Category Archives: God’s plans for us

To Do or Feel?

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Birgitta loves to read and always has. Because of that, she’s hoping her little Emerald will turn into a reader, too. Although she’s only 12 months, she already has her own bookshelf in our “library,” thanks to Louisa’s “bring-a-book” baby shower. (A Word or Two)

Emerald loves to handle her books and turns their stiff pages with expertise. She knows how to feel the “furry” or “nobby” pages and how to scratch open the peek-a-boo panels on pages with hidden surprises. Today while she was “reading,” though, I noticed something interesting.

Making a choiceThough she had handled a dozen books and was sitting amongst them, the one she kept returning to was a grown-up book she’d pulled from a different shelf. It was a dusty old reference book I’d used in my writing (before PCs and the internet) titled “20,000 WORDS SPELLED AND DIVIDED FOR QUICK REFERENCE.”

Trying to figure out what she liked about this bland book, I experimented with her.

Four different times I coaxed her into one of her toddler books, but each time she’d eventually brush it aside to hunt for “20,000 WORDS,” the book with no pictures or touchy-feely pages. Then she’d carefully finger it with intense concentration.

ConcentrationMaybe today, looking wasn’t as important as feeling.

It reminded me of the way God sometimes works behind the scenes on us. We think he wants us to look at a certain situation with an eye to fixing it, when really what he wants is for us to feel it, not with our hands but in our hearts.

For example, we might read about a family in chaos where the children are being neglected, and we immediately want to do something to right the wrongs. But it’s possible God doesn’t want us to jump in like that. Maybe he wants our hearts to feel such a potent ache that it drives us to prayer for the family rather than trying to fix things. Maybe he wants us behind the scenes requesting that he work wonders amidst the chaos.

So often we think we need to do something, when in reality praying is doing. It’s doing the most powerful, most effective thing possible. The fact that prayer is mostly done in secret and that no one knows about it except God, sometimes makes it more difficult to do. But may we never think that pouring our hearts out to God on someone else’s behalf isn’t as good as accomplishing something visible for them.

Feelin' itAs for Emerald, a few years from now she’ll be able to understand those 20,000 words and probably read them, too. When she does, I hope she’ll use them to talk to God in prayer.

“When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)

Not My Gift

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In recent days we battled a couple of field mice in the house, so I’d called the Orkin man. He pointed out various cracks and gaps tiny mice were squeezing through to get in. “Fill up those spaces,” he told me. “And do it soon, since colder weather makes mice hunt for warmer places to winter.”

I know lots of people who “winter” in warmer places, traveling from Michigan to Arizona or Florida, and I didn’t want any mice arriving to winter with us.

Insulating foam sealantSo I went to Home Depot and asked for advice. A man in an orange apron led me to a spray can of something called insulating foam sealant “for large gaps and cracks.” It sounded perfect.

Normally I’m not a label reader, but the salesman had told me goggles and gloves were a must, so I decided to read: “Warning/danger! Is combustible and may present a fire hazard. Protect eyes, skin, and surfaces.“ I pulled on rubber gloves, and vowed to squint hard.

“You won’t need much of this stuff,” the man had said. “It expands.”

And boy, was he right. After I applied a long line that resembled bathtub caulk, in an instant it had morphed into something like marshmallows gone berserk. And then it hardened like rock.

Foam fillAs I stood back and looked at four foam-filled areas, I knew I never should have tackled the project without counsel from someone who knew his way around a can of foam. Thankfully the gaps I filled were in the back of the house under a long-neglected soffit. I just hoped no other human would ever see what I’d done.

Not all of us have the skills to do everything well. Each of us has been given giftings or bents that make it easy to accomplish certain things and impossible to do others.

That’s true spiritually, too. The Bible details God’s gift-giving system, explaining that not everybody has all the gifts. He arranges it that way on purpose, wanting us to need each other. We’re to learn to give of ourselves but also to take what others give to us. It’s a good system, unless we’re bent on independence (like I was with the foam). Then it all breaks down.

Unskilled handsI was foolish not to acknowledge my lack of gap-filling skill and know now I shouldn’t have done it alone. As for no other human seeing the mess I’d made, the very next day Mr. Orkin returned and made a beeline to those four mouse-gaps. I cringed as he inspected my foam overload, but his response was gratifying:

“Well,” he said, “there’s not a mouse in this neighborhood that’s ever gonna get through that.”

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.”  (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

Trying Hard

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Earlier this week our late-October weather was perfect. With blue skies and light breezes, it was the day we’d been waiting for to have an evening beach fire where the children could gobble down s’mores, enjoy a sunset, and get tired out before bedtime.

Beach fireBy 6:00 pm the winds had picked up and Lake Michigan was working up a good chop, but we did as planned and had a great time. Emerald, still battling a bad cold, was wrapped snugly, content to sit in Louisa’s lap sucking on a pacifier. (Mama Birgitta was attending her university classes.)

As the 3 children raced across the sand toward the ice-cold water, Adam’s one caution was short and clear: “Don’t get your feet wet!”

But when the sun started to drop toward the horizon, so did the temperatures. That’s when the little ones began to feel the full effect of romping too close to disobedience as their wet feet stung with the cold.

Difficult to obeyBy the time we got home, toes were bright red and throbbing. Maybe a lesson in obedience was learned, but it’s probable they’ll have to relearn it again and again.

Skylar, Micah, and Autumn aren’t the only ones with a bent toward doing their own thing rather than heeding the warnings of an authority figure. All of us are in that camp. As adults, when we arrive at the painful consequences of our own poor decisions, we usually feel badly about them and accept blame for the cost of our disobedience. But when we end up waging the same battle again and again, we get downright disgusted with ourselves.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” we say, “if we didn’t have this natural bent toward insisting on our own way? Life would be so much easier if we’d just do things right the first time.”

Happily, that day will come. Our sinful natures will be history, which is good news for those of us in a continual struggle to hold selfish pride at bay. It’s interesting that the more diligence we demonstrate as we work to tame our wills this side of eternity, the greater God’s approval in the here-and-now. And when he approves, he rewards…. with an increased capacity to fight our self-wills more effectively.

Despite that help for today, though, I’m really looking forward to God’s tomorrow when we’ll no longer have to battle ourselves. Our sin nature will have completely disappeared, and obeying our Supreme Authority will be pure pleasure.

Beyond the sunset some dayAt long last we’ll know what we ought to do and will actually delight in doing it. And that goes for Skylar, Micah, Autumn, and their wet feet, too.

“When we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin.” (Romans 6:7)