Tried With Fire

My daughter is back home after being away for a week. Even though we talked every day, in person is much better. I'm grateful for someone to share my struggles and prayer concerns. I'm also glad we can be silly together about jackalopes and levitical dietary laws. I'm thankful she left this statement in the Florida sand...

No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life, or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. That is the way God designed it. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience him in our losses. Paul is our example: "We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). The design of Paul's suffering was to make radically clear for his own soul, and for ours, that God and God alone is the only treasure who lasts. When everything in life is stripped away except God, and we thrust him more because of it, this is gain, and he is glorified. Don't Waste Your Life ~ John Piper (page 73, emphasis mine)

I picked up Don't Waste Your Life again this past week-end. How do you live a wartime lifestyle in 21st century America? How do I view my possessions, how do I love my child, how do I spend my money, how do I spend my time so it's evident that Christ is my treasure? These are hard questions, but I need to ask them of myself.

Pastor Ryan's sermon was entitled The Family Treasury on Matt 6:19-24. From my notes: What does my family treasure? Is my security in the Gospel or in money and possession? Regardless of whether we are poor or rich too often we find our identity in our possessions. Too often we are quick to sell our Savior for 30 pieces of silver. What ever controls your heart will ultimately control where your affections lie. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." This is not a best case scenario but Jesus is drawing a line in the sand. If you are Mine, your heart will be Mine. How much of our family's labor is for things? What does what we do with our money say about our lives? Do we show love for our family by the stuff we give them? If we're finding our identity in the master of materialism, we cannot serve Christ. Are we, am I despising Christ by my service to money? Are we, am I despising Christ by serving my stuf...

I had a visit from a neighbor today. She is an elderly woman with a husband in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Sadly, she is not a believer. She is very particular about her yard. Almost every day in the fall, she will attempt to rake every leaf. Once that is done, she can enjoy her lawn for about 2 seconds until the next leaf falls. She is also very particular about her neighbors' yards and is very verbal with her disapproval. Today, she came by to complain about some vines that were coming over to her side of the fence. The situation wasn't that bad but it seems that once she gets into a complaining spell there is nothing that can pacify her. I have to admit that my yard has been a very low priority lately. It's a good thing a friend comes by to cut the grass (which is really mostly weeds disguised as grass) or things would really be looking bad. I probably need to get out and weed the beds, trim the bushes, and put down some mulch. But after our encounter today, I w...

Yesterday, I posted a link to the Don't Waste Your Life Video. I've watched it many times and it haunts me. Probably because yesterday was the court hearing for the divorce. In the video, there's a character who is living large with everything that money could buy and then some. This guy has "his best life now." I couldn't help but think of my husband and weep for him. He is pursuing "his best life now" in his possesions and relationships but the path he is pursuing is a wasted life. But the waste is greater than the breakup of our marriage, the waste is when we treasure anything more than Jesus Christ, when we look for something to satisfy us when only He can. But I was headed down the same road of a wasted life. It wasn't fancy cars, homes, or clothes. It was marriage and family - the American Dream of the Ideal Christian Homeschooling Family. I believe God reached down in mercy and through this divorce is delivering me to find my all in Christ...

And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. Luke 12:11-12 And he said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in...