What I have learned this summer...

I have learned a lot this summer.

I have learned -again- that I am indeed a sinner that is prone to wander no matter the circumstances. It is exhausting when I try to live in my own strength. I just cannot do it. Well...graciously...really - it's just a train wreck.

I have learned that my best feature is my faith. Believe it or not - though my faith is weak - I tend to believe things that many doubt. This faith that is given to me, and to every human on this earth is a gift from God.  My faith has been placed in many wrong things over the years, causing me to falter and fall. I have placed my faith in friends, money, my own abilities - and every single one of those things have let me down at one point or another. I have let it cause me to be bitter and drag around a burden that was not meant for me to carry.

God has something better.

I have learned that my boys - all three of them - in spite of me, have grown into young men that I am incredibly proud of. How did this happen? The grace of God. There is nothing in me that can make these boys be what they need to be. Can I help? Yes. And I should. Am I perfect? Sadly no. But if you read all of the articles that are posted on Facebook and circulating the web, you would think it was all up to us and the amount of TV and sugar and devices we do or don't let our kids indulge in. But it is not.

Of course there are things we need to do to raise our children well and we try to give them the tools they need to be successful. In the end though my trust has to be in God and not in anything I can give them. They are a work of the divine hand of God working through me to make them what He needs them to be.

I have learned that kids are kids. They are not always a reflection of what I am, or what I have taught them...and yet - they are. One of the most encouraging things I have come to understand over the years is that kids will grow out of the stupid things they say. The first set of students I discipled said and did some stupid things sometimes. I didn't worry about it at the time - #1 they weren't my children #2 I was also very young. But I heard adults that were leaders in the church say some things that I found wounded me, and would certainly hurt these kids we worked so hard to support in their journey to know God. What I have come to understand as an adult is that I cannot allow myself to think less of these kids because of what they say now. I have thought the same things as an adult about my own children, and other students I work with, that if voiced out loud could be hurtful. But God has allowed me to see those kids I disciple 20 + years ago that said stupid things, grow up into amazing adults that have poured themselves into other students and their own children  - full of the GRACE of God. These kids I work with at the high school now (my own babies included) will grow up and start doing and saying stupid things less. I say less because I still say and do stupid things. I will not judge. When I think, "What a bonehead", I immediately follow it up with, "thank God they will grow out of it". And I mean it. And most of them will - due to God's grace and maybe even God's grace through me - so it causes me to "not grow weary in well doing" (Gal. 6:9).

I have learned that I can trust God each day to take care of my needs. When I purposefully make the decision to...and I have to do it minute by minute on some days, because my control fer-REAK ways want to run in and do what I think is best. God has protected me from myself...sometimes in ways that actually scared me more for a night as I wrestled over why this way wouldn't work. I woke up with faith that GOD had this. I had been given the solution to my worries and that was to trust God day by day, moment by moment.

And I will need this. I will have to remind myself of this - over and over again this year because...I have twin boys that are seniors and they are uncertain where they want to go. And I want to know now. I want the finances ironed out now and I want not to have to think about it anymore.

But that is not how God has chosen to work this scenario out...so wait I must.

Isaiah 40:31 [Full Chapter]

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

I am counting on this. 

The Way You Make Me Feel....

This morning started off a little rocky. I had to make one of the boys do something they did not want to. He needed a book off of the supply cart at school and did not want to get it. He felt "stupid". He was unsure about how to go about it and really just dug in. I told him he had to do it. He was very unhappy.

I hate for my babies to be unhappy - but this is real life.

In my desire for him to understand why he had to do it in spite of his not wanting to, I went into some detail. I asked him why he felt stupid. He explained that some older kids made some snide comments about 6th graders and their newby-ness. It was not to him, but it was to someone else in the past. It could have been their first day as far as I know. But it stuck in his head and now it has influenced him to want to look like he was an old pro at everything he put his hand to. How unrealistic.

I do the same thing though...and I am 45 years old. Ridiculous isn't it? So it's hard to be annoyed at an 11 year old when I do the same thing. I told him that the 7th and 8th graders at school had their first time at everything there at the school. They are also unsure and will begin the same insecure process when they get to highschool next year. They are no better than him. They will have to learn and make some public mistakes just like he will. It doesn't end when  you get out of highschool either. I still make newby mistakes. It's just a part of life.

I explained to him that what would make him different from others is how he reacted to a hard situation. Lashing out to make others feel badly is not a good way to make yourself feel better. Most reasonable people get that if you don't know how to do something - you ask. When you see someone else who doesn't know something - you don't use it to build yourself up by making a crack at them...you encourage and help them.
I want my boys to learn that life is not about them. It is about God. Their identity does not come from how accomplished they are. Not how smart, not how good they are at something. Their identity comes from being a child of God.

1 Corinthians 8

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.
 
Here Paul is teaching that knowledge is not always a good thing. It can cause someone to think they are better than they really are. Whereas - love is what defines us as children of God. We love God and he knows us as his own. This love will overflow to others.
 
Luke 10:27
He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

John 13:
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
 
Romans 15:
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.


God wants us to deny the things of the world. What the world understands as accomplishment, riches, love - is not God's understanding. His love will cause others to stumble when they rely on their own understanding. They must see with spiritual eyes that God is God. He cannot be boxed, he cannot be packaged. He cannot be made to bend to our will or our desires.

1 Peter 2:7-9
7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,
8 and, “A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

When understanding comes to us, it is not because we are brilliant. It is not because we have knowledge of our own. It is because God has given it to us.

I am about as dense as they come. I am stubborn and continue to try to push these truths away. I want to live the way I want to. A + B must always equal C. But this is not how it really is. I have a great hope and that hope is that God allows me moments of clarity - where I finally get it. And these moments carry me for days - sometimes weeks until I get another shot. I just keep hoping for those moments as I need them. But I have found I must seek them.

All of this to say - winding it all back to the premise that loving others well, is not meant to make us feel good. The focus is on God - he causes us to be selfless so that we can encourage others. If we are not so focused on how we appear to others, then it is not difficult to be more concerned with loving others better than ourselves. We can become quite foolish in our endeavors and it means nothing. Because we love God first, he knows it. That is all that matters.

This is very freeing. It simplifies everything and brings my focus in. God knows I need that.

I pray that God helps me remember this, and to instill it in my boys.