Submission

So, this entry is on submission to husbands.
And if you're single, you're probably thinking ok I'll stop reading then.
If you're married, you're probably thinking I have no idea what that means.

Please don't stop reading.
You're right, I don't. :)

But, if ya'll didn't know, I love reading other people's blogs. I have kinda gotten stuck in a mesh of blogs about kids with health problems, high risk pregnancies, etc. And I recently found one, by a Christian woman nicknamed MckMama (and she nicknamed her kids Big Mac, Small Fry, MckNugget and MckMuffin for anonymity's sake). Her last child had severe heart problems, even while in utero, which led to an enormous amount of stress on her marriage and marital problems. She wrote a post on submission, and I just wanted to highlight some of the things I found in there that I thought we all could benefit from:

1. "It isn't my grip on things that keeps our little life chugging along so nicely. In fact, it was at my own hands that the life was being drained from my own marriage. It is God's grip on us, whether we choose to believe in Him or not, that is the only true grip. My grip was just an illusion."
--we don't have control over our lives! God is ultimately in control, and we are to submit and surrender to Him

2. "Likewise, there was and is nothing I can do to guarantee a fulfilling marriage with my husband.Nothing, that is, apart from choosing to follow God's will for my marriage."
--In all areas of life, there is nothing we can do to ensure a perfect outcome. We can chase after all the worldly pleasures we think we will bring fulfillment, but ultimately we will only find fulfillment in doing God's will.

3. "I am beginning to strive to speak nicely to my husband even when he is not doing the same. I seek to respect him even if he is not acting respectable. After all, I enjoy being loved even when I am unlovable! And God always loves us even when we are unlovable."
--Wow, I certainly don't have that attitude, do you? Am I so thankful that God loves me in spite of me that that thankfulness outpours in love for others? When we are married, there will doubtless be times when our husbands are not respectable and unlovable (in our eyes) but we must go against our natural inclinations. It reminds me of Pastor's sermon on forgiveness this past Sunday; we are forgiven SO MUCH that we MUST forgive others.

4. "What if marriage were meant to make us holy and not (simply) happy?"
--Sharon talked last night at Beautiful Minds about how our culture trains us to think that marriage is simply a romantic love, but there is a whole other reality. In all situations God has for us, He has designed those situations for our benefit, and we have the opportunity to please Him by praying that He would make us more holy. Plus...

5. "[I felt like God was saying,] 'Quit seeking happiness in your marriage by trying to find meaning and emotion in every single cotton pickin' thing your husband does or doesn't do. Just relax. Just be. Just serve me with your marriage. Prince Charming can never make you ultimately happy, anyway.' In surrendering my need to be fulfilled by another human being, I thought I'd be left with a bit of a hollow feeling. But the opposite has been true! In fact, I was just telling Prince Charming yesterday that I feel a weightless freedom that I have never known before. To not require him to meet my happiness needs doesn't leave me feeling unhappy"
--A husband CANNOT make us ultimately happy, anyway. That is too much burden on him! Only in God can we find ultimate happiness and fulfillment.


And that's that :) I have so many other post thoughts stored in my head at the moment though...and 2 whole free days of work!! ;)

Bits from The Problem of Pain

I've been reading The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis, and I wanted to share a few things with you from that:

Confession:

As we've been hearing, we must confess our sin. But when we confess, we tend to detach ourselves from the sin. I know I do: "Ok, now I've confessed, and everybody knows, and everybody's forgiven me--and guess what, a lot of other people have been doing it too! So now, as long as I change, I'm all good." When we repent and confess, God covers our guilt, but we can't pretend that it never happened. We shouldn't dwell in guilt, but where we would have seen guilt, we can't see nothing. We have to see God's righteousness and his forgiveness.

The will:

Many of us are realizing that we have to give things up. Some of these things were sinful, but many of them were just things that were too distracting for us, or weren't in God's plan for us. I thought this quote was really applicable:

"In order to submit the will to God, we must have a will and that will must have objects. Christian renunciation does not mean stoic "Apathy," but a readiness to prefer God to inferior ends which are in themselves lawful. Hence the Perfect Man brought to Gethsemane a will, and a strong will, to escape suffering and death if such escape were compatible with the Father's will, combined with a perfect readiness for obedience if it were not."

 When we give things up we usually aren't going to stop desiring them; if we did, there would be no sacrifice. But we have to be willing to do God's will anyways. (By the way, this doesn't mean that we should feed these desires, even the lawful ones, if we know they aren't God's will--why would we just make it harder on ourselves?)

Goodness does not equal kindness:

Lewis observes that today's society tends to equate goodness with kindness, or mercy. Thus, almost any other sin is treated as ok (if not theoretically, at least practically). Lust, laziness, cheating, whatever, are fine--as long as they doesn't hurt anyone. This was an important insight for me because I've struggled with just that thought--"Well, it doesn't hurt anyone, so what's the big deal? I mean, of course a Christian shouldn't do it, but does it really matter for an unbeliever?" At least two things are wrong with this:

1. God's law is always right and true. We shouldn't condone any sin--even ones that aren't inherently cruel. God hates laziness just as much as he does cruelty; he hates hypocrisy as much as he does meanness. 

2. "...Plato rightly taught that virtue is one. You cannot be kind unless you have all the other virtues. If, being cowardly, conceited and slothful, you have never yet done a fellow creature great mischief, that is only because your neighbour's welfare has not yet happened to conflict with your safety, self-approval, or ease." 

We still may not be able to convince a non-Christian that these other things are just as evil as cruelty, but we at least don't have to approve of it--including indirectly. In a book by George MacDonald, a mysterious, old princess who represents God tells a boy who has seen her "'something not to do...If you should hear anyone speak about me, never to laugh or make fun of me.'

'Oh, ma'am!' exclaimed Curdie, shocked that she should think such a request needful. 

'Stop, stop,' she went on. 'People hereabout sometimes tell very odd and in fact ridiculous stories of an old woman who watches what is going on, and occasionally interferes. They mean me, though what they say is often great nonsense. Now what I want of you is not to laugh, or side with them in any way; because they will take that to mean you don't believe there is any such person a bit more than they do. Now that would not be the case -- would it Curdie?'"

I've been convicted that I have done this very thing--and it's even easier to do when it comes to sin. When classmates tell me how they cheated in some class last semester, I probably don't have to rebuke them, but I certainly should not laugh. 

(P.S. If you need something to read, these are both great books! The one by MacDonald is The Princess and Curdie, sequel to The Princess and the Goblin. I'm almost positive our church library has the Problem of Pain (with the other church books) as well as The Princess and the Goblin/Curdie (in the school YA section, last time I checked), and I have them as well. Just to warn you, both books have some things that we wouldn't agree with, so you have to read critically, but they are still chalk full of very helpful things as well!) :)

"This is All That I Can Give...That's My Everything"

Tonight at Beautiful Minds, Sharon said something to the effect of, how much do we need God? How much do we want Him in our lives? A little bit of need? Or do we really truly NEED Him? Are we able to say to Him, God take all? Like the widow who gave her two coins, are we able to give Him everything we have, no matter how pitiful??

Then I go to the blog Bring The Rain (audreycaroline.blogspot.com) and this song by the David Crowder Band comes on:
Lord I'm tired
So tired from walking
And Lord I'm so alone
And Lord the dark
Is creeping in
Creeping up
To swallow me
I think I'll stop
Rest here a while

And didn't You see me cry'n?
And didn't You hear me call Your name?
Wasn't it You I gave my heart to?
I wish You'd remember
Where you sat it down

Chorus:
And this is all that I can say right now
i know it's not much
And this is all that I can give
yeah that's my everything

Bridge:
I didn't notice
You were standing here
I didn't know that
That was You holding me
I didn't notice
You were cry'n too
I didn't know that
That was You washing my feet


See the chorus? Our lives are nothing. There is not much we can bring to Christ. We don't have some great gift to bring. All we have is our pitiful lives. But He wants us to bring that--to bring our everything.

I am only starting to see a little piece of what God requires of me. Girls, what are you willing to give up? Consider the things He may ask of you:

*He may ask you to be single for the rest of your life. Can you submit that to Him?

*He may not grant you children. Can you submit that to Him?

*He may direct you to be a missionary in another country. Can you submit that to Him?

*He may take people away from you that you love. A breakup, a friend forsaking Christ, a child dying. Can you submit that to Him?


Tonight we learned about how Oswald Chambers was in a relationship with a girl he loved for eight years, and then gave her up because she was not God's will for him. Would you be willing to give up someone you loved for Christ? Completely give up your wishes in order to be in submission to Him?


SURRENDER ALL AND BE BLESSED!!

Hopeful...

I have been thinking a lot about how easy it is to get depressed because of sin, and feel unable to move on or change. Especially going back into school (or into a work world, or any unfamiliar setting), it's easy to be afraid of the world--will they just pull me down? Look at all this sin; how could I ever get out of it?? I've really been convicted of this lately, and spoken to about it--GOD is able to give us all the power we need! But here are some verses:

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you" (Deuteronomy 31:6)

God promises to be with us as long as we desire to serve Him--He is not going to let us go! But we must cling to Him! Press into spiritual discipleship, read His Word, memorize verses! He promises to protect us and be with us!!

"You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." (Revelation 2:3-5)

Ok this is more of a warning: Don't leave the revival in July and August! Persevere for the glory of Christ, and He will bless you! Don't forsake the love you have for Christ now. How easy it is to be dulled by the world!

I wanted to share these last two verses as encouragement:

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)

Christ knows what you are going through--He was tempted to feel depressed, to go against His Father's authority, to not want the will of the Father. Yet through it, He did the will of the Father. And think about this--sometimes I feel like God has forsaken me and then I realize my sin is inhibiting me from talking to and communing with Him. But Christ was on the cross, TRULY forsaken, like we could never know, for OUR sake. Living in a way that pleases Christ is glorifying to Him and so small compared to the great work He did for us on the cross!!


P.S. I was really convicted because I had a couple words of each of these verses in my head but didn't have them memorized and didn't know really where they were in the Bible...thank goodness for technology and biblegateway.com, but phew I really need to memorize!!

Love you all! Happy Monday!

From Our Reading...

This morning in Isaiah 45:9...

"Does the clay say to the potter, 'what are you making?'"

So right before this, there is a woe to those who quarrel with God. But I wanted to apply it to me. I realized there are several ways that I wrongly ask this question. It sometimes is in the form of an argument with God--"God, why are you making me like this? I wanted to be THIS. I wanted things to turn out this way." It would be as if the clay spoke to the potter saying, "A brown vase, really? I wanted to be a blue teacup. I think I would be much better suited for something delicate, pretty, and attention-grabbing. Brown vases are just functional and boring. No one looks at them or compliments them, and they don't have any fun. You're obviously doing this wrong!"

Or what if the clay is constantly questioning the potter? "What are you doing NOW? Are you done yet? What's next? What detail are you going to carve right there? Are you sure you wanted to make that cut?" Constant questioning of God's plan and God's will is mistrust in God. I need to be quiet and do what He commands and trust that He has a plan for me that He will work out for my good. Instead of always trying to see what is around the next corner, I need to focus on God's will for me now. Glorify God in the mundane!

My other thought on this is how the clay could be asking the potter about other pieces of pottery. "What about that lump? What are you making it into? I only see a lump of clay, I don't think it can be made into anything beautiful. Or that cup. It's starting to come together, but I don't see it ever changing anymore. I think it'll just have to stay undone." Do you ever question God's work in others? Especially during this revival, when we are hearing the encouragement to not quench the Spirit's fire. Don't stop someone else from being moldable for Him! Encourage them in their walk! Be excited at the change in someone else! This is really difficult for me, but we are called to trust Him, not people.

Is there a right way to question our Maker? I think so. We are to "work out (our) salvation with fear and trembling"(Philippians 2:12). We are to ask Him which way He wants us to go. God, how can I be more humble and moldable for Your purposes? Please give me that humility and help me to be totally bendable according to Your will. Show me Your purpose for me today, and help me to live in a way that pleases You. I don't know exactly what You have for me, but I am trusting You that You will fulfill your good plan in accordance with Your will."

And lastly, a verse we all know but a good friend shared with me at church yesterday:

" 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jeremiah 29:11)

Let's start our week out trusting God!!

Scattered Thoughts

Sometimes I feel like God has taken everything away from me, and I don't get it. I don't understand why I can't have the things that make me happy.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Isn't that so easy to say? And so hard to live out? When friends leave, when earthly comforts seem to be going away, when we don't understand why things happen, it is so hard to live like this verse is true.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

But WHY, God? I want to know why you allow certain things to happen. Why do you allow me to sin? Why do you take things away from me that I consider so dear? Why am I saddened and confused and hurt??

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Oh, I just saw that. In ALL things. In all hurt, God? Really? Because I'm not seeing much good right now. For MY good? I do love you, God. More than everything else? I'm trying God. Sometimes that part is hard.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Your purpose. Got it. Not mine. Because just to let You know, God, (and I know you already know) Your purpose is often not mine. My will wants something else most of the time. Like right now. I want Your will, but I want mine, too. I want Your will to be my will. But that's not right, God. I know. Help me to believe, and help me to surrender!!! Help me to see that I may not know the why, or how things will ultimately be for my good, but help me to see that You are working them out for my good. God, that is the most encouraging promise I have ever heard! Help me to TRUST You in that!!!



Something I was thinking about on the way home tonight...kind of had these thoughts in the form of a prayer.

"God, why do you allow me pain in my friendships with people? I am often disappointed by them. I hate when friends don't keep commitments or don't seem to love me or want to be around me. I hate that most of my friendships are superficial, and I hate that people don't make time for me."

"Jenna, the Best Friend you can have is Jesus Christ."

"God, I know that You say that. But I don't really see it. Plus, I can't have dinner with Him. I can't go on a walk with Him. I can't do anything for Him."

"Jenna. You are called to commune with Him. You are called to walk with Him. I want you to love Me and serve Me and obey My will. This pleases Me."

"Yes, God, but. But what about my friends on earth? I put so much time into some of my friendships; all I want is some kind of response."

"Jenna, that's the point. You put so much time and energy and resources into things and people I have told you will ultimately disappoint. You have put your trust in people who are sinful and faulty. You have invested into relationships that are by nature, temporal. What about Me? How much time have you spent with Me lately? How much have you valued Me? How much have you done to please Me? I have promised to never leave you or forsake you. I have promised to always love you with a real love. I have promised you. I do not change. I do not disappoint. I promise to be here whenever you need Me, day or night. I promise to keep my promises. I promise that if you do what I command, you will be blessed. Could you ask for a better friend? No matter what person you invest in on earth, it will never be as satisfying as a relationship with Me. TRUST Me, Jenna. OBEY Me, Jenna."

How easy is it to pretend that we are loving our friends and not expecting anything from them in return, but then we get angry or self-righteous or indignant or sad or depressed when we don't get anything in return? Christ has promised to be our friend. To be our Savior and Lord. And, that if we follow Him, we will be blessed. Girls, we are told to love as He loved us. What causes us to devalue that love or think that any other kind of love is better?? He is offering that love to us--let's take it!



One more thought:

I think I read this story in an Elisabeth Elliot book...
A woman was struggling between her will and God's will. Which to choose, which to choose...
A wise pastor gave her a piece of paper with two words on it and told her to cross one off, and she would have her answer.
She came back and silently handed him her paper, with neither word crossed off.
On the paper was written "Yes, Lord." We cannot cross off either word and still be in His will. To cross off "Lord" would be to blatantly admit that He is not our Lord--we are not doing His will, we don't care. Yet to cross off "yes", we cannot still call Him Lord.

Surrender

I want to tell you guys a little story. There's not much detail, but I hope you can understand what I'm saying.

I was having my devotions one morning ago and I felt like God was really speaking to me to get rid of idols. I prayed He would show me specific things, because I didn't feel like I had anything huge (materially or physically) that I could give up. God pointed out a box to me that I had in my closet. The box was full of things that on their own were not sinful, but symbolized my idolatry. It was pretty difficult, but I went through the contents of the box and threw everything away.

Nice story, right? Not done. The next morning, God brought to mind something I had recieved as a gift that I needed to give up. "No, God. THAT'S not that big a deal. I don't even think about that very much. It's not important. Plus look, God. It's in its own box. It's hidden from view...out of sight, out of mind." "Jenna, throw it away." "Wait, hold on, God. It's so important to me! I CAN'T give that up! I'll give anything else up! Plus it cost a lot of money. That's wasteful. That's not good stewardship. And it has so much sentimental value. Please don't make me throw that away, God!!"

God brought the following things to mind:
*In Old Testament times, many people hid idols--even think of Jacob's wife Rachel, who tried to hide idols from God, her husband, and her father. Think of how severely God punished those people! He even opened up the earth and swallowed one person and his family! God does NOT tolerate idolatry!

*If it means so much to me that I don't want to give it up, it is an idol.

*If it is in a box, it is no less hidden from God. He is a jealous God, and idolatry sickens Him.

*If I try to pretend it is not important, why can I not give it up?

*If I try to rationalize it, it is probably an idol.

*If I try to hide it, it is probably an idol.

*If I want to keep even 'only' that, it is probably an idol.

Guess what ladies? God gave me grace to throw that item away, and He kept showing me more and I kept throwing them away. God can give you grace to throw out the idols in your life, and He can give you the grace to truly surrender. We learned today in adult Sunday school that the power of grace is greater than the power of sin!

He is mighty to save, our God is MIGHTY to save!
He rose and conquered the grave!

Praise God!

P.S. I'm still learning to surrender. Daily process, daily struggle.

Love you ladies! :)