Lessons Learned

by

What about the Other Guy?

Do you know the story about Jesus healing the paralytic? (You can find it in Mark 2:1-12.) It goes something like this. Jesus is teaching. He’s in a building, perhaps someone’s home. It’s a full house—packed with eager listeners, along with the usual contingent of Pharisees, trying to trip Him up. It’s so crowded that, when a group of friends arrive, they can’t get in the door.

It’s important for them to get inside because they’ve brought another friend who has been paralyzed for years and years. Everyone had given up hope. Then Jesus comes onto the scene, healing folks. Clearly, this is the big chance. If anyone can heal this man, Jesus can. So they scoop him up and bring him to Jesus. And now they’re reached a dead end. They can’t get inside!

Continue reading →

by

Waiting on God

We are a culture of action. We’re eager to get started, to accomplish something. And to a great extent, we are valued according to what we achieve. How much money do we make? What awards have we won? What discoveries have we made?

When we meet someone new, we ask “What do you do?” If we have a need, the standard advice is to “don’t just sit there—do something!” We applaud a man of action and disparage a couch potato. We tell ourselves that life is too short to wait. Continue reading →

by

Ahem?

I hate interruptions. I find them particularly annoying. Put me in front of a computer and give me an article to write or a pile of photos to edit, and I have no problem staying focused. When the house needs cleaning, I set aside a day and get the entire place sparkling. When digging in the garden, I might forget to come in for lunch. And when I read a book, I often read all 400 or so pages in one sitting, even to the point of staying up half the night.

While this predilection to concentrate can be an asset when it comes to getting tasks done, it isn’t so helpful when it comes to relationships. Almost by definition, doing anything with another person tends to involve interruptions. That’s the reason we do things together in the first place. Parenting takes this to an extreme. As anyone who’s ever raised a two-year-old knows, kids are nothing but interruptions!

Continue reading →

by

Are you too busy? Make time to read this!

women who do too much I read a good book last week: Women Who Do Too Much: How to Stop Doing It All and Start Enjoying Your Life, by Patricia Sprinkle. I chose this book because I met the author at our yearly ministry retreat. She was both interesting and engaging, and I expected the same from her writing. I wasn’t disappointed.

As you might expect, this book focuses on ways to declutter your life. Unlike many of the time management solutions available, Sprinkle’s advice is based on Scripture—she starts and ends with prayer and the word of God. This is advice you can trust.

Continue reading →

by

Making Space

We collapsed into our seats at church Sunday morning, worn out after an intensive two days of emptying our storage pods into our new house—moving furniture, hauling boxes, and trying to make snap decisions on where everything should go. Two days of violent thunderstorms, driving rain, and up to six inches of hail made the process a bit more “interesting.” Now, with the hired movers gone, we’re left with rooms full of boxes. I admit to feeling more than a bit overwhelmed. How in the world will we fit into our downsized digs?

2015-05-010

It seems as if everything that can hold things—bookcases, cabinets, and the like—are buried behind the boxes of books and linens that belong in them. But the room is so full, there’s no place to put the boxes so that we can extract the furniture, and no way to position it correctly so we can start unpacking into it. At the moment, downsizing doesn’t seem like much fun!

Continue reading →

by

Praying for Me

I woke up the other morning realizing that, while my to-do list was quite full, there was nothing on it that posed a dire emergency, nor was there anything that left me feeling overwhelmed and incapable. That was such a change from the previous few months that I had to stop and breathe a sigh of relief. As I talked to God that morning, I prayed for others on my heart, but not for myself. In fact, I had the utter audacity to tell him that, for once, I had everything under control.

You’d think I would know better.

Continue reading →

by

An Abundance of Possessions

We sold our house. After months of working hard to get it ready, we finally listed it on a Saturday morning in late March—far, far later than the planned February date. I didn’t know what to expect. Would there be hordes of people coming to view it? Would anyone come at all? Given the timing, we needed a quick sale. What would God do?

A lot, it turns out. We received a serious offer a mere seven days after the listing went live. What’s more, the buyers love plants. They’re thrilled about filling the windows with indoor greenery and filling the outside beds with veggies. They’re interested in getting chickens. In fact, they love everything about the house that we do. It’s so much easier to let go when you know you’re blessing someone else as a result!

Continue reading →

by

Play It Again, Band

The worship band segues into another song. We sing through the introduction, then launch into the chorus. Then a line or two… and the chorus again. And again. And again. And again. Sixteen repetitions later, we sing the introduction again and the whole process repeats.

The first few minutes are great. I’m focused on God, meaning every word I sing. But by the end of the song, all I can think about is how much I dislike singing the same thing over and over and over. If it makes me this crazy, how could God appreciate this interminable repetition? Is this really how we’re supposed to worship?

Continue reading →

by

Sometimes You’re the Bug

Do you know how that song goes—“Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug….”?

This week, we were definitely the bugs. With all the fixing and packing and staging and everything else we have to do to get our current house on the market, I guess it was inevitable that something would go wrong. But really, God, did it have to be something so… major?

Continue reading →

by

Life in a Rut

We all love mountain top experiences. Perhaps you’ve been on your church’s retreat, or maybe you just took a break from the daily routine for some personal time with God. Either way, you’ve been listening and He’s been speaking. There’s nothing like hearing from God!

Sometimes, He’s full of new plans for us, or He comes and comforts us in our hour of need. Sometimes, we’re reading along in our Bible and the words leap off the page and into our hearts and minds.

And sometimes life consists of a series of days so alike, you can barely tell them apart. After all the excitement of plans and possibilities, new insights and clear direction, we’re left in the tedium of routine.

Continue reading →