Learning Along The Way

Be the Change You Want to See

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Not too long ago there were two boys living in our house.

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In a blink of an eye they’re both men living lives of purpose making a difference in their part of the world.

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Time feels relative right?

Our parenting style grew as they did: from teaching & correction, to guidance, to launch & let go. My own upbringing was rough; I purposed to do this parenting thing with intention, hoping for better results. Many voices influenced our thinking but this one stands out:

 

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Mahatma Ghandi: a man of peace. He advocated political and societal change. Ghandi didn’t have the same faith practice I do, but no matter. He believed humanity could change and live respectfully in peace.

That may sound grandiose or fall flat to your ears. I get it. Perhaps your life is hard in this season and you can barely rub two coins together. Or maybe you’re fighting a physical battle that takes all your focus and energy to stay upright. Changing the world is not on your radar now or maybe ever.

Is being responsible for changing the world really what Ghandi meant? Did he want all people to become social activists? What if his thought was for personal, internal change? For you and me to simply be people of integrity, who show kindness to everyone, who care for those less able to care for themselves? Perhaps his words are a call to simple living right where we are, regardless of our means or motivation to change the world?

Each of our sons went through a season of living outside their integrity. We watched and prayed but did not pry. We didn’t lecture or wag our fingers. We knew they would come back to themselves…eventually. Watching and waiting aren’t easy skills in parenting; they’re skills that belong to the Father. We trusted our sons to the Father’s heart for them. In the waiting we grew to love and trust God more. We also grew to love and pray for our sons in deeper ways as well.

We trusted these young men to come back to center in their own time because we trusted God and knew they developed appreciation for Ghandi’s words, thanks to the influence of their great AP English teacher, Eldra Avery. Living outside their integrity wouldn’t allow them to be the change they wanted to see in the world.

 

Be the change you want to see in the world. Mahatma Ghandi Click To Tweet

Change begins with one. For me, change was my parenting. We made conscious decisions that steered our family in a different direction than the one I was raised in. Others might not catch what you’re doing. It doesn’t matter. That you live out the change you want to bring to your part of the world is the important point.

I call this let go and lean in. Let go of the broken ways and lean in to the Arms waiting to hold and help you grow and change. In that leaning you just might learn more about your part here.

What change will you be?

 

Resilient (or How Does My Garden Grow?)

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I had the most amazing gardening experience ever!  If you’re not into gardening, that’s ok, it wasn’t super technical but there is a great story so bear with me.

 

A week ago our son graduated from Biola University.  We don’t live in the LA area so attending his graduation meant traveling down a day ahead.  Since we were going to be down there anyway we had made plans to be gone the whole long holiday weekend.

 

We left on Friday afternoon.  If you’re a mom you know how much preparation goes into getting ready to leave; for me it includes surveying the garden for potential issues that might need attending to before leaving.  All was in order so we were good to go.

 

It was a wonderful graduation; made this Momma very proud!  But I digress; the event is not the focus of the gardening experience!

 

After returning home four days later, I went out to survey the garden.  I found one of the giant sunflowers lying down in the middle of the cantaloupe and watermelon plants.  It hadn’t been uprooted so I knew I could stake it up and it would be okay.  That’s not the amazing part.  I’m getting there.

 

I wish I had thought to capture this with a photo.  While it was lying there on its side for 3 -4 days, the head of the sunflower, not yet in bloom, had turned itself upward toward the sun.  The stalk of the sunflower had to twist itself around in order to face upward.  When I staked the plant up it was crooked and the head was facing the wall behind the plant.  This would be a gardening experiment for sure.

One week later, this is what the plant looked like:

 

 

I have gleaned a lot of metaphors from this gardening experience.  As another experiment, I’d like to hear from you!

What life lessons do you recognize from my amazing gardening experience?

I’ll share mine tomorrow!

Conditions

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Ever find yourself thinking “if I do this then I will reward myself with ….” The “this” might be cleaning or exercise or another load of laundry. Or it might be calling a list of people for volunteers at school or church. Or getting in touch with a not so favorite person. Do you put conditions on your behavior? I know I often do. I’d like to think it motivates me but I am not so sure sometimes.

I have found that my conditions can be really limiting as well. “I must do this before I do can…” doesn’t sound bad necessarily but if my conditions keep me from responding to the still small voice whispering to me to call someone in need or bake that casserole for that family, my conditions have gotten in the way of my walk along the Way.

A quote from Oswald Chambers struck me today:
“But Jesus was always consistent in His relationship to God and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines and God has to blast them out of their preconceived ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ.”

Have you considered where you are putting conditions on your life with God instead of simply being with God through your day as you walk along the Way? I would love to hear what you are working through….

Funny the Way it is

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I heard a clip of a song on the radio yesterday morning taking my teenage son to school (8th grade with 4.5 days left but who’s counting?) It caught my attention when the line …”a soldier’s last breath and a baby’s being born” played. With a little research I found some info on it. The title of the song is the title of this post. It’s by the Dave Matthews Band. Don’t know enough about them to link up here with a clear conscience but this particular song intrigues me.

The song is all about the contrasts that are simultaneously occurring in the world. When we think about the perspective we have on a situation don’t we assume everyone else has the same perspective? When we come across someone whose perspective is drastically different than ours we can get very upset. Isn’t our perspective right? Thinking about the ideas in this song made me think of the poem Six Men of Indostan. It’s a story of six blind men and an elephant. Do you know that one? It’s a great illustration of perspective.

Here’s my version: 6 blind men were walking and talking together. They came upon an elephant. Each man reached the elephant at a different point because of their position on the road. One of the men found the tail of the elephant, another the trunk, another a tusk, another a leg, another an ear, and the last man the elephant’s side. Each man described the elephant from his perspective, asserting that what they could feel is what an elephant is like: a rope, a snake, a spear, a tree, a fan, and a wall.

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(photo credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/9_9hzZVjV8s )
So my point? How each of us views the world is due in large part to our perspective. Do we look at circumstances through the lens of our own perspective or do we view the world through the lens of God’s perspective: GRACE? There are so many things going on in the world right now that are tragic or that we disagree strongly with or that we are ready to argue with people about; asserting that our perspective as the right one.

The only right perspective is God’s perspective. He wants NONE to perish but all to come to repentance. If we are looking to Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith then we will notice He was not angry with those living a life of sin. (Apart from God’s Ways) Nope. Jesus was angry with the Religious people who were making it difficult for people to come to God. Now there’s a stop you in your tracks thought: am I one of the self-righteous defenders of the Law of God not willing to show Love to those who need it but instead am really ready to judge them for their choices?

So as we go along the Way, let’s examine our perspectives. Are we looking at the choices people make and judging them as if We are God? Or are we looking at them with the winsomeness of Christ and showing them grace (undeserved favor) in the middle of choices we disagree with?

Funny the way it is….

What Kind of Person Am I?

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I had to have help putting this picture in place because it was huge!  In the process I learned how to change the size in html without changing the aspect ratio.  All that thanks to my husband the engineer!  I asked him if he could tell what kind of person I am from this picture and he said “A duck follower!”  He may know how to manipulate pixels accurately but “getting the hint” is not high on his list of skills.  Not to mention he has lived with my obsession of control for 18 years of wedded bliss, poor man.

Yes it’s true; I would love to have all my ducks in a row and going in the same direction all the time.  But unfortunately that has yet to happen.  My literal husband and son would promptly say “You don’t have any ducks.”  Perhaps that is really the problem, not my lack of control over life but the fact that we don’t own any ducks!
Seriously though, I have had to be undone in this area of control so many times  that you’d think I would have learned the truth about my small circle of influence in the universe by this season of life.  But since I am in the middle of a series of unfortunate events right now, I am recognizing yet again that I don’t have control.   It’s all in God’s hands.
He is so extremely patient with me, the slow of learning.  He is also extremely gracious in the lessons I seem to need repeating.  Truly, at this point in life I just laugh and say, Oh yeah, I forgot again, didn’t I Lord?  He gently reminds me and I willingly take His hand, as I  brush off my skinned knees from my stumbling.
So I shared what kind of person I am.  How about you?  What does God have to teach you again and again?  Or are you one of those vicarious learners who benefits from the open mistakes of others like me?  Please, please don’t let me be the only one who needs repetition!

Faith Walking

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Do you ever stop to think about what it really means for you to “walk by faith”? I know that in different seasons of our lives we have more or less time to stop and ponder big ideas; I wasn’t spending a lot of time in contemplation when I had babies to care for or when I worked more than full time like so many women whose work is outside and inside the home. Let’s take a few minutes to think about faith walking together.

Our days are filled with “to do lists” of tasks that must be done and our focus is on them, not on things with eternal consequence. Yet if anything is important then everything can have importance in the realm of faith walking. The Message tells us that “the fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see.”

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. So faith walking is daily. We go through the ups, the joys, the successes of our lives confident in our trust in the promises of God. We go through the downs, the sorrows, the loss of our lives confident in our trust in the promises of God. Wait a minute! Didn’t I just say the same thing? Good for you for noticing.

Yes. Whether we are experiencing ups or downs, joys or sorrows, successes or loss, we can have confidence in the promises of God. I know this is true. Not only have I read about lives in Scripture but I have watched the lives of dear friends and have experienced first hand how faith walking looks.

Walking is active. You move. You used to be in one place, or circumstance, and you change and grow to another place. C.S. Lewis wrote of this movement in the Last Battle: as Aslan moves through the Doorway he turns and calls over his shoulder to those following him, “Come further up! Come further in!” This is the invitation Jesus offers us as we walk along the Way. Get to know Me more, walk with Me, talk with Me.

This is not an item on a to do list, it is the essence of our very life! Further up, further in! This is what faith walking is!

Come along the Way….

Follow Me…

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