Parenting is hard and long, then they leave and you want all the time back. Which side of this are you? How can we infuse a bit of the opposite side into our current thinking?

Currently Pam and I are in the long and hard portion. Pam just posted on Facebook a good brief view of craziness.

Is it just me or are two of the most challenging times of the day getting the kids ready in the morning and getting them ready for bed? “Focus Kohl focus. What do you need to do next Sweetie? Why is your shirt on backwards? Why have you pushed out half of the toothpaste? Why do you have both feet in one leg of your pants? Why are you putting both socks on one foot? Why are you washing the wall with soap?”

Welcome to the Feather household. As much as I love my kids, bedtime is a bear. I want to like it. I want to be able to pray and rejoice in God’s goodness, but often at that moment I am just trying to survive with my sanity. All of you probably have glorious times of putting your kids to bed, thanking God for such obedient children. I’m glad for you. For me the hour before bed is like me getting closer and closer to being tortured. It is waiting for those who hold me captive to come and get me, taking me to the rack for a good stretching. Only slight exaggeration there.

What makes this time so frustrating? It is simple, really. I want my way and my children want something completely different. Why bedtime? Because we have a deadline that I am trying to meet and all of their energies converge to miss that deadline.

So how is this a gospel moment? Let me count the ways.

1. My kids are sinners, just like me. I don’t know why I get amnesia and think that things are going to go smoothly, but often I assume without any extra work on my part that they will just wise up and stop their actions. Not gonna happen. They come from me. They get their disobedience honestly. The faster I recognize my own sinfulness and the need for God’s grace in my life, the more the gospel is dictating my response to them.

2. I have an agenda. Most often when I am frustrated over something, it is because I have a plan and whatever is frustrating me is simply getting in the way of my plan. I want a calm, restful bedtime for my kids and then to be able to go work on what I want. This is just a tiny little bit selfish, don’t you think? I can have a plan, as long as I realize that God’s plan trumps mine. If my children are particularly squirrelly one evening, God must want me to pay more attention to them. My plan goes out the window and I embrace God’s plan. At least this is how it is supposed to work. Pray for me.

3. My frustrated response. It is going to bother me that things don’t go my way, but my frustration shows that I am unwilling to die to self. I hold on to my ideas so much that even when given the opportunity to bend toward God’s, I fight against it. Not too different than my children fighting against me. I am the child and I am typically unwilling to give up my longings.

There are more ways this hour each night can be a gospel moment, but right now these are my focus. What would you add? Are there ways you fight this?

“Our love must be characterized by a responsiveness that not only loves God but also all those He places in our path.” Page 89 emphasis added

The story is told that John Newton, while he was working along, always welcomed people who came to see him. He would invite them in and basically say, “Let’s find out why God has brought you to me today.” He saw every moment with others as a “divine appointment.” That is a bit convicting for me. Too often, I see people who come to me as a hindrance to what I am trying to get accomplished. They are getting in my way of my agenda. Not exactly pouring out love, am I?

As a Christian who values the sovereignty of God, it is amazing how I forget that He places people in my path. I often get so focused on doing something for God that I forget to pay attention to what He is doing. We are to be a people characterized by love. No one on the planet has been more loved, so this same love should just pour out of us into the lives of everyone we meet. What gets in the way?

Loving God I get. I don’t always do it, but I understand that is important. Loving people, real, sinful people, that is a bit more difficult. To be honest, my struggle comes from the fact that I want my way and difficult people don’t want to do things my way. I have to die to my own wants in order to love the way I have been loved. While I want the results of such a love, I don’t always want to sacrifice like that.

What will help me? Only God. What does it look like?

I need to dig deep into Scripture and pray for wisdom to see His heart toward me. I need to plead with the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to apprehend the amazing love that surpasses knowledge.

“and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19

With diligence on my part and the illuminating work of the Spirit in my life, only then will I have the ability to love others even when they are difficult. Only then will I see how difficult I have been and how God loves me. That well is deep and will flood over into my relationships with others. I pray this for me and for you. Who do you struggle to love? Who does God have in your life right now to help you see this point?

Let me recommend you check out this post by Joe Thorn and definitely listen to the audio that he links.  It is helpful in thinking about the right way to do theology and also the dangers that can grab us. I just listened to it a few days ago. Great stuff.

“Love like this is hard! I don’t want to love this way! It is not rewarding. I am not able do it so I always fail.” (Who wants to continue trying when they always fail?) “God can do it, but I can’t. He is God after all. People just take advantage of it. They never appreciate what I do.”

Any of these ring true for you? Loving like God tells us to love is a real battle!  I have had all these emotional and rational responses at one time or another. It just seems more difficult than life should be. Doesn’t God want me to be happy some of the time?

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s step back a moment and contemplate that love.

In Compelled By Love, the authors point to one passage to show their point.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 ESV

The love that Jesus the Christ has shown for me is the love that I am to show to others—all others. God’s amazing love for me compels me to love others. My ESV says, “For the love of Christ controls us…” 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul is saying that Christ’s love for him controls his actions toward others, most specifically those in the Corinthian churches. Instead of living for himself, he now lives for Jesus Christ. He is bound to Jesus because of the cross, but that is a good thing. This bondage is a freeing bondage. In my sinfulness, I am so bound by how people respond to me that I am not free to love others this boldly. I am always looking at how they will respond. I am not free to truly love them unless I experience this love of God. Every Christian has received this freeing love and can therefore love others completely.

But I don’t always want to love others this way. That is where the responses at the beginning of this post come into my life. Is there any hope for me? Absolutely, and you too! We will talk more, but that will be tomorrow.

About our approach to this book…

We plan to read a section every other week and then post on those sections, but each post will be short and to the point. This means the best way is to have a few posts on each section. If any of you want to write your thoughts in a post, send it to me and I will review it and then post it. This is a great way for us to focus our discussion as much as possible. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for reading along.

Is there a point or have we wasted hours of our lives reading these thousand pages? It wasn’t a waste for me; was it for you? I saw a point. I may not have liked it, but I saw it.

MAJOR SPOILERS. If you have not finished the book and want to discover the end, do not read below this!

The Point

In the end it was one person, Julia, begging for the lives of the survivors. Some alien child held their lives in the balance, determining if they should live. Most didn’t. Questioning the realness of our characters, the child felt justified in playing this little game. Is this a lesson in spirit verses physical? Interesting.

The real lesson? Human arrogance is inappropriate; humility is the only way. Julia and Barbie learned that their little lives were not as “big” as they thought. They were insignificant and they needed to learn that.

But this humility is not like the virtue God speaks about in the Bible. Humanity has earned (“paid for” is the way Julia explains it in the book) some of what is coming to them; that should cause us to be more humble. We are not in charge. God’s expectation of humility is more directly related to our sins against Him, but we will save that discussion for another post.

Life is Like a Brown Sweater

Julia’s story gives us help in understanding King’s point. Julia is stranded and vulnerable, but a girl helps by covering her with a sweater. “Wear it home, it’ll look like a dress.” This phrase comes up again as the title of the last “chapter.” It is meant to be the moral, if you can call it that. Covering. Reminds me of Adam and Eve, except “god” in this story doesn’t care. There is no compassion. How sad to think this is the lesson we should all learn. We are not as important as we think we are. (True) We have done things that have “paid” for a response against us later that we need to accept. But if we beg, we may escape some of the really horrible things that could happen. (We can’t make it better. We need the gospel.) Humility is a good thing to learn, but I would suggest this is a meaningful virtue because of the difference between God and us. He creates; we are the created. That means we should be humble.

Having Said All That…

I liked the book. Over the next few days I will post more thoughts on the book and some of the themes. I have several things to discuss, so be watching for them.

Thanks for reading along. I hope you did not see it as a waste of time. We have much to learn, maybe especially from people who disagree with us.

If you have passed by a newsstand recently, you probably saw this headline article in the latest Atlantic Monthly. What?! Christianity to blame? What does that even mean? I needed to read this article. The fact is that the title is a bit misleading. The real culprit is not Christianity as a whole, but rather one group claiming to be “Christian”—prosperity gospel preachers. In my opinion, not the best idea of what Christianity actually is.

So what is the real issue? Prosperity gospel preachers encouraged people who could not afford housing to get their own home and to “Go big”. In some cases, the preachers stated it was sin to have financial failure, so the teaching was that you expect God to work. In other words we should all go beyond our current means and expect God to take care of the rest. Dangerous!

Think I am being too unfair? Here is a case-in-point. The author quotes a woman in one of these congregations;

“If you have financial pressure on you, and you don’t know where the next payment is coming from, don’t pay any attention to that!” “Don’t get discouraged! Jesus is the answer.”

Jesus is the answer, but not like this. In the example above Jesus will magically appear with money for you to pay your next bill. I agree Jesus can provide in miraculous ways. He has done it before. But the quote above seems to go beyond asking God to intervene. It sounds more like Satan’s use of Scripture in the temptation of Jesus. Satan tempts Jesus to be reckless, to be bold and step out. “God won’t let you fail! He will protect you.” Satan wanted Jesus to step off the pinnacle of the temple and have God save Him. Jesus saw through that and so should you. This is testing God. The woman in the article said “…don’t pay any attention to that!” We certainly should pay attention to that. God cares for us usually by providing for our needs through normal methods—thoughtfulness and planning. These methods are no less miraculous since He gives us everything that we have. Jesus is the answer. He really is! With Him I don’t need a bigger house to feel blessed by God or to be worth anything. He loves us and that is enough. He is enough.

To the author’s credit, it is acknowledged that not all Christians would agree with these preachers. Rick Warren, of The Purpose Driven Life fame, is quoted saying the idea that faithful Christians will prosper financially is baloney and “You don’t measure your self-worth by your net worth.” Wonderful and true, as far as it goes.

The article was well written and raised some good issues, though I cannot agree with the conclusions. The author was fair and seemed to let the people involved do the talking, hanging themselves with their own words. As a follower of Jesus and someone who loves Him, the statements of the prosperity preachers bothered me most.

The author did throw in her two cents worth near the end. “Much of popular religion these days is characterized by a vast gap between aspirations and reality. Few of Sarah Palin’s religious compatriots were shocked by her messy family life, because they’ve grown used to paradoxes; some of the most socially conservative evangelical churches also have extremely high rates of teenage pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births, and divorce.” The assumption: Christians don’t live what they preach. Unfortunately this is true, but the story does not end there. While the quote is true, it makes two mistakes. First, it assumes we should be without sin. It assumes Christians are better than others. We are not. We need Jesus too. The gospel reminds us that even on our best days, we still fall short of righteousness. Second, it assumes that everyone claiming Christianity actually is a Christian. Also false since claiming Christ and being in love with Christ are radically different.

So what do we do with the prosperity gospel preachers? I was appalled at the end of the article. The main pastor who was the focus of the piece is asked about how you will know if God is telling you to buy a home. He says,

“Ten Christians will say that God told them to buy a house. In nine of the cases, it will go bad. The 10^th one is the real Christian.” The author asks about the other nine. “For them, there’s always another house.”

So for the real Christian, everything worked fine? Horrifying! If something does not go right for you, you just don’t have enough faith? If you suffer, God is not pleased? There is nothing more anti-gospel than that concept. Think about how many people in Scripture suffer. Ironic that we are guaranteed suffering if we are a believer and in one place it is even stated that suffering was granted to us for Jesus’ sake. (Philippians 1:29) How is that for prosperity?

I just wanted to point you over to Time Magazine to read a very interesting article on parenting. I am still working on my second part of Gospel parenting. I have so much I am trying to learn about this and I want to do it well, so be looking for that. But for now, check out this article about over-protective parents and those who are challenging them. It was helpful and thoughtful.

Pray for me as I seek all that God says about parenting and try to distill how the gospel can impact that important work.

See you soon.

OK, so parenting is just HARD! There is no other way to say it.

The last few days at the Feather household have been difficult. We are blessed with two wonderful, sinful kids. We love them more than we could ever have imagined, but they can both be difficult. Our oldest is 3 and a half and has so much energy that it seems like he cannot keep himself still no matter how hard he tries. Over the last three days we have had a marathon of correction and I think both Pam and I are getting tired. It just seems like nothing is getting through his little head! Why can’t the Bible tell us the sure-fire way to cure this problem? Well, what do you think? Does the Bible just leave Pam and I to fend for ourselves in this or does God have something to say?

“…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:8 is probably very familiar for most of you who read this blog, but have you ever thought of it in light of the parenting issue I raised above? See, my struggle above is that I am so tired of continuing to serve my son as he is being disobedient. I am tired and I think he should have gotten the message by now. Why can’t he just get it? Those closest to me would probably tell you it is because he comes from my genes, but let me suggest a more important question to ask. Why do I struggle so much to love him through it? That is where my heart needs to be.

Romans tells me that while I was in the midst of hating God, parading around in my sin, Jesus was dying for me. He took my sins while I still hated Him. I think I often clean up these Bible verses when I read them. I hear “sinners” and I think I was just making mistakes. Scripture presents me as a sinner (before my conversion) who only wanted to do my own thing. I did not want God according to Romans 1. In fact, I replaced God with anything I could find that I thought would make me happy. Not exactly the description of a son who is listening intently to his father to do exactly what he says!

Ephesians 5:1-2 says,

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Imitate God? Imitate God! Really? Yes.

I am supposed to love my children right where they are. I am to be patient with them like God has been and continues to be with me. I am to sacrifice my desires for a peaceful home and time to relax. Instead I am to  truly love my son in the midst of his struggle. The real question is how. That is where we will turn in a couple days. I have enough work to do repenting of my sinful attitude. See you then.

Does that describe you? Unfortunately it often does not describe me. I seem to struggle with fear, especially in relation to bad news. Often this takes the form of just waiting for (expecting actually) something bad to happen. Can you relate to this? Sometimes it just seems like too many things are going well and so I am waiting for the bad news. Other times it is recognizing that even as bad things happen, something worse could always happen. So, I am not content in either case because I am waiting for the bad news.

Psalm 112:6-7 says,

For the righteous will never be moved;
he will be remembered forever.
7 He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.

Now, the bad news :) is that I am not righteous in myself. I am quite unrighteous if left to my own devices. The good news is that Jesus has taken my sin upon Himself and I am therefore righteous, perfectly righteous. How amazing is that? In thinking about my own unrighteousness, I am reminded that my trust is not in my own actions to make me righteous, but rather my trust is in the One who has made me righteous. He has taken the worst thing about me, my sin that would prevent me from being with God, and He has perfectly covered it all. Now I have complete access to God. What kind of “bad news” could possibly make me afraid if I am thinking and living this way?

When I think of my Savior, my heart is firm. I know Him and what He has done. What could I possibly fear. He has given me everything I need. To quote an old Hymn we sang this last Sunday at Crossroads, “It is Well With My Soul.” Bad news doesn’t have to scare me, it can help me to lean on, trust in, my loving Savior.

Thanks for the bad news.