My Disjointed Ramblings and His Interceding Spirit

If you read my first post, you know that one of the goals of this blog is to be an outlet for focusing my thoughts and purging my overflowing inbox of the brain. It has been challenging to do that this week. So many things have been on my mind and every time I think I have found something to focus in on or dig into I get distracted by a completely new thought that I never thought of before. If you have ever seen the Disney movie “UP” I feel an awful lot like the dog Doug. “I really think that I would like to focus my thoughts on the topic of… Squirrel!” This happens to me far too often and not always at the most appropriate of times.

 

Even as I sit and type this I am glad there is not a timer to show how long it is actually taking me to type *cough, cough, days, ahem, ahem.* To be fair, it’s not all that my brain is skipping around on its own. Many times it is being dragged from one situation to another by the other people in my house. Perhaps this has happened so many times that my thought process has been damaged and can no longer function at a normal level on a daily basis. I am expected to process many requests, reminders of activities, inquiries of minimal importance, and inquiries of serious importance often all at the same time.

“Mommy, can you get, do we have, are we going, did you do, what’s wrong with, does this thing, where’s my, I need to ask, can I, why did, who did, are you going to solve world hunger or at least fix me dinner?” actually sounds like a perfectly normal question in my neck of the West Virginia woods. And this is just the line of fire from two of the small people in my house. I have not even thrown in the sharing of the day’s activities with my husband or the fact that our 19 month old is learning a new word every two minutes and wants us to make sure we hear him. With all of this going on just on the inside of the house on a daily basis it’s not a mystery why I struggle at times to keep my focus. I am bombarded with words and thoughts from every person in my home including myself.

Lest you think I am complaining, I am most definitely not. I quite enjoy my noisy life most of the time. The silence, when I am alone on those rare occasions, is often deafening. I have become accustomed to the rapid fire line of questioning and fun that comes with jumping from one activity to another with my littlest or from one topic to another as I talk with my family. I truly and deeply love that we have the ability to talk to one another about whatever in this home. No, not complaining just pondering.

I am pondering the effects of this on my ability to focus in when it really matters. I am considering carefully what implications this holds when it comes to my spiritual life. I really am wondering, if my conversation and thoughts are jumbled sometimes because of all of the stuff of life what does this mean when I am trying to have thoughtful communication with God? Can He find His way through my mess of a mind and understand my disjointed ramblings? When I jump from one request to another can He keep up? When I pray one second that my sweet babies sleep well and in the middle of the sentence remember to pray for a friend with a deeper need and I just can’t seem to find the words to express the love, need, want, thankfulness that is rolling around in my heart, can He understand?

Romans 8:9-11

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

Romans 8:26-28

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Yes. Yes, my Heavenly Father can find His way through my mess of a mind and understand my disjointed ramblings. Yes, He can keep up. Yes, He can understand when I cannot find words for my love, need, want, thankfulness. He can because He is not a distant unknown God. His Spirit is dwelling in me giving me life that will last far beyond this muddled one here on earth. His Spirit is helping me in my weakness searching and knowing my heart and interceding for me that God’s will be done in my life. Even in my times of light hearted fun, hurried craziness, or desperate need, I can be assured that all things will work out according to His purpose and it will be for the good even if I cannot see it in the moment.

Because I am a part of Christ's body and through baptism I am clothed in Him (Galatians 3:27) even with what may seem like the smallest of struggles I can take great comfort in the fact that He is with me helping to make sense of it all even when I don’t make sense. I may not completely understand all the ways that He is working in me but I know that He is.

Thank you God for the Spirit of Christ, let us never take the gift of the triune God for granted.

Constantly Surrounded

I am blessed with three beautiful children. They are all very talented at different things and I love to see them excel in the activities that they love. However, my greatest joy in life is seeing them excel in their understanding of God’s Word. For the last few years we have attended the annual Lads to Leaders convention in Louisville, KY. If you are unfamiliar with the Lads program it is a wonderful way to help young people grow just as it is said that Jesus did in Luke 2:52 “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” It gives them opportunity to learn how to study and prepare lessons, lead singing, and it even shows them how to use their artistic abilities and unique talents to glorify God and the church. 

My older two children have participated in several events at Lads to Leaders over the years, one of which is presenting a speech based on the convention theme for the year. They spent hours, with their Daddy’s help, pouring over passages and finding a topic that they felt they could speak about. They were thoughtful in every word that they wrote on the page and even used personal illustrations just like I am doing now. They looked to their family and church for guidance. Most of all they spoke straight from the Word of God. They prepared themselves to say the right thing. And they could do this because they were looking to the right sources for their material. They were able to find the words they should use because they had the right sources, God’s Word and God’s people, in front of them. They were constantly surrounded. Of course they are young and they were directed to those places by the adults in their life.

This caused me to think about their future. You see, at some point we have the ability to choose what we look to as an example. My kiddos are having the source for their speech put in front of them by their parents and their church family. One day they will have the choice of what they use as a pattern not only for how they may write a speech but how they live their lives. My prayer is that they will continue to choose what has been placed in front of them. For many who may be reading this, you obviously view God’s Word as important or as having at least some relevance or you probably wouldn't have chosen to continue reading this blog after the part about watching my children excel in their understanding of God’s Word. We certainly allow the Bible to have some influence in our lives. The question is how much?

How much power do we allow God to have over how we choose to live our lives and, more specific to the topic I want to address today, how we choose to speak? The book of James says “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” God has the wisdom and he is willing to share. All we have to do is ask. Perhaps if we spent more time in communication with God through prayer he would be able to guide our tongues more readily in our communication with others. Perhaps if we held God up in reverence and spoke more highly of Him in our communication everything else would fall into place.

I would submit that we, as a society, have become so overrun with negative influences that we as Christians have become confused and overwhelmed and in many cases we have given up trying to discern what is proper from what is improper. I do not just mean proper in the since of “politically correct” or social poise, I mean proper in every manner of speech.

Let me give you this example that really impacted my life when I first heard it from another sister in Christ several years ago at a ladies’ class. If someone came into your home, sat down on your couch and began making crude jokes, cursing, drinking, smoking, and doing vulgar things in front of your family and especially your children or grandchildren I feel confident in saying you would ask them to stop the behavior and you may even tell them to leave your house if they are going to continue in this manner. And yet we invite these people into our homes almost daily. We give them a place of honor as the focal point of our living rooms. We laugh at their crude jokes, rudeness and disrespectful language. We tell them to stay as long as they like and we ask them to repeat themselves with the push of a button. We do this with the kinds of things we choose to watch on television or listen to on the radio. We allow our family and our children to glorify the people who do and say coarse, rude and unkind things. We do this with a laugh and a wink and say “Don’t do or say what they do honey.” We make excuses for them. We make excuses for ourselves. We say, “Well, I am strong enough and smart enough to know better than to behave that way or speak those words.” We can see evidence in James that you are not. I am not. James 3:2 says, “For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.”  James 8-10 says, “but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” None of us are so good that we are going to be able to avoid the effects of continuously inviting sinful behavior into our homes and expect that we won’t soon be tangled up in it ourselves. I have noticed these things in myself. I have noticed television shows shaping my worldview and my speech far more often than I allow the words that my savior has spoken to me to do the same.

Some of you may think that I am crazy when I tell you this but, within the last several years, I have begun a purging of movies from my collection and I have been more discerning about what I choose to watch. I am a music lover but I have given up listening to many songs that I once loved because I caught behavior in my speech and in my thoughts that was beginning to reflect the worldly tones of some of those things. I will also share that, sadly, many people do not understand this decision and some of those who do not understand and have even made fun of this are fellow Christians. I have been told such things as “people will think you are a fanatic or something” and "your kids are going to be made fun of if they don't know that song or that show." My response is simply, I do not care. That is what my problem has been for far to long in my life. I have been thinking too much and worrying too much about what everyone else thinks of me. I do not need to be me centered, I need to be Christ centered. If I am going to be centered on Him then I must think on the things He has told me to think about and fill my life with them.

Philippians 4:8-9 says “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

We may ask “Why God? Why do what Paul says here in Philippians?” Jesus says to the Pharisees in Matthew 12:33-37 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

If there is anything I can do in my life to fill it up with true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent things that are worthy of praise and in the process fill my heart so abundantly that it can’t help but pour out in my life and in my speech, as a committed follower of Christ I am obligated to do it. If getting rid of things in this world that I once thought I loved and cherished helps me to find things that truly matter, I will do it. I owe it to God. I owe it to His Son. I owe it to the Holy Spirit. I must get rid of things that cause my heart to be filled in abundance with worldly ideals.

I told you before that my prayer for my children is that they will decide to place before themselves good and godly things. How can I hope for them to make that choice if I myself am unwilling to?

If we have any hope of our communication with others being good we must first start with what we choose to fill our hearts with. Because, as It says in Matthew 12:34 “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Not only is it important to surround ourselves with God’s Word, we also need to surround ourselves with God’s people. One of my favorite stories to tell is about a little child who is in his room during a storm and cries out for his father. The dad comes in and says to the boy, “it is only a storm, pray to God for comfort and he will give it to you.” The dad leaves but this action is repeated a few more times until finally the boy cries out and says “Daddy! I know God is there and he will protect me but sometimes I just need someone with skin on!” How true this is in so many areas of our lives. We have God, we have His word but, He in His infinite wisdom knew we couldn't do any of this alone. He blessed us with His Church and with fellow believers and while we should never look to any person as a guide to all things holy, surrounding ourselves with people of like mind can be an encouragement and can also help shape our speech to be more Godly.

We lived in Louisville, KY for eight years. Driving in the city of Louisville is, in a word, interesting. My husband and I were out one afternoon running some errands before we went to get the kids from school. We had plenty of time but we noticed that we were soon speeding in and out of traffic as if we did not. We were surrounded by others who were in a rush to get to this place or that place and we soon found ourselves joining in the behavior. Suddenly, we had to hurry. Suddenly, it was an urgent thing to get where we were going. We noticed the behavior and began to laugh about it and slow down a little. It is so easy to begin behaving like those you are surrounded with, to give in to the mentality of the majority.

If we are surrounded constantly by materials and people who do not see the importance of speaking to God in prayer for guidance or do not speak His name with reverence we may soon find ourselves slipping into the same behavior.

The Tie that Binds

I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. Maybe you've heard of it? New Johnsonville, TN? Zip code 37134? Population contained within that zip code according to my inquiry online 3,018? That sounds high though so Google could be having an off day. If you know it, I probably know you so let me just say - Hey friend! How have you been and say hello to the family! That's just how a small town works. I know you and you know me and I beg you not to comment in the comment space about all the really dumb things I did when I was a kid because that is another post completely! 

My thoughts have been pretty focused today on my community. No, not that small town only, though they are included, but, my community of faith. My family in Christ. That family started in that small town. In that average looking church building full of normal, everyday folks.

I cannot remember a day of my life that I didn't know the people at the New Johnsonville Church of Christ. From birth my parents made sure I was taught the importance of God's Word and His family. I was baptized into the body of Christ in that building and can remember being told things like "welcome to the family" and "so glad you are my sister now" as they congratulated me on beginning a new stage of my life. I understood the meaning of words that they were saying and I new that there was a deeper, spiritual meaning there but, I did not really grasp just how deep that meaning was until I was older.  

Fast forward a few years and I was married in that church building. From my youth my parents made sure I was taught about the kind of mate I should be looking for. I was surrounded by the same people who had welcomed me into the family of God and called me sister. They were now congratulating me on yet another new stage in my life. I was beginning to see the family dynamic of the church unfold but I still did not really grasp just how deep that dynamic was. 

We were married a year and we were packed up and moving across the country to yet another small town, Clayton, New Mexico. My husband had accepted his first full time preaching position. From the time I could talk my parents made sure to teach me to use my voice as a tool for God. It was 1000 miles exactly from the door of our house in Clayton to the door of my parents home in New Johnsonville. My parents were sad, to say the least, that I was moving so far away but they were loaded up with us and tagging along as our moving crew. We were young, nervous, excited, and full of all kinds of feelings that we had never felt before. Many members of the congregation showed up to help us unload and worked really hard to make us feel welcome. Then, my parents left. They drove away. There we were, my husband and I. What had we done? My family was not there! My family was in New Johnsonville, Tennessee! My husband consoled me and the church family took us both in as their own. I saw a bit more of what that family meant and was beginning to see something deeper.

We were very busy working with the church in Clayton for three years. We were blessed with the birth of our first child while we were there. Then we were packed up and moving across the country to yet another small town to work with the church in Paris, KY. We had purchased a house sight unseen, by us anyway. My parents and one of the members of the church there had worked very diligently to find us a place to live. We arrived late at night but there, at our never before seen house, was a posse of church folks ready to work. They worked very hard to make us feel welcome. We were closer to my parents now and were very excited to get to see them more often. When they drove away this time it wasn't nearly as traumatic. There was a new feeling now, a longing, not for New Johnsonville but for Clayton. I missed them deeply. My husband consoled me, yet again, and the church family took all three of us in as their own. I was sensing a pattern it was beginning to look familiar. I saw even more of what that family meant and it was getting deeper.

The work of the church was chugging along for four years in Paris. We were blessed with the birth of our second child while we were there. Then we were packed up and moving across the state to the not so small town of Louisville, KY to work with the Watterson Trail Church of Christ. Church members at Paris loaded us up in one of their trailers and joined us and my parents as we moved yet again. Many members of the congregation showed up to welcome us and help us. Then, our friends from Paris drove away. They drove away. What had we done? We had new people to get to know, again! Now I was still deeply missing the church at Clayton, NM and longing for the familiarity and friendships of the church at Paris, KY! My husband, ever the trooper, consoled me one more time and the church family took all four of us in as their own. Wait? Is this song stuck on replay? I was really seeing the pattern now. I would be crazy to miss it this time! This is what they meant by "welcome to the family sister!" 

The work of the church was strong for the eight years we were at Watterson Trail. We were blessed with the birth of our third child while we were there. Then, the hardest move yet. We were packed up and moving to West Virginia to work with Ohio Valley University. My parents were there as always. The trucks were loaded and there were still things left to load! An Elder, a deacon, and the youth and family minister said "no problem, we have you covered." They loaded up their own personal vehicle and were tagging along with us. Then, as they always do, they drove away. Now, it's real. I moved so far away from my family in New Johnsonville all those years ago only to find that I had truly been moving closer to God's family all along.

God has taught me the meaning of His word through this journey. I have learned, very deeply, the meaning of Ephesians 4:4-6 which says:

"There is one body and one Spirit - just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call - one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

And now, Acts 4:32 is so much more vivid to me. It says:

"Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common."

I know what it means to be so inter-connected with the one body. I have shared deep sorrows and joys with my family that no one outside of that family would understand. When a member of my family has joy, I feel it with them. When a member of my family has pain and sorrow, I ache with them.

What brings all of this to my mind today? Some members of my family are hurting very deeply today over the tragic loss of a dear loved one. I have been hurting for them and praying for them. Though I cannot be with them physically I am still able to wrap them in prayers for their grief. 

I grew up in a small town but now I am part of a large community filled with nothing but members of my family, God's family. That, in my humble opinion, is the tie that binds.