Faith-Based Parenting

As Christian parents, we are called to engage in faith-based parenting rather than fear-based parenting.

Source

This was the message from Melanie Eddy, a Christian child and family therapist from Prospect Park, PA, at the parenting workshop she presented to moms at Media Presbyterian Church this month.

Melanie brought over ten years of professional experience as a therapist, and thirty years of personal experience as a mom, to her presentation.

In her workshop, Melanie came to us as a mom who has shared many of our same parenting struggles and fears, asking the same sorts of questions:  Am I doing the right things? Am I saying the right things? Things aren’t working out so well right now; is there a different way?

I organized my notes from Melanie’s workshop into some broad themes that will help me as I continue on my Christian parenting journey, and I'm sharing them here in the hopes that they will help you on yours.

The Importance of a Sense of Humor

We have to have a sense of humor about parenting, and even about our own mistakes.  Sometimes “getting through” requires us to learn to laugh at ourselves, and to stop turning every molehill into a mountain. 

Source

Melanie showed us a series of humorous slides she had found on the Internet that followed the humor principle: It’s funny ‘cause it’s true!  It occurred to me that among my Pinterest boards for recipes, crafting, and holidays, I should dedicate a board entirely to “mom humor.” That would be a great resource to go to when I need a good laugh.  Seeing how many jokes are out there poking fun at the kinds of issues I face as a mom could really help me see the humorous side of parenting, and maybe even help me stop taking everything so seriously!

Being Gentle With Ourselves

Source

We need to be gentle with ourselves as parents:

Sometimes we feel like we have to stay busy all day, and we don't permit ourselves to get the rest we need.

Sometimes we are hard on ourselves and continue to condemn ourselves for the mistakes we've made, rather than forgiving ourselves and moving forward.  Melanie pointed out that half of parenting is a big experiment, filled with trial and error.  "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," we are told in Romans 8:1.  Why then do we keep condemning ourselves?  The Lord's compassions are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), so embrace your opportunity for a do-over!

Sometimes (all the time?) we compare ourselves to other moms, and dwell on all the ways we fall short.  Also, we are surrounded by images of women (Melanie cited the Victoria's Secret catalog, which comes right to many women's doorsteps) that we can never live up to or recreate.  The biggest problem with these influences and comparisons, Melanie pointed out, is that these false comparisons easily lead us astray from God's truth.  We find God's truth in the scriptures, and there we will learn how God meets our needs and validates us in ways the world never can.

Fearless Parenting and Fervent Prayer

Max Lucado writes about how fearless parenting requires fervent prayer.  Don’t ever doubt it:  there is power in a mother’s prayer!  Melanie provided us with a series of parenting prayer truths to consider:

·         I can take my parenting fears to Christ.

·         I need to bring Christ to my child; even as she is mine, she is also His.

·         This is God’s child; I am the custodian.

·         The greatest test of faith is giving my child to God.

Source

We can’t let our fears, insecurities, worries, and anxieties keep us from praying for our children.  Lucado writes, “We can raise our kids in a greenhouse of prayer,” for prayer creates the perfect environment for our children’s growth.

Praying the Scriptures Over Our Children

A powerful approach to praying for our children is praying the scriptures over them.  

Melanie showed us a handy, portable approach to doing this: We punched a hole in a stack of index cards, then held them together with a binder ring.  On each card, we will write the name of one of our children, or our spouse, or ourselves.  Then for each name we consider: What is the prayer of my heart for this person?  

Next, we ask God’s guidance to find a related scripture, and use resources such as the topical index at the back of our Bibles or a book like God’s Promises for Every Day to find a scripture that speaks to that prayer.  We write the Bible verse underneath the name on the card.  

Finally, we list any additional prayer concerns under the verse.  The cards are now ready to carry with us so that we can pray scripture over our children, our families, our marriages, and ourselves!

Photo by Andria Kaskey

The scriptures the workshop participants found for our first cards included:

• "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand" (Isaiah 41:10).
• "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).
• "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it" (Proverbs 22:6).

We Are Never Alone

Source

We are never alone in our parenting, because God is with us each moment. “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you’” (Isaiah 41:13). 

I firmly believe that God provides us with opportunities and resources to enrich our Christian parenting, and I can identify so many times when He seemed to lead me directly to a helpful book or speaker.  But we have to avail ourselves of these opportunities.  I would encourage moms in any community who have questions, concerns, fears, and insecurities to prioritize opportunities like Melanie's workshop in their schedules.  

Nadia Bolz-Weber, Modern-Day Demons, and the Little Drummer Boy

Nadia: “I just want to write a book where I come out looking good in just one chapter.”  

Her husband, Matthew: “You just have so little source material.” 

 

*****************************************

I arrived at Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book reading in Philadelphia this past week knowing maybe three things about her:

1. Her strongly muscled and tattooed arms present an interesting contrast to other Lutheran pastors I’ve had occasion to see,
2. Her church in Colorado offers a safe place for marginalized Christians who haven’t felt at home in mainstream, conventional congregations, and
3. She has had struggles with drugs, alcohol, and depression, which have informed her preaching to her congregation.

I left her talk having found out:

1. She feels far more connected to people through her failures than through her successes,
2. Demons might not be such an anachronism as we might like to think, and
3. She really, really despises “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Nadia Bolz-Weber, photo by Joni Taylor

In her books, at her church the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado, and during her speaking engagements, Nadia talks honestly about the need for God’s grace.  She told us that it is “the jagged edges of our humanity” where God tends to grab hold of us, and that it is our shared brokenness that connects us to God and to one another. Her spiritual leadership style is to connect with people through her failures more than through her successes. 

Churches have become places where we can pretend that everything is “fine,” instead of places to find meaning in the difficult things.  Our real opportunity—the real place of promise, Nadia says—is becoming more and more aware each day of our need for God’s grace, and more and more grateful for its power to transform us. 

Photo by Joni Taylor

Nadia seems to see the sanitizing of Christmas as part-and-parcel of this tendency to deny the hard parts of life.  She believes that Herod should play a role in the Nativity just as surely as the shepherds and angels, and she advocates including Herod’s slaughter of the innocents (recorded in the Gospel of Matthew) along with the other Christmas-time scripture readings. 

We need to remember, essentially, that God chose to enter our world at a time as faithless and violent as our own.  We don’t benefit from hiding the reality of suffering, when what we really want to do is make sense of it, of the world as it actually exists.

I have to laugh at the one part of her talk that got me in a huff: She called The Little Drummer Boy “the worst Christmas song ever.” Now don’t get me wrong:  Like her, I’ve given birth to two children and can assure you, as she did, that the last thing a woman in labor wants in her delivery room is a little boy with a drum—even if he is playing his best for me!  And I understand that the chance that there was a little drummer boy present at the birth of Jesus is slim to none.  

However, I remember my connection to that song when I was a little kid.  Something about the earnestness of a boy’s efforts to please Jesus, to give him the only thing he had to offer—I was really moved by that when I was six or seven years old!  My Aunt Gene gave me a wooden drummer boy ornament back in the seventies that I still hang on my Christmas tree with a smile every year.  So I have to confess that having Nadia declare my favorite childhood Christmas carol “the worst Christmas song ever” actually threw me for a few minutes in the middle of her talk!

I regained my equilibrium, though, in order to focus on the rest of what she had to say.  Her congregation characterizes her as “preaching to herself and letting others overhear.” I think that virtually guarantees an effective message—speaking the words you need to hear is very likely to minister to others’ needs at the same time.

Photo by Joni Taylor

She read a portion of her book related to her sermon on Jesus casting the demons out into the pigs (found in Matthew 8).  (Nadia mentioned a parishioner who wrote on the church Facebook page something along the lines of:  “How can I get behind a religion with all that wasted bacon?”)

A lot of people get a little weird and uncomfortable when talk of demons comes up, because we don’t tend to think of them as a real presence today, and we’re not sure what we believe about their presence back in Bible times.  Nadia said that if we define “demon possession” as being taken over by something destructive, then perhaps in our era of addiction, depression, and anxiety, the idea of demons is not such an anachronism.  She spoke of her demons of drugs, depression, and anger.

Nadia wrapped up the night with a Question and Answer session, before making herself available to sign books.  She fielded questions about church unity, faith labels, homosexuality, personal inspirations, and why God allows suffering—such complex and heavy topics that she was able to handle with remarkably satisfying answers in such a brief allotted time.

Nadia fielding questions, photo by Joni Taylor

One woman asked her about her devotion to Mary, which isn’t necessarily a common feature of Lutheran worship.  Simply put, Nadia said, Mary is “fierce.” She calls the Annunciation “the hidden miracle.” Here is this common girl with no reason to feel special.  But along comes an angel and calls her “blessed”—and she believes him!  “That is beautiful to me,” Nadia said. “We should be devoted to that.”

Photo by Joni Taylor

In closing, Nadia mentioned a Facebook post by one of her parishioners, named Jeff.  He evidently was getting tired of feeling anger and outrage toward all kinds of people he encounters—people in other cars, in stores, on the news.  He has come to understand that we’ve been given the authority, and even the duty, to declare “child of God” to everyone we meet, even those we think we despise.  Jeff wrote that he was changed by the Word of Grace he hears in his church.  This, said Nadia, is why we have Christian community: so we can stand together under the cross and point to the Gospel. 

We are humans among humans, equally messed up and equally forgiven.

*****************************************

I enjoy listening to her speak, and she has a powerful message, powerfully expressed.  She is bringing the gospel message of grace and forgiveness to people who are not finding their place in more traditional Christian settings, and that is an intense need being met by her work. 

I would identify myself as a fairly mainstream Christian with a conventional lifestyle, and as such, I don’t feel like Nadia is trying to speak to me.  I get that; she has lots of folks to reach in her target audience.  She seems to have determined that she needs to reach them by critiquing me, because it’s people like me who have not made a place for them in the past.  

The only problem is, because it isn’t specifically and truly me who has refused them a seat at the table, I sometimes feel unfairly accused when I listen to her speak.  I sometimes feel like she’s created a new table, and this time it’s me who is not welcome.  But when she speaks of brokenness, I have brokenness.  And when she speaks of flaws, I have flaws.  And when she speaks of God’s grace, glory to God, I have God’s grace.  

In her 2012 address at the ELCA YouthGathering in New Orleans, Nadia said that growing up in her church as a child, she felt as though they didn’t want her someone of her flavor in the gumbo.  I guess I just want to hear that she truly welcomes my flavor now that she’s the one cooking a meal!

*****************************************

Nadia came out ten minutes before beginning her talk to encourage us to get our photos taken in front of the “Accidental Saint” poster out in the church’s narthex.  As part of her book tour for Accidental Saint:  Finding God in All the Wrong People,” she is encouraging a social media blitz, using #AccidentalSaint. 

My friends and I, #AccidentalSaints
photos compiled by Joni Taylor

 

ReligionSpeak: "Being Saved"

Source

"Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.  

Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle 

in the way of a brother or sister."

Romans 14:13

In my Women’s Bible Study this morning, the question of “being saved” arose, and coming on the heels of my reading of Romans 14:13 last night, it occurred to me how our ReligionSpeak can be a real stumbling block for people of faith, whether they are new to Christianity or have been raised for years in the faith.

Our discussion leader pointed out that she was raised in the faith, from her grandfather who was an evangelical circuit preacher, to her father who inherited his strong and strict convictions.  She now is an integral part of her faith community, but reflected at one time in her history, “Am I really saved?”  

After all, she had no extraordinary experience to point to in order to show the exact moment when she gave her life to Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Not all of us can point to a singular “come-to-Jesus” moment comparable to Abraham’s experience of God in the burning bush, or Samuel being awoken by God’s call in the night, or Matthew being called to follow Jesus from his tax collector’s booth, or Paul being struck blind on the road to Damascus. 

We have a Biblical faith:  we are “sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11: 1).  But is that enough?

Source

We don’t have an exciting story to tell, so are we saved?

I might have thought there was an easy answer to this question, but when I started reading various sources on the Internet, I discovered that different denominations and different teachers hold very different views of how to interpret the scriptures around this subject of salvation, or “being saved.”

I should have known that what God intended to be simple, human beings managed to complicate!

According to Cliff and Helen Leitch at ChristianBibleReference.org:

“Virtually every Christian denomination has a unique doctrine about salvation and the related idea of justification, making a sinner acceptable to God…In addition to Bible teachings, these doctrines are based on church traditions and the ideas of popes, bishops, and theologians such as John Calvin, Martin Luther, Jacobus Arminius and John Wesley. Many of these doctrines emphasize one aspect of Bible teaching over another and apply different interpretations to Bible passages. Many wise and devoted people have spent a lifetime of study and prayer and have come to different conclusions about salvation!

          All Christians, however, agree we can be saved only by the grace of God; we cannot save
          ourselves or determine our own fate after death.”

I will share my view of the question, with the hope that it will get you thinking about your own faith journey and your own answers to such questions.

If someone asked me when I “got saved,” I would tell them, “About 2000 years ago, when Jesus died on the cross.”  If you want to hear about my “extraordinary experience” or my “exciting story,” I will send you to the Gospels to read about Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, and resurrection.  The extraordinary experience and exciting story is not my own; it belongs to Jesus Christ.

My salvation didn’t even happen in my own lifetime! 

What DID happen in my lifetime was my belief and acceptance of what Christ did for me.

I believe that we are saved because God sent Jesus into the world to bear the punishment for our sins, because Jesus died on the cross that our sin might die with him, and because Jesus came out of the tomb, thereby defeating sin and death itself. 

Source

I’m not saying I don’t have a role to play. This amazing act of sacrifice by Jesus is a completely unearned gift to me (see Romans 6:23), but I have to accept it.  A gift does not belong to us until we take it, open it, and make it our own.  When I tell God that I believe with certainty that my sins were forgiven and my relationship with Him was restored when Jesus died, at that moment I am entering that amazing state of grace we might call “being saved.”  For the rest of my life, I will rededicate myself to that decision (sometimes hourly, as one of our Bible study members suggested!), and learn more and more what it means to walk by faith in this blessed identity of Forgiven Woman and Child of God (see John 1:12). 

That walk by faith is not my salvation.  John records Jesus as teaching, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9). I receive salvation by walking through the gate; what happens once I get to the other side is what Paul refers to as “working out your salvation” (Philippians 2:12).  Suddenly I'm not in this thing called Life alone; I have God by my side, His strength at my disposal to live out my faith in obedience to Him. 

What that life of faith, that walk with God, that radical obedience, looks like is the subject of many, many more posts—maybe a book or two, in fact!

For now, rest assured in Jesus’ work of salvation, already completed on the cross.  You don’t have to look for something spectacular to prove your salvation to someone else or to yourself.  You don’t need fireworks and earthquakes and signs and miracles.  Don’t put that stumbling block in your own way, or in someone else’s way!  Don’t make “being saved” some sort of daunting ReligionSpeak that makes you question the security of your relationship with God. You need only open your heart daily to accept the gift of God’s grace and forgiveness, and then you can walk in the reconciled relationship that Jesus made possible for you. 

Let’s not forget the truth of Jesus’ teaching in one of the first Bible verses many of us learn:  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life”(John 3:16). 

Source

Not long after, Jesus also taught, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).  Let’s not look for things to put us into the bondage of doubt, but live in the freedom of God’s Truth!

Amen.

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

Source

When Peter gave his first sermon recorded in the Book of Acts, he included the words of the Prophet Joel and King David to show that God kept His promises by sending Jesus Christ to be the Lord and Savior of His people (Acts 2:14-36). 

When Stephen spoke before the Sanhedrin before his death by stoning, he recalled God’s promises to their forefather Abraham, His presence with Joseph who had been sold into slavery in Egypt, and His empowering of Moses to deliver His people out of their slavery (Acts 7:2-53).

When Paul spoke to the crowds in Jerusalem after his arrest, he recounted his own conversion from a persecutor of Christ-followers to a devout disciple of our Lord (Acts 22:2-21).

In each of these examples, people used accounts of God’s faithfulness in their lives and history as instruction and encouragement to believers and non-believers alike. 

Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has turned to its saints to reinforce their faith in God’s powerful strength and presence in the lives of believers.  God is said to reveal Himself in a special way in their lives, and these saints are presented as role models to venerate and imitate. 

Our New Testament scripture instructs us to “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23), and we are assured that “no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:20).  By His very nature, it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18); what He has promised must surely come to pass, and the Bible is filled with examples of His faithfulness to His people.

My question, then, is this:  Why do so many Protestants fail to place this same emphasis on looking to God’s faithfulness in the past in order to assure ourselves of God’s faithfulness in our present and future?

Our church, for example, has a 170-year history of standing in the heart of Media, Pennsylvania, on Baltimore Avenue.  We characterize ourselves right now as being in a “state of transition” due to the abrupt departure of our Senior Pastor two years ago and the ensuing turmoil caused by the circumstances of his leaving.  Some of us have been energized by the opportunity to address long-ignored issues.  Some of us have been disgusted by the whole situation and how it has been handled. Some of us have been scared of what the future may hold.  Some of us have been angry about one aspect of the situation or another.  Some of us have put our emotions aside, rolled up our sleeves, and gotten to work. 

Overall we have drawn strength from prayer, from worship, from service, and from fellowship.  But I am curious:  what kind of strength could we gain from an understanding of God’s faithfulness to our church throughout its history? I have no idea, because to my knowledge, it has not been discussed. 

Isn’t it likely that a church with a 170-year history has experienced upheavals at some point in the past?  Aren’t there likely to be examples of failed leadership, issues that divided the congregation for a time, tough decisions about facing the future that had to be made?  Couldn’t we find confidence in God’s faithfulness through those times in order to face our own current situation?

If we could recognize the truth of the axiom that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it, then perhaps we could spare ourselves just a bit of our current hardship.  If we could recognize the absolute Truth of God’s Word that “God’s faithfulness endures forever” (Psalm 117:2), then perhaps we could draw on His supernatural strength to launch ourselves into the powerful future He has laid out for us.

And this isn’t just about my church and its current journey. 

I think about the value of focusing on Biblical accounts of people who experience God’s faithfulness in order to bring strength to my own particular life situation as a woman, a wife, a mother, a disciple of Christ, a friend, a person who is aging, a person who faces temptation to judge, to anger, to complain, to worry.  God is faithful to me in every role, in every situation, in every personal crisis and struggle, and if I doubt it, I can see His faithfulness in the lives of people like me in His Word.

I think about the value of writing about my own faith journey, so I can see where God has shown His faithfulness in my life, when He has pulled me back time and again when my focus has blurred or my path has strayed.

I think about the value of reading about the lives of other believers—women who fulfill similar roles to mine who write inspirational books for today, missionaries who have experienced God’s faithfulness in strange and challenging environments, saints and martyrs who have paid the ultimate price for their faith in God’s ultimate faithfulness, founders of our denominations who have sought the best ways to honor God with our worship, service, and praise.

I think about the value of listening to one another as we share the stories of our faith journeys.  It’s not such an uncommon practice in the Baptist churches I attended as a child—opening the pulpit to members of the congregation to let them share how God has moved and continues to move in their lives.  Why haven’t I seen that practice in the Presbyterian churches I have attended in adulthood?  I have shared my faith journey with the Elders in order to be accepted as a member of their congregation, but have never been asked about it again.

God is faithfulness, as one of our Bible study participants reminded us yesterday.  Our stories may glorify God, she told us, but they aren’t needed to prove His faithfulness.  God is trustworthy.  Period.  But those conversations about His faithfulness, those accounts drawn from our history, both individually and collectively, about how God is moving in our lives, can help us access God’s strength for the journey. 

He has provided us a “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), and I feel that they are a great untapped resource for my own faith journey.  We, too, are part of that cloud of witnesses for others; let’s give some thought to the true stories of God’s faithfulness we can share to encourage one another and build each other up in our faith.

Source

Amen.

Thinking About: The Beatitudes

Source

Jesus made it clear throughout his ministry that the qualities that lead to success in the world often make it hard for people to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. 

In the Beatitudes (found in Matthew 5:3-10), Jesus basically turns the Pharisees’ ideas of worldly success on their head in order to teach about the qualities of a Kingdom citizen. While our world seems driven by a “survival of the fittest” mentality, and happiness is derived from pride in the successes that set us apart from others, Philip Yancey tells us that “God views this world through a different set of lenses.”  

The Beatitudes describe those lenses for us:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. 

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Poor in spirit?  Mournful?  Meek?  We wonder how these are states of blessing, states that could be called “happy” or “blissful” or “lucky.”

Often, in order to understand what something is, it helps to look first at what it is not.  To identify examples of a concept, it can help to look first at counter-examples.  In the 1950s, Anglican priest and Bible translator J.B. Phillips presented his worldly version of Jesus’ teachings, called the “Beatitudes of Man,” which imagine the qualities the people of the world today might consider necessary for success, and thus, in their minds, happiness.  My Thursday morning Women’s Bible study group recently had the opportunity to look into this “opposite world” to help us understand what Jesus is teaching in his hilltop sermon recorded in the Gospel account of Matthew.

“Beatitudes of Man”

Happy are the “pushers”: for they get on in the world. 

Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them. 

Happy are they who complain: for they get their own way in the end. 

Happy are the blase: for they never worry over their sins. 

Happy are the slave drivers: for they get results. 

Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world: for they know their way around. 

Happy are the troublemakers: for they make people take notice of them.

The First Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Phillips writes, Happy are the “pushers”: for they get on in the world.

The word “blessed” means happy, but not a passing, momentary happiness.  It is the kind of spiritual joy we feel when we know that we have God’s favor, and it doesn’t depend on our circumstances.

While the world values the strong, the independent, the “movers and the shakers,” those who are in control and play to win, God values the poor in spirit.  These are the people who recognize their need for God, who recognize that all we are and all we have is a gift from our Heavenly Father.  Being “poor” according to Jesus’ teaching in the Beatitudes is not a financial state; He is not glorifying worldly poverty.  Rather he calls “blessed” the person who is conscious of her sin, and who is grateful beyond words for God’s mercy in forgiving those sins and welcoming her into His family.

Source

The Second Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Phillips writes, Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them.

While the world values the tough, those who are un-phased by the vicissitudes of life, those who can get over things and “get on with it,” those who are matter-of-fact and practical, God values those who mourn.  In my Thursday morning Women’s Bible study group, we talk about the need to mourn, the need to share our grief and our concerns with others, and the value of being vulnerable around our Christian friends.  Some commentators don’t think this Beatitude deals with that kind of mourning at all, but rather our mourning over our sin.  It is the idea that we are so grieved by our sin that we are led to God and to His forgiveness and salvation.  Feeling so deeply sorry about our sin leads us to hate sin, to turn away from it (which is the meaning of the word repent), and to turn to God.

The Third Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Phillips writes, Happy are they who complain: for they get their own way in the end.

While the world values the self-promoters and the people complaining loudly and long enough to finally get their own way, God values the meek.  These are the people who do not push to the front of the line, who are willing to consider others’ needs alongside or even in place of their own, who allow themselves to be controlled by God in thought, word, and action.  No one who loves and reveres the scriptures would ever translate this Beatitude as “blessed are the doormats.”  This is not a call to be weak and let others walk all over you.  Rather, the meek person has God’s strength behind them as they face the world and its challenges. This is the person who lives by the motto: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

Source

The Fourth Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Phillips writes, Happy are the blase: for they never worry over their sins.

While the world values those who don’t concern themselves too much with their own bad behavior, and don’t let their guilt over their sins stand in the way of their climb to worldly success, God values those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  The world values the one who amasses the most material possessions; you are what you own, and you better keep up with the newest, the latest, the “best.”  The world values the one who advances at any cost, whether the means are moral and ethical, or not.  What if we put aside the drive for material abundance, and sought after spiritual abundance instead?  What if we put “being right with God” ahead of dreams for power, fame, and fortune? Wouldn’t that be the most counter-cultural act of all?  Do we look at the way the world lives as our model, or do we look at how Jesus lived as our model?

The Fifth Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Phillips writes, Happy are the slave drivers: for they get results.

While the world values people who get results, even at the expense of compassion or meeting others’ needs, God values the merciful.  The Kingdom of Heaven does not belong to the one who functions with an “every-man-for himself” mentality.  As God has been merciful to us, we are to be merciful to others, and to reach out to those in need in order to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

The Sixth Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Phillips writes, Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world: for they know their way around.

While the world values people who are knowledgeable and “know their way around,” in Phillips words, God values those who are pure in heart.  The one who seeks knowledge should seek wisdom, and those who act only with their rational minds should see what it’s like to be directed by their compassionate hearts and Spirit-driven faith. 

Being pure sounds like a pretty tall order to us.  As Robert Wells writes in his discussion of the Beatitudes, “The truth is we can't do any of these things on our own. We can't reform ourselves. We can't self clean ourselves. Many people have tried to clean themselves. Some have tried to do this through asceticism or leading a life of complete self denial, or by other methods such as by going away from the world and living in solitude, or permanent silence, or by beating their bodies with whips and clubs, even by inflicting upon themselves all forms of degrading and unpleasant acts, even going so far as castrating themselves. They have tried to cleanse themselves through celibacy, fasting, and prayers. But such asceticism is not biblical and it will not result in purity of heart.” (http://robertwells.tripod.com/Beatitudes.html)

It is God who will “conform us to the image and likeness of His Son” (Romans 8:29) as we surrender ourselves to Jesus Christ and are made a new creation in Him.  “And this all happens,” Wells explains “the very moment when you are saved, because when you are born again you indeed become a brand new person. A brand new person who is walking arm and arm with Jesus Christ on a road to spiritual purity, spiritual growth, spiritual maturity, and spiritual strength.”

The Seventh Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Phillips writes, Happy are the troublemakers: for they make people take notice of them.

While the world values the people who are able to draw attention to themselves, often because they are out there making trouble and calling attention to themselves (just check out the Yahoo “News” page for any number of names that fit the bill!), God values the peacemakers. 

Not all troublemakers are bad.  After all, as we mentioned in our Women’s Bible study, Jesus himself was seen as a troublemaker.  Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi were seen as troublemakers.  Troublemakers shake things up and challenge the status quo, and sometimes things need to be shaken! 

But when they are agitating simply to bring attention to themselves with no greater good in mind (we were thinking of little kids misbehaving in class, gossipers in our social circles, politicians and the media riling up our population to get votes or viewers), to get fame and maybe some of the fortune that comes along with it, they are moving into dangerous territory. 

Source

The Eighth Beatitude

Jesus says, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

J.B Phillips does not appear to address the eighth beatitude.  Can we imagine what he might say for his eighth beatitude of man?  Perhaps, “Blessed are those who don’t stand out for being different from the world”?  The children of God sometimes face persecution for holding different priorities from the rest of the world, for living according to a different purpose, and for speaking out about God in a largely secular society.

*********************************************

Each Beatitude could be discussed in a book chapter, a blog post, or a conversation of its own; they are a rich source of understanding about God’s Kingdom and its citizens.  Right now, I am trying to look more closely at Jesus’ life and teachings than I have ever looked before, in order to be more open to the Holy Spirit’s transforming influence.  By taking some time to think about these provocative statements from the Sermon on the Mount, may we all be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--

his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

Source

Love God, Love His Creation: Zoo Visit

If anyone who lives or visits near me wanted to head to the zoo, they would undoubtedly think first of the Philadelphia Zoo.  Over a million visitors go there each year, in fact!  It is, after all, our country’s first zoo, covers over 42 acres, and houses over 1,300 animals. 

Sometimes the day calls for something a little less ambitious (and maybe a little less expensive!).  I’ve discovered that my girls can get just as excited about a more “bite-size” approach to enjoying the animals, and we can spend a couple of hours at a smaller place, like the Brandywine Zoo, instead of wearing ourselves out with an all-day affair.

The Brandywine Zoo, in Wilmington, Delaware, covers less than 13 acres, and their web site says they have 150 animals, though this includes the animals in their Traveling Zoo Education Program.  When we are there, it kind of feels like we could count the number of animals on our two hands! 

My husband and I used to call this place the "dead tiger zoo" because the poor guy in this cage was usually sacked out and lifeless-looking.  Not so today!  The tiger was on the move for our viewing pleasure.

Sadly, the rhea looked as though he had seen better days!

But, oh, the animals they have:  two bald eagles, a tiger, a bobcat, some llamas, two red pandas, some tamarins, two otters, various birds, a capybara.  There isn’t an overwhelming number of animals, so my children get an opportunity to really focus on these few. 

The otters looked sweet napping together, but weren't in the mood for a swim.

What is it that I find so fascinating about this gigantic rodent, the capybara?

And spending time with majestic, colorful, adorable, grumpy, cold-blooded, or even napping animals really contributes to our awe regarding the God who created them in such variation.

In a February 2015 article in Christianity Today, Ted Olsen of The Behemoth magazine says that the vast array of animals God has created “helps you marvel.  And the ability to marvel is a prerequisite for the ability to worship.”  While there are many who debate the ethics of containing animals within the confines of a zoo, it is undeniably true that through the efforts of the zoo, we are given access to aspects of God’s creation that we would have no opportunity to see otherwise.

Zoo mission statements are usually some variation of the stated purpose of the Brandywine Zoo’s educational programs:  to enhance and enrich understanding and respect for the relationships among living things and inspire wildlife conservation.  In this regard, the zoo helps me as a parent as I try to teach my girls to care for other living things and to live gently in this world of ours.  I care about the welfare of God’s creation, and I want to share that concern in a healthy way with my children.  I have found that the zoos we have visited have helped me move toward that goal, and my girls are already loving animals, and wanting to protect and care for our environment.

My girls can count on their father to take them farther out on the rocks along the Brandywine River than I am willing to go. 

And I would say that the afternoon’s visit to the “bite-sized” Brandywine Zoo was a hit with the kids.  When Bayla said grace before dinner that night, she prayed, “Thank you that we got to have such a special day, and do such fun things.”

My girls and I, on the banks of the Brandywine River, just across the street from the zoo.

Thank You, indeed!

Love God, Love His Creation: Nature Scavenger Hunt

I vowed that I would not saddle myself with the unhealthy pressure of perfectly-crafted summer experiences drawn straight from the boards of Pinterest.  I refused early on, for example, to serve food to my children that had been carefully crafted to look like animals of any sort!

In order to fill the hours that stretched before us, however, and seeing such alluring ideas on my “Fun for the Kids” Pinterest board, I decided at the beginning of the summer to write down one project per week that we would try to do.  Just one per week.  I didn’t think that was requiring too much of myself, and I didn’t feel as though it fell into dangerous “dog-and-pony show” territory.

I planned to do a nature scavenger hunt with the girls during the last week of June…sometime in between summer thunderstorms, and the high winds that were downing trees and power lines across our local communities.  On Wednesday morning when I wasn’t sure what we were going to do with the day, and the two days prior had been filled with less than exemplary bickering and plenty of cries of “I’m bored!” and “I’m hungry!” that were driving me to distraction, I determined that it was the perfect day for our hunt.

Lest you think it took hours of painstaking effort to prepare for, I will set you straight on the matter:  While the girls watched a morning cartoon, I hopped on the computer, typed “nature scavenger hunt” into Yahoo, and came up with lots of lists created by lots of other people of lots of things a person might look for out in nature.  I typed up a quick list of my own in Microsoft Word, imported some clip art I found when clicking on “images” related to my earlier search, and had my handout printed within about ten minutes.  Easy-peasy.

We grabbed hats, tennis shoes, lists, pencils, and magnifying glasses (sparking a pre-scavenger hunt squabble that almost derailed our plan for the morning), sprayed ourselves with my DIY insect repellent, and headed out to see what we could find.

The girls took their lists quite seriously.  I made a clear point from the start that we were working together, not competitively, and that if one person saw an item, they should clearly point it out to the rest of us so we could see it and check it off our lists as well. 

Over and over again, the girls identified unusually-shaped leaves, smooth rocks, ants, and, of course, blades of grass.  We found a very large mushroom in one of the yards on our street, and both girls wanted their photo taken with it.  Later, they were fascinated to find mushrooms growing out from the bark of one of the trees in the park up the road.  

We noticed lots of low-hanging branches, debated the size necessary to qualify as “a very large stick,” and paid more attention to holes in tree trunks than we ever had before.  We stared up at the clouds to make sure they were indeed moving by, and not just standing still. The girls were dismayed to see as much trash as they did along the way.

We were headed toward a creek up the road, but my older daughter heard rushing water in one of the drains along the way.  My younger daughter wanted to check off “animal eating” once she saw a squirrel, but we didn’t technically see any eating going on until we saw some birds busy near the park.  

We enjoyed the experience of seeing the trees, which clearly qualified as something bigger than us.  They also supplied us with something brown, something rough, and moss, though we had much of this checked off before we hit the park.  

My favorite part was picking out birdsong, and having the girls quiet their own chatter to listen.  They continued to pick out birds singing the rest of the walk.

Due to the season, I wasn’t sure how well we would do with acorns, pinecones, or trees with blossoms, but we had these checked off by the time we got home.  We had to look in our own backyard to find ferns (which are just about the only things I manage to grow successfully in my garden!).  

Since we didn’t do any digging, we had to leave “a worm” blank until we head outside to play in the mud next time, and we didn’t find a feather on this walk (though we saw one at the zoo just a couple of days later).

I think the experience was a total hit!  And I don’t know if it was just a coincidence or not, but the girls played together nicely for the rest of the day, completely reversing the trend of the two previous, excruciating days.

A scavenger hunt is such a great way to get kids (and grown-ups!) to notice their surroundings and really see the beauty of the natural world God has created.  Seeing nature interrupted by human garbage is a pretty significant lesson in itself.  Getting outside, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, spending time by the rushing water, and working together on a fun task all contributed to making this a perfect, low-prep summertime activity.

Side note:  As we walked, I jotted down a bunch of other things I saw along the way (garage, puddle, basketball hoop, skylights, lamppost, window shutters, parked car, flag, fire hydrant, chimney), and figured I would create a “Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt” for later in the summer.  It will take less than five minutes to type up, and we’ll have another fun experience in the bag!

How do YOU remind yourself and your children to stop and notice the beauty of creation once in awhile?