Category Archives: Adult Children

Ready and Waiting

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In the New Testament when children joyfully referred to Jesus as the Messiah, the religious rulers of the day were incensed that he didn’t stop them. Instead he did just the opposite: “Don’t you read your Bibles?” he said. “From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise.” He was telling them, “These youngsters get me, and you don’t.” (Matthew 21:16)

How did those children become that devoted to Jesus? They were so sure about honoring him that they went against powerful local authorities without blinking an eye. How do we cultivate such certain faith in ourselves and in our children?

Hmmm...

Last night I received an email from our firstborn, Nelson, with some interesting thoughts about “signing on” with Jesus as Lord of our lives. He wrote about our natural reluctance to cooperate when the Lord directs us to move in his direction. Then, when we’re finally ready to comply, we do so only “little by little.” What Nelson said next gave me a new way to think about that, not from a human perspective but from the Lord’s.

Some of us, reluctant to step toward God, say, “But I’m still waiting on him,” and Scripture definitely encourages that kind of waiting. It’s possible, though, that when we say we’re “waiting on him,” it’s just a ploy to procrastinate on making a difficult change he’s already asked us to make.

Nelson wrote, “Funny how we sometimes get that mixed around, saying that we are ‘waiting on God.’ I think he’s waiting on us much more of the time, ready to bless us and move us to the next thing. God is ready. We are not.”

His words rolled around in my head for a long time, statements that were well-put and truthful.

In thinking about the scriptural children honoring Jesus with their words, we Christian parents think of our own children and how important it is to us that they one day choose to follow Jesus. We spend unnumbered hours praying to that end, and we take them to church, grill them on Bible memory verses, pay for Christian summer camps, and do our best to live Christian-ly in front of them. But sometimes children choose a different path anyway.

Though that saddens us, we should never despair. As Nelson wrote, all of us can be slow to walk in God’s ways. The good news is that he is always ready, whenever any of us steps even slightly in his direction. He is thoroughly prepared to bless us, and we’ll never have to stand waiting on him once we’ve come to the point of willing surrender. He’s already there, waiting on us… and our children. He wants all of us to come, and he looks forward to hearing “words of praise from our lips.”

None of it, however, happens on our timetables or through the circumstances we dictate. As Nelson wrote, “God often works in ways we don’t expect.” But one thing we know for sure: he is always ready and waiting for us.

“Honor the Messiah as Lord in your hearts.” (1 Peter 3:15)

Workin’ It

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The other day Nelson took the middle seat out of his van and drove off in search of firewood. When he’s “in residence” he makes a beautiful fire every night, coaxing all of us toward the conversation circle in the living room.

Stage 2

But cozy fires don’t come without a good deal of hard work first. Nelson has to find the wood, saw it into manageable chunks, load it into the van, unload it at our house, and then put some real man-power into splitting the pieces of stump with an old fashioned ax. Whack! Whack! Hundreds of times. When I ask if it hurts his back or neck, both of which have been injured in car accidents, he says, “I really love this kind of work.”

And I love that he loves it, because I could never haul or split wood like he does. The only effort I could make to gather logs would be to tear out a check from my checkbook. But it’s interesting that Nelson’s way of securing fireplace wood and mine are different not only in the physical effort expended but in depth of satisfaction, too.

Splitting wood

We’ve all heard the expression, “He who chops his own wood is twice warmed.” That refers to the heated work of chopping and splitting, followed by the warmth of the fire. But really there’s a third warming, the sense of accomplishment a man feels in bringing wood from forest to fireplace. It’s much like a gardener growing her own vegetables, harvesting them, and then serving them for dinner.

I think God has this same multi-tiered satisfaction in mind for us when we dig into his Word, looking for him. We go on a diligent search, not sure of exactly what we’ll find, but willing to make the effort. We work hard to read, study, and hear him correctly, and when he finally reveals his truth or himself, we experience the deep pleasure of those connections, and want to do it all over again.

Very few things of value come to us without a degree of diligence and (usually) struggle. We sometimes get disheartened along the way and lose momentum, even quitting altogether. But then we miss getting to the good stuff: the cozy fire, the delicious meal, the bond with God.

So we have a choice. We can let blood, sweat, or tears keep us from succeeding at our labors, or we can push through the discouraging moments (or hours) with diligence, counting on God to strengthen us to each task. And he will, whether it’s splitting wood, harvesting vegetables, or studying the Bible. And hopefully, as we’re “being warmed” by laboring in his Word,

Readywe’ll be able to say the same thing Nelson did: “I really love this kind of work.”

“As your days, so shall your strength be. There is none like God… who rides through the heavens to your help.” (Deuteronomy 33:25-26)

Selfish or Selfless?

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My little house has 3 bedrooms: one large, one medium, and one closet-sized. We’ve taken the large bedroom and made it more like a camp cabin, putting the emphasis on sleeping space.

The room has a variety of beds with one king, one double, one twin, one twin-size floor mat, room for another twin in the closet and two mattresses stuffed under existing beds. Although there are ample blankets and pillows (at one point I counted 32 pillows), once in a while there are still problems.

“I need a flat pillow… a fluffy one… one without feathers.”

Or, “Where’s my favorite pillow?”

As the pillows get passed around, “favorites” get lost. Since I’m lucky enough to sleep in a different room, I have charge of my own favorite pillow. But one day I decided to choose (and hide) a spare, just in case.

I plucked one of the best pillows from the pile with just the right depth and feel, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and stashed it under my bed. That way, if anyone “borrowed” my bed pillow and failed to return it, my back-up would be ready. And then I promptly forgot about it.

Stashed

Several years passed until yesterday, when I was in a cleaning frenzy and decided to pull everything out from under my dressers and bed. There were old Christmas cards, sandals, a bin of papers, extension cords, a folded rug, boots…. and my pillow. I hadn’t even remembered it was there.

The pillow was still clean and in great condition, but as I pulled it out of the bag, it struck me what a waste it had been to stuff it under my bed like that. Truthfully, it was selfish and might even have qualified as hoarding, which is “to accumulate a supply of something that’s hidden or carefully guarded for preservation or future use.”

That’s exactly what I was doing with my pillow. If I was a squirrel, hoarding would have been commendable, but in my case, I was just refusing to share.

A pillow may be a small thing, and we had 31 others people were able to use. But the principle of withholding something good so others can’t use it and saving it for self is a serious fault.

Even more important than sharing a pillow, however, is sharing the other things God gives us, like spiritual blessings. For example, if we’re saved by Jesus, we should eagerly introduce him to others. If we’ve been given spiritual insights, we should willingly share them. And if we have opportunities to serve someone in need, we should offer to do so. Spiritual blessings that are hoarded put us in disobedience to the Lord.

But God knows that sometimes sharing is really hard. Once in a while it goes against our natural leanings so significantly that it’s a major sacrifice to do it. But that’s what makes it valuable to him and important for us. In my case, maybe it would be easier to share if I looked at every selfish impulse in the light of God’s opinion.

If I did, I know I’d never again stuff a pillow under my bed.

“Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” (Hebrews 13:16)