Category Archives: Submitting to God

Satisfaction and Joy

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ChefThe day Hans met Katy, he had no way of knowing how radically his life was about to change. In the 7½ years since then, he’s moved to England, been embraced by a British family he hadn’t known before, married their daughter, put down roots in a town in north England, and fathered 4 lively children. In less than a decade his life has changed in every category. Had he been given the details ahead of time, he wouldn’t have believed it.

Handyman

 

During these years, Hans has loved learning to cook, to fix broken things, to bathe and read to children, to preach sermons, to wash dishes, to teach percussion, and a wide variety of other things. And this 30 year old guy is a happy man.

Hans didn’t always walk closely with God, having several years of “crazy” in his past. But when he finally gave his life over to the Lord for his purposes, a world of satisfaction and joy became his. Today he’s a walking, talking example of Luke 6:38:

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full — pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

Who wouldn’t want God’s blessings “pressed down, shaken together, and running over?”

Bedtime story readerThe way to get that is in the first word: “Give… and you will receive.” Give first. If I had to summarize Hans’ life in  one word, it would be “giver”. From waking at 5:30 AM to give the best hour of every day to his Lord, until he and Katy fall into bed expecting to give to children during the night, Hans is a giver. What motivates him?

There was nothing unusual about Hans in his growing-up years, and as his mom, I can’t point to anything I did to contribute to his success story. If his father was here, he’d say the same. What, then, set him up for the satisfaction and joy he’s experiencing?

I decided to ask him tonight, and here’s what he said: “Discovering the Gospel continues to change everything for me. My identity is in Christ, and it’s essential to know who you are, and to be at peace. I’m forgiven by God and adopted into His family by the grace of Jesus Christ. Also, knowing that the Holy Spirit is keeping me gives me confidence, even when circumstances are difficult – which they often are.”

The teacher plays.Hans is an example of how lavishly the Lord is willing to bless anyone who is fully submitted to him, not necessarily with money or possessions but with abundant satisfaction and joy. And the good news is, God will do it for any of us.

One of Hans’ favorite verses: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Toward the Light

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Rosie Maple MothLast week was National Moth Week. Until I heard about it on the radio, I didn’t know there was such a thing. This year was the ninth annual, established by a handful of moth-loving people in an attempt to increase appreciation for the 160,000 different species of moths.

One of my children absolutely hates moths. When leaving the house after dark, Birgitta dashes through a multitude of fluttering wings on our front porch with screams of distaste and panic. “Get off me!” she shrieks, if one of them touches her.

Loving the light.“What exactly do you hate about them?” I said.

“Their furry bodies.”

“But aren’t they kinda fluffy-cute?”

“Absolutely not!” she said, shuddering.

Maybe the real reason moths are unloved is their nocturnal habits. They join bats, owls, and other scary creatures of the dark. Their butterfly cousins, flitting about in the sunshine, represent good luck and new beginnings. But moths? Tradition has them symbolizing “dangerous attraction leading to unhappiness.” After all, flying into fire to get close to a light is about as unhappy as it gets.

Toward the lightWhy would God program a moth to fly toward light? The answer is pretty interesting. Porch lights and fires weren’t his original intention. Instead, he wanted them to look up.

God gave moths the ability to calibrate their flight paths using the moon as their primary reference point. So the unsung moth should get a little appreciation for being aerodynamically sophisticated. But they get into trouble when they confuse porch lights or fires with moonlight. One expert put it this way: “A moth’s attraction to an artificial light or a fire could be related to orientation, which leads to dis­orientation since the moth wasn’t expecting to actually get to ‘the moon.’ Then confusion results.”

I think of how different this is from flying toward the Light described in Scripture. Jesus was and is the self-proclaimed “Light of the World.” The closer we get to him, the greater our benefits. Unlike a moth becoming disoriented by flying too close to a light, we become more clear-headed the closer we get to Jesus.

Light is light as far as a moth is concerned, and the one light God intended as their guide (the moon) isn’t always the one they follow. When they get burned, it’s too late. Watching this happen, we could take a lesson.

God intends for us to follow only one Light, too, but sometimes we become attracted to people or things that seem just as good as Jesus and his values. When we do that, we get every bit as disoriented as a zig-zagging moth.

Maybe National Moth Week is a good time to make an annual check of our light source. If we catch ourselves heading toward the wrong one, we could reorient ourselves toward the Light of the World and avoid getting badly burned.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

C’mon and dance with me!

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Nate and I didn’t know how to dance. The first reason was that he struggled to find any sense of rhythm or beat. When he was in the Army, I remember attending a parade demonstration at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Hundreds of uniformed soldiers passed in front of us, marching in perfect step to the leader’s cadence…. except one. Despite all those soldiers wearing identical clothes, I found Nate immediately.

The second reason we were dance-ignorant was that I was raised to believe dancing was wrong. I had to sign a statement when I became a 16 year old member of my church, promising not to dance (among other things). Later when I chose a conservative Christian college, I signed a similar pledge.

Throughout my childhood, I wasn’t allowed to attend dance classes or school dances, nor could I listen to dance music. It mystified me, since Mom was adventuresome and loved music herself.

Then one day, while I was jumping around to “oldies” music at home, the real truth came out. Mom was watching me cavort to the beat and said, “It’s too bad we don’t believe in dancing. You’d be good at it.”

I realized then that all the no-dancing rules were just that: written rules she was trying to obey on the outside while on the inside she’d been dancing all those years. Though the policy didn’t change, figuring that out made me feel a lot better.

The bottom line was that neither Nate nor I ever learned to dance, not even after we decided it wasn’t really wrong. But we did learn to fake it enough to shuffle around a wedding reception dance floor, at least on the slower tunes.

All of us can get caught up in the letter of a law and then miss the spirit of it. That’s  a serious offense, as Jesus pointed out to the biblical Pharisees. Their 600 rigid religious laws had strayed far from what God had intended when he gave the 10 commandments. So Jesus straightened it out with 2 new commands that swept away all the pharisaical add-ons. “Love God, and love others.”

Those aren’t always easy to do, but they’re easy to understand. And if we put all our actions through that grid, the result will be lives lived in the gracious spirit of the law.

These days I still don’t know how to dance, but a year ago, my cousin Calvin and I decided to try our luck at jitterbugging. Jumping around a wedding reception dance floor in no particular pattern might not have been real dancing, but for the two of us non-dancers, it turned out to be an awful lot of fun.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)