Vision for 2013

Every year I ask the Lord to give me a verse for the year as a vision, something to focus on. This year, again a verse from Isaiah speaks to my heart.

 For 2013 "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the L ORD ,  To the house of the God of Jacob;  That He may teach us concerning His ways  And that we may walk in His paths."  (Isaiah 2:3 NASB)

First is the invitation. Come. Simple, but my discouraged heart, full of the failures of the last year, can hardly believe he's still inviting me. Last year's verse and goals were solid, healthy and completed unachieved. I struggles in all areas of personal life management and my spiritual walk so a part of me can hardly believe that God is still interested in me.  He saw it all, but He still says come.  I can't describe how great that is. How beautifully redeeming.

Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.  I know I need to meet with God daily, but after 30 years of following Jesus I still struggle with the daily thing. It's embarrassing! I don't pray faithfully and consistently.  I don't do much faithfully or consistently.  The picture here of going UP to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God encouraged me.  Going up implies difficulty and an uphill struggle.

Going up is hard! I haven't climbed a real mountain, but I've walked up the 99+ steps of Diamond Head and the 224 of Seven Falls in Colorado. I'm not physically fit. My kids sprinted past me and waited at the top in Hawaii while my husband patiently adjusted in pace to mine in Colorado. I had to stop and rest a lot, but I made it! How? By taking one step at a time and not giving up.

Going up to the mountain of the Lord daily will not be easy (for some reason I guess I  thought it would be a fun, joyful journey every day), but I can do this one step at a time. I don't get up in the morning well. I get distracted easily. It will be HARD for me to get up earlier than I naturally do and to head into prayer first thing. (Structuring that time to accommodate my lack of brain function will be another post;-) for some reason it comforts me and encourages me to expect this journey to be hard.

Why would I want to stick with this uphill climb?  I purpose to go to the mountain of the Lord, the house of God, SO that I may be taught His ways IN ORDER that I may walk in his paths.  That for me is a vision that motivates.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  I Thess. 5:16-18

In college I learned (or thought I learned) the lesson of giving thanks for all things.  Not just good things, not just things I like, not just blessings, not just pleasant things, but ALL things.  Catherine Marshall's book, Something More, was essential to my ‘education’ as was Corrie Ten Boom, especially her story of being thankful even for the fleas in the barracks that made their lives miserable.

College was 25 years ago, yet I sit today struggling with being thankful for children picking on each other, family Bible lessons imploding and ending with a child in tears, days gone haywire, lessons forgotten or misplaced.  If I can’t manage being thankful for irritations or inconveniences, what in the world would I do with true trials and tribulations?

I am tempted when giving thanks for hard things to qualify.  “Thank you, Lord, for my 6 weeks of itching because it has caused me to cry out to you in a new way.”  That may be true and that may be part of the blessing, but giving thanks in that manner is limiting because I cannot always see the blessing at the time.  I cannot always see God’s goodness in the moment, yet I am called to give thanks anyway.

In America, we highlight and promote giving thanks in the month of November.  We remind each other to look for the blessings around us, the blessings we tend to take for granted.  I’m going to try to stretch myself and express thanks to God for the things I normally would beg and plead for Him to fix.  I will still ask for help, healing and hope.  But I will thank Him first.

Thank you, Lord, that my husband is working in San Antonio and we are living in Dallas. 

Thank you, Lord, for marital miscommunication that makes me cry.

Thank you, Lord, for the failure and heartache in my children’s lives that I can’t fix.

Thank you, Lord, for unexplained itching, thyroid dysfunction and panic attacks.

If God is good, He is good all the time.  If I really believe,  I will give thanks for ALL things, ALL the time.

PS  Throughout this year I have been challenged and encouraged on the subject of gratitude by

Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts  Sometimes the most simple things are the most profound.

Haven

Most mornings I read morning prayer from a website posting the Divine Hours, a version of fixed hour prayer.  I'm not a morning person, so this enables me to pray when I have no words of my own.  I don't know what version of scripture they use, but almost daily one line jumps out at me.  A couple of weeks ago, what struck me was Psalm 18:1  "O Lord, my stronghold, my crag, my haven."

I have looked up many versions (praise God for online Bibles!) and can't find one that uses the word haven.  I'm not even sure which word is translated haven.  Using different versions and Strong's Concordance, I tried to paint a picture for myself: my place of safety, the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, my rock in whom I take refuge, my high tower, place of defense, inaccessible place.

This year promises to be challenging.  Living in two different cities is not conducive to family life!  Three weeks out of the month I will be juggling home, school, children and all the responsibilities those require with Vince popping in most weekends.  God uses all things, however inconsequential, to remind of himself and his purposes.  I just don't think it's an accident that Vince currently lives in an apartment complex called "The Haven."

What is a haven?  A place of hiding, safety, retreat, protection.  One week a month I will retreat to our 'haven.'  I will have limited responsibilities (schooling Joel and Anna, cleaning a two bedroom apartment and fixing meals).  Vince will come home to us each evening.

In the midst of a hectic year, more hectic than most, God has provided a haven.  A place for rest, a place to hide from sometimes overwhelming responsibilities, an escape, a place of safety.  When I miss my husband, when I question why we are spending so much time apart, when I'm weary from driving over 200 miles, I pray that as my headlights light up the words, "The Haven," signaling the end of the journey I will give thanks to God for providing us a haven when I most need it.

My current invitation from the Lord

^{Song of Solomon 2:10-13}

10"My beloved responded and said to me,
'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along.
¹¹'For behold, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
¹²'The flowers have already appeared in the land;
The time has arrived for pruning the vines,
And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land.
¹³'The fig tree has ripened its figs,
And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one,
And come along!'"

This passage speaks to my heart. It is an invitation to hope. It is encouragement. It is a reminder that in God's eyes I am beautiful and cherished. I am stunned to think the King of the Universe loves me so.

George Herbert

I love to read, but poetry is usually a stretch for me. I suspect I think mostly in prose ;-) Poetry, like music, has the potential to speak past the mind to the soul and heart. Maybe I rarely take the time to listen. I read fast, but in order to appreciate a poem I must slow down and actually think. Today I took the time (all of five minutes) to read and allow this poem to speak to my heart. Like music, like the psalms, this poem expressed my thoughts and longings more eloquently that I could.

LOVE (III)
by George Herbert


Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/love3.htm

Stunted Shrub

“Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives. But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their home and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-8 New Living Translation

Stunted Shrub
Dry twigs snap at subtlest pressure;
Rootless bush tumbles.
MY strength, man’s strength, will suffice;
Disciple stumbles.

Fruitless, growthless, lifeless;
Withered, she shakes.
At the whim of surrounding conditions
Rootless one breaks.

Drought resistant tree;
No anxiety.
Life, growth, fruit;
Solid, deep root.
Steady in the storm;
Trust is in the Lord.

Planted in that trust,
Flourish I must.

Betsy Saroni, June 2003

Almost six years after writing that poem it still resonates in my heart. So many days I feel more like the stunted shrub than a tree planted by streams of water yielding abundant fruit. Why? I lose sight of the importance of being rooted in living water. Here the tree has the advantage over me; once planted it is there to stay. I can wander, follow distractions, and choose to ignore the need to stay deeply rooted. If I took a tree and constantly transplanted it, would it ever take root and really flourish? Would it every consistently yield fruit?

I know the answer to my question and my longings, but knowing is not doing. Knowing does not produce fruit. These verses are full of action verbs: trust, makes the Lord their home, does not walk, meditates, abides. Although hearing and knowing the Word is vitally important, I must prove myself a doer of the Word, not a hearer only. (James 1:22-23) It’s time to take my knowledge and live it.

I pray for a verse to focus on each year, and this year it is Colossians 2:6. “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him.” The Lord is asking me for more, asking me to take seriously what I read and believe, asking me to make changes in my daily life that will demonstrate I am willing to put action to my beliefs. It’s time to walk the walk, not just in front of my friends and family, but in the secret, hidden places that only Christ sees. It’s time to stop searching for fruit in my life that is visible to all and focus on the hidden, my root system.

“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by steams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.” Psalm 1:1-3

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5

Things Above

Colossians 3:1-2 “Therefore if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.”

I always seem to get caught below. My mind spends most of its time on the things that irritate or annoy me, the things that need to be done, the things the children are NOT doing. Or I’m beating myself up for not spending my time wisely, not getting enough done today, forgetting to run that errand, not making sure the kids finished their school work.

Just what are the things above? I count myself among those who have been raised with Christ, so how do I see the things where Christ is, the things associated with the Father? “Set your mind…” That’s an imperative, a command, which must mean I can do it. But how? ‘Below’ shouts at me and pulls at me. ‘Above’ seems distant and inaccessible.

[Light bulb moment!] That’s what Jesus was all about. Descending to ‘below’ in order to make ‘above’ accessible for us. To seek the things above, to set my mind on things above, I must get to know the One who allows me access to ‘above.’ I’ve been a Christian over 20 years, yet how well do I really know Christ? I know a lot ABOUT Christ, and 10 years ago I would have said I KNOW Him. Maybe it’s an instance of the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know. I don’t KNOW Christ, but I have a longing in me that there must be more than what I have experienced.

I don’t know how to set my mind on things above. But I’m hopeful because I think I know the first step. I’ve known it for years, I just frequently allow the ‘things below’ to take top priority and I squeeze in time soaking in the Word or praying when I ‘find time’. Or I allow ‘things below’ to completely squeeze out Jesus and fall in bed at night tossing up sleepy, scattered prayers pledging to do better tomorrow.

This year, my goal is to start each day with my Bible and my journal. Revolutionary idea? Of course not! I’ve known for years I needed to start the day this way. But I get up late, kids are rowdy, I have to go somewhere – there are a thousand excuses. Later, I tell myself, I’ll pray later. And later never comes. So today, although it’s after 9 am and we should be doing school, I’m reading, writing, sitting still, attempting to listen, and then falling on my face asking the Holy Spirit to fill me, speak to me, help me. I feel guilty. A ‘good’ homeschool mom would be up early having her quiet time so she’d be schooling by now. True, but I have to start where I am. I’m desperate enough to believe that this time with the Lord is really, truly THE most important thing I can do for my family.

I think a Mommy whose mind is set on things above will parent better, teach better, disciple better and even manage the home better. I sure hope so. Remember that scene in Star Wars: A New Hope where Princess Leia in the hologram says, “Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” Well, I’ve tried a lot of things in my own strength, and nothing has worked. I’ve finally figured out I can’t do it on my own, and for the first time I’m REALLY crying out, “Help me, Jesus. You’re my only hope.”