Fearing God-The Blame Game

We had a rough week here at the Simmons Spot.

Joshua's job has changed and the transition has been rough for the kids and the mom, and the dad.

This has especially shown up in Cecilia's behavior at school. She has had several bad days, a note home, and some email exchanges between her teacher and myself.

When Cecilia and I were talking about what was behind this bad (and out of character) behavior, she said this, word for word: "Well Mom, I hate to say this, but it's really your fault that I had such a bad day. YOU are the one who let me stay up late, and that is why I was bad."

Now just to clarify. I did let her stay up 45 minutes later than normal. The night before had been the only night in the week where Joshua was home. So I let the kids stay up to spend time with their Dad. I stand behind the choice that time with her Dad was more important that getting to bed on time.

Her statement instantly reminded me of others.

"Well, I hate to say it, but the woman YOU gave me caused this mess!"

"Well, I hate to bring it up, but the serpent YOU created tricked me."

"Well, it's awkward to harp on it, but the wilderness YOU led us into is just too hard, the people YOU have brought us up against are just too mighty, the gods in the land that YOU brought us into are just too inciting."

And so on it goes through the history of the Hebrew people and on into the early church and right up into my life.

"Well God, if YOU would just give us more income, we would give more away."

"Well, I don't bring this up often, but YOU are the one who made me unorganized. It was YOUR idea to make me a verbal processor."

"Well I wasn't the one who knit these little ones together God. That was all YOU. I mean can YOU blame me for yelling."

And it goes on and on.

But blaming God points me to the thing I've been writing about in the past few posts. It points to my lack of fear. I might blame someone I was afraid of, but I would not dream of blaming my junk, my limitation and my sinfulness on a ruler whom I deeply feared. Whom I fearfully loved. Whom I REALLY and fearfully knew.

Why do you think YOU blame God when you fall short?

A Little Gardening for Fat Tuesday

This week Cecilia read out the Gospels for the first time ALL BY HERSELF.

Sunday before church Cecilia and I were talking about good storytellers. We had just seen Tangled the day before (which is quite good, with a great story) and I interjected, "You know who was a great storyteller? Jesus! He loved telling stories." She was surprised and asked to hear one.

So I told her the parable of the Farmer and seeds in Mark 4.

Again Jesus... taught them [large crowd] many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Later in the afternoon, I looked up the passage and asked her to read it to me. She did. IT WAS AWESOME. And it made me think about Fat Tuesday, Lent, and gardening.

The soils are like our hearts. Some are hard (the path), some are shallow (the rocky), some are distracted (the thorny). And when we hear the Word of God it is like seed that falls on these soils. 

In hard hearts the Word has nowhere to go. Bitterness, callousness, anger, and apathy keep the surface of our hearts tough and so God's truth can't make it in and it gets carried away by the enemy. 

In shallow hearts the Word makes it below the surface, but not far enough. After an emotional experience with God, or an Ah Ha moment, the heart has no depth, no structure, no discipline for the seed to plant some roots and stick around. It soon withers and dies.

In distracted hearts the Word starts to grow, develops roots, but soon is killed by the "plants" that were already there. Our commitment to these weeds of wealth, status, independence, and happiness kill the truth that was planted by the good news of God.

When I look for myself in this story, my heart has looked like all these soils, but lately it has been mostly a thorny heart. I'm a distracted person. I read God's Word and seeds get planted in my heart: "think of others before you think about yourself;" "Do everything without grumbling or arguing;" "Don't be conceited, don't envy others." And as those seeds start growing into a beautiful and lush garden, my weedy heart starts to chock them back. My commitment to myself steals nutrients. My lack of trust that if I give of myself God will take care of me, nudges the truth out. My self-sufficiency robs the truth of the light and power it needs from the Spirit. And soon it dies.

Enter in the purning power of Lent.

Lent is a church season. 40 days before Easter, men and woman in the church give things up, fast, so that when Easter arrives our hearts are ready. Lent tills up the soil in our hearts. It begins sweeping away the rocks and infuses our hearts with nutrients. It also can be utilized to cut out distractions, to prune the things that take our affections away from the Gospel.

That is why we celebrate Lent. That is why I'll be giving something up tomorrow and will be trying to replace that thing with God. I want my heart ready. I want my heart to be soft, and deep, and clear, so when the seeds of Easter are thrown into my soul, there will be a crop beyond my wild imaginations.

What "soul" do you identify with most?

What do you need to give up to be ready to take in the seed of our Risen Lord?

Pondering The Curse of Parenting.

This morning we were listening to music while eating our weekly pancake breakfast. My favorite Avett Brother's song came on and Joshua and Cecilia started dancing. For some reason Cecilia said, "I can't wait until I grow up and have kids." I smiled and automatically answered, "Cecilia you are going to be a good mom" but then I paused and clarified, "Well...if you follow God you'll be a great mom! If you don't you'll just consume your kids." Cecilia barely heard me as she concentrated on her wild twirling, Joshua looked at me (as he does often) with a smile and shake of his head.

Let me back up to Monday.

On Monday I spent some time in Duet. 28, looking at blessings and curses. Moses is telling the people of Israel that if they stay close to God, following His instruction, then they will be blessed. If they wander from God & disobey His commands, they will be cursed. The blessings are great! The curses are beyond your imagination HORRIBLE! Here's a look at one of the curses...

The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities. (vs 56-57)

WHAT!

And if you dudes are thinking that you are off the hook...I just didn't include your part. Look at verses 54-55.

Needless to say this section kicked me in the face and punched me in the gut. The whole cursing section (vs. 15-68) was too much for my gentle and sensitive sensibilities. And I found myself annoyed, upset and nauseous.

Two ponderings swam to the service of my conflicted thoughts.

1. A good God warns me that I have the capacity for great horrors.
2. Left to myself, to my own parenting, I will consume my kids. Maybe not by eating them (hopefully not), but consume them none the less. And it is only through the miraculous work of Christ in my life that these precious little ones are safe from their frightful mom.
   

I'll unpack some of this in the next few posts, in an effort to keep my posts from being ridiculously too long.

And for those of you who are wondering-my favorite Avett Brother's Song is Swept Away (the Sentimental version) which they sing with their sister, Bonnie. Here is a live sampling. If you want to listen to the recorded version it is on their "Mignonette" Album. If you don't like/listen to the Avett's then I would encourage you to step out of your musical cursing and into the musical blessing that is being an Avett Brothers fan. Thanks Brooke for teaching me to live in light. Smile.

Living Out the Transformed Life: Creation

SO...(if you are wondering why the "so" is there check out the last post: THE BIG IDEA) how does Christ see us (and therefore how should we see ourselves)?

2 Corinthians 5:16-19: "So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation."

Cecilia is doing her homework while I am writing this post. She looked at my 2 Corinthian's manuscript and saw the "!" at the end of verse 17. "Look, look, mom! An exclamation point!" Honestly, I had not noticed, but I faked it..."Yes, Cecilia, and what do you think it means when there is an exclamation point in the Bible?"

"I don't know, but it has to be GOOD!" and she went back to her writing.

I may have missed the "!" in this passage but I didn't miss the Big Idea that the "!" is pointing to. And if we want to learn to live out a different life we have to pay close attention, because it is here that Christ tells us who we are. Drum Roll please........

WE ARE NEW CREATIONS! WE ARE TRANSFORMED!!

Now, some of you are thinking, "so what...I knew this passage said that...new creation...yada yada, blah blah...old is gone...yawn." And sadly some of us are so use to this idea that it no longer gets our "!" attention. Sadly we don't even think about who we really are because we are lazy or confused or tired of feeling like a failure. The life we know we live does not look like a new anything, and is far from having the freshness of a creation.

And yet that is how Christ sees us. NEW, FRESH, ENERGIZED CREATIONS!

We think that we are being transformed, and in some ways we are, but the BIG IDEA of a relationship with God is that He makes you new right from the start, and that newness doesn't wear off. This is not who we need to become. THIS IS WHO WE ARE! This is who I am, a fully transformed woman.

But how is that possible? Because I still look pretty cruddy most days. How can He call me that, and still be considered the God of Truth? That is in the passage too. It can be true of us because when we move into a relationship with Jesus, we are given His life, His transformation. We are IN HIM.

I'm going to write a bit more about this new creation tomorrow, but for today I encourage you to spend time thinking about this idea of who you are. It doesn't matter what you did today (or didn't do) or what you did this weekend. It doesn't matter how your relationships are, or where you are emotionally. If you believe in Jesus, you are a new creation, total and complete! You have a True Father who loves you and is able to delight in you because you are given the life of Christ. Since you are found in Him, you are transformed, PERIOD.

That is a big "!". And Cecilia is right it is the best kind of GOOD!