No, I don’t suppose God looks like Clark Gable. But I do believe that our God isn’t just an Officer of the law, but a Gentleman of grace as well.
A few weeks ago, I was driving to my tennis match in a downpour. It seems that our habitat has evolved into a rain forest with as much rain as we have gotten lately. I hastily prayed, “Lord, it would be so wonderful to get a close parking space and for the rain to stop so I don’t get drenched on my way in.”
Now, I realize that there are plenty of you who believe that I was bothering God with my petty concerns. I will admit that my concern with entering the tennis club looking like a drowned raccoon with mascara running is petty. But I won’t admit that I was bothering God.
I have a single friend who was having car trouble one night. She prayed, “Lord, you are my husband. Husbands fix cars. Please fix this car!” The result was that she was able to get her car running again. I was thinking about her when I prayed my no-rain-great-parking-spot prayer. Although I am married, my husband wasn’t with me. If he had been, he would have dropped me off at the door!
After praying, I pulled into the lot and found the spot next to the handicap spaces open and waiting for me. That never happens! I typically walk blocks! Then the rain slowed to an intermittent drip as I left my car.
God is a Gentleman who loves to meet our every need. Today our niece got married. All week the big fear has been that it would rain during the afternoon pictures and evening indoor/outdoor reception as that was the forecast. I honestly wasn’t surprised that today is sunny and beautiful. I know people like me get criticized for praying for no rain because of the proverbial farmer who is praying in opposition to me. I felt very confident with all the flooding that NO farmers were praying for rain!
No, I’m not suggesting that the church begin selling computers and mobile devices or relocate to malls (although the latter isn’t necessarily a bad idea). What I AM suggesting is:
– The church should be packed with people because it offers what they want. I went to the Apple store yesterday to have my son’s iPod repaired and there were people in every square foot of the store. It was so crowded, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get in. The church, on the other hand, has seen a steady decline in numbers. Is it because the church no longer offers what the people want? Yes, in my opinion. We still have what the people NEED, but we offer it in a package that fewer and fewer want.
– The church should be successful because of the great advertising done on its behalf. Apple does ads with promotions like, “This changes everything.” Churches advertise with slogans like “Turn to Jesus today.” Imagine if the iPhone’s slogan was simply, “Buy an iPhone.” A good case can be made for the church being unable to afford media advertising, but no such argument can be made for the more powerful word-of-mouth advertising. Too often, Christians give the unappealing prompt to unchurched friends, “You should come to my church.” Our churches could be full if our members were sharing, “Jesus changes everything” and then proceeded to explain how.
– The church should be user-friendly. I was so intimidated by the crowd at the store that I would have made a quick exit, had I not quickly been greeted by someone asking to help. Church greeters typically say hello. If they recognize someone as a visitor, more direction might be given. But what if everyone were greeted with, “How may I help you this morning?” My name was noted and an appointment made for me. In that throng of people, I was recognized as an important person. In our larger churches, how often have people entered as a visitor and left feeling more alone than when they arrived? Or how often has a church member left disappointed that no one asked how they were doing? I was told exactly where to go for my appointment so I didn’t feel foolish. Many church visitors aren’t offered the same clear direction.
– The church should offer grace in response to clear teaching about sin. I wasn’t kept waiting for my appointment and I explained my problem. The young man explained that my son had damaged his iPod by shoving the charger in the wrong way. He then explained my options–both of which were costly. I took the least expensive option of replacing our current iPod. When the man returned, he had the new iPod but said he wouldn’t be charging me. I was incredulous. “Why?” He said that even though damage wasn’t covered under warranty, they just wanted to replace it free of charge. Unfortunately, the church today is less willing to say that we are responsible for damaging our lives by refusing to discuss sin. Even if the church offers people the Gospel (a free replacement life in Christ), the value of the gift is greatly diminished without an acknowledgement of our responsibility.
I left the Apple store feeling blessed and wanting to tell everyone the good news I heard there. We don’t have to hire Steve Jobs to pastor our churches to have the same result. We can ask the Holy Spirit to breathe new life into the church and to let it begin with ‘me.’
I believe in clean enough. I am okay with less than 100% correct. I am obviously comfortable with blogging less than daily. Thus, I am not a perfectionist.
But I do have a problem when it comes to some activities or life changes; I am a Gestaltist. A gestalt is a whole. God designed us to see a circle in the picture above, even though part of it is missing. Not only do we see the whole, but we desire the whole. You might argue that desiring the gestalt is perfectionism, but I beg to differ. Perfectionism is a standard set so high that it can and often does interfere with daily functioning. Gestaltism is, in many respects, the opposite. The desire for completion is what spurs us on when the workout is almost over or the dishwasher is almost unloaded. This is a functional desire.
However, like perfectionism, Gestaltism can present difficulties, too. This morning I was contemplating journaling in my junk journal (I would like to blog about this later!) and didn’t want to. When I asked myself why, I realized that I was reluctant to write this month because I didn’t write anything last month. I felt that my journal was going to be incomplete, and thus less desirable, even if I continued to write in it for the rest of the year.
How can we get past the dysfunctional aspects of Gestaltism, so I can do things like write in my junk journal and you can do things like lose weight?
– Create a new whole to complete. Rather than concern myself with the journal as a whole, I can think about finishing the month of May. If you blew your diet for lunch, make dinner your new complete.
– Redefine complete. To get myself writing, I can call a few retrospective entries in the calendar for the last two months complete. If you overate for lunch, but made sure you were really hungry before you started, the latter can be your completion.
– Trust God to complete what you have started. Many Scriptures speak of God finishing what we start. Whether I finish my journal or not, I can focus on what a complete joy this journal will be one day to me, my children, and grandchildren. If you messed up your eating at lunch, trust that God will enable you to use what you learned to complete your weight loss goal.
In order to complete this post, I need to give photo credit. Have a completely wonderful day in the Lord!
Of course, it isn’t possible to tame time. No one, no matter how bright, efficient, or important has been able to slow the sun or add any more hours to her life than the standard issue. But it is possible to tame the demands on our time.
I cannot imagine my grandmother opining about the need for more time, despite the fact that she always had a lot of very hard work to do. But my grandmother didn’t have the number of choices for how to spend her time that I do.
I used to get a homeschooling newsletter that averaged over 75 8.5×11 pages of things I could do with my kids. I would literally tremble with the anxiety of having to make hundreds of decisions about how to spend my time. The best decision I made was to quit reading the newsletter. I depend on my friends to tell me about can’t-miss opportunities.
Sticking your fingers in your ears to say nananana isn’t a good long-term strategy for managing all the demands on your time. What is? I don’t pretend to have all the answers to that question, but I do use some general principles to guide me.
The first principle is TO as in what to do?
When what to do is up to me (as in I don’t already have a structure imposed on my day), my first focus is TODAY. What must I or could I do to make today a great day? If I have to have something ready for a meeting in the afternoon, it makes sense to prepare for that before I work on a long-term project. Asking myself this question helps me to focus. This is the question that enables me to plan dinner and my kids’ school and evening activities.
The second question is what can I do to make TOMORROW great? This question reminds me that the kids have activities to go to and I better put gas in the car, for example. It gets me to put my materials together for the presentation I am doing the next afternoon. But tomorrow doesn’t just refer to the next day. I look ahead to the next day and the next, then to next week, and next month. I might do something small like ordering a birthday card to be sent to a friend in advance of her birthday next month or as big as outlining a talk I will be giving in two months. You can have fun seeing how far ahead you can get. Of course, the demands of today will determine how much time you can spend on tomorrow.
The third TO is TOWARD. What can you do now that is working toward your goals and dreams? After all, I never have to work on my tennis serve or practice piano for today or tomorrow, but it is something I want to work toward. If all I do is just what needs to be done, I will miss the real joy in living. Working toward gives me the motivation to work on today and tomorrow’s more mundane tasks.
It’s tempting to seek all kinds of rules for using these guidelines, like assigning x number of hours to each category or being legalistic about when you can work on each area. You won’t get that from me! I wrote this post as part of TOWARD even though I still have things to do for TODAY and TOMORROW, but I will cycle back. Somehow I don’t think the world will end if I work out of order. Do you? Next time you have no idea what to do first, think in terms of TO and see if you have more clarity. Next time I will share the second principle I use to tame my time.
I was doing a Bible study on Christmas this morning that asked what was most exciting about the holiday to me. I am especially excited about decorating this year. I have had most of the same decorations for many years and I bought some new ones that I am eager to put up. I also love to shop online bargains and Christmas is a great time for that. I have most of my purchases made already, but now I am shopping for birthdays.
I also love planning our family’s Christmas card, hosting several parties, coordinating Christmas outfits, and great food. This year I am especially excited as our family looks forward to a once-in-a-lifetime trip we will take together this season. I have more reasons to be excited than I have time to write about!
As I continued with my Bible study, however, a question caused me to stop and think. I will leave you with the same question: how much of your excitement about Christmas has to do with Christ’s birth?
I got my Christmas present early and it’s an Eye Fi enabled camera. What is that and why should you care?
Right now if I took a picture while my camera is in range of my wireless home network, the photo would be saved automatically to my computer’s external hard drive and simultaneously saved online to Picasa Web Albums. If I were away from home while taking pictures, this same automatic backup would occur when I turned on my camera in a wifi hotspot or when I returned home to my wireless network. With endless memory set up, you will never run out of room on your card. A percentage of the oldest, backed up pictures are automatically deleted to make room for more.
The advantages are many and include automatic backup of your photos, quick access to online photos for blogging, Facebook sharing and more, and no more deleting pictures from your memory card on the fly. The saving format is flexible, the online sites to back up to are numerous, and the number of cameras that accept Eye Fi cards cover the range of budgets. Best of all, the Eye Fi cards themselves won’t break most banks ranging from $40-$140 for two cards, depending on capacity. Some cards will do the same for video that they do for your photos.
Eye Fi won’t delete bad shots, order prints, or put scrapbooks together for you, but it can make your photographic life a lot easier.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
