Jonah: Lessons in Obedience

God uses unexpected people to help foster obedience in ours lives.  

I live a very outwardly "religious" life: I go to church, I am involved in a prayer group, I attend a Bible study.  And I struggle daily to put my life in God's hands. Recently, I became unhappy and resentful of some decisions my husband had made regarding our family.  Discontentment started to set in, anger and irritation became a daily reaction, and a feeling of hopelessness took over.  I then turned this disappointment towards God.  Where was he?  Why didn't he just fix things?  Why couldn't he change my husband?  I called every girlfriend I knew for consolation and commiseration.  Wasn't my husband indeed awful?  Wasn't I a poor, long suffering wife?  And then one day a friend from my daughter's school took me aside and said that maybe I had to change what I was doing, maybe I needed to listen, maybe I had to quit complaining, maybe I needed to worry about his feelings for a change. She was the sailor tossing me over the deck.  She was the whale, ready to teach me a lesson.  Oh, that was not what I wanted to hear.  She gave me a book about having a servant's attitude.   I laughed sarcastically, but I agreed to read it.  As my attitude changed, I was surprised how quickly things improved-- without a therapist, without an anti-depressant. 

Fast forward to a busy, over scheduled fall, and a mother-in-law who was facing a terminal diagnosis, and we needed to visit her, a visit that required a seven hour car drive, children missing important activities, family feuds to navigate,  and a few days falling even more behind at work.  I kept thinking, I cannot do this right now!   I actually voiced this to a dear friend who does not belong to a hundred church groups, who does not profess her faith in words only in quiet actions, and her absolute look of shock jerked me out of my skewed priorities.  "You have to go," she said.  "You have to say good-bye."    

Of course-- what was I thinking?  But like Jonah, I did not want to be inconvenienced. I was placing to-do lists over people.  I was valuing reducing stress over love.  No amount of Bible reading would ever support my attitude, and no amount of prayer would give me the answer I wanted: released from the trip.  Like Jonah, I needed to be thrown overboard to finally give in to God and practice obedience.  To show love where it was needed. To be a witness in a time of grieving.  I am glad for those sailors who toss me in the ocean. I am indebted to those whales who are willing to say what I don't want to hear.  Whiny, ungrateful, pouting Jonah is included in the Bible because he is unfortunately too much like us, but God waits and calls and brings us back to Him again and again. 

Where there is strife, there is pride

This verse made me think harder about what pride truly is.  I look at my relationships where there is a tension, and sure enough, my pride is at stake.  Pride is so different from that hot button word-- self-esteem.  In fact, pride comes out of a feeling of insecurity and NOT security.  In a sense, pride comes out of low self-esteem.  In relationships,  when I get competitive, defensive and prickly, when my pride is hurt, when I resent another's success-- this often comes from from an area where I am trying so hard to prove myself, to hang onto a sense that I belong, that I am good enough, that someone approves of me.  In relationships where I feel loved and secure, my pride does not rear its ugly head, and there is no strife.

So, what do we do with those relationships where we feel an imbalance, and where we are not sure of acceptance? (There are going to be MANY of these in everyday life.)  The best thing to do and the hardest thing to do is to lay aside our pride.  To be quiet, to turn to God for security, to rest in His love.  Then, if we fail to live up to the standards of that relationship, or if we aren't acknowledged, or if we "lose" in the unspoken competition, we can gracefully accept this.  We can still love the person; we can defer to another's "superiority"; it is not threatening.  We can love, we can support, and we can genuinely be happy for one another's successes.

Do Everything With a Dash of Love

It's a cliche-- the secret ingredient is love in that fabulous recipe.  Cheesy things like this always make me want to roll my eyes,  but today, I stopped to think-- what do I really do out of love?

Putting the kids to bed always seems like a chore I need to hurry through-- it is stressful, takes way too long, and I am always worried they are not getting enough sleep.  The laundry has to be done-- quickly, with as little folding as possible.  The chores are whipped through, the kids dropped off at activities, homework is a battlefield.  What is done in love?  Meals are eaten haphazardly; I've turned into a short order cook.  I don't enjoy cooking, I don't enjoy the running, I don't enjoy the housekeeping.  What is done in love?

I realized I looked at this the wrong way-- I don't love doing these tasks; therefore, I put minimal love and care into them.  Once again, it is all about me: managing my boredom in this fast-pace world.  And I know I am not alone.

My challenge this week is not to do these mundane tasks in  a hurry, but to take my time with them, and to do them well, so that my family sees that I want to provide for them the best I can.
This will mean tackling some chores I absolutely hate and taking an extra few minutes at bedtime to listen and have a little conversation.

In this Valentine's season, I need to leave my anxiousness to "hurry up" in the closet,  slow down, listen and savor.  I need to do it not out of personal enjoyment, but I need to do it out of love.  And, believe me, in this culture where it is all about you, it can be hard to do. But I think I might reap a lot of the benefits if I do-- daily tasks will not be boring, they will be love letters to my family.

A Christmas Miracle

So I was down to my last twenty dollars.  It was Christmas.  Mom had just visited, so we had some presents for the kids, some groceries, and a new set of tires on the old car which made us able to get through the snow, but no huge turkey, no presents for each other, and whatever free activities we could find to fill the vacation time.  Furthermore, Mom left back to sunny California, so we were left to a small Christmas with just my husband and my kids, and a bleak January where we knew we'd have to eat Ramen and fill the gas tank $8 at a time.  I was feeling no holiday sparkle, in fact, I was feeling quite sorry for myself as I heard the about the fabulous presents people were buying their spouses, children and neighbors, but we still packed up the children to go to the Christmas Eve service at church.  The service was full of beautiful music, candlelight, and carols. My spirit felt soothed and a flitter of hope filled my chest.  When the offering plate came around, I took out that last twenty and said, "All right God. I haven't been tithing, I've been miserly, I've had little more than just enough, but I need to trust you."  I plopped it into the plate like the widow who gave her last coin.  We had some groceries, true, but I also knew January was going to be a long, scary month.

Fast forward to New Year's Eve.  The children were invited to see a matinee at the movie theater.  I had some money in my purse, but it was to pay a bill.  I reasoned that I could use it and somehow worry about the bill when it came up in two days.  Off we went to the theater. Our friends canceled when they saw how crowded it was, but I was determined to go--the temps had been frigid, and outdoor sledding was not feasible. I wanted them to have a little joy on their vacation.

We stepped up to buy tickets to the second showing since the first was sold out.  The man said, "Twenty dollars, please?"
        "Only twenty? Are you sure?  Three kids and an adult."
        "Five dollars a ticket today because of the holiday."
        "That's wonderful.  Here you go."
And, no kidding, just after we paid, a boy stopped me.  He held out two ten dollar bills.  I looked at him, shaking my head and smiling, "Thank you, but I did not drop any money.  Maybe you can ask the ticket guy if someone did."  But he just kept waving the bills in my face.
          His mother stepped up.
         "He came to the theater today with his money. He wants to pay for someone's tickets."
          I was dumbstruck; I could not say anything. I took the boy's money and managed to say thank you.  I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me, but I was trying hard not to cry.
         We left the theater to find someplace to wait until our movie started.  We decided to walk around Fleet Farm and look at the leftover toys.  My daughter turned to me and asked why I was crying, and I told her I couldn't believe it. "Did you see what that boy did?" It was a true miracle.  We sat through the movie later that afternoon, and it lifted our spirits. The kids were laughing all the way home.  I called the friends who had invited us over earlier in the week, and I asked if we could still stop by.  They said of course.  I stopped wallowing, and I started filling my tank with God's love.


You see, I put twenty dollars in the offering plate, the movie cost twenty dollars, the boy handed me twenty dollars-- it came full circle.   Yes, it could be coincidence, but it wasn't.  It was a reminder to me that God cares about my daily life.  He gives us what we can take, and then He holds our hand.

My Backstory

When my husband got laid off in 2008, he started his own business in real estate and rental, and ever since, we have been struggling.  For a while, my job helped to fill in the gap, and his work started to gather momentum, but, of course, work started to taper off for me.   We could not seem to catch up or catch a break.  Money was constantly tight, going to the store a study in how to get the absolute most for the buck.  (I suddenly understood why people on lower incomes eat so many unhealthy foods-- they are cheaper!)  As we slipped slowly into a lower economic class, I found to my dismay that I suddenly became aware of economic differences-- I started to feel a little ashamed of the old car I was driving around when we had always had a new one, the hand-me-down clothes my children wore, the hair color I applied myself.  Apparently, I needed to learn a little humility, and I didn't even know it! There were many surprising side effects to our new economic status (and after a few years, I had to accept we weren't going back to where we once were). One was continually relearning to be humble, and the other was constantly being reminded to rely on God.  But there was an unexpected blessing during this time as well; I witnessed tiny miracle after tiny miracle, so much so that when our friends had a baby that was in critical care, I was able, without a doubt in my mind,  to reassure the mother that this child was a miracle and there would be no permanent damage.  There wasn't.  This baby was a big miracle.

We have all heard about the big miracles that happen, but sometimes we need to be reminded that God cares for us.  That's where the everyday miracle comes in.  That's what I want to share: those little God moments that happen and cause us to catch our breath out of the sheer kindness of our God.

Being Content Where You Are Planted

1 Thess. 5:16-18

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The path to contentment is a rocky one, especially when you look around you and think, "This is not what my life was supposed to be like!"  This can happen at any age, but I frequently hear women say this after they have become mothers.  What we envision does not always happen. 

The command here is to rejoice, but we cannot do that without constant prayer. And prayer can't come when we are locked up in resentment.  How do we get out of resentment? Thankfulness, of course.  To be grateful in circumstances which are less than ideal and especially in circumstances where we feel we have no choice sometimes takes a massive act of will to give it up to God.  

In our prayer group, a young mother shared that her husband had made a permanent decision to not have any more children without consulting her.  Her voice, her choices were taken from her.  Her unspoken lament was, "This is not the life that I had planned."  Another friend, who was experiencing financial difficulties said those exact words to me, "This is not the life I dreamed about."  In my own experience, the house my husband built for us to live in was far from the image I had in my head, but he built it, so we were not going to move.  I often felt trapped in that house-- it wasn't the Martha Stewart organized life I thought I would magically live, and I complained in my head, "If only I had the perfect house; my life would be perfect."  You don't think that attitude came out in my daily actions?  I robbed myself of great joy. 
Some people are bombarded by life and death circumstances that make them reach the same conclusion: the picture I had of my life is not what it is. 

Many times women are tempted to look around and say, "But she has the perfect house, she has the most supportive husband, she has the best behaved children, why did she get everything she wanted?"  Comparison is the thief of joy according to C.S. Lewis.  You cannot rejoice without first letting go of it, letting go of your plan, being thankful for your position, and praying all of the time!

I often picture my life like a tree that God has planted by a beautiful river, and so many times, I mutter, "Why didn't you plant me by that stream over there?" when I should be drinking from the richness of the river.   We think we know better than God!  If we rejoice by that river, He will have us thrive and bear much fruit, whether that fruit is acts of service, bringing people to Him, joy in our partnerships, actual children, or fulfillment of our goals. His river is so much bigger than our streams. 

This morning, I am unpacking my box of worries and complaints.  I am praying about them and giving them up to Him, so I can finally rejoice in the glorious life God has planned for me, not the small, tiny picture I formed in my head.