Crossway Life

The Plank family has been sick the past couple of weeks with the flu.  NO FUN!  (Sick toddlers are not the easiest of patients.)  With having a fever myself for three days and nights, I could literally only feed the children and get them in and out of bed.  My wonderful husband stayed home to help me when I could not function.  He cared for the children, fed them, and kept the laundry going.  I was so grateful for his help and his willingness to take off work for me.  I really don’t know what I would have done without him. 

As these most important things were being taken care of, I must admit that I had thoughts of less important things getting done as well.  Take for instance, cleaning the bathrooms.  After many days of sick people being in and out of the bathrooms, they began to look pretty grim.  The kitchen floor was sticky with things unrecognizable.  The laundry was clean, but not folded or put away.  The children’s beds were totally disheveled and made the rooms have a distinct odor.  My skin was crawling as I surveyed from the couch the house getting dirtier by the day.  Alas, these things would have to wait.

The past two days, I have felt much better and the children seem to be on the mend as well.  I dreamed for the previous three days of finally mopping the kitchen floor.  Today was the day!  I was so happy to have a few minutes to tackle this task.  When it was complete, I stood in the doorway and took a deep breath to experience its beauty and lemon-freshness.  Ahhhh.  Then it hit me . . . why was I so happy?  I am not usually jumping at the chance to mop my kitchen floor.  In fact, when I am in the daily grind of life these tasks can become a place of complaining for me.  Just like when I was sick with pregnancies, being removed from my daily tasks creates a new excitement that should be there all the time.  After 16 weeks of pregnancy sickness, I can’t wait to get back into my kitchen and serve my family delicious (at least edible) meals!  In my moments of sickness, God is faithful to help me see where I lack gratefulness and joy.  Thank you Father! Grace me to serve with joy and gladness all my days.

Even writing the title of this post gives me a serious pause.  It seems like a difficult task to complete, I hear the doubts rush into my mind, ”How do I parent with the gospel, I mean, how does it look practically?”

This past Monday night we brough our 6th child home from the hospital.  It was a wonderful moment, full of joy and happiness.  However, along with this blessing comes the responsibility to train this little one in the gospel of Christ.

I’ve been reading a book called Gospel-Powered Parenting by William Farley.  It’s an outstanding book reminding us to keep the gospel in the center of all we do in our parenting. May the following quotes encourage us all in the task of parenting…

Farley writes in the beginning of his book, “…the most effective parents have a clear grasp of the cross and its implications for daily life.  The implications are manifold.  They include the fear of God, a marriage that preaches the gospel to its children, deeply ingrained humility, gratitude, joy, firmness coupled with affection and consistent teaching modeled by parents daily.”

And he closes with this statement, “Here is the problem; You and I do not measure up.  Does this mean that we should give up and not try?  No, the gospel frees us to fail and continually reapply ourselves to an impossible standard. Why? God knows we cannot be perfect. His Son paid the price for our imperfections…So the gospel not only teaches us how to parent, The gospel salves the wounds of our imperfections, and it encourages us to persevere through our failures.”

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator.  In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father.  If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having him as his Father.

-JI Packer, Knowing God

Assurance of savlation is a tricky thing.  How do you know that your sins are forgiven?  What about the sins you committed last night?  This morning?  Surely if you were a good Christian you would stop doing such things.

Ultimately, our assurance of salvation must rest wholly in God’s work on our behalf.  There must be fruit in our lives if we are genuinely God’s children; but it is fruit that he produces. 

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.  So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:15-19

Do you struggle with assurance?  Do you doubt the love of God for you?  Stop studying yourself.  Study your Father.  Observe his ways: his great mercy and patience, his unfailing love.  Place your hope solely and squarely on him.  To know the Father is to be assured of his love.  It dishonors God to doubt his love and to walk in fear when he intends for us to walk in the freedom of being his children.  Why not take time today to consider: if you are in Jesus Christ, you are truly a child of God.  You are loved by God.

“H1n1″.  By now, most of us have seen the news enough to know the ups, downs, ins and outs of this buggy little virus that is currently sweeping the U.S.  The symptoms are many, but probably the most common symptom that has followed this flu is fear.

The idea of facing a virus that is being pinned as pandemic, responsible for over a thousand deaths in our country alone, can be a temptation to fear.  Particularly for those of us who have young children or babies, a virus like H1n1 carries a frightening list of possibilities.  And that is precisely where our Savior will step in to help us think rightly of the Swine Flu.  To this and all viral pandemics, terrorist strategies or possibilities of highway fatality we hear him say:

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.  (Matt. 6:34)

The Savior’s words are simple:  “Do not be anxious”.  What part of “not” don’t we understand?  God is God, and we are his children, held tightly in his sovereign hand.  Just as assuring: God sent Christ to die for us, and that should comfort us to the intent of his heart in and through all of life and its many trials.

His words are truth.  We are limited, creaturely beings who go at life one step at a time.  As parents, we restrict our children from handling dangerous chemicals for good reason.  God has restricted us from feeding our fears with tomorrow.

His words are grace.  Through Matthew 6:24-34, Christ tells us plainly that the Father, who controls flu viruses and highway accidents, loves us deeply and is committed to our good.  We are not dealing with a haphazard deity.  We are dealing with a perfect Father.

Let us face this flu season with faith.  Not faith that insists on escaping sickness, but faith that trusts completely the Father’s heart and hand.

 —————————–

For further reading, check out this article from CCEF entitled “The Bridge over Troubled Waters: Overcoming Crippling Fear by Faith and Love” HERE.

For a wonderfully loaded list of links to articles, audio sermons and books on fear and anxiety, head over HERE.

This morning I would like to write a profound post on the topic of Prayer. I would like to communicate what I am learning about how to pray. I’d like to include my reflections on the nature of God and how he answers prayers. If I have gotten your hopes up, let me apologize in advance. I am learning that I know less than I thought I knew.

Over the last several months I have been reading the book A Praying Life. I began because I was intrigued by some of the reviews that promised that it would “change your life.” I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical at first, however, as soon as I started the book I realized I had to slow down. The authors approach to the subject was humble, personally honesty and full of faith. I could feel my view of  God changing and I began to feel that God wanted to dismantle some of my inaccurate perceptions of prayer and the nature of God.

Here’s one small example:

Many things in life cannot be observed directly. In quantum physics you cannot observe a particles’ mass and speed at the same time. Or trying to describe the beauty of a woman by using a magnifying glass. … in the same way the closer you get to the character of God the less he can be measured. So it is with prayer.

Prayer is so wrapped up in the nature of God that to understand how it works one would have to be God . . .  I guess if there is one thing I am beginning to understand it’s this: as my perception of God grows larger my prayers become simpler. As God is gets bigger in my mind my problems get smaller (though not less intense) and my faith in God to answer prayer grows. God is much more eager to answer my prayers than I ever realized. In fact he is beginning to answer prayers that I haven’t even begun to ask! I can’t get my mind around that thought, but I love it!

If you don’t have time to read the book you can still approach our great God who wants to answer your prayers much more that you want your answers.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! - Rom. 11:33.

I have vivid memories while looking out of airplane windows.

My first airplane flight was from the crisp fall of New England to the dreary, overcast country of Germany. The shock of going from a cloudless, bright sky to a gloomy, drippy place was disheartening.  (I was soon to discover that the food in Germany would more than make up for the typical overcast weather!)

My most encouraging memories are memories of flying out of rainy weather.  Minutes earlier the clouds were heavy and unrelenting.  But the exhilaration of breaking through the clouds to the glory of a sunny, blue sky….it makes me laugh with joy.

Often our circumstances can feel like dreary weather.  The day-in-day-out grind of faithfully going to work while wishing we could be home.  The day-in-day-out rhythm of feeding and diapering little ones (and training, and laundry, and shopping, and cleaning something in there somewhere, and…..) all while you feel your friendships becoming more out of reach.  Or all that (minus the diapering) along with guiding maturing hearts (that often don’t want to be guided).  Or caring for aging and dying parents while you do all the above plus the diapering—while you feel less strength yourself….and your hormones aren’t helping either!  Or being the aging, dying parent.  I could go on.  And on.

II Corinthians 4: 16 & 17 says, “So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

That means that whatever we are going through now is getting us ready for a joy and pleasure and beauty and delight and gladness that will make all this worth it. The next verse says close your eyes to what you see and look at what you can’t see.  Because what you can see here is going to be done soon, but what you can’t see is never going to be done. (My translation)  The sun really is above the clouds!  And the clouds will soon part.  And then chapter 5 verse 4 says that we will be swallowed up by life. The joy of it makes me laugh!  Death isn’t going to swallow us up……life is!

photo by: misterbisson

With an uncomfortable sigh my wife says, “When will this baby come?”  It’s difficult to wait so long to have relief from discomfort and the blessing of a new born baby.  I remember as a child waiting for Christmas day with great anticipation, for me it couldn’t come quickly enough.  In my teen years, it seemed like forever waiting for the day I could get behind the wheel and drive.

We all experience some sort of “waiting” in this life.  However, when we are faced with “waiting” how do we respond? Do we wait patiently?  Or do we insist that we get what we want when we want it?  The Bible talks a lot about patience; in fact it’s one of the fruits of the Spirit, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience…”

When we patiently wait for things we show that inwardly we are trusting in the sovereignty of God; He’s the one who decides when things come about in this life. This goes for little things and big things, from waiting on the phone for customer service to waiting for the day that Christ returns.  Patience should be a byproduct of the Holy Spirit within us.

God has certainly been patient with us!  The truth of this should inform how we respond when things aren’t going the way we want them to. 

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

God will fulfill his promises!  We can trust God because He is trustworthy and has proven this by sending His own son to save sinners by dying on the cross. We certainly, and most importantly, “wait” for the day that Christ will return and take us home to be with Him in glory.  Until that day we must realize that all the waiting we do on this earth is meant for our good and for God’s glory.

So, let us continue to press on in faith, not losing hope.  God will never leave us nor forsake us and will return one day to judge the world and take His children home to be with Him forever!  And as we wait for the ‘trivial’ things on this Earth, may it remind us that God has and will fulfill all His promises to us.

By the way… My wife is has shown tons of patience as she waits for this baby to come.  Her example of patience humbles me to consider how I respond when I have to wait for things.