Category Archives: Submitting to God

Heavy Hats

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Amy Grant sings a song entitled “Hats” in which she describes the harried life of a young mom trying to be all her husband wants her to be. She sings about expending herself in the roles of homemaker, wife, lover, mother, cook, date-night partner, and career woman.

She also references running like crazy through each day and working through the night hounded by a phone that never stops ringing. Half way through the song she sings, “How do I manage to hold onto my sanity?”

While tussling with the truth that she can’t wear all the hats her commitments require, she finally asks her husband, “Can I really be the girl you think you see in me?”

That’s a good question for each of us. “Am I loaded down with too many hats because I’m trying to project an image that’s not really me?”

Amy quotes Scripture in her intense song: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” which is precisely the problem. We want to be someone we can’t possibly be. Sadly, knowing we can’t do it doesn’t stop us from continually trying.

Nate used to say he had difficulty “switching hats” from downtown lawyer to suburban father. Although he had a 40 minute train commute during which he could have worked at changing his hats, what usually happened was he ended up wearing them both, along with several others.

Amy would have nodded with understanding. About her own life she sings, “This may be a dream come true, but when it all comes down, it’s an awful lot to do.” And that’s true for most people in our bustling society. On this second day of a brand new year, though, we can ask, “Which hats does God want me to wear in 2012? And which should I work to remove?”

Tina, a blog commenter, left a perceptive prayer on this site one year ago. It embodies our never-ending human struggle between doing and being: ”Lord, we want your will, whether we want it or not.”

As children of God, we say we’re submitted to his choices but then pull ourselves out from under his leadership to put on an extra hat. With a heavier load, then, we echo Amy: “Why do I have to wear so many things on my head?”

The answer is, “You don’t.”

Like everything else in life, we need to prioritize:

  • The Christian hat
  • The spousal hat
  • The parenting hat
  • The work hat
  • The ministry hat
  • All other hats

After the first few, we can freely say, “Do I have to wear the rest?”

Not that hat removal is without complications. But eliminating unnecessary hats will, as Amy says, allow us to keep our sanity. We might even find time to sing a brand new tune.

“See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth.” (Psalm 42:9a,10a)

 

Did you see that?

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All of us would agree that in one generation’s time the visual stimuli in our country has run rampant:

 

  • Our computer screens are edged with enticing ads created just for us after our web browsing habits have been hacked.
  • Roadside billboards that once were signs with seven words or less now boast a series of computer-generated messages in riveting Technicolor, sometimes switching quicker than we can absorb them.
  • Car brake lights jump out at us, once a single bulb but now rows and rows of red lights.

The whole world is screaming, “Look over here!”

Experts tell us our brains, if properly exercised, do have the capability to keep up with the ever-increasing demands on it. They say our children, raised in this vivid world, are already pros at handling it. But is that an advantage or just a guarantee of battle fatigue?

Is it possible to defend ourselves against the everyday visual assault all around us?

When I was young, my dad repeatedly told his 3 children never to look at the sun. “You won’t feel it burning your eyes,” he said, “but if you stare at it, some day you’ll be blind.” Even when he took us outside to view a partial solar eclipse through a hole in a shoe box, he warned us again and again not to peek at the sun.

In the end, though, the choice to obey that advice belonged to each of us. I chose to follow it, especially after listening to a testimonial from someone who’d gone blind exactly as Dad had described.

His counsel was good. Why look at something that could cause harm? And that’s how we can handle today’s rampant visual stimuli. We can make deliberate decisions in every hour of every day to be discriminating about where our eyes go and what we take in through them. Just because a sign is neon-blinking or vibrantly colored doesn’t mean we have to look at it.

Psalm 141:3 says, “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.” God would probably be fine about our praying that same request over our sight: “Set a guard over my vision, Lord; keep watch over what goes through my eyes.”

And there’s one more thing we can do. We can choose to fill our gaze with high quality things as instructed in Philippians 4,  focusing on whatever is true, honest, pure and lovely.

In fact, we can do even better than that. We can fill our vision with Jesus.

“Fix your eyes on Jesus…” (Hebrews 12:2a)

To an Extreme

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Our society is fixated on extremes. Extreme sports, extreme home makeovers, extreme couponing. We Americans tend to believe more is always better, which translates to bigger restaurant portions, larger home sizes, and giant box stores.

Our family had a little bigger-is-better experience the other day, too. We decided to make a fire from the large pile of logs Nelson split last summer, a big fire. Before we knew it, flames were reaching all the way up the chimney and licking out the front of the fireplace. We left ambiance behind as we watched the thermostat move through the 70’s and head for the 90’s. Not long after that we opened the windows, welcoming 33 degree air inside the house.

Now that’s extreme.

When Jesus walked the earth, he was a collection of extremes. His message, especially, was radical, but he never once wavered from it. His sinless life was also extreme, something no one before or since has been able to duplicate. And what he offers mankind is extreme, too, a life sheltered by his perfection, not just for a day or a week but eternally.

His enemies, too, were extreme in their efforts to get rid of him. They stalked him, criticized him, ostracized him, beat him and eventually murdered him. But even with their excessive efforts, they ultimately failed. Today Jesus is alive and managing the universe with very little effort from a place of extreme honor.

What does Jesus think of our human tendency to take everything to extremes? Many of us commit with gusto to new God-related projects such as regular Bible reading, prayer times, tithing programs or service projects, but just like New Year’s resolutions, they’re usually short-lived. Some of us even get an urge to live exactly like Jesus, making passionate vows as proof of our sincerity. But even then, our extremes peter out with time.

This probably tells us something about ourselves, and something about God.

As for ourselves, we should probably attempt to walk a line somewhere between extremes. For example, reading Scripture daily is a worthy goal, but if we miss a day, it shouldn’t be cause for despair or quitting altogether.

As for God, he can shoot for any extreme he wants to… and pull it off perfectly, every time.

“Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.” (Ecclesiastes 7:16-18)