Graduation Day

Today, my youngest child graduates from high school. This brings an end to 24 years of homeschooling as a lifestyle, a calling. This is my prayer as this era comes to a close:

"Father, we did it. Homeschooling is officially over and I've come to thank you. Thank you for calling me to it. From those first nervous attempts to teach my kindergartener to read to the agonizing struggles with Algebra and beyond (Okay, it's really hard to thank you for that), this was your plan for us. Thank you for calling me to it, entrusting me with it, enabling me to do it, and sustaining me through it. My last baby is well on his way to being a mighty man of valor, and I stand amazed at what you've done in spite of me.

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Because, as you well know, I wanted to quit. A thousand times a day. But you wouldn't let me. And now I am understanding something. It wasn't all about the kids, was it? I didn't see it at the time. Sometimes it felt cruel. Wasted effort. Pointless work. (Can't I just send them to school like everybody else?) But you were teaching me that when you direct me, I must continue to obey until you lead me away from it. Endurance is big with you, isn't it?

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I didn't do very well, I'm admitting to you. My failures shriek at me from their dusty shelves. All those times I lost it, messed up, and took out my frustrations on my kids--the memories make me shudder. The knowledge of my inadequacies squelches any thought of pride. I don't know how you or my kids put up with me. Like the balky Israelites, I grumbled and lacked faith more often than not. Yet, all the time you were in control, leading, guiding, and sustaining me whenever I had the sense to look up.

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What I didn't know then but now see, was that while I thought I was teaching them, you were teaching me. You taught me that my best efforts only reap Lea Ann-sized results. If I want God-sized results, I have to rely totally on you. You taught me that what you ask me to do, you provide for. You taught me that my obedience to your voice is the main thing and that I am not responsible for the results of that obedience. 

You taught me how to improvise, create lessons out of nothing, inspire the uninspired, and make do with little. You taught me that there is no subject matter or area of life that does not revolve around you. I found that I really can do everything you ask me to do when I let you do it through me. 

You taught me that wisdom is a precious gem that is only obtained through a long painful process, but it's worth every tear. I learned that you place a high premium on faithfulness and overlook a lot of imperfection when the motivation is right. And I also learned that no matter how noble the calling or how invested I may be in it, if I make it a god, it will fail me. You are the only God worthy of the title.

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So today is my graduation too. I pray my kids have learned their lessons well, and I pray I have learned mine. Thank you for the education I received from you that has prepared me for the second half of my life. I now understand that I could not be trusted with your future plan if I had not been faithful with the past. I think I'm getting it now. It took me awhile. I'm not the best student, but You're a wonderful teacher. 

So thank you for homeschooling me."

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Stay in the Shadow

Remember playing shadow
tag when you were a kid?



The goal was to stomp on someone's shadow and put them out of the game. The trick was catching a shadow that can move faster than anything. You had to pay close attention to the light source and where that shadow might appear next or you didn't fare very well.

As a child, I liked to walk closely beside my tall dad, trying to keep my shadow hidden inside his. I had to watch the ground and keep step or my shorter shadow would suddenly peek out from his.

That's the picture the psalmist paints in Psalm 91 when he tells us that "he who dwells in the secret place of the Most High, abides in the shadow of the Almighty."

How do you abide in a shadow?

You pay close attention to the light source and where the shadow is going. If you get distracted by something else you will most certainly get out of the shadow. Your shorter one will peek out and mess everything up.

When we abide in the shadow of the Almighty, we are assured of His constant presence, protection, and pleasure. That's what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote "for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." (Col. 3:3)

God's goal for each of His children is that we cast no shadow of our own. We stay hidden in His. When we allow our shadow to peek out, we are most likely trying to glorify ourselves and we are missing His plan for us.

God's promises are for those who choose to keep their shadows hidden inside His. When He moves, we move. When He turns abruptly, we scamper to follow suit or we get left out in the sun. When He stops, we stop. And wait on the Lord.

So, are you filling your life with things that enlarge your shadow?Or are you abiding in the shadow of the Almighty?

It's Her Fault

Over the last few years, as I have worked with many couples in marriage counseling, a pattern has emerged.. Many times, when I ask the husband about his spiritual life, I can't get a straight answer. He cannot own his lack of spiritual growth without blaming his wife. Wives don't seem to do this as much. It tends to be a male trait.

As I pondered the reasons for this,  I remembered that the first husband did the same thing with the first wife. God asked Adam about his spiritual condition, and God couldn't get a straight answer either. To the question: "Adam, did you disobey me?"  Adam replied, "Well, that woman you gave me, she..."

I want to respectfully challenge Christian husbands to consider this: Do you hide behind your wife's imperfections when God challenges your spiritual state? Are you secretly blaming her for not becoming the spiritual leader of your home? Have you justified your own lack of growth by focusing on hers? If you were honest with yourself, are you falling into the same trap that Adam began?

God isn't buying it. He sent Jesus to free us all from the power of Adam's curse. No man or woman, husband or wife, has the power to prevent us from experiencing all God desires to do in us when our hearts are surrendered fully to Him.
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F-R-E-E-D-O-M!

We hear a lot about Freedom. The human soul longs for it. 

However, religion tends to squelch it, governments often oppress it, and individuals usually abuse it.

One of the themes of Christianity is the call to freedom. Jesus died and rose again to set people free from the shackles of religion, legalism, and self-imposed efforts to appease God. But as with any good thing, human beings have the tendency to misuse it.

 In recent years, there has been a swing from the legalism of the past to a focus on our liberty in Christ. The swing was a good thing, but the abuses that come with it are not. They are nothing new; they're just reinvented for the 21st century.

Paul dealt with this very thing 2000 years ago when he wrote to Galatia, "You are called to freedom, but don't turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh. But through love, serve one another." He also warned us about defrauding. To defraud means to stir up desires in another that they cannot righteously fulfill.

In 2014, we face unprecedented opportunities to exercise freedoms that can defraud others, but the Biblical warning remains. We should evaluate our freedoms by asking ourselves, "How might my exercising my freedom impact a weaker brother?"

Several questions can help us determine whether we are selfishly flaunting our freedoms or humbly serving our world. We can ask ourselves:

• Might someone wonder at my choice of entertainment in light of what I say I stand for?
• Does my language indicate that my mouth is dedicated to the glory of God?
• Might this public downing of a couple of beers be a stumbling block for a new Christian in a 12-step program?
• If a teenager from church saw me emerging from this R-rated movie, might he justify seeing it himself?
• Will this picture I'm posting to Facebook distract from my life message?
• If Jesus was coming to spend the weekend with me, what would I change? Why?

While we are not responsible for the choices of others, we are called to voluntarily be our brother's keeper. As Christians, we are not here to please ourselves. We are here to bring glory and honor to God as we model the humility, love, and self-denial of our Lord. One sign of spiritual maturity is the desire to honestly evaluate our pet freedoms and how willingly we surrender those freedoms for the sake of the people Jesus loves.
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Messiah Complex

We lift a disapproving brow at those fickle disciples who turned away from Jesus when He didn't turn out to be the kind of messiah they were looking for. He didn't live up to their expectations. They thought they knew what a messiah was supposed to do. He would make life easier, give them what they wanted, and act like a Messiah should act. Instead, Jesus hung around with the wrong people, never challenged the oppressive government, and after three years they were all still broke. They stood face-to-face with God, but he was not what they had in mind.

Don't we do the same thing? Sometimes it is hard to admit that the real Jesus is not what we had in mind either. He doesn't act like we think he should. He didn't heal that sickness. He didn't provide the raise, cancel the divorce, or keep the wayward child from destruction. Isn't that what God is for? Isn't that why we trusted in him in the first place? Aren't there rules he's obligated to keep so we can predict his next move?
It is not until life has shattered our ideas of who we thought God was 
that we can really find Him. 

We are then forced to reckon with all that unpleasantness about dying to self, giving up our will, and being faithful unto death. We discover that total surrender means we don't get to help Him be God.

Turns out He was never created in our image at all. He doesn't have to explain Himself or even make sense to our finite minds. He is not bound by our paltry attempts at faith nor subject to our desires. That's why he introduced Himself as the I AM. He has no description.

When we admit that the Great I AM is not who we we had in mind either, we can toss out our self-centered expectations. It's OK to start over and get to know Him for who he really is. He's waiting for us to come to that point. It was in the Bible all along, but we skimmed over that part. As our understanding deepens, we realize how much we skimmed over. He reveals Himself to our newly-humbled spirits and see finally understand that there is only one way to be God and He's doing it. 

It is not until we stop dictating what a God should be like that we can truly love the One who IS.
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He's Watching

Malachi 3:16-18

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. 

The Lord paid attention and heard them, 

and a book of remembrance was written before him 

of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.  

“They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 

"Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, 

between one who serves God 

and one who does not serve him."

Is your name in His book? 

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Beauty

Beauty calls to us.

It has a voice that shouts out all other voices, even though we can't always identify it. Beauty is a swelling refrain that comes from a place in our hearts we don't often visit. It may enter our hearts through our senses: a glorious sunset, a rising harmony, or the taste of perfection. And when it does, it stirs a ravenous hunger for more. Time stops. Everything fades in the presence of captivating beauty. We want to bask in it, drown in it, never leave this moment when that mysterious chamber in our hearts has come alive.

But with that desire comes the knowledge that even if we could sustain the moment, this sample of beauty will never fully satisfy the ache it aroused. And we are right. Every human heart hungers for beauty because to hunger for beauty is to hunger for God Himself. He is the sole definition of perfect beauty. No created experience can compare with Him. Everything else leaves us restless, unfulfilled, and longing for something we can't quite define. Every taste of earth's beauty, whether through physical sensation or spiritual ecstasy, is merely an appetizer.

God put that ache inside us. He designed us to long for Him alone. The longing for perfect beauty is His gift to us. It keeps us unsettled, unsatisfied so that we keep searching for Him. Without it, we would settle for garbage rather than seek a feast. When we see Him face-to-face, we will find the ultimate satisfaction in which we can lose ourselves. In His manifest presence alone will we find beauty that will not end. Our thirst for beauty will at last be satisfied .

The glimpses we now receive through our physical senses are mere reminders that there is something more. Starving souls gobble up the droplets awaiting the feast, but we must always remember that substitutes will never fill the void. A table full of cotton candy will never satisfy real hunger. No matter how delicious the momentary taste, it will never meet that deepest need.

We try to maintain the beauty on earth, but it always fades. The sunset turns to night. Harmony dies away. The thrill of the moment evaporates and leaves reality. Only the ones who know God can turn away without disappointment, knowing that the taste for beauty has only been whetted, not frustrated. Instead, we can thank God for the sample as we look forward to spending eternity basking in real Beauty.
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