Lessons Learned

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Including a Cost-Benefit Analysis

What would we think of an army recruiter who got people to sign up for the military by telling them about the free food, free clothing, educational opportunities, and camaraderie, but never mentioned that soldiers also had to discipline themselves, obey orders, and likely go to war where they would be shot at? Not very honest, is it?

Someone considering enlisting needs to consider both the benefits and the costs of being in the military. Of course, no one would be so ignorant, at least when it comes to military service. But what about following Jesus?

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Out of the Wilderness

I guess we’re not in the wilderness any more.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that since about 2005 our finances have been a bit… sporadic. While Pete worked full time (and more), and I cared for my elderly dad, started a business, and continued with the volunteer ministry God placed me in, we’d only get a paycheck every few months. We used up our savings, we simplified our lifestyle, we prayed—a lot! And God provided.

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Loving God

I felt like a failure. All around me, people were praying, weeping, wailing—overcome with love for God. I sat like a stone. Sure, I wanted to love God. I tried to love God. But never in my almost 40 years of being a believer have I ever felt the overwhelming emotion of those surrounding me at the prayer conference I was attending. Dry eyes, dry thoughts—there must be something wrong with my faith.

After all, I usually feel quite emotional when my thoughts turn to my husband. Sure, we have our moments, but overall I’m even more in love with him now, after 30+ years of marriage, than I was the day we said our vows. Why couldn’t I summon those same emotions for God?

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Uniquely You

Does he like NASCAR?

Does he like drive a truck, drink sweet tea, own a gun, and like NASCAR?

Driving in my car, listening to the radio playing Brad Paisley’s relatively new single, Southern Comfort Zone. He’s singing about how “not everyone drives a truck, not everybody drinks sweet tea, not everybody owns a gun, wears a ball cap, boots, and jeans….” The lyrics reminded me of when our kids were in high school, or when I was, even longer ago. Everyone had a label, and if you didn’t belong to a group, you were a miserable nobody.

My school had surfers, Jesus freaks, druggies, jocks, etc. My kids’ school included skaters, cowboys, nerds, and (still) jocks. Nothing much had changed in 25 years. I assumed we’d get past all this as we became adults, but I’m not sure we have.

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Lavish

Snow GeeseAs you read this, Pete and I are off enjoying some much-needed R&R. More specifically, we’re at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, an hour plus south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Imagine 50,000 white Snow Geese, an undulating floe covering the waters of a shallow lake, then, with a tremendous honking and flapping of wings, rising en masse to fill the dawn sky. This has to be one of God’s most incredible spectacles!

Bosque del Apache is also the winter home for thousands of Sandhill Cranes, ducks, and other birds… and hundreds of birders and nature photographers. Our coming here was my 2012 Christmas present from my dad. It’s just what I wanted.

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The Festival of Lights

As I unpacked our Christmas decorations this week, I found our menorah and dreidel. Pete and I both have Jewish blood (his father, my grandfather) and while he was raised in an evangelical home, and my parents were atheists, I’ve always been a bit curious about our Jewish heritage.

Reading the Old Testament explains many of the Jewish celebrations and holy days, but Hanukkah, which starts this Saturday at sundown, commemorates an event that came after the Hebrew Bible was written. As I set out the menorah, I realized I didn’t have a clue about its significance. So I looked it up.

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Giving Thanks

A friend of mine recently commented about how, with Thanksgiving coming, she is trying to learn to thank God even for “the hard stuff.” She’s basing her belief on 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, which says “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

There’s no doubt that Christians are supposed to be a grateful people. There is so much to thank God for—his love, mercy, righteousness and goodness, our salvation, one another, his coming reign on earth, answered prayers, not to mention the endless blessings he bestows on us day by day, often ones we hadn’t even thought to ask for. For example, when’s the last time we thanked God for the air that we breathe? We hardly ever think about air, unless we’re in danger of suffocation or drowning!

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Keep On Growing

Last month, I whined about discussed the dearth of churches that disciple believers to maturity and then keep them well fed on spiritual meat.  It’s good to point out problems, but more helpful to put forward suggestions on how to fix those problems. So, what do we do when we’re hungry for more of God, and church is only offering Happy Meals?

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Just Follow These Principles…

  • “Biblical Health Principles”
  • “Five Biblical Principles to Deal With Stress”
  • “Survive Today’s Economic Challenges: In Recession-Proof Living, Bill Wiese shares these biblical principles along with true stories of his experiences to demonstrate how anyone can achieve success by living according to God’s economic system. He shows you how to live a life that guarantees success—God’s way. Even if every effort and method you’ve tried has failed, living by God’s standard won’t.”

We’ve all seen these sorts of ads. Christian websites, magazines, and church bulletins are full of offers to apply God’s principles to whatever ails us. And this is a good idea, right? Secular advice is only as good as the person offering it, but advice based on God’s principles—how can we lose?

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The Greatest is Love

Over the last 17 months, I’ve been slowly crawling  my way through the passage in 2 Peter 1:3, 5-8, where Peter lays out God’s steps to success. Well, we’ve finally arrived at the ultimate goal: love. All the lessons about goodness, gaining knowledge of God, learning self-control and perseverance,  learning to see things God’s way, and seeing people from God’s point of view finally have purpose when we begin to love as God loves.

It takes love to produce lasting fruit—effective and productive ministry. Without it, we might know about Jesus, but our knowledge is useless. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, without love we are nothing.

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