Archives for September 2011

Last night in the car one of my children was making a strange noise. It wasn’t very loud, but it was persistent.

It annoyed my son. He asked her politely to stop, and she did for about ten seconds.

He then asked me for help (without whining), just as I’ve counseled the children to do when they are unable to solve the problem on their own.

I am trying to wean them off of my intervention, but this doesn’t happen just by saying “solve your own problems, kid.” I realize this goal will take many years to accomplish, but I’m working toward this end, nonetheless. What I’ve been doing  has been to make sure they’ve done everything they can to solve the problem on their own. Did you ask them politely to stop? Did you try ignoring the behavior? Have you tried walking away? Most of the time, unless it’s my four year old who wants her own way all the times, we can solve the problem just by walking through it verbally. However, since he could’ t leave the behavior, none of my standard responses seemed to fit.

This is not the first time I have seen this scenario in the car.

What would love do? What should love do when someone is behaving obnoxiously? Maybe because I’ve been thinking overtime (out of necessity) how love behaves in difficult situations, or maybe it was simply God’s grace at that moment in time, but I realized that there are other strategies that could help my son that I’ve not thought about before.

How about talking with her? Would she rather talk with her big brother about her night than make obnoxious noises? Since I’ve been working on “love doesn’t become a hermit” with my children, this wasn’t a new idea, even though it was a new application. I’m realizing that actively becoming interested in a sibling and making conversation might be a good strategy to develop.

I also suggested that they find some songs to sing together. Now, I’ve often put on music in the car when they’ve gotten irritable with each other, but giving them the opportunity to solve the problem on their own might be a better approach in the future. Here is another way to help them learn self-control and develop some autonomy as they get older. I still think there’s a place for putting on the music when the situation degenerates, but I need to think more about encouraging them to sing on their own.

I’ve been feeling particularly burdened for mothers who are in survival mode– not getting enough sleep, several littles under five, feeling almost insane for lack of intelligent conversation, not to mention any complications like a child with special needs, marriage problems, extended family conflicts, a husband’s difficult work or school schedule, grief, or any number of situations that can make thinking right thoughts, somewhat [somewhat can be a jaw-dropping understatement] difficult.

Even though I’m no longer half insane from sleep deprivation, I do sometimes have troubles reading my Bible. Sometimes I don’t feel like reading my Bible. Sometimes I’d rather sleep. Sometimes I consider the options (laundry, Bible reading, Facebook) and I consider that the first two don’t sound as appealing as the last one. So I check Facebook, the news, my email, and then start on Facebook again. I don’t read the Bible at the same time every day. How can I, when my husband’s schedule changes daily, when my children all wake up at different times, and when I have a hard time deciding whether to spend the morning cleaning the house or doing school?

What’s a mom to do? Stop and think with me a bit. You’ll probably see some survival thoughts of your own.

If I were stranded on a desert island and could have only one book of the Bible with me, I wouldn’t say, “Oh, just give me those passages in Leviticus.” If I knew my Bible were going to be confiscated in a year, I would not start memorizing first Chronicles.Rather, I would pick the meatiest, most profitable portions. This reasoning explains why I often skip the parts I don’t understand or find boring during the survival days. Save those for later, when I can actually think straight. Truthfully, I still often skip over the parts I don’t understand, and I do skim through the geneologies. Yes, all scripture is profitable, but not all scripture is equally profitable.

As for the things I don’t understand, I’ve learned that it’s okay to save confusing portions of scripture for later. Years later. When I was a younger Christian, someone suggested that I put a question mark by every passage that I had a question about. I was quickly discouraged beyond words because I had so many questions, even some major, faith shattering questions, about verses I was reading. I had to either set the questions aside, or reject Christianity altogether, because I was not mature enough or capable enough to understand them. As I matured, I discovered that I began to understand many of those things that confused me, just by virtue of growing spiritually. Now I don’t see those portions as scary as I did back then. They’re more like puzzles that I wrestle with when I have time. I know difficult passages may always be difficult, but I look forward to the sense of satisfaction when I finally crack one.

Consider that Peter talks about the things Paul writes about as being difficult to understand!

II Peter 3:15-16a And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Consider that some Christians may not understand some spiritual things until they’ve wrestled with more basic things.

Hebrews 5:13-14 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. ¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

What should I do instead? If I want to delight in God’s Word, I read the fun stuff. I read the narratives. I read all my favorite Psalms. I camp out in Proverbs for awhile, or spend time reading one book of the Bible over and over and over.

I still think that following a Bible reading plan is helpful and profitable. The discipline of reading systematically helps us not to get out of balance in our Christian lives. I have found one way to be consistent is to follow a checklist like this one. Lee showed me a little while back an app for my phone that allows me to “catch up” when I’ve missed a few days (or weeks). It seems that I need to work on being systematic for awhile, and then I find myself needing to be LESS systematic for awhile. I’m constantly readjusting, based on what’s going on in my mind and life at the time. I think that’s okay. I do recognize that it’s easy for me to justify my lack of discipline as a micro-season of life (for example, I noticed last week that I haven’t read systematically since March of this year) The hard part is recognizing and adjusting to the reality and rejecting the sin. No easy answers here, but I believe God’s Word helps us discern the thoughts and intents of our hearts. God will help us know where we need work and where we need to have patience with our particular season of life.

What I have discovered far more difficult than getting Scripture in my mind during busy seasons, is putting it to work by obeying it. Lately, I’ve been convicted at the (embarrassingly) large number of times I get a glimpse of what I should do (specific actions, not general “be less prideful” goals that are hard to accomplish and measure), only to forget them until it’s too late to take action. I forget! I’m realizing that, far more important than the Bible I don’t understand, is the Bible I do understand. I don’t need the Bible knowledge of a mature Christian to be wise. I simply need to start putting into practice the simple commands that are plain for me to understand. As I am faithful with the understanding God has given me, I discover that he gives new understanding when I’m ready for it!

I know there are other approaches to the busy times of life. These are some concepts that have helped me not to be overwhelmed, but still be faithful to be growing spiritually. I’m sure there are more.

1. Spend the most time on the most profitable portions of Scripture
2. Save the portions that I don’t understand for later
3. Delight in what I’m reading, not forgetting that reading systematically is of great value, too.
4. Start applying what I can, and trust that God will show me the things I don’t understand later.

Tomorrow I’ll continue this discussion and talk about reading the Bible with Distractions.

We’ve really been talking a lot at our house about how love sees things in the best light. That’s because children (and adults, too) naturally don’t give people the benefit of the doubt. Lately we’ve had a lot of conflict (instant screaming, instant hurt feelings, instant anger) simply because a child assumed something untrue.

A little while ago, an adult was unfaithful regarding a promise to one of our children. I wrestled with helping our children see things in the best light, but as time went by, it was harder to do so honestly.

So we talked about motives and mitigating circumstances: It may be true that an adult has sinned, but there may be a situation that we don’t know about, and that uncertainty should cause us to be patient. So we talked about some possibilities in our own situation. David suggested another.

I mentioned that judging motives isn’t something God wants us to do (I was thinking the passage in Romans 14, but I’m not sure it is the best passage in this situation). David brought up another passage that he thought was helpful in this situation.

And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:3-5

At the moment, I was thinking more about judging motives, and not self examination. I didn’t really follow up David’s suggestion, other than a half-hearted, “sure, that’s a good verse, too.” I could have done more, though. I could have seen his suggestion as evidence of how he was thinking, and tried to discover that. It really would have been better to postpone my thought path and look at David’s.

Then David suggested that I blog about that verse, so finally, I am dutifully blogging. Maybe I should start wondering how God would use this passage in my own situations. That might be, oh, rather convicting.