Biblical worldview – Fillingquiver

What do you see?

When you see someone out an about do you really see them? It’s so easy to just categorize someone as “my nurse” or “the waitress” or even “the neighbor”. But do we really know what’s going on with them? Do we see them as God’s creation and that they have value or do we just see them for what they can do for us?

It’s so easy to get focused on everything else we have going on in our own lives that we forget to see those around us for who they are. We forget that they have lives too, we just see the in their “roll” in our lives. For example, the lady who waits on you at the grocery store, you see her as what she does not who she is. She may be dealing with a dying mother or sick child at home. We don’t see the “baggage” that others have. We’re too focused on carrying our own. When you ask someone how they are, do you take the time to really listen to what they’re saying? I know people who when asked that question respond with “do you really want to know or are you just asking to be nice?” Most of the time we’re just asking right? We don’t really want to know, we don’t want to get dirty. We don’t want the details, because then we have to care. It’s easier to just keep going on doing our own thing rather than stop and help someone else do theirs.

Many Christians would like to say they care for others; they’d like to say that they want to help others and that they love others like Jesus loves them. But do we really? The majority of Christians would rather just throw money or another program at the problems they see around them. They don’t want to actually help with their hands, it’s too personal, it’s too real. So how do we fix it? How do we as Christians make people feel valued and let them know they’re worth our time?

First I would say, we have to stop seeing others for what they can do or are doing for us. That involves stopping and looking around us. Look at the person in front of us in the eye. I mean seriously. Really look at them. See them as another human being not just the server, the bank teller, the teacher or the student.

When we talk to the person in front of us we have to listen to them. We have to want to hear them and then we have to be willing to respond to what they’re saying. And not just “um hmm” or “oh that’s nice”. Sometimes we won’t know what to say, but just listening to what they’re telling us is important. I’ve been trying to take time to hear what those serving me are saying with their words, their facial expressions and their actions. On occasion I don’t say anything more to the person other than “thank you” but when I say it, I say it with sincerity and while making eye contact. To be totally honest this last week, it caught a couple of people off guard. The lady who waited on me at the grocery store the other day looked completely shocked when I looked her in the eye and said “thank you”, like no one had ever done it before.

What a difference it makes when we see others for who they really are! It makes a difference to them and to us. We gain a little perspective. We remember that life isn’t all about me me me. Showing God’s love to others should be our priority. Our focus should be outward rather than inward and on ourselves.

I would encourage you this week to purpose to make those around you feel important. When you’re rushing through the drive through or heading to the bank. Stop. Ask the person helping you how they are and really listen to what they have to say. Show them that you care. You might be the only one who does today. Pray for them as you leave. You may not know what their baggage is, but you can pray for them. Pray that they will be blessed today, pray that their load will be lightened. Thank God for them and their willingness to serve you. (Even if they didn’t do it with a smile). I promise it will change how you see others. It will change your perspective. Ask God to teach you how to really see people as He sees them. Set out to be used by God.

No white appliances

I have a confession to make…in the evenings while Kerry puts the boys down for bed I sit at my computer to work (I teach online) and have the TV on in the background. My two default channels are HGTV and the Food Network. The more time I’ve spent watching, the more disgusted I get.
Now, I like watching renovations or watching people search for the perfect family home as much as anyone, but they’re starting to make me sick. I see these couples or families (rarely with more than 1 child and certainly not 4+) looking at homes that have 3500+ sq ft. And you know what they say? “It’s too small!” or “We would never be able to fit all of our stuff in here.” My thought tends to be…Maybe you have too much stuff!!
It drives me crazy to hear women say “Well I don’t cook, but I still want a pretty kitchen.” or “I don’t like the white appliances…they look so dated!” It disappoints me to hear them say “But it only had one sink in the bathroom and I don’t want to share a sink with him.” I’m sitting there thinking…well you married him didn’t you?
And I think, more often than not, one of two things…The first is “please don’t let my boys marry a woman like that” and the second is “please don’t let me raise my boys to think that white appliances and one sink is the worst thing that a house could have…please let me raise them to be content. Please let me be content.”
I think what it comes down to is the materialism of it all that disappoints me. The fact that we fail to see the hurt and the need around us…in our own backyards and we ignore it all. We shut out the need with our triple car garages and gigantic master en-suite bathrooms and our two sinks.
I want so much more for the world around me and my children. I want for them to not care about white appliances and double sinks. I want them to care about people around them…the things that matter. Sure…I like nice things, I enjoy a home with 3 1/2 bathrooms (they all have one sink) and more space than we need (we are blessed to live in the church parsonage). In our current home, each of my boys could have their own room if they wanted, but they don’t. All four, and soon to be five, share a room. But you know what else? All this space…it doesn’t do much good unless I’m willing to be hospitable to my neighbor and open my home to those around me. As a follower of Christ, I am called to be hospitable. And that doesn’t just mean to people I know…the word actually means to open your home to strangers…complete strangers! Gasp!
I want for myself and my children, to look past the “stuff” and to people. To see needs and meet them, not to be hesitant when reaching out to others. We take for granted that we have clean water on demand, we can buy fresh food, we have flush toilets and in general we don’t have to worry about our safety…we can sleep soundly at night without fear of being attacked, victimized or homeless the next day.
As a mother, I struggle to keep this in perspective for myself and for our children. Kerry and I both work to teach them to keep things in perspective and to look around, to be grateful for the blessings we have. But sometimes we wonder if we’re doing enough.
So how do we do this as parents? How does this goal of breaking down materialism and consumerism culture change our conversations, our actions and our thinking? We’re still learning and refining what goes on in our home, but we are implementing some changes in our family to help our boys (and us) think about more than just ourselves, to think about how we can bless others and to be in a position to be used by God.
Because life and service is about more than white appliances and double sinks.

Family Vision — Homeschooling

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

⁴ “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! ⁵ You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. ⁷You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

We absolutely believe that the best place to teach our children is at home. We are to love the Lord our God with all that we have, we are to teach our children the commandments which God has given us in His holy word. We are to teach them when we sit, walk, lie down and when we rise up. For our family, we believe that the only way we can teach our children diligently is to teach them at home. We believe it’s difficult to do those things if we send our children out of our home to be educated by someone else 8 hours a day.

Before I get too deep into this discussion, I have to first say we come from a family of public educators. In our family, you’re either a nurse or an educator and we have lots of both. Secondly, my husband and I were public schooled and thirdly I think public teachers have very difficult jobs. My goal is not to tell someone why we’re right and they’re wrong in their educational choices, but to tell you why it’s so important to us that it’s become part of our family vision statement.

If our most important goal is that our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren for many generations come to know God, then we should be teaching them as such. My husband and I went to a small public school in Kansas. We were both raised in the church and we went to school with most of the same kids in our youth group, yet the 2 environments were not in unison. We were taught ideas, theories and standards in public school that were contrary to the Christian faith ideas we were being taught at home, Sunday morning and Wednesday night. We were tested and drilled on those ideas, they were presented as fact and were treated as such. When the issue of faith was brought up with was quickly quelled with “separation of church and state” talk or the “I have to teach this to you” argument and it wasn’t discussed. There was no place for reconciliation, no place for harmony.

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When our oldest was ready for kindergarten we sent him to a small Christian school that used to operate in our church. It closed half way through the year and we brought him home to learn. We had read the statistics about how homeschoolers did better on tests and academically than their public schooled counterparts. There are several studies from independent sources that support this, and we thought “well that’s good enough for us”. However, through God’s grace He began to show us that homeschooling is more than just teaching our children at home, but it’s an opportunity for discipleship with our children. It’s an opportunity to come along side them and learn together as a family, teach them our family values and give them the best start possible both academically and spiritually.

Discipleship is modeling and teaching Christians, and our children, the precepts of the Bible; mainly prayer, doctrine, Christian living, and worship. We build these concepts into our daily education with our children. We spend time with them discussing how the principles we’re learning in school apply to biblical principles in life. We integrate it into our studies, our lives and our home.

Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” It comes down to goals for your children. What are your goals for when they are old? What kinds of things are you and do you want to train them to do and be? Because what you teach them now will stick around, it will be what they carry with them later. And children will believe what they hear the most often and the loudest. For many those are the messages they get when they’re sitting in a classroom, for some it is the message they receive at home during the school day and for others it’s the message they get watching TV. I assure you though, that they are getting a message.

If you count up the time that is spent in school, let’s say 8 hours a day 5 days a week for 30 weeks a year = 1200 hours of instruction in the public school system per year. Take those 1200 hours x 13 years of school (k-12) means that children are spending just under 16,000 hours under the instruction of someone else (teachers, coaches and peers) other than their parents. That’s 16,000 hours over the course of 18 years that we’re missing the opportunity to disciple them.

If we continue to look at how the rest of the 16 hours a day is spent. The average school aged child gets 9 hours of sleep a day. So now we’re down to 7 hours for the remainder of our time with our children. The average child has between 5 and 7 hours of screen time (computer, TV, phone etc). So that leave about 2 hours per day that the average parent would have to disciple their child if they’re sending them to public school, if that child doesn’t participate in outside activities such as music lessons or sports. It’s difficult to overcome the messages our children are getting with only 2 hours or less a day to disciple our children.

It comes back to what we feel God has called us as parent to teach our children. We have a very serious responsibility to educate the children God has blessed us with. Educating your children is the most important thing you will ever do as a parent. I would encourage you to ask yourself and pray about the following questions:

What are the most important things that you want your children to learn? How do you go about teaching those things? Are you willing to trust that someone else will want your children to learn those same lessons?

Family Vision — Serve Others

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been writing about our family vision. and the most important part of that vision.
Please keep in mind that in the points that I’ll be including in the coming weeks don’t really occur in a particular order. They are what we feel God has lead us to believe is important for our family. I would encourage you as I write about our family vision to pray about and discuss with your spouse what you family vision should be. Be as specific as possible. Don’t just say what you want, but also why and be sure to explain why to your children.
It is our desire for our children and our family members to learn how to serve others. We want them to learn to serve God first, their siblings, us as parents, and those around them.

Image from Christart.com

Joshua 22:5

⁵ Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

We remind our boys often that we are called to serve God. He sent His son to die on the cross for our sins. His son paid the penalty that we all deserve as a result of our sin. We deserve death and life away from God. God can not bear to be in the presence of sin, He hates it. Nothing we can do will “earn” our way back to Him, there is no way we can ever be good enough. But God loves us. So He sent Jesus to pay the penalty of our sin. Once we believe in Him and trust Him as our savior we are assured eternal life in Heaven with our God. Because of this we should want to serve Him.

Serving God means we are obedient to Him and what He has called us to do. It means that we honor one another, we seek to do God’s will and seek to bring glory Him in all we do. Some ways that we teach our boys to serve God include things like

Prayerfully considering decisions when it comes to how we spend our money and our time
Seek His will before we agree to do something
Give God credit for the blessings, talents and abilities He has given us. They are gifts from God.

I was blessed as a mother to see this in action a year ago in my children. Our AWANA club is sponsoring another club in Nepal. The kids are bringing money to send over to the other club to help support their activities and teaching God’s word. One of my children had been eyeing a book about Legos in the store for several weeks. Every time we would go into the store he would walk past the book, slow down, pick it up and sigh. He didn’t quite have enough money to spend on the book. He was saving his money for that book each week, but then we started our adopt-a-club in AWANA. One morning during our devotions, he said “Mom, I really want that book, but I also want to give to adopt-a-club”. We told him he could give his regular giving money (we ask our boys to divide their commissions into give, save, spend) to the club in Nepal, but he wasn’t quite satisfied. “Mom, I really want that book, but I could give my money ($20.00) to adopt-a-club instead…I don’t know what to do”. I told him to pray for discernment about what God would want him to do and to do what he felt led. He prayed everyday that week for guidance. He chose ultimately to give his saved money to Nepal. He chose to serve God with his money rather than himself. It was a big sacrifice for a little boy, but I was pleased he listened to God’s prompting.

Serving others, especially siblings, requires a lot of humility. Our family’s character definition of humility is “RememberingGod is responsible for our successes and achievements and not being prideful orarrogant in my attitude or behavior.” This is tough, even for adults to master. It means that we have to put our own needs aside for the needs of others. We have to be willing to not be prideful.

I Peter 5:5 says “⁵ You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

We encourage serving others, especially siblings, by having the older and younger boys work together at tasks. When a younger brother is having difficulty completing a task, we ask an older brother to help. They don’t take over, they don’t complete the task alone, but they do it alongside one another. This is beneficial in a number of ways in our family. It teaches us to watch for when someone else needs help, it teaches us to jump in and be ready to help as best we can whenever we can, and it demonstrates team work and cooperation. Often times, the older brother will be able to show the younger an easier or more efficient way to complete a task.

Our 2 youngest serving the family by emptying our dryer

One of the things we often have the boys do is go on recon missions for dirty laundry, lost toys, shoes and whatever else we might be looking for. They go in teams and work together. If a little can’t carry his armful of laundry, the big brother can help by picking it up. They get the job done completely and serve together. They’re not only serving each other, but are also serving our family by helping with the laundry. We have a similar system for putting laundry away. A big and little go together to hang up shirts, often the big brother helping re-hang a shirt if it falls of the hanger but they serve together.

Sometime serving means giving rides in the laundry basket

Many mornings the older boys will help by making a younger brother toast or pouring milk on a little guy’s cereal. It’s not always a huge thing, but it helps keep us humble and helps maintain a servant attitude.

Making toast together

Learning how to serve takes time. We can’t just have one lesson in it during our school day and expect it to take hold. It’s something we have to cultivate every day and every moment we’re together. Teaching your children how to serve can be as simple as helping them learn to hold doors open for those around them. It teaches them to be aware of the needs of others and meet those needs. We do it when we don’t want to, when we’re grumpy and when we’re already frustrated. But…we are called to do it. We do it because God asks us to. And as we serve others, we find that we’re blessed as well.

^{1 Peter 4: 10-11} As each one hasreceived a special gift, employ it in serving oneanother as good stewards of themanifold grace of God. ¹¹ Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is todo so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through JesusChrist, to whom belongs theglory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

If teaching your children how to serve is fairly new to your family, I encourage you to start with small things. Tell them why serving is important. Have them help bring in groceries and then praise them for serving their family. Start by teaching them how to sort laundry into piles, then praise them for helping. Often times I’ll say “I’m so thankful you were willing to serve our family, look how helpful you have been!” or “Wow! Daddy did you see how so and so served our family by doing such and such? I’m so blessed to have someone so helpful!”

Another great way to teach you children to serve, is to serve others yourself. Let your kids see you help others and do things for those around you. Let them go with you or even help make a meal for someone in your church. Tell them that you’re making a meal for this family because they could use a little extra help. When you go out to eat as a family, encourage your children to help you clean the table and floor around where you sat. A family with little kids can make quite a mess. Tell them you’re helping clean up because you don’t want to make more work for someone else or because you want to make the waitress’s job a little easier. We remind our children to leave a place in better condition than what we found it.

In serving others, we are serving God.

Why?

That’s really the big question in all of this isn’t it? Why did it happen? Twice? To us? Why would a loving God let something so horrible happen?
Here is what I’ve come up with as I’ve tried to answer this question for myself.
First of all, it isn’t His fault. It is easy to blame Him for the bad things that happen, but truthfully when we blame God we are blaming a perfect and holy God who created a perfect and holy world for the unholy and sinful things we have done. When God created the world, it was perfect, it was sinless and it was beautiful. In fact, God says it was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But it didn’t stay that way. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and follow the advice of Satan. Because we are all part of Adam’s race, we have been living with the consequences of his disobedience.The moment that sin happened, perfection became imperfection and “good” was replaced with “not so good”. Adam moved away from God’s perfection and took all of us with him.
But praise God that we have a way to be redeemed! The cool thing about it is that when we trust that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, paying that penalty we’re brought into a relationship with God better than the one Adam had! My husband preached a sermon on this very topic several weeks ago in Romans. You can listen to it here.
The truth is Satan is a thief (John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly). That’s his strategy, to steal the good and joy that God created, replacing it instead with false promises and destruction. Jesus rescued us from all of that by paying the penalty for our sins (Romans 5:6-8 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. ⁸But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.) We still have hurt and pain because we’re still living in a fallen and sinful world. We know that God will win the war, but there is still a battle going on here on earth, we still live on an earth where the enemy has freedom.
So really, this whole thing happened because we live in a sinful and fallen world. That’s the big picture answer, but to be honest as a grieving mother that didn’t bring me much comfort. It seems too easy, not personal enough. I want to know why this happened to me.
I have decided and am still learning about why I have lost 2 children within 6 months, why I have been dealt this horrible blow to my “mommy ego” and my ability to carry a pregnancy. One of the reasons, I think, is reflected in 1 Peter 1: 6-7. “⁶ In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, ⁷so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;”
God’s goal for my life isn’t for me to be without trial, easy going, nothing touches me. His goal for my life is that He will be reflected, I will become like Him in character and heart. God uses the pain and the hurt I have encountered to refine my character. To teach me grace, forgiveness, compassion, endurance and to develop a heart like His. In doing so, His work is able to be reflected in my life. It is to bring Him glory, not me. God is not the cause of my pain, He is not the orchestrator of my hurt, those things come from living in a sinful world. But He uses those things to bring about change in my life, in my heart, in my soul. He uses them for His purpose.
Do I know what that purpose is? Nope. I know that it will bring Him glory. I don’t know what big lesson I’m supposed to learn or what I’m supposed to do if anything other than be humble and be ready. My prayer since the loss of Lily is different from my prayer after Knox died. When Knox died I prayed desperately for the hurt to be taken away, I prayed that I would be able to have another child, I prayed that it wouldn’t happen again. My prayer this time has simply been “use me”. I want to continually be in a place where I can be used by God. I have prayed that God would use this experience, this grief, the lives of my children in Heaven to bring Him glory and that I would be ready, humble and obedient to do what He asks of me.
That is why this has happened.

Be Quiet

I was thumbing through my Bible this week and stopped in the book of Luke. In chapter 1 it talks about Zacharias being made mute because he didn’t believe that his wife (Elizabeth) would have a child. But the interesting thing to me wasn’t so much that he couldn’t speak, but that he still couldn’t speak right after the birth…his mouth wasn’t opened for 8 days until after his son (John the Baptist) was born (on the day his some was circumcised).

Can you imagine going 10 months without talking? And back then it’s not like he could just type out his thoughts quickly on a keyboard. The time he must have had to think. Not only that but the time his wife must have had to think, I mean the house would have been pretty quiet. (She also kept herself in seclusion for 5 months after becoming pregnant).

What do you think the first words you would say be after not talking for 10 months and after witnessing the birth of your first child? Zacharias had time to think about what he was going to say. He could have been making a list of all the people he wanted to set straight, or he could have wanted to tell his wife and son how much he loved them. But he didn’t. He praised God. Seriously. After being made mute by God, he praised him right after he got his voice back.

Luke 1:59-64
⁵⁹ And it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zacharias, after his father. ⁶⁰ But his mother answered and said, “No indeed; but he shall be called John.” ⁶¹ And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.” ⁶² And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called. ⁶³ And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished. ⁶⁴ And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God.

I’m not sure why, but as I read and it hit me. I started to think about being quiet. Are there times when God is just telling me to be quiet? Be still and listen, think, pray. I’m not the quietest person, but I’m learning to be. I tend to be a verbal processor when it comes to big decisions or even thinking about big decisions. I have to talk about it, and sometimes I have to talk it to death.

But it seems like God has been teaching me lately to be quiet. To just bite my tongue, sometimes literally, listen and wait. There are times when I’ll bring an issue up to Kerry and God will tell me “okay, you’ve said your piece now be quiet”. My mouth comes open to say something and I’m reminded again “shhh. You’ve already said that.” So I keep it to myself. It’s been interesting to watch how God works when I’m willing to be quiet. Often times He’ll resolve the situation without me ever having to say another word.

The other thing about the story of Zacharias though, is that when he could speak again he PRAISED God. Interesting. It struck me, how quick am I to praise God? When I pray, do I praise Him or do I just go right into my list of wants, concerns and worries? When those issues that I’ve been so quiet about are resolved or prayers are answered…do I immediately praise Him? I might say “thank you”, but praise is so much more than that I think. Praise is reflected not only in our prayers and with our mouths, but is also reflected in our lives a
nd actions.

The story also reminded me that every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). And convicted me that I should be more thankful for those things that come from Him. When I open my mouth, I should open it with praise for my God, even when things are difficult.

I choose

A friend shared this on Facebook today and it’s kind of what I needed. I always ask my students at the beginning of each semester to do a “3 things exercise”.

They write 3 things they are proud of.

They write their 3 biggest accomplishments.

They write 3 rocks in their backpack (the baggage they bring to class with them, things that might prevent them from being successful in my course).

I learn a lot about each of my students with this activity. More than anything though, I’m reminded that we all have things we’ve been blessed with, things we’re proud of and we all have rocks. Some of us have bigger rocks than others, some hide their rocks and some throw them. And some make the choice to leave their rocks behind, to set them on the side of the road and walk away, to not let their rocks weigh them down.

We have choices to make each day. We all have our rocks. We can choose to make someone’s load heavier by giving them our rocks. We do it by unloading our stresses on them, by not listening to those around us or by complaining. We do it by not being accountable for our actions and not being responsible.

We also have the opportunity to help lift the load for someone else. We can smile at them, give an encouraging word, be flexible with them. Even more…we can choose to serve them. It’s out of character for us to serve others. It’s counter-intuitive for most. But serving others can go a long way in helping them on their walk in life. It doesn’t have to be some big fancy “watch me while I serve you” kind of act. People can tell when you’re not being authentic. But it’s the little things. For example, this last week I was wheeling my cart down the hallway (I have this big cart on wheels with all my books, markers and “stuff” for class on it). I had to park it about halfway to the classroom, wade through the students lined up waiting and unlock the classroom door. One of my students pushed my cart into the classroom for me. It wasn’t a huge deal, it wasn’t a big production, but it was an act of service that impacted me. In our society it’s those little acts of service that are often missed. We’re too busy checking Facebook or texting to hold the door open for the person behind us.

I have learned that serving others…helping them carry their rocks, helps us lighten our backpack. We are called to serve others. Galations 5:13-15 says “¹³ For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. ¹⁴ For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” ¹⁵ But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”

So…who’s load can you make lighter today? Are you willing to set your rocks down and help someone else carry theirs?