The Sovereignty of God

September 14, 2011 in Presence with 0 Comments

Earlier I wrote about the Fatherhood of God.

His Fatherhood captivates my heart, but His Sovereignty captivates my will.

I am not talking about a theological understanding of His absolute authority.

I am talking about His Sovereignty being my Solution.

God is Sovereign.  That is not just my comfort – it is my solution.  It gives the only reliable interpretation of my life.

God is not restricted by space or time.  He is not restricted by my circumstances or my desires.  God’s Sovereignty forces me to stop interpreting the world through my own grid.  It isn’t just about learning to leave things in His hands, it is about learning to follow Him.  It is choosing to walk in integrity every day, tasks big or small, because He is worthy of me making good choices.

Does that make sense? Put another way: if He is in control of everything, I don’t have to control anything.  If I don’t have to control anything, I am released to love Him with all that I have, all that I do, and all that I am. In that, I worship Him with my daily choices.  I choose integrity, to prove His will is perfect.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.  -Romans 12.1-2

I trust His Sovereignty as it governs a promise beyond what I can ever be or contain. I can lean into His choices for me, for I know the things I endure are precisely measured and carefully managed.  I anticipate Him bringing rich meaning to my experience, just as I anticipate a lovely gift from my husband under the Christmas tree.

Trusting His Sovereignty means accepting that I am not my own.  I am a bondservant to the High King and He can use me as He wishes.

bondservant (Gr. dulos): devoted to another to the disregard of one’s own interests

Being His bondservant is deeply satisfying: even though you learn to disregard your own interests, He never does.  He tends to your needs, and He grants the desires of your heart.

His Goodness makes me unafraid of His Sovereignty; His Sovereignty makes me unafraid of His Goodness.

I can follow Him, even if I am unable to understand His ways, because I know He is everything He claims to be. I am not afraid of an untidy Christian experience because I trust Him as Father, and as King.

The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything — we have all the rest. – A.W. Tozer

 

 

The Fatherhood of God

September 14, 2011 in Homeschool, Presence with 0 Comments

 

… you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God …  ~Romans 8.15-16

 

God is a Father. Even when He was untouchable, He referred to Israel as His children.

It is common to hear people talk about spending with “Papa”, or “climbing into Daddy’s lap.”  Our hearts are searching for Father. I think this is because we are a generation that is desperate for a fathering experience.  We want to hear the Father-heart speak our name.

For many of us, it is hard to trust Father God.  As much as we want Him, as much as we need His lap, the experience is usually short-lived.  For me, I can’t seem to stay there, let alone live there.

I can always get back there, I just can’t figure out why I leave.

I have theories: I am an American woman and therefore taught to be fiercely self-sufficient.  Who needs a man – husband, dad, or otherwise?

Or, perhaps somewhere deep down, I don’t believe Father’s love is free.  So I leave His lap to go earn my keep for the day.

Whatever the reason, I do not yet have full experience of the Fatherhood of God.

Yet, in His Fatherliness, He doesn’t give up.

He is deeply vested in parenting me.  The One who created me desires that I am well-acquainted with His Fathering love.

Who can stand against God’s desire?

I’ve been asking God to Father me. It’s not quite what I thought it would be.

I’m learning that being in His lap is only part of the experience.  I’m learning that being Fathered is about being raised up in the family business, groomed to be a fully-functioning member of society (aka, the Kingdom). There is no only-child scenario in the family of God; we are all members of one another and He teaches us how to function, and love, as siblings.

I just realized something … Father homeschools us.  He uses ordinary life to raise us up.  He fills our days and minutes with the opportunities that refine us; He gives us liberty to test and prove His will.

It is not so much about staying in His lap as it is about going to His lap after a full day of being Fathered. 

He even socializes us along the way.

(Sorry.  I’m a homeschooler.  I couldn’t pass that one up.)

In due time, He releases us as a fully-equipped son or daughter, ready for mature Kingdom business. His Fathering is to produce a generation of men and women who will reflect His nature and expand His reputation.

In the natural, many have sorely lacked this kind of fathering; perhaps even having fathers whose reputation does not need to bleed to others.  Yet, as believers, we must understand this: wherever our father’s lacked, God is not lacking, and wherever our father’s excelled, God is more.

 

 

 

An Education

September 11, 2011 in Homeschool with 2 Comments

I read just about anything I can get my hands on, averaging about 4 books a week.  I have always had a lot of interests that manifest themselves as piles of books on my nightstand and perpetual library fees.  Not to mention a small “hobby” of collecting college credits. I am a Registered Nurse by trade, but I’ve also carried these other degree plans:

Psychology, with a minor in Linguistics of Inuit cultures

Double major in Biology and Anthropology: I wanted to travel the world to experiment with tribal drugs and then write about them. 

Biology: I had become a Christian at this point, thereby dropping the Gypsy Druggie career goal.  Plus, I had moved and my new school lacked a strong Anthropology component. My focus was botany, and I promise that it had nothing to do with hashish.  I was done with drugs, thank you, Jesus.

Pre-Med: My botany interest was in plant hormones which meant I was taking a lot of chemistry.  My advisor pointed out that I was pretty much on a Pre-Med plan, so I made it official.

Nursing: Roomed with a nursing student and realized the career she was choosing was a perfect fit for me.  As a nurse, I’ve worked in intensive care, the emergency room, a surgical floor, and in Public Health as an STD nurse (which was my favorite job).

I have one degree, but enough credits for 3 or 4 more, I’m sure.

If I could do it all over again, I’d obtain degrees in Anthropology, Psychology, and Economics.  I would then not get a job related to any of them.  Instead, I would become a writer.

I would not go back to school to learn to write.  Instead, I would learn to write from writers and how to be published from editors.  Then I would learn Chinese, Farsi, and Russian.

That would be the plan I’d have, if I understood then what I understand now about myself.

But I don’t have life to do over.  So I do the next best thing: I take all I’ve learned, through academics and experience, and I teach my kids.  When I say, “I take all I have learned”, I mean that literally. I may not have had a focus in my earlier years, but I did have an ability:  I know how to learn.

I homeschool so I can teach my kids how to learn.  Knowing facts is not that important to me, because facts find their way naturally into a mind that can learn.  My family, legitimately, was frustrated with my educational wanderlust. I simply didn’t know what I wanted to do. Even so, I am so grateful for the chance to explore so many things, to learn so many ways of evaluating my world.

So if there is any good to come of my collegiate past, I aim to make it shine in my children’s future.

Truck Stop Stripper

August 18, 2011 in In the Margins with 6 Comments

I am in the process of digging out the decent stuff from a long ago blog and found this.  It is a post about an old journal entry I had found.  Which makes this a post about an old post about an old journal entry.  Welcome to the world of the hapless blogger . . .

Below is an actual entry from a 1995 journal. I had just returned home from Israel where I had been working for an archaeologist. My boyfriend had picked me up from the airport and it was very late. My mind was trying to make the transition of returning home. I was wondering if I would ever see my foreign friends again. I was already nostalgic for my little bunk. I was starting to realize that I had just come from a profound experience – living on a commune on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  I was not saved then, but in a few short months I was going to become a Christian. I was pondering the deep things of life and also hoping I had not gotten screwed when I changed my shekels back to dollars.

And I was hungry. He was hungry. And it was late. We stopped at a truck stop diner . . .

It’s late and he’s missed dinner so we go to that old diner at the truck stop. That one filled with beards and leather and grime from the interstate. The waitress knows how to make her tips. The service is good. The coffee is hot. They don’t have the bran muffin I would always get but the banana nut will be great and he is enjoying his chili.

Two hours go by quickly. Catching up and remembering each other’s faces. Its been awhile. But there is still a drive ahead of us so we go. Four dollars is decided on for a tip and the worn bills are placed under the water glass. The bill is twelve dollars and eighty-three cents.

We count up thirteen dollars and he takes them to the front so he can pay while I pee. We stand to go. He walks off while I check to see if we got everything when suddenly I felt quite odd. I look down and find my favorite gypsy skirt on the floor, around my ankles.

I had been wearing a skirt and a shirt all day . . . simple and pretty . . . but now I’m only simple.

I am in the middle of the restaurant and eyes are on me. What do I do? Do I pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has occurred? Should I calmly turn and walk out of the restaurant like a f-ing (hey, give me a break, I wasn’t “Christian” when I wrote this) penguin? No . . . I am afraid I will do worse.

I pretend I am utterly confused.

Where did that skirt come from? All I wore today was this shirt, and now, unbeknownst to me, someone has placed a skirt around my ankles.

I calmly bend down and remove the skirt. I hold it up and examine it (God help me). What should I do with it? I shake it out, find the tag, and prepare to put it on properly.

I have exposed my panties. He still hasn’t noticed. He stands at the register yawning at the display of pies and waits for the waitress to come to give him his seventeen cents change. I leave.

I go to the van and stand in the cold, in the dark. The cold because I am hot and the dark because I am as red as the taillights of the cars at that intersection. The dark so I am hidden. So no one comes out of the diner and says, “Hey! That’s the girl whose skirt was around her ankles.”

I am home.

 

Yeah . . . it’s what I do.

One time at an RV campground I went to use the women’s shower. All the stalls were full so I sat on the bench. A bunch of kids were in there. One of them finished and walked out. He wasn’t a girl. But he shrieked like a girl and ran back into the stall. Then there was this frantic whispering, “There’s a girl out there, there’s a girl out there!”

Crap. I went into the wrong shower. The same kid peeked his head out and said, “Uh, do you know this is the men’s shower?” And I, in my one of my finest moments, remained quite calm. I simply said, “I know. I am waiting for someone.”

What the heck? Waiting for someone? I am so calm in these moments . . . but so wildly stupid.

Be merciful with your comments, please.

I smell cinnamon

August 15, 2011 in Presence with 10 Comments

When I make queso I don’t just cram Velveeta into a couple of cans of Rotel.

I’m very very careful with my queso.

I’m very very careful with any fondue (come on, you Tex-Mexers . . . queso is fondue.  Deal with it.)

I start by sautéing onions until they have a slight scorch.  Then I add green chiles and let the two get acquainted.  After a while I add some Rotel (yes, I admit it) and then eventually some fresh lime and cilantro.

I let all these diced up plants duke it out until they become friends. I know they’ve begun to love each other when I start smelling cinnamon.

It’s the strangest thing.

When I smell cinnamon I know its time to introduce the spices and cheeses.

Onions, chiles, tomatoes, lime and cilantro . . . smell like cinnamon?

Yet it is true and it’s the key to my queso.  The right timing is heralded by the aroma of cinnamon rising from the stove.

It makes no sense to smell cinnamon, but I think I understand why cinnamon-sprinkled desserts are so appealing after Mexican food.

In the last few weeks I’ve endured some major crises but have also had some long-awaited blessings.  Within just 4 weeks:

  • New opportunities have opened up in writing
  • New streams of income have begun to flow
  • New friendships and partnerships have formed – most with people I didn’t even know a month ago!
  • I have been given more gifts than usual
  • Things that used to be difficult for me are now easier
  • Homeschool has a better rhythm
  • My husband and I are crushing on each other
  • There has been a splattering of unexpected interruptions in our days – and they have all positioned us for an additional gift or blessing

 

That’s the brief list. None of these are related to the others except that they are in the same “pot”.

It feels like Someone’s making queso.

Ingredients are being dropped in at precise times, melding with the others before the next layer of flavors is added. I don’t know what God is up to . . .

but I know this:
I smell cinnamon.

Page 5 of 16« First...«34567»10...Last »