Recounting the Deeds of the Lord

Isaiah 63:7 says,

"I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us."

So I will do that, today, for a public reminder of God's goodness, and a future reminder to me of how God was at work in these weeks and months.

(1) He led us to stay in Texas.  This was no small thing, as we had no house, no car, no job, no dishes, nothing, here in Texas.  We are grateful to Him for the way He uprooted our lives 6 years ago to "plant" us overseas, and we are grateful now that He has replanted us here in Texas.
(2) He provided a job for my husband.  An amazing job that allows us to be right where we want to be... part of our local church, and near family and old friends here.
(3) He allowed us to get a house that, because of the crummy housing market, is far beyond what we could normally hope to own, and it is not only just right for our family's needs, but there are some really awesome features (like a roof-level fort for the kiddos) that show God's personal care for us in unexpected ways.  We are so very very thankful.  
(4) God convicted me of my tendency to yell and graciously has disciplined me and showed me just how ugly it really is.  I am learning so much from Him, and I believe that He is breaking the stronghold of this sin in my life.  It is so encouraging to see Him dismantle a sin that has been a part of my life for decades.  It is wonderful to see that He is still at work in my life.
(4) He has worked everything together so that yesterday morning (Wed.), the painting inside the house was completed and we were able to move all of our possessions in Texas into the garage.  This morning, in just a couple hours, our possessions from Istanbul (that I packed up 3 months ago) will be delivered to our new home.  If they had arrived even 2 weeks ago, it would have had to be delivered to my parents' house & we would've had to move it ourselves, but God even worked out the delivery of this shipment.  Incredible!
(5) The carpets (which, even though they still have great wear, had been quite badly stained & I was concerned we might need to replace them) were cleaned yesterday & basically all of the nasty stains came out.  Not only that, but our God led my curious little 7 year old to want to go out and check the mail yesterday morning.  When he did, there was a $20 off cleaning coupon from that particular local mom-and-pop owned carpet cleaning company inside a "Valu-Pak".  Score!  Big earnings for one trip to the mailbox.
(6) Our local church & our parents have been such a blessing to us... helping with the kids, bringing a few meals, helping move, clean, and install things.  It's been amazing.  I love our church!
(7) My parents have let us live with them during these last 2-3 weeks of transition.  See, our rental house where we'd been living is about 40 minutes from our church & Doug's work, but my parents live 14 minutes away.  Particularly since we're a one-car family, it's been such a gift to cut down that much time off of our back-and-forth trips each day.
(8) His goodness and kindness to our children, through all of this, has been such a gift.  We counted up yesterday, and once we move into this house (which will finish happening today), my oldest two sons will have lived in 13 different places in the last 6 & 1/2 years.  Despite the moves, the transitions, the different languages and cultures, and the changes to our family (we went from 2 kids to 5 kids in less than 6 years), God has been so faithful to lead us as we parent them and keep things steady for them.  Every time we pray for wisdom, He answers that prayer (James 1:5), and has surrounded us with wise counselors & godly people.  Our children possess a sense of 'home' that basically means "wherever we are all together as a family" and perhaps will lend itself more easily to a perspective that Heaven is our true home, when we are all together as the Body of Christ.  I am so thankful to know that our Father cares for our children even far more than I do.

Truly these are the "gracious deeds of the Lord," "praiseworthy acts of the Lord," and I praise Him for all that He has done for us.

Show & Tell: Links You May Have Missed

On Wednesday of last week, we closed on our new house (yay!) and so we're in the thick of packing, arranging appointments with painters, locksmiths, etc., and expecting our crate from Istanbul to (hopefully) be delivered sometime this week (another yay!).  In lieu of my normal sharing of random thoughts or recent Bible studies, I thought I'd link up to all the Making Home posts that have been making their way around Pinterest.  (Here are my Pinterest boards, if you're interested.)

I hope you enjoy looking through these old links; I'm going to be enjoying literally "Making Home" for the first time in a while.  :)

• Sustaining Contentment-- Fighting for joy in hard/difficult/humdrum times
• Biblical Descriptions of Mothers-- I compiled significant/insightful descriptions of mothers found in the Bible
• Get Yourself Dressed!-- Growing more mature as a believer
• Being Sexy For Your Husband-- A 5-part series to encourage you in your marital intimacy
• "Me Time"?-- Examining selfishness, avoiding burnout, and considering Jesus' example
• Let The Words Tumble Out-- Sometimes you just have to start praying and the words will come.
• Seek Wise Counsel-- proactively pursue the advice of more experienced believers!
• Contentment vs. Discontentedness-- Psalm 16 & the opposite of Psalm 16 give a clarifying, convicting picture of what contentment looks like
• Feeding Your Baby the First Week-- My experiences with baby #5
• Make Your Own Baby Wipes-- an easy and economical option
• Tips for Dealing With Mastitis-- a somewhat common malady for breastfeeding moms
• Coaching Your Kids Through Doctor's Visits-- tips to help them cope well
• Is "Mommy Guilt" Normal?-- discerning God's conviction vs. unhelpful guilt
• How Expected Birth Control Use Affects Our Culture-- surprisingly, one of my most popular posts
• My Real-Life Proverbs 31 Friend-- this post about being "busy at home" was a recent one but has already been "pinned" for encouragement on Pinterest.  

Hope you find something encouraging or thought-provoking from this list of oldies.  :)  Have a great week, and I'll see ya when I see ya.

Getting Real About Discipleship & Anger

Last week, I read something (I think it was from John Piper) to the effect that- "Being someone different when you think no one else is looking is functional atheism.  God is always there."   Transparency.  Authenticity.  No room for duplicity.

And then this week, I read this- about discipleship, and doing the real, day-in, day-out practices of faith that lead to spiritual growth & maturity in Christ.  It's from Dallas Willard:

"But, someone will say, can I not be 'saved'-- that is, get into heaven when I die-- without any of this?  Perhaps you can.  God's goodness is so great, I am sure that He will let you in if He can find any basis at all to do so.  But you might wish to think about what your life amounts to before you did, about what kind of person you are becoming, and about whether you really would be comfortable for eternity in the presence of One whose company you have not found especially desirable for the few hours and days of your earthly existence.  And He is, after all, One who says to you now, 'Follow me!' "

It is such a huge call, to follow Christ.  It is no small thing.  Not a decision made once, in response to an altar call at church camp... not a fire insurance policy.  No, following Christ is a daily thing.
Sometimes so painful, but in that pain, there is growth, and it is good.  Like those old growing pains... oh I remember when I was about 9 or 10 and my legs would have these shooting pains-- they were not pleasant, but they were for my good.  I needed to grow taller; God was stretching out my body so that I might grow into womanhood and have a frame that would support the weight and demands it would need to carry.

Recently, God allowed me to see the extent of my sin-- specifically, He has graciously placed pressures in my life that have revealed my anger.  For many years, this sin lay dormant in my life, and then it slowly crept out as pressures mounted... but in the last year in particular, it has become clear: I have allowed myself to be mastered, enslaved, by anger... and the realization of this has brought me lower than I think I have ever been.

But IT IS FOR MY GOOD that God has brought me low.  He allows these momentary pressures so that He can refine and shape my life.  Just like that orange, He is simply squeezing out of me what is already there.  He is revealing what exists in me.
I am trying to willingly put myself under His hand... to submit to this refining process.  To work with Him, instead of kicking against Him.  This whole week has been a process of looking to Him daily, even moment-by-moment, depending on Him and greatly desiring His guidance (through the Spirit and the Word).

"Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus..." ~Hebrews 12:1-2

Re-reading this book online-- free!-- that I read in college, has proven instructive and fruitful for giving me a biblical foundation for seeking a breakthrough in the fight against the hold of this sin in my life.  Rightly calling it what it is & confessing it with true contrition to those who have been hurt by it has brought it into the light.  And the light is where I long to live.  I want to have my life and heart be on the inside what it is on the outside, and what it is on the outside on the inside.  I want anyone who looks at any thread in my life to see what is in every other thread... a true desire to be like Christ.  To be a person who loves as I am loved, who roots out and fights against the hold of sin, who continually submits myself to this process of being shaped and refined by my Maker, who fights for justice, and encourages everyone to be free in Christ.  To be -truly- free in Christ myself.
Getting real about discipleship means that I have to do the real work of it, daily.  I can not sit back and "let go and let God".  I will welcome this squeezing, and will be real about what pours out of my heart.  Prayerfully, I will refill those squeezed-out places with Christ... with His Word, with His ways, with His Spirit.  With His strength, I will not allow those places to be reclaimed by the stronghold of sin.  By His help, I will work with all my might to be more like Jesus.
I am writing this in a continued effort to be transparent here, and this blog would not be a full picture of my life if I did not deal with my ugly sin in a straightforward way.  This is who I am, but I want to be more like Jesus.  I'm so thankful that He doesn't let me stay ugly, but that He keeps squeezing that ugly right out of me.  And in the process, He makes beautiful things out of us.

http://youtu.be/nJ4yNYY1hHM


Please pray for me.  And please feel free to share what God is doing to refine you.  The longer I live, the more I am convinced that He wants to make beautiful things of all of us, and I want to work with Him to that end.


Images:
Poppy- Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Squeeze- Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

AudioBible: Gospel Observations

I recently bought the entire New Testament from the Bible Experience (oh I love these recordings!) and took the opportunity to listen to the entire books of Matthew & Mark all in one afternoon/evening.  (Matthew took the entire length of my 3 year old's naptime, including the time it took him to fall asleep), and Mark took 90 minutes.



I had a couple of random observations from listening to the gospels in such a intensive format.

1. The writers shared specific details (5 loaves & 2 fishes for 5000 men plus women and children, 7 loaves for 4000 men plus women and children) because these are real stories-- real events-- not euphemisms or general impressions of how miraculous Jesus was.  
2. Boy, Jesus really came down hard on the Pharisees.  And really, a lot of both gospels was spent with all the ways they (and the Sadducees & Essenes) plotted and laid traps to try and trip Jesus up in His teachings.  Multiple times yesterday, my heart started praying, "Father, don't let me be like the Pharisees.... seeing, but not understanding, hearing, but not perceiving.  Help me understand.  Let me perceive what You really mean.  Discipline & shape me to be humble and teachable."
3. Jesus did a lot of healing.  It seems that physical healing is what drove most people to come out and listen to Him, rather than some inward spiritual hungering or thirsting.
4. The extensive, specific genealogies in both books immediately reminded me of recently beginning a book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman raised as a Muslim in Somalia, and how as a child, she was taught to be able to list out her ancestors, back at least 200 years.  Before she learned almost anything else (practical, religious, or educational) about life, her genealogy was of paramount importance.  We don't do this, so genealogies seem superfluous and dull to us, but to someone who values the heritage and history communicated in the lists of ancestors, this would be an important part of the gospels, and of the authority of Christ.
5. Jesus laid out the specifics to prepare the disciples for His arrest & death multiple times, "they will hand over the Son of Man to be killed,"  "She is preparing my body for burial," so many times in fact that it is difficult to believe that the Disciples didn't seem prepared.  
6. I wonder if the title "King of the Jews" came from the Jewish notion that the Messiah would be a military/political leader?  I wonder if He had really been called this by some people, and if certain portions of the population were really trying to thrust him into political power, or if (like I've been told all my life) it WAS solely to mock Him?  I don't know.  =
7. Stay SPIRITUALLY awake!  Don't fall into a noncommittal, bland, sideline-style faith.  We should always be engaged & prepared for His coming.  
   From Mark 13: "Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake.  Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.  And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”  
8. I wondered as I listened to the account of Judas going out to betray Jesus if it was the acceptance of sinners that pushed him right over the edge.  See, the woman known as a prostitute came and poured out her expensive oil on Jesus, and instead of condemning her, He said she was preparing His body, AND that she would be honored for all of time.  From that banquet, apparently right after hearing Jesus say that such a sinful woman would be honored in the Kingdom of God, Judas went out to make his initial plans with the council to kill Jesus.  It made me introspectively consider if I am self-righteously put off when outright sinners are accepted and beloved by God.   I hope that is never the case in my heart... but that is one of the warnings of Judas to us.   

This was such a wonderful, wonderful exercise for me... and I'm so thankful to now own the entire NT  produced by the Bible Experience.  I highly recommend it for those of you who might be able to intentionally use & listen to an audio Bible.  It is dramatically done, and brings vivacity to the text; it enhances rather than distracting.  

The Bible Experience from zondervanpublishers on GodTube.

I hope to do this regularly, to remind myself of the core teachings and truth of Jesus Christ.

Bread Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net