This week God opened my eyes to an area of my life where I was ensnared by sin.  The sin of judging myself.

Ever since I decided to stay home and take care of my kids, I’ve had this idea of what a “good” housewife should look like.  Mainly the vision consisted of someone who keeps a very clean house.   Now anyone who knows me knows this is my area of weakness.   If you walk into my house at any given time, you will rarely find everything in its place.  Not because I don’t try to keep things picked up, but mainly because I don’t think about putting things away all the time.   We play and have fun and then try to pick up at the end of the day…most of the time.

I do scrub bathrooms, vacuum, and clean the kitchen on a regular basis; not that you would notice though because there are usually things out of their place so you don’t notice how nicely the floors are vacuumed underneath all the toys on the ground.

See even when I type this, I get this feeling in my gut about how much of a failure I am at being a housewife! I mean really, I stay home with the kids; what do I do all day long if the house isn’t cleaned up?

I have a handful of friends who are clean freaks.  You know the ones that you can walk into their house at any given moment in time and their house would be spotless.  Yes, I am surrounded by friends whose houses are spotless which makes the guilt even stronger that my house is not. (not that those friends would ever judge me!  I judge myself enough for all of us)

So What Does This Have to do With My Walk with the Lord?

I was frustrated early this week at the house.  I spent 6 hours one day organizing closets and bedrooms and toys and taking out anything that hasn’t been used in a while.  I had 6 bins and 3 garbage bags full of stuff to give away and I was exhausted.  And yet, by the time bedtime hit that night, there was a mess in the house that needed to be cleaned.  And some of those clean freak friends of mine were coming over the next day.

As I fretted about the house and got frustrated with myself that I can’t seem to keep things picked up, God clearly spoke to me.  And I mean clearly!

For the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts,  yet one body.

I Corinthians 12: 14-20

So this past week as I was picking up the house, and I was silently chastising myself for letting the house get so messy, I Corinthians popped into my head and I had this thought.  “Kari, you are creative with your kids and cook three home cooked meals a day. You can’t be good at everything.” Is it weird that that thought freed me from my own judgment?

All of us were created differently, and this week my eyes were opened to how that plays out in my home.

God gave me unique talents and those talents were the ones He needed me to have for my house. Saying I’m a failure because I don’t have the same talents as someone else is saying God messed up with me.

Does that give me an excuse to let me house be a disaster? No.  But it does give me the freedom to not beat myself up because no matter how hard I try, I can’t keep it spotless. I was wired to be spontaneous and to love to make huge messes in flour with my kids and to think its fun to have water fights in the kitchen and to make dough for tortillas or bread and to leave the left overs for the kids to play with and to have all 3 kids and I “cook” meals together which means half of everything gets dropped on the floor.   All of these things that I sooo enjoy doing with my kids makes for some pretty big messes.   These big messes are symbols of me being who God made me to be.

This may sound trite to you; I’ve heard it a million times myself.  Comparing yourself to others really is a way to entrap yourself in sin.   This week I feel like God has gotten rid of one of the sin traps I had put myself in.  By His grace, I’ll continue to walk in that freedom.

Goals:

• A while ago I decided to learn to sew.  I had my first “lesson” tonight!  Tomorrow I will be attempting to make a couple purses for my girls.  I was told it was easy…we’ll see =)
• I learned this week that it is hard to read when you have a sinus infection.  I’ve had two sinus infections in my life and I’m a wimp about them.  I hate headaches!  That’s my excuse for not reading as much as I wanted to this week.  =) But I’m still reading  “Renovation of the Heart”  and “Love & Respect”.
• Getting out of bed by 5:15am every day this next week.  I’ll spend 45 min. with Jesus and then run or do strength training for an hour.
• Still working on a schedule for the kids.  Everyone but Avery was sick this past week which made it hard to implement anything.  I would like to have a flexible schedule in place by next Monday.

And that’s it for this week =)

Where I’ve Been

I’ve taken a month or so off from posting this and I can definitely tell.  In the craziness of our life right now, I thought taking a few months to not write, to not analyze, to not post would be good for me.  What I learned is that I process through writing.   I also really learned that I love this blog, even if no one were ever to read it.  I need an outlet for my thoughts and this blog allows me that quiet place to share what Christ is doing.  Its my reminder that He’s doing tons in and around me and I love that!  With that said, here’s my journey over the last couple months =)

Luke 7:7-8 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

The authority of God has been a big lesson this summer.

Walking and recognizing that everything that lives and breathes and is created in this world is under the authority of God has been what consumes my thoughts.  Lately this has played out in the area of running.

I signed up for a half marathon a while back. I’m not a distance runner.  In fact, I played soccer my whole life which consists of running 2 miles every once in a while but mostly just sprinting a lot.  I’m good at sprinting =)  Sprints are fast and over quickly; anyone can do that.  Long distance running requires a bit more out of me.  So I started training.  I began running with a friend outside a few mornings a week, and it was going great; until we got to about 6 miles. Then the mental block started.   I was also getting to the gym the other few days a week to do weights and run on the treadmill.  But I get so bored on the treadmill that I would end up just sprinting 2 miles and being done.  So after a few weeks of these mental blocks, I was reading Luke 7, and it was as if I was reading it for the first time.

God opened my eyes to his authority over my body.  He can speak and my body will do what He asks.  Not that He manipulates me all day long as his puppet; but HE COULD.  The very fact that He has the authority to do with me as He pleases is so freeing.   I was reading this passage before I set out on a 6 mile run, and it was as if God was pushing me to my knees to submit my body to His authority.  This freedom of walking in the realization and understanding of his authority has pushed me through my mental block with running.

This lesson started with running and has run rampant through my whole life.  As I approach my kids, house, decisions, and generally just life stuff, God continually puts that image before me of His authority.   The amount of stress that has been reduced in my life is amazing.    So thankful God keeps teaching me!

Goals:

• Right now I’m reading Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs (a marriage book).   The girl I run with is reading it as well so we generally talk through this book while we run.  Or she talks and I try not to puke =).  I’m through chapter 4 so far.  Hopefully will be through chp 7 by next week.
• Also reading Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.   He is so incredibly smart that I think I may be in this book for a long time.  I read about 2 sentences and then have to put it down and think about it all day.  Transforming stuff!  I’m in chp 2, but I’ve been in chp 2 for a month now so no promises about where I’ll be next week, but I will be reading it!
• Vacation always throws off my workout schedule so slowly easing back into it this week.  Need to run 2 days and do strength and speed 2 days this week.
• Made it to the couch to spend time with Jesus by 6:10am this morning.  Vacation throws off my morning discipline too =)  Need to get back to getting up at 5:00am to spend time with the Lord and working out at 6am so I have the whole morning to do stuff with the kids, the house, and fulfill all the other commitments I have.
• I have committed to keeping a little baby this next year; her mommy needs to finish high school and so we get to love on this sweet girl while her mommy is at school.  The baby should be born in the next few weeks, so I need to get the kids and I on a schedule throughout the day so we don’t live in chaos when we add a newborn to the mix.  They do better, and I do better, when they know what to expect throughout the day.  I just hate schedules though!  I’m more of a fly by the seat of my pants girl, but trying to get into the mindset of my day being a job and not just a fun stage of life.

And so there you have it.  I’m officially back to sitting down on Tuesdays to write and process through my journey with God.  Thanks for holding me accountable!

John the disciple (as apposed to John the Baptist)  =)

He is characterized as having zeal, ambition, aggressive, and at times behaves in a volatile and brash manner. He was one of the inner three disciples who were closest to Jesus as He lived on earth.

As I read about John this week, the Lord started teaching me far more about the wisdom I need for this stage of life.  See John had a zeal for truth.  This zeal made him a pretty black and white type of guy.  He generally thought in absolutes.  Either you loved God and followed him or you didn’t.  If you loved God, you spoke truth.  If you lied, you didn’t have Christ in you.  Black and white.  This zeal for truth was good, but a little out of balance.  However, after 3 years of walking with Christ, love for others began to balance his zeal for the truth.

In his infancy stage of Christianity, his potential virtues were so out of balance that they became sins.  Most of the disciples, and us, are wired this way.  Our greatest strengths become our weaknesses when taken to an extreme.  John MacArthur states ” But three years with Jesus began to transform a self-centered fanatic into a mature man of balance.  Three years with Jesus moved this Son of Thunder toward becoming an apostle of love…’

The point…yes I have one!

I’ve entered a personally uncharted season of life.   God has called Brent and I to do something that requires me to be a single mom quite a bit, but I’m not sure how to do this yet.  In fact, I’ve wasted a lot of time thinking about how to live this new role I’ve found myself in.  How do you go from single mom back to family back to single mom and back again?  This week as I’ve been studying John and praying through the whole idea of balance, God has really spoken to me about the transition I am attempting to make.

What if life wasn’t broken up into “weeks where Brent is gone” and “weeks where Brent is here“.  What if I didn’t try to live the extreme of trying to plan fun things and be gone and make the time pass while Brent is gone and then go back to strict schedule and family stuff the weeks he’s here?  What if I allowed Christ to keep my life balanced in him regardless of the circumstances around me?

I don’t have any answers yet, but God is teaching me how to rely on Him for the answers instead of picking up the phone and just having my hubby tell me the answers =)  There was a pastor visiting our church who said something to the effect of that Christians need to learn how to live with Christ as the head.  We tend to live like a chicken with its head cut off.  The body running around the yard saying “what do you want me to do, where should I go, what should I do next.”  But the body will just keep jerking in all sorts of directions because there is no head.  If Christ is our head, we just go where the head tells us and do what the head tells us.  Its not hard.  We just need to listen and obey and expect direction.

That image of submitting to the Head has stayed in my mind for the past few months.  Balance definitely comes, like it came to John, as I walk as the body of Christ with Christ as the head instead of always living in one extreme or the next.

Balance…

Goals:

• Read Same Kind of Different as Me this week. I couldn’t put it down!  Needless to say, the other books I was reading didn’t get much read out of them.  But I finished Same Kind of Different as Me so I’ll pick back up the others this week too. I’m hoping to finish Twelve Ordinary Men this week.
• So I have one friend who said she would teach me to sew.  I just have to call her and get started…We’ll see if I’m any good =)
• I will work out this week, I will work out this week, I will work out this week!   For some reason, if I don’t get up early and work out, I’m not getting them in.  When Brent is gone, I can’t leave early to work out because of the kids and then when he’s home, I just want to be home in the morning with him in stead of leaving to work out.  Ahhhhhhh.  But I truly believe God calls us to take care of ourselves and our body so the workouts must be fit back in.  Running twice a week isn’t cutting it =)
• I’m planning on staying home a lot this week.  My two older kids are currently going stupid and must be whipped back into shape.  That should be a project in and of itself.  So isolation is the answer so that there will be many opportunities for me to lovingly correct and discipline inappropriate behavior =) Its hard to discipline in public =)

Its 10:20pm on a Tuesday night and I’m just now sitting down to write this. The week is already busy, and it just started! I think if I’m not careful, the summer will be over before I’ve slowed down enough to enjoy it.

Luckily, Brent currently has the only working car with an air conditioner at meetings out of town and won’t return until late tomorrow so tomorrow the kids and I will be forced to stay home and just be. I’m looking forward to just playing with them. And catching up on cleaning and laundry of course =)

As for what God and I have been discussing this week…I’ve been meditating on Mark 11 and the passage about the fig tree. Jesus cursed the fig tree because it was not producing fruit and then as he was explaining to the disciples about the fig tree he states,

• Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received  it, and it will be yours. 25 And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

So two things have been consuming my thoughts this week.

1. Producing spiritual fruit must directly relate to your faith.  If I truly have faith, I could move mountains and therefore fruit would be produced in my life.
2. If I want to produce fruit and move mountains, I must be willing to continually forgive those around me.  Completely forgive not just partially forgive with lots of excuses about why I’m right and they really don’t truly understand what they did wrong type forgiveness.

Because forgiveness seems directly related to the amount of fruit God is able to produce in my life, I have spent a lot of time with Jesus talking through things that I have thought that I had forgiven but had not truly forgiven.  Complete forgiveness seems to be the theme this week.  Good stuff!

Goals:

• Still reading the same books.  The disciples are fascinating!  So is their background and the various personalities that Jesus put together and how he used them.  Also started reading The Green Letters: Principles of Spiritual Growth by Miles J. Stanford.   My neighbor gave it to me and it seems to be a great read.  I think I’ll learn tons from it.  My kind of reading =)
• Ran this morning and plan on running outside again on Thursday.  With Brent traveling so much lately, my workouts have really suffered.  I’m going to go back to good old workouts on video at the house this week to try to up the number of workouts I’m getting in a week.
• Think I’m going to have to cut back on the TV time again.  Its crazy how slowly it creeps back into taking up so much time.  I’m back into just turning it on after the kids are in bed at night instead of intentionally picking 1 thing to watch and using the rest of my time to do productive or relaxing things.
• And this one is more of a long term thing but I want to learn to sew.  Any good teachers out there =)  My aunt taught me a while ago, but I can’t remember anything.  I hand stitched a little diaper carrier thing this week and decided that I wanted to teach myself how to really sew.  I need to learn a new skill =)  We’ll see how it goes!

Oops.  This is a day late.  I think I needed a day to recover from my slave driver husband who was on a mission this past holiday weekend.  We spent hours in the yard and then rearranging and deep cleaning the house.  I wish I could say I was a willing participant to the mass cleaning, but by 9pm on Monday night, I was trying every method I could think of to get him to stop so I could stop.  But he was focused, and there was no stopping him.  I am thoroughly enjoying our clean house and perfect yard though and was pretty thankful he didn’t listen to any of my attempts to distract him from all the projects over the weekend.

As I sit here enjoying my deeply cleaned house, I am reminded of how much I did not want to work this weekend.  Every muscle ached, I was tired, and all I wanted to do was stop and say “its good enough”.  I wish I could say I pushed through without complaining and with a joyful spirit, but honestly, if Brent hadn’t been so focused, I would have easily quit only to sit here this morning wishing I had pushed through.

Most of life seems to be this way.  All the good things I desire, take work to achieve.  I want to be in shape so I must keep running, even when my feet hurt, my body aches, and it is so humid that I can’t see because of the sweat dripping into my eyes.  If I want to achieve my end goal, I must push through the pain and the overwhelming desire to quit.

Our relationship with God follows the same path.  Most of life I wallowed in the thought “I wish I was just disciplined enough to get up in the morning” or “I’m just so tired”  or ” life is so busy” or any other number of excuses.  But yet I still desired to be intimate with Christ.

I sit and look at my clean house and yard and am reminded to keep pushing forward.  I must work at pursuing Christ while at the same time submitting to Christ so that He can do what He wants in me. I must get up when I don’t want to, sit down and be still when the work around seems to be calling my name, read when I desire to veg in front of the TV, pray when I desire to play, and listen when I desire to talk.  Intimacy with Christ, just like my clean house, is not achieved by being lazy.  Intimacy with Christ is achieved when we force our desires under the submission of Christ and push ourselves to pursue him rather than the world around us.

Father, keep me submitted to you and listening to you rather than my flesh which hourly cries out for me to be lazy in my relationship with You.  Let your Kingdom reign over my emotions and desires today.

Goals: (completely forgot to post them last week!  oops!)

• Still reading Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur.  Its taking me longer than I thought to work through this book.  It is an incredible book but lots of food for thought in it.  I’m finding I have to read a few pages and then think about it and then read a bit more.  I’m only through the 3rd chapter so far but learning so much about the disciples.  This might be one of my new favorites.
• Also reading Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas again.  I needed to change my perspective on parenting again.  Every time one of my kids hits a new “phase” I need to refocus myself and my parenting and this book always helps.  Its so good to get a perspective change which always leads to an attitude change.
• Also reading Have a New Kid by Friday by Kevin Leman.  Yes, I’ve read this one in the past as well.  Its good, and as I said, one of my kids is currently going through an interesting phase =)
• Wasn’t able to run outside last week.  Brent was out of town so I couldn’t work out in the morning.  I’ve come to depend on those early morning workouts!  Going to try for 5 miles again tomorrow morning.  Last time we ran 5 miles in 42 min.  and I would love to keep that pace for now.
• Still getting up early and sitting down at lunch with God.  This really isn’t a goal anymore as much as just part of life.  I pray it continues to be part of life and a part of me and doesn’t go back to being something I force myself to do.  I know how easily I can fall though so definitely praying the Lord’s grace over my desire and time with Him.

Happy Wednesday everyone.  Hope your day is amazing and full of the joy of the Lord.  Fight for that joy today.  I know I am! =)

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. II Corinthians 12:9-10

Thankful

That is the word that describes my heart this week.

I’ve been reading through the book Twelve Ordinary Men as well as studying the Gospels. As I’ve been reading and studying about the disciples, the idea of really how ordinary these 12 men were has made quite an impression on me.

See the Pharisees and leaders of Jesus’ time were good people. They followed all the laws. They knew all the right people. They did what their parents told them. Growing up, they were probably the teacher’s pets because, externally, they were perfect. Culturally, they did everything right. Their “perfectness” is what kept them from “seeing” the Messiah.

The disciples were different. Before Jesus called them, they weren’t anything special. They had little faith, were low-class, rural, and uneducated people. Basically, they were unworthy and unqualified.

So now let’s get to the whole Thankful part of this post

In high school, I spent 3 years of my life in rebellion. I spent most of my life before that battling huge character flaws that anyone who knew me as a child still like to remind me of frequently. The kind of flaw you can never run away from. It was too significant to erase from people’s memory =). So in my journey with Christ, my spiritual warfare often occurs in the battle with feeling like I’m one step away from returning to the rebellious flawed teenager I once was.

This week, Jesus has clearly shown me that feeling like I’m one step away is what makes me useful to him.

The Pharisees didn’t need Jesus. Their life was and always had been neatly controlled. Jesus caused chaos for their “perfect” life so they ran from  him.

Now the disciples needed Jesus. They had no power and no authority in and of themselves. In fact, they were also one step away from falling back into their old lifestyle which is why they became so influential. They walked under the power of Christ because they knew they could not rely on themselves. Their “past” kept them dependent on Jesus. That dependence allowed them to become apostles and take the message of the Kingdom of God to the ends of the earth.

So I’m thankful. I’m thankful I’m more like the disciples than like the Pharisees. I have more that reminds me daily of my need for a Savior. My life is not perfect and so whatever is done through me is clearly done by the power of the Holy Spirit. This week, I have found pure joy in my weaknesses understanding in a whole new way II Corinthians 12.

Thank goodness I was a messed up kid who still battles sin daily. Keep me weak Father so that you can be glorified in me. Amen.

And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart  Mark 3:5

And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?  Mark 4:13

As I’ve been reflecting on what it means to truly follow Christ, these two verses got stuck in my head.   It seems one factor that may keep me from following Christ is a hard heart.

Hard heart seems so harsh doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why I usually skim over these verses.  But it also seems there are 2 kinds of hard hearts.

1. The type the Pharisees had which at times I can also possess.  That of seeing life in light of the rules and regulations instead of in light of our Savior
2. The type the disciples had which at times I can also possess.  That of trying to understand Jesus in light of their own experience and understanding.

And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.  Mark 4:18-19

See, sometimes following Jesus is impeded by our hardness of heart.  By us trying to understand Jesus in light of our own experience or our own man-made rules.  And sometimes the cares of the world and our own desires for other things choke out that desire for Christ and the result is definitely unfruitful. Unfruitful would not be the definition of a fisher of men.   Fisher of men seems to be a good indication that one is truly following Christ.

All that to say, my prayers are spent in confession and repentance as well as asking the Holy Spirit to give me his eyes so that I can live my life for his glory instead of in my own self-made bubble that FEELS as if I’m living for his glory.  Does the difference between the two make sense?

I guess every week I come back saying the same thing.  God continues to make clear to me how to better submit myself to Him.  This week He’s asking me to submit my heart.  The part I didn’t even know was hard.

Goals:

• Spending some additional time throughout the day with Jesus.  It seems its really easy to make myself the head of my day instead of leaving Christ as the head of my day.   Set times throughout the day seem to help me stay submitted.  Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so hard headed and didn’t need so much structure to keep me submitted to the one who truly is in control.
• Still reading Twelve Ordinary Men. Didn’t get as much read this week.  Going to try to get most of the way through it this weekend.
• Morning workouts and personal worship time are still going well.  I’ve been lazy the past 2 Fridays because its Brent’s day off.   I’m not going to be lazy this Friday though =)  And I made it 5 miles this morning!!  YAY for a good running partner who tells me funny stories so I can forget that I’m running.

I’m a day late posting this.  Mainly because I didn’t know what to write.  I mean I know what I’m thinking, but not necessarily what to write.   So I avoided writing yesterday.  On a positive note, my avoidance seemed to create productivity in the household.  4 loads of laundry, spraying the lawn for weeds, vacuuming, dusting, moping, bathrooms, they all got clean as I avoided the computer.

So I sit here to write still with more thoughts and ponderings than with answers.   This week, the idea of being “fishers of men”  has sat heavily on my heart. I’ve heard this phrase since I was a child.  In fact, anytime I hear it, I immediately flash back to my great grandma brushing my hair and singing “I will make you fishers of men” in Norwegian.    But this last week, God has been pushing me to re-evaluate the statement.  Jesus told Simon and Andrew to follow him.  That was it.  Their only role was to follow Jesus.  Jesus  followed the statement by saying that HE would make Simon and Andrew fishers of men IF they followed Him.

Three thoughts rolling around in my brain:

1. Is this a cause/effect statement?  Is my only job to follow Jesus?  If I’m truly following Him, I would be fishers of men.  If I’m not fishers of men, does that mean I’m not truly following Jesus?
2. What does it look like to follow Jesus?  Not the Sunday school answer that I’ve been told my whole life, but practically, in the context in which I live and the role that God has called me to, what does life look like completely submitted to and following Christ?
3. In the past, the phrase “fishers of men” has been applied solely to salvation.  Does this definition need to be broadened?  Should it include teaching, discipling, encouraging, etc…?

As I said, lots of thoughts that God is pushing through my little mind. Not sure why yet, but definitely know God is teaching me something.  Its funny.   Last week I walked to the bookshelf and picked up the book Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur.  I picked it up because it looked like the best option out of what we already own not necessarily because I really desired to read it.  But we were out of miscellaneous  money for the month, so I had to choose something we already had.  The fun part is it dissects the disciples’ life and walk with Jesus.  It came at a perfect time for all these ponderings that are taking place in my heart.  God is pretty fun like that.

Goals:

• Getting up at 5:00am every day to spend some time with Jesus and then go work out.  Ran 4.5 miles last week!!  I finished it and wasn’t dying so we’re going to go farther tomorrow.   Maybe one day I’ll end up liking to run =)
• Finally decided that working out 6 days a week is unrealistic for me at this stage in life. I’m shooting for 5 days now b/c that seems to be what I can reasonable attain without sacrificing time with my family and household responsibilities.
• Still reading Twelve Ordinary Men.  It is a phenomenal book.
• Still attempting to memorize James.  I need to focus on it more this week though.  My retention is not the greatest lately!

This week I had a troubling thought.  This thought led to this post. A necessary post for me to write and for anyone reading to understand.  Hopefully, most already understand this, but my soul feels burdened to share anyway.  Are you curious about my thought yet?

I was stopped in my tracks by a comment someone made about legalism, an attempt to gain holiness through works and actions.   As I listened to this comment, I was instantly gripped with the fear that, because of my goal setting and holding myself accountable, I may give off the impression that I put my belief in my system rather than in God.   That is far from the truth.

I started this journey because God called me to begin pursuing the spiritual disciplines.   I began by attending a Renovare conference and reading a book by Richard Foster entitled “Celebration of Discipline”.  The book and conference revolutionized my thinking about the disciplines.  Foster states in the opening of the book “the purpose of the Disciplines is liberation from the stifling slavery to self-interest and fear”.   The self-interest and fear was all I had ever been introduced to in regards to the disciplines.  The fear of making wrong choices so being confined to rules and regulations.  The self-interest of everyone looking and acting perfect so again the rules and regulations were thrust upon all believers.  But those exposures to the spiritual disciplines were wrong.  Those organizations, while trying their best to instill godliness in its members, forgot about grace and the need for dependence on Christ to do anything.   Those disciplines definitely brought the outward change they wanted, but the inward change that I desired never happened.  That inward change is what I’m after today.

So in a nutshell, why do I set goals and reflect on my week?  Because “the Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.” (Richard Foster).   I set goals so I won’t waste away my life WISHING I had time to sit down with God.  I set goals because time goes fast and I’m tired and my flesh continually pulls me toward earthly desires.  I set goals because I desire to put myself at the feet of Jesus so that HE can change me into who He wants me to be.   I hold myself accountable to Him each week knowing I live under His grace which he showers over me as I yield myself to Him.

Maybe you already knew that or maybe you always wondered, but I felt strongly the need to put it out there this week.  Thanks for reading =)

Goals:

• Still getting up and spending time with Jesus in the morning.  This week’s James Experiment is a bit harder for me =) Also still reading in Mark.
• So I still haven’t found a new book to read yet.  Unless of course you count Harry Potter…my kids’ babysitter got me hooked =)  But this week I’m on the hunt for a new book.  I need something to push my mind into gear.
• Didn’t get all the way through memorizing James 1 yet.   Will definitely have it finished by next week!
• So I made it 4 out of the 6 times I wanted to work out last week.  A trip to the ER with Aves is my excuse about what happened the other 2 days.  Not a bad excuse right?!  I’ll make it all 6 days this week…Lord willing!

(Click here if you want to read the whole story about what led up to me writing these weekly posts)

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.
Matthew 23:1-4

This past weekend I was the speaker at the woman’s retreat at church. After weeks of preparing, a weekend of speaking, and tons of fun with a bunch of ladies, I am now utterly exhausted. Yesterday morning it was tempting to just push snooze and roll over. But when I finally did get up, I started reading in Matthew 23 and the above verse is where I started.

Talk about being hit over the head with God’s Word! I spent the weekend telling and encouraging women to chase after God and learn to live like His child and then I so desired to just sleep and be lazy. “so practice and observe what they tell you-but not what they do”. It was as if God was literally asking me if I believed the truth I spoke this weekend, and if I believed it, then I needed to continue to live it out. I never want to ask people to change but then not be willing to change myself.  To do that would be living a life of hypocrisy.  To live that life would be unacceptable.

So I am dragging my lazy bum out of bed, sitting down during the kids’ nap, and forcing my eyes to stay open right now so that I too can join the fight to live like a child of God. I am fleeing from hypocrisy as I’m learning the truth of James 3:1 ” Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” You gotta love God holding you accountable to what He’s given you to teach!

Goals:

• Still getting out of bed at 5:30 most mornings.  T/Th I am up between 5:00-5:15 so I can spend time in the Word before I go run.
• Need a new book to read.  Any suggestions? Hopefully I’ll have one and begin reading it this next week.
• Getting back into reading through the Gospels.  I took a bit of a break as I was studying and meditating on being a child of God as I prepared for this past weekend.  I’m currently in the book of Mark.
• Still working on memorizing James.  It is slow going right now!  Hope to have most of chapter 1 done by next week.
• Continue to use nap time as a time to log on to www.examen.me and go through the Prayer of Examen.  It is such a great way for me to refocus and to continue to live in the presence of God.
• Going to the gym 6 days a week now and eating healthy those 6 days.  I am giving myself one cheat day a week to eat whatever I want though.  Really would like to lose the rest of the weight from the 3 pregnancies in 3 years sometime in the next 3 months =)

That’s all for now.  And even though its only 8:15pm, I may head off to bed already.  Brent just started a new biography so I’m pretty sure he won’t even notice I’m missing =)