I was just going through my emails and saw “Ina Garten’s Thanksgiving tips.”
(It felt a little early to me. 🤷🏼♀️)
Then I saw an important email that I missed from about a week ago.
(That’s being generous)
Right before this I read from a kids perspective how much their mom says “in a minute” or doesn’t do what they’re asking. Many of the situations sited that they were on their phones.
Honestly it makes you feel like crud to hear. You know some kids have it bad. You know you have it no worse, but also sometimes probably not much better.
I think many of us know that we go, trigger finger to the phone, much too fast.
And still we miss things. Important emails, special requests, and deadlines. Projects go on, and we try to keep up, trying to play catch up. Everything happens on these phones.
Calendars, reading, connection, creating.
Maybe you’re like me. You don’t watch tv or listen to the radio. Don’t often enough crack open a book. But you can write one while on this phone. You can read one, too, or an article, or a thought provoking post. I was the kid who read the cereal box, front to back and sideways, including the nutrition facts and ingredients. (Lord I didn’t even know what horrors I was reading or consuming!)
I get up now, way before my kids so I can do many of these things. And still throughout the day, I go to it, that box of wonders, that phone-good or bad, happy or sad. It’s like a little dopamine box, a magic 8 ball, and sometimes I can’t stop picking it up.
(That’s really honest.)
There’s also this.
There’s so much I could be doing. So much that I’m behind on. And sometimes, the phone is the easiest “while I’m with you” thing to do. I’ll fold laundry or do dishes, too, sure. But while I’m with you and you’re playing barbies or crafting, sometimes something in a way that I can’t quite participate, I need something else to do while I’m there. My brain is active. It’s hard to sit still. Do nothing. I mean I could go bury my head in some closet and clean it out or mop the floor or make a dish. I can and I do all of that sometimes too. You just want me near you though. But too much sitting around like that feels like….
a pumpkin, rotting slowly, spilling out it seeds and goo from the inside, out onto the ground.
(I never watched that movie yet, Inside Out, by the way, but I heard that’s good.)
I was reminded again today of the miles I can’t run right now. But when we got home from an outing, earlier than expected, I got out for a bike ride. It was beautiful. I hated leaving my family and they’d prefer to have me there cracking open a pumpkin actually, as it were. My sons request to carve one.
He said “yesterday you said you’d do it!”
And I did actually. We had just come home from a different adventure, an outing that required my full attention. Phone tucked away, except for pictures. Fun was had, and hours later we were back and my son wanted to immediately crack that pumpkin open.
He came up and caught me in the middle of reading an interesting article. I don’t even remember what it was but do I have to?
Do I have to justify the validity of my five minutes of down time as a mom? My attention is scattered and high demand but sometimes can’t I just be? Moms handle requests all day long for things. Moms, selflessly do, for most of the time. But I don’t always quite so well or seamlessly or selflessly.
Yesterday had me feeling this and when my son interrupted my brief reading to ask to carve pumpkins with me (one of my least favorite activities), I sighed. Now, typing this, it doesn’t sound so bad, the carving. Sounds cute really. But I find it to be harder than it sounds and it’s not a terrible activity or anything. It’s just not my favorite jam.
Now my son would do it all, if he could. But carving a pumpkin is a big job and it requires adult supervision. And honestly if I was going to do it I would want to have fun with it. Just right that moment, with dinner prep looming and having just set foot in the door from an activity, it didn’t sound so hot.
It all sounds great I’m theory and it’s all fun and games until you get to do it every day, for long periods of time, with lots of other things that require your attention too, like the house, and dinner. Motherhood is indeed a marathon. You can love it and still need to slow down your pace sometimes to accommodate.
Yesterday I did say no. At first to one small request “can you get off your phone and do this thing, mom?” “Honestly, in a minute. Because didn’t we just spend hours doing fun things? I hear a lot of ‘mom can you help me?’s”
To which my son said “isn’t that what moms do?”
Sigh. “Yes, it is. You’re absolutely right. It is. But also isn’t mom allowed to rest sometimes and be a person herself, too? I was trying to read something interesting for a minute.”
Phones are tricky things. Our kids can’t look and know what we’re doing. Not that we have to justify our “down time”. But if they’re asking something and we’re choosing to say a “no” or “in a minute”, it might help them to have some kind of understanding or context. Even if they saw what we were doing, like laundry, they might not appreciate it unless they ran out of clothes and didn’t have something or anything to wear. We all forget what normal life costs us sometimes. It’s a learning curve, indeed. And human nature is innately selfish at times, so it’s a part of my job to remind or explain these truths to them. Lovingly, hopefully. Kindly, I’m sure.
In my daily sense of fulfilling family duty, I training my child to get what they request every time, no matter how small or big? No.
Do I feel bad about that sometimes? Yes.
But do I believe I’m also teaching my children to learn that later isn’t always a bad word. To be resilient while they wait. To know that they’re loved while they wait? Yes yes and yes.
Might the think it feel that mom is being mean or mom is selfish or mom is rude? Maybe. But if I am communicating to them well, maybe not. Hopefully not. They will know that they’re loved and chosen, even if I chose not to do something just as and at the time they asked.
I have to consider at times: Am I trading my ability to rest or pursue something for my child’s ability to never hear no? Is no really such a bad word, really?
So no, we didn’t carve pumpkins that day.
But today we did. And as we did, after my bike ride, and after dinner was already coming (I hadn’t shopped yet this long weekend. See also -#qualitytime. The mom juggle is real folks. There’s no denying how many decision it takes, even more if you’re trying to do it well.)
We listened to teachings about saints.
So many faced senseless or at least tragic deaths. But they carried, too, great life.
As my son and I picked out the pumpkin seeds, to eat later, and my daughter sat coloring and listening beside us, I couldn’t help but see the correlation.
Turns out, the carving wasn’t so bad. It was hard to get it going, but we did it. There was delay, and then muscle required. But my son was a delight. I was (eventually) happy to bear witness and participate. I did accidentally throw out the top and then have to go retrieve it out of the trash I had just taken out. Fail number one. And then those pumpkin seeds that we do carefully pulled out did end up getting knocked over off the counter and went scattering all over the kitchen floor and a little bit on the table. But no one got too upset, and together, we cleaned it up.)
We continue on and I can’t help but think about it.
“Saints lives are kind of like these pumpkins. They’re broken open and the seeds of their faith and love go on, and bring new life to others. This pumpkin’s undoing is a hundred other pumpkins’ chances at life.”
Motherhood is lot like all of this…. Harder than it looks. Messier, trickier, but full of life and potential, and only sometimes, spilled all over across the floor. Not sainthood, perhaps, nor am I even close on most day. (Quite the opposite in fact.) But requiring a lot.
Just like I reminded my kids, though. Sainthood, what made someone to be identified as a saint is not for a few of those who have gone before us. It was because of their beautiful hearts, kind souls, and close connection with the Lord that their lives were marked, spilled out, and brought life.
Sainthood was service of the highest call.
And that my friend, is available for any of us. Not to be canonized. But to be made more beautiful. to become more-beautiful, in expression, from the inside, out. To live a life of service and love, right where we are. That sounds like a tall order. A messy order. But it’s also a lovely one.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It feels very messy. It feels very bad sometimes. But the fact that it’s hard- to do, to choose, to navigate- doesn’t make it less sacred. The fact that it looks messy doesn’t make it less beautiful or valuable. It makes it even potentially more-so. The fact that it cracks you open, and tries you and tests you-even pours you open a bit? That means it is sacred, and holy. And whatever comes out? Well, let it be love.
“Holy and acceptable. A pleasing offering in Your sight God.”
It doesn’t mean that you lay down your life to a point of detriment, to yourself or to them. Telling your kids “not right now” or maybe later, doing other things,shouldn’t be filled with guilt. Not like it can be for me at least. And especially when it’s explained, at least a little.
Even as I’m typing this I’m thinking of all the ways I say yes over and over and all the guilt I feel for the no’s is beginning to dissolve a little. Those moments of frustration, they are temporary. Then again, I have another choice. Then again, I love. Over and over. Not perfectly, but in a messy, spill-your-soul-out-like-pumpkin-seeds, kind of way.
The requests keep coming, Mom, and you don’t have to say yes to every single one. You can be guided by love in a way that means sacrifice for you at times, and guidance at times for them. But you do get to say yes to so many things, most of all love. Or you might miss out on the life giving-ness of it all. The joy of being poured out.
Anyone else with me?
Maybe this should stay among friends.
(But you can share with yours.)
You are not alone in this fabulous, messy, wonderful thing called motherhood 🙏🏻💗.
‘It’s awful. It’s broken. It’s basically hopeless. Practically speaking, a complete mess. Can we ever find a solution? With the way everyone argues? Unlikely. Just hold on.’
This is how it goes, how we start to feel. The further we go the more we learn. The layers of brokenness, of systems that are failing, of lives that are hurting. We argue at which solution is best. If you don’t see it my way, surely you don’t care. Surely you don’t – see or care.
This is how it’s fashioned, a hamster wheel of blame, and we get nowhere. It’s fashioned that way completely on purpose. So we all stay stuck.
The problems, too big. My thoughts, too troubled. My actions, way too small.
But friend, you have a power to help change things. Because if you believe in Jesus, He has not left you alone or powerless. He has left you His Holy Spirit. He lives inside you. His power dwells inside you. You just need to trust Him and let it out. Yes, He doesn’t need perfection. He just needs you, submitted to His solutions. To what He wants to do through you. His is in fact made perfect in weakness. If you’ll let Him.
My son had a precious toy yesterday that he was playing with. Pocket sized, it apparently holds some magical abilities.
Well he was lost for a time yesterday. “I’ll never find him!” He moaned without hope. “He’s lost forever.” We assured him he probably would find him, and we all hoped as we encouraged him, that it would be sooner rather than later! Well later that night, as we snuggled in to sleep, I put my arm around him and pulled him close. My hand fell upon the pocket of his button down flannel pajama top. There was a lump there. I patted it. And in a second, I knew. “Look what I found!” I beamed you everyone. “It was THERE ALL ALONG! Resting right over your heart!” He broke into a slow and easy smile. Out came the dimple. Settled he was, in love. There. it. Was. What he was looking for.
Friend, it’s time for you to smile that kind of smile again, too.
My son’s toy is just that. —A token, a treasure, as it were. Though it does not actually possess the abilities that it proposes, to see and help you, like much of childlike play, it points to what really does exists. The Divine.
There it is, with you. The Holy Spirit LIVES inside of you? Have you forgotten? We all do sometimes. All of us. Or else the world would look much different. Yet, it still can. We need our generation and the one next coming. To know, and to be reminded. We are not left alone, hopeless, upon some wasteland. He can turn the barren land into a place of springs, the desolate into a fruitful garden. He can do it for you and for me, and for wherever we live. Even if it feels like a barren place, a Babylon or Babel. Where HE IS is transformed. And He lives inside of you, doesn’t He?
He had not left you alone, and He has not left you either, without a purpose. Knowing His power exists and letting it live through you are not the same. 💛 A limited, controlling, religious spirit (even if it has nothing to do with “religion”) will always tell you there is only one way to do it, too. To do anything. It will accuse. It will push you further along, on a hamster wheel of hopelessness. The Holy Spirit? He won’t. He always knows how to guide.
There are a hundred million ways to make a difference, and if the Holy Spirit is motivating it, you will make a difference.
There are talents that He has given you. Gifts that only YOU have. Differences that YOU ARE meant to make. The world may be big and you may be so very small. But that doesn’t mean anything. Not really, when you have the power of The Holy Spirit living side of you.
The boots sit on my counter this morning, taunting me. Asking if they should stay. The very question I am asking myself. I even sent a weekend text, to my mom and two sisters with a picture, asking only, “Boots?” Implied- should I keep them?
I don’t normally care enough to ask for feedback. It’s just that I hadn’t really asked for them. It started when they arrived at my door, with a package of a few items to try out. They weren’t expensive, per se, but more than I was thinking of spending on any boots right now. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking of buying any boots at all. All of mine fit and looked fine, and I don’t get too fussy these days. Thank you very much, but one cute pair is probably more than enough. I told my husband as much and I think he wasn’t unpleased, really, and maybe even relieved, at what I wouldn’t be buying and the cost I’d be saving us. But after I said, “no, thanks” to them, I questioned.
For a half minute. Then I sent the text and waited to hear. The answers wouldn’t necessarily be mine, I was just curious. Uncharacteristically so, even. What ensued was a whole line of questioning.
“Are the comfy?” “Will you wear them?” “Where will you wear them?” “Will you wear them often enough?”
Volume versus cost versus price versus practicality versus fun. Fashion, function and form battling it out like it’s some kind of contest, or at least a conquest. The girls gave them the thumbs up, though I still wasn’t convinced either way.
But these boots, trying inch by inch, we’re trying to get closer to my heart, and to get on my feet. Undecided, I left them out overnight. Today was decision time- return or keep.
This morning was like many other mornings, contemplating all of the things in prayer and later, in conversations. The social issues, the emotional, physical and spiritual wellness of our kids. The desire that I have to be sure to lead with love, but also to stand up and fight what’s wrong, so it doesn’t stay wrong. (Not people, things. Ideas. Policies. That’s my take at least.) Trying to move forward in integrity, in alignment with the calling to love and serve. Trying to figure out what that looks like, hour by hour, day by day.
Coming back into the kitchen from buzzing about, I see them again. Waiting. Looking at those boots again, standing like good little soldiers waiting for the decision, I hear the words from two years ago. Words that I said in a different conversation, a different context, but that still stand out, still ring true today. The answer to what we need in the world.
WE NEED LOVE WITH WORK BOOTS ON.
Then immediately I think of the scriptures that I came before my eyes this morning. Psalm 103. The one about listening for his commands.
“17 But the love of the Lord remains forever with those who fear him. His salvation extends to the children’s children 18 of those who are faithful to his covenant, of those who obey his commandments!
19 The Lord has made the heavens his throne; from there he rules over everything.
20 Praise the Lord, you angels, you mighty ones who carry out his plans, listening for each of his commands. 21 Yes, praise the Lord, you armies of angels who serve him and do his will! 22 Praise the Lord, everything he has created,
I don’t know if the scripture is talking only of angels. I mean, I’m not sure what the author intended, and maybe it was talking only about a gels following His commands. But I also know that those who follow Christ, the same can be true for them. We can listen for His directions, like Samuel, “Speak Lord your servant is listening.”
Or how in Proverbs 8, Wisdom says “And so, my children, listen to me, for all who follow my ways are joyful.”
So yes, it can be true for us too. We can listen for and do as He guides us and shows us. Optional. It can be.
He does not force us to do what He wants. He is not some tyrant, the likes of which we see here on earth. Not a tyrant that comes to the earth, in force, He is a loving kind and gracious, and He invites us to work with Him. We too, invite Him, just as He invited us- in Love. So many blessings are promised to those who seek, and I go in search of more scriptures about this, to understand more, more about these assignments.
He does not force us to do what He wants. He is not some tyrant, the likes of which we see here on earth. He is a loving kind and gracious God, who invites us to work with Him. Invites us. Yes, He has good, and wonderful plans, but He needs humans to want, and to be a part of them. To seek Him and His ways. So many blessings are promised to those who seek, and I go in search of more scriptures about this, to understand more, more about these assignments.
Then I come across this beautiful scripture . This is exactly it. (And I also immediately have a new life verse, describing my heartbeat, His heartbeat assignment.)
“The Sovereign LORD has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.” Isaiah 50:4
There are assignments that each of us have, and a million causes trying to get our attention. Feeling pulled recently in different directions, I was talking to Him about it. “The world will play your headtstrings and leave you feeling frustrated and defeated. When you stay connected to mine for you, there will always be Hope.” The key then is to make sure we’re letting Him inform our heartstrings. For every assignment comes with strategy to fulfill it and Hope to know it can happen.
There is so much to see and to say and to work for. Good causes at every turn. The question isn’t just what is to be done, or what can be done. But what am I supposed to do.
Love is a very patient and thorough advisor, and wisdom along with it. What I don’t get the first time the Holy Spirit will show me, again and again, in different ways. Like these works boots, for example, trying to speak to me for two years about assignments. Love always tells a better story, uncovers the one I was missing, the heart beating just beneath the surface of things. I can only put my ear to better listen.
Each day, yes, each day, “God what do you have for me today. What are you wanting ME to do? What is your heartbeat for me, and for those around me, those in my sphere of influence. What does Love have to say today, and what are my marching orders?”
It’s not just “marching orders.” It’s a beautiful invitation to be a part of what God, in His great Love, is doing today. To go where and to do what we are being invited to do and say and go. Love puts on work-boots.
I look at those boots again. I think of all the same questions that were asked of them naturally, last night. Do they fit, are they comfortable. Will you wear them? Where will you wear them? Are they worth the cost?
And that one stands out the most. Are they worth the cost?
I think about the one last thing my sister said. “A good pair of boots you’ll wear for 10 years. It’ll be worth it.”I look at those boots again and I see it. Love with work boots. Assignments. Cost. Comfort. And the one thing that matters most. “It’ll be worth it.”
No cost is too high if God is calling you, and any work of love will last, well beyond years. Because Love remains. Long after the boots fall apart, long beyond the assignment that brought it, long even beyond us on earth.
Sometimes a thing shows up on your door. An assignment, a task to walk in , a call to wear something, to do something. And you don’t know why or how. You didn’t even ask for it. You didn’t even “need” it. But for some reason, someone must need it. You hear it. You’ve been listening and these new work boots, the ones you didn’t even anticipate, God is calling you put them on.
It doesn’t matter even if anyone else likes them. You can now, you do slip them onto your feet. Because once you count the cost, you MUST.
Whether or not you know where they will take you or how long it will go on, you must walk in that direction. Day by day, hour by hour. Asking the Lord. “I sought the Lord and He heard me. He delivered me from all of my fears.” And sometimes He will use you to deliver (FREE in some translations) other people from theirs.
We wrestle not against flesh and blood but we fight for love and for truth, and to help free people from bondage. There’s all kinds of bondage, so which one is God asking you to help people find freedom? What love boots are yours to wear, what are your marching orders? What wonderful works of the Lord is your life meant to show? Show people. The people trapped in bondage. The people whom God never gives up on. The only question is: Do we?
If there’s something you’re called to do today in love, if there’s an invitation you have to participate in Christ bringing reconciliation and hope and healing to a hurting world, do it. Do it well. And don’t worry about the cost. The reward lasts for generations.
Love goes on. Love marches on. Only question is, will we march with it? Will we help bring it? Beautiful are the feet that bring good news.
“Wake up, wake up, O Zion! Clothe yourself with strength. Put on your beautiful clothes, O holy city of Jerusalem, for unclean and godless people will enter your gates no longer. Rise from the dust, O Jerusalem. Sit in a place of honor. Remove the chains of slavery from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For this is what the LORD says: “When I sold you into exile, I received no payment. Now I can redeem you without having to pay for you.” This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “Long ago my people chose to live in Egypt. Now they are oppressed by Assyria. What is this?” asks the LORD. “Why are my people enslaved again? Those who rule them shout in exultation. My name is blasphemed all day long. But I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that I am the one who speaks to them.” How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news ,the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israelc reigns! The watchmen shout and sing with joy, for before their very eyes they see the LORD returning to Jerusalem. Let the ruins of Jerusalem break into joyful song, for the LORD has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem.”
When I was writing something yesterday, those words stood out, and hung heavy in the air. I’m not going to say I came up with the beautiful phrase. It was something, hovering, and I just caught it.
I was writing about purpose, and walking in yours. (Again, as is the themes it seems. What can I say, the world needs YOU🤍🙏🏻💪🏻.)
Yet the “pen” wasn’t only about a pen. Sure, I use one to write a lot of words. But you write too. Even if you don’t think that you “write”.
You write with every spoken words. With every embrace. With every turn of your head, every glance of your eyes, you tell a story.
What is your story?
Well, what was once your bed? What maybe still kinda is? What’s hurt you or held you back or been a source of shame or limitations? It’s not meant to stay that way.
It’s meant to be your pen.
“Pick up your pen and walk” holds an echo. Of this story 👇🏻
“Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”
Now there is so much here. It is ripe for the picking. But the main point for now is this: The man was sick for 38 years. He had no one to help him get well. Jesus just had to speak to him, to tell him to pick up his bed and walk. And he was healed.
Some of you have been sick for thirty eight years. And you have no way, no one to help you to get to the pool and get well.
The man sat under five columns (5 often stands for government or worldly structures). We put so much in these broken systems, the ones that are failing us, at every turn, when what we really need is an encounter with Jesus.
The One who makes His sick friends well. Who holds the world in the palm of His hand.
Here’s the best part. The man didn’t even know it was Jesus at first. He was blind and lame. He didn’t have to see physically to understand that those words, His words, held weight. When he heard them, he felt them. He felt something different. He didn’t have to understand how it would even work in order to accept the words.
The life giving words.
He just had to do what He said.
That was the day of the man’s healing.
There are lots of different types of healing that we need in this world. What’s yours, what’s the one you need today?
Blind as you may be, hurt as you may be, reach out for Him. You can get to know Him more later. But you can still always hear His words and reach out for Him now.
In your hurt and sickness and blindness, you can still “find” Him, for He is near. And He will reach right back out for you. He will heal you, as you need it, He wil tell you, to pick up your bed and walk.
“The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.”
No one has to like it. They probably won’t. The broken system of laws and rules and religion government that kept you sick? Leave it behind. Be well, now. When you hear Him say it. Listen for His words. Ask Him for it.
That is what the Father is doing. THAT is what Jesus is up to. Already, and ongoing, and it can be yours.
I don’t know how it will happen. I don’t know when. But I do know that He holds the words of life. We don’t have to know it all yet. We just have to ask Him.
What was once was your bed can now be your story. The pen with which you write a better one.
A redeemed story- of hope and love and healing. No longer sick, but well. No longer blind and lame, but healed and whole.
He, in His Love, always tells a better story. He can tell it in and through your life, too. Let Him…
Recently I was reminded of the story of Esau and Jacob. My daughter had read about it and was trying to recall the story. Stolen, birthright, mispronounced names. To be honest I was having trouble remembering too. My husband teased me that he remembered and I didn’t. I laughed at that, at how much there is to remember. And how much we can forget. In the Bible or otherwise.
But when my daughter mentioned the hairy arm part, it all came back to me. Funny enough, that’s the very part I didn’t like, and yet the same part that brought it flooding back. The stolen blessing, the sold birthright, the brothers in struggle, favorites, parents, inheritance. We cracked open the Bible to read more.
We read about how they were born. How they came late to their parents lives, how their arrival was a surprise in its double event. How one preferred the wilderness and one preferred the tents and civilization. How the one who liked solitude and the freedom to roam in the fresh air did so until he grew hungry one day. He came upon his brother as he was making a stew, and famished as he was, he asked for a bowl. Untethered and presumably tent-less as he was, he didn’t have much with which to buy it. Slim pickings in the desert that month.
But he was the first born so he actually did have something. Something that didn’t seem too valuable to him, but would go well in a barter. His birthright.
So, cashing in long term gain he didn’t care about for short term survival, he bought himself some warm stew. It helped him live, and thrive. For the time at least.
As we read it, we stopped halfway.
I knew there was something about this story, or a lot of somethings, that were calling to me.
The one line that stood out to me from the first retreading was this: “Jacob despised his birthright.”
If that isn’t a loaded scripture I don’t know what.
I mused aloud then, still do, that I would have to ask God what He was saying here. I wanted to know more. I’m sure he’s said a lot of things to a lot of people over the years about this story. To be honest, I haven’t been paying attention. The stories I remember are just that- stories. Like the one my daughter told me, Ripe with meaning, ready for interpretation, ready for some new revelation. I’m listening now. What hidden layers of insight would You like to peel back?
As I sat here in prayer, that story tumbling about, a phrase I recently heard that bothered me suddenly tumbles out too. “Prosperity gospel”. It was said with disgust, an accusation of sorts. And to be honest, I heard it with disgust. An accusation indeed. I don’t think labels serve the body of Christ too well. And I don’t think the gospel needs any- perceived or true-accusatory words attached to it. I think that only divides and separates us, not truth from fiction. There’s One Gospel. We humbly seek interpretation
And I don’t think that prosperity is such a bad word. Now before you get into some compartmentalism, get your kickers in a twist, or start to worry about that blasphemous word too, let’s just consider this for a minute.
In 3 John 1:2, the greeting to the church is this: “Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper and enjoy good health, as your soul also prospers.” Prosper in every way.
When did we get so comfortable with the thought that Jesus wants us only to suffer? “In this world you will have trouble. But behold, I have overcome the world!” Yes we will suffer. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and the staff they comfort me. Thou preparers a table before me thou anoints my head with oil. My cup overflows.”
Now, of course, the truth is the Lord wants first and foremost for our souls to prosper. But who is to say that He doesn’t want us to prosper in other ways too! To pour out an oil of bless upon our heads, our hearts, and our entire beings. Blessings that *overflow*?! Overflow means more than enough. Overflow means you don’t just squeak by. Overflow means you have more than what you need. Overflow means you have enough to share. Aren’t we supposed to go into all the world and preach the gospel? How can we do anything if blessings don’t overflow? We can be the recipients yes but we can also be the blessers. In every way. What’s so wrong with that thought?
I think of Jacob and Esau. Esau had “more than enough” available to him, but preferred to leave it more often than enough to be out in the wild. But eventually he ran out and he had to find someone else’s overflow.
Now, he had a birthright and he had an inheritance. His Father’s house and land and food and everything was available to him. But he despised it, maybe, or at least traded it for the wilderness.
The birthright was nothing to him but a formality. It served no form or function to him. Then he grew starving and he sold it for his hunger. Here’s a question- did he despise it before he sold it, or was the selling despising? Or did he despise it after?
This begins to churn in my spirit. What is some of the birthright that maybe we’re despising? Is it the tents we can’t stand. We didn’t like their size or fork or function. The rules the predictability. The confinement, the ‘necessary’ troubles of living in community?
Whatever the reason, many are in a wilderness -for good or bad. But have you traded your birthright? In a moment of desperation or despair, have you sold it away or have you called upon it. Have you traded your birthright to feed your soul? Or have you used it to set yourself free from isolation? To connect back to the source of your royal birthright? Not your brother, but your dad? The one who own is all, who is the bread of life, who will feed your soul’s hunger, eternal?
Have we settled for less than because we refuse to dwell in our father’s tents (and I don’t mean churches!). We thought we were leaving the churches and their “tents”. The brothers who bothered us. The mothers who rejected us. The fathers that tried to love us, but couldn’t make us to want to stay. Have we failed to dwell we them or return to them because we thought we couldn’t be tamed? Maybe we didn’t actually have to be.
Esau’s father loved him. He loved his wildness. Yet Esau felt He couldn’t stay. Because he himself despised his birthright, he sold it. He wandered in the wilderness most often, rejecting the home but to get a meal when he was famished, and leave again. More available, but didn’t dwell there. He chose the wilderness, until one time he grew so hungry that felt he the urge to trade in a part of himself, his birthright, to get a bowl of soup.
I don’t think he ever had to do that. At least, I don’t know that he had to sell his birthright. I bet his father would have given him a bowl without groveling or such gruffness. Either way, he got what he needed, at a great cost, ate it, and left. “He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn,” it says in one version.
I wonder what was it that caused the schism? Impatience? Jealousy, brotherly fractures? But regardless, His Father still loved Him. His father still was willing to give him his blessing.
When Jacob and Isaac’s father was dying, and wanted to bless Esau, he called for his son and asked him to hunt for and prepare a meal for him. While he did, Jacob came in and stole it. It troubles me, that part. Did Esau take too long? Did he get distracted? Was Esau just that cunning? Maybe God allowed it because Esau had, as it says when he sold it “despised his birthright”? I don’t know. But it troubled their father too. When he found out what had happened, he lamented. He wanted so much to bless his son Esau and to give him something of an inheritance. So did Esau.
“Esau pleaded, “But do you have only one blessing? Oh my father, bless me, too!” Then Esau broke down and wept.
Finally, his father, Isaac, said to him,
“You will live away from the richness of the earth, and away from the dew of the heaven above. You will live by your sword, and you will serve your brother. But when you decide to break free, you will shake his yoke from your neck.”
Genesis 27: 39-40
That your soul would prosper even as your whole life prospers.
Are there troubles? Yes. Are there sicknesses and illnesses and deaths? Lost and stolen blessings? Yes. Rejection and pain? Yes. Is there hunger and famine and war and troubling times?
Yes.
But you don’t have to wait until it gets really bad to come to your fathers house and ask him for some help or a bowl of soup. And you certainly don’t have to sell your birthright to get it. Your birthright is what makes it all available le to you. Just as your choices got you where you are, your place in the family will get you where you need to go. If you don’t despise it.
Weird thing is, our Father loves us and our wild too. He knows how we reject the easy life, the community, the family troubles. He knows how we get impatient, rush, get famished and make some bad calls. The hardest part? We end up rejecting the blessing, too.
How often are we, as individuals, as the church, selling our soul for a loaf of bread. Or staying on the outskirts, running in and out only to get some food, until it gets so bad, we’re so desperately hungry that we’ll do just about anything. I don’t know exactly what kept Esau away. Trouble, pride, envy? Was he too troubled to stay or was it too troubling to come back often. Did he love the wild too much to remember? Did he love something or somewhere else too much to linger himself at home?
“One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high upon a rock.”
Psalm 27:4,5
Have I forgotten? Like the story? I had forgotten, because I didn’t want to remember the uncomfortable parts, or the part that sounded icky to a little girl. Some hairy man’s arm. Now I laugh. I see it means so much more. It some man’s wild. It some man’s identity. It’s not icky. It’s beautiful. And it means so much more than those two words used to describe it. It means it’s something that made Esau different, recognizable. It was the thing that perhaps made him feel despised. But it was the exact thing that His Father knew him as. And Loved him, still, after all these years.
So, I’m asking you, Esau (asking the Esau in me, too). What’s the thing you don’t like? What’s the things that makes you uncomfortable about others? Or about yourself? What’s the thing you think made you different, that drove you to a “better place”, a different life for yourself, by yourself?
Do you know that your Father sees who you are, already? Who you always were? He recognizes you and he knows you feel wild and he knows why you left. He knows why you rejected some things, that didn’t seem to fit right. But still. He never rejected you.
He still calls you His son. He still has a place for you, a bowl of soup, a loaf of bread. You won’t even have to pay for it and you certainly don’t have to beg your brother for it. You are His son.
“Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.”
Psalm 27:10
And He’s loved you all along. You can still be wild. You’ll always be wild. But you can be loved.
Come back to the Father, your Father. He’s got what you need to fill your soul, and your belly. You can ask Him- it’s your birthright. And it’s His delight. You don’t have to have your blessing stolen either. God is not a man that He should lie. But He is limited by our willingness to receive.
You can’t choose your blessing, but you can choose to be blessed, in whatever portion He decides. Go ahead and ask Him what He has for you. Your loving Father, for your full portion. For what He longs to give you, what would be more than enough, to set you free, and to overflow to others? To help set others free too?
The time is now to come out from under your oppressor and be free. It has always been your portion. It’s time to stop settling for less and start settling for nothing but more… of Him.
He’s the God of the Universe. He has more than enough for everyone. And nobody needs to sell their soul to get there. Not to one another, not to any brother, not to any tent or any wilderness either- within or without. Not for a bowl of soup or a piece of bread.
He already bought your birthright. It’s settled in Christ. Don’t settle. Come home.
“Still I am certain to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the LORD!”
One of my favorite passages from a book I recently read was about how good people get lured into following another man’s senseless, worthless rules. (I’m not sure I absorbed the exact story the author was trying to tell, but that’s okay, especially in keeping with that thought, isn’t it?). I found so many parallels to life in, and specifically, these wild and perilous times.
In the book they had a seven hundred page book of rules and regulations, to which they expected rigid adherence, or else. I bet we’re not that far off, here in the land of the free, the home of the heavily- regulated, and still constantly yelling at each other to do a better job. How did we get here? It’s been a long process, I’m sure, and like most things, paved with some good intention. New rules and laws and regulations are always being written, and not every rule makes or has common sense. Amidst a highly litigated and legislated society, what are we to do? How do we guide our kids through it too?
Because the irony is, you can’t dictate kindness, but you can teach what it looks like. You can’t legislate a moral compass, but you can encourage others to find theirs, even while you do the same.
If you truly care and are guided by a sense of what is truth and what is right, you don’t need a seven hundred page book to tell you what to do. If, however, we spend more time teaching rules and regulations, yet not enough about the truth behind it, or the truths they should be connected to, it will never be enough. Rules alone are never enough.
The best, truest “good citizens” aren’t necessarily trying to follow all the rules. They’re connected to a deep sense of right and wrong, deeper than any growing list of rules. It’s best when it’s connected to something bigger that themselves. It’s a sense of purpose that comes from knowing right and wrong exists and that it’s beyond “doing the right thing”, and more about choosing to “be the right thing” ourselves. Bringing our lives to the table in service of a greater purpose, beyond right and wrong, but connected to a living and breathing spirit of truth.
We should stop worrying about raising or creating rule followers, and spend more time teaching kids how to figure out right from wrong, how to judge things rightly, for themselves. That matters more than learning to follow all of the rules, anyway.
Because at the end of the day, they aren’t going to always have us there to tell them what is right or wrong. They aren’t going to know which way to go sometimes. And they’re going to need to navigate, especially when the rules aren’t clear or it’s a new situation they haven’t experienced yet. No matter what our age, we all need to know how to find truth and to decipher things for ourselves. On purpose, and not just reaction or emotion. Not based on feelings, but on truth.
People really like to lead with our emotions. Indignation. Anger. Hatred even. Based on what we read or heard or how we believe about something, we react strongly and convincingly. Even when were dead wrong. And we bring others to come and join us. Emotions are very easily swayed and manipulated. They are a superpower of humans, but easily become a weakness when they’re disconnected from any truth.
The best place to find truth? God Himself. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He holds the answers. Truth is a person. Get to know Him.
We need a world full of people guided by real truth and less by emotion or head-knowledge. We need a world guided by Truth, and Love, which is Jesus. When He was preparing to leave the earth, He told us He would send us a helper. The Holy Spirit, who would guide us in all things.
That’s beyond a moral compass. It’s about a living breathing God who cares enough to show us which way to go when we ask Him. Who doesn’t force us but will guide, as gently as possible toward the right path. Who can and does speak through my intellect and my heart, but isn’t limited by them. Unless I let them have the reigns. Who is not limited by anything but my own willingness to be guided.
Let’s go to the source of all wisdom and knowledge. Normalize asking for direction when you’re not sure which way to go or what to think about something new. Ask God. Ask Him for direction, ask Him for wisdom. He says in his word that He will give it liberally.
One of my favorite favorite scriptures is “You will hear a voice behind you saying “this is the way, walk in it.” He also said, “My sheep hear my voice, the voice of another they will not follow.” What about the voice telling you to do or say something or go a way that isn’t the one God intends for you? “That’s temptation!,” one of the kids reminded me the other day. That’s right! And what did Jesus teach us to do about it? He taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.”
So let’s normalize asking the Holy Spirit for direction. Let’s seek Him first. Let’s normalize it in our daily lives, and in front of our kids, too. Let’s ask Him for His help and guidance at every turn. Let’s teach our kids to do the same.
Because In a world full of rules and “experts” and emotions, isn’t He the greatest expert? In a heart full of emotions, isn’t He the experts on that too? With our minds full of questions, doesn’t He hold all the answers?
“Lord let us hear your voice. Let us not be be guided not by any man’s rules or input, but first and foremost by your Spirit. Your Spirit of Truth. Let our moral compass be guided by your Holy Spirit, not our indignation or emotion or any other passion but the ones that You have. Share with us your thoughts and Your ways. Show us the way to go. Let us not go astray. Let us hear Your Voice, and the voice of another we will not follow.” Let’s pray this often. Humbly, moving forward by your guiding.
Hey, I'm Courtney, a pretty ordinary girl who thinks we've all been called to an extraordinary life and love story with God. I'm passionate about family, faith, motherhood, and the adventure of every day. I write lots of words, mostly because I can’t help it- and I think it's one of the things I was born to do. I hope that something I write encourages you, to walk in your own unique purpose and calling, set free to love and give it away, starting wherever you are today. That's what Courting the Extraordinary is all about. Finding the good all around you, and giving it away. Finding, too, the God of all goodness who wants to walk with you.
I love quiet mornings, coffee, prayer and “work” before sunrise. Quality time with my family is my jam. I can be found grinning ear to ear when we're out on an adventure. Whether that's in our own backyard or exploring someplace new all-together, I’ll for sure note something beautiful about nature aloud-and maybe repeatedly, ha!. Life is a beautiful, precious gift, and an adventurous path to travel! We might as well learn how to love.
Hey, I'm Courtney, a pretty ordinary girl who thinks we've all been called to an extraordinary life and love story with God. I'm passionate about family, faith, motherhood, and the adventure of every day. I write lots of words, mostly because I can’t help it- and I think it's one of the things I was born to do. I hope that something I write encourages you, to walk in your own unique purpose and calling, set free to love and give it away, starting wherever you are today. That's what Courting the Extraordinary is all about. Finding the good all around you, and giving it away. Finding, too, the God of all goodness who wants to walk with you.
I love quiet mornings, coffee, prayer and “work” before sunrise. Quality time with my family is my jam. I can be found grinning ear to ear when we're out on an adventure. Whether that's in our own backyard or exploring someplace new all-together, I’ll for sure note something beautiful about nature aloud-and maybe repeatedly, ha!. Life is a beautiful, precious gift, and an adventurous path to travel! We might as well learn how to love. 