This Blog Is Moving

I'll keep this blog up for a while, but I'm moving to WordPress. So, you can find all my archived posts plus new and exciting posts here, at http://myderbe.wordpress.com

Hope to see your comments there soon. :)

Removing Comments

Just wanted to say that I only remove comments that are spam. I removed two identical comments today that were links for ways to make money. I removed one the other day that was a long, long spam post about religion that I have seen anonymously posted on other blogs.

If you post an original comment pertaining to the blog, I promise I won't delete it even if I disagree with you, providing you use G-rated language and try not to be offensive.

The Gift of Discontentment

Yes, that's right. The gift of discontentment.

I'm working through the Women of Faith Bible study on "Cultivating Contentment" with some other MOPS moms. Our mentor Vickie is leading it, and after one group session, I know this is going to be GREAT.

The writers of this study present an idea that I have never considered before --- viewing discontentment as a gift. "Why is it that nothing on this earth brings us complete satisfaction? Perhaps it's a gift from God. Think about it. Would you really want this broken, sinful world to be the fulfillment of your wildest dreams? Aren't you glad to know something far better awaits us?"

Hmmm . . . never thought about it like that before. This study brings out the idea that when we feel sort of blue for no reason or when we cry about something beautiful or when we feel a longing or hungering for something more --- it's a homesickness for Heaven. At the end of the second chapter, I underlined these sentences: "Thank the Lord for the restlessness in your soul. It helps to remind you that this world is not your true home."

Of course, we can't complain all the time and be totally ungrateful for God's provisions. But when we feel that unsettled feeling, that hope for more, that feeling of incompleteness, we can recognize it as our soul's hankering for Heaven.

Psalm 17:15 -- "As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness."

Someday I will be completely satisfied, utterly content. Until then, my soul will hunger -- even groan -- for the presence of my Lord.

Interdependence

I'm still reading "Blue Like Jazz." Usually, I scarf down books, gulping them down as quickly as I can. With this book, though, I am nibbling it. I bite off a tiny bit and chew and chew and chew.

I'm also trying to read a few other books at the same time. One of the books I've recently begun is "Friend Raising" by Betty Barnett. This is a book recommended by NTM to help us begin our partnership development.

Not coincidentally, I am reading about the importance of community in Miller's "Blue Like Jazz" at the same time I'm reading about interdependence in Barnett's book. So I'm mulling around the idea of how much we need other people. Our society idolizes independence. Making it on one's own, never needing help, having it all together --- these are all attributes we admire in others. But, as Barnett points out, this attitude of independence is rooted in pride. She wisely explains that aspiring to independence caused Satan's fall and ruined relationships in the Garden of Eden.

Miller writes, "I think it is interesting that God designed people to need other people. We see those cigarette advertisements with the rugged cowboy riding around alone on a horse, and we think that is strength, when, really, it is like setting your soul down on a couch and not exercising it. The soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy. . . . And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions, not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other humans at all."

Later, Miller goes on, "Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. . . . If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell."

Independence is not what God desires for us. God wants us to humble ourselves and be part of a community. God wants us to rely on Him, but He also wants us to rely on other people. We don't need to have it all together. We don't even need to pretend we have it all together. And we don't need to look down on other people for not having it all together. I don't have to be that rugged cowboy riding around alone on a horse; and I don't want to admire him any more.

My Hands . . . God's Hands

Psalm 143:6 -- "I spread out my hands to You; my soul longs for You like a thirsty land."

Psalm 145:16 -- "You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing."


These two verses jumped out at me tonight. Look at the difference between my hands and God's hands.

My hands are empty. Totally empty. Imagine what Psalm 143:6 looks like. I stand before God and hold out my empty hands, showing Him that I've got nothing. Nothing. Can't you see yourself standing before God, holding your open hands out to Him? We have nothing of real value, nothing that satisfies, nothing of eternal significance.

Then there are God's hands. He has everything. He opens one hand -- singular . . . one hand -- and He can satisify the true desire of every living thing. His hands are filled with life, with everything we need, everything we want.

Built into my being is a desire for eternity, for perfect love, for God. I want to stand before Him and confess my emptiness and confess my longing and His ability to satisfy me. Then I want to stand still and let Him open His hand over me and pour out Himself upon me so that my desire might be satisfied.

Ministry . . . With Children

I probably have more questions than answers about this. How do we minister when we have small children? I mean, how do we handle the logistics of it all? But also, what is our responsibility to make "wise" decisions about protecting our children from bad influences? And what is our responsibility to minister to those people who might be bad influences?

I sure would love to hear input from the couple of you who read this blog. :) I have some ideas, but I'm not sure I'm completely right. These ideas are definitely works-in-progress.

I know someone who poured herself into an after-school program she developed for children from a local trailer park. Many of these children did not have someone at home after school to help them with homework; most of them needed tutoring and they definitely couldn't afford to pay for it; and many of them had real physical needs -- in the form of food and clothing. So this woman fed them and made sure they had warm winter coats and she formed a team of people to tutor these kids after school. She also taught them about Jesus -- but first, she showed them Jesus. This is a mom of two little boys. As far as I know, her sons were part of this ministry. They attended the tutoring sessions and interacted with the children.

Some of the moms I know from Christian email digests and blogs, and some of the moms I know in real life, would not allow their children to play with these trailer park children. I mean, some of these children probably used foul language and some of them had probably seen immoral things we don't want our children to know about. Would you take your children to spend time with them and minister to them a few afternoons a week?

I'm sure we could think of more examples to discuss.

Well . . . . here are some of my rambling thoughts on the matter.

First, not everyone is going to be called to a ministry like this. God may not burden your heart with a ministry to worldly children. God may not burden your heart with a prison ministry. God may not burden your heart with a ministry to the worldly woman next door. If you don't feel that burden, then my advice is to continue seeking the Lord about the matter in prayer and ask Him for a sensitive heart and for Him to reveal His will for you. I think it would also be a good idea to pray for the people around you and ask God to send someone to minister to them. That someone MIGHT be you, but it might not be.

Next, if God does burden you about ministering to someone, then ask Him to reveal His will about the specifics. Does He want your whole family involved? I honestly think it's best if everyone can be involved in some way. That's how our children learn. It may not be appropriate to take them along to do the actual hands-on stuff, but it would certainly be appropriate to have them involved in prayer and support. Maybe you DO feel burdened to minister to the worldly woman next door (Dawn?), but you really feel God wants you to protect your children from her influence. You could have your children praying for her and making cards for her or making dinner for her or raking her leaves while she's not home (or mowing her lawn or shoveling her driveway, etc.). You could have a child prepare a gift basket for her on her birthday (or a holiday) and leave it on her doorstep for her to find when she comes home. And you could find time every week or so to invite her to a coffee shop with you so you can become friends with her. Your children get to bless her and minister to her, yet they are protected from a worldly influence because they rarely interact with her. As you get to know her better, it may be appropriate to invite her to dinner with your family, but perhaps by then she'll understand that foul language and lewd topics in front of your children would offend you. I think it would be OK to establish some boundaries in love once you have formed a friendship. And if you've been loving on her and being friends with her, then she'll probably be receptive to those boundaries.

Another thought --- I know most of us are worried about what bad influence worldly children will have on our own little sweeties. I feel like God has been working on my heart about this in the past year or so. First, I've been challenged to examine how much of my attitude in this area is pride.

Next, I've realized that often enough, my own little sweeties are the bad influence. My children are not perfect and perfection should not be a requirement for their playmates. Oh, I'm not saying I would encourage my children to be best friends with children who cuss like sailors or start fires or describe lewd information or carry porn magazines in their back pockets. But . . . I am saying that if my children play with children who are disrespectful or who say "shut up" or who have been exposed to some more of secular society than my children have, it's not the end of the world. We've had to do some unlearning after being around some kids, and we usually end up having really good conversations about heart issues, rather than behavior issues. We also have had some great conversations about pride -- "Yeah, that little girl might lie a lot, but have you ever told a lie?" or "No, she's not very nice to you; but do you ever treat your brothers or sister like that?"

I know the Bible verses about evil company and lying down with dogs and all that. I'm not saying we encourage our children to hang with immoral kids just for fun. I am saying we teach our children how to have compassion on people and have a desire to minister to people who desperately need Jesus. I do not want to instill a "we are better than they are" attitude. I do not want to instill a "we cannot stoop to love them because we might get dirty" attitude. If they learn that as children, how will we expect them to suddenly change their minds when they get to be adults? And if we're not modeling it for them because we are protecting them, how will they learn? And once they are adults, won't they have their own families to protect? So who ministers to these people who needs Jesus?

Final rambling thought ----- most of us don't blink when a family is called to foreign missions and they take their children to an entire group of people who do not know Jesus. Often these families live in the midst of people who are spiritists or who worship false gods. Often these families live in the midst of people who live immoral lives. And most Christians accept this because the family is called to be missionaries. Well . . if God is calling you to be a missionary to the wild college girls next door or to the drug addict who is in and out of jail or to the homosexual couple down the street, what's the difference? If He can protect the missionary children in the midst of evil spirits and immoral lifestyles, why can't He protect your children in the midst of evil spirits and immoral lifestyles?

Please share your thoughts with me.

Doctrine & Love

My friend Molly has had some interesting posts and comments on her blog lately. The other day, she provoked me to think some more about doctrine and love.

I've had some rambling thoughts about this for a while now. My husband and I even talked some about this with Ross from NTM Australia when we had dinner with him back in August.

A lot of local churches (or even large denominations) that have a solid understanding of basic doctrine -- a truly biblical understanding of basic truths -- have done a pretty lousy job of truly loving and serving people. As a reaction to that, there is a vast movement in American Christianity to focus on loving and serving and sort of ignore doctrine. There is this notion among many that doctrine doesn't matter and isn't as important as loving and serving. I think this is completely understandable. For a long time now, Christians haven't truly loved people and haven't truly served anyone outside their own church. For a long time now, local churches have spent all their time and money developing programs for themselves, for those within, and haven't done much to reach out and serve those who don't yet know Jesus. So I can understand why some Christians, especially those who were outside and ignored and under-served for all those years, are suddenly seeing all these opportunities to show Christ's love and are getting excited about truly ministering to those outside the church.

But loving and serving and giving and going without solid doctrine is rather empty. It's just as empty as all the solid doctrine without any love.

2 Tim. 3:16 says "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." One of the reasons the Holy Spirit inspired the BIble is so that we can understand sound doctrine.

Acts 2:42 tells us that the very first Christians "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine" along with their fellowship and prayers and the breaking of bread and the wonders and signs. And thousands and thousands of people were learning about Jesus and becoming His followers.

These first Christians were definitely loving and serving people. They were selling things and sharing things and living together and taking care of each other. None of them enjoyed an abundance while a fellow believer suffered in need. This kind of love and care and putting others first undoubtedly overflowed into the way they treated people who were not believers as well. Their love and kindness was a striking contradiction to the society around them. Yet while their love was so evident, the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 makes a point of telling us that they were continuing steadfastly in doctrine.

They didn't toss out doctrine to focus on love. And we can't either.

Those first Christians had a sweet balance of doctrine and love. The Church today needs to find that same balance. It seems to me that many of the local churches that are very solid on biblical doctrine do a bad job of loving people outside their body. And a lot of the churches that do a great job of loving those outside the body don't teach solid doctrine. It's like we've lost the ability to multi-task or multi-focus; instead, we hyper-focus on one issue.

I just want to take myself and every other Christian by the shoulders and give a shake and say, "Come on, we can do better than this! We have the power of the Holy Spirit inside us. Certainly we can focus on both doctrine and love."