Holiday Preparation Mania!

OK – before we get into the full swing of “holiday preparation mania,” let’s sit down inside and think.  Isn’t it ironic that the celebration of Jesus’ birth has become an excuse for material excess and frantic activity?  He never owned a home (much less spent time and money decorating one), had few material possessions, and no need to keep track of His schedule in a planner.  Yet for many of us, Christmas involves extensive decorating, plenty of purchasing (sometimes beyond what our budget allows), and scheduling that would make a juggler's head spin!  God’s Word doesn’t address our 21^st century traditions directly, but it holds many truths that apply to the focus and intensity of our lives. 

Ecclesiastes 4:6 says "Better a handful with quietness than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind."

Proverbs 17:1 says "Better is a dry morsel with quietness, than a house full of feasting with strife."

I Peter 3:3,4 speaks to decorating ourselves - and by extension, our homes!  "Do not let your adornment be merely outward - arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel - rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God."

 

And Isaiah 26:3 holds a beautiful promise:  "You will keep her in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because she trusts in You." 

This year, I want life in our home to be peaceful.  Oh, it wouldn't seem like Christmas without all of our stockings hung up, and the lights of the Christmas tree glowing . . . but I know that I don't have to deck out EVERY square inch of the house, and we can still enjoy the sentimental feeling of the season.  (Not to mention the work of putting it all away in January will be much less!)

God blessed Daryl with a new job this year - but it came with a new budget for our household!  So everyone has a heads-up that our "spending limit" for each person will be less . . . and really, it's about time in our house.  No one really needs anything - and I don't want to promote materialism anyway.  So less shopping, less spending, less greed . . . and less wrapping too! 

And while I do plan to have a baking day with the girls, and also have everyone over for dinner at some point, I would like to be laughing and gentle-spoken throughout the prep, event and clean-up . . . so I will need to make sure my expectations are realistic, practical and flexible.  My family will remember the attitude that permeates the holiday celebrations more than they will the specifics of what we ate.

And balancing social gatherings with quietness at home is important too - Jesus met with the crowds, gathered with the twelve, talked quietly with James, Peter and John, and also made it a priority to be alone with His Father daily.  I want that kind of reality for myself - time alone with God each day to reflect on the season, my life, and what He has planned for the day.  Time with my husband to just talk, snuggle and be together.  Time with our kids that is calm and low-pressured.  AND time with groups of friends as well.  But there's only 5 weeks between now and New Year's . . . remembering not to overload us is both my PRIVILEGE and my RESPONSIBILITY!  As Moses prayed in Ps 90:12: "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."  

 

So here's to celebrating sanely this year - and enjoying all that God has for us in the days ahead!

What will you do to change this year’s holiday celebrations and your preparations to reflect quietness and peace?

How I Read My Bible

I am boggled by God; completely bowled over by Him!  The fact that He Is boggles me – I could wrestle before Him with that truth every day for the rest of my life and still not understand Him in His Holy fullness.  Yet He invites me to come, and I echo with Peter – where else would I go?  He alone has the words of life!!!  (John 6:68)  The fact that God invites me to come to Him and that He chooses to reveal Himself to me is mind-blowing!  And as I hear from Him, everything I think I know about life, about myself, about other people, and certainly about Him is challenged – He lifts my thoughts higher, He clarifies, He clears away confusion and lies. (Romans 12:2)

As I write from Thanksgiving into the New Year, I will be using my basic approach to Bible reading, and my thoughts will flow from that approach.  When I read the Bible, I do so with questions in mind.  The first and foremost question I have as I read is “What is God telling me about Himself?”  How does He show up?  Does this passage tell me something about His character, about how He thinks, about what He values, about how He responds to us or how He acts?  Is what I’m seeing about Him new to me?  Does this challenge some ideas about God that I have?  Do I need Him to help me change how I see Him?     If I’m going to be transformed, change is a given.

The second question I keep in mind is “What is God telling me about me?”   Do I see my attitudes, actions, facets of my character addressed in this passage?  Is there something that He wants to change, or challenge me with?  Does this passage reinforce something I’m already doing, and encourage me to continue? 

The third question is “What is God showing me about other people?”   Can I gain insight into how others think, how I should treat them or address them, how He values them and what He wants for them?

Finally, I ask Him “What do You want me to do about what I’ve seen here?”  This is what many call “application”.  It’s also obedience.  He’s God, I’m His child – reading my Bible is like being home-schooled, just me and my Teacher.  Now I want to show my Teacher what I’ve learned – and I need Him to change me, to empower me to live out whatever He has shown me.

That’s why He gave us the Word, and why we study it – to learn what He has revealed about Himself, to learn how to think about ourselves, to learn how to conduct ourselves toward others, and the be transformed into the likeness of His Son.  I’m praying that these devotionals will lead us into a deeper walk with Him throughout the Holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

God Is

Oh my gosh - how I would like to just copy and paste the forward and first two chapters of A.W.Tozer's work, The Knowledge of the Holy into this post!!!  I'll springboard off a few excerpts, instead.

"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us."

I have loved this quote from the first time I read it over 10 years ago.  What you and I think about God informs and impacts every area of our worship, our character, our choices, our interactions with others.  If God is unjust, why look to Him, let alone follow Him?  If He is just, He has the answers to the injustice I see around me.  If He judges mankind, I must find out how to satisfy His requirements.  If He doesn't, what difference do any of my choices make beyond their result here on earth?  These are just two brief considerations . . . what comes into my mind when I think about God?  What comes into yours?  And where did these notions come from? 

"All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God:  That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him."

Oh - I love THIS one too!!!  Every issue here on earth, even taken together, pales in comparison to the fact that God IS . . . and that we have to do with Him!!!  I heard a wonderful preacher who admitted that he still struggles with wanting to be liked when he speaks.  Then he said, "if I finish speaking and drop dead, and suddenly am standing before God Himself, in that moment what you think of me would be the LAST thing on my mind!"  It is easy to be distracted, even deluded, in this life - to live as if God doesn't exist, doesn't have expectations or requirements of me, isn't present in this moment, and doesn't have a private evaluation session with me slated on His eternal schedule!  

If God IS, I want to know all that I can about Him, and how to satisfy His righteous requirements, and how He would have me to spend my time, talents and energy on this earth!

"The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is -in itself a monstrous sin - and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness...The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true."

WHERE my thoughts about God come from is of utmost importance!  Human nature wants a god who is manageable - who fits our understanding, temperament and morality.  That's why so many religions have existed and still exist throughout time.  That's where moral relativism comes in.  We KNOW there is something eternal, and we seek to answer it with gods of our own imagining.  But God IS - He doesn't leave His character and attributes up to us to define. 

"The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.  A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking."

Even among those who claim to follow Christ - God revealed in human form - distortions about Who He Is abound, leading to all kinds of error.  Some want to preach "God is love" as if that wholly defines Him - and worse, they imply that therefore God approves of everyone and all their behaviors.  That wouldn't even fly on a human level with us - I love plenty of people, but that doesn't mean I approve of everything they do!  Yet we want to characterize God's 'love' in a way that pleases us. 

God invites us to know Him as He has revealed Himself through His Son - God in the flesh - and through His Word.  He defines Himself, as well as how we can find Him, approach Him, belong to Him and live before Him.  He clearly teaches that we are to fear Him - view Him with a healthy respect for who we are in light of Who He Is.  I LOVE the examples we see in the Word of those who saw visions of Him:  Isaiah (Is 6), Ezekiel (Ez 1,2) and John (Rev 1).  Each man sees God in His glory and immediately falls before Him as if dead.   They are overwhelmed with His awesome Holiness, and clearly see how He is all that they are not - so much so that they fall face down before him, Isaiah even crying out for mercy before God's Holiness.  When God's light falls on Paul from heaven, he too falls to the ground (Acts 9).  When God speaks to Moses from the burning bush, He tells him that He is standing on Holy ground, and Moses hides his face, for he is afraid to look at God.  (Exodus 3: 5,6)  Later Moses implores God to show him His glory, and God allows him to look upon His back as He passes by.  Moses spent 40 days and nights on Mount Sinai with God, and when he returned to the Israelites, the skin on his face shone from being in the presence of God (Ex 33,34).

Oh to realize that God Himself has invited us to know Him - to come into His presence, to be forgiven through Christ Jesus' sacrificial death on our behalf and reconciled to God, filled with His Holy Spirit, and empowered to live as He intended us to live - in union with Him.  To be restored to walk with God, as Adam and Eve did in the garden - to bathe in His glory, to see with His eyes, to love with His love, to live with purpose as we seek to glorify Him with our very being.  God Almighty - Creator of the Universe, of you and me, yearns to make Himself known to us and to be known by us.  He is calling us up, lifting our heads to behold Him, our hearts to recognize Him and to begin to see life as He sees it - not as humans have defined it.  He is calling me.  He is calling you.  And He promises that when we seek Him we WILL find Him, when we search for Him with our whole heart  (Jer 29:13). 

I end with His words to Jeremiah "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know" (Jer 33:3).  Dear friend, do not be satisfied with what you think you know - call to Him.

Thinking about those kids . . .

I've just started a second page:  Life As I See It (With Kids) 

Check it out here:  http://elizabethtreger1.blogspot.com/2014/11/thinking-about-those-kids.html

Delay Doesn't Mean Denied

A new friend was sharing with me about a time in her life where she experienced a major disappointment that not only discouraged her in the moment, but brought with it a shift in the timeline she had carefully planned and was working through.  Her family knew how much she was hurting, and her young daughter sought to comfort her.  “Remember Mama,” she said, “delay doesn’t mean denied.” 

I was moved on so many levels!  What a great blessing it is to invest truth in our children, and then have God use them to deliver those same truths to us just when we need to hear them!  What strength God weaves into the fabric of our children’s lives from the earliest of ages!  She not only knew that truth, she was confident of it, and knew how to use it to refocus her mom.  This mom has been doing the work, and both she and her child are benefitting. 

Then I thought of my own life.  Delay doesn’t mean denied.  I know this in the deepest fibers of my being, by experience.  He always answers right on time – which is HIS timing, not mine.

As a child, my deepest desire and most fervent prayer was for my family to love each other.  I’ll admit, it was a selfish prayer – my ultimate desire was to have security, peace and love for myself, and I was sure that if my family could settle down and love each other, then I would have that.  I grew up with both my parents, and four older siblings.  Everyone struggled – the desire to be understood was often masked by anger at not being understood.  The yearning to be appreciated usually devolved into a competition for recognition.  Grievances were clung to, rather than forgiven and released.  And in the eyes of this young observer, every member of my family was an expert at locating and pushing the hot buttons of every other family member.  If you could freeze frame and diagram the dynamics like they do with football plays on tv, the markings would show myriad incomplete passes, fumbled balls, and uncalled fouls.  I yearned for us to love each other, certain that no one wanted it this way . . . but no one seemed to know how to change it, either.

As I started out on my own, I was filled with noble ideas, lofty goals and high hopes for creating a different kind of family life.  Unfortunately, my anchor beliefs for these ideas, goals and hopes were flawed at best, misinformed and even incorrect at worst.  My methods, combined with those of my spouses, resulted in two failed marriages.  Marriages that began with promise and good intent, and included many years of joy and cherished memories, as well as disappointment, pain and things we’d all rather just forget.  I found myself, at 35, a single mom with two beautiful, yet wounded young daughters.  My deepest desire – to have a loving family – seemed to be something I’d never experience.

Daryl and I have now lived out 20 years of life together, raising my two girls and seeing them off to college, marriage and the settling of their own homes.  We’ve also been blessed with three more children, and three grandchildren.  While looking through vacation pictures a couple of years ago, I found one of myself surrounded by all these wonderful people.  Here, have a look: 

I was struck by the realization of the truth my friend’s daughter had spoken:  Delay doesn’t mean denied.  My heart has ached throughout my lifetime over the refusal and/or inability of my original family members to love each other – even to this day.  My efforts at creating a family in my own strength had failed completely – twice.  And yet, here was this photograph with all these people encompassing me in the middle.  As I’d set my mind, heart and strength on seeking God over these past two decades, He’d done something amazing.  He answered my prayer – in His time, and in a way I never could have imagined.  He built a new family around me, and here I am – the answer delayed, yes, but in no way denied. 

I’m wondering about you . . . is there something you’re longing for, that you’ve laid out before God, begging Him to answer?  Are you like me – you’ve also got in mind HOW you’d like Him to answer?  Are you open to the idea that He will answer in His time and in His way, and that while the answer may not look like what you had in mind, His answer will surpass anything you could have hoped for, and actually meet your needs better than you could have planned? 

Two familiar passages come to mind:  Isaiah 55:8-9 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts,”  and Jeremiah 33:3  “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”  

Don’t give up asking for your heart’s desire . . . turn the focus of your heart onto Him, and watch Him answer all that you ask, and more.  Great is our God, and a greater father we have never known!

Here's one more picture of our family tree - this one includes Ellie, our youngest grandbaby:

Here I Sit

So this is a pic of my dining room table this morning . . . it tells a LOT about me . . .

Before coming downstairs, I retrieved this tablecloth from the linen closet.  The first thing I did was spread it over the table – to cover more than two months worth of mail in various stages of sorting!  There’s NO WAY I can concentrate looking at all of that – my sweet husband “processes” the mail this way, and is frequently interrupted by something more urgent or interesting that calls him away.  (A smiley face with a half smile should go here, but I don’t know where to find that . . . )

Not only does the clutter interfere with my concentration, it affects my mood as well.  A clean, spare space equals peacefulness for me – disorder and accumulated STUFF wreak havoc on my emotions, leading to anxiety, a sense of urgency to DO something about it, and even anger, since it’s often not MY stuff that’s setting me off.  

To the right is my Bible, ready and waiting to be handy while I type.  Next to that is the grocery list, since I need ingredients to make a crock-pot full of goodness for an event tonight.  I was going to write that up later, but Emily came in to remind me that she needed to get some pop for a surprise party she’s helping to throw for a friend this afternoon . . . so we wrote the list now.

To the left is a pad of post-it’s.  This is for jotting down each intrusive, important but I’ll-need-to-deal-with-this-later thought that inevitably start surfacing whenever I begin to focus.  Above that are four of those thoughts that I’ve already written.

There’s also a book that I know I’ll be referencing, and one that I need to remember to read by tomorrow night.  And a bag of yarn so I don’t forget to crochet a sample swatch to match the gauge on Jordan’s hat before he takes it back to EMU with him today. And a big cup of water in my Panera cup.  And my all important fan on the far right corner, keeping the air around me moving.

On the wall are pictures of our family. 

What does this pic tell me?  My life is full.  Our schedule is full.  There’s always more to do than there is time and energy to do it. 

My priorities are different now.  A neat, clean house has moved WAY down the list, bumped there by things like focusing on the people in those pictures, getting them to all the places they need to go, helping them do the things they desire to do, making time to be with the ones who’ve set up their own homes, working at Panera, reading and studying, and now, writing this blog.  Even sewing has taken a hit in the rankings – but I’ve still got one quilt to finish, and two others on an ironing board in the kitchen waiting to be assembled!  The living room floor is currently covered by all the various piles of laundry, as my husband moves that along – (he took over the laundry a couple of years ago, something I NEVER would have given up control of in other seasons of my life!)

I know you’ve found this too – life is a balancing act between rest and busyness!  Even as I’m focusing on writing, I’m surrounded by the distractions of what needs to happen next. And I’m comforted by the fact that God is not surprised.   He calls me to order my life by beginning in Him.  Making time to get quiet with Him, looking into His word to hear His voice, listening in stillness for His guidance, resting in His peace as He reassures me of His constant presence with me, His love for me, and His clarity of purpose in leading me. 

I guess I want you to know me a bit . . . and it’s important for you to know that I know I’m not writing from a place of arrival, rather of journeying.  God has shown me so much, including regular glimpses of how much I have yet to learn.  He has washed me with grace, showered me with blessings, yet I still struggle with feeling inept and being unthankful.  You and I are made from the same bolt of human cloth – our particular temperaments, histories, struggles and triumphs vary, but our needs are the same.  To be loved, valued and significant.  To live with purpose.  To handle the clutter and the myriad small details even as we seek to keep our focus on that which truly matters in the long run. 

Only God and people are eternal – everything else passes away.  Help me, Father, to invest myself today in ways that last, and make an impact for good.

Being Me - Bravely

Isaiah 43:19  "Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?  I will even make a road in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."

Becoming authentic and being truly, simply me has taken more bravery than anything else I’ve been called to do.  I grew up being a people-pleaser, driven by the idea that if I could make other people happy, then they would love me.   The trouble with that notion was that it didn’t work.   I became a changeling – adapting, performing, flexing and contorting in so many ways that I really had no idea who I was.  What did I value?  What did I believe?  What were my gifts, desires, preferences, needs or dreams?   Who knew?  I didn’t, and neither did the people in my life.

Living to please as many people as possible led to a strange reality – from the outside, I appeared to be a confident, accomplished person who kept 17 plates spinning at a time without breaking a sweat.  I was a wife, mom, step-mom, student of the Bible, Sunday School teacher, leader in the choir, PTO President, school volunteer, keeper of a clean home and hostess of regular social gatherings.  On the inside, I was dying in isolation;  no one knew who I WAS . . . that is, what I thought, felt, feared, needed, dreamed of and desired – not even me.  The gap between my inside and my outside was like a chasm, and I had NO CLUE how wide it had grown.  I did my best not to acknowledge it, I avoided looking at it at all costs.  Looking at it would require me to do something about it, and I had no idea where to begin.  How could I stop being who everyone thought I was?  And if I stopped being this version of “me,” who would I be instead?

Seeing no way to change the course of the life that I had created, I bolted and plunged headlong into an affair.  My life collapsed around me, taking with it any illusions that people had of me as a “good” person.  Finding myself in a completely new state of being – with no one who was pleased with me, and therefore no one LEFT to try to please – I finally heard and saw the One being who was still present . . . God.  He said “It’s only, ever been about what I know about you, and what you know about you.  When everyone thought you were really something, I knew who you were, and I loved you completely.  And now that everyone thinks you are nothing, I still know who you are, and I love you completely.  Follow me, and I’ll show you how to move forward from here.”

He has shown me many things; most importantly, to be genuine and honest with Him at all times.  No ‘pretty’ prayers please – I tell Him exactly how I am feeling, what I am struggling with, and where I feel completely lost.  He answers with understanding, guidance and direction.  He continues to show me that real change happens on the inside first, where no one but He and I can see it . . . and sometimes even I can’t see it at first, so I have to trust Him, and keep following His lead.  He has shown me that I have wounds that need to be healed, but I have to let Him uncover them before He can cleanse and heal them.  I have to be brave enough to believe that I can look at them, feel all the sorrow and fear and pain they hold, and survive.  He’s shown me that not only will I survive, but I’ll actually begin to thrive.

Next, He’s shown me that I need to be genuine and honest with the people in my life.  I can’t say yes when I know that I need to say no.  I am not the answer to other’s problems.  Some of their needs are their responsibility to meet, not mine.  In healthy relationships love and care are given by both parties, not just by one.  And I need trustworthy girlfriends who will take this journey with me – as we are open and honest with each other, we bring our true selves out into the fresh air and sunlight of friendship, and we grow stronger at being authentic. 

Being authentically me requires bravery every day.  It takes bravery to risk showing my true self, since I may be rejected or misunderstood.  It takes bravery to admit when I am wrong, and ask for forgiveness.  It takes bravery to learn new things, since I may fail, or have to change in some way.  And I wouldn’t miss it for the world.  Rather than trying to “read” people, now I seek to know and understand them, and encourage them to stand up and be their best, true self too.  I’m learning, moment to moment, that He indeed never leaves me, always loves me, constantly leads me, and knows where He’s taking me.  That’s sweet.  And real.