Looking for a Name
Hello readers. All two of you. Ha! I’m looking to change my blog name, but am having a tough time coming up with something clever. My favorite hymn is Amazing Grace and my favorite verse:
When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise then when we first begun.
I’d like the name of my blog to have something to do with this part of the song. Any suggestions?
Love Your Neighbor
The top story on bbc.com this morning is about a young girl who was abducted at age 11. She lived in the back yard of her abductor for 18 years and fathered two of his children. 18 years! In the back yard!!! In the story, you’ll read that neighbors wondered why they “lived in tents,” but it sounds like they never went over and checked it out for themselves. Not that tents should raise suspicion (or should it?). But when God calls his people to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart andwith all your soul and with all your mind,” and to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39) – we should. God providentially places us in our neighborhoods. We’re to love them, and know them, and bless them…and love them, allowing ourselves to be known in the process and declare the praises and wonders of an almighty King.
The link to the article is here. May you be encouraged today to reach out and love. Specifically, to love those next door to you, whom God has given you to share your life with and reveal his glory to.
Talk is Cheap
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1 John 3:18
Michael and I know we want to adopt. That isn’t a question for us. But we don’t feel that God is calling us to that right now. But caring for the fatherless is God’s calling for each of us, right now. In light of this, Michael and I brainstormed ways we can impact our community, and encourage those around us to do the same. So today I’m heading to a place called Friends of Youth, in downtown Issaquah. I’ll return with a full report. There are several different volunteer opportunities, one of which involves being a mentor to a single mother or young couple under the age of 22 who have an infant. Sounds awesome! Looking forward to telling you all about it…*
* Well, I walked the boys down to the Friends of Youth office yesterday, only to find out that the office in Issaquah was for mental and drug and alcohol counseling only. I got the number of the volunteer coordinator and am anxiously waiting to hear back from her.
Wow. Yep. Wow.
Dear reader, I have stumbled upon the most amazing book of all time. Adopted for Life by Russell Moore is my new, hands-down favorite book. And I’m only on chapter four. Better than Dillard, better than Bunyon, better than anything I’ve ever read. Buy it. Read it. You’ll love it.
The Universe is an Orphanage
My new book was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home from our family camping trip this weekend. It’s called Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches by Russell D. Moore. I read sixty-two pages last night. Michael had to make me put it down and go to bed, pretty much. I can already tell it’ll be one of those books, like Total Church, that I quote again and again and again. Here’s an excerpt that’s still with me this morning:
The universe was meant to be a home – where the image-bearers of God rule and serve under their Father. It was all to be ours. The primeval insurrection in the garden, though, turned the universe into an orphanage – the heirs were gone, done in by their appetites. A serpent now holds the cosmos in captivity, driving along the deposed rulers as his slaves. The whole universe is now an orphanage.
But then there’s Jesus.
When we were still orphans, Christ became a substitute orphan for us. Though he was a son, he took on the humiliation of a slave and the horror of death (Phil. 2:6-8). Jesus walked to that far country with us, even to the depths of the hog pen that we’d made our home, and hung on a tree abandoned by his Father in our place. (45)
I see a little more clearly today. The whole universe is an orphanage. Moore also writes,
All of us are looking to discover who we really are, whether we were born into loving homes or abandoned at orphanage doors, whether we were born into stable families or born, like our Lord, in a stable (26).
Every single person on this planet is an orphan. Wrap your mind around that. We become children of the living, loving, almighty God by his grace alone. “Through adoption into Christ, the word brother really means something” (37). My brothers and sisters are in Christ. I am a child of God! As Jesus announced that “the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me” (John 14:30), I too can declare in confidence that as a child of God, the Father of all creation, Satan has no claim on me.
From last night through this morning, both Scripture and Moore’s words have impacted how I’ve handled a couple of things. I haven’t talked to a dear friend in quite a while. I started thinking about how maybe we aren’t that great of friends after all, since we haven’t connected, and all sorts of other ridiculous worries that basically centered around me and my feelings. But then, something beautiful happened. I said to myself, “I am a child of God.” I realized that the focus should be on Him, not myself. Through that, I began to wonder instead how my dear friend has been doing and remembered things coming up in her life that would make her pretty busy right now. And then this morning, since my sweet Benjamin was up most of the night, I’m exhausted. I struggle with patience when I’m tired and react too harshly to my family. As I was making Michael’s coffee and both the boys’ breakfast, and as Jude was pulling on my leg, apparently dying of starvation, I said to myself, “I’m a child of God.” My focus again turned to Him, his sovereignty, and His Spirit in me. The remembrance of my adoption allowed me to move past my own impatience and be gracious to my son.
This is amazing: that as children of God we live by His Spirit. We are connected to the God of the universe because the spirit of his son lives in us. I am not an orphan. My identity is sure. I belong to the King of Kings. Heaven is my home, and there I will live forever. I can live and walk in confidence. Not to say I won’t forget and desire to make mud pies instead of play at the sea (C.S. Lewis). But this morning, right now, I’m so encouraged by the love of God. Blessings to you, dear reader. May you, too, be united to the Father of the universe, and make heaven your home and His people your family.
Just a Little Dirt
There’s this one spot in the yard that Jude goes to again and again. He has several trucks, but his favorite is the smallest. I think you would call it a loader? Anyway, it’s orange and has these tiny little shovels on both the front and the back. He will dig and dig in this tiny patch of dirt to his heart’s content. The bummer is that there really wasn’t much dirt for him to dig in. So today I bought him a $3.00 bag of gardening soil and wa-la! Instant fun! Dig your heart out, Jude!
Another Book Suggestion…
I know, I know. I’m always suggesting this book or that. But you know, I can’t apologize. I love reading! And I especially love reading books that lead me to a better understanding of the gospel and my sweet Christ. I’ve mentioned that I’m currently reading Grudem’s “Christian Beliefs.” Good stuff. But I’m also waiting for a new book to arrive called “Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches” by Russell D. Moore. Want to know more? Here’s a link to a review of the book. Want to read along? I’d love it! I plan on blogging my way through that book too. Can’t wait. Blessings to you, dear readers, whoever you are.
Adoption
In the latest book I’m reading, Christian Beliefs, Grudem writes, “As one spirit with God, his Holy Spirit within us bears witness to our status as his adopted children (Rom. 8:16).” Michael and I always talk about adopting children. This past month, even more so. Of course, there’s always the timing, but I pray it never stops being a pressing issue for us.
Isaiah 30:21 says, “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.” It would be easy to drown out this calling on our lives to adopt. We could explain it away with a million different excuses: not enough money, not enough space, not settled down enough, what about our biological children?, other people are better able to do it, etc. And yet the call to adopt is not just for us. I believe it is for all Christians. (*gasp* *did she just say that?*) I did.
We are adopted by God. Grudem also writes, “As children of God, we have the privilege of an intimate relationship with God, whom we can call our Father (Rom. 8:15). We do not have to live a fearful life of slavish obedience; instead, we are free to experience the joy of living as heirs to all the blessings that God desires to lavish upon his children (Rom. 8:15, 17) (98). ” We bring God glory by imitating him and “exhibiting likeness to his attributes” (22). Well, he adopted us. We bring glory to his name by adopting the fatherless and caring for them.
Of course, not all people are able to adopt. But the call to care for orphans is still for all. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27).
I can’t imagine not having been adopted by Christ. I belong to the Father. I long for orphans to feel that too. I long to exemplify God’s love – his welcoming, never-ending, unconditional love – to a child (or children!) by adopting them into our family and claiming them as our own. How beautiful is His love!
I pray this video encourages you, gives you courage, and moves you to pray for orphans and pray how you can impact the fatherless of our world.
What is the Bible?
All the words in the Bible are God’s words (13). Therefore, since the Bible affirms that it is the very words of God, we are to seek to understand those words, for in doing so, we are seeking to understand God himself (16). It is not only true that all things necessary to become a Christian, live as a Christian, and grow as a Christian are clearly presented in the Bible…the Christian life doesn’t only start with the Bible, but it also thrives through the Bible (17).
I’ve recently started reading Wayne Grudem’s Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know. Good stuff. I’m loving the book so far. The first chapter, What is the Bible?, deals with the sufficiency of Scripture and its necessity to grow as a Christian. Call it studying, call it reading, call it whatever you like – pouring over the Scriptures is a necessity as a Christian. The word is alive and it is given to us so that we may know God. And in order to thrive as a Christian, to grow as a Christian, we must read to know him more, and to know him better. We won’t know how to live as Jesus did and as God designed us to if we don’t read the Bible. Sure, we may say we have a knowledge of Scripture and a few verses memorized, but not much time to read otherwise. Maybe that base knowledge will get us through? Yet in John, Jesus talks about how “if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers” (15:6). John also writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (15:1). The Word, Jesus, and God cannot be separated. We cannot know God without his Word. He gave it to us so we would know him. So we could know him.
