Striving to live authentically while pursuing holiness

Sunday, September 30, 2012

40 days of prayer for America

It's now 37 days until the election. Three days ago, the campaign "40 days of prayer for America" began. You can find them at this website or link to them on facebook at this site.

"If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."                           ~2 Chronicles 7:14

This is the premise on which this campaign was started. The promise is very easy to see. The audience to which he is speaking is easy to see as well. So many times, those of use who consider ourselves "His children" point our fingers at the culture and say "They are the problem." But God isn't expecting anything from them! We are the ones accountable. We are the ones who have been given the truth and have rejected it by compromising, not speaking boldly in love, sitting back and enjoying our comfortable life. We haven't served like Jesus served. We haven't loved like Jesus loved. We haven't sacrificed like Jesus sacrificed. The Christian life isn't a call to Easy Street. Jesus says that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow him. (Luke 9:23) That's not what most of us do.

This cuts deep. Believe me. I'm right there with everyone else--not denying myself or taking up my cross! It's gotten easy to spout off our theological knowledge, sound good in Bible study and "work real hard" to do the right things.

For decades now, Christians have sat back and let the culture disintegrate before their very eyes. We sit in our beautiful churches on our comfortable pews or in our Bible studies with desserts and coffee--talking theology about how we should be salt and light, what we can do to make a difference, and discuss WWJD??

All the while there are hurting people. People walking right outside our churches--afraid to darken the doors because of the judgement they've felt there. People who are physically hungry, with no place to call home. People who have real hurts and real troubles. Some of them are actually sitting right there in our pews and Bible studies. And we usually don't even take the time to notice--and we don't want to notice because it's messy. Real life is messy. Real life sucks sometimes. Real life is hard and sad and unlovely a lot of the time! That's why as Christians, we can look forward to the wonderful promise of life eternal with Jesus!!

But that's not what this post was supposed to be about. If we look inside of our hearts, we know that we have left our first love. We may come back to him now and again, but on a day to day basis, most of us don't remember what it's like to really be in love with Jesus. And that's our call--to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. If we aren't doing that everyday, then this verse is for us--to humble ourselves and pray, seek his face, turn from our wicked ways.....

When we do that, he makes a promise. And God always keeps his promises. He will hear us from heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land. Wow! Do we need that??? And look, it has nothing to do with the unbelievers!! There's no conditions about them. We don't need to change them or get them to live "right." We don't need to change their views on gay marriage or even abortion. We don't need them to think the same way about the economy or war that we do. We don't have to worry about any of that. We won't change our land through laws or a different Commander in Chief.

Only Jesus can heal our land.

And all we have to do is pray--repent, turn from our wicked ways. We need to return to our first love and live like he lived, serve like he served, sacrifice like he sacrificed. Why? To earn God's affection? To make ourselves good enough to deserve our land to be healed and our sins to be forgiven? NO! If that was the case, we'd be in sad shape for sure! God calls us into relationship with him. That's what he desires. He wants us to recognize our need for him. He knows that the only way we will have true joy is to love him first, to put all of our hope and trust in him alone because everyone and everything else will fail. He commands to be the ONLY God. He commands that we have NO other idols. We have a lot of idols in America. I'm pretty sure he was thinking of modern day America (as well as Israel) when we was directing the author to write this.

So no matter what your political preference--if you are a child of God, I'm sure you're concerned about the state of our country. These 40 days of prayer are nothing about a certain candidate or political party. They are a calling of the Christians in our nation to turn back to their first love. Please join me and thousands of other Christians around the country in praying specifically for these things over the next days until the election--and beyond!

I believe with all my heart that God set the leader of our country where he is. I believe just as firmly that he has planned and set the next president as well. Personally, I don't think I can change that with my prayers. I believe these prayers are for the hearts of God's children. All we can do is open our own hearts, repent of our own sin, and seek his face ourselves. He will handle the land. He will control the leadership. He uses Christians and non-Christians alike to fulfill his purpose. So I can rest in the sovereignty of my Lord. I will do my part and vote for the people that I think will be most likely to carry out and represent my beliefs and values. And that's all I can do besides pray. And pray I will.

I encourage you to do the same.....


Thursday, September 20, 2012

Why am I here?

I haven't posted anything in awhile. Call it busyness. Call it lack of desire. Call it apathy. Call it what you want. There are a million reasons why. It hasn't been for lack of thoughts to put down, but basically lack of time. I shouldn't be doing this right now either. Thursdays are the only days I have to clean. I take my oldest four to co-op and come home for 3 1/2 hours to clean bathrooms, clean the kitchen, sweep, mop and vacuum the house--all with two little ones underfoot. But that's all I have time for. So that's basically all the cleaning that gets done each week. There, I admitted it.

So I have no time to be doing THIS! But today I just needed to do it. As I was cleaning up the kitchen I picked up the newsletter from our old church in Naples that we still get in the mail. I was leafing through, reading little snippets, and just noticed the schedule of children's stuff. Things the children are studying in Sunday School and on Wednesday night. Nothing big. Just curriculum.

And I cried.
My heart ached. And the questioned called to me.... WHAT AM I DOING HERE???

I hesitate to write this because I don't want to offend anyone in Knoxville. I don't want to make comparisons or say one place is better than the other. But, for our family, it seems one is better than the other--and I'm at the wrong one. (In my eyes, of course.)

Even in the middle of this gorgeous fall weather here in East Tennessee....my mind is wandering back to my life in Naples. Good gracious, what am I thinking??? I know what it feels like in Naples right now!! Oppressive heat, icky sticky humidity, and the knowledge that it's still going to be awhile before that changes!! Weather is a huge determining factor in my moods--and it's not the warm weather that makes me happy!

So why in the world am I feeling this way??? Why in the world do I think I'd rather wake up Sunday morning and walk in to Covenant Church of Naples? It's not that the preaching or teaching is better. It's not that the worship is better. It's not even that the people are nicer (well, maybe they are a little nicer to me because I know them!!) :)

What I read in the Covenant newsletter is what I spent years praying for. I spent years praying (and a also a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears....well, maybe not blood....) for a place where my children could grow, flourish, be nurtured and taught God's word by people who loved them. Yes, it's mine and Jon's job first--as parents--to teach them, to imprint God's truths on their little hearts. And we do try to do that. But I also believe that the church has a role in supporting parents and helping them by being the secondary source of that education. And I think that Covenant Church is really doing that--finally!! :) It's been a process, yes. It's been coming, and it was even happening before I left--which is what made it doubly hard to leave. But to see how it's really coming to fruition, to see my prayers being answered in so many ways, to know that those people who would be teaching my kids there really love them and have invested in their lives is heart wrenching.....when I'm here 830 miles away.

Like I said, I don't want to offend anyone. I know this is because I spent 11 years in Naples. I "grew up" there in certain senses. I know I've only been here 10 months. I realize that all of that has much to do with my feelings today. But the question remains....

What am I doing here?

Yes, I'm here because Jon's here. I followed my husband and have tried to make a home here. Yes, that's my job. But is that the only reason? I left a huge part of me in Naples. Not only did I leave my church but I left a great doula career. "You can be a doula anywhere" you might say. And you would be correct. But I haven't had time to establish that here. The only doula job I've had was back in February for my cousin's baby. Now, I was privileged to be there. It was a wonderful birth! But not one since. There's a huge doula presence here in Knoxville, which is great. But I just haven't been able to break into it. That was a huge part of what made me who I am. And as I was leaving there were some big opportunities opening up.... that I couldn't be a part of.

So what am I doing here?

I don't know. I can't answer that right now. But it's my journey. It's part of the desert place that I'm in right now. I'm a "do-er." I know that. Maybe it's bad. I don't know. You always hear it in a negative light. Like if I'm doing a lot, then I must not be a good enough Christian to just let God "do" what he wants in my life. So I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be doing anything. Maybe I"m just filling a void. Maybe that's not what I'm supposed to be doing....I don't know.

But I do know that right now what I should be DOING is cleaning bathrooms, and I have a 2 year old climbing all over me to make this reflection session impossible....so I'll quit right here.

Completely unresolved....