discipleship – Sheila Dougal

How four flawed churches helped me love Christ more

I’ve been in a church since the week after I was born. Every church I’ve been part of has impacted my life in a unique way. Like an arm is different from the liver, these churches were all very different. Among them were bad teachings. But at each church I grew. I learned. I love Christ more because of them all.

It seems there’s a reckoning happening in the American church. There are good reasons why some have left titles or denominations behind. The Church is in need of washing and pruning, discipline and rebuke. But She is also the source of health and growth for the Christian. See 1 Corinthians 12:12-31.

Where I learned the hymns that saved me

From birth through fourth grade my parents brought me up in a non-instrument, no classes Church of Christ. I didn’t realize it until I was in my late teens, but the church of my childhood believed it was sinful and a show to use musical instruments in the church gathering. We were to “sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to one another” in the church gathering.

My childhood church also prohibited classes of any kind. Not for kids. Not Sunday school. No classes. But they loved to sing well. Since there were no instruments I guess they honed in on making sure we were all in tune.

I remember seeing the man leading us in hymns blow on his tuning pipe, then humming to tune his own voice, then putting his arm in the air to conduct the congregation in the right tempo of the song. We sang, “Some glad morning, when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away,” and “There is power, power, wonder working power. In the blood. Of the Lamb.” The women harmonized with the men. The heart rumbling tone of the baritone men, singing their part, is forever in my memory.

My childhood church’s doctrine on water baptism, women being silent and submissive, singing strictly acapella, and classes being prohibited made a huge impression on me. And not for the good. But despite the bad teaching, the Holy Spirit reached me there.

At age sixteen, listening to an acapella singing of Amazing Grace at a Bill Gothard conference, I heard the Lord call me to follow Him. At my childhood church I learned to love the hymns. And I learned to love the simplicity and commonness of the gathering of God’s people. My childhood church taught me to receive the reading of scripture, engage in the singing of hymns to each other, and to partake of the Lord’s Supper in memory of Jesus.

Where I learned to love the Bible

In my early adult years I looked for a church alone. My husband and I were newlyweds and I was newly aware of his lack of interest in going to church. I was also a new believer. I was hungry for God’s word. And I found a church that fed me. Calvary Chapel.

I remained in a Calvary Chapel for more than ten years. During those years I learned about the Holy Spirit, prophecy, spiritual gifts and the power of the Bible. The pastors and teachers at Calvary Chapel showed me that anyone, in the context of the church, under the authority of elders, could open a BIble and teach God’s word.

In those years at Calvary Chapel I didn’t realize how the emphasis on a certain interpretation of the end times was impacting me. I would later come to see this over-emphasis on a pre-tribulation interpretation of scripture as distracting from the gospel and discipleship. But in my years at Calvary Chapel I learned to pray, listen to God, and study my Bible.

Where my childhood beliefs were challenged and I was loved

When my sons were just entering elementary school I began attending a Bible church. In this small Bible church I learned about church history and the words church people have for different theological stances.

I learned about Calvinism and Armenianism. I learned about cessationism and dispensationalism. And I learned that there are churches that don’t baptise people in water.

This was a source of wrestling for me. I grew up with a theologically heretical teaching that said you had to be baptised (emersed) in water at a Church of Christ to be accepted into those pearly gates we sang so well about in our accapella hmns. I knew that teaching was off, but no water baptism at all? The Bible church’s pastor challenged me to examine the meaning of baptism.

Even though I don’t agree with the reasoning for no water baptism, that Bible church showed me what it means to love the members of your church. That church supported me when my marriage was about to end. They bought me a car. Gave me a bed. And sent me to Oregon to visit my family. They also whet my taste for church history.

Where the gospel was held high and I learned to lead

This brings me to my current SBC affiliated church. This church, I love her. The pastor and leaders in my church have made the preaching of the gospel powerful and applicable. They’ve taught me the importance of discipling others, making friends about Jesus with open Bibles and open lives in small groups. They’ve taught me to lead, which has filled in a void from my childhood where I was taught women were never to lead anything. But mostly, they’ve taught me to respond to the gospel as a believer with faith and repentance on a day-in, day-out basis.

The Church has sin that needs to be confessed and repented of. Wickedness that needs to be purged. Abuse that needs to be exposed and condemned. But She also has the truth that builds up the Christian, deepening her roots in the love of Christ and helping her to produce fruit for the glory of God and the good of the kingdom. I’m grateful for the Church. I love her.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21

3 Reasons I Got Up on Sunday

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I woke up this past Sunday feeling heavy, tired and unmotivated. And honestly, I wake up that way a lot.

On the energy scale of Eeyore to Tigger, I’m a notch or two above Eeyore. And my goal when I wake up is to just make it to the coffee pot. There, I usually catch myself spacing out, listening to the 2,000 thoughts nagging me to not forget to do this or that. When I realize I’m holding my breath, picking at the dry skin on my cuticles, I usually stop and exhale, “Have mercy on me Lord! Apart from you I can do nothing!” And I wait for some remembrance of God’s word that gives me hope.

This Sunday was like that. The 2,000 voice-secretaries reminding me of all the things drove me to plead with the Holy Spirit to remind me exactly why I get up on Sunday mornings early to go to church, sing with toddlers and hear the preaching of God’s word. This Sunday Moses came to mind.

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses reminds the people of God’s command to love him with all they are and to teach His ways to their children. And then in verse 20 through 23 it says:

“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers.” -Deuteronomy 6:20-23

This is what came to mind on Sunday when I couldn’t remember why I was up.

As a mom, kids ministry leader and member of my local church, I am responsible for more than myself. I’m responsible for those looking to me for leadership and the why behind what we do. And if I don’t have the why bubbling up out of me, I’m not going to be able to lead them in the why. That’s basically what Moses told the people. He told them first they had to love the Lord their God with all their heart; they had to have all God had done had for them on their hearts before they could ever teach it to their children.

As parents and leaders and members of the body of Christ, we need to know the why behind what we do so we can cast a vision for our kids and those we serve and minister to. Moses’ instruction in this passage in Dueteronomy is a good guide for remembering the why.

First, the reason we have church services, and small groups and classes for kids, and talk about the gospel, and the way of Jesus with our kids when we sit, walk and drive is because we were once slaves. Not in Egypt like the Israelites, but to sin. I was once a slave to my appetites that lead to death. But now I’m free. That’s why I gather with the local church corporately and in small groups and teach preschoolers the name of Jesus and talk with my kids about the love of Christ on the way to school.

Second, the reason we sing, and pray, and raise our hands, and clap, and celebrate special days, and have devotions with our kids despite the multiple interruptions and inconveniences is because the Lord brought us out of slavery to sin into the freedom of the children of God by the mighty act of bearing our sin in his body on a tree; absorbing the condemnation coming our way. That’s why we worship. Because Jesus has done a scandalously gracious thing for us.

Third, the reason we make plans, live missionally, seeking to lead others to Christ is because God has shown us his faithfulness. We’ve seen him change our hearts and give us new desires. We’ve tasted of his goodness and experienced his love. That’s why we plan special outreaches, and make phone calls to meet with strangers who are becoming friends about Jesus. That’s why we make a big deal out of the resurrection and invite our friends to follow Jesus with us. Because we’ve tasted, and we’ve seen that the Lord, he is good.

And we press on through our lives, and as a church throughout history, moving forward in the race set before us, eyes fixed on Jesus, looking for the day when he makes all things new, because He promised he would never leave us or forsake us. He promised to give us all we need to do what he calls us to. He promised to return. And we believe him.

The church as a body, not a grocery store

Ghislaine Howard- The Washing of Feet (1953)

I heard it recently on a podcast: We have set up church to be so convenient and easy for folks to get their dose of church on Sunday that we have robbed people of the life-changing joy that comes from taking up your cross and following Jesus as part of the body of Christ.

That’s what the church is, the body of Christ.

A Body Not a Grocery Store

We are a body. We need each other. But church in America feels more like a grocery store, than a body. We go there, get what we need, I mean, want, and go home. A body is dependent on all it’s members doing their part. At a grocery store, the manager, clerks and stockers depend on each other to do their part and all the customers depend on the manager, clerks and stockers to do their part so they can go home. In America, the pastor, worship leader, kids ministry leader and staff are the people we church goers depend on to do their part, so we can get what we want and go home.

Maybe that’s why we have celebrity pastors and famous churches. Because the customers like them. They like the products they have. They like their sales and discounts and service. Good message. Great band. Great kids ministry. Great youth ministry…. We consume what the American grocery-store church has to offer and we don’t depend on each other.

Three or four years ago, my church closed its doors. My pastor retired from pastoring and the elders decided to close the church. It was hard. I tried different churches and just felt discouraged. The churches I visited seemed to put out a lot of effort to make their products pallatable and convenient, but there was no blood flowing between us. We weren’t tied together by the sinews and ligaments of the word of Christ, confession of sin, repentance and faith. The costly gospel of Christ laying down his life for me and bidding me to take up my cross and follow him into resurrection life wasn’t held high. Convenient church was. But God was faithful, as he always is, and he led me to Valley Life Surprise, where I saw Jesus, high and lifted up in the preaching. And so there he bid me to die. Not to take what was convient and tasty and go home. But to take up my cross and follow Jesus in the joy of how he redeems people!

It Was Me, Not The Church’s Problem

I feel like I should say here that had I not just taken the convenient grocery store message of the churches I visited and gone home, but had intentionally started laying down my life, investing it in others at those churches, I’m sure I would have found the Body there too. I’m super thankful for Valley Life Surprise, but it’s not that they had the best deal for me that has caused me to love my church. It’s that I started following Jesus again in laying down my life for others at Valley Life Surprise and found myself connected to the Body of Christ.

Why I Stopped Listening to Celebrity Pastors

In those years that I didn’t have a church I listened to John Piper a lot. And I’m thankful for his messages, but shortly after I found my church, I stopped listening to Piper. Not because I don’t appreciate his messages, but because I was consuming them, instead of connecting with the body.

In one sermon my pastor said something like, “Tim Keller or Matt Chandler aren’t going to help you when you’re in need because they’re not here. But your community group will, this local church will.” And it struck me. I had fallen into consuming messages and had become a limp part of the body.

When I stopped listening to celebrity pastors, and started listening to my pastor’s sermons during the week, and started meeting with members of the church for lunch; going to community groups with them, sharing burdens, praying, dreaming, writing curriculum, playing with their kids and talking to them about Jesus, muscle and faith started to grow. When I started spending Saturday nights making communion bread, and 4 hours of my Sundays pouring into moms, dads, kids, grandparents, women, children, teens and even more hours throughout the week opening Bibles and my life up to people I would never have connected with apart from the love of the gospel of Christ, I started to thrive.

There is a real church, a real body of believers who are captivated by Jesus, who have put all their hope in him and are obeying him in taking up their cross and following him. We die a little everyday, but we also become more and more alive everyday. We become more like Jesus because we’re his body. We need each other. We bleed for each other. We feed each other. We comfort each other. We confront each other. We are inconvenienced for each other. We encourage each other. We weep with each other. We laugh with each other. We lay down our lives for each other.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. -Romans 12:1-13

Church, do we despise the children?

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Kids are rowdy, they knock over our shiny religious teacups filled with anger, impatience and selfishness. But their rowdiness is no excuse for our complacency. Protecting our whitewashed lives is not what God has called us to.

When my boys were little I felt the tension between what I wanted to do with my days and what I was actually doing. Tending to my screaming toddler, appologizing to the parent of the child my child just bit and disciplining my child what felt like a thousand times a day was not in my plans. When your kids are little the days are full of unseen tasks that help them stay healthy, precious moments of firsts and tender affection. As Christians, we set out with creative ideas and plans to do what can feel like futile attempts to model loving Jesus and teaching them to say his name.

When your kids are older the days are packed with resolving conflict, long talks, hours of pleading in prayer, and casting vision for what you see God doing in their life. At this age you attend concerts that sound similar to nails scratching a chalkboard, but clap like it’s a professional orchestra. You attend baseketball games yelling, “Get your hands up! Get down by the hoop! Good try!” And all the challenging days of raising kids can feel they are keeping you from your real life. But as my pastor Jason Vance says to parents, spending all day working out problems with your kids is your real life.

Among parents and grandparents and non-parents in the church I see the same disillusion about kids. We tend to think of kids in the church as the people someone else will teach. Some of us think we’re too old, or not good with kids. Some of us think we’re too young and don’t know what to do with kids. Some of us find kids too annoying. Some of us find kids exhausting. But God has not called his people in the church to look at the coming generation and hope someone else is teaching them.

Jesus said we should not “despise” the little ones among us (Matthew 18:10). Despising children is a real problem in the church. It’s easy to say we are pro-life, but refuse to lower ourselves to goldfish, fruit snacks, snotty noses, crying toddlers and telling stories on the floor about the God who made those rowdy kids in his image and sent his Son to lay down his life for their sins so they could be with him forever!

Not everyone is going to bear or adopt children. But all of us are called to pass on the message of the gospel to the generation coming up behind us. There are exceptions of people who should not work with children due to criminal convictions, or cannot work with children due to disability or injury. But for most of us, our excuses for not teaching the next generation of kids in the church the gospel fall short. In reality we despise how children expose our pride and selfishness.

Just as we are facing a tsunami of elderly folks who need the humble-service of gospel bearing lives, we are also facing a generation of children who unless we teach them, will grow up not knowing the ways and delivering work of our God in Christ.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses commands the older generation in Israel to teach the younger generation what God has done, delivering them from slavery in Egypt. He tells them, “Hey you guys, God is telling you all to do all these things and let all He has done for you be on your heart because you’ve seen what he has done for you. But the generation after you hasn’t. So do what I’m telling you to do! And talk to the kids in your everyday life about all God has done” (My paraphrase of Deuteronomy 11).

But in Judges 2:10, after Moses and Joshua are dead and gone, it says, “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.” Israel had despised the children. They failed to let what God had done be on their hearts, and they failed to tell the kids among them what God had for them. Oh that we, the church in 2019 would not be guilty of raising a generation we despised, who don’t know the work the Lord has done for us!

Welcoming children in Jesus’ name, teaching them the gospel of Christ is a picture of the position of humility from which we enter the kingdom of heaven- like a little child, wide-eyed and rowdy, needing discipline and self-sacrificing love. We need to get down on the ground with the kids and remember the faithfulness of God to bear with us daily, like a grown up giving up his or her days to love and train a child in the ways of Jesus.

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭18:1-5, 10‬ ‭

Jesus calls us to lay down our lives not be philanthropic

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Jesus’ words about mercy and how we, as his disciples, should seek out, invite, give to, speak for, and help the marginalized in society are not subtle.

“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” -Luke 14:12-14

The poor, the elderly, the children, the weak, the disabled, the orphan, the widow, the foriegner, the ill… all these are specifically pointed out in scripture, and Jesus makes it clear- we are to give to the least of these as though we were giving to him. And at times, I think fantasy-thoughts about doing just that. I picture myself running a clinic to provide medical care for the poor and a home for the elderly where they would be cared for with dignity. But the missing day-to-day details of my imaginary Jesus lifestyle allow me to think dreamy thoughts and not face the reality of what Jesus calls me to do right where I am.

See, if I had a clinic for the poor, there would be those who would abuse it, those who wouldn’t be grateful, those who would be rude, those who would be irritating. And if I had a home for the elderly there would be complaints and grievances with family members. There would grey-headed ladies yelling at me to shut the music off because they’re playing bingo. There would be plates thrown across the room cause, “This isn’t food, this is crap!”

The truth is, when Paul in Ephesians 5 starts into what it looks like to, “…walk in love as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us,” he doesn’t say (vs. 22), “Nurses, open up free healthcare clinics for the poor, or dignified homes for the elderly.” Although those are good things, and we should do them. But Paul’s instruction is to the wives, husbands, children, servants… for them to submit themselves to each other. That’s where walking in Christlike love is really put to the test.

In any relationship- with the poor, with the elderly, with the disabled, with the orphan, with the widow, or with your husband, child or boss- sin is going to make it hard. Your sin and the sin of the person you’re in relationship with.

We should extend our lives to the poor, but it’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be messy. As messy as it is with your spouse or child or boss. Jesus calls us to lay down our lives for each other, not just be philanthropic. We aren’t called to give donations to the poor, we are called to love them and that requires forgiveness, repentance, bearing with hard things and walking through hard things.

This is why we need the church. We need to be in relationships with people we would never normally be in relationships with. We need to face conflict, sin, pain, bitterness, poverty, rudeness… broken humanity and learn to deal with sin in humility, love, and truth.

What I’m trying to say is, it’s not so much whether I donate to the poor orphans in Africa, or visit the elderly in a nursing home, but whether I vulnerably love my husband, stretch myself to spend time with people I don’t know very well who want to follow Jesus too, and over time, when our sin makes things ugly, forgive and love them. The marginalized are not righteous because they’re marginalized. They can’t give back anything you might otherwise get from a richer, more mainstream sinner, like status, reputation, money, position, etc. But they aren’t going to be any easier to love and lead to Christ. It’s not going to be easy teaching them to follow all the things he has taught us just because they’re poor.

“The rich and the poor meet together, the LORD is the maker of them all.” – Proverbs 22:2

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” -Romans 3:23

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:34-35

Endurance for 2019

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Twelve years ago I ran the PF Chang Rock n’ Roll half marathon in Phoenix. I trained for it and felt pretty good till I hit the seventh mile. Mile seven to mile 13.5 felt like my legs were made of lead and my lungs were full of fire. I yelled at myself for that last half of the race, “Just run to that pole Sheila!” And that’s how I finished. I literally ran to the next pole until it was over. And then I swore I’d never do it again.

As a Christian, I see life differently than my friends and family who don’t share my hope in Christ (yet). I see life as a marathon of faith.

Sometimes I look around and see people coasting through life, seeming to be happy, doing just fine. They don’t look tired. They don’t seem to be struggling. They seem to be at home here. At least on the surface.

If any of us, Christian or not, stopped to think about our lives, where we’re going, what our purpose is here, etc., we might not be so comfortable. But once you’ve tasted the goodness of God in Christ, a race begins that leaves no place for settling down and getting comfortable. You aren’t searching anymore for a deeper satisfaction in life, or numbing yourself to those longings with quick fixes or busy-ness. Once Christ becomes real to you, you start to long for the home and the person you were made for. You become a sojourner, an exile, a runner, running the race of faith until you cross the finish line- until you’re home.

In a few hours a new mile starts on my long race of faith. 2019 isn’t a new year to try to finally get some satisfaction in life, be a better me, live my best life, etc. 2019 is another mile in my race home. What I need is endurance.

And if you’re feeling tired like me, just look at the next pole.

Just keep running through today.

Keep your eyes on Jesus; keep feeding your soul with his word; keep meeting with his people and opening your life up to them in confession and repentance; keep pouring out your complaints and requests and fears and longings and joys to him in prayer. Keep hoping in Jesus. He is faithful. He will not let you quit. He will not abandon you. In fact he’ll make you stronger. He’ll take what’s lame in your cadence and strengthen it. He is fully committed to getting you home.

One of my favorite writings by Eugene Peterson is Long Obedience in the Same Direction. In it he uses the Songs of Ascent (Psalm 120 – 134) to meditate on discipleship and what a maturing life of faith in Christ focuses on. The ancient Hebrews sung these songs on their trips to Jerusalem. As a Christian, I’m not making my way to a physical place to worship, but I am making my way through life, ascending, growing, being transformed from one degree of glory to greater glory until I’m home. And like my forefathers in ancient Israel, it’s my longing for home, that pulls me forward with a song on my lips.

Yesterday at my church we had a pastor who preached about what’s next. Now that Christmas is over, what’s next? New year’s goals or resolutions might improve our lives, he said, but they won’t transform our lives. He said if we really believe what we just celebrated at Christmas our lives should start to, and continue to, look different. We’re in the process of being transformed.

Eugene Peterson encouraged us to examine ourselves and see if we were tourists or pilgrims. The pastor last night asked us to consider that if we believe Jesus our lives will be in the process of looking more and more like Jesus. Hebrews says we don’t need resolutions, we need endurance.

I want there to be a fresh start, a new energy, a renewing of sorts as 2019 begins. But I know that even if nothing changes in my circumstances, even if I’m still prone to lameness, weakness and wandering, Jesus is committed to getting me home. I don’t have to finish tomorrow. I just have to keep looking at him, running through today.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. -2 Corinthians 3:18

…looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. -Hebrews 12:2

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. -Philippians 1:6

My cluttered brain and my grey-headed friend

(My late grandma Oleta and I in conversation weeks before she passed. She was an “older woman” in my life too.)

fullsizeoutput_12ce — (My late grandma Oleta and I in conversation weeks before she passed. She was an “older woman” in my life too.)

I have ideas all the time. All the time. My phone is full of notes I voice-to-text to save for future reference. My bullet journal is full of thoughts, ideas, to-do’s, goals, dreams, plans, appointments, more ideas. And if I had to draw a chart of what’s going on in my brain and try to organize and prioritize it would look more like a messy bubble map or word cloud. If I don’t spend time getting the storm of ideas out of my head onto a paper (a bullet journal in my case… post it notes and individual paper notes just get lost at the bottom of my purse or left on the counter) I start to feel foggy-brained and anxious. And usually this shows up in picking at the cuticles around my fingernails (don’t judge).

This past week, the skin around my nails was torn and bleeding. Yeah, it’s bad and gross, especially when you’re a nurse.

About once a week, my friend Victoria and I get together to pray. Actually, we get together and I feel like I mostly dump all the goings on in my life on her and she shares some of her burdens with me. We both close our eyes at a table, sometimes holding hands, and start casting our cares upon our Father, pleading with God to help our unbelief, praying for our family and friends. It’s treasured time.

Victoria and I aren’t “typical” friends. She is 30 years my senior. She would say she’s a Martha and I a Mary. I would say she’s a strong, older woman in my life. She’s gone before me down many similar paths in life and her humble dependence upon the gospel spurs me on to love and good deeds.

This week I came to her house with my bubble-map/storm of thoughts on two pages of my bullet journal. All committments and desires I had. All my pans in the fire. She called it a shotgun of productivity and identified my need for priorities. She approached God with me in prayer and we called on Him with scripture and confessions of not knowing how to pray. It was so good.

Why am I sharing that my brain is a dust-storm of thoughts and I pick at my cuticules when I’m stressed and I pray with my 73 year old neighbor? Because we need this. More people besides me in the church need this! We need so desperately to depend upon each other. We need to be vulnerable with each other as Paul taught Titus to teach the church in Crete when he said:

‘But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching. Older men are to be self-controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance. In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking. They are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God’s word will not be slandered. In the same way, encourage the young men to be self-controlled in everything. Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching. Your message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that any opponent will be ashamed, because he doesn’t have anything bad to say about us. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works. Proclaim these things; encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.’ Titus 2:1-8,11-15

He wasn’t prescribing that women should get together for teas and sewing classes and men get together for poker and football. He was teaching Titus to teach the Cretans… to teach us to be a family, a body, dependent upon each other for muturing into the brothers and sisters of Christ!

If you don’t have an “older woman” or “older man” in your life pointing out your need for some priorities, praying with you, confessing and listening to your confessions, pray and start looking for them. They’re there. They’re in your church. They might have grey hair, or seem unapproachable because they’re from a different generation or culture or whatever. But that’s what you need! You need them. And boy do they need you. The older men and women in the church need the younger men and women. We need each other.

Why it’s important to meditate on the Bible: A conversation between mom and son.

close up photography of bible — Photo by Don Milo on Pexels.com

Until about 7 o’clock this evening I felt like the walking dead. Doing some night shifts at the hospital is taking its toll on me. But I’m always surprised at how much I notice God’s presence and help when I feel especially weak. Today was no exception.

My 13-year-old is new in his personal walk of faith following Jesus and as his mom it’s priority for me to intentionally disciple him in the love and teaching of Christ. I look to the Bible, prayer and the promise of the Holy Spirit’s help for this.

It’s a funny thing when you think about it, we look to a book to learn about this God we have been captivated by. Christ has captured our hearts and given us a desire to love him and others like we never had before. But we can’t see him. We have a book- actually a collection of books in the Bible, and we have the church. Yes, we have nature and other relationships through which we learn more about this God we love and have never seen, but the meat and potatoes of our spiritual growth diet is the Bible and the church. When I look back over my years following Jesus, it’s chewing on the messages of the Bible, alone and in community, that has sent tap roots of faith down into the soil of my tumultuous life. I want my sons to have that same deeply-rooted faith.

The Bible can be misused. And sadly is. In the Bible Satan uses the scriptures to tempt and lie to Christ himself. Reading or knowing the Bible is not a sign of humble faith or a regenerated heart. But without taking in the scriptures, chewing on them and spitting them out in prayer and community, with questions and responses, we will be weak Christians easily tossed by the storms and droughts of life.

I’ve been asking my youngest to form habits of reading scripture, asking questions, praying and discussing it with me. Today, we read the daily reading from our church’s app. It was from Isaiah 53. After we listened to the reading of the passage, we began a discussion. Actually, I started preaching. And my son obliged and listened. I was surpised to find that in my crawling skin, bowling-ball head, tired, burning eyes and foggy brain Christ was bubbling up “rivers of living water.”

My son doesn’t like to read. He’s part of this generation that gets most of its information from technology like his smart phone and social media. It a social norm I feel very wary of. And without selling all our possessions and moving to Pennsylvania to become Amish, I try to push back against the strong current of information passively wearing my sons down to flatness. I urge them to grow deep roots and strong minds by reading the Bible and reading other good books.

Reading Isaiah 53 today with my son it just hit me: God has given us two ways to eat. One is through our mouths into our stomachs, and the other is through our eyes and ears into our minds and hearts. When we read, we are challenged to grow strong through asking questions and seeking answers. Our diet is healthy. When we passively take in information through phones, T.V. and social media our diet is unhealthy.

I’m convinced the need for picking up a Bible, chewing on it like a goat or cow does hay, and continuing this ruminating, meditative practice of digesting, regurgitating and digesting again God’s word is the healthy way God has given us to grown strong in our faith.

I’m thanking God for the promise tonight that he will not send out his word in vain. It went out from me into my son today. It was impressed upon him. And it will achieve the purposes God has for it.

We need to read our Bibles! We need to chew on what we read, ask the text questions, pray what we read, and spend time in community talking about what we read. We need a healthy diet for our hearts and minds.

‘ “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’ -Isaiah 55:10-11

‘ but his delight is in the law of the Lord , and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.’ -Psalms 1:2-3

The glory of motherhood is Christ

Yesterday on Twitter I wrote, “Motherhood is the Shadow. Christians discipling others in Christ is the substance.”

Today I spent the morning chasing shadows.

All the Hallmark ideas about being a mom were a no go at my house today. Fifteen years of raising sons in a hard, “even if” marriage have taught me not to expect Hallmark on Mother’s Day. They have also shown me that I tend to chase shadows when it comes to being a wife and mom.

I can tell when I’m chasing shadows, I feel the disappointment of reaching for a substance that slips through my fingers like air.

The message of the Bible is that God is making all things new through his Son. Motherhood included. Radical statements like, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,” shake our grip on shadows. Like a person lost in the desert, desperate for water, we tend to look to the nuclear family like an oasis that will quench our thirst for belonging and love, only to find our mouths all of the empty promises of the ideal and the gritty sand of each others sin.

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Matthew 10:37 ESV

C.S. Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

There is a desire in being a mom that motherhood in this world will never satisfy. Christ’s death and resurrection has brought the other world motherhood in this fallen world makes me long for. His kingdom. His people. In Christ’s Kingdom, the beauty of motherhood is made tangible. It won’t slip through your fingers. People like Paul being gentle among new believers, like a nursing mom with her children, are very real and eternal relationships.

The satisfaction of motherhood is not Hallmark moments. The satisfaction of motherhood is giving your life to another to see them complete in Christ.

‘But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. ‘

1 Thessalonians 2:7-8

“…my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” Galatians 4:19 ESV

The glory of motherhood is Christ in motherhood. The weightiness of motherhood is found not in having the ideal nuclear family, but in laying down your life for your children to know Christ, for the new believers in your church to grow up in Christ, for the single-mom in your neighborhood to be discipled in Christ. In Christ, motherhood is redeemed and made eternally significant. And it isn’t limited to being a biological or adoptive mother. In Christ, the fulfillment of motherhood isn’t Hallmark moments or Pinteresitc images. In Christ, motherhood isn’t having a lovely child who does lovely things. In Christ, motherhood is self-sacrificially loving a child, or any person, who isn’t lovely and doesn’t do lovely things, so that they may know the love of Christ and follow him.