Abounding Hope

This last term of Hello Mornings we used a study on Job & Joseph created by Lara  G. Williams, called Abounding Hope. The study is simple enough: A collection of different verses to read each day with questions to prompt specific Scriptural thoughts about God, His Promises, Hope, etc. There is no running commentary, but the user is guided to glean truths from God's Word, not the author's mind.

I can't tell you how I felt about studying Job...again...when I saw the topic. I may have rolled my eyes and thought  something negative. I don't really remember, but that sounds like something I would have done way back in January. I hope the thought of studying Job...again...does not deter anyone, though. I found this particular study to be valuable. Lara doesn't get into the debate I grew up with about how Job was probably actually being punished by God for future sins (seriously, I've heard that one so many times it's rote memory now), she doesn't get sidetracked trying to figure out if the Laviathon is a whale or a dinosaur. The entire study seems stayed on one ever important, but, I've learned as I've grown & as I've watched others, difficult topic...You *can* trust God. He *is* faithful, always. He will *never* leave you, even if your outward circumstances look as if He has. He *always* loves you. He isn't a God out to punish you for some secret sin you might not even know about, He is a God out to serve His Great Eternal Purpose in your life for His Glory, which often requires difficulties that incur growth.

Looking back through my notes on this study I can see that it became apparent by the end of week one what God was trying to say: I can trust Him. This may seem like a no-brainer to some people. A lot of Christians sometimes think this sort of thing just comes natural. It doesn't. I won't get into the specifics of why I have spent a lifetime in the church without being able to trust God. It makes most people uncomfortable to hear about my childhood of growing up in the church but having an entirely un-biblical upbringing at home. Suffice to say that I was taught from an early age that God hated His people, that He was "out to get them," to use the vernacular & that the better Christian you were the more he was. That He was just waiting for you to mess up one bit, then He'd jump on the occasion to attack you with some sort of cruel punishment.

Two December's ago, when Christ lifted me out of the darkness of sin and unbelief, I began to see things differently. I made my first few timid steps in trusting God, but, honestly, I believe that in the back of my mind, those thoughts were still there. This study dragged them all out into the open where God & I could deal with them once and for all.

It was a long session this round of the Hello Mornings Challenge. One thing after another came to the members of our group. As most people around the country know, it was a winter filled with illness after illness, on top of that there were so many other things going on that I couldn't enumerate them all in this entry. In my own life things were pretty bad. So many things going on personally that threatened to drag me down into a deep depression. In fact, in the old days they would have. I won't say that I didn't get depressed, some of the stuff was so overwhelming that it was bound to make me sad. But through these terrible times, as I wrestled with God in my study, I was finally able to see that these things as they were, temporal problems (OK, most of them are very long, temporal problems) that God will use for His Glory...and I can be a part of bringing that Glory to Him IF I trust Him. Of course, it's all gonna bring Him Glory whether I do or not, but do I want it to bring Him Glory *in spite of* my faith, or as a result of it?

As I look back over the past few months, I don't really see that a single one of the problems has changed. Some of them have actually become worse. What *has* changed is my perspective. I no longer look up and wonder "why?" the moment something bad happens. I look ahead, to the end, whenever that end may be...even if it won't be until I'm long gone from this earth...to the Glory that God will bring Himself as a result of this trial.

Here is a thought from my notes way back in Week 5 of the study: Trust God. He is all powerful and all knowing. He is in control of your circumstances.

And, of course, if you know me at all, you know that this makes me think of a song. Unfortunately Blogger cannot communicate with YouTube while using Chrome (yes, that is an indictment of Google who owns all three) so here's the link: While I'm Waiting by John Waller.

And with that phobia overcome, I will now attempt to work on my other biggie...fear of all pastors and other Christian leaders. Anybody have a good study on that one? :)

Job Study Week 4

When I finished my study (Abounding Hope) this morning I turned on the radio to K-LOVE (OK, it was the online radio) and the first song they played was Worn, by Tenth Avenue North. I thought of Job, and all his sufferings.  I thought of knowing what to say and when. His friends got a big FAIL in that department. Good ole Bildad even went so far to say, in Ch 8, that Job's kids basically got what they deserved (vs.4). Wow! I was pretty blown away when I read it. Now there's a guy who could have used a lesson in when to keep your mouth shut.

As always, my mind went to people I know who believe that every bad thing that happens to us is because of some sin, secret or otherwise, in our lives. That God is always looking for ways to punish us. I try hard not to think about these people, coz it just depresses me, but this time it was useful. I thought, you know, when bad stuff happens, I already know that I should never, ever tell those people. I then realized that when we are talking with people by the way, just in general conversation, nothing serious, we lay out for them whether or not they can trust us with the big stuff. By our reaction to others problems, to certain news reports, etc., people get a general idea of how we will react to them in their hour of need. If we verbalize condemnation of people at every turn, even for little things, others will know that, even if not openly to their face, somewhere we will condemn them.

I had never really thought of it that way before. When I was younger (like 41 or less) I trusted almost every I knew, carte blanche. But in the middle of my 41st year I learned a very hard lesson, namely, that not everyone, and especially not everyone bearing the name Christian, can be trusted. As what I thought was my world was pulled out from under me like a rug, I learned that there are people who care for those in pain, and people who hate you, even if you are in pain.

In hindsight, I probably already knew that. There were huge things in my life that I shared with no one, because I knew no one who could be trusted with them. I had apparently been listening to others enough that I just knew I could not tell them what was going on. Eventually there were a few I did trust, but not like I trusted with other things.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, how many friends we have is no judge of how godly we are, or even how nice we are, but how many friends we have whose first thought when their world crashes is "I can call <insert your name here>. She'll pray/help/not judge" says more about us than anything else in our lives.

Are we that kind of person? Are we watching our conversation with our friends? Do they think we can be there for them? Will they be comfortable sharing even their darkest moments with us? When they are "worn," and when they think, "I know I need to lift my eyes up, but I'm too weak..." will they know they can turn to us? That they can count on us to strengthen their faith and point them to Christ? Maybe that's what the lesson is in these past two years, (Or at least, it might be one of them.) to learn the importance of knowing what to say & when to say it *before* the hard times.

On Sunday the preacher was talking about something that I probably could remember if I thought hard enough, but he had these three steps: Pray, Prepare, Practice. I think I'll steal borrow it for my purposes. When we are regularly in prayer so we are in open communication with God; when we prepare by reading God's Word so we know what is good and what is bad, and how God wants us to treat others; when we practice by using the kinds of speech  God has commanded (Col 4:6; 1 Tim 4:12 eg) in our everyday conversations, then we will let people know that we are ready to truly be their friend.

Ironically, my day ended Worn as well...

Thoughts on Job 1

(Studying Job with Abounding Hope for this term's HelloMornings Challenge).

Why?

This used to be my first response to anything bad that came along, from a red light when I was late to Spock's birth defect. But I cannot honestly now think of a more dangerous question to ask God, and this for several reasons. The first reason should be enough to keep us from asking it: namely, we might get an answer. I don't know about you, but the older I get, the less I really want to know about the inner workings of God's plan. I am perfectly happy to never be a prophet, to remain in truly blissful ignorance. Of course, there are several things I could ask and have asked "why" about over the years, but what if the answer is that it is merely preparation for something more difficult? Do I really want to know? No thanks. Sufficient for today is the evil thereof. (Matt 25:34)

The second reason is that when we start asking "why" we start coming to our own extra-biblical conclusions. Take Job's "friends." Please, he'd really like you to. :/ Entire false teachings have been built up around this idea that simply because something bad happened to someone, they are being punished. In Acts 28:4, Paul is bit by a snake and the Maltans immediately assume he is a murderer, because that is the conclusion they have drawn from asking "why." We Christians become a nasty bunch when we start judging others who are suffering, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. How cruel is it for a woman to lose a child and have people tell her that it is because of some secret sin in her life? Really? I'm fairly certain that, if this were true, Christians would all be the poorest of the poor, we'd all be eating out of garbage tins, that is if we lived longer than a few years after our conversion. The bible seems pretty plain that if we say we are without sin we are liars and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8) (emph mine)

Thirdly, and this is the lesson I've been learning only lately, is "why" our first response? If so, maybe we need to reexamine our faith. I was struck by what is written of Job, after he has, in only a matter of minutes, lost every single possession AND all ten of his children (take a moment and really try to fathom that)...Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. (Job 1:20) I have five sons, a couple of cars, a house, a nice chunk of property (by SoCal standards), a job I love, etc. I think I could stand to lose all the possessions. Shoot, in mid-life you start thinking of just chucking them and starting over. :D But my kids? If they all died, and all at the same time...I really don't know if I could even function, ever again. And, honestly, the idea of worshipping God at that moment, well, I just can't see myself doing it. :/

But Job was ready for it. He had prepared himself his entire life. Job 1:1 says Job was blameless & upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. His daily life was one of honoring God, of prayer, of self-discipline...trust me, it takes a lot of self-discipline to turn away from evil, especially these days when we are intentionally blurring the lines so much. He was one who prayed, even that God would forgive the sins of his children. "Thus Job did continually." (Job 1:5b) (emph mine)

I was  recently listening to a Francis Chan sermon where he started by talking about a funeral for his wife's grandmother, then talked about her life. He said he'd never known anyone more in love with Jesus than her. One thing that struck me was a story he told about how she went with them to a play. It was a nice play, no bad things, nothing offensive.  At intermission he asked her how she liked it and she told him she didn't want to be there. She was thinking that she would rather be doing something like serving others if Christ came back right then. He said he spent the second act in prayer for everyone he knew, just in case Grandma had the inside scoop on something. :) Grandma was like Job. She was ready, and she was always desiring to be ready.

In my life, the question "why" to God has never gotten me anywhere, except bitter and angry. The people I know who are constantly asking "why" are all bitter and angry. "Why" just simply doesn't prepare us for the evil of today, or tomorrow. We do not know when it will come. AW Pink, pretty much my fave author (just in case you're looking for something to get me), said that if the only growth a Christian knows occurs during trials, he should probably question his Christianity. I was confused the first time I read that, but now I see that we need to grow before the trials, then we will be strong during them Yes, we will grow in the trials also, but if we use all our so-called "down-time" in nothing but frivolity and worldliness, we should definitely question where our loyalties lay.

Judging from what I've seen growing up in the church, this isn't the popular way to live, but it looks far less painful to have that peace that passes all understanding when the trials come suddenly, like they did for Job.

A Hello Mornings (Somewhat) Success Story

On Thursday, the big boys packed up their stuff and headed off to Hume Lake with their dad for Father-Son camp, leaving me at home alone with the three youngest. While I've come a long way since last years trip, and even farther from my husband's first business trip when I had to have my sister and her daughter stay with me and the kids, the first night was still a tough one. I was too wired to fall asleep. I tried everything, finally turning on the radio to Air1--in hindsight maybe a more mellow station would have helped?--and leaving the light on on my clock radio. Once I finally got to sleep it wasn't long until I was joined by a child who woke me up to get into bed. An hour another came along, with the need to wake me first.

Needless to say, when the alarm went off at 5am on Friday morning I wasn't happy to respond. I had put it across the room from me earlier in the week so I had to get out of bed to get to it. You know, the snooze button still works that way? ;) After two snoozes I crawled out of bed figuring I'd be completely exhausted, surprisingly I wasn't. I made it through the whole day intact. We did our normal stuff...mommy & me class, art class, even visited with some friends before going to CFA (where else?) for dinner. We came home and watched Facing the Giants (it was a Sherwood Pictures weekend) got ready for bed and, after reading and some singing of praise songs with the kids to help them calm down, I went to bed....and promptly fell asleep. The same went for the next day. In fact I popped out of bed right at 5.

This week, we radically changed our lives by sending our three middle boys to school for the first time. It's been too much for me to homeschool them and try to help my two with LDs. This, of course, means a completely different morning schedule. The boys have to be at school by 8, to do this they have to get up 30 minutes earlier than they did for homeschool, and they have to eat breakfast (can't wait until after Bible now) and get ready to leave the house by 7:30. A year ago this would have completely freaked me out. There is no way I could have accomplished it. But since I've already spent most of the year working on getting up at 5 and having a morning routine, the transition is going more smoothly. There will be kinks to work out, I'm sure, but they won't seem insurmountable coz I've already been doing a "light" version.

Looking back it seems obvious that I didn't find the Hello Mornings Challenge by accident. The Lord knew what I would need. He knew what would help me. He knew how to motivate me to do it. He cares for our smallest need, even our need to get up earlier so our day can go more smoothly. When you think about how great God is, how He holds everything in place, yet cares for each of us so deeply, it's pretty humbling.

Hello Mornings Link-Up

The Hello Mornings crew has a great link-up today. I haven't had a chance to try the coffee yet, but I have a bag of Avodah's Morning Brew sitting here, waiting for me to get to the store to buy creamer. ;D

I learned some nice things my first go round of HMC last Spring. Mostly I learned to cut myself some slack. I will post about my religious tendencies at a later time, but suffice to say I really was thinking I needed to get up like clockwork, pardon the pun.  My biggest challenge was Thursday morning. We have AWANA the night before and it is just so hard to get up. One of the ladies suggested I get up a little later on Thursday. Yeah, I know, obvious to you, but not to me. lol. It worked wonderfully. In fact, I started getting up and hour later on Saturday too since our day starts later. It has really made each day much easier.

Another thing that helped was using Twitter instead of e-mail or Facebook. I know it's a bit public, and it's not as easy to figure out as the others, but it is far less distracting. Get on Twitter, check in, read the brief messages from the other group members, respond, pray for what needs to prayed for, get on with your day. I honestly can't think of a time I've been able to stay focused when going through e-mail or Facebook. :D

Come Summer we were without an A/C so I somehow ended up being nominated by a HMC person who shall remain unnamed. ;) I'm not really a born leader so it wasn't really what I wanted to do. But I do love to encourage people. It turns out that's mostly what an A/C does. I'm going to give it a try this fall when things are really crazy here and see how it goes.

The best about being an A/C has been getting to know the HMC team better on Facebook. It was so nice to see the heart that goes into making HMC a success. The ladies really have a great love for the Lord and for their sisters in Christ. I've found great encouragement in my walk with Christ as a result of reading their posts and blogs, as well as encouragement in my daily life of being a wife and mom.

If you are interested in signing up for the Fall Challenge that starts August 20, click here.