For mothers and others who love their homes

I built a lot of the furniture in our home.  A special point of pride was a walnut coffee table I designed and built 4 years before we had children.  For me, it was Exhibit "A" in our living room.  Glad to show it off.  Then we had children.  Who used rattles, blocks and other tools of destruction to dent, cut, and otherwise damage my showpiece.  I still occasionally wince remembering how I cared more about some wood and glue that my children will probably have to sell at a yard sale after I'm gone, than innocently playing children with no intentions of upsetting Daddy.  

Christine Hoover's post from Desiring God is spot on...

Christ Is Our Treasure, Not Our Homes

by Christiane Hoover   June 26, 2012

The home exists for Christ. Our marriages, our children, our physical spaces — all these are means of joyful response to Him. Through the home, we treasure Christ and show others how to treasure Him also (Titus 2:3–5; Proverbs 31:10–31).

Too often, however, we treasure the home more than we treasure Christ. As a result, what He has given as a blessing and an avenue of sanctification becomes a means of achievement or accomplishment, where our well-behaved children or our organizational abilities are an indication of our value and our righteousness. Our homes become a matter of pride, self-elevation, or comparison. And we cling to our treasure, thinking that the home is under our control, that it’s ours to possess, that we have somehow created and cultivated something special.

The temptation to treasure the home is especially intense on good days, when our children are playing nicely together, when we’re unified with our spouse, or when the house is bright and clean and everything is in order.

But on bad days? When a child throws a fit or disrespects another adult, or when communication is crossways? When the dishwasher leaks all over the kitchen floor or an appointment is forgotten? When a harsh word is spoken or priorities have been shoved aside? What about the days when life is thrown wildly off-kilter?

When the home is the treasure above Christ and our value is entwined with the circumstances of our home, the bad days are unsettling, even devastating.

On the bad days, we recognize the home acting similarly to the Law:

• Our treasure, the home, speaks urgent, ever-changing, and unending demands for perfection that can never be fulfilled. (Galatians 3:10
• Our treasure, the home, causes us to value and conform to what pleases others or earns their respect rather than what pleases God. (Colossians 2:20-22)
• Our treasure, the home, with its perfectionistic, image-maintaining urgencies, cannot bring life to our hearts and our families. (Galatians 3:21)

If we treasure our home as our righteousness, we subtly teach our children that behavior matters more than the attitudes of the heart, that a clean home matters more than relationships, that we are superior to others, or that we must cling to and control the things we love rather than trust God with them.

The good news is that even when we treasure our home more than we treasure Christ, our failings act as a tutor to bring us to Christ, the true Treasure, and to show us that we are incapable of righteousness apart from Him (Galatians 3:24). We recognize in our failings that we need something apart from ourselves to make a home as God intended, that something being the grace and power of Christ.

When Christ is our treasure, our homes consist of love, grace, and utter dependence on the Holy Spirit. We don’t chase self-righteousness, and we don’t cling to treasures that, despite all their goodness, can still be lost. We cling tightly to the only Treasure that cannot be stolen or tarnished, Christ Himself.

Don't Underestimate the power of the Gospel

Click on the link below to hear Sonia Jenkins and Trip Lee recount their stories of God's rescue (from April, 2012 T4G conference in Louisville, KY).

http://t4g.org/media/2012/04/testimonies-part-2/

My life for Him

It would be good to pray for Steve.

I was 2 years old when five missionaries were killed by the primitive tribesmen they were trying to reach in Ecuador.  Nate Saint, the pilot who deftly landed his friends on a sandbar which became their cemetery, left behind three small children including five year-old Steve.  Today that son is an entrepreneur and inventor with a missionary heart.  At 61 he heads I-Tec, the Florida-based Indigenous People's Technology & Education Center.  Steve and his organization develop everything from portable dental devices & training, to aircraft (including a flying car), all designed to enable indigenous Christians in the most hidden parts of the world to help others and advance the gospel without relying so much on the developed world.

Last week Steve was badly injured while experimenting with an aluminum airfoil which came loose from its restraints, and he was left with very limited use of legs and arms.  He had surgery on Wednesday to relieve pressure on his spine, and the results were hopeful.  But he will probably need to learn to walk all over again as well as relearn other basics.

Before surgery, he made a compelling video that I'll use in this Sunday's sermon.  The truth is that none of us knows what tomorrow--what today holds.  Are we putting it all on the line for Jesus--no reservations, as if this was the end? 

To learn more about I-Tec, go to http://www.itecusa.org. 

What BIID says about worship..., and us

Worship changes the worshiper into the image of the One worshiped.  Jack Hayford's right whether a person worships Jesus Christ, financial independence, a child, or land-o-lakes butter.  As BIID portrays with disturbing clarity.

“When I see an amputee—when I imagine the amputee—there is this inner pull that says, ‘Why can’t I be like that?’”   

Hiding behind a pseudonym, "John" explains that after 47 years of marriage and now in his senior years, he wants to be able to fulfill his lifelong dream of being an amputee.  He insists he's not crazy for wanting to give up a leg.  Each of the several psychiatrists he's seen have all declared him sane.  He finally outed himself to his wife 5 years ago.  Though she's not on board yet, she's agreed to let him have his way--as long as it's done safely.  Finding a cooperative doctor may be difficult since the medical community has condemned the practice of removing healthy limbs simply to satisfy some longing.

BIID stands for Body Identity Integrity Disorder.  Most people so labelled point back to an incident or two in childhood or adolescence that was formative.  Dr. Michael First, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in NY, has been studying BIID for 13 years.  He says others simply explain, “As long as I can remember, I've felt like my leg shouldn't be here".

I remember being stunned when a woman confided in me that she wished she could get cancer.  Bewildered, I thought of all the people I've known with cancer--some of whom I buried.  Except for the attention and sympathy it might spark, I was at a loss to make sense of her craving.  Hearing John's interview I can't help but think of the many amputees in certain war-torn African countries; civilians torn apart by mines who would give almost anything to regain the leg or arm they lost.

There are practical questions anyone who cares about John and his wife, might ask.  Who will pay for John's craving?  What if things go badly during surgery and John's wife is left a widow?  What if complications require more surgeries and in the end John loses much more than a leg?  Does any of that matter to John as much as getting what he wants, what he craves, what he worships?

Then again, should we just dismiss anybody who has a desire we don't have as "You're nuts!"?  People with families work 75-hour weeks in the hopes of being able to afford that vacation home.  A neglected wife cheats on her husband in hopes of making him jealous and want her again.  A teenage baseball player has no time for worship or a mission trip or youth group because he's playing fall ball, summer ball, and all kinds of leagues between the school season in hopes of landing a D-I scholarship.  A politician sells his integrity to his party or the biggest campaign donor.  A woman's world stands or falls by the encouragements and criticisms of others.  Are these people all crazy or just some of them?  Is worshiping certain things normal while worshiping others is not?

Wanting something badly is home territory to each of us but whether cravings are illegal, bizarre, foolish or normal, it's all worship.  Everyone worships either the Lord God, or substitutes; idols, the Bible calls them.  Tim Keller defines an idol as "...anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give" (Counterfeit Gods, xvii).   

What do you want so much that if you could trade God for it, you would?  I've had frustrated wives tell me they just want a white knight for a husband (some guy other than the one who gave her a ring).  People consumed with self-loathing fish constantly for compliments and adoration with their tales of woe.  Other people want things that are blessings from the hand of God: a spouse, a person's friendship, healing, a certain job, a child, or enough money to pay the bills.  But God is unwilling to compete with his blessings for our worship. 

John believes that having his leg amputated would finally allow him to move on with his life.  “People keep saying you got to be awfully darn sure because there's no going back.  What I realized, well, maybe a half a year ago, is that if I keep putting it off, there's no going forward.”

Dr. First says of those with BIID, "There's a huge amount of suffering.  The people I've interviewed with this condition suffer tremendously with this. They spend so much time thinking about it, they're preoccupied, their life is unsettled, and after they get the surgery, they appear to be perfectly normal again.” 

Suffering (because I can't have something), spend so much time thinking about it, preoccupied, unsettled life (without it)..., this is the language of worship.  And John, if you have your leg taken off, you can be the poster child for Pastor Hayford's insight: If you worship an amputee, you will indeed become the image of what you worshiped.  Little children, keep yourself from idols.  (1 John 5:21)