In Honor of Mom
[singlepic id=51 w=320 h=240 float=]When parents are alive we kids tend to reflect on many of the negatives. I know I have tended to relay how much I didn’t necessarily appreciate some of my childhood experiences. However, as my Mom courageously battles cancer with my father always at her side I have been regretful of how little I have recounted the very good times, and most of them were very good.
In reality, my parents did what was most important for me and that was expose me to and encourage me in my faith. Through their influence, especially Mom’s, we children were at just about every church function possible. Mom continually volunteered, and often drug us along. I can remember being drug to the homes of the elderly to deliver birthday cakes and sing happy birthday to those long forgotten. I really didn’t want to go and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but now I relish the memory and the woman who made me do that.
I remember my alcoholic little league football coach taking jabs at me about being a choir boy. Mom picked me up early every Wednesday from football practice so I could attend the children’s choir practice at church. I hated it then, but now, I’m very glad she did it. I’m glad my football coach took some shots at me too. Others remember her compassion as well. A childhood friend reminded me earlier this year of the chocolate chip cookies Mom baked for him right after his mother died of cancer when we were in Middle School.
That’s my Mom. Like a bulldog she seldom backed down from her convictions or in her protection of her children. She also never wavered in her care and while she hated we were all grown and in less need of it she has always been ready to offer plenty of advice on how to take care of ourselves, our spouses, and our children. She has been a great gift.
As her first born she understandably has some regrets in how she raised me as I do and will with my first born. Nothing can erase the memories of those events, but nothing is better than to be forgiven. And today I publicly pronounce that I forgive my parents for anything that they might have done wrong. In the end, they got the most important thing right. They gave me a legacy of faith in the matchless Son of God, Jesus the Nazarene, our King, who in the end will bring her home when He desires and who will most likely receive her grand children, and her grand children’s grandchildren.
I love you Mom, and I’m thankful for the privilege of being your son. I hope Jesus does a miraculous work and lets you stick around a few more years, but if He doesn’t I’m glad we have a hope that this is not the end.
Growing Spiritually is…
The quote of the year for me from Donald Miller,
“It’s not a hard, fast rule to be sure, but the idea is that sitting around looking at your spiritual belly button isn’t going to provide an object lesson for your faith. The idea is that faith makes sense in the context of some other pursuit.“
Read the rest of his blog to give this quote some context, but the better we church leaders are able to communicate to our people that growing closer to God and discovering more about God and falling into a deeper love of God is done in the context of every aspect of life not just what we term “spiritual contexts” like Bible reading, study, meditation, prayer, etc. If I am paying attention God will reveal Himself in how I feel about Chocolate Chip Cookies, especially warm gooey ones…Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
The Context for Spirituality is not Spirituality | Donald Miller’s Blog
The Context for Spirituality is not Spirituality
I don’t read very many books about faith. And I don’t listen to very many sermons about faith. I’ve not known exactly why for some time, or at least until lunch yesterday. Those books were fine (I may have even written one or two) but they didn’t seem to be very applicable to my life. And it’s never actually helped me to “work on my spirituality or my relationship with Jesus” either. What has helped me is finding myself lost in the woods and calling out to God, looking for wisdom in the scriptures.
Yesterday, at lunch, my friend David mentioned he’d spent some time in Colorado with the guys at Ransomed Heart. David used to work with them and went back to hang out with them for a weekend in the mountains. He mentioned that one of the guys reminded him that spirituality was not a context. I asked David what the guy meant, and Dave said what he meant was that you learn about God while learning to fly a plane or raising a child or planting crops in a field. It’s not a hard, fast rule to be sure, but the idea is that sitting around looking at your spiritual belly button isn’t going to provide an object lesson for your faith. The idea is that faith makes sense in the context of some other pursuit.
And that might be the reason I don’t migrate toward conversations specifically about faith.
In the Bible, God guides people through stories. Stories is how He teaches people about themselves and Himself. He doesn’t get the children of Israel out of Egypt instantly. God drags it out, creates plagues, guides them through positive and negative turns, all to shape their faith. He does the same with Joseph, giving him a vision, then immediately letting him be thrown into a well by his brothers.
If we think we are going to grow in faith by sitting around at a Bible study, we are wrong. That stuff is fine, but without a story, without diving into something really difficult, something that requires us to look to God for support and wisdom and comfort, it will be more difficult to become a person of great faith.
Exodus – 2000 years later
Thanks to Rob Bell’s book, God wants to save Christians, and the yet to be published book from the folks at the other Mars Hill, Redemption, as I read through the Bible this year I am more sensitive than ever to the prevailing theme of Exodus throughout scripture.
After God sends Moses to lead his family out of slavery in Egypt – granted it’s over a million family members, but they are family none the less – the family becomes a nation with an organized form of government, laws, and religion in a relatively short amount of time. After this critical moment in God’s interaction with us God continually references the Exodus events as his identification and as proof that He cares.
When God has had enough of the rebellion and a turning point is necessary for these people He uses Exodus language to announce through His prophets how He will discipline and how He will redeem.
I just finished Hosea, a prophet who lived 2000 years after the Exodus who announces the future destruction of the Northern Kingdom, Israel,
“5 They will return to Egypt
Assyria will rule over them
because they refuse to repent!” (Hosea11:5, NET)
The Northern Kingdom will again be taken into slavery because of their rebellion. It seems a cruel punishment. God even declares that pregnant women will have their wombs cut open and their babies heads will be dashed against the rocks. Wow! Pretty violent, and if we remove this discipline from the context of 2000 years of patience shown to the Israelites by God I think we might have an opinion of God as merciless. However, He’s given them 2000 years to follow Him. He rescued them from slavery in order to follow Him. Instead the people of the Northern Kingdom and especially their kings disobeyed the law and worshiped other gods. I think 2000 years is about 1999 years longer than I would have given them.
What about you? Is God patient, merciful, gracious, kind, and just? Or is God some kind of malicious, jealous, and enraged ogre?