Day 16: The Gifts and the Giver

Oct 16, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word

Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!

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It was about a half a year ago, when I was processing it in my own soul, and writing words about it right here on this little site. And these words came to me, came through me, and simultaneously stood still in my soul. It’d been a year since my Dad went into a hospital and breathed his last breaths, and I was reflecting on the anniversary, what had happened in the year since his passing, how God had helped me through. I commented:

These 365 days have been unexpectedly full. Grace to grace and strength to strength, joy to joy. Hard times, sometimes yes, but still — I am learning to see the gifts, and thereby learning to better see the Giver. {Full post here.}

Look for the gifts and truly see them, and you’ll better see the Giver.

Of all the things that have carried me through the grief, and helped me to keep swimming, I think thankfulness has had the most powerful results.

When the whisper of the enemy says Look what God took, my soul has boldly replied, But look what He gives.

At the time of that loss I had a four-month-old baby girl to care for. Our default mentality might be to say, “What a tough liability at a difficult time” but no, no — she was an incredible asset. Her joy, her life, her giggles and the promise and hope for her future, all these things combined to create this daily reminder of God’s goodness.

He saw what was coming, and He gave me a gift to help me get through it.

In that season I began counting gifts. I re-read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, and let her words remind me that there is always room to give thanks. Always reason to give thanks. {And let me pause here to say if there is only one book you can read for the rest of this year or the rest of your life, make it One Thousand Gifts. It is such wisdom on living your one life well.}

When I didn’t take the time to write it down, I wrote it in my heart. I saw a leaf caught in a web, floating and dancing in the air and gave thanks. I saw my boys treat each other kindly and gave thanks.

Perhaps human nature isn’t always so grateful. Do we often default to complaining? Finding fault? Forgetting thankfulness? Do we tend to complain instead?

Is that perhaps why a Thanksgiving offering was so central to the offering system?

We cannot rightly see our lives but through the eyes of thankfulness — and yet it is so hard for us to find our way there, to put on those lenses.

I did well at giving thanks for a season, but when life got busier, and there were fewer margins, I promptly returned to my default state of more-often-discontent.

How do we overcome our default state of discontentment?

How do we swim this one race really well — and enjoy the swim at the same time?

We give thanks. 

Not just for the food we eat, but also for the air we breathe. Not just for a home to live in, but also for the people and the gifts inside. Not just for a job but for your job, the place where the Lord has you, where you whisper trust that even if this isn’t the dream, it could very well be postponement for the best to become possible.

In a world where 1 in 7 people worldwide do not have enough food to sustain them, and approximately 25,000 people die every day due to hunger-related causes {See The Hole in our Gospel by Richard Stearns for more…} oh my goodness, but we are privileged to have food to eat. In the top ten percent if there are more than five shirts in our closets.

Could we create for ourselves a daily reminder of our privileges?

Could we build into our lives a consistent pattern of giving thanks, day after day? Not just for the food and clothes, but for more and more the many gifts?

Do you want to enjoy your swim, wherever you are in the race?

Look for gifts and give thanks. 

We’re instructed:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. {Ps. 100:4}

A thankful heart can pave the way for a move of God.

When you begin to see just how many gifts there are to be thankful for in the every day, you’ll begin to see the Giver like never before.

xCC

Day 15: Room in the Margins

Oct 15, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word

Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!

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Some of you (maybe three of you…) might remember the days when I was writing With Love, From Here, and here was South Africa. If so, you might remember a post I wrote way back then about my Genesis making an Exodus… when a section of my Bible quite literally came out at the seams. I wrote Thomas Nelson Publishers to tell them about their wonderful Bible I’d loved so dearly and to see if they might be willing to send a new one to a missionary on a tight budget. A new one arrived, halfway round the world, before I could say supercalifragiliciousexpialidocious. And I can say that very quickly.

Thanks again, Thomas Nelson… still enjoying the new Women’s Study Bible!

My biggest sorrow in moving on to a new Bible (although I still have the old one) was that I was losing the margins. The New King James Version of the Bible is going to say the same thing, whichever NKJV Bible you pick up. But that first one had loads of glorious space in the margins that I absolutely loved. When I took notes on something in the Scriptures that I wanted to remember to go back to, I had a little system to indicate which journal the notes were in, and the date, so that I’d be able to go back to find them. I had loads of thoughts and revelations and connections between Scriptures jotted right there in those big, wide margins. I loved coming across a Scripture that the Lord had led me to before, and remembering His faithfulness at that point in my life, giving thanks for what He had done again.

Those big, wide margins were like a blank slate, inviting me to dive in and make the Word my own.

In some ways, life is like those margins. Some of the best things happen in the spaces where we’re not crammed into doing and going and and and… we’re just being.

Some of the most precious moments I’ve had with my children have happened in the margins, when I slowed down and remembered that Life is Not an Emergency and made room.

The margins are often what people who love to create crave — a space to explore something new, to soak in the creativity of others as a spark to inspire their own, or to learn and practice and improve their craft.

If you’re married, you may have recognized the pattern that love usually struggles to blossom unless there are margins, but where there is time, when there is space, love can thrive.

Yesterday, I had a few moments to watch the clouds go by outside the window, and I thought to myself, Gosh, when is the last time I watched the clouds?

So I’ve got a little challenge for you today, and I’m intentionally keeping this brief to (hopefully) make this a possibility.

Ask yourself this question for me: In this race I’m swimming, do I have any margins?

Do you wake up at the last minute possible and begin your day rushing to the shower, shoveling in breakfast, and scurrying out the door?

Do you fill your evenings with entertainment, never switching it off for a moment to just be quiet, to talk with someone in the room (or on the phone), to breathe and be still?

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth! {Ps. 46:10}

Is your schedule like a Chinese puzzle or a military command center? Are there just SO many activities there is no time for your family to collectively play, be still and enjoy one another’s company?

Hopefully you’ve said no to all of these questions!

But our modern ways nudge me to imagine that almost all of us are cramming so much in that there’s no room for those beautiful margins to serve us as well as they could if we built them. One of my favorite things about homeschooling is how it creates so many margins for our family — we don’t have to rush to be somewhere so early each day or have a short space of time to accomplish so many things before bedtime. But there is a temptation to find other things to fill our schedule with, and I sometimes forget that some of the most important learning happens in the margins.

How can you change this for yourself? Getting up a bit earlier (and by necessity going to bed a little earlier?) Turning off the TV and starting a conversation instead? Learning that sometimes saying no leads to a better yes?

You have a race to swim every day, friends. It’s a good idea to take some time to make sure you’re not turning this long distance swim into a daily sprint. Give yourself room to breathe, to look at clouds, to be creative, to feel grass between your toes, to be still and think about the glorious goodness of your Creator.

Pretty soon you might find those margins brimming with life you are so glad you took the time to live.

Swim well, today, friends.

xCC

Day 14: If It Ain’t Easy

Oct 14, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word

Hello, how are you, g’day and welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!

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There’s an interesting personality difference between the Hubs and myself, and it creates good conversations, and I suppose sometimes I teensy bit of conflict. But it’s very well described based on our swimming careers. You might be able to guess it — I think I’ve mentioned it before.

HH is a careful, calculating distance swimmer. He can pace himself well, bring strategy to bear on a situation, and generally likes to take his time and have a plan in mind before diving in.

I. am. a. Sprinter.

I had to use periods just to slow that sentence down. I get impatient in strategy sessions because I’m ready to get out there and do the thing that needs doing. I don’t tend to always pace myself particularly well — I just all-out go for it until I have to stop. So when it comes to completing something, I generally find that 10% inspiration and try to make it work for me about 90% of the time. If I don’t feel inspired, I have a hard time getting it done. And if it’s hard work and it doesn’t have to be done, the good Lord knows I will procrastinate that hard work I’m not inspired to do until it either becomes absolutely necessary or becomes a missed opportunity.

While these personality differences sometimes create challenges for us as a couple and as a team, I think just realizing that we are different has helped us to make it through the moments where our “pacing differences” put us at odds with each other.

Now I might like to proclaim my bent toward being a sprinter an asset, or even an endearing personality flaw, but the truth is, it’s downright problematic sometimes. Here’s why:

If it ain’t easy, I don’t want to do it.

And sometimes,

If it ain’t easy, and I don’t want to do it, I like to assume the Lord doesn’t want me to, either.

Now, we’re getting to the second act of this Shakespearean comedy — the conflict. (Or is this play a tragedy…?) One of my dreams is to write more than just blog posts. I dream about writing books that will encourage and challenge and inspire. I dream about speaking in front of large groups and doing the same thing.

But unless I’m mistaken, publishing contracts don’t fall from the clouds.

So there is a conflict afoot, and perhaps you can see it! I’m a Sprinter. Consistently working on a project that takes longer than a blog post is not always my forté. In fact, I find it awfully challenging, when life is full of so many other things to do!

I’ve mentioned before, I think, how much I’ve been learning since I started homeschooling the Bear. Homeschooling certainly isn’t an overnight gig, and it’s certainly not in keeping with a Sprinter’s personality.

But I’ve discovered the truth of this little whisper from Isaiah 28:10:

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.

Any grand project, any great symphony, any fantastic piece of literature was created one brick, one note, one word at a time.

Slowly and deliberately accomplishing a year of homeschool happens one school day at a time, one hour at a time, one subject at a time.

Now I know I’m not the only dreamer in the crowd, so let me bring this discussion to bear on where you might be in your journey.

Do you ever conveniently assume that because something is a challenge, it’s not the will of the Lord? Perhaps you’re dreaming about furthering your education, getting yourself into better shape, learning a new instrument or skill, or writing and singing music for thousands of people to enjoy. But once you’ve started the first lap of this race, do you start to putter out?

Here’s an incredible truth worth leaning into:

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. {Eph. 3:20-21}

What am I saying here? God is able to do exceedingly abundantly — some translations say immeasurably more (NIV) or superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think (AMP) — according to our own willingness to let Him work in and through us.

But that last little piece of the puzzle is an important one — remember, we were created with the precious gift of free will — and think this through with the Amplified version: Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able … Paul is saying glory to the God who is able to exceed our every expectation abundantly, but what He does through and for and regarding us is somehow closely knit to what we allow Him to do in us.

Are we well into the lofty heights of the Fourth Act of the play? Let me try to pull this thing together with the denouement — the resolution, if you will.

You may feel well settled into what you might call an ordinary life but I want to encourage you that God is able to do something extraordinary through you. If you are willing to overcome the fear of failure or of making a mistake, and if you are willing to get it settled right down deep in your heart that anything worth doing is not going to be easy, and that something presenting you with a challenge doesn’t mean it’s not of the Lord, why then, by Jove, you’ve got it. As you allow God to work in and through you, so you will find that He is indeed able to do exceedingly abundantly more than you ever imagined, with your life — no matter what you are called to do.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once spoke about this concept to a group of students at a junior high school, just six months before his assassination:

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Handel or Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

The race is not always given to the swift. The battle is not always won by the strong. The greatest achievements of your life will be those that you consistently made effort toward. You were willing to swim the laps and acknowledge that it wasn’t a Sprint that would get you there. You were willing to go the distance, swimming your own race.

For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

Go for it, today friends. And then, go for it again tomorrow…

xCC

Day 13: For When You Just Plain Fail

Oct 13, 2014 | 31 Days, The Good Word

A big, smiling welcome to you! This post is part of a series I’m working my way through in the month of October, called Swim Your Own Race. If you’d like to start at the beginning (it is a very good place to start, after all) you can do so, right here. I hope you enjoy diving in!

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When I first started walking with Jesus, like truly involving Him in my life and aiming to follow His leading, there was one fact that got under my skin like no other.

I remember sitting over up a cup of coffee with a friend and mentor of mine, talking with her about how much I appreciated her counsel and advice in my life. I welcomed her advice and hoped she’d continue to help me follow Jesus wherever He would lead me. And I think these specific words probably came out of my mouth:

“I just don’t want to mess up.”

She looked at me, straight across those cups of coffee, and, knowing this would be tough for me to hear, very gently said, “You’re going to mess up.”

Oh, what a wrestling match of the soul that was for me to hear and receive those words!

I don’t like making mistakes. But let’s be honest — if we don’t like making mistakes, we might as well say we don’t like being human.

This is a challenging part of humanity – the truth that we are going to fall short.

But how do we handle the mistakes along the way as we continue to swim our own race?

In our family, we’ve taught our boys to apologize and to ask each other for forgiveness when they hurt one another. Although the apologies don’t always sound sincere, we encourage them to say what they’ve done wrong, and to say that they’re sorry. The other child is then supposed to say, “I forgive you.” After that, the matter should be done, they should both let it go, find a way to keep playing and move on. Tiger Tank usually says, “I forgiver you,” which we really enjoy hearing and the Hubs and I sometimes say to each other, too.

Often the first step in dealing with a big mistake is just apologizing. Sometimes this is the hardest part. Most of us don’t like making mistakes, and a lot of us don’t like admitting we’ve made a mistake when we do. After we apologize, we ask for forgiveness. It’s always up to someone else to decide whether or not to forgive, but if we are genuinely sincere in our apology and our request for forgiveness, we can rest knowing we’ve made our best effort to seek reconciliation.

When you’ve kicked over someone else’s Lego tower or unintentionally smacked their car with yours, the efforts at reconciliation usually need to continue into restoration. What can you do to make the situation right?

If we’re looking at situations from one human to another, the forgiveness process can be boiled down to a fairly simple number of steps. Although there are many situations where those steps are very hard to carry out.

But what about when we make a mistake and we feel like it’s the Lord we need to apologize to?

I shared the Message version of the encouragement from Hebrews 12: 1-3 the other day. Let’s look at it again here as we continue this conversation:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

Jesus is the only human who ever lived a mistake-free life. He is an example for us to follow after. His was a race worth studying. Every ounce of His story is a place for encouragement for your own. Watch how He ran the race, and do likewise!

When our kids make a mistake that involves following (or not following) the instruction of their parents, we still follow the forgiveness process, but there are sometimes other consequences for disobedience.

And we, the humans who make mistakes and disobey a Holy God, deserve some pretty significant consequences. But at the end of that mistake-free life, Jesus endured the cross, and in doing so He endured the punishment that we deserve for our mistakes. It’s hard to put into words — and were all the books in a thousand libraries just on this one subject, they’d still fall short.

The gift of taking our place on the cross… What can we say? It is glorious.

Now here we are, 2,000 years later, still swimming our races and making our mistakes.

Is the forgiveness process in relation to our Creator similar to that with the people around us?

I believe so.

Thanks to Jesus, we can turn to God again and again each day, to bring before Him the places where we fall short, to sincerely say we’re sorry, and to ask for forgiveness. Sometimes He leads us to do something with restoration in mind, and we do well to listen and obey His leading.

We have a little “mantra” in our home when we ask our children to follow our directions. We often tell them to “ICE” it.

This means we’re asking them to obey Immediately (I), Completely (C), and Enthusiastically (E).

Oh, the world of trouble I’d never face if I would obey the Lord immediately, completely and enthusiastically!

But friends, we will fall short. We will miss the mark. We will make wrong choices and face consequences.

The gloriously good news is that your race doesn’t end just because you make a mistake. Jesus paid the way for you to keep swimming! He paid the way for you to pause on the journey, turn to an infinitely Holy God and humbly ask for forgiveness, and He paid the way for you to follow His example, not losing sight of the finish line you’re headed toward.

Even if you fall short today friends, be encouraged that you can continue to swim your own race. Even the greatest of mistakes does not disqualify you from the forgiveness Jesus paid for! Keep swimming your own race today… and let your mistakes be a place for His goodness to shine even brighter in you.

xCC

P.S. I might’ve made a mistake yesterday, in posting a video that may have caused offense because some of the dancing in it was less than wholesome. No one complained, but I felt a nudge to just swap that video out for one that should not be visually offensive. I hope you will forgive me if I offended you, and I hope you took the time to dance in your living room to celebrate God’s goodness. His grace is so good… we do all make mistakes!