Loud, Messy, and Dangerous...

It's the end of another day...a long, long day.  I'm tired, beaten down a bit perhaps...  My greatest accomplishments, by 8:45 pm, include putting away two loads of laundry that have been sitting on my bedroom floor for the last two days, and collecting more laundry to wash tomorrow.  I think back on my day and sigh...

Why is it that the kids seem to gravitate toward things that are loud....screaming at each other every single time I get on the phone, interrupting me every time I try to talk to Derrick, screaming as they run wildly around the house during the few minutes the baby is actually asleep...

...toward things that are messy...making "forts" in the family room, dumping out all their toys, all over the floor, every. single. day., that one muddy puddle...

...toward things that are dangerous...jumping off tables, couches, crossing the road without looking both ways, doing back-flips on the trampoline....

Parenting is hard...life is hard...and what I crave is comfort.  What this all comes down to is Comfort from the pains and trials of this world.  Comfort from all the noise, the chaos, the disagreements and squabbles and little fires I feel like I'm always trying to put out.  

My comfort...my well-being...my well-deserved rest.  Isn't that a noble pursuit?? Don't I, after all, deserve these things after all I do day in and day out?  A verse I read the other day lingers in the back of my mind but keeps resurfacing...

1 John 2:6 (ESV)

whoever says he abides in him

 ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

Walk in the way Jesus walked...but what does that mean?  Did He ever seek after His own comfort...a man without money or a roof over His head.  A man who went from meal to meal depending on the kindness and graciousness of others and the provision from His heavenly Father.  Do I stop to consider these things as I'm grumbling my way through another day, feeling shortchanged and irritated that my life is so inconvenient and messy and chaotic?

Life, beyond the microcosm of my little world of parenting, is loud...messy...and dangerous.  Just look around you for about 3 seconds and it's so easy to see.  But how I respond to it as someone who professes faith in Jesus should be radically different.  Jesus didn't shy away from the messy and diseased, the unpopular,the outcasts, the people who were shouting curses at Him.  He slept on the ground, went hungry at times, got His feet covered in dirt from walking everywhere.  He gravitated to the messy places it would seem.  And He didn't seek after His own comfort.  The times He made to be alone seem to always be those He spent in prayer with God.  

I've been thinking about this a lot in the last week.  If I'm supposed to be walking in the same way that He walked, am I even on the right road?  And if not, what needs to change?  Perhaps it's in all the messiness, the chaos, that true holiness surfaces.  It takes a total surrender of self to finally catch a glimpse of His glory.  It takes an emptying of my strength to finally relinquish control and ask Him to be my daily Bread, my Rock to stand on.  If I'm walking in the way He walked, I'm not thinking about me and what I deserve...I'm thinking about others.  This is all so counter-culture, so far from what my life looks like most days, but that doesn't mean we should ignore it.  Today, I want to challenge you as I have been challenged, to strive to walk in the way He walked. Ask Him to take your messy and make it a miracle, to take whatever situation or situations you find yourself in that just seem hopeless, too hard, irreconcilable, and bring beauty out of them.  He can do that you know!  Ask Him to open your eyes to needs around you, perhaps right in your own neighborhood, that you may never have noticed before.  Let us never forget that we shouldn't be assessing situations according to our human limitations, but trusting in God to help us, each step of the way.

God, I often claim to believe in and follow You...but I KNOW I've fallen so short of truly walking like You.  I want comfort.  I don't gravitate toward the difficult.  You challenge me to look at life in a different way.  To consider others who are suffering and seek to do something about it....to dive right into the messes and trust You to get me through.  Please give me courage to fully trust You with my life and to believe that You will never lead me astray.  Please help me to relinquish my stubborn will and selfish desires so that You can work in my heart and use me wherever I might be most useful.  Thank you for forgiving me, over and over again, for straying off the path.  Help me to trust You, each day, to meet all of my needs in the best way possible.  Help me to love as You loved and still love...to live as You lived...to care for the needs of others as You did so well.  Thank You, for showing me the way and for being the kind of God who was humble enough to do so. 

Amen

How We Spend Our Lives...

 "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."  Annie Dillard

How are you spending your life?  I've been pondering this a lot lately as we go through one of the most unusual years in history.  This week, I have been reading and rereading 1 Peter in The Message version, meditating on how my life looks and how it is supposed to look.  I hope as you read it, you will be encouraged as I was.  

How do you spend your days, each passing minute...each hour...each day.  Are you living as if it might be your last day?  Shouldn't we all be...with purpose, intention, drive, excitement, appreciation, love, humility, focus....?

1 Peter 1:13-16 (The Message) So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.”

1 Peter 1:18-19 (The Message) Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought.

1 Peter 3:13-18 (The Message)  If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.

1 Peter 4:7-13  (The Message)  take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes! Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.