I was at the health food store today, (my kids hate going there because they say it is "stinky") in search of some soy protein that I have purchased before. I asked an employee because I couldn't find the brand that I had used before. I explained to the employee that I liked it because it was both soy protein and whey protein. Then it occurred to me that I did not know a lot about whey protein. The employee explained that whey is only good for people that are serious athletes because it helps them gain weight and add muscle. Okay, so I'd like to think that being a mom and doing an occasional workout video qualifies me as a "serious athlete" but the employee seemed to be saying otherwise. He was steering me away from the stuff. Another employee suggested a couple of other products for energy and others for protein.
Then, after a few minutes of conversation the first employee said to me, "Look, this protein is really just like feeding yourself with baby's milk. Adults don't need milk like babies do. After all, babies basically drink milk to get fat." Well, you couldn't have gotten more straight forward advice. I thanked the employee for his help and shopped on.
As I returned home I began to think about adults and drinking baby's milk. Spiritually, milk is for those who are immature and meat is for those who are mature. So what happens if we try to live on milk as spiritual adults? Do we get fat? Spiritual fatness would seem to me like fatness of any other kind, i.e. NOT GOOD. Filling up on milk spoils our appetites for the heartier things. We miss out on the main course and on my favorite part, dessert. (Go figure. I love health food just about as much as I love sugar!! Balance, my friend. Balance!)
So what do you mean, "getting fat on spiritual milk?" Well, I have thought about this a lot. I think that we get fat when we take in God's word like we would cram for an exam. It just simply goes into our head like formulas, not understood or applied but just ready to be regurgitated when necessary. If we aren't feeding on things and then meditating and applying those things to our lives, then they do no good...they just make us fat.
Sometimes I think that I am a fat christian. Full of knowledge in my head but not a lot penetrates to my heart, the place where it challenges me to change, give, and grow. Maybe this is abstract and doesn't make sense to you. But I just can't help but feel that if we would exercise spiritually on a consistent basis and fill ourselves with spiritual "super food" that is bought only with extra time and searching, we would be radical believers who might just see a little revival in our families and churches. Don't settle for the fluff. I want to dig in and savor the rich meat of God's word!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Deal or No Deal
My daughter is obsessed with this show. Every time it comes on my daughter wants me to text message in to try and win $10,000 dollars. Then she asks me again and again, "How many American Girls can we buy with $10,000?" Oh yes, my daughter can't get enough of American Girls right now. Anyway, my kids love to try and play along with Deal or No Deal even though they don't understand. They cheer, laugh, wince and get so excited. They think daddy should go on the show!
I was just thinking that my faith walk these days seems like Deal or No Deal. I have the opportunity every day to take the Deal that God blesses me with or to say No Deal and hope for a better option. I find myself saying, "No Deal. I came here to play!" I am finding that it is a challenge for me to trust that God has my best interest in mind when I arise and He has His best for me each day. He is just awaiting my agreement. "Take the Deal," he whispers. "The other cases will only cause you disappointment, you may lose everything. Take the Deal."
My agreement. All I have to do is say "yes" to God and he showers me with His overwhelming best for the day. The best thing about God is that He loves me even when I close the lid on Him and opt for something besides His best. A friend of mine recently pointed out a scripture in Hebrews that had been speaking to her. Hebrews 4:15 in the Amplified Bible says, "For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation..." We have a High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses! He knows we are weak and he has sympathy! I am so glad that God knows my liabilities and does not hold them against me. He can change me and help me grow but He understands that some days I may choose poorly and say, "No Deal."
I have been saying "NO DEAL" to God a lot over the last couple weeks. In my weakness I think that God must be cruel to allow me to suffer or to seemingly ignore my requests. A scripture in Proverbs talks about how two people can only meet if they agree about it. I am in a place where I need to come into agreement with God's word even if I'm not feeling it. God's promises may not seem like they are yes and amen but my job is not to figure it out or ask why. My job is to wake up every day and take the Deal. God's Deal...or like scripture puts it, "come take up your cross and follow me" (Mark 10:21). No options given, just simple direction. "Take the deal."
I was just thinking that my faith walk these days seems like Deal or No Deal. I have the opportunity every day to take the Deal that God blesses me with or to say No Deal and hope for a better option. I find myself saying, "No Deal. I came here to play!" I am finding that it is a challenge for me to trust that God has my best interest in mind when I arise and He has His best for me each day. He is just awaiting my agreement. "Take the Deal," he whispers. "The other cases will only cause you disappointment, you may lose everything. Take the Deal."
My agreement. All I have to do is say "yes" to God and he showers me with His overwhelming best for the day. The best thing about God is that He loves me even when I close the lid on Him and opt for something besides His best. A friend of mine recently pointed out a scripture in Hebrews that had been speaking to her. Hebrews 4:15 in the Amplified Bible says, "For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation..." We have a High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses! He knows we are weak and he has sympathy! I am so glad that God knows my liabilities and does not hold them against me. He can change me and help me grow but He understands that some days I may choose poorly and say, "No Deal."
I have been saying "NO DEAL" to God a lot over the last couple weeks. In my weakness I think that God must be cruel to allow me to suffer or to seemingly ignore my requests. A scripture in Proverbs talks about how two people can only meet if they agree about it. I am in a place where I need to come into agreement with God's word even if I'm not feeling it. God's promises may not seem like they are yes and amen but my job is not to figure it out or ask why. My job is to wake up every day and take the Deal. God's Deal...or like scripture puts it, "come take up your cross and follow me" (Mark 10:21). No options given, just simple direction. "Take the deal."
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Brown-bagging it Through Life
I came up with this clever saying yesterday while talking to my mom on the phone. I'm sure this blog will end up being more negative with not a lot of answers in it as I am literally writing from the top of my head or heart as it were.
My parents continue to seek God on where and how they are to proceed through their own valleys. Talk of towing cars or driving cars is accented by the wonderings of money to pay for the trip. Questions about hurts and why they had to endure seem to cloud them right now. It seems like when you are right in the middle of a storm the tendency is to look back over your shoulder and see the pattern of storms that seem to make a b-line right for your life. "Breathe into a small brown bag," I told my mom. My sister had gotten the advice when she was at the doctor recently.
Tennis elbow plagues my sister as she is now forced to give up a passion for sewing. She sews such beautiful purses. Between the 4 active children and the active military duty husband she has, the doctor says the sewing must go. And for the chest pain? A brown paper bag.
I've needed my own brown paper bags lately. Between a much anticipated trip gone wrong and a pregnancy gone wrong to boot, the paper bag seems like a good option. The questions of why of course go unanswered now. The cliched advice from well-meaning people rings in my ears. "God is faithful." I know it in my head. I've said it to myself even in the midst of my own turmoil. But today I asked myself if I really believed it in my heart? I find myself back at the beginning with God. The children's song, Jesus Loves Me, echoes in my mind. But do I really believe it when it counts? Do I have that love to offer to my neighbor who struggles to pay her bills and whose lonliness haunts her daily? Why is it that sometimes it feels like the whole system is flawed?
My daughter's devotional had a craft in it a few nights ago. The instructions were to cut a small paper bag around the bottom to make a small crown. My daughter was to wear it and pretend that she was a princess. Brown bags are for princesses when we are small and they become sanity for us when we are grown. That's not the picture that I want to pass on to my daughter. What if, just for a moment, I cut out my own crown from my brown bag? What if I walked around and pretended that I was a princess? To God, it really would not be that silly for that is how He sees me.
So how does one get from the brown bag-breathing existance to the brown bag royal living? The only thing I can figure is that it comes through faith. Today, I know, my faith is all but lost. My body is tired and weak. I've cried out from the depths of who I am. All I can do and all I know how to do is hang on with one bag cut into a crown for my head and one in my hand to breathe into slowly. My king, rescue your daughter. I am desperate for you. Overwhelm me with your love right in the midst of my tribulation. Teach me, God, how to live like a princess in the middle of the mire.
My parents continue to seek God on where and how they are to proceed through their own valleys. Talk of towing cars or driving cars is accented by the wonderings of money to pay for the trip. Questions about hurts and why they had to endure seem to cloud them right now. It seems like when you are right in the middle of a storm the tendency is to look back over your shoulder and see the pattern of storms that seem to make a b-line right for your life. "Breathe into a small brown bag," I told my mom. My sister had gotten the advice when she was at the doctor recently.
Tennis elbow plagues my sister as she is now forced to give up a passion for sewing. She sews such beautiful purses. Between the 4 active children and the active military duty husband she has, the doctor says the sewing must go. And for the chest pain? A brown paper bag.
I've needed my own brown paper bags lately. Between a much anticipated trip gone wrong and a pregnancy gone wrong to boot, the paper bag seems like a good option. The questions of why of course go unanswered now. The cliched advice from well-meaning people rings in my ears. "God is faithful." I know it in my head. I've said it to myself even in the midst of my own turmoil. But today I asked myself if I really believed it in my heart? I find myself back at the beginning with God. The children's song, Jesus Loves Me, echoes in my mind. But do I really believe it when it counts? Do I have that love to offer to my neighbor who struggles to pay her bills and whose lonliness haunts her daily? Why is it that sometimes it feels like the whole system is flawed?
My daughter's devotional had a craft in it a few nights ago. The instructions were to cut a small paper bag around the bottom to make a small crown. My daughter was to wear it and pretend that she was a princess. Brown bags are for princesses when we are small and they become sanity for us when we are grown. That's not the picture that I want to pass on to my daughter. What if, just for a moment, I cut out my own crown from my brown bag? What if I walked around and pretended that I was a princess? To God, it really would not be that silly for that is how He sees me.
So how does one get from the brown bag-breathing existance to the brown bag royal living? The only thing I can figure is that it comes through faith. Today, I know, my faith is all but lost. My body is tired and weak. I've cried out from the depths of who I am. All I can do and all I know how to do is hang on with one bag cut into a crown for my head and one in my hand to breathe into slowly. My king, rescue your daughter. I am desperate for you. Overwhelm me with your love right in the midst of my tribulation. Teach me, God, how to live like a princess in the middle of the mire.
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