artery of the spirit.”  Unforgiveness drains your emotional energy.

2. Serve: Of 2,700 people studied for over a decade, “those who performed regular voluntary work showed dramatically increased life expectancy.  People not involved in such altruistic activity had 2 1/2 times the morbidity than those who volunteered at least once a week.”

3. Rest: Relax, sleep in, take a nap, turn off your phone.

4. Laugh & Cry:  People who laugh more heal faster.  Try laughing every four minutes (how often children laugh), you will be astonished at the results.  Similarly, cry.  Those who cry more get sick less often. That’s amazing!

5. Grant Grace: Judging others is a weighty emotional burden–“it is a form of emotional and spiritual suicide–like chopping a hole in the bottom of your lifeboat because you dont want the other person to be rescued.”

6. Create Boundaries: Try not answering the phone at dinner. Learn to say no.  Not with selfish motives, but for the sake of soul-care.  Protect your family.

7. Envision a Better Future: This isn’t about the power of positive thinking, it’s about knowing where your hope lies. We don’t hope in a better economy, world peace, or the end of hunger. We hope in the coming of Jesus Christ who will make all things new.  Know where your hope lies.

So this week, consider one or two of these areas and let’s counter our culture and refuse the temptation to run on Emotional Empty.  Let’s add Emotional Margin to our lives.  Let’s tend to our souls and cultivate the inner health of our emotions.  We’ll then we healthy, whole people, fit for the Master’s good work.

Ok, so three quick successive posts on margin is really not going to work.  This concept is so much more huge than I thought…we’re going to take the next four LiveDifferent Challenges to tackle it.  It’s so exciting! I would still really suggest buying the book.  Trying to sum it up in a brief blog entry is daunting…but we’ll try.

So, Wednesday we talked about the fact that we have reached an all-time high point for depression, anxiety, suicide, stress, burn-out, abuse, and divorce.  While life-expectancy is at an all-time high, perhaps quality of life, that is happiness and contentment, is at an all time low.  Something is wrong. As I suggested last time, perhaps it is that we have reached a limit and we’re in desperate need of margin.

Margin is defined as the space between your load and your limit. On a piece of paper, the margin is the white space between the written words and the edge of the page.  As a grader in seminary, let me tell you that my #1 pet peeve in grading is opening a paper and seeing that the student has done one of three things:  used size 10 font instead of 12, snuck in 1.75 line space instead of double, or changed the margins ever so slightly so the words creep over dangerously close to the edge of the page. They might think I don’t notice…but after reading 25 of them, I notice!  And far from being impressed by their covert ways, I am annoyed because what this tells me is that they were incapable of completing the assignment in the given space.  So, they have to cheat by doctoring margins.  That bugs me.  I have been known to write across the top of the page, “Ah!  Give me some white space!”

So we have done this with our lives. In the name of diligence, we have clicked on those margins and dragged them closer and closer to the edge of the page, instead of simply acknowledging the appropriate boundaries necessary for mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual health, and respecting those boundaries.  Instead we have arrogantly assumed that the rules of margin aren’t for us, and we’ve packed our lives to the point of breakdown.

If you’re not convinced that this is an epidemic, check out these stats from the doctor who authored the book:  “Adjusting for population growth, ten times as many people in Western nations today suffer from unipolar depression, or unremitting bad feelings, without a specific cause, then did half a century ago.  Americans and Europeans have ever more of everything except happiness.”  In one morning, nine of the eleven patients this doctor saw where on antidepressents.  We are truly living in a “deteriorating psychic environment.” He observes that “millions of suburbanites seem to find that ‘the good life’ is only endurable under sedation.”

Not only are we sad, we we are overfed, under-exercised, sleep-deprived as well.  We are in more debt than ever before.  We have less leisure time, even though it was predicted in the early 20th century that by this time we would be down to a 2-3 day workweek because we could produce all that we “need” withing that amount of time. Ha!  Whoever predicted that took no classes in human behavior.  We don’t work for our needs. Instead, the workweek has risen rapidly over the past 20 years:  “The average work year for prime-age working couples has increased by nearly 700 hours in the last two decades.”  Exhaustion, burn-out, stress, and mental breakdown have become the norm.

So, what better way to LiveDifferent than to Get Marginalized and introduce some sanity into our lives?  God is the one who created the Sabbath, He’s the one who set up the delicate balance of work, stress, rest.  Let’s say no to the rat race of always wanting more, and say yes to God, who wants health, wholeness, and vitality for us!  We will examine four areas: Margin in Emotional Energy, Margin in Physical Energy, Margin in Time, and Margin in Finances.  I really feel as I’m reading this book that it is a profound secret I want to share.  Again, I’d love to encourage you, if you can, to read the book yourself.  It’s counter-cultural to say the least.

So, tomorrow tune in for Get Marginalized in our Emotional Energy!  I’m off for a bike ride in the sunshine with my son…

These LiveDifferent Challenges are starting to take over my life.  In a good way! What I mean is, I feel like each week something starts brewing in my mind and I can’t wait until Friday.  So whenever this happens I figured I will just start tossing out ideas, so I can get feedback from ya’ll before the official Challenge on Fridays.

So the last few nights in bed my dear husband has been been unable to contain himself while reading and started reading aloud exerpts to me from this book.  Well, since when I’m writing I am completely in the right-mind creative zone, I am absolutely incapable of pausing or even entertaining the smallest consideration of another thought at those times.  So, dear Jeff reads an amazing quote by William Wilberforce, and I completely ignore him.  Last night he was reading a quote about limits, and he finished by “reading”: “And there is always such and such a limit for humans, as in the limit of my wife’s patience when I am reading to her while she’s trying to write.” That got a smile out of me and I did pause long enough to thank him for his sensitivity.

But today, after writing my Much Ado About Nothing post, which you yawned through, I looked around for something to stimulate my sluggish mind and saw the book that my husband has been raving about: Margin. (BUY IT HERE)  A little reluctantly, I picked it up, made myself a big mug of green tea, and settled into the LazyBoy and began to read.  Whoa! No wonder Jeff was overcome with wanting to read aloud to me!

I will likely post 3 entries about this topic, concluding on Friday with the official LiveDifferent Challenge.  The book, written by Medical Doctor Richard A. Swenson, is divided into three sections: The Problem, the Prescription, and the Prognosis.  The Problem is Pain.  We are experiencing the pain of progress at an exponential rate.  Simply glancing through the appendix of this book reveals that life is coming at us in exponential proportions.  Population, Mail, Health Care Costs, Home Prices, Volume of Advertising, Number of Prisoners, Life Expectancy, Bankruptcies, Federal Debt, and Number of International Telephone Calls are ALL increasing exponentially.  And with this increase comes an increase in pain.  We are seeing divorce, depression, anxiety, debt, crime, alcoholism, drugs, suicide, all climb to epidemic levels.  So if we have bigger houses, more cars, higher salaries, and more exotic vacations, why are more people than ever choosing to end their life or escape through drugs, illegal or prescribed?

Progress, Swenson insists, is not evil, but we must realize that somewhere, in the midst of all of this progress and increase, there is a limit.  While athletic records are being constantly broken, there are limits.  A man may run the mile faster than ever before, but there will be a limit.  A man cannot run the mile in one second, nor in one minute, so there will be a limit.  For 2000 years, the slowly climbing linear progression of change has meant that the danger of exceeding limits was still far off. But today, look around at the foreclosure signs and tell me that perhaps we’ve failed to recognize our limits.

WHen we fail to recognize limits we overload.  What is obvious in physical overload is not so obvious in the performance, emotional, and mental realm. We would never try to crowd 3 cars into a 2-car garage.  I don’t pour two cups of milk into my 8 oz. measuring cup. Physical limits are obvious.  But we have a harder time recognizing limits in the performance and emotional and mental realm.  Where is the limit of too many friends? Too many commitments?  Too much work? Too many emotional draining relationships?  We are not unlimited in our resources, even if we do have streams of living water flowing through our lives.  We are not God.

Lately, I’ve been lifting weights.  I have always had 5 lbs. hand weights, and I love them. But after having them for several years now, I’ve noticed that with curls and chest press, I really needed to use 8lb. weights in order to overload my muscles and help them become stronger.  However, there is a limit.  I don’t want huge muscles.  I want to be fit and in shape, but body building is not my goal. So, there will a limit that I put on how heavy of weight I will use and how much I will lift weights.  In my workout video, the instructor says at one point “You are unlimited in your potential.”  I always kind of shake my head at that point. Uh, that’s not true, Gari Love.  I cannot lift up our car.  I cannot bench press my husband.  So, there is a limit to my potential and acknowledgment of that limit is the key to mental health.  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is not an invitation to embrace absurdity.

So, I guess I’ll leave you with this for now.  Step one, we recognize that there is a problem.  We need more than a one-week vacation to Hawaii to deal with the stress and pain of life.  With ever increasing frequency, people are snapping, resorting to drugs, divorce, drinking, debt, death…because we’ve embraced “progress” and forfeited our souls.  What needs to change?  We need a little margin.

I’m going to practice what I preach and write some trash…because this afternoon I am just so tired, and cold, so I don’t feel like doing much other than pulling the blanket a little closer up to my neck and sinking down a little lower in the couch while Dutch takes his nap.  So, I’m writing just to write. My brain feels like mud today. Not much creativity.  The gerbil in my mind has ceased running and is now lying down on his wheel with his little gerbil arms and legs hanging over the sides.

Maybe I’m tired because I’ve actually begun, yes, exercising again.  Sedentary Seminary has taken its toll and both Jeff and I are ready for some fitness.  I started running (ok, jogging) a couple weeks ago, just a couple miles a couple days a week, and Jeff has been doing awesome riding his new bike, the “second car.”  He’s ridden it in all week this week to church for work–that’s 16 miles a day!  Woohoo Jeff! Jeff has also accepted the online Hundred Pushup Challenge.  So this morning after my run (that sounds so much cooler than “jog” even though I’m certain no one watching would ever qualify it as running), I collapsed on the couch and read my Bible while Jeff did his push-ups.  Way to go, hon!  He is LOVING riding his bike–he’s always wanted a new bike, and it’s so fun to see him get so excited about more than an hour of grueling exercise each day.

Nothing much on other fronts.  We’re trying to eat healthier, which lasts until after dinner when the dessert demon calls my name and insists that ice cream and cookies are absolutely necessary.  Dutch is now in love with graham crackers and makes his pitiful little “please” sign rapidly with desperation in his eyes as he points up to the cupboard.  He’s now feeding himself, which is great.  We spend lots of time sitting down at the river, letting him throw rocks, hundreds and hundreds of rocks into the water.   I’m LOVING summer, and thankful that Jeff is only working 1/2 time, so it makes for sweet mornings and afternoons together.  Last night he and Dutch watched the NBA finals so I had some sweet time alone to…well, I actually cleaned the closet. But that’s fun for me!

Ok, this post receives the all-time award for most-boring, nothing-of-significance blog entry.  Things are really great, my brain is just tired.  God is good.  If any of you have inspiration for the LiveDifferent Challenge this week, I’d love to hear it.  Actually, I do have an idea rolling around (slowly) in my mind…Increasing Margins. Hmm.  Think about it…

Have you ever been the recipient of a pat answer?  Or, perhaps far more convicting is the question, Have you ever given a pat answer?  What exactly is one, anyway?  How do we know if we’re giving one?  This past week something got me thinking about pat answers and why we all hate them but why we all give them. 

A dear friend of mine has confided in me about the dumb things people do when others are grieving.  For example, hopefully by now we know that the proper response to someone who’s had a miscarriage is NOT, Well, you’ll have another baby!  When someone loses a loved one, please don’t pat them on the shoulder and say, They’re in a better place.  Duh!  Both of those things are obviously true (probably), but the problem is not the validity of the statement, it’s the lack of concern.  When we were little and would stub our toe or bump our head, my PE teacher dad would say, “It’ll feel better when the pain goes away.”  That’s fine with the stubbed toe, but some of us unfortunately find ourselves in essence seeing a hurting person and saying, “It’ll feel better when the pain goes away.” 

What’s always been tough for me is that so often Scripture can be used as a pat answer.  “All things work for good!” is the classic example.  “God’s ways are not our ways!”  we might offer with a smile.  So what do we do?  Scripture is the best counsel, the very best thing to share with someone who is hurting, but the key is how we share it.  Basically, Scripture becomes a pat answer when it is shared before the recipient has been heard, loved, empathized with, and prepared to receive the verse.  If we’ve not loved, listened, empathized, and been sensitive to where the hurting person is, we’ll likely find ourselves giving pat answers.

So, when someone is struggling with forgiveness, with bitterness, with a gnawing pain that’s been growing for years, we err if we say, You just need more of Jesus!  Yes, of course that is true, but our job is to listen, our job is to love, our job is to care.  The greatest way to communicate love and care is to listen.  Listen long, listen well. Listen without countering, without offering advice.  That’s how we become catalysts for God’s supernatural work of grace to take place in another’s life. But first we must care.  If we do not care, we would do well to step back and ask God to change our hearts.  A lack of love should be pretty serious warning sign to us that we need a dose of God’s grace! 

I wish I could go around to every person who I’ve ever given a pat answer to, and ask for forgiveness.  I know we’ve all done it, and will all do it again at some point, but I pray that God would make us people who love enough to listen, to care enough to waste time with someone’s pain, to let the blood splash over onto our own garments, to let the wounds begin to ache as our own.  I think maybe that’s the first step in the cure for the pat answer.

As most of you know, these LiveDifferent Challenges are simply one way, each week, that we can challenge our culture’s way of thinking, acting, or engaging with the world around us, in hopefully creative ways so that we might better reflect the glory of God. This week, God has me contemplating amusement.

So I wouldn’t say I love all the things I inherited from my parents (let’s just say Jeff has smaller ankles than me), but one thing I am so thankful to get from them is my love of learning. I praise God that my parents somehow rooted in me an insatiable desire to learn and to grow, to avoid stagnation, and to keep moving forward. Just the other day I was telling someone about my unsual childhood as a homeschool kid: “playing outside” was really an undercover way for my mom to teach us about plants, road trips were filled with analogy and spelling games and a hundred questions from the backseat. Science fairs, bugs kept in jars, playroom carpet that had a chess board on it, cooking experiments…my mom was an absolute miracle worker for teaching children the wonder and awe of learning. She turned walking to the mailbox into a field trip! Her secret? She refused to simply amuse us. Instead of taking the easy road of sticking us in front of Sesame Street (and there’s nothing wrong with that sometimes!), she bypassed amusement and entertainment and taught us to think. And I think because of that, I truly love to learn and move and grow more than be amused. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

One of the ways I see this play out in adulthood is that I absolutely never watch TV. It’s not that I discipline myself to not watch TV, I just don’t even like it. It strikes me as mindless amusement at its worse. Now don’t get me wrong…amusement has its place. I enjoy movies every so often, I love love love to read, and I could ride Space Mountain a dozen times if there was no line. Movies are not evil. Books are not evil. Disneyland is not evil (although some would argue with me on that which is fine–I’m happy to lose the argument). But I would suggest that amusement is very dangerous. I suggest that Entertainment and Amusement, in excess, deadens our thirst and hunger for God and retards our spiritual learning and growth.

Let me explain my reasoning: The word “amuse” has several nuanced meanings in history (this comes from the 1828 dictionary): 1) to divert the attention of so as to deceive. 2) to occupy the attention of. 3) To entertain the mind agreeably; to occupy or detain attention with agreeable objects.

Basically, to amuse means to divert away from something of greater importance. It is essentially a playfully light distraction which keeps our mind from being engaged in weightier thoughts or activities. In a time where we need every faculty sharply attuned to the spiritual world around, amusement diverts the attention so as to deceive and keep us what truly matters.

Here is AW Tozer’s thoughts on The Great God Entertainment:

A German philosopher many years ago said something to the effect that the more a man has in his own heart the less he will require from the outside; excessive need for support from without is proof of the bankruptcy of the inner man. If this is true then the present inordinate attachment to every form of entertainment is evidence that the inner life of modern man is in serious decline.

…He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him …

[However] No one with common human feeling will object to the simple pleasures of life, nor to such harmless forms of entertainment as may help relax the nerves and refresh the mind exhausted by toil. Such things if used with discretion may be a blessing along the way. …

[But] The abuse of a harmless thing is the essence of sin. The growth of the amusement phase of human life to such fantastic proportions is a portent, a threat to the souls of modern men. …

For centuries the church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was — a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attetion from moral accountability. But of late….we have the astonishing spectable of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. Religious entertainment is in many places rapidly crowding out the serious things of God. Many churchs these days have become little more than poor theaters where fifth-rate “producers” peddle their shoddy wares with the full approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defense of their delinquency. And hardly a man dares raise a voice against it.”

I know this is harsh! (That’s why I let Tozer say it instead of me…he’s dead so he can say harsh things.) But don’t you sense there is some truth to it? We desperately try to entertain our toddlers so they won’t get bored, then we try to entertain our kids with TV so we can have a break and not have to engage with them too much, then we entertain students in school so that they’ll stay and won’t drop out, then surprise–we’ve bred adults who are hopelessly addicted to the sedating effect of entertainment. I agree with Tozer that there is certainly some value in entertainment that harmlessly allows us to relax, ease tension, and rest. Holy Relaxation is what John Hwang used to call it, or Rest with Accountability. But I do wonder how much this gnawing emptiness in our souls is being artificially satisfied with amusement, dulling our aching hunger for the Real Thing–Christ Himself. It’s like responding to your hunger pangs by drinking a diet soda.

To connect back to how we began, it seems to me that this frenzied addiction to entertainment prevents us from ever really learning and growing. We numb our senses so that we no longer see the beauty and wonder of the simple and beautiful creation around us. We glut our desire for romance and sex with movies, TV and romance novels so that we no longer are satisfied with the simple and beautifully imperfect romance of husband and wife. We divert our attention from the pain and challenge of Truth, by amusing ourselves with light and playful trifles. And sadly, we do this in the church of all places.

So, to conclude, please understand that I am not saying all amusement is evil. God has spoken powerful things to me through movies and novels (see our last LiveDifferent Challenge). There is a time and a place. But just as alcohol can be used in moderation to cheer the heart but can be deadly when abused, so amusement and entertainment should be handled with caution. Our goal is satisfaction not sedation. The world offers entertainment to sedate us from the beautiful pain of life. Christ offers the satisfaction of living fully awake, fully engaged, learning and growing every moment, seeing Him in all of life,. actively involved in letting Him mold us and shape us. So the challenge this week is to sit down and evaluate where exactly your life is filled with entertainment and amusement, then just for this week, cut it out. Cut out the amusement just for a week, to let yourself full engage with the truth, beauty, and pain of life. Instead of entertainment, choose a hike, a nap, an hour picking flowers or taking a walk around the block. Read the Word. Ask God to touch those painful spots that you usually douse with entertainment. Ask God to give you a childlike wonder and love of learning, a desire to grow, to discover, to live full engaged with your senses heightened, not deadened. Ask God for satisfaction, not sedation. Then ask Him to wholly entertain and amuse your heart with the pleasure and joy of Himself.

Just a few thoughts here today because it’s sunny outside :-).  This week God has me on the contemplative kick of considering amusement (stay tuned for LiveDifferent Challenge 12 tomorrow).  As I thought about it and read, I remembered chapter from AW Tozer, my favorite dead author, who talked about the very subject. More on the tomorrow. But as I picked up his book, The Root of the Righteous, I ran a steaming hot bath, thinking I would savor the quiet evening alone with some practical kick-your-teeth-in theology from Mr. Tozer.  Well, as usual, I couldn’t get past the first page, because Tozer writes with such pithiness that each sentence is a quote–how can you read large quantities of it?! It’d be like eating a trough full of Lindt truffles.  They’re better eating only one and savoring it. So, I leave this thought with you (the gist of the book).  Tozer writes this:

“One marked difference between the faith of our fathers…and the same faith…lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendents seem concerned only with the fruit.  This appears in our attitude toward certain great Christian souls whose names are honored amont the churches…Today we write biographies of such as these and celebrate their fruit, but the tendency is to ignore the root out of which the fruit sprang.  “The root of the righteous yieldeth fruit,”…Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear.  We demand the fruit immediately even though the root may be weak and knobby or missing altogether…There is no lasting life apart from the root.” 

And how true this is today!  We’ve become so obsessed with wanting the fruit (increase church attendance, victory over struggle areas, souls “accepting” Christ), we’ve neglected the root. As John Piper says, “God calls us not to be fruitful, but faithful.” We’re called to be faithful, God is the one who causes fruit.  We will be rewarded for our faithfulness (“Well done, good and faithful servant”), not our fruitfulness.  How well for our souls it would be if we focused primarily on the cultivation of the inner man and woman of the heart. On the inner death to self and embrace of Christ, on the emotional, fervant desire for God Himself, on the forsaking of all that is opposed to God, even if it seems for naught. 

Today as I tended my basil plant I thought of the reason this is so hard for us. No one sees our roots. No one knows if we even have roots.  We (and God) are the only one who knows whether we have roots or not.  Unfortunately we’ve become masters at stimulating growth, but often without the necessary care of our root system, which means we will inevitably dry up.  But for those with roots, this is the beautiful outcome:

 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
       which yields its fruit in season
       and whose leaf does not wither.
       Whatever he does prospers.  (Psalm 1)

Let’s tend to our roots and leave the fruit to the Heavenly Father. 

I had the best birthday ever…which totally caught me off guard.  You see, I have to admit that for some reason I always find myself feeling a little depressed at birthday time, and when it’s over, even if it was a fun time, I always end up feeling sad.  So this year, I started praying beforehand, because I could already sense the “downness” creeping in.  For a lot of people birthdays are no big deal, no cause for celebration, just another day. Well in our wonderful family growing up, birthdays were a time for celebration!  Not that it was about gifts, but my parents always let me have a party with my little girlfriends, and when I got older we always did a big family birthday party with my grandparents and Auntie Linda and “the boys”…so I have memories of being a little princess wearing a jeweled crown surrounded by my favorite people in the world.  No wonder adult birthdays are a little depressing, huh?  Anyway, it wasn’t even that I wanted a jeweled crown (ok maybe I wanted it a little), but it just always seemed like birthdays were frustrating becuase of the expectations. 

The same is true of any other big day that you plan to be perfect.  My friend and I have been reflecting on this because whenever we plan a big day as a family–hubby, baby, and us, we get all excited and pack up the diaper bag and head out into the world, and then what happens?  We get in a fight with our spouse, the baby’s poop blows up up to his shoulders, and it rains the whole time we’re at the zoo.  Or, the whole day turns out “ok” but just without any fireworks and we come home exhausted with a vague sense that it wasn’t a whole lot better than a normal day at home.  So, contemplating all this, I started praying a few days before my birthday that God would make the day not be about me.  Jeff was going to be gone from 7am-6pm at class all day, so I knew I’d be at home without a car, and it was supposed to rain and be cold.  And, I decided that was going to be just fine.  I began to see the parallels of our expectations about “big days” and our expectations about life.  I do the same thing with life.  I begin to envision what I hope for something, and next thing I know it builds an expectation about it, and so when that thing doesn’t happen exactly as I envisioned it, I’m disappointed.  So instead, recognizing this was a metaphor for my life, I began praying for expectancy without expectation (this is not original to me, Paul Young coined this phrase in The Shack).  Expectancy without expectation means that we have the same eager anticipation of blessing, but our eyes are focused on God instead of the circumstance. With expectation, we fix our eyes on a future event, envisioning what it will look like. WIth expectancy, we fix our eyes on Christ, envisioning His perfect  character, recognizing that whatever comes from His hand will be good.  Beautiful transformation! 

So, I must say, I was stunned by my birthday.  I’ve never, in my life, received so many calls from friends–friends who I don’t think have ever called me on my birthday (ok, I think facebook helped too).  My husband was the first to wish me a special day, then later when I came down for breakfast I had a rose waiting from my dad.  My dear friend Janae took me to Starbucks and the outlet mall and since I’m not buying clothes for myself, I used some of my birthday money to buy Jeff clothes–and it was way more fun than getting stuff for me!  Even though I forgot the stroller and my wild boy was terrorizing Banana Republic, she helped me corral him, and even played hide-and-seek in the khakis while I purchased Jeff’s clothes.  That’s a friend!  She wrote me a card that practically brought me to tears and even gave me some sassy summer pants since, as she said, “no girl can go a year without clothes” :-). Dutch and I went on an adventure to the Dollar Store to get cups and pitchers for Jeff’s 30th bday party.  My in-laws called and sang to me, then after a delicious lunch at home, Dutch fell right asleep and I had the whole sweet afternoon alone in blessed silence to write and read to my heart’s content.  Then my parents and I drove into portland to meet up with Jeff after his class and Dad treated us to an amazing dinner at Newport Seafood Grill where I totally splurged and had tiger prawns (yum!). Yes, Dutch had some colorful moments such as throwing his magna doodle across the table, but all in all it was so sweet.  Dad even secretly told the waiter about my bday and he surprised me with a heavenly chocolate souffle with whipped cream and candle.  I swear I could feel a jeweled crown materializing on my head. 🙂

Afterwards, Jeff and I decided that Dutch’s bedtime was invalid for the day, and we strolled leisurely through mall 205, getting Dutch a bike helmet and basil for my herb garden, and then Jeff took me to goodwill and said that since goodwill was my one allowance for special occasions in my clothes fast, his present to me was him buying few a few things for me and letting me pick them out.  So, hopefully ya’ll don’t feel like I cheated.  I got 4 shirts and a skirt from goodwill for a total of $35, which was my birthday present. 

So, not that you were dying for a play-by-play of my birthday, but I share that with you because I want to somehow convey the sweet love of God.  He treated me like a princess, and yet He also taught me how to take my eyes off myself, my expectations, my envisioning of the future, and to look to Him, the Giver of all good gifts, the one who knows exactly how to fill and satisfy every crevice of our hearts.  He is so good.  The lines have fallen to me in pleasent places (ps 16:6), I am so thankful.  And my prayer is to look to God with expectancy without expectation for the road ahead.  I have no idea what this 29th year holds, but I know Who holds it.