A New Focus for 2012

"May mornings be advents
Each coming a mercy..."

Some of my favorite lines from a favorite poet, Kathleen Nielson. They fix the eyes of my heart on the wonder of God's never failing faithfulness and his mercies, new every morning.

The first mornings of a new year are extra special, a time to review, a time to renew, and a time to begin again.

I'd abandoned this blog last year as preschool plans no longer filled as much of my days. I've decided to re-envision the purpose of this space and broaden it's content to correspond with my current circumstances.

My desire is to post at least once a week and record insights our family is learning on this journey of being transformed by the Word as we look for evidence of Christ's preeminence in every area of our lives.

Rom 12:2
...be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
ESV

From the Gift to the Giver

A few weeks ago as I was catching up on the ironing I listened to a recorded discussion about Jonathan Edward's teaching on the practice of gratitude. I was shocked to hear that it wasn't a discipline he encouraged. Why not? Well, from the discussion I gathered this: Edwards felt it was not good enough. He was concerned that if we fix our gaze on the gifts, we could miss the beauty of the Giver. He believed that the beauty of Christ should so captivate our souls that if we were never to receive a single gift from His hand, He alone would be enough for our souls to be fully satisfied.

Yes.

Isn't that Job's story? "Though He slay me, yet will I trust him." In the midst of his pain, when he would cry out to God with that "WHY?" question, God always answered WHO. Over and over and over and over again. Always God pointed to Himself. And in the end, God was enough!

When the pain in my life is so great that it feels like hypocrisy to "look for the silver lining," is it possible to train my mind to gaze instead on the beauty of Christ himself? He is the One who never changes. He is the One who is always, always, always good. He is the One in whom all the promises of God are YES! He is the One who will transform me from glory unto glory.

As I've been pondering this I remembered this little story from C.S. Lewis:

I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black.

I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.
Originally published in The Coventry Evening Telegraph, July 17, 1945

And I wonder if I can discipline myself, with each counted blessing, to turn and look up the beam to the Source of the gift. To see more of Him. To know Him better. This really does happen sort of automatically as I count my many blessings, but what if I shifted my own focus just a bit to see the blessing as just the wrapping of the gift in which the Giver makes more of Himself known to me? What if it was my intention to let every undeserved gift be simply the means by which I learn more of Jesus? What if I worked at looking for specific ways that every gift helped me cast my gaze upon the beauty of the Lord? Couldn't this take the already transformational practice of gratitude journaling to a whole new level? Couldn't this truly transform my mind -- from glory unto glory??

Am I crazy to think that maybe even the Beauty Hunters might learn this next step? What it might look like I'm not sure, but maybe something like this:

J: "I'm thankful for my new puppy."
Me: "Why do you think God blessed you with that new puppy?"
J: "I don't know, 'cause I wanted it?"
Me: "Did you know that God's Word tell us that when Jesus was here on earth he had every feeling that we ever have -- and yet he didn't ever sin? Do you think that maybe because Jesus knows what's like to need a friend who is always with you -- that maybe that's why he gave you a dog? Did you know that more than a dog can ever be -- Jesus promises that He will never leave you, never forsake you? That puppy is a very special gift, but Jesus is an even greater gift isn't he, J?"

Or maybe I'm crazy to think that I'll have to help them see this. It is they who teach me so often.

Maybe, with habitual practice, we will all learn, with every gift, to shift our gaze - from examining the beam of light, to examining its Source. May we be so captivated by the beauty of Christ that our souls are satisfied in Him -- with or without the gifts.

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

Welcome Back!

These little guys bubbled with praise! We counted 37 things to give thanks for and it was our first day of class! Here are some of my favorites:

JM: For gold treasure. I don't have any but I have a gold penny!
HB: For mom and dad because they snore when they sleep.
HO: For my litte sister because she is so cute.
IS: For sparkly shoes.
KS: For treasure hunts.
JS: For my class. I have helpers. Three of them. If someone is being mean to me I can just to to one of them.
JM: I get to do school and I turned 5!

All She Knows is Thanks

It happens every time. Little heartaches or great joys. Big desires or small requests. Her heart translates the words. And every time she converts them to praise.

I'll say, "Let's ask God." Or she'll say, "Will you pray with me?" And every time she just says, "Thank you..."

"Thank you that You will help me to obey."

"Thank you that You will keep my daddy safe."

"Thank you that You will help my sister find her shoes."

"Thank you that You will help my friend to get well."

Is this what faith as a little child looks like? Does it just believe with such absolute confidence in the power and goodness of God that it expresses its requests in thanksgiving all the time? Is this what giving thanks in everything looks like?

Oh Lord, thank you that You move mountains with such seeds of faith!

 "For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

Matthew 17:20 ESV

Look! Nemo and Dorie are really real!

The Beauty Hunters and I got to explore the zoo one day last week. I can't begin to describe what a gift from God it was to spend the day with these little people. Two years ago I would have never guessed that God would give me such delight in these little ones. But, I have learned so much from them and this zoo trip was no exception.

If only you could have heard the joy and excitment in their little voices when they saw these fish in the aquarium! "Nemo and Dorie are really real!" their joyful shouts echoed through the hall without regard for others trying to quietly observe these creatures made to silently sing their Creator's praise.

I've been processing this reaction ever since and I've come to realize something: we all long for authenticity. It is part of our nature. We want to know what's really real.

This can't be all bad -- but it is certainly stained by sin. This desire to know whether something was really real existed in Eve prior to the fall. Satan knew it. He used it against her. "Did God actually say that?" "Do you think you will really die?" Satan challenged this creature, made in the very image of God himself, to disbelieve that God would be faithful to His Word!

She doubted the Creator. She fell for the lie. And we've been struggling to determine what is really real ever since.

Oh what grace Jesus brings when he says,

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life."

John 14:6 ESV

And when he promises,
 

"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

John 8:32 ESV

And when he boldly declares in the high court of Pilate,

"For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth."

John 18:37 ESV

He is the truth. Truth is a person. His name is Jesus.
 
But do we really believe? Do we live in such a way so as to declare to our wandering soul day after day that God is faithful to His promises? That we can know Him who is really real because He has revealed Himself to us in His Word? That His Word is the very breath of the Holy Spirit? 

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

John 1:14 ESV

O Lord, we believe! Help our unbelief!

She doesn't die, right Mommy?

On Wendnesday night as the sun was going to bed and the mosquitos were coming out to play, my 5-year-old little girl and I headed out to watch The Wizard of Oz on the blow-up screen in the city park. Loaded with blankets and our folding chairs we joined the small-town crowd gathered to watch this long-standing favorite.

One chair really did work better as a footstool and we snuggled together on the other one. Smart move. We'd forgotten the bug spray and two bodies are warmer than one. Repeatedly throughout each intense scene in the film she would lean in tight and say, "She doesn't die, right Mommy?" Each time I would answer, "No, she is going to be OK." And she would turn her eyes back to the screen and hold her breath till the tension passed.

As her racing heart pressed into mine the words of Hebrews 11 echoed in my soul. How amazing is our God. He knows we are but dust. He understands our infirmities. He knows that we could not bear the sanctification process of suffering and pain if we did not know that in the end the promises are fulfilled! Christ is the victor! Death HAS been swallowed up in victory!

Abraham lived out his days, as did Isaac and Jacob after him, in tents. They believed that God would give them the place he had promised. They were looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God.

Sarah considered him faithful who had promised.

Moses endured as seeing him who is invisible.

We know the end of the story. No, He doesn't die. He wins!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV

Rescued to Rescue

With fetal alchol syndrome his mother abondoned him to a Russian orphanage where the workers lied to him and told him that "monsters would get him" if he didn't stay in the bed. One day he brought in a picture of his beautifully decorated Noah's Ark bedroom for the gratitude journal because he wanted us to know how he thanked God for his new mom and dad.

But it was a little incident in class this past week that has been replaying itself in my head since it happened. The children, as little ones learning the art of self-control are apt to do, struggled to sit still, agitating one another as we circled to write the week's gratitude notes. "Ok little ones, since we are having trouble teaching our hands to obey -- let's sit on them! Everyone's hands under your bum."

After a quiet moment he giggled, "I only have to sit on one hand cause the other one's too short!"

Yes. Yes. Yes. His left hand and the lower part of its arm have been missing since birth.

But God,

who sees so different than we do, allowed his adoptive parents to resuce him so that he might be exposed to the Grace that lets us see with new eyes. Through their patient and firm but gentle love he has learned to see his arm as God's special gift.

It is this little one who, having received no love for his first four years of life, is so anxious to be good. His heart breaks if he's done wrong.

It is this little one who thanks God week after week that "Jesus died on the cross for our sins."

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved."

Ephesians 1:3-6