Generational Grace

It's no secret that this year at home has been very VERY hard for me.  This weekend was the first time I went back up to Tallahassee after graduation.  Everyone was asking "So how are you?" and with my friends - my sweet, wonderful friends - that means, "tell me about your heart.  right now."  So I had to tell people, "I'm okay.  it's been hard.  three jobs in as many months that I've lost.  but I'm okay." Only I had just gotten fired.  So I wasn't really okay, but I was trying to be, and I wasn't letting myself think about how scared, how hopeless, and how angry I was.

I let myself have a moment on Friday night, with my mom in the car.  I questioned God's motives.  I questioned God's presence in my life.  Cause I have friends who seem to get everything, and I mean EVERYTHING they want or would like to have from God.  And I can't see why God favors them over me for His blessing.  Please notice here the sin of comparison and discontent - I'm SO good at this, guys.  Favorite sin. I questioned God's faithfulness to me.  I never really doubted, but sometimes I just have to let those things out.  I felt like Job - so much like Job.  I was scolding God through my mom, but really I just wanted God to come down from heaven and tell me He is who He says He is.  to prove it isn't just words on a page.  I'm somewhat lucky He didn't decide to prove it by striking me with lightening this weekend.  There was plenty of opportunity.

Anyway, to the point of this post.  Which is basically external processing.  During my fit of jealousy and hopelessness, God did remind me of who He is and what He is doing in my life. 

I went home (actually to my sister's house...) after meeting with some sweet and very dear friends and found out I had lost yet another job through no fault of my own.  That was the breaking point.  I couldn't handle this anymore.  I held it in as long as I could, but eventually that moment in the car with mom happened.  The rest of the evening was spent in complaining and whinging and basically being as morose as I could be again, I'm pretty good at that kind of thing.

Then I woke up Saturday.  I had breakfast with a woman who cares about me, who always tries to help me see beyond my situation and look to Jesus.  I didn't want to, but women you respect and who you know well have a way of making you do what you don't want to do in such a way you don't mind doing it.  I followed breakfast with a meeting with a woman I had mentored and cared for.  This beautiful, sweet woman cared for me without even knowing she was.  She ministered directly to my broken and aching heart by showing me God had used me in her life.  I wasn't even interested in taking the credit - God had done everything.

So I was feeling a little better.  But I was still not up to praising God again or recognizing His power at work in my life.  This was hers - He was working in her.  not in me.  So despite the enormous blessing of seeing the second of the three girls I mentored for a year or more in a more grown-up and spiritually mature place than when I met her, I still didn't see what God was telling me.  Despite the admonition I'd received from my mentor to be attentive.

Then everything changed.  That night, at my sister's AMAZING recital and a dear friend's equally astonishing recital (same recital, two star performers...) my third beautiful and amazing disciple came to me, and introduced the girl she was mentoring.  Christine, the lovely, wonderful girl I was meeting for the first time, looked at me and said "So you're my spiritual Grandma, right?"

At that moment it was like I'd entered the twilight zone and everything stood still.  I processed a ridiculous amount all at once, flashing back to a meeting I'd had with my girls (each separately) explaining the idea of discipleship and spiritual generations.  I took them to Isaiah 54 and showed them the verses that I believed God had used to promise me spiritual generations.Isaiah 54:1-5

In the midst of my craziness, God was telling me He was fulfilling promises still.  And He continued.  On Sunday I met Carrie, and understood my tent is becoming very large indeed.  And it's all God.  For God, through God, with God, by God.

And I have very little left to complain about.

Co-op Farming - the importance of community to a Christian lifestyle

Poor guy - he's really kinda irrelevant in the whole process

While reading this morning, I came across an interesting fact.  In farming, human work and care only has about 5% to do with the crop that actually comes up.  Which is interesting to me.  So many other factors have to be present, or the best care in the world can't achieve any kind of fruitful harvest.  There has to be so much potassium, so much nitrogen, and so many other things already existing in the soil - the farmer can't really put them there.   Then there's climate.  Only so much rain, only so much sun, only so many cold spells, only so much heat.  It's really kind of exhausting to think about all the work that goes in and how it only matters a small percentage.  This is why I'll never EVER be a farmer. 
The context of my reading had to do with the parable of the Sower, in Matthew 13:1-23.  You know the story - the one where Jesus is talking about the Word of God as a seed.  Anyway, at the end He tells about the seed that fell in good soil, and how it produces 30-100 times that of the other seeds.

I began to think about the soil in my own heart - wondering what condition it was in, what I could do to improve the conditions in my heart.  I began to think about what kind of fruit I was producing.  And I was comparing fruit not only of discipleship, but also fruit of the Spirit.  You know, from Galatians 5 (and that really fantastic Steve Green kid's song...) where it talks about "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control"  (which I only ever remember because of that song...).  I began to wonder what other things contribute to the growth of fruit in my own life.  What are the climate and soil conditions that influence the size of my harvest?  What kind of fruit have I grown, and what can I do to grow the rest?

The main thing I can come up with is that it's this whole community farming idea.  To produce certain fruit, it will be better if you surround yourself with certain nutrients.

Warning: I'm gonna get real here.

I'm gonna go ahead and say that I've grown some love, some patience, kindness, and goodness already.  I have been told by others they're there.  I'm seeing some longsuffering starting to bud as well as some self-control.  Peace is struggling along.  But I'm really lacking joy in my life.  I am not a very joyful person right now.  Mom and I were discussing it last night.  So, obviously, it needs some help.

So I did a quick investigation about why joy isn't growing well.  Don't get me wrong - there's a little yellow leaf on the joy plant.  BUT it's yellow, it's droopy, and it's just not very healthy.

It might have something to do with the unemployment, the bills to pay, the car-less-ness and a bunch of other stuff that just doesn't seem to be going right.  But I'm a big proponent of the idea that a Christian's joy is not dependent on their circumstances.  A Christian's joy should come out of someplace different.

I want that joy, but I'm feeling so bogged down by my circumstances. I'm trying to look beyond the circumstances and upward to Christ and find my joy in Him, but it's hard on my own when everything is weighing my head down.  And I'm not surrounded by the most joyful people at home.  Cause we're all in the same situation.  We're all stuck.

Some nutrient just isn't to be found in my home soil.

Which means it needs to be brought in by somebody.

That's where this whole idea of co-op farming comes in.  If I'm in community that's paying attention to the way things are going on the farm, they're gonna see that the amount of joy in me is not producing fruit.  They should ask me questions to diagnose the problem: Are you in the Word? yes.  Are you in prayer? yes.  Are you LISTENING to God's voice? trying.  Are you in community? yes. 

A bunch of college kids in a co-op.  Look how joyful they are!

They should probably see what needs to be done.  I'm thinking joy is like mulch - you gotta spread it around a little - especially where people don't want it around and don't produce it on your own.  At first, the un-joy-full person is annoyed.  It stinks.  But then it works its way down into your heart and begins to help that flower bloom, just like the nutrients in the mulch.

But I don't have mulch.  Cue the Co-op idea.  Someone who has it should pile it on! And then, when my harvest comes in, and they need a little of what they helped me produce, I should share what I've gotten.  After all, I am only responsible for 5% of the harvest.  Everything else is God and others used by God to get the results He wants.

Unemployment

(originally started Jan. 14th)

Yesterday at church something interesting happened.  I worshipped.  Not just empty, ritualistic, mainly-cause-it's-right-and-I-owe-it-to-God worship, but heartfelt, soul reviving worship.

At this point, let me say something.  There is nothing wrong with worshiping because God deserves it, if that's all you can muster.  At least you're worshiping.  But my heart has been hungry for something more for a VERY long time.

I've been craving a soul-revitalizing worship experience, where I say words with my heart full, not just with my emptiness of words.  Sometimes, I feel like all I have to give is that empty word worship.  Sometimes, I'm so exhausted that I want to be with God desperately, but my heart just is so heavy that it's hard for me to lift it into God's hands.  And the problem is I've been focused on my problems and my self and how God has to fix it.  And it's sinful.  And I'm broken.  And I would go into this worship with all that weighing on me.

Yesterday was different somehow.

Nothing has changed.  I'm still on the edge of unemployment, with bills to pay.  I'm still inching nearer to my 24th birthday, with nothing really to show for nearly a quarter century of life.  I'm still living at home, failing to be able to care for my self of my sisters who are in similar situations.

But right before I went into worship, I acknowledged something important:

That God knows what He's doing.  He's not let me fail yet, and He's not in the business of letting people fail.

I was talking to one of the ladies in my Sunday School class.  And I was choosing to believe what I was saying.  Not that I didn't believe it before.  I just said it.

I guess sometimes, that whole "confess with your mouth" idea really is essential. 

A Call to Discipleship - Woman to Woman

It's no secret that one of the things that preoccupies my life is contemplating the differences between men and women, and the roles that they occupy.  I believe that when we were created "in His image" as "male and female" each gender was given a specific role, a specific way to tell the world who God is.

I recently had a very dear friend, one of my fab five, comparing her way of ministry to her husband's way of ministry, and somehow feeling like she was coming up short.  I know how she feels.  When I'm doing ministry, I don't want my results to look different from any man's.  And I'm not even comparing myself to someone so specific.  She was concerned that her view on what a disciple-maker is was somehow flawed, even though she feels very convinced of the way she cares for other women.

So I've been poking around.  :)

Interestingly, I'm preparing to pitch an idea for a women's mentoring program at my local church.  And in contemplating the pitch, God instructed me to throw what I considered a curve ball.

My vision for teaching about women's call to discipleship came from Matthew 25:31-46.

read it here (before going on)

Okay, let's get the stuff we're not gonna be dealing directly with out of the way.

Sheep = Believers
Goats = Pretenders

Son of Man = Jesus Christ

Good.  Got that done.  Now in giving the passage a cursory glance, we see that the difference between those separated as "sheep" and those separated as "goats" is not that one produces wool and one produces delicious cheeses.  That would be weird.  The difference is the amount of care provided to others.  Sheep feed the hungry.  Sheep clothe the naked.  Sheep shelter the wanderers.  Goats do not do all of these things.

Now let's dig a little deeper.  I hope that if you are reading this, you consider yourself a sheep.  I hope you think you'd feed, clothe, and shelter the less fortunate in the name of Christ, but yesterday, I delved into a whole new realm of meaning. 
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What kind of hunger are we talking about?  What kind of nakedness?  What kind of wandering?

According to Maslow's heirarchy of needs, one needs to have the physical needs taken care of.  But after those are taken care of, a whole new realm of needs opens up for those enlightened individuals who can discover them.

Spiritual needs.

Every individual on earth is struggles with spiritual hunger, spiritual nakedness, and spiritual wandering.  These needs will always be there, slowly tugging us toward something to fill those needs.  That's where a woman's role in discipleship comes in.

Feed the spiritually hungry.
Clothe the spiritually naked.
Shelter the spiritually wandering.

Interestingly, the Good Wife in Proverbs 31 is shown doing, primarily, actions to address hunger, nakedness, and wandering.

verses 15-16 see her rising early and working hard to provide for her family and her servants
verses 21-22 talk specifically about the clothing she makes
verse 20 sees her providing for wanderers, reaching out her hands to those who need her help.

But she also is shown to do these things on an abstract level.  She "dresses herself" with strength and dignity, she opens her mouth with wisdom and kindness (feeding others).

So this is the role of a woman.  And in Titus 2:3-5 Paul instructs Titus to have the older women teach the younger women these things.  And in teaching the younger women these things, the older women are spiritually feeding, clothing, and sheltering the younger women; they are teaching them to do the same.

This is what a Woman's Way of Discipleship looks like.  Our primary objective should be to feed, clothe, and shelter.  To take care of others.  Men in the bible are consistently giving each other charges, battle plans, and sending each other out.  Women are hanging back, providing the much-needed home defense as the men go out on the offense.  Sure, there are times when roles overlap (like in the case of Deborah in the book of Judges).  But a woman's primary function is to nurture, to care, and to teach.  That's how God made us.  We are not so much the banner careers, or the front line fighters.  We hold down the fort.  Without us it would fall.  And when we do our job, we rock at it.

So this begs the question: Women, are you feeding, clothing, and sheltering?  Are you doing your job?  Or are you leaving the back door open while expecting the men to meeting the battle head-on?