What is this?

I never thought about the spiritual aspects of giving my kids a bath or standing in a line at a grocery store. However, God has recently showed me some insightful biblical truths in some of the most mundane tasks in life. Whether I am driving, showering or sleeping each of these activities has a biblical truth tucked inside of it. In the forest of life, God’s biblical truth is inside each one of these trees. My hope is that others view the ordinary aspects of life through a spiritual lens and see what God teaches you.







Monday, August 5, 2013

This or That!


The best parenting advice I was given to survive the terrible twos stage of parenting was to give my child choices.  Now, I am NOT talking about a two year old choosing their bedtime.  But choices such as a selection of different fruits to eat with lunch or a few outfits to choose from when getting dressed in the morning.  This little technique “you can have EITHER this OR that” has saved me countless battles.
With the new school year approaching and shopping for school clothes being on the agenda,  I was ready to rely on my tried and true method of either/or scenarios in my first ever school clothes shopping trip with my daughter.  Yes, I am sending my first child to kindergarten with excitement and anxiousness!  Then as we were shopping in our first store going through the scenario of you can either chose this collared shirt or that one, but no T-shirts (darn dress-code) something hit me like a brick. I had recently been presenting a current prayer request to God in this either/or platform. This glorious shopping day that I had been looking forward to turned into a spiritual lesson for momma. Ouch!
We may think we don’t do it, but we do.  We make statements like, God should I purchase this item or that one, should I choose this job or that one, should I punish my child with this form of discipline or that one. When in reality Jesus could want you to give the money or choose another profession instead of another job or exercise grace in the situation of parenting.  Regardless of the situation, giving God some multiple choice selections to solve a problem is foolish. The worse feeling of all is that I knew this, but for some reason the application wasn’t taking place until my shopping encounter slapped me in the face.
For some strange reason we think that we can tell Jesus how to solve or fix a problem.  We tend to present to Jesus our either/ or scenarios and expect Him to fulfill one.   I am reminded of a great story found in John 8 when the Pharisees bring Jesus an adulteress woman and state in verse 5 “In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman.  Now what do you say?”  The Pharisees  decide to present Jesus with an either/or option. Either we stone her or break the law.   But Jesus doesn’t work that way and we should be THANKFUL He doesn’t.   He doesn’t do His work based on the options we present.  Instead Jesus gives the best answer of all. “If any of you is without sin, let him be first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).  While this story is a great reminder of why we are not to judge people, the attitude of the Pharisees is another biblical truth often overlooked.  Jesus is not pigeon holed by the choices we present.   He knows what we need, but we often don’t know how to ask.  We are like a child who forgets the right way to ask for something.
Therefore, I want my prayers to be presented with openness and without restriction.  I want my prayers to be presented without limits or conditions.   For God knows far more about my problem than I do and praying a preferred resolution is well……. Reckless!