Apr 19, 2009 | Stories, The Good Word
So these thoughts might seem to be for an exclusive portion of the blogging audience, but if you ever think you might get married, or have a flatmate, or basically have any sort of relationship with another person, feel free to tune back in, because I think they’re probably applicable. As a lot of things in life do, this married life has its seasons — seasons where everything is scrumdiddlyumptious and you’re whistling while you work, and seasons where you think, “Um…is this what I signed up for?” If you’ve experienced anything like that, in any relationship, fear not, friend — you are not alone.
Yesterday, I noticed, as it sometimes happens, that Mark (my husband) and I were for lack of a better way of putting it, sort of nipping at each other’s heels. Â Still doing our best to try to communicate our love to each other, show kindness to each other, and so on, but nevertheless somehow managing to disagree on everything from what a word means to whether or not the baby needed a blanket when we went for a walk with the pram. Â Yesterday was Asher’s 8 month birthday (yay!) so we went for a wee hike up Arthur’s Seat, and although we were out of the flat and in the fresh air (and even a little sunshine) that slight “itch” or discontent lingered.
I had plenty of time this morning before church to spend time with the Lord, and I brought these thoughts to Him to say, “Lord, what is this thing that makes it feel like Mark and I are singing from different hymnals or playing for different teams?” [That’s pretty much a direct quote.] “Where does that come from?” The Lord was quick to remind me, unfortunately, that I am a sinner, and news flash, I also married a sinner. Â Dang that’s tough! Â And my direct realisation from that (thanks, Lord) — if sinners are anything, they’re selfish. Â And so we are. We are going to act selfishly throughout this crazy thing called marriage, and as a result, we are sometimes going to hurt each other. But the lesson doesn’t end there.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to continually turn to the Lord, to keep being transformed by the renewing of your mind with God’s Truth, so that you can answer God’s call to be a servant — to love and serve one another with the love you’ve already been shown by Jesus. What I’m realising is that Mark and I keep falling back into the pattern of trying to keep tabs on “who’s doing what” and, perhaps more specifically, “who’s doing more.” We are so selfish! Somewhere deep down in our hearts, we don’t want to give too much — we don’t want to give more than the other person, and in some way be taken advantage of. We want to give just enough for it to be even and fair, and let’s be honest, we’re going to have pretty different opinions on what even and fair look like.
How do we change the way this looks? The basic principle the Lord has reminded us of over and over again is that because of our actions, we’re always spiraling in one direction, or another. If we work at loving and serving one another, if we train our hearts to want to go so far as to out-do each other with kindness, then the spiral starts moving in the right direction. One person serves and loves the other, and builds the other up in love and in confidence of that love and faithfulness, and the other person, in turn, is motivated to serve and love the first even more. Alternatively, if that first person acts selfishly, and it appears to the second person that the first is acting out of self-interest, then the day might look a lot like a game of spoons, where each person is grabbing for their own spoon, even if they have to jump across the table to get it. So the first person acts out of self-interest “Om, I’m pretty sure I changed the last poopy diaper…” and the second retorts “But I washed the dishes and gave the baby his bath.” And so the spiral continues in an outward direction, pulling the two apart, in the direction of their own selfish needs. If this isn’t caught in time, the two are so far apart they wonder how things ever got that way, if they can ever work it out, and if not, who gets the house and who gets the kids on the weekends.
Thanks be to God, who demonstrated to us the truest act of selfLESSness — sending His Son to die on a cross for the sins of us selfish human beings. He promises that “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) If we’re following the example Jesus set for us, we will work at loving and serving one another, without concern for being taken advantage of. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Mark, please forgive me for being such a selfish sinner! Â I love you, and I continue to desire to love and to serve you for the rest of my days. It is a joy to be your wife. Please join me to praise the Lord who has forgiven me already! May He help us to keep the spiral going in the right direction for the rest of our time on Earth.
xCC
Apr 8, 2009 | Stories, The Good Word
A couple weeks ago I was reading in Matthew 11 — Â very familiar verses, where Jesus says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” These are some of those verses you’ve heard over and over again, but sometimes you stop to think a little bit more about it, and suddenly the Lord opens up a fresh revelation for you.
My first revelation came from the discovery that (far from being a farm girl, this was new for me) the yoke was a double harness in which two animals pulled together. Often, one harness was larger and meant for the stronger, more experienced animal, while the smaller was used for the animal being trained. That’ll preach. We can try to grab hold of some really big yoke and start tugging away, or we can give the big load to Jesus, and just pull the weight we’re meant to. We don’t take off every responsibility and do whatever we want — we are yoked to Jesus, working with Him, living the way He would live, doing what we see Him doing.
After this, the Lord helped me to think about comparing yokes, and gave me a few thoughts. There is a yoke that this world would like for you to burden yourself with, and then there is the easy, light yoke of Jesus. Â Examples:
1. Hospitality
- The (Southern American) worldly yoke — everything is perfectly neat and tidy, you go over and above to the point of stressing yourself out, and you work to the point of exhaustion in order to ‘entertain’ your guests — which perhaps means you never enjoy them.
- Jesus’ yoke — you welcome people into your home, with kindness and graciousness, and you take care of them.
2. Clothing
- World – you have to have the newest, latest fashions, styles, colours and trends. If you’re female, it’s a good idea to show off your assets to the best of your ability in order to make yourself as attractive as possible, no matter the cost. Spend in excess to look good.
- Jesus – Dress in moderation. Buy clothes that will last you a while, don’t spend all your money just to stay on top of the latest trends.
3. Food
- World – either starve yourself in order to be super skinny and look “good” OR cook too much at every meal and end up throwing some away, spend time going over the top on cooking extravagant meals, OR let food be your comfort when nothing else will.
- Jesus – Eat reasonably, eat sensibly, eat healthily.
Obviously, the basic principle that emerges from thinking about Jesus’ yoke is to do things in moderation, with gentleness, with humility. The list of course goes on to what car you might choose to drive, what house you might live in, and on and on. Â At this point I thought, “next subject.” But (if you remember the scene from Hitch where Albert says that after showing Hitch his dance moves), perhaps you might need to listen to the teacher a little longer before you think you’ve got it covered.
Not long before this lesson, a pastor visiting from Taiwan had spoken a word of encouragement to me. You love to serve the Lord. You love to work and carry a burden for the Lord. But you need to take the time to find out which burden you are supposed to carry. Great, I thought. Before I start committing myself to lots of new things now that I have free time after setting down my PhD, I will consult the Lord and seek His wisdom for which burdens I’m meant to pick up.
However, a week or two later, some circumstances led me to begin taking on a concern, a worry which began to burden my soul and make me feel heavy, even gloomy for a while. When I finally brought this to the Lord, and began to consider it with — not a ‘worldly’ perspective but a “what does Jesus’ yoke look like?” perspective, the Lord brought it to my attention that, far from using discernment to take on the burden of which tasks He wanted me to do, I had taken on the burden of concern, and of worry, which is perhaps even more important for me to give over to the Lord than anything else.
What you’re doing will take up your time and your talents, but what you’re worrying about will take up your heart, and your mind, and tug them away from faith, and hope, and the love of God. Cast your cares on the Lord, for He cares for you. (I Peter 5:7)
For every yoke we have, we have Jesus, the stronger of the two of us, who can pull the weight, and help us to see how to navigate the challenge. And the yokes that we place on our hearts, and perhaps the most important ones to submit to Him.
The sermon in a nutshell: Get hitched to Jesus! He’ll carry the weight, and show you how to walk it out, whatever ‘it’ may be.
xCC
Apr 5, 2009 | Stories, The Good Word
Does anybody else find that they sometimes struggle with this mindset? How often do you remind yourself “God is good. All the time.” (a la the Starbucks Church Marketing Video I previously posted) — but something rubbish happens — big or small — and you find yourself saying “Lord, what the deally, Yo?”
I’m suddenly more acutely aware of this mindset lately — when things are going so well, God is sooo good. Or maybe you just think, yay, life is good. And then you miss your bus, or a situation in your life goes from smooth to rough and tumble, and you think, “Hmm, Lord, are you trying to discipline me?” or “Are you mad at me?” or “Why hast thou forsaken me!?!” Yes, you believe God is good, whole-heartedly, but there is still some piece of you that questions what “goodness” looks like when things aren’t looking so good for you.
Our work here in Edinburgh has become increasingly difficult, especially over the last few weeks. To go into detail about this would not be appropriate, but suffice it to say things are tough spiritually, financially, and in our work situation. These life moments are the ones where the rubber hits the road, and praise God, you have the opportunity to (continuing with the fun idioms) put your money where your mouth is and live out what you believe. Is God still good if things aren’t going my way?
The goal: really finding the deep-rooted, whole-hearted mindset to believe that God is good all the time — I believe this comes from having the mind of Christ. In Romans 12:2, Paul encourages us not to be conformed to the image of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind — so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
So as we focus our minds not on earthly things, but on things above (Col. 3:2) and we destroy the strongholds and high things — the wrong thought patterns — that exalt themselves against the knowledge of Jesus (2 Cor. 10) our mind is renewed, and made more like Jesus’ mind. We think about things the way Jesus would, and we begin to recognise, number one, that God’s will is always good, and number two, what God’s will actually is.
Moments like these, which once seemed like trials, are starting to look more like opportunities to me. They are opportunities for me to walk through something challenging, and come out on the other side, with more of myself and my old ways chiseled away, looking more like Jesus.
Jesus said He only did what He saw the Father doing. If I have a better understanding of what the Father is doing, as my mind is renewed and I begin to better understand His nature and His will, then I have a better chance of following Jesus’ example, and doing the work here on earth that the Lord put me here to do. Praise God for moving me toward looking at this life through the lenses of eternity — where it won’t matter how much money I made or how my hair looked, but it will matter if I told other people about my good good God, so that we can spend eternity together.
xCC
Mar 27, 2009 | Scotland, Stories, The Good Word
Challenging Fact: I’ve heard that America spent roughly 20 billion dollars on ice cream in 2007 — enough to provide everyone in the world with clean water and food.
Through a variety of different means, I’ve been reminded again over the past few months about some of the basics of godly financial stewardship. Some things I’ve heard before — like the fact that the Bible talks more about money than any other subject, or the helpful reminder that you can tell where a person’s heart is if you look at their bank statements. But somewhere, I feel like a spiritual corner has been turned, and I am thinking about God’s money (the bit of it that’s in the Collie family hands) on a whole new level. I am challenged to the core to see a change in the way we live. Here’s my best attempt at describing what’s been going on in my heart.
One piece of the puzzle of what’s happening, I think, has to do with our sponsorship of a child through Compassion. I’m not sharing this to say “yay for the Collies, aren’t they great!?” but seriously, this is part of the story. For £18 each month (that’s currently about $26) we’re helping Compassion provide regular medical check-ups, hygiene training, dental care, supplemental nutrition and educational opportunities to a child in Burkina Faso. This little country in Western Africa, north of Ghana has a population of about 15 million, a life expectancy of 52 years, (some estimates are closer to 44) and a literacy level around 21%. Most adults are unemployed, but some work as seasonal labourers and earn the equivalent of £10 (yes, TEN POUNDS – less than fifteen dollars) per month.
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So, £18 – $26 used to not seem like a whole lot of money to me. It probably won’t pay for a meal at a restaurant in Scotland. I might be able to find a pair of jeans for that in America, but probably not here in Edinburgh. My food budget for a month here for our family is about twelve times that. But now, it suddenly seems like a whackload of cash. I’ve spent more than £18 on a single item of makeup before, and I’m pretty darn ashamed of that now.
The question that’s now ringing in my head at the till (cash register) was posed to me in a sermon recently — will this matter in eternity? And now I’m thinking about how I can spend LESS money on myself, because we could potentially sponsor another child. And another. Or maybe save up enough to sponsor the building of a well in an area without clean water! If we keep driving our old car, could we provide clean water for a village somewhere? Worth it!
Two weeks ago, a gentleman knocked on my door to share with me about a charity that is working for the protection of certain species of wild birds in Britain. Don’t get me wrong guys — I’m an avid recycler, I bring my own (IKEA) bags to the grocery store and don’t use plastic ones, I turn out the lights when I leave the room, and I care about the environmental impact of us crazy-consumer-humans. But I had to tell the guy, I cannot with a clear conscience pay for the stranded dogs and endangered birds of Britain when there are kids in other countries, like Burkina Faso, dying of malnutrition, malaria, meningitis, and diarrhoea. Seriously, dying of such easily treatable disease. While these kids and their families are being raised up with instruction about health, nutrition, opportunities to earn income, and so on, most important, people are sharing with them about the God who created them, loves them, and wants to spend eternity with them. Jesus cared about the poor, rejected and brokenhearted, and He instructed us to feed His sheep. Food for the body, and food for the soul — both are given in Jesus’ name.
To sum the matter up for the moment — I am thinking about things eternal. The Lord knows exactly how much money I’ve spent (or convinced my Mom to spend) on clothing, on food, on superfluous stuff, and on stuff that I actually needed. I’m afraid I would be ashamed to know some of those figures. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and feel like Oskar Schindler at the end of the Holocaust, looking at a ball point pen and thinking, I could’ve sold this to save the life of another Jew. It’s amazing that his incredible efforts have an amazing legacy — perhaps 6,000 descendants of Schindler Jews are alive today — and yet, he thought, “I could’ve done more.”
I do want to have Schindler’s attitude, for Jesus — “What more can I do?” “What else can I sell?” “How else can I serve or give to see your Kingdom come?” There are people that are hungry, there are people that are hurting, and there are people dying every day who don’t know anything about the God who loves them. How can they hear, unless someone tells them?
xCC
Mar 19, 2009 | Stories, The Good Word
I was reading in Matthew 11 this morning. Jesus has finished up some teaching and is traveling about to continue teaching and preaching in the twelve disciples’ hometowns. John had heard about what the works of Christ, and so He sent some of his disciples to ask, “Are You the Coming One or do we look for another?” This was Jesus’ response:
“Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”
I am sure there are 1,000 sermons to be preached on these few verses, but a couple of thoughts struck me today in particular. First, Jesus did not answer by saying “Yes, I am the Son of God. Here’s my badge;” or “here’s a special trick.” Or, “Pass me a glass of water and I’ll hook you up with a vintage 3 BC Merlot.” He answered instead by saying what He was doing. He was hanging out with people who, in many days and ages, as in His, have it pretty rough going. There weren’t a ton of jobs advertised on the careerbuilder scroll for people who couldn’t see, or hear, or walk. And people we not really keen on having a cup of tea with a person with leprousy, either. Yet these were the people Jesus was seeking out. He was changing their lives, healing their diseases, and even touching people who probably hadn’t been touched in a really, really long time. He was also preaching the gospel to the poor, which would’ve included a lot of folks from the above categories.
What’s all this mean? Well, instead of saying who He was, He chose to say what He was doing. Jesus felt His actions, His works, His miracles … those were the proof that He was the One they were waiting for. If anyone comes up to you and says, “I’m an accountant” and then struggles to figure out a 10% tip after lunch, you might start to wonder.
Now what does this mean for us? Two thoughts. First, if we are Christians, then the “proof should be in the pudding.” People should be able to identify us as Christians, not by our cool t-shirts, but by our lifestyles. What are we doing that points toward a higher call? Second, we should NOT be trying to identify ourselves as Christians by what we DON’T do. Jesus didn’t say, “I go to temple every Sabbath and I don’t get drunk. I have the Pentateuch memorized and I knew all the Psalms before I was 8.” Jesus said, “I am hanging out with the people that need love, and know it. People who are well don’t need a doctor – I am hanging out with people who are sick.”
My list at the moment doesn’t look as much like Jesus’ to-do list as I would like it to. I pray that the Lord will give me the grace to do miracles by His power and for His name — that the blind would see, that the lame would walk. In the meantime, I still have the opportunity to serve the hurting and oppressed in the world in whatever way I can. To preach the gospel to the poor and poor in spirit. And those who aren’t offended by me ministering in this capacity will be blessed.
Seize today as an opportunity to rethink your to-do list, and begin to shine.
xCC
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