December 1st. Wow. This is the last first day of the month for 2010 ever. My very wonderful husband surprised me with a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte this morning. He is so sweet like that.
I think, for my final blog post on the 1st for 2010, I want this to be somewhat reflective. What have been the key things God has done in my heart in 2010? Here are a few of them:
1. This has probably been Todd and I’s best year of marriage. I feel like I’m finally understanding how two sinners can really have an amazing marriage. Much of the secret is found in Ephesians 4:2, which says we need to “overlook one another’s faults because of your love.” This is another verse that has marked 2010 for me. Instead of letting myself getting offended, I am choosing to love Todd and overlook any reason I may have to feel upset. I am making a point to be appreciative for the hundreds of things Todd does right, instead of feeling like Todd needs to be gravely aware of every single little mistake he makes. When I simply love Todd the way he is, and leave his sanctification up to God, and keep an attitude of thankfulness, everything is better.
2. Even though I’ve been writing and speaking about joy for over 5 years, I feel like this year I’ve gain a substantially greater measure of understanding on the subject. Psalm 32:11 comes to mind, which says that joy is the result of having an upright heart. When I start to feel discouraged, depressed, or anything else of that sort, I now check my heart and see where I need to obey God more. Usually, I just need to be more thankful and stop any feelings of pity for myself. Or, I may feel guilty about something God is convicting me of—and in that case, I need to change my behavior so I have a clean conscious. Since a troubled conscious does not get along with joy for long. But a clean conscious that pleases God is rewarded with peace and joy.
3. Since I love to talk, I’ve also spent a lot of time working toward being more sober minded. For many years, I wasn’t sure what this biblical term meant. God tells women to be sober in Titus 2, but as far as I was concerned, I had that nailed. I don’t get drunk and I don’t do any other drugs. But sober means more than just staying away from drugs and drunkenness. I’ve realized that I can get so caught up in a moment that I lose my “sobriety.” Instead of thinking clearly, when I get excited about something, I can talk so much and so excitedly that I begin to say things I later regret. Just foolish things that I don’t need to say. When I am sober-minded, it means that I keep my mouth and my excitement in check, only saying what I’ll be glad I said later, and not just saying whatever I want because I’m having so much fun. But rather keeping a watch at the door of my mouth even when I’m tempted to do otherwise.
This year seems like it has flown by so fast. Yet these lessons are some of the primary ones that I’ve been learning and meditating on this year. God has been faithful to us this year, as He has always been.
What things has God been teaching you this year?
I’d love to hear! Love in Christ, Katie
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
How to be Free of Self-Pity and Bitterness
Self-pity comes dressed in many costumes. Sometimes it’s anger. A woman feels angry at her life, at her husband, and what she does or doesn’t have. The root of this anger is feeling sorry for herself instead of being thankful.
Sometimes self-pity comes in the form of wishing things were different. A woman thinks “if only” she had made different decisions, things would be better.
Other times, self pity shows up as sadness. This woman just feels sad and she doesn’t know why. It’s often the feeling that results from a day or a week of frustration over the things her husband does wrong, or over her weight, or over not being appreciated, or whatever.
Here’s an example. A woman’s husband makes a critical remark. She thinks, “If only I had known what he was really like before we got married, then I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain of his rude comments.” Then she gets angry. “Why didn’t anyone warn me? Why didn’t any of my friends care enough to tell me not to marry him?”
That night she feels sad. As she stands in the kitchen making dinner, she doesn’t really know why she feels sad, but she’s drained of energy and she feels bad. Nothing horrible happened that day. Life has been good, but she’s in the dumps.
The next day she doesn’t get much done. She doesn’t really feel like working hard. She dreams of a life she doesn’t have. The bitter thoughts she feels have started to grow roots, and it becomes hard not to wish things were different.
The problem began in her thoughts. When her husband (or friend or family member or person at church or whoever) did something wrong, she let herself think of it. Instead of forgetting what lies behind, and keeping no record of how she has been wronged, and overlooking one another’s faults because of her love, and forgiving one another because God in Christ Jesus forgave her (Phil 3, 1 Cor. 13, Eph. 4), she simply wished things were different, or “innocently” felt hurt by what happened.
But when normal hurt becomes lingering hurt, the line starts to blur into bitterness and unforgiveness. It’s a dangerous path to go down. If you want to be blessed, forgive others. I’ve found the easiest way for me to stay clear of bitterness when I am wronged, is not to give what happened another thought. If I’ve been hurt or bothered by something, and I start to think of it, I will say to myself, “I’m not going to give this another thought. What can I be thankful for?”
Another check for your thoughts is your facial expression. When you catch your expression in the mirror, what does it say? Is your face reflecting thankfulness and joy? Or sourness and self pity? Your face says a lot about the thoughts behind the face.
Next, check your heart. Have you made a point to punish the person who hurt you by treating them coldly? Do you want to avoid looking cheerful because it might make the person who hurt you think that what they did was okay? I love the quote from Nancy Leigh DeMoss who says, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
Bitterness, self pity, negative feelings can kill you. And I mean this very literally. The Bible says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). Your bones make white blood cells, which is your immune system. If your bones dry up (meaning the bone marrow inside), you are literally depleting your immune system. A broken spirit is hard on your body.
Sometimes pain and tragedy is unavoidable. But other times a broken spirit can be caused by reliving some painful experience over and over again. This is like going to a feast and drinking Drano instead. You have a mind which can feast on any thought you give it. God knows the type of thoughts which will be most beneficial for you in all ways. I’d like to conclude with that list that God has given for your benefit in the Bible.
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers,
Sometimes self-pity comes in the form of wishing things were different. A woman thinks “if only” she had made different decisions, things would be better.
Other times, self pity shows up as sadness. This woman just feels sad and she doesn’t know why. It’s often the feeling that results from a day or a week of frustration over the things her husband does wrong, or over her weight, or over not being appreciated, or whatever.
Here’s an example. A woman’s husband makes a critical remark. She thinks, “If only I had known what he was really like before we got married, then I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain of his rude comments.” Then she gets angry. “Why didn’t anyone warn me? Why didn’t any of my friends care enough to tell me not to marry him?”
That night she feels sad. As she stands in the kitchen making dinner, she doesn’t really know why she feels sad, but she’s drained of energy and she feels bad. Nothing horrible happened that day. Life has been good, but she’s in the dumps.
The next day she doesn’t get much done. She doesn’t really feel like working hard. She dreams of a life she doesn’t have. The bitter thoughts she feels have started to grow roots, and it becomes hard not to wish things were different.
The problem began in her thoughts. When her husband (or friend or family member or person at church or whoever) did something wrong, she let herself think of it. Instead of forgetting what lies behind, and keeping no record of how she has been wronged, and overlooking one another’s faults because of her love, and forgiving one another because God in Christ Jesus forgave her (Phil 3, 1 Cor. 13, Eph. 4), she simply wished things were different, or “innocently” felt hurt by what happened.
But when normal hurt becomes lingering hurt, the line starts to blur into bitterness and unforgiveness. It’s a dangerous path to go down. If you want to be blessed, forgive others. I’ve found the easiest way for me to stay clear of bitterness when I am wronged, is not to give what happened another thought. If I’ve been hurt or bothered by something, and I start to think of it, I will say to myself, “I’m not going to give this another thought. What can I be thankful for?”
Another check for your thoughts is your facial expression. When you catch your expression in the mirror, what does it say? Is your face reflecting thankfulness and joy? Or sourness and self pity? Your face says a lot about the thoughts behind the face.
Next, check your heart. Have you made a point to punish the person who hurt you by treating them coldly? Do you want to avoid looking cheerful because it might make the person who hurt you think that what they did was okay? I love the quote from Nancy Leigh DeMoss who says, “Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
Bitterness, self pity, negative feelings can kill you. And I mean this very literally. The Bible says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). Your bones make white blood cells, which is your immune system. If your bones dry up (meaning the bone marrow inside), you are literally depleting your immune system. A broken spirit is hard on your body.
Sometimes pain and tragedy is unavoidable. But other times a broken spirit can be caused by reliving some painful experience over and over again. This is like going to a feast and drinking Drano instead. You have a mind which can feast on any thought you give it. God knows the type of thoughts which will be most beneficial for you in all ways. I’d like to conclude with that list that God has given for your benefit in the Bible.
Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers,
- whatever is true,
- whatever is noble,
- whatever is right,
- whatever is pure,
- whatever is lovely,
- whatever is admirable–
- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–
Friday, October 1, 2010
Opening Your Mouth Real Wide
In today’s blog, I talk about how we can open our mouths wider. God says that if we open our mouths wide, He will fill them. I especially want to eat and be filled with Scripture, because it has the power to make me more like Jesus, to increase my faith, and to keep me focused on eternal things.
Here is what will you learn in today’s blog:
· How to get stirred up to read God’s Word more
· How to naturally teach the Bible to your kids
· How to talk and think on God’s Word
· Where you can immediately begin teaching the Bible when your heart is burning
Opening Your Mouth Real Wide
For years I spent so much time just absorbing the Bible. I made reading the Bible each day the highest priority in my life. But after I got married and had children, reading the Bible became more of a discipline and less the overwhelming obsession it had previously been. I’m so thankful for those years of learning God’s Word, only I want more now. I’ve been meditating on the verse “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it” Psalm 81:10. Basically, this means that God provides for us everything we need to be satisfied, filled, and happy—if only we will look to Him, call upon Him, and believe Him. Amen!
But what really spoke to my heart from this verse is opening my mouth wide to receive God’s Word. I am certain that whatever is in my thoughts will end up on my tongue. I will speak about what I think about. Jesus said that we will end up talking about whatever is in our hearts (Matthew 12:34). It’s just what humans do. We talk with our friends, our spouse, whoever about the things we’ve been thinking about.
And of course, what we think about comes so much from what we take in. That’s why we must fill ourselves with good things. I know what I need to put in my mind. I need to open my mouth wide and let God fill me with His Word. I need to make God’s word my continual feast.
Before I open my mouth to speak—with my friends, to my kids, at the Women’s Events I speak at, at church and everywhere else I go—it first needs to be filled. I need to open my mouth wide and eat up the glorious things the Bible teaches. Which brings to my mind, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16).
Every time I’ve found myself in a place of serious Bible reading, it has come following a prayer, asking God to put that desire in my heart. I've prayed that I would hunger and thirst for the Bible more than my necessary food. When I think back to the times in my life when I most longed to teach the Bible, it was those times when my mouth was so full of God’s Word that I felt like Jeremiah and David—it burned in my bones. When Jeremiah was not speaking the Word of God to the people, he said, “In my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.” (Jeremiah 20:9, Psalm 39:3)
But first, he had to be filled with God’s Word. He first learned the Word of God, and then it burned inside him. This is the order. You come to a place when the Bible is so saturating your life that the joy of a Scripture or the excitement over how it applies to your life burns inside you. And when it burns inside you, what do you do? Teach kids!
Now that I have children, I have the perfect audience, night and day, anytime I want, to let God’s Word just pour out of me. So I want to open my mouth wide again. I want to be filled with Scripture. Not just when I’m teaching women or doing something “professionally,” but that the Bible would so burn in my bones that I could not help but speak of it when I rise up and when I lie down, when I travel and when I eat. (Our family also has a formal “Devotions” time when we read the Bible and pray. But we’ve never talked about God’s Word too much. There is no such thing.)
This is the biblical plan: Let the Bible saturate your life and heart. Open your mouth wide and let God fill it. And then, let that full mouth of wisdom and truth and kindness be poured out. And especially, let it be poured in love upon your young sponges—the children in your life whom God has made receptive to your teaching.
Here is what will you learn in today’s blog:
· How to get stirred up to read God’s Word more
· How to naturally teach the Bible to your kids
· How to talk and think on God’s Word
· Where you can immediately begin teaching the Bible when your heart is burning
Opening Your Mouth Real Wide
For years I spent so much time just absorbing the Bible. I made reading the Bible each day the highest priority in my life. But after I got married and had children, reading the Bible became more of a discipline and less the overwhelming obsession it had previously been. I’m so thankful for those years of learning God’s Word, only I want more now. I’ve been meditating on the verse “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it” Psalm 81:10. Basically, this means that God provides for us everything we need to be satisfied, filled, and happy—if only we will look to Him, call upon Him, and believe Him. Amen!
But what really spoke to my heart from this verse is opening my mouth wide to receive God’s Word. I am certain that whatever is in my thoughts will end up on my tongue. I will speak about what I think about. Jesus said that we will end up talking about whatever is in our hearts (Matthew 12:34). It’s just what humans do. We talk with our friends, our spouse, whoever about the things we’ve been thinking about.
And of course, what we think about comes so much from what we take in. That’s why we must fill ourselves with good things. I know what I need to put in my mind. I need to open my mouth wide and let God fill me with His Word. I need to make God’s word my continual feast.
Before I open my mouth to speak—with my friends, to my kids, at the Women’s Events I speak at, at church and everywhere else I go—it first needs to be filled. I need to open my mouth wide and eat up the glorious things the Bible teaches. Which brings to my mind, “Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16).
Every time I’ve found myself in a place of serious Bible reading, it has come following a prayer, asking God to put that desire in my heart. I've prayed that I would hunger and thirst for the Bible more than my necessary food. When I think back to the times in my life when I most longed to teach the Bible, it was those times when my mouth was so full of God’s Word that I felt like Jeremiah and David—it burned in my bones. When Jeremiah was not speaking the Word of God to the people, he said, “In my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.” (Jeremiah 20:9, Psalm 39:3)
But first, he had to be filled with God’s Word. He first learned the Word of God, and then it burned inside him. This is the order. You come to a place when the Bible is so saturating your life that the joy of a Scripture or the excitement over how it applies to your life burns inside you. And when it burns inside you, what do you do? Teach kids!
Now that I have children, I have the perfect audience, night and day, anytime I want, to let God’s Word just pour out of me. So I want to open my mouth wide again. I want to be filled with Scripture. Not just when I’m teaching women or doing something “professionally,” but that the Bible would so burn in my bones that I could not help but speak of it when I rise up and when I lie down, when I travel and when I eat. (Our family also has a formal “Devotions” time when we read the Bible and pray. But we’ve never talked about God’s Word too much. There is no such thing.)
This is the biblical plan: Let the Bible saturate your life and heart. Open your mouth wide and let God fill it. And then, let that full mouth of wisdom and truth and kindness be poured out. And especially, let it be poured in love upon your young sponges—the children in your life whom God has made receptive to your teaching.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Just for Fun
Today I let the kids each pick from a list of "prizes" as a reward for doing a job for me. Just for fun, I let James pick a prize also. His prize was "Pick a Special Snack." So I made him a special snack that was mostly healthy but also very fun.
James wanted me to make one face for each person in our family. He is now sitting on my lap while I type this saying, "Make spiderman, make spiderman." I don't think he quite realizes that it's almost impossible to add fine details with peanut butter and chocolate syrup.
Since I don't usually make creative snacks, I thought I'd post my work before it's gone forever...
The eyes are dried cranberries and the noses are sliced almonds.
Now James is sharing with the family...
In case you're wondering why the boys aren't wearing shirts... they take after Daddy.
 | ||||
| Starting from the bottom left corner and going counter-clockwise, this is Todd, me, the Bean, Princess, and Austin :) |
 | |
| Fake smiles can be so cute! |
Now James is sharing with the family...
In case you're wondering why the boys aren't wearing shirts... they take after Daddy.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Pleasing God by How You Remember
Remember the Alamo. Just six days ago I sat at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas and listened to a historical presentation on the story of the battle between the Texians and the army of Santa Anna. I toured what remains of the historic Alamo battle site. And sometime last Thursday, I got the phrase stuck in my head, “Remember the Alamo.” That phrase is still in my head. Remember the Alamo.
But that’s not the only phrase with the word remember that keeps coming into my thoughts. All this week, I’ve been thinking of multitudes of phrases with the word remember. Okay, maybe not multitudes. To be precise, there have been three.
The second is a phrase from Psalm 119. It says, “Remember the word to Your servant, in which You have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me” (Psalm 119:49-50). In this case, the Psalmist is asking God to remember.
And the third time I saw the word remember repeated multiple times this week was in a Christian biography. The individual would think things like, “Remember how God was faithful when…? Remember when God answered your prayer for…?” and so on.
So all these triggers with the word remember have made me think about the significance of remembering.
Now before I go any farther, let me add, I’m fascinated by how people think. I don’t care about how most people think, actually. But, I’m interested in the specific thoughts of people who live godly lives that others can imitate.
I would love to roll back the curtain on the thoughts of someone like the apostle Paul and look at how he thought. What did he think when he was doing boring things? What about when he prepared his food? Did he preach to himself? Did he remind himself of things? What specific phrases did he use? How did he keep his mind focused on Scripture without wandering into some unedifying thought?
One of those things that I suppose godly men like Paul think is that they remember. Now, I know Paul said we are to forget what lies behind (Phil. 3:13), and forgetting is the opposite of remembering, but at other times he told us specific things to remember. For instance, in Ephesians 2, Paul tells us to remember how we were at one time separated from Christ—having no hope and without God in the world. He wants us to remember what it was like to not have Christ, knowing now that we are saved and have hope. We are to remember where we came from because these memories provoke us to gratitude and love and cause us to move forward.
Listen, we can’t use anything from the past as an excuse to not move forward with maximum effort. That’s why Paul tells us to forget what lies behind. But when we remember what God has done, the point is to stir us up to keep moving forward. Like in Revelation, Jesus tells the church at Ephesus, “Remember from where you have fallen” (Revelation 2:5). He wants the people to remember how they felt when they were first saved. He wants them to remember their excitement and love for God, because love for God is the compelling reason why they should keep pressing on to follow Christ.
To be specific, anything we remember must fit the criteria of Philippians 4:8. Which means it must be true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, and praiseworthy.
God wants us to remember His faithfulness and to remember truths learned from the Bible. 1 Chronicles 16:12 sums it up perfectly: “Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done, His marvels and the judgments from His mouth.”
The Israelites put up large memorial stones to remember the miracles God did for them, so that even their children would ask, “Why are these stones here?” And the parents would remember to tell their children the miracles God did for them. We take communion at church to remember the death of Jesus for our sins on the cross. We memorize the Bible so we will remember it.
Our memories can serve us so that we remember God’s faithfulness and His Word, and grow by what we remember. Or our memories can be used to hinder our walk with God.
So here is my challenge: Every time you catch yourself remembering something that isn’t honorable, praiseworthy, pure, true, right and so forth, begin to speak in your mind, “Remember…” and then list the good things God has done for you. For me, I like to reflect on times God has answered my prayers. I’ve said to myself, “Remember how many nights of my life I have prayed for God to protect me, and He has always protected me? Remember how every time my kids were sick, I prayed for them to be healed, and God always healed them? Remember how when Todd (my husband) was out of work, and I cried to the Lord, and He heard me and gave Todd a job? Remember how I was driving on a long trip many years ago, and when the car in front of me stopped suddenly on the one lane highway at 70 MPH, it was by a miracle that I did not crash?” And I remember many more wonderful things God has done for me.
And as I remember God’s faithfulness in my own life, I can’t help but be thankful and press on to follow Christ because of all He has already done for me.
“Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done, His marvels and the judgments from His mouth” (1 Chronicles 16:12).
But that’s not the only phrase with the word remember that keeps coming into my thoughts. All this week, I’ve been thinking of multitudes of phrases with the word remember. Okay, maybe not multitudes. To be precise, there have been three.
The second is a phrase from Psalm 119. It says, “Remember the word to Your servant, in which You have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me” (Psalm 119:49-50). In this case, the Psalmist is asking God to remember.
And the third time I saw the word remember repeated multiple times this week was in a Christian biography. The individual would think things like, “Remember how God was faithful when…? Remember when God answered your prayer for…?” and so on.
So all these triggers with the word remember have made me think about the significance of remembering.
Now before I go any farther, let me add, I’m fascinated by how people think. I don’t care about how most people think, actually. But, I’m interested in the specific thoughts of people who live godly lives that others can imitate.
I would love to roll back the curtain on the thoughts of someone like the apostle Paul and look at how he thought. What did he think when he was doing boring things? What about when he prepared his food? Did he preach to himself? Did he remind himself of things? What specific phrases did he use? How did he keep his mind focused on Scripture without wandering into some unedifying thought?
One of those things that I suppose godly men like Paul think is that they remember. Now, I know Paul said we are to forget what lies behind (Phil. 3:13), and forgetting is the opposite of remembering, but at other times he told us specific things to remember. For instance, in Ephesians 2, Paul tells us to remember how we were at one time separated from Christ—having no hope and without God in the world. He wants us to remember what it was like to not have Christ, knowing now that we are saved and have hope. We are to remember where we came from because these memories provoke us to gratitude and love and cause us to move forward.
Listen, we can’t use anything from the past as an excuse to not move forward with maximum effort. That’s why Paul tells us to forget what lies behind. But when we remember what God has done, the point is to stir us up to keep moving forward. Like in Revelation, Jesus tells the church at Ephesus, “Remember from where you have fallen” (Revelation 2:5). He wants the people to remember how they felt when they were first saved. He wants them to remember their excitement and love for God, because love for God is the compelling reason why they should keep pressing on to follow Christ.
To be specific, anything we remember must fit the criteria of Philippians 4:8. Which means it must be true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, and praiseworthy.
God wants us to remember His faithfulness and to remember truths learned from the Bible. 1 Chronicles 16:12 sums it up perfectly: “Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done, His marvels and the judgments from His mouth.”
The Israelites put up large memorial stones to remember the miracles God did for them, so that even their children would ask, “Why are these stones here?” And the parents would remember to tell their children the miracles God did for them. We take communion at church to remember the death of Jesus for our sins on the cross. We memorize the Bible so we will remember it.
Our memories can serve us so that we remember God’s faithfulness and His Word, and grow by what we remember. Or our memories can be used to hinder our walk with God.
So here is my challenge: Every time you catch yourself remembering something that isn’t honorable, praiseworthy, pure, true, right and so forth, begin to speak in your mind, “Remember…” and then list the good things God has done for you. For me, I like to reflect on times God has answered my prayers. I’ve said to myself, “Remember how many nights of my life I have prayed for God to protect me, and He has always protected me? Remember how every time my kids were sick, I prayed for them to be healed, and God always healed them? Remember how when Todd (my husband) was out of work, and I cried to the Lord, and He heard me and gave Todd a job? Remember how I was driving on a long trip many years ago, and when the car in front of me stopped suddenly on the one lane highway at 70 MPH, it was by a miracle that I did not crash?” And I remember many more wonderful things God has done for me.
And as I remember God’s faithfulness in my own life, I can’t help but be thankful and press on to follow Christ because of all He has already done for me.
“Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done, His marvels and the judgments from His mouth” (1 Chronicles 16:12).
Sunday, August 1, 2010
I Shall Not Want
Psalm 23:1 “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
Contentment
The blogs I’ve written the last few months have followed the theme of virtues. I didn’t really do it on purpose, but it’s been nice that it worked out that way.
In May I wrote on Humility. In June and July I talked on Faith. And now I am on Contentment. All of this is a result of what God has been doing in my heart. It’s interesting that it worked out to follow the theme of different moral qualities.
Each blog has reflected the work God was doing in my heart that month, and this blog is certainly fresh from my life.
I reading through Psalm 23 a few days ago, and I had just gotten through verse one when I thought: “Now, hmmm. Does this verse mean…
a) Since God is my shepherd, I won’t have needs that go unfilled.
Or…
b) Since God is my shepherd, I better not be covetous.
I’ve heard the first interpretation taught more than the second, but I didn’t think more on what it meant until a few days later…
I was getting ready for bed, standing next to my dresser, when I was struck with an urgent thought—the kind of urgent thought you have when, two minutes after leaving Wal-mart, you realize your youngest child is not buckled in his car seat (I’m not saying anything else about that.)—and you feel like, I better act on this RIGHT NOW.
Well, the thought was, “I’m supposed to be meditating day and night on God’s Word. I don’t have a verse in my head. Quick! Quick! Think of a verse!”
With relief, Psalm 23:1 came to mind: “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”
I repeated this verse to myself a few times as the words “I shall not want” began to paint a picture in my mind of a someone who never wants things she doesn’t have. I began to think of the implications of what it might mean to say, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” in the context of “I better not be covetous.”
I already know God says not to covet. It’s the tenth commandment of the Ten Commandments. I first heard “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” by Ray Comfort back when it was still on cassette tape, over 15 years ago. If you haven’t heard this message, you should. (If it seems the first two sentences are totally unrelated to the second two sentences, the context is that Ray Comfort places a huge emphasis on the Ten Commandments—which I now know backwards and forwards, with much credit to his ministry.)
Anyway, I continued to think of the kind of woman who can say, “I shall not want.” She wouldn’t obsess over not owning a house or having a large backyard. After all, someone who says, “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want” is someone who is content.
Greed. That was my next thought. Greed is the opposite of saying, “I shall not want.” Lack of contentment is greed.
The next day as I was telling my friend Nicole about my fascination with Psalm 23:1, another verse along the same lines came into my head: Hebrews 13:5.
I used to have this verse on the wall in my bedroom before I was married. If you’ve heard me speak in person or read much of what I’ve written, you probably know that I’m big on wall messages. I put random verses or phrases up on my walls, doors, cupboards, wherever, so I don’t forget things that I feel are super important. But I do try to keep it under control.
Back before I was married, it was not “under control.” Other than places on the ceiling, about every square inch of my bedroom walls were covered with verses I’d written on 8½ x 11 inch paper or 3 x 5 cards. And back when I was single, I had far more time to lie in bed and read each and every verse.
If I can remember correctly, Hebrews 13:5 was on my closet door. I guess next to clothes is a good place for a girl to put a verse about contentment. And here’s what Hebrews 13:5 says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”
Have you seen the correlation? God is my shepherd. He takes care of me. And he will never leave me or forsake me. Therefore, I shall not want. I shall not covet.
If God is my Shepherd, if I trust that He is leading me to the pastures he wants me in, then I won’t feel sorry for myself for what I don’t have.
I will not want. I will keep my life free from the love of money. I will be content with such things as I have.
And this is a message not just for July and August, but for all our lives. Many people spend their entire lives seeking to be rich. Some of them probably even think that if they we’re richer, they would be content with that. God tells us to be content now, with exactly what we have. And the reason? Because He is our Shepherd. And that is why we can say with David, “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”
***Breaking News… I have a trivia question for you. What is the last thing you want to spill in your kitchen? Let me add some more details to this trivia question. It is something you spill:
If you guessed watered-down honey, then you are CORRECT. (I’m making the game show “Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.” sound in my head right now.)
Which is what happened to me right after I finished typing the last line on the subject of contentment. :)
I got up to make another cup of tea after I finished typing. This was my second cup of tea today. I was in between honey bottles, so I put some water in the last honey bottle so I’d be sure to get all of it. Yes, I’m extremely frugal.
As I went to pick up the honey bottle, I hit it over instead and it splashed over my counter, down my drawers, and onto the fridge and floor. So now you know, I’m not only frugal, but I’m also a klutz.
Love, Katie
Contentment
The blogs I’ve written the last few months have followed the theme of virtues. I didn’t really do it on purpose, but it’s been nice that it worked out that way.
In May I wrote on Humility. In June and July I talked on Faith. And now I am on Contentment. All of this is a result of what God has been doing in my heart. It’s interesting that it worked out to follow the theme of different moral qualities.
Each blog has reflected the work God was doing in my heart that month, and this blog is certainly fresh from my life.
I reading through Psalm 23 a few days ago, and I had just gotten through verse one when I thought: “Now, hmmm. Does this verse mean…
a) Since God is my shepherd, I won’t have needs that go unfilled.
Or…
b) Since God is my shepherd, I better not be covetous.
I’ve heard the first interpretation taught more than the second, but I didn’t think more on what it meant until a few days later…
I was getting ready for bed, standing next to my dresser, when I was struck with an urgent thought—the kind of urgent thought you have when, two minutes after leaving Wal-mart, you realize your youngest child is not buckled in his car seat (I’m not saying anything else about that.)—and you feel like, I better act on this RIGHT NOW.
Well, the thought was, “I’m supposed to be meditating day and night on God’s Word. I don’t have a verse in my head. Quick! Quick! Think of a verse!”
With relief, Psalm 23:1 came to mind: “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”
I repeated this verse to myself a few times as the words “I shall not want” began to paint a picture in my mind of a someone who never wants things she doesn’t have. I began to think of the implications of what it might mean to say, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” in the context of “I better not be covetous.”
I already know God says not to covet. It’s the tenth commandment of the Ten Commandments. I first heard “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” by Ray Comfort back when it was still on cassette tape, over 15 years ago. If you haven’t heard this message, you should. (If it seems the first two sentences are totally unrelated to the second two sentences, the context is that Ray Comfort places a huge emphasis on the Ten Commandments—which I now know backwards and forwards, with much credit to his ministry.)
Anyway, I continued to think of the kind of woman who can say, “I shall not want.” She wouldn’t obsess over not owning a house or having a large backyard. After all, someone who says, “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want” is someone who is content.
Greed. That was my next thought. Greed is the opposite of saying, “I shall not want.” Lack of contentment is greed.
The next day as I was telling my friend Nicole about my fascination with Psalm 23:1, another verse along the same lines came into my head: Hebrews 13:5.
I used to have this verse on the wall in my bedroom before I was married. If you’ve heard me speak in person or read much of what I’ve written, you probably know that I’m big on wall messages. I put random verses or phrases up on my walls, doors, cupboards, wherever, so I don’t forget things that I feel are super important. But I do try to keep it under control.
Back before I was married, it was not “under control.” Other than places on the ceiling, about every square inch of my bedroom walls were covered with verses I’d written on 8½ x 11 inch paper or 3 x 5 cards. And back when I was single, I had far more time to lie in bed and read each and every verse.
If I can remember correctly, Hebrews 13:5 was on my closet door. I guess next to clothes is a good place for a girl to put a verse about contentment. And here’s what Hebrews 13:5 says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’”
Have you seen the correlation? God is my shepherd. He takes care of me. And he will never leave me or forsake me. Therefore, I shall not want. I shall not covet.
If God is my Shepherd, if I trust that He is leading me to the pastures he wants me in, then I won’t feel sorry for myself for what I don’t have.
I will not want. I will keep my life free from the love of money. I will be content with such things as I have.
And this is a message not just for July and August, but for all our lives. Many people spend their entire lives seeking to be rich. Some of them probably even think that if they we’re richer, they would be content with that. God tells us to be content now, with exactly what we have. And the reason? Because He is our Shepherd. And that is why we can say with David, “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”
***Breaking News… I have a trivia question for you. What is the last thing you want to spill in your kitchen? Let me add some more details to this trivia question. It is something you spill:
- In the middle of summer
- In the middle of summer IN TEXAS—which could be called, “The land of the insects,” especially in summer.
- Something that tips over on your kitchen counter, runs down your drawers so that it covers the top of each draw and goes partially inside, and then lands on the floor?
If you guessed watered-down honey, then you are CORRECT. (I’m making the game show “Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.” sound in my head right now.)
Which is what happened to me right after I finished typing the last line on the subject of contentment. :)
I got up to make another cup of tea after I finished typing. This was my second cup of tea today. I was in between honey bottles, so I put some water in the last honey bottle so I’d be sure to get all of it. Yes, I’m extremely frugal.
As I went to pick up the honey bottle, I hit it over instead and it splashed over my counter, down my drawers, and onto the fridge and floor. So now you know, I’m not only frugal, but I’m also a klutz.
Love, Katie
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Believing God When You Pray (part 2)
Now last month I talked about how to pray in faith, but I wanted to use even more Scripture to clarify this point, specifically Psalm 54. David, who wrote this Psalm, is certainly a man who believed God would answer his prayers. His prayers often include both his request and his confident declaration of God’s answer (before he actually sees God answer).
First off, what is David praying about in Psalm 54? He starts with the cry, “Save me, O God.” I am very familiar with this prayer, that cry of desperation. “Please God, please help me.”
Next, after asking God to save him by His power, David says, “Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth.” These words reveal a fervency of spirit. An attitude that says, “You must hear me Lord, for what good is my prayer if you don’t?”
In verse three we learn the circumstances prompting David’s request for God to save and vindicate him. People are hunting David down to kill him. Yikes! And not enemies or people he has wronged, but strangers—violent men who want to kill David though he has done nothing wrong. These men were the spies of King Saul, who were seeking to kill David because of Saul’s jealousy.
Now that David has set forth his request, a plea for God to hear him, and his predicament, he moves on to believe God will answer: “Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is the sustainer of my soul. He will recompense the evil to my foes; Destroy them in Your faithfulness” (Psalm 54:4-5).
“In the fourth and fifth verses, [David] becomes his own prophet, promising himself victory.” J. Dolben, in a Thanksgiving Sermon, 1665.
David was confident God had both the ability and the willingness to save him. He knows God will not only save him, but repay his enemies for what they have done.
By verse 6, David is already ready to sacrifice to the Lord and thank Him for answering his prayer. Remember, the answer hasn’t yet actually come. David just KNOWS it will. And so he is already thanking God.
Oh, this is how I want to my every prayer to be.
One reason for David’s confidence should be noted. David is certain he is on the Lord’s side. In vs. 3, David tells us about his enemies, saying that these men have not set God before them. In contrast, David praises the Lord, and in doing so, he is setting God before his mind, to sacrifice and thank him. He knew he was on God’s side and his enemies weren’t. And this made him all the more certain God would answer his prayer.
We can have the same confidence David had because God’s character DOES NOT CHANGE. He remains faithful and cannot deny Himself. Just like David, we know vengeance belongs to the Lord and He will repay. God is just, and He repays men on earth for their wickedness according to His justice. It would be unkind to those who suffer at the hands of the wicked to not punish the wicked.
By the end of the Psalm, David is no longer afraid of his enemies. He thinks of them with satisfaction as he is confident of God’s power to repay them for their wickedness. David remembered times God formerly delivered him, and he believed God would again answer his prayers.
David wasn’t rejoicing over his enemies because of personal revenge, but he rejoiced that justice was going to be done. The unfounded violence of his enemies would be stopped by God’s holy hand.
It is David’s familiarity with God’s character that led to his confidence. David knew God saves the righteous and defends them. He also punishes the wicked and wipes them away. Because David knew God, he realized God would answer the prayers that aligned with God’s character.
From this Psalm, we are given this model of prayer:
a) First, ask for your request
b) Second, explain the circumstances (this is probably for us—part of pouring out our hearts before the Lord)
c) Third, be confident (certain, absolutely sure, convinced) that God will answer your request (making sure your prayer aligns with God’s character)
d) Fourth, remember a time or times when God has answered a past prayer, and express your thankfulness for that. Now, thank God for this current situation.
This is a Scriptural model for praying in faith. It is so beautiful to me that God tells us what to do, but then He shows us how to do it. Thank you Lord.
First off, what is David praying about in Psalm 54? He starts with the cry, “Save me, O God.” I am very familiar with this prayer, that cry of desperation. “Please God, please help me.”
Next, after asking God to save him by His power, David says, “Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth.” These words reveal a fervency of spirit. An attitude that says, “You must hear me Lord, for what good is my prayer if you don’t?”
In verse three we learn the circumstances prompting David’s request for God to save and vindicate him. People are hunting David down to kill him. Yikes! And not enemies or people he has wronged, but strangers—violent men who want to kill David though he has done nothing wrong. These men were the spies of King Saul, who were seeking to kill David because of Saul’s jealousy.
Now that David has set forth his request, a plea for God to hear him, and his predicament, he moves on to believe God will answer: “Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is the sustainer of my soul. He will recompense the evil to my foes; Destroy them in Your faithfulness” (Psalm 54:4-5).
“In the fourth and fifth verses, [David] becomes his own prophet, promising himself victory.” J. Dolben, in a Thanksgiving Sermon, 1665.
David was confident God had both the ability and the willingness to save him. He knows God will not only save him, but repay his enemies for what they have done.
By verse 6, David is already ready to sacrifice to the Lord and thank Him for answering his prayer. Remember, the answer hasn’t yet actually come. David just KNOWS it will. And so he is already thanking God.
Oh, this is how I want to my every prayer to be.
One reason for David’s confidence should be noted. David is certain he is on the Lord’s side. In vs. 3, David tells us about his enemies, saying that these men have not set God before them. In contrast, David praises the Lord, and in doing so, he is setting God before his mind, to sacrifice and thank him. He knew he was on God’s side and his enemies weren’t. And this made him all the more certain God would answer his prayer.
We can have the same confidence David had because God’s character DOES NOT CHANGE. He remains faithful and cannot deny Himself. Just like David, we know vengeance belongs to the Lord and He will repay. God is just, and He repays men on earth for their wickedness according to His justice. It would be unkind to those who suffer at the hands of the wicked to not punish the wicked.
By the end of the Psalm, David is no longer afraid of his enemies. He thinks of them with satisfaction as he is confident of God’s power to repay them for their wickedness. David remembered times God formerly delivered him, and he believed God would again answer his prayers.
David wasn’t rejoicing over his enemies because of personal revenge, but he rejoiced that justice was going to be done. The unfounded violence of his enemies would be stopped by God’s holy hand.
It is David’s familiarity with God’s character that led to his confidence. David knew God saves the righteous and defends them. He also punishes the wicked and wipes them away. Because David knew God, he realized God would answer the prayers that aligned with God’s character.
From this Psalm, we are given this model of prayer:
a) First, ask for your request
b) Second, explain the circumstances (this is probably for us—part of pouring out our hearts before the Lord)
c) Third, be confident (certain, absolutely sure, convinced) that God will answer your request (making sure your prayer aligns with God’s character)
d) Fourth, remember a time or times when God has answered a past prayer, and express your thankfulness for that. Now, thank God for this current situation.
This is a Scriptural model for praying in faith. It is so beautiful to me that God tells us what to do, but then He shows us how to do it. Thank you Lord.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Believing God When You Pray
This is such a crucial subject. Knowing how to pray with faith is essential if you will pray at all. While what we pray for is just as important (and I cover that briefly below), we must also know how to pray. And that is with faith in God. Without this, we can’t even come to God to pray! (Hebrews 11:6)
“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” Mark 11:24
The more I meditate on this verse, the more powerful and amazing I realize it is.
ALL THINGS… FOR WHICH YOU PRAY AND ASK… BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THEM…AND THEY WILL BE GRANTED TO YOU.
Here are four things to know about how to pray:
First off, whatever THINGS you want—things are definite objects, specific requests, precise desires.
Are you asking God for specific requests? For a long time, whenever I would be offended by my husband, I would pray, “Please God, please convict my husband’s heart.” Then one day I realized, I needed to ask God to change Todd’s heart, and then ask for the precise change I wanted!
Second, we must pray with strong desire. We must be serious about what we ask. We must strongly desire our requests and pray with fervency. James 5:16 says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
Third, we must pray according to God’s will. What does this mean? We know that God’s will is revealed in the Bible. If we pray for things that the Bible forbids, God will not answer those prayers.
• “If you abide in Me [Jesus], and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7
• “Whatever you ask in My name [Jesus], that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13
• “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments [obey what the Bible says] and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” 1 John 3:21-22
• “This is the confidence which we have before Him [God], that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” 1 John 5:14-15.
Fourth, we must believe without any doubt that God will answer our prayer. We must believe God hears us and really will give us what we’ve asked.
And the proof we believe that God will answer is in our response. After you pray, do you live as if you believe the answer is on the way? Not only on the way, but already answered and done? Do you act as if the answer had already come? The Bible says, “believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.”
Do you continue to worry about those things you’ve prayed for? Or do you live with complete confidence that God will give you what you’ve asked? Do you consider yourself as one blessed with the answers for which you’ve asked even before they’ve come? Do you give thanks and believe that these blessings are already on their way?
To say yes is faith in God. To say no is to not believe God when you pray. Now, have you begun to understand why these words are so mind-blowing?: “ALL THINGS… FOR WHICH YOU PRAY AND ASK… BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THEM…AND THEY WILL BE GRANTED TO YOU.”
We must live as though we already have those things for which we have asked. Have you asked God to make your husband a patient man? Then treat him as if he is already a patient man. Have you asked God to make your husband love you more? Then treat your husband as if he already were madly in love with you! Believe in God to answer what you ask!
Consider what C.H. Spurgeon said about prayer: “There is nothing, I repeat it, there is no force so tremendous, no energy so marvellous, as the energy with which God has endowed every man, who like Jacob can wrestle, like Israel can prevail with him in prayer. But we must have faith in this; we must believe prayer to be what it is, or else it is not what it should be. Unless I believe my prayer to be effectual it will not be, for on my faith will it to a great extent depend.”
It is amazing to realize that God’s answer to your prayer will depend a great deal on the extent of YOUR FAITH. I know that many times I’ve asked God to change something in my life—but it the back of my mind, I really didn’t believe the situation would change. And guess what? It didn’t change. I didn’t believe God when I prayed. I didn’t expect change to come. And change didn’t come.
And yet, there have been times when I was truly convinced that God heard my prayer, and that the answer to my prayer was already on the way. And it was done for me “just as [I] believed it would” (Matthew 8:13).
“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” Mark 11:24
The more I meditate on this verse, the more powerful and amazing I realize it is.
ALL THINGS… FOR WHICH YOU PRAY AND ASK… BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THEM…AND THEY WILL BE GRANTED TO YOU.
Here are four things to know about how to pray:
First off, whatever THINGS you want—things are definite objects, specific requests, precise desires.
Are you asking God for specific requests? For a long time, whenever I would be offended by my husband, I would pray, “Please God, please convict my husband’s heart.” Then one day I realized, I needed to ask God to change Todd’s heart, and then ask for the precise change I wanted!
Second, we must pray with strong desire. We must be serious about what we ask. We must strongly desire our requests and pray with fervency. James 5:16 says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
Third, we must pray according to God’s will. What does this mean? We know that God’s will is revealed in the Bible. If we pray for things that the Bible forbids, God will not answer those prayers.
• “If you abide in Me [Jesus], and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7
• “Whatever you ask in My name [Jesus], that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John 14:13
• “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments [obey what the Bible says] and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.” 1 John 3:21-22
• “This is the confidence which we have before Him [God], that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” 1 John 5:14-15.
Fourth, we must believe without any doubt that God will answer our prayer. We must believe God hears us and really will give us what we’ve asked.
And the proof we believe that God will answer is in our response. After you pray, do you live as if you believe the answer is on the way? Not only on the way, but already answered and done? Do you act as if the answer had already come? The Bible says, “believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.”
Do you continue to worry about those things you’ve prayed for? Or do you live with complete confidence that God will give you what you’ve asked? Do you consider yourself as one blessed with the answers for which you’ve asked even before they’ve come? Do you give thanks and believe that these blessings are already on their way?
To say yes is faith in God. To say no is to not believe God when you pray. Now, have you begun to understand why these words are so mind-blowing?: “ALL THINGS… FOR WHICH YOU PRAY AND ASK… BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THEM…AND THEY WILL BE GRANTED TO YOU.”
We must live as though we already have those things for which we have asked. Have you asked God to make your husband a patient man? Then treat him as if he is already a patient man. Have you asked God to make your husband love you more? Then treat your husband as if he already were madly in love with you! Believe in God to answer what you ask!
Consider what C.H. Spurgeon said about prayer: “There is nothing, I repeat it, there is no force so tremendous, no energy so marvellous, as the energy with which God has endowed every man, who like Jacob can wrestle, like Israel can prevail with him in prayer. But we must have faith in this; we must believe prayer to be what it is, or else it is not what it should be. Unless I believe my prayer to be effectual it will not be, for on my faith will it to a great extent depend.”
It is amazing to realize that God’s answer to your prayer will depend a great deal on the extent of YOUR FAITH. I know that many times I’ve asked God to change something in my life—but it the back of my mind, I really didn’t believe the situation would change. And guess what? It didn’t change. I didn’t believe God when I prayed. I didn’t expect change to come. And change didn’t come.
And yet, there have been times when I was truly convinced that God heard my prayer, and that the answer to my prayer was already on the way. And it was done for me “just as [I] believed it would” (Matthew 8:13).
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Aiming for Humility
Let me first begin by saying that I’m not writing about humility as if I were an expert on the subject. Rather, I desperately want to be humble because pride comes so easy. My desire in writing this article is that we can grow together toward the goal of being humble women.
Here are the three questions I hope to adequately address in this article.
1. What is humility?
2. Why should we pursue humility?
3. How can we be humble?
What is Humility?
1. A humble person is not looking to be considered a Christian celebrity or be exalted in Christian circles.
Paul the Apostle said in 2 Corinthians 12:6, “For if I do wish to boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me.” In other words, though he had much to boast about, he didn’t want anyone to think more highly of him than what they saw firsthand.
2. Humility doesn’t mean a lack of drive or determination, but that the ambition a humble person has is a genuine desire to serve others and glorify God, not a secret desire to become famous so they are glorified.
3. A humble person wants to see God glorified, people saved, Christians becoming more like Jesus—even if nobody knows they are the cause of that success. A humble person would say something like, “These results weren’t because of me, but God’s grace working and accomplishing His will and the amazing people who have worked on this project. I was just blessed to even be a part of it.”
4. Humble people want to move the glory away from themselves and toward God and others.
5. Humility is being concerned with what God thinks. And what draws God’s notice is that same humility that longs for His attention.
Since pride is the opposite of humility, let’s see what pride is to give us a clearer definition of humility.
1. Pride is boastful. (1 Cor. 13:4 says love is never boastful.)
2. Pride is when we are inclined to think highly of ourselves—like the Pharisee who prayed, “Thank you God that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11). It is when we are deceived into thinking we are at a level in our spirituality that we are not.
3. Prideful people want to pull the glory toward themselves. C.J. Mahaney says is his book “Humility: True Greatness”: “Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification.”
4. Pride is being concerned with what people think.
Why Should We Pursue Humility?
1. Before honor is humility. Before destruction is pride. (Prov. 15:33, Prov. 18:12) God honors those who are humble. Matthew 23:12 says, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”
2. God knows who is humble and who is not. He looks for those who are humble, that he might show them grace and favor. And when He finds those who are proud, He strongly opposes them, that He might bring destruction on them. James 4:6 says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”
3. God looks at the humble person. His attention and favor is on those who are humble. Isaiah 66:2b says, “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” Simply reading the Bible each morning doesn’t draw God’s favor. But trembling while you read the Bible each morning does draw God’s favor.
How Can We Be Humble?
1. Admit your wrongs—quickly and easily. Here is a common story of how my pride is displayed. My husband walks into the house and the kitchen is messy. He calls me to find out why. I tell him, “Yes, the kitchen is messy. But I had homeschool group today and then church afterward. So I’ve been gone all day. And when we were leaving this morning I had to change James’ clothes twice, so I was running late and I didn’t have time to do the dishes. (And the unsaid words: So that is why the kitchen is messy. And, like I explained, it’s not my fault.)”
Instead of excuses, humility says simply, “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I should have woken up earlier to make sure everything was done before I left for homeschool group. Will you please forgive me for not planning better?”
A humble person is not offended when someone questions them about their failures. Instead, they are saddened by their own failures. A humble person looks at himself when things go wrong, not at others. A prideful person looks to others or to excuses when things go wrong.
2. We exercise humility when we are not reliant on ourselves, but aware that we can do nothing apart from Christ. Humble people believe the words Jesus spoke in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Humble people don’t trust in themselves or their own abilities but depend on God’s strength.
3. A humble person thinks of others more highly than they think of themselves. Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.”
4. A humble person wants to serve others, not be served. Jesus even said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 20:26)
Now, we’ve seen that humility brings God’s favor toward us, while pride brings destruction. The good news is God’s mercies are new every morning. We can turn from our pride right now and seek God’s mercy, humbling ourselves before God every day and desiring for Him to be glorified—never us.
Here are the three questions I hope to adequately address in this article.
1. What is humility?
2. Why should we pursue humility?
3. How can we be humble?
What is Humility?
1. A humble person is not looking to be considered a Christian celebrity or be exalted in Christian circles.
Paul the Apostle said in 2 Corinthians 12:6, “For if I do wish to boast I will not be foolish, for I will be speaking the truth; but I refrain from this, so that no one will credit me with more than he sees in me or hears from me.” In other words, though he had much to boast about, he didn’t want anyone to think more highly of him than what they saw firsthand.
2. Humility doesn’t mean a lack of drive or determination, but that the ambition a humble person has is a genuine desire to serve others and glorify God, not a secret desire to become famous so they are glorified.
3. A humble person wants to see God glorified, people saved, Christians becoming more like Jesus—even if nobody knows they are the cause of that success. A humble person would say something like, “These results weren’t because of me, but God’s grace working and accomplishing His will and the amazing people who have worked on this project. I was just blessed to even be a part of it.”
4. Humble people want to move the glory away from themselves and toward God and others.
5. Humility is being concerned with what God thinks. And what draws God’s notice is that same humility that longs for His attention.
Since pride is the opposite of humility, let’s see what pride is to give us a clearer definition of humility.
1. Pride is boastful. (1 Cor. 13:4 says love is never boastful.)
2. Pride is when we are inclined to think highly of ourselves—like the Pharisee who prayed, “Thank you God that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11). It is when we are deceived into thinking we are at a level in our spirituality that we are not.
3. Prideful people want to pull the glory toward themselves. C.J. Mahaney says is his book “Humility: True Greatness”: “Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification.”
4. Pride is being concerned with what people think.
Why Should We Pursue Humility?
1. Before honor is humility. Before destruction is pride. (Prov. 15:33, Prov. 18:12) God honors those who are humble. Matthew 23:12 says, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”
2. God knows who is humble and who is not. He looks for those who are humble, that he might show them grace and favor. And when He finds those who are proud, He strongly opposes them, that He might bring destruction on them. James 4:6 says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”
3. God looks at the humble person. His attention and favor is on those who are humble. Isaiah 66:2b says, “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” Simply reading the Bible each morning doesn’t draw God’s favor. But trembling while you read the Bible each morning does draw God’s favor.
How Can We Be Humble?
1. Admit your wrongs—quickly and easily. Here is a common story of how my pride is displayed. My husband walks into the house and the kitchen is messy. He calls me to find out why. I tell him, “Yes, the kitchen is messy. But I had homeschool group today and then church afterward. So I’ve been gone all day. And when we were leaving this morning I had to change James’ clothes twice, so I was running late and I didn’t have time to do the dishes. (And the unsaid words: So that is why the kitchen is messy. And, like I explained, it’s not my fault.)”
Instead of excuses, humility says simply, “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I should have woken up earlier to make sure everything was done before I left for homeschool group. Will you please forgive me for not planning better?”
A humble person is not offended when someone questions them about their failures. Instead, they are saddened by their own failures. A humble person looks at himself when things go wrong, not at others. A prideful person looks to others or to excuses when things go wrong.
2. We exercise humility when we are not reliant on ourselves, but aware that we can do nothing apart from Christ. Humble people believe the words Jesus spoke in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Humble people don’t trust in themselves or their own abilities but depend on God’s strength.
3. A humble person thinks of others more highly than they think of themselves. Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.”
4. A humble person wants to serve others, not be served. Jesus even said, “Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 20:26)
Now, we’ve seen that humility brings God’s favor toward us, while pride brings destruction. The good news is God’s mercies are new every morning. We can turn from our pride right now and seek God’s mercy, humbling ourselves before God every day and desiring for Him to be glorified—never us.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Tips for Homeschooling and Motherhood
These tips are things I’ve learned from four years of homeschooling—the advice I would give to anyone who is just starting to homeschool or who would like to learn more. My son is currently in third grade and my daughter is in kindergarten. I’ve never actually bought a full-fledged curriculum. Instead, I’ve just used what I had and what I could. If you have internet access, there are lots of free resources for homeschoolers, which I will tell you about in this blog.
Here’s my advice to you…
· Ambleside Online (www.amblesideonline.com) and Librivox (www.librivox.org) are great FREE resources. Ambleside provides a curriculum outline that can be used for the entire schooling process (Kindergarten through High School). In addition, they use primarily books in the public domain, which means you can read most of the schoolbooks for free on your computer. Ambleside uses the Charlotte Mason Philosophy of teaching, which involves a lot of learning from real books and reading, and narrating or writing the summary.
Librivox is an online audio library of hundreds of books. For some of the books I am teaching this year, I found the audio books on Librivox, and downloaded them to CD. If you use Librivox CD’s one or two hours a day during downtime, you will find you fly through books.
· Set your goals at the beginning of the year based on what is important to you. Each year I sit down and think about what I really want my children to learn. I want to cover all the core curriculums taught in school, but I also want my children to learn things beyond the basics.
Some of the things on the list this year include 10 Spanish core words a week, my oldest to read through the Bible, diagram 150 parts of the human body and explain what they do (lungs, veins, heart, etc.), and a few other things like that.
· Trust that the important things will get done—basically if your children just learn only what you know (if you graduated from public school) then they will have only learned as much at school. I don’t stress out too much over homeschooling.
The best way to insure your children wont miss out is to teach them the basics (how to read well and understand what they read, math, science, etc.) and then teach them how to teach themselves. Although I was mostly public schooled, with a couple years of private school, my parents did an excellent job of teaching me how to teach myself. My dad would do science projects with me on the weekends that he would make up and things like that.
Now, to this day, I am an avid learner. I read non-fiction books with a passion. If I can just teach my kids how to teach themselves, and love doing it, they will always have the tools to learn anything and everything they need to learn.
· Find resources that cut out busy work. This is probably more just my strong personal preference, but I’m not a fan of busywork. I like things that get to the point and teach the material quickly and well. For that reason, I love Hooked on Phonics.
I started to teach reading with a book of 100 lessons. Some of my friends have used this book with all their kids and loved it. The book wasn't working as well for us, so I needed to find another option to teach reading. I next tried Hooked on Phonics and loved it. Costco was selling the entire Kindergarten through Second Grade set for $99, and I sometimes still see a similar deal when I go to Sam’s Club. When the second grade level was complete, we got the Hooked on Phonics Master Reader program, which Austin was able to complete quickly, mostly on his own.
The Hooked on Math program made by the same company as Hooked on Phonics quickly teaches kids the basics of math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This can supplement another math curriculum, and make math seem easy to your child, which helps create a love of math.
· Set a basic daily school routine. Establishing a daily schedule of events keeps your house running even if you get an important phone call or other interruption. Your kids can start on penmanship, reading, or any other scheduled activity or assignments and not sit waiting for you. If they know what to do, they can keep doing it even when you can’t be there to help.
· Teach your children during non-school times. Use every opportunity you have to teach. When your children are curious about something, use those opportunities to teach them all you can while they want to learn.
Also, you don’t have to homeschool on a strict 8-3 schedule. This really has more to do with personality than anything. Some moms flourish under a strict schedule. I admire those moms so much!
But in my own life, I’ve found that I do better when I teach more stressful subjects (such as beginning reading and blending sounds) when I am more relaxed, like at night. In the morning I want to get as much done as I can, while I have the energy to do it. But by nighttime I am drained. I can be the most patient person in the world when I’m tired--like sitting on the couch and explaining a concept repeatedly--since I know I wouldn’t be getting much else done anyway.
· Have fun learning with your kids. I barely knew history when I started homeschooling, and though I’ve increased my knowledge, I still would love to know more. My favorite things to teach are the things I love to learn about. Those fun times of learning are also valuable times when you get to connect with your kids and build deeper relationships.
My very favorite thing to do with my kids is have a prayer meeting with just us. We will take turns sharing our prayer requests and then take turns praying for those requests. These times together give me the best glimpses into what is going on in my children’s minds and hearts.
· Remember the point of homeschooling. This primary reason can be different for each person. When I first started homeschooling Austin in Kindergarten four years ago, I asked other homeschooling moms, “Why do you homeschool?” I wasn’t sure yet why I was really doing this. I knew I wanted to, I just didn’t know why I wanted to. After much thought and some reading, I’ve determined that the number one reason why I homeschool is to train character.
I am going to conclude this post with a long excerpt from my (currently unavailable due to revision) book, “In Pursuit of Praiseworthy Motherhood,” explaining why I homeschool…
“Studies have been done on children and adolescents, and they say that overall, by the time children are teenagers, peer influence is stronger than parental influence. That is why it is so important now to CONNECT with your child, ENCOURAGE your child, and SAFEGUARD your child from negative peer influence. I’m not for total isolation of kids or anything like that. But I do think it is wise to protect your children from kids who will negatively influence them.
And I have talked with a lot of moms who have said similar things. One lady told me that her 7 seven year old daughter has severe ADHD. But during Christmas break, she seemed to do much better. My the end of Christmas break she was much more respectful and polite toward her mom. But when she came home after just the first day of school, she started back-talking to her mom again. Just one day of peer influence changed her that drastically.
This is what the Bible also says. Proverbs 13:20 says “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” (ESV) In the KJV this says, “a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” The New Living Translation says, “whoever walks with fools will suffer harm.” This seven year old daughter had suffered harm by her exposure to other kids who were unwise. She had picked up the disrespect of those kids who were disrespectful around her.
Understanding this verse has changed my approach to parenting! This is another one of those things I talked about at the beginning [of the book] that has really changed my life.
The Bible also says there are a group of people who are more likely to be foolish. Proverbs 22:15 says “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” So children have foolishness bound up in their hearts. Undisciplined kids are going to be foolish. And if you are not carefully safeguarding your kids, undisciplined kids can potentially become the foolish companions of your children.
We need to protect our children from harmful influences, which includes unsafe situations, untrustworthy people, even kids their own age sometimes when they are bad influences.
Even though I wanted to be naughty as a teenager, practically every bad thing I did as a teenager could have been prevented if I had no one to do those bad things with. It’s something to remember as your children grow older.”
In addition to keeping my kids from the possibility of having their character corrupted, I want to diligently train godly, upright character. That is my number one reason for homeschooling—to fulfill Malachi 2:15 and raise godly children.
Here’s my advice to you…
· Ambleside Online (www.amblesideonline.com) and Librivox (www.librivox.org) are great FREE resources. Ambleside provides a curriculum outline that can be used for the entire schooling process (Kindergarten through High School). In addition, they use primarily books in the public domain, which means you can read most of the schoolbooks for free on your computer. Ambleside uses the Charlotte Mason Philosophy of teaching, which involves a lot of learning from real books and reading, and narrating or writing the summary.
Librivox is an online audio library of hundreds of books. For some of the books I am teaching this year, I found the audio books on Librivox, and downloaded them to CD. If you use Librivox CD’s one or two hours a day during downtime, you will find you fly through books.
· Set your goals at the beginning of the year based on what is important to you. Each year I sit down and think about what I really want my children to learn. I want to cover all the core curriculums taught in school, but I also want my children to learn things beyond the basics.
Some of the things on the list this year include 10 Spanish core words a week, my oldest to read through the Bible, diagram 150 parts of the human body and explain what they do (lungs, veins, heart, etc.), and a few other things like that.
· Trust that the important things will get done—basically if your children just learn only what you know (if you graduated from public school) then they will have only learned as much at school. I don’t stress out too much over homeschooling.
The best way to insure your children wont miss out is to teach them the basics (how to read well and understand what they read, math, science, etc.) and then teach them how to teach themselves. Although I was mostly public schooled, with a couple years of private school, my parents did an excellent job of teaching me how to teach myself. My dad would do science projects with me on the weekends that he would make up and things like that.
Now, to this day, I am an avid learner. I read non-fiction books with a passion. If I can just teach my kids how to teach themselves, and love doing it, they will always have the tools to learn anything and everything they need to learn.
· Find resources that cut out busy work. This is probably more just my strong personal preference, but I’m not a fan of busywork. I like things that get to the point and teach the material quickly and well. For that reason, I love Hooked on Phonics.
I started to teach reading with a book of 100 lessons. Some of my friends have used this book with all their kids and loved it. The book wasn't working as well for us, so I needed to find another option to teach reading. I next tried Hooked on Phonics and loved it. Costco was selling the entire Kindergarten through Second Grade set for $99, and I sometimes still see a similar deal when I go to Sam’s Club. When the second grade level was complete, we got the Hooked on Phonics Master Reader program, which Austin was able to complete quickly, mostly on his own.
The Hooked on Math program made by the same company as Hooked on Phonics quickly teaches kids the basics of math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This can supplement another math curriculum, and make math seem easy to your child, which helps create a love of math.
· Set a basic daily school routine. Establishing a daily schedule of events keeps your house running even if you get an important phone call or other interruption. Your kids can start on penmanship, reading, or any other scheduled activity or assignments and not sit waiting for you. If they know what to do, they can keep doing it even when you can’t be there to help.
· Teach your children during non-school times. Use every opportunity you have to teach. When your children are curious about something, use those opportunities to teach them all you can while they want to learn.
Also, you don’t have to homeschool on a strict 8-3 schedule. This really has more to do with personality than anything. Some moms flourish under a strict schedule. I admire those moms so much!
But in my own life, I’ve found that I do better when I teach more stressful subjects (such as beginning reading and blending sounds) when I am more relaxed, like at night. In the morning I want to get as much done as I can, while I have the energy to do it. But by nighttime I am drained. I can be the most patient person in the world when I’m tired--like sitting on the couch and explaining a concept repeatedly--since I know I wouldn’t be getting much else done anyway.
· Have fun learning with your kids. I barely knew history when I started homeschooling, and though I’ve increased my knowledge, I still would love to know more. My favorite things to teach are the things I love to learn about. Those fun times of learning are also valuable times when you get to connect with your kids and build deeper relationships.
My very favorite thing to do with my kids is have a prayer meeting with just us. We will take turns sharing our prayer requests and then take turns praying for those requests. These times together give me the best glimpses into what is going on in my children’s minds and hearts.
· Remember the point of homeschooling. This primary reason can be different for each person. When I first started homeschooling Austin in Kindergarten four years ago, I asked other homeschooling moms, “Why do you homeschool?” I wasn’t sure yet why I was really doing this. I knew I wanted to, I just didn’t know why I wanted to. After much thought and some reading, I’ve determined that the number one reason why I homeschool is to train character.
I am going to conclude this post with a long excerpt from my (currently unavailable due to revision) book, “In Pursuit of Praiseworthy Motherhood,” explaining why I homeschool…
“Studies have been done on children and adolescents, and they say that overall, by the time children are teenagers, peer influence is stronger than parental influence. That is why it is so important now to CONNECT with your child, ENCOURAGE your child, and SAFEGUARD your child from negative peer influence. I’m not for total isolation of kids or anything like that. But I do think it is wise to protect your children from kids who will negatively influence them.
And I have talked with a lot of moms who have said similar things. One lady told me that her 7 seven year old daughter has severe ADHD. But during Christmas break, she seemed to do much better. My the end of Christmas break she was much more respectful and polite toward her mom. But when she came home after just the first day of school, she started back-talking to her mom again. Just one day of peer influence changed her that drastically.
This is what the Bible also says. Proverbs 13:20 says “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” (ESV) In the KJV this says, “a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” The New Living Translation says, “whoever walks with fools will suffer harm.” This seven year old daughter had suffered harm by her exposure to other kids who were unwise. She had picked up the disrespect of those kids who were disrespectful around her.
Understanding this verse has changed my approach to parenting! This is another one of those things I talked about at the beginning [of the book] that has really changed my life.
The Bible also says there are a group of people who are more likely to be foolish. Proverbs 22:15 says “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” So children have foolishness bound up in their hearts. Undisciplined kids are going to be foolish. And if you are not carefully safeguarding your kids, undisciplined kids can potentially become the foolish companions of your children.
We need to protect our children from harmful influences, which includes unsafe situations, untrustworthy people, even kids their own age sometimes when they are bad influences.
Even though I wanted to be naughty as a teenager, practically every bad thing I did as a teenager could have been prevented if I had no one to do those bad things with. It’s something to remember as your children grow older.”
In addition to keeping my kids from the possibility of having their character corrupted, I want to diligently train godly, upright character. That is my number one reason for homeschooling—to fulfill Malachi 2:15 and raise godly children.
My Friend Nicole Shares Her Best Tip
My good friend Nicole has shared her best homeschooling tip on this blog for us. She has 12 years of homeschooling experience and is the mother of 5 children, ages 17 to 4 months. She lives with her husband Mike and their 5 children near Fort Worth, Texas. You can find her at www.sotraintheyoungwomen.blogspot.com.
Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.
Discipline and Discipleship- First and foremost, be diligent to teach your little ones the Word of God. As they learn to submit to God’s Word and the authority He has lovingly and providentially placed over them, they will gain a heart of wisdom and understanding. It will be very difficult, to say the least, if our children cannot obey us, to educate them as God has called us. We must make first time obedience our highest educational priority. Our greatest goal should not be high test scores, prestigious colleges, degrees, or even to merely complete the curriculum. For what will it profit these little ones if they gain worldly wisdom and have not the wisdom God will impart to their very souls by the implanted Word? Instead, our greatest joy should be that our children walk in truth. If they know and love the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart then He himself will be their sufficiency. By all means we are to educate our children so they may be productive adults who can do all that the Lord has called them to do. Sow the scriptures in their life and reap a harvest of a Christ-centered home and education. This of course cannot be accomplished apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in our life and in the hearts of our children. But let us make this our aim, to be well pleasing to the Lord, as we discipline, and disciple our children. For to this, we have all been called, homeschoolers or not!
The Ultimate Homeschooling Tip
by Nicole Volmer
by Nicole Volmer
Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.
Discipline and Discipleship- First and foremost, be diligent to teach your little ones the Word of God. As they learn to submit to God’s Word and the authority He has lovingly and providentially placed over them, they will gain a heart of wisdom and understanding. It will be very difficult, to say the least, if our children cannot obey us, to educate them as God has called us. We must make first time obedience our highest educational priority. Our greatest goal should not be high test scores, prestigious colleges, degrees, or even to merely complete the curriculum. For what will it profit these little ones if they gain worldly wisdom and have not the wisdom God will impart to their very souls by the implanted Word? Instead, our greatest joy should be that our children walk in truth. If they know and love the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart then He himself will be their sufficiency. By all means we are to educate our children so they may be productive adults who can do all that the Lord has called them to do. Sow the scriptures in their life and reap a harvest of a Christ-centered home and education. This of course cannot be accomplished apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in our life and in the hearts of our children. But let us make this our aim, to be well pleasing to the Lord, as we discipline, and disciple our children. For to this, we have all been called, homeschoolers or not!
Monday, March 1, 2010
When All is Said and Done—What Will Your Life Have Been?
I popped the question to a friend of mine while she was over for dinner. “What are your ultimate goals in life?” She looked at me like I’d said, “ecvrkupbtblruggsptb.”
“What do you mean?” she asked back.
“What do you live for in life? What do you want to see happen while you are alive, because you are alive? What are your greatest desires?” I explained.
“Um, well, I want to live for God and be a good wife and mother” she answered.
“Good, good. Okay, how… How do you plan on accomplishing this?” I asked.
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
The Beginnings
I probably would have answered the same way if I hadn’t been exposed to goal setting when I became a real estate agent almost ten years ago. My manager sat down with me and gave me an assignment—to write down all my goals for life. I had never considered goal setting before, but I diligently complied, and over the year revised my list until it was just right.
Running with Aim
Even though I was provoked to goal setting by an unsaved boss, the reason I still set goals is found in 1 Corinthians 9:26. Like Paul, I want "to run in such a way, as not without aim.” Even on a day to day basis, if I know what I want to accomplish that day, I will get far more done than if I just move around aimlessly.
Goals clarify what we want. They give direction to our thoughts and how we spend our time.
How can you know where to go if you don’t know where you want to end up? What is your ultimate objective in life? What are your smaller objectives? Proverbs 14:8a says “The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way.” Understand where you’re going, what you’re doing, and how you’re getting there.
Goals help give direction to everything you do. Imagine coming with me to my son’s basketball game last Saturday and seeing no baskets. As we sit down confused, we hear this announcement: “We are going to play basketball today without any baskets. We want the kids to just have fun and not feel pressure to make ‘goals’.” The game would be chaos. No one would know where to go or what to do. The goals provide direction.
What Does the Bible Say?
As Christians, God gives us clear direction about what we should seek and want. Paul talks about his ultimate goal in Philippians 3:7-11, 13-14:
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from {the} Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which {comes} from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead... Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of {it} yet; but one thing {I do:} forgetting what {lies} behind and reaching forward to what {lies} ahead, I press on toward the goal (denotes "a mark on which to fix the eye," and is used metaphorically of an aim or object) for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” ( Vine, W. E. "Goal," Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Blue Letter Bible. 1940.)
Short summary of Paul’s life goals: Know Christ. Inherit His righteousness. Spend Eternity with Him.
Words or phrases the Bible uses for goals (depending on the translation) include: ambitions, outcome, aim, desire earnestly, finish my course, and accomplish my purpose. Here’s a sampling of these phrases used in Scripture:
“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:9
“But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5
“… obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:9
“Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:26
“And [Jesus] said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third {day} I reach My goal.’” Luke 13:32
The Bible clearly points us toward spiritual goals. And the ultimate goal of every Christian is to know Christ and be like Christ. That is the greatest goal. Our additional common goals, as believers, are eternal, spiritual, and unseen. They are focused on fulfilling God’s plan, growing into the likeness of Christ, and reaching eternal life. If you already set goals, you probably have individual goals too. Personal goals often involve exercising our spiritual gifts God has given us. Later on in this post, I will talk about the spiritual importance of personal goals.
Impactful People Set Goals
Listen to this amazing and powerful quote from John MacArthur about the importance of setting goals:
“Now in the Christian life we are pressing toward a goal. That goal is not the satisfaction of my own needs. That goal is not the satisfaction of my own desire for greater significance, that is not the goal of my life. The goal of my life is to be like Christ.
Now let me approach this from another angle, as well. I have never met a successful person, an effective person, an impactful person in any realm of enterprise in the world who was not committed to reaching goals. The people who impact the world are pursuers. They're winners. They're competitors. They know what it is, and listen to this, to ignore personal comfort to reach a goal outside themselves. They make incredible sacrifices for the wrong reasons to reach the wrong goals. But the people who impact society, the people who affect society, the people who leave an imprint on society are not the kind of people whose lives are consumed with making sure their own needs are met, even from a human viewpoint, to say nothing from a spiritual viewpoint. Those in the spiritual dimension, however, who leave an impact are equally competitors, winners.
I don't think people really understand that. I have read enough biographies of famous Christians, I have heard enough messages and lectures, I have read enough articles, I have visited enough places in the world to see the memorabilia of famous Christian leaders to know this, there are no hidden secrets about an impactful life. It is the direct result of a maximum effort to reach a spiritual goal and in the process ignore your own personal situation. It is amazing what great preachers, great theologians and great missionaries have suffered in the process of reaching a spiritual goal. And they all have one thing in common, it was of little concern to them to consider their own human condition, apart from the fact that they considered it theologically, it was of major concern to them that they follow Christ, pursue Christ.
There are no secrets. Effective lives belong to people who pursue goals that are outside themselves and they pursue them almost blindly. The same is true spiritually. The people who leave an impact on the church and the world are those who have a spiritual goal on which they are focused, that goal of being like Jesus Christ. They pursue that with little thought of the conditions of their own human life. That's Paul...that's Paul. He says, "I'm not interested in anything else," [Phil 3] verse 8, "I consider everything else a loss, all I want is one thing, I want the prize," verse 14. That's what made him great. It was that ability to be so totally focused on a goal. And that's what we're talking about, that's what we're talking about. We all are called to pursue the goal. And again, the goal is to be conformed to the image of God's Son, as we noted two weeks ago. We are pursuing that, let say it simply, as our total Christian duty. Can I simplify the whole Christian life for you? The whole Christian life can be boiled down, pursuing Christ's likeness. That's it. That's it.” (MacArthur, John. http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/50-35_Fleeing-from-Enemies?q=goals)
The Ultimate Goal
The goal of life is to know Christ and be made like him. It is our ultimate objective. But we must have a way of achieving that objective. We must have a plan, and then break that plan up into daily chunks until our goal is reached.
If I want to know Christ, I MUST know His Word. I remember when the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets were trendy. I thought the concept was great, but the application of the concept sometimes killed me. I heard people who would “What would Jesus do?” and then act completely contrary to Christ without even knowing it.
For instance, I remember someone who was faced with a conflict over talking about the gospel. After thinking, “What would Jesus do?” she backed off from mentioning hell and judgment and talked about keeping love and peace, saying things about how Jesus loves the atheist and such. (Which is contrary to God’s Word—Psalm 5:5-6.) She backed down from proclaiming Christ, because she thought Jesus would have sought peace. She didn’t know what Jesus would do!
She obviously forgot that when Jesus was in the temple with the money changers, He didn’t seek peace. He didn’t first try negotiating. No! He got His whip!!! He overthrew their tables and drove those moneychangers out. THAT’S what Jesus did! (John 2:14-17) If she had known God’s Word, she would have known what God would do.
Too many times to remember, I have heard and seen people misrepresent Jesus because they just didn’t know Him. We will NEVER be like Christ if we don’t know Christ. We must know His Word if we want to know Him. If I want to know Christ, I have to seek Him. I absolutely must know and understand His Word, and constantly grow in that knowledge.
Additional Goals
Each time we see goals in the Bible, they have a spiritual end. But we can also have individual goals, based on the desires, spiritual gifts, provisions and lot we have received from God. My specific goals include growing in my spiritual gifts. Remember the parable that Jesus told about three servants who were all given different amounts of talents? Two of the servants doubled their money, but one of the servants buried his. And when their Lord came back, he was proud of the servants who doubled their talents, but furious with the one who didn’t. (Matthew 25:14-30)
God has given us resources, talents, gifts, and privileges and when He returns, we will give an account to Him of our lives. Goals help us to do all we can to wisely use what
God gives us. I set goals that keep me accountable to use what God has given me.
If you were to ask yourself, “What do I want most out of life? What else do I really want?” How would you answer? Basically, those are your life goals, your life vision. Also, think about this. What do you pray for? In some sense, prayer is goal setting. You have to figure out what you want to ask for it, right? Your personal prayer requests are often your goals (though not always) whether you call them that or not.
What About Money?
Unlike the world, the Bible doesn’t promote monetary goals, which seem to be a common denominator of worldly goals. Proverbs 23:4 says, “Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist.” And Jesus tells us that we absolutely cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24) If we love one, we will hate the other. That’s because a servant cannot obey two masters at the same time. Whichever one we serve must have all of us.
Getting There
Once we’ve established our goals, how do we make sure to achieve them? What actions do we need to take based on our goals? A goal is achieved by consistent, habitual time set aside each day toward working on it. What things do I need to do each day to achieve my goals?
1. Develop a plan. Test all your goals by Scripture and then keep the ones that glorify God and align with His Word. Write them down. Then break them up into smaller, more achievable goals and give dates and/or guidelines to them.
One of my recent goals is to really understand Luke 16:10. (It’s the verse about being faithful in what is very little.) First, I printed the verse out in large writing and put a copy upstairs and downstairs. Then I set this goal: I will listen to five sermons on this verse from Bible teachers I highly respect. I didn’t set a finish date to this goal. Instead, I gave myself a challenge. I cannot do a certain thing until I complete this task. I’m currently two sermons into this goal. Now I’m looking at this, not as a small goal, but as a sub-goal of my greatest goal: knowing Christ. This is part of my larger goal to know and be like Christ through knowing His Word.
2. Read the Bible. For our ultimate goal, we must be in God’s Word—like Psalm 1 says, meditate on it day and night (and whatever you do will prosper). Commit consistent, habitual time each day to reading through the Bible so you will know the character of Christ.
3. Remind yourself of your goals. Review them daily to give direction to your life and that individual day. I have certain verses typed up on a paper I keep next to my bed. Those papers also include my prayer list, my yearly goals, and my lifetime goals. The papers are put in clear plastic holders. I try to read and pray over these papers everyday.
4. Be persistent. Galatians 6:9 says “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” The key is to keep on doing what is good. If we want to reap, we must sow and work until the harvest comes.
A man decided to be a farmer. In early February he tilled his land. In March he planted the seeds and throughout the summer months he watered and carefully watched over his crop. But harsh rains in June discouraged him. Some of his fellow farmers had much larger fields, and his looked dismal compared to theirs. He grew sick of waiting and working. Finally in early August he grew weary and gave up. He left his field and moved away. Only weeks later his cropped produced abundantly, but he missed the harvest. This story is silly, of course. But that’s only because crops are predictable. The farmer would be foolish to leave right before the predictable harvest.
Life is not so predictable. We never know when the metaphoric harvest will come. But that’s all the more reason to hang on. We may be only days away from reaping. God knows our due season. So we must be persistent and not grow weary in doing good.
Conclusion
When your life is over, what will it have been? Now is the time to determine the answer to that question. As Christians, above all things we want to know Christ and be like Him. We then must know how we are going to achieve this. For knowing Christ, we learn of Him through His Word and through accurate Bible teaching. We become like Him (sanctification) by understanding and obeying His Word, and through trials (John 17:17, Heb. 12:10).
For our other goals (like faithfully using our spiritual gifts), our plans to achieve them will be each be different. Once we establish our plans, we break those plans up into daily, achievable pieces and keep on persevering toward the prize, while ultimately letting God direct our steps. Consistency leads to habits, which bring us closer to our goals everyday. By developing disciplined habits, we are holding ourselves accountable to doing what is profitable and making our life count.
We only get one life on earth before glory. Only one chance to determine our eternity. Let’s use it well!
My Final Question
Have you ever set goals and written them down? If you are willing to share, what were they and what happened?
“What do you mean?” she asked back.
“What do you live for in life? What do you want to see happen while you are alive, because you are alive? What are your greatest desires?” I explained.
“Um, well, I want to live for God and be a good wife and mother” she answered.
“Good, good. Okay, how… How do you plan on accomplishing this?” I asked.
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
The Beginnings
I probably would have answered the same way if I hadn’t been exposed to goal setting when I became a real estate agent almost ten years ago. My manager sat down with me and gave me an assignment—to write down all my goals for life. I had never considered goal setting before, but I diligently complied, and over the year revised my list until it was just right.
Running with Aim
Even though I was provoked to goal setting by an unsaved boss, the reason I still set goals is found in 1 Corinthians 9:26. Like Paul, I want "to run in such a way, as not without aim.” Even on a day to day basis, if I know what I want to accomplish that day, I will get far more done than if I just move around aimlessly.
Goals clarify what we want. They give direction to our thoughts and how we spend our time.
How can you know where to go if you don’t know where you want to end up? What is your ultimate objective in life? What are your smaller objectives? Proverbs 14:8a says “The wisdom of the sensible is to understand his way.” Understand where you’re going, what you’re doing, and how you’re getting there.
Goals help give direction to everything you do. Imagine coming with me to my son’s basketball game last Saturday and seeing no baskets. As we sit down confused, we hear this announcement: “We are going to play basketball today without any baskets. We want the kids to just have fun and not feel pressure to make ‘goals’.” The game would be chaos. No one would know where to go or what to do. The goals provide direction.
What Does the Bible Say?
As Christians, God gives us clear direction about what we should seek and want. Paul talks about his ultimate goal in Philippians 3:7-11, 13-14:
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from {the} Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which {comes} from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead... Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of {it} yet; but one thing {I do:} forgetting what {lies} behind and reaching forward to what {lies} ahead, I press on toward the goal (denotes "a mark on which to fix the eye," and is used metaphorically of an aim or object) for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” ( Vine, W. E. "Goal," Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. Blue Letter Bible. 1940.)
Short summary of Paul’s life goals: Know Christ. Inherit His righteousness. Spend Eternity with Him.
Words or phrases the Bible uses for goals (depending on the translation) include: ambitions, outcome, aim, desire earnestly, finish my course, and accomplish my purpose. Here’s a sampling of these phrases used in Scripture:
“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:9
“But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5
“… obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:9
“Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:26
“And [Jesus] said to them, "Go and tell that fox, 'Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third {day} I reach My goal.’” Luke 13:32
The Bible clearly points us toward spiritual goals. And the ultimate goal of every Christian is to know Christ and be like Christ. That is the greatest goal. Our additional common goals, as believers, are eternal, spiritual, and unseen. They are focused on fulfilling God’s plan, growing into the likeness of Christ, and reaching eternal life. If you already set goals, you probably have individual goals too. Personal goals often involve exercising our spiritual gifts God has given us. Later on in this post, I will talk about the spiritual importance of personal goals.
Impactful People Set Goals
Listen to this amazing and powerful quote from John MacArthur about the importance of setting goals:
“Now in the Christian life we are pressing toward a goal. That goal is not the satisfaction of my own needs. That goal is not the satisfaction of my own desire for greater significance, that is not the goal of my life. The goal of my life is to be like Christ.
Now let me approach this from another angle, as well. I have never met a successful person, an effective person, an impactful person in any realm of enterprise in the world who was not committed to reaching goals. The people who impact the world are pursuers. They're winners. They're competitors. They know what it is, and listen to this, to ignore personal comfort to reach a goal outside themselves. They make incredible sacrifices for the wrong reasons to reach the wrong goals. But the people who impact society, the people who affect society, the people who leave an imprint on society are not the kind of people whose lives are consumed with making sure their own needs are met, even from a human viewpoint, to say nothing from a spiritual viewpoint. Those in the spiritual dimension, however, who leave an impact are equally competitors, winners.
I don't think people really understand that. I have read enough biographies of famous Christians, I have heard enough messages and lectures, I have read enough articles, I have visited enough places in the world to see the memorabilia of famous Christian leaders to know this, there are no hidden secrets about an impactful life. It is the direct result of a maximum effort to reach a spiritual goal and in the process ignore your own personal situation. It is amazing what great preachers, great theologians and great missionaries have suffered in the process of reaching a spiritual goal. And they all have one thing in common, it was of little concern to them to consider their own human condition, apart from the fact that they considered it theologically, it was of major concern to them that they follow Christ, pursue Christ.
There are no secrets. Effective lives belong to people who pursue goals that are outside themselves and they pursue them almost blindly. The same is true spiritually. The people who leave an impact on the church and the world are those who have a spiritual goal on which they are focused, that goal of being like Jesus Christ. They pursue that with little thought of the conditions of their own human life. That's Paul...that's Paul. He says, "I'm not interested in anything else," [Phil 3] verse 8, "I consider everything else a loss, all I want is one thing, I want the prize," verse 14. That's what made him great. It was that ability to be so totally focused on a goal. And that's what we're talking about, that's what we're talking about. We all are called to pursue the goal. And again, the goal is to be conformed to the image of God's Son, as we noted two weeks ago. We are pursuing that, let say it simply, as our total Christian duty. Can I simplify the whole Christian life for you? The whole Christian life can be boiled down, pursuing Christ's likeness. That's it. That's it.” (MacArthur, John. http://www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/50-35_Fleeing-from-Enemies?q=goals)
The Ultimate Goal
The goal of life is to know Christ and be made like him. It is our ultimate objective. But we must have a way of achieving that objective. We must have a plan, and then break that plan up into daily chunks until our goal is reached.
If I want to know Christ, I MUST know His Word. I remember when the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets were trendy. I thought the concept was great, but the application of the concept sometimes killed me. I heard people who would “What would Jesus do?” and then act completely contrary to Christ without even knowing it.
For instance, I remember someone who was faced with a conflict over talking about the gospel. After thinking, “What would Jesus do?” she backed off from mentioning hell and judgment and talked about keeping love and peace, saying things about how Jesus loves the atheist and such. (Which is contrary to God’s Word—Psalm 5:5-6.) She backed down from proclaiming Christ, because she thought Jesus would have sought peace. She didn’t know what Jesus would do!
She obviously forgot that when Jesus was in the temple with the money changers, He didn’t seek peace. He didn’t first try negotiating. No! He got His whip!!! He overthrew their tables and drove those moneychangers out. THAT’S what Jesus did! (John 2:14-17) If she had known God’s Word, she would have known what God would do.
Too many times to remember, I have heard and seen people misrepresent Jesus because they just didn’t know Him. We will NEVER be like Christ if we don’t know Christ. We must know His Word if we want to know Him. If I want to know Christ, I have to seek Him. I absolutely must know and understand His Word, and constantly grow in that knowledge.
Additional Goals
Each time we see goals in the Bible, they have a spiritual end. But we can also have individual goals, based on the desires, spiritual gifts, provisions and lot we have received from God. My specific goals include growing in my spiritual gifts. Remember the parable that Jesus told about three servants who were all given different amounts of talents? Two of the servants doubled their money, but one of the servants buried his. And when their Lord came back, he was proud of the servants who doubled their talents, but furious with the one who didn’t. (Matthew 25:14-30)
God has given us resources, talents, gifts, and privileges and when He returns, we will give an account to Him of our lives. Goals help us to do all we can to wisely use what
God gives us. I set goals that keep me accountable to use what God has given me.
If you were to ask yourself, “What do I want most out of life? What else do I really want?” How would you answer? Basically, those are your life goals, your life vision. Also, think about this. What do you pray for? In some sense, prayer is goal setting. You have to figure out what you want to ask for it, right? Your personal prayer requests are often your goals (though not always) whether you call them that or not.
What About Money?
Unlike the world, the Bible doesn’t promote monetary goals, which seem to be a common denominator of worldly goals. Proverbs 23:4 says, “Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist.” And Jesus tells us that we absolutely cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24) If we love one, we will hate the other. That’s because a servant cannot obey two masters at the same time. Whichever one we serve must have all of us.
Getting There
Once we’ve established our goals, how do we make sure to achieve them? What actions do we need to take based on our goals? A goal is achieved by consistent, habitual time set aside each day toward working on it. What things do I need to do each day to achieve my goals?
1. Develop a plan. Test all your goals by Scripture and then keep the ones that glorify God and align with His Word. Write them down. Then break them up into smaller, more achievable goals and give dates and/or guidelines to them.
One of my recent goals is to really understand Luke 16:10. (It’s the verse about being faithful in what is very little.) First, I printed the verse out in large writing and put a copy upstairs and downstairs. Then I set this goal: I will listen to five sermons on this verse from Bible teachers I highly respect. I didn’t set a finish date to this goal. Instead, I gave myself a challenge. I cannot do a certain thing until I complete this task. I’m currently two sermons into this goal. Now I’m looking at this, not as a small goal, but as a sub-goal of my greatest goal: knowing Christ. This is part of my larger goal to know and be like Christ through knowing His Word.
2. Read the Bible. For our ultimate goal, we must be in God’s Word—like Psalm 1 says, meditate on it day and night (and whatever you do will prosper). Commit consistent, habitual time each day to reading through the Bible so you will know the character of Christ.
3. Remind yourself of your goals. Review them daily to give direction to your life and that individual day. I have certain verses typed up on a paper I keep next to my bed. Those papers also include my prayer list, my yearly goals, and my lifetime goals. The papers are put in clear plastic holders. I try to read and pray over these papers everyday.
4. Be persistent. Galatians 6:9 says “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.” The key is to keep on doing what is good. If we want to reap, we must sow and work until the harvest comes.
A man decided to be a farmer. In early February he tilled his land. In March he planted the seeds and throughout the summer months he watered and carefully watched over his crop. But harsh rains in June discouraged him. Some of his fellow farmers had much larger fields, and his looked dismal compared to theirs. He grew sick of waiting and working. Finally in early August he grew weary and gave up. He left his field and moved away. Only weeks later his cropped produced abundantly, but he missed the harvest. This story is silly, of course. But that’s only because crops are predictable. The farmer would be foolish to leave right before the predictable harvest.
Life is not so predictable. We never know when the metaphoric harvest will come. But that’s all the more reason to hang on. We may be only days away from reaping. God knows our due season. So we must be persistent and not grow weary in doing good.
Conclusion
When your life is over, what will it have been? Now is the time to determine the answer to that question. As Christians, above all things we want to know Christ and be like Him. We then must know how we are going to achieve this. For knowing Christ, we learn of Him through His Word and through accurate Bible teaching. We become like Him (sanctification) by understanding and obeying His Word, and through trials (John 17:17, Heb. 12:10).
For our other goals (like faithfully using our spiritual gifts), our plans to achieve them will be each be different. Once we establish our plans, we break those plans up into daily, achievable pieces and keep on persevering toward the prize, while ultimately letting God direct our steps. Consistency leads to habits, which bring us closer to our goals everyday. By developing disciplined habits, we are holding ourselves accountable to doing what is profitable and making our life count.
We only get one life on earth before glory. Only one chance to determine our eternity. Let’s use it well!
My Final Question
Have you ever set goals and written them down? If you are willing to share, what were they and what happened?
Monday, February 1, 2010
How to Motivate Yourself to Clean and Organize
If you’re anything like me, you have days when you’re fired up to clean your whole house top to bottom and even reorganize your closets. Then, on other days you are fascinated by something you’ve recently heard and must research it on the internet, to the disappointment of your laundry. Or you have a million errands to run and everything at home gets neglected. Whatever the cause, suddenly you find your house looks horrible and cleaning is the last thing you want to do.
Now somewhere in your mind, you really want to clean, you just have no energy left to do it. This is usually my problem. I run out of energy before I run out of errands. But I don’t want my husband coming home from work to a messy house. So whether I have the energy to clean or not, I know I have to.
Of course, the best way to avoid all this is to stay on top of everything so the house never gets messed up anyway. But despite my best efforts to be vigilant, I’ll get a phone call or some other thing will come up, and when I emerge, the house looks horrible. This is usually toward the afternoon. We have a great system in place for cleaning in the morning. But with three kids at home all day long (a homeschooled 3rd grader, a homeschooled kindergartener, and a toddler) in a townhome on the smaller side, there is always something to do and clean.
With that said, I’ve discovered some tricks for getting things done when you have no energy left to do them.
1. Get Excited—The fastest way to get energy for a project is to get excited about it. Generic physical energy is helpful, but wanting to do the task mentally makes the most difference by far. For a regular person in average or better health, the body will supply you energy for what your mind most wants to do, whether that’s cleaning the bedrooms, making banana muffins, or walking around the mall. The more excited we get about something, the easier the task becomes.
Whenever I have a morning speaking engagement, getting up that day is never a problem, even when its 5am. I’m excited about the day and my body follows my mind. On less exciting days, however, popping out of bed isn’t always as easy. Reading a book on cleaning or diligence is usually a good source of motivation for me if I feel tired, but most of the time I just have to do it whether I have energy or not. Which leads us to number 2…
2. Do Boring Things—When you feel overwhelmed or drained, do what’s boring. It’s easy to get restless and lose focus when the project is not exciting. But my new motto is: Do Boring Things. It’s the boring things, like laundry, preparing fruits and vegetables, organizing paper piles, that I most need to do, and I lose sight of their needfulness because they are so boring.
When you’ve got a lot to do, instead of feeling overwhelmed, just get up and start working. When I have no motivation, I will purposely work slowly, putting away what is easiest first. I think what sometimes keeps me from getting started on tasks is that I want to do them quickly and efficiently, and when I can’t because I’m tired or I don’t have vision at that moment, I hesistate to start the task at all. But now I just tell myself, Do Boring Things. I start loading the dishwasher or some other boring thing just to make progress. This advice is most helpful to me when I feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. I don’t worry about a grand plan. I just start doing something.
3. Be Faithful in the Little Things. Luke 16:10 “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” The context of this verse is how we handle our money. But the general principle applies to all of life. Being faithful in the little things is what makes you faithful for great things. Think of your favorite pastor/ Bible teacher. If you found out he yelled at his wife every night at home and watched inappropriate movies, would you lose a significant amount or even all respect for him? I would too. If he’s not obeying God faithfully in his personal life, how can he be faithfully obeying God in his public life?
I remember a story I heard a while back, told by a woman with a large women’s ministry in her country. She said, “I get asked by women all the time, ‘How can I start my own ministry? I want to teach the Bible? Where do I start?’ And so I ask her, ‘How is your marriage? Do you submit to your husband in everything?’ I ask her about other ‘small’ areas of her life. ‘Do you pursue holiness? Do you love the world or the things of the world?’ And so often I have to tell her, “Unless you are faithful in the little things, you won’t be faithful in what is much.” Lead yourself first.
4. 15 Minute Rotations… fun/work/fun/work. Make a list of to-do’s and put a mark each one either fun or work. Anything you don’t have to do would probably be considered fun. Then set the timer for 15 minutes and start on a work project. I usually break up the work projects into rooms—kitchen, living room, bedroom 1, bedroom 2, all bathrooms, etc. Every 15 minutes switch from working to playing. Things on my playing list would be writing, reading, and stuff like that. If you don’t have the motivation this second to clean, set the time right now for 15 minutes. When it beeps, start cleaning. In other 15 minutes you get to rest/play again. And the cycle repeats. You now have 15 minutes to relax before you will get to work. Have fun!
Now somewhere in your mind, you really want to clean, you just have no energy left to do it. This is usually my problem. I run out of energy before I run out of errands. But I don’t want my husband coming home from work to a messy house. So whether I have the energy to clean or not, I know I have to.
Of course, the best way to avoid all this is to stay on top of everything so the house never gets messed up anyway. But despite my best efforts to be vigilant, I’ll get a phone call or some other thing will come up, and when I emerge, the house looks horrible. This is usually toward the afternoon. We have a great system in place for cleaning in the morning. But with three kids at home all day long (a homeschooled 3rd grader, a homeschooled kindergartener, and a toddler) in a townhome on the smaller side, there is always something to do and clean.
With that said, I’ve discovered some tricks for getting things done when you have no energy left to do them.
1. Get Excited—The fastest way to get energy for a project is to get excited about it. Generic physical energy is helpful, but wanting to do the task mentally makes the most difference by far. For a regular person in average or better health, the body will supply you energy for what your mind most wants to do, whether that’s cleaning the bedrooms, making banana muffins, or walking around the mall. The more excited we get about something, the easier the task becomes.
Whenever I have a morning speaking engagement, getting up that day is never a problem, even when its 5am. I’m excited about the day and my body follows my mind. On less exciting days, however, popping out of bed isn’t always as easy. Reading a book on cleaning or diligence is usually a good source of motivation for me if I feel tired, but most of the time I just have to do it whether I have energy or not. Which leads us to number 2…
2. Do Boring Things—When you feel overwhelmed or drained, do what’s boring. It’s easy to get restless and lose focus when the project is not exciting. But my new motto is: Do Boring Things. It’s the boring things, like laundry, preparing fruits and vegetables, organizing paper piles, that I most need to do, and I lose sight of their needfulness because they are so boring.
When you’ve got a lot to do, instead of feeling overwhelmed, just get up and start working. When I have no motivation, I will purposely work slowly, putting away what is easiest first. I think what sometimes keeps me from getting started on tasks is that I want to do them quickly and efficiently, and when I can’t because I’m tired or I don’t have vision at that moment, I hesistate to start the task at all. But now I just tell myself, Do Boring Things. I start loading the dishwasher or some other boring thing just to make progress. This advice is most helpful to me when I feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. I don’t worry about a grand plan. I just start doing something.
3. Be Faithful in the Little Things. Luke 16:10 “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.” The context of this verse is how we handle our money. But the general principle applies to all of life. Being faithful in the little things is what makes you faithful for great things. Think of your favorite pastor/ Bible teacher. If you found out he yelled at his wife every night at home and watched inappropriate movies, would you lose a significant amount or even all respect for him? I would too. If he’s not obeying God faithfully in his personal life, how can he be faithfully obeying God in his public life?
I remember a story I heard a while back, told by a woman with a large women’s ministry in her country. She said, “I get asked by women all the time, ‘How can I start my own ministry? I want to teach the Bible? Where do I start?’ And so I ask her, ‘How is your marriage? Do you submit to your husband in everything?’ I ask her about other ‘small’ areas of her life. ‘Do you pursue holiness? Do you love the world or the things of the world?’ And so often I have to tell her, “Unless you are faithful in the little things, you won’t be faithful in what is much.” Lead yourself first.
4. 15 Minute Rotations… fun/work/fun/work. Make a list of to-do’s and put a mark each one either fun or work. Anything you don’t have to do would probably be considered fun. Then set the timer for 15 minutes and start on a work project. I usually break up the work projects into rooms—kitchen, living room, bedroom 1, bedroom 2, all bathrooms, etc. Every 15 minutes switch from working to playing. Things on my playing list would be writing, reading, and stuff like that. If you don’t have the motivation this second to clean, set the time right now for 15 minutes. When it beeps, start cleaning. In other 15 minutes you get to rest/play again. And the cycle repeats. You now have 15 minutes to relax before you will get to work. Have fun!
My Blog Schedule
Alright, for 2010 I'm going to, Lord willing, put up a new blog on the first of each month, starting today--February 1st. Thanks so much!
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