We have had the extraordinary privilege to work alongside and fellowship with some of the most God-loving, talented people out there. Mostly they are just plain folks like you and me who one day decided it was worth it (if you want to know about the cost, read here) to submit their lives to the will of Jesus. That, friends, is a powerful decision to make that will change your life. And God has blessed them abundantly as He promises to do.
One such man by the name of Peter VanWylen has created a website which explains plainly and succinctly exactly why we have been going about our life as we have for the past six years. There's no point in me trying to explain it because he does it so well. So, take the tour so you understand what's going on, look up your own city, and please read the FAQ (which could be titled FAQ about MY life!)
The Oval Project
Showing posts with label Life with Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life with Jesus. Show all posts
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
A New Prayer
I pray for my kids pretty much everyday. Not because I make a conscious effort to do so, it just sort of happens when I peek in on them at bedtime or I am overwhelmed by them or the chaos of the day.
Usually, my prayers are for God to make them into mighty warriors for His kingdom. I've given up hoping in any thing else for them, because there is really nothing else that matters as long as they are wholeheartedly following Him. That's why we discipline them: not to make them 'good people' (as if that were possible) but to teach them obedience and pave the way for discipleship.
Along those lines, I've recently been exposed to a new kind of prayer for my kids: praying that they get 'caught'. Seems like kind of weird prayer, but I know I did all sorts of things and never got caught [as a kid, as a teenager, you name it]. I think praying for our kids to get caught is a powerful way to ask God to protect them from themselves and the influence of the world.
You see, things done in secret only grow. Not only do they have the room to grow themselves, they grow our shame and guilt as well. As we continue in a secret sin, not only does its power over us multiply, but so does the voice in our head telling us how terrible we are for continuing in it, for covering it up, for living a lie.
Until we get caught.
Often getting caught is terrible. But it's also a relief. Finally, someone knows. Finally, I can confess. Finally, I can be free.
So I pray that as my kids get older and the sins they commit have the potential for much greater harm to themselves and others, I pray that God would cause them to be caught. For sin to be brought into light, so that confession can occur and they can understand what it means to be forgiven and redeemed, brought back into the sheepfold and loved dearly.
Until we get caught.
Often getting caught is terrible. But it's also a relief. Finally, someone knows. Finally, I can confess. Finally, I can be free.
So I pray that as my kids get older and the sins they commit have the potential for much greater harm to themselves and others, I pray that God would cause them to be caught. For sin to be brought into light, so that confession can occur and they can understand what it means to be forgiven and redeemed, brought back into the sheepfold and loved dearly.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
But Wait! There's More!
It is a peaceful Saturday morning. Steve is at work, Ansley is in bed, and for the first Saturday I can remember for awhile I don't have a laundry list of school work to do. The house is clean and I'm really not sure what to do with myself.
In an effort to keep the house quiet for nap time, Isaac is watching TV. Usually we limit him to PBS kids because we know we can trust whatever is on, but this morning Qubo is on and I'm usually okay with that too, except for one thing: commercials.
Do you remember being a kid and seeing all of those amazing toys and McDonald's happy meals and little gadgets that you just knew would surely make you SO happy if mom or dad would just please please please buy you one? And then in the rare instance you actually did get that coveted item, it never quite looked like and worked as amazingly as your dreams had told you it would.
This morning it was the "Dreamlight", a stuffed animal that lights up and then turns itself off after twenty minutes. I know my son well, and I know his interest in a toy like that would die, well, before it even came in the mail. He likes GI Joes and superheroes and blowing things up, not cute cuddly stuffed animals that light up and play sweet lullabies. Nonetheless, he needed that cuddly little bundle of annoyance. I carefully explained, as we always do with marketing ploys, that those Dreamlight people just want your money so they make you think you want something that you really don't. We prefer a little dose of reality to handle these things. Just call me the dream crusher.
But don't we, the grown-ups who are supposed to rise above these things, do the same thing in a much larger, more dangerous scale? If I can finally move into that house (guilty), get that bigger dining room table (ahem), or go on that vacation (oh the sunshine), then I will feel whole, complete, satisfied.
I want my little boy to be able to see through these things, to see what's going in his heart and where the world wants to lead him so he can run fast in the other direction. And I want that for myself. It's easy to see through the cheesy kids toy commercials, but we're so easily blinded by our hearts desires that in the end will never satisfy, never be quenched.
Jesus says "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" Matthew 6:33
In an effort to keep the house quiet for nap time, Isaac is watching TV. Usually we limit him to PBS kids because we know we can trust whatever is on, but this morning Qubo is on and I'm usually okay with that too, except for one thing: commercials.
Do you remember being a kid and seeing all of those amazing toys and McDonald's happy meals and little gadgets that you just knew would surely make you SO happy if mom or dad would just please please please buy you one? And then in the rare instance you actually did get that coveted item, it never quite looked like and worked as amazingly as your dreams had told you it would.
This morning it was the "Dreamlight", a stuffed animal that lights up and then turns itself off after twenty minutes. I know my son well, and I know his interest in a toy like that would die, well, before it even came in the mail. He likes GI Joes and superheroes and blowing things up, not cute cuddly stuffed animals that light up and play sweet lullabies. Nonetheless, he needed that cuddly little bundle of annoyance. I carefully explained, as we always do with marketing ploys, that those Dreamlight people just want your money so they make you think you want something that you really don't. We prefer a little dose of reality to handle these things. Just call me the dream crusher.
But don't we, the grown-ups who are supposed to rise above these things, do the same thing in a much larger, more dangerous scale? If I can finally move into that house (guilty), get that bigger dining room table (ahem), or go on that vacation (oh the sunshine), then I will feel whole, complete, satisfied.
I want my little boy to be able to see through these things, to see what's going in his heart and where the world wants to lead him so he can run fast in the other direction. And I want that for myself. It's easy to see through the cheesy kids toy commercials, but we're so easily blinded by our hearts desires that in the end will never satisfy, never be quenched.
Jesus says "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you" Matthew 6:33
Monday, November 7, 2011
I just finished watching this video.
I haven't had much time to process its contents, but I am deeply moved to conviction on what it has to say. Since becoming a believer God has changed my ignorant and world-informed views (similar to many represented on the video) on abortion to align with His. Since having my own children my academic understanding of God's ways have turned to deep sadness and grief over the fact that this goes on mostly unchecked in so many places in our country.
The world shies away from anything dogmatic. As believers, many, including myself, shy away as well. Not because we don't hold some truths to be incontrovertible, but because we are afraid. We tell ourselves we are afraid to turn people away from the faith. But, if I am honest, it's really because I am afraid they won't like me. Because they will reject me. And so I hide what I know to be true. I'm like Peter in the courtyard telling everyone I've never met Jesus. That's some other guy. I'm not that Christian.
I am convicted in knowing that I am afraid to take a stand for what I know to be true. I am convicted because I am afraid that I would drive the bulldozer. There is a part of me that would want to. I am convicted because, if we follow the analogy, I AM driving the bulldozer.
My hope is that this video would not be another dogmatic divider between believers and non believers. Another "these people go to hell and these people don't" issues. That is not my purpose here and I don't think it was Comfort's. He raises many important questions and things to consider. I pray that our belief systems and actions would align with what our mouths profess. That this video would be the beginning of conversations in which God can be glorified and His character is revealed.
I haven't had much time to process its contents, but I am deeply moved to conviction on what it has to say. Since becoming a believer God has changed my ignorant and world-informed views (similar to many represented on the video) on abortion to align with His. Since having my own children my academic understanding of God's ways have turned to deep sadness and grief over the fact that this goes on mostly unchecked in so many places in our country.
The world shies away from anything dogmatic. As believers, many, including myself, shy away as well. Not because we don't hold some truths to be incontrovertible, but because we are afraid. We tell ourselves we are afraid to turn people away from the faith. But, if I am honest, it's really because I am afraid they won't like me. Because they will reject me. And so I hide what I know to be true. I'm like Peter in the courtyard telling everyone I've never met Jesus. That's some other guy. I'm not that Christian.
I am convicted in knowing that I am afraid to take a stand for what I know to be true. I am convicted because I am afraid that I would drive the bulldozer. There is a part of me that would want to. I am convicted because, if we follow the analogy, I AM driving the bulldozer.
My hope is that this video would not be another dogmatic divider between believers and non believers. Another "these people go to hell and these people don't" issues. That is not my purpose here and I don't think it was Comfort's. He raises many important questions and things to consider. I pray that our belief systems and actions would align with what our mouths profess. That this video would be the beginning of conversations in which God can be glorified and His character is revealed.
Friday, September 23, 2011
What is the Cost?
It has been an interesting week on the 400 block of South 31st Street. I've been thinking all week about what I might write to describe it. I want desperately to communicate, as much for myself as anyone else, the thoughts in my head, what God's Word says, and how much He has changed my heart.
In Luke 14 Jesus makes it very clear that we ought to count the cost of following Him before we make that choice. What is the cost? "Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33)
After much thought, I can't decide whether, thirteen years ago when I became a believer, I would have made the same decision had I really known what the cost would be. If someone had read me that verse and told me you're going to live in the inner city amongst violence and poverty, you will be manipulated when you're trying to show grace, you will lose hundreds of dollars to dishonesty, what you want now you will not get. In the emotion and passion of my "conversion moment", maybe I would have been okay with that. But a day, a week, a month later, after I had calmed down and really had time to think, what would I have said?
Jesus doesn't beat around the bush. He doesn't try to make us feel good by telling us how much He loves us and how peachy life is going to be if we would just believe. In verse 26 he says "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Jesus is not begging us to believe in him. He is telling us to honestly consider what we are willing to do in His name, and if it doesn't include giving up everything we value in life including life itself, then we're following the wrong guy.
So what is the cost? Many believers around the world choose to follow Jesus knowing that it is a death sentence for themselves and their families. This is not the case for us, but the statement Jesus makes is no less pertinent. I think these are some of the most cutting words Jesus gives us, and when the Bible cuts us, we probably ought to pay attention. We are not in a situation of literally giving up our families or renouncing all that we have. But we are in a situation of renouncing our allegiance to those things. Am I making my decisions based on following and obeying Jesus, or am I doing it because I think I ought to be safe? Or I love my children? Or I need financial security?
This brings me back to the questions I've been asking myself: If I had really known, what would I have done? Of course I can't answer that question, but it gives me a greater picture of God's grace in all of this. He is teaching me what the cost is, and He's giving me the grace to be willing to endure it. More than endure it, He is giving me the grace to find joy in suffering. It is not a begrudging cost, it is a willing cost. My only hope, my only joy, my only satisfaction is in Him. If, even for a moment, I think that my happiness will be found in my money, my home, my husband, my children (the list goes on) I will be disappointed, empty and lost. Life is found in obedience to Him. It is found when what I want no longer matters, only what He wants. God is transforming what I want into what He wants.
"It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
In Luke 14 Jesus makes it very clear that we ought to count the cost of following Him before we make that choice. What is the cost? "Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33)
After much thought, I can't decide whether, thirteen years ago when I became a believer, I would have made the same decision had I really known what the cost would be. If someone had read me that verse and told me you're going to live in the inner city amongst violence and poverty, you will be manipulated when you're trying to show grace, you will lose hundreds of dollars to dishonesty, what you want now you will not get. In the emotion and passion of my "conversion moment", maybe I would have been okay with that. But a day, a week, a month later, after I had calmed down and really had time to think, what would I have said?
Jesus doesn't beat around the bush. He doesn't try to make us feel good by telling us how much He loves us and how peachy life is going to be if we would just believe. In verse 26 he says "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Jesus is not begging us to believe in him. He is telling us to honestly consider what we are willing to do in His name, and if it doesn't include giving up everything we value in life including life itself, then we're following the wrong guy.
So what is the cost? Many believers around the world choose to follow Jesus knowing that it is a death sentence for themselves and their families. This is not the case for us, but the statement Jesus makes is no less pertinent. I think these are some of the most cutting words Jesus gives us, and when the Bible cuts us, we probably ought to pay attention. We are not in a situation of literally giving up our families or renouncing all that we have. But we are in a situation of renouncing our allegiance to those things. Am I making my decisions based on following and obeying Jesus, or am I doing it because I think I ought to be safe? Or I love my children? Or I need financial security?
This brings me back to the questions I've been asking myself: If I had really known, what would I have done? Of course I can't answer that question, but it gives me a greater picture of God's grace in all of this. He is teaching me what the cost is, and He's giving me the grace to be willing to endure it. More than endure it, He is giving me the grace to find joy in suffering. It is not a begrudging cost, it is a willing cost. My only hope, my only joy, my only satisfaction is in Him. If, even for a moment, I think that my happiness will be found in my money, my home, my husband, my children (the list goes on) I will be disappointed, empty and lost. Life is found in obedience to Him. It is found when what I want no longer matters, only what He wants. God is transforming what I want into what He wants.
"It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Contentment
Tonight is the fifth night that Ansley has been moved into the bedroom with Isaac. It is also the first night that this has gone off without a hitch. This whole situation has gotten me thinking about our life and how far the Lord has brought us the last couple years. So, if you want to learn the long, hard lesson of contentment, do the following:
1. Move to a city in the middle of nowhere, to a state that is so unknown most people will ask you how living in Wyoming is going. Well, actually, we don't live in Wyoming. It's Montana, the big one above Wyoming.
2. Move to that random place (where did you move to again?) having not sold your previous home. DO NOT...I repeat...DO NOT sell it for 18 months post-move. You must learn that the Lord will provide renters, and the perfect buyer at the perfect time.
3. Spend the first 6 months living with another family that also has kids and a dog. (You all live together?)
4. Buy a property that is in foreclosure. You MUST...I repeat MUST...find the one that has a prostitute/drug dealer renting the basement who refuses to leave or pay rent.
5. Move into the upstairs of the 'front' house. Refinish all floors. Paint all walls. Fix air conditioner (but DO NOT run it until August...that prostitute in the basement has some weird smells going on and she won't leave until then)
6. Get pregnant while the prostitute (and her weird smells) still lives in the basement. Enjoy the heat of the summer with no air conditioning, except in those precious moments when your pre-natal nausea just might be able to handle the smells.
7. Kick out prostitute...finally. Praise Jesus. A lot.
8. Re-model basement apartment. Floors, cabinets, walls, bathroom. Finally rid yourself of those awful smells. Enjoy your A/C.
9. Answer the door (in your pajamas) to the sight of a US Marshal. "I am looking for Larry Copp..." (he shows you a picture of the prostitute's boyfriend who is missing from a halfway house). "No sir, he hasn't been around for months..."
10. Explain that Larry Copp hasn't been around for months five times. To US Marshals, Bounty hunters ("Fugitive Recovery"), and child-support-something-or-other.
11. 'Back' house basement renter moves out. Re-model that apartment. Find renter.
12. New renter stays out 6 month lease. Leaves. Find renter.
13. Let renter get $2100 behind in rent. Decide: wait for his student loan money or find renter?
14. Switch bedrooms with 3 year old to make room for baby. New arrangement: to get to your side of the bed you must crawl over your spouse. Pregnant.
15. Have baby. Baby sleeps in living room. When there's a guest, she sleeps in the bathroom. (Where else would a baby sleep?)
16. Have gallbladder removed. (Really, who needs one?)
17. Move baby to share room with 3 year old. Let 3 year old nap in your bed. (Haven't you always wanted the sand from his toes in your sheets when you crawl into bed at night?)
But really, all sarcasm aside, the Lord has taught me immeasurably more than I could have ever imagined before we moved here. I am blessed. Not with a big house or a lot of money (or renters that pay on time...or ever). That is not where true blessings come. He has taught me what it means to love Him and live for Him alone. Not a house or an image or a paycheck. Just Jesus, wherever He has me go (even, and especially, in Montana).
"For I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need." The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11-12
1. Move to a city in the middle of nowhere, to a state that is so unknown most people will ask you how living in Wyoming is going. Well, actually, we don't live in Wyoming. It's Montana, the big one above Wyoming.
2. Move to that random place (where did you move to again?) having not sold your previous home. DO NOT...I repeat...DO NOT sell it for 18 months post-move. You must learn that the Lord will provide renters, and the perfect buyer at the perfect time.
3. Spend the first 6 months living with another family that also has kids and a dog. (You all live together?)
4. Buy a property that is in foreclosure. You MUST...I repeat MUST...find the one that has a prostitute/drug dealer renting the basement who refuses to leave or pay rent.
5. Move into the upstairs of the 'front' house. Refinish all floors. Paint all walls. Fix air conditioner (but DO NOT run it until August...that prostitute in the basement has some weird smells going on and she won't leave until then)
6. Get pregnant while the prostitute (and her weird smells) still lives in the basement. Enjoy the heat of the summer with no air conditioning, except in those precious moments when your pre-natal nausea just might be able to handle the smells.
7. Kick out prostitute...finally. Praise Jesus. A lot.
8. Re-model basement apartment. Floors, cabinets, walls, bathroom. Finally rid yourself of those awful smells. Enjoy your A/C.
9. Answer the door (in your pajamas) to the sight of a US Marshal. "I am looking for Larry Copp..." (he shows you a picture of the prostitute's boyfriend who is missing from a halfway house). "No sir, he hasn't been around for months..."
10. Explain that Larry Copp hasn't been around for months five times. To US Marshals, Bounty hunters ("Fugitive Recovery"), and child-support-something-or-other.
11. 'Back' house basement renter moves out. Re-model that apartment. Find renter.
12. New renter stays out 6 month lease. Leaves. Find renter.
13. Let renter get $2100 behind in rent. Decide: wait for his student loan money or find renter?
14. Switch bedrooms with 3 year old to make room for baby. New arrangement: to get to your side of the bed you must crawl over your spouse. Pregnant.
15. Have baby. Baby sleeps in living room. When there's a guest, she sleeps in the bathroom. (Where else would a baby sleep?)
16. Have gallbladder removed. (Really, who needs one?)
17. Move baby to share room with 3 year old. Let 3 year old nap in your bed. (Haven't you always wanted the sand from his toes in your sheets when you crawl into bed at night?)
But really, all sarcasm aside, the Lord has taught me immeasurably more than I could have ever imagined before we moved here. I am blessed. Not with a big house or a lot of money (or renters that pay on time...or ever). That is not where true blessings come. He has taught me what it means to love Him and live for Him alone. Not a house or an image or a paycheck. Just Jesus, wherever He has me go (even, and especially, in Montana).
"For I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need." The Apostle Paul, Philippians 4:11-12
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