Distracted by a Butterfly

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"but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own
evil desire and enticed." James 1:14

This morning I'm sitting in my dining room looking out the window into my backyard.  It's a sunny, breezy day... nice and cool... and I'm thinking about thinking.

I'm doing very well this morning, spiritually speaking.  But over the last week, I've had some challenges.  Technically speaking, I dipped into controlling behavior, self-condemnation, and depression.  By the grace of God, and with the help of friends and Pastors, I was able to pull myself out of it, but I really need to take some time and learn from this episode so I can cut it off earlier next time.

I was meditating on Ephesians 4:21-24 this morning, which says:

"Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the Truth that has come from Him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God - truly righteous and holy."

As I was laying on my office floor listening to Jason Upton's Faith CD and thinking about this piece of Scripture, the Lord showed me a picture.  Jason Upton was singing about having childlike faith, and in my spirit I saw a picture of a bright-eyed little girl playing outside in a field of wildflowers.  It was a bright, sunny day, and she was at peace and filled with joy as she moved through the field picking flowers and humming a song.  All was well with her soul.

Then along came a dark little butterfly that was a dark thought in disguise.  It whispered a lie in the little girl's ear that brought a little frown to her brow and a slight dimness to her eyes.  The butterfly was small, and seemed harmless, so she shrugged it off.  It returned again and whispered a lie that was even more tempting and dark, and the little girl's countenance darkened again, but again, though she had the power to squash the butterfly so it wouldn't bother her anymore, she shrugged it off.  Finally, the butterfly came back a third time, with a lie too tempting to ignore, and the little girl was hooked.  Even though the butterfly said things that hurt and troubled her deeply, she followed it because she believed its lies.  As the dark butterfly began to fly away from the beautiful field, she followed after it.  She knew she was going the wrong way, felt the knot of discontent forming in her stomach, and she longed for the peace of the field, but still, she followed the butterfly.

I know that butterfly, and where it leads.  It lives in darkness, depression, rejection, and discontent.  All who follow it will end up hopeless and defeated, and that's been a bad habit of mine.  Like an alcoholic who believes one drink won't hurt anything and ends up drowning in liquid sorrow, I have allowed that dark butterfly to keep coming back and whispering in my ear instead of squashing it like the evil bug it is.

The Bible says to "throw off your old sinful nature."  It tells us to put our flesh and old ways TO DEATH. This is where I sometimes fall down on the job and allow myself to wander off, ending up hopeless and defeated.

So, how do I keep that from happening again?  Well, that's the funny thing.  If you're anything like me, you probably think the only way to make it better is to work harder, be better, strive for excellence!  But the truth is that all my striving starts the cycle all over again.

Once I find myself in hopelessness and depression, I work hard to build up my faith and get myself to that place of joy and contentment before the Father.  But then, because I still believe the lie that I have to make myself perfect to be acceptable, I begin to work harder and harder to make myself better, and end up working myself into the ground... which makes me vulnerable to the butterfly, and I'm right back on my way to where I started.

So what's the answer?  Brokenness.

My flesh, my will, my pride have to be broken.  It's morbid, but I think of a person lying on the floor with a broken spine.  She can't move, can't breathe, can't survive without help.  And the only one who can help is God.  That is where real change lives.  In my weakness HE is made strong.  With the Father's direction, I need to begin to revel in my own weakness, without condemnation, and have faith in His strength... speaking the Word of God over my life, believing in His promises without wavering, obediently following His voice.

It seems like a tall order, but I only have to focus on right now... this moment... and as I look out my dining room window at the breezy day outside, I'm enjoying picking the wildflowers.

Waiting...

Passion.  Vision.  Purpose.  Calling.  These are some of my favorite words.  They cause a stirring in me that I sometimes cannot contain, but I'm still in the birthing process of God's plan for my life.  I can see His plan on the horizon and I know it's coming quickly, but I still have some waiting to do.

I'm not a big fan of waiting.  Unfortunately, sometimes I want it my way, and right now!  But no matter how much I push and shove to try to "get it done," God will not be moved.  He will not release His plan until HE is ready... and oh, how grateful I am for that!  God, in His great mercy, will not allow me to move from this waiting place until everything has been made ready.  He plans for me to succeed, and I will succeed, IF I will be obedient and wait on His timing.

Waiting on God can be hard, but there are some things that only He can take care of.  All I have to do is place my faith and trust in Him, because putting my hands on things to control them only makes the process longer.  So I wait...

But waiting is active... praying, believing, worshiping... and oddly enough, it takes passion, vision, and purpose!  I have to take hold of the vision He has given me for my life and hold on to my faith with passion knowing that all this waiting has a purpose!  He is growing me, He is preparing the ground for my future, He is working everything out for my good... for His glory... and soon enough, when He is ready, the calling He has given me will be born.

Finally, humility is KEY in this waiting game.  While I'm waiting, God is operating.  He is opening me up, exposing the cancer of sin and wrong thinking, and cutting it out.  He is shining His light on all the dark places within me and gently erasing signs of the enemy. He is pulling out old arrows, cleaning and closing old wounds, and massaging the scars to make them soft.  He is pouring His love out on me and making me better.  He is increasing my capacity to love, to give, and to receive.  He is surrounding me with His goodness and binding me up in His grace.

How I love Him so... and so I gladly wait.

Shaken

Everything that can be shaken WILL be shaken. 

Do you ever have those times when God is shaking things up in you?  When all of a sudden, your life is like the epicenter of a major earthquake... everything seems unstable and you can't find your footing... and it feels like everything will fall apart?  And didn't you feel fine BEFORE the earthquake started, but during the shaking you felt sort of chaotic inside?  

Maybe I'm the only one who goes through times like those, but I sincerely hope NOT.  

God, in His great mercy, allows things into our lives that will shake us up... on purpose. He sees all the unfinished business in our lives, and He is not willing to leave us incomplete.  He wants to shake out all the junk.  We may scream and cry like little children during the process, but does that stop Him?  Nope.  Like any good dad, Father God is completely unconcerned with our "comfort" while He is molding us and making us into HIS finished product... because He knows how great we're going to be when He's finally done!  He sees the end from the beginning, and He's SO EXCITED to show us ALL that He has planned!!  

Trust His process.  Job said, "though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."  Though we may feel like we are going to come apart, we're not.  He is keeping us safe... holding us together.

See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. 

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,  for our “God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:25-28)

No matter what, we cannot turn away.  We cannot refuse Him.  Our response should always be to hold tighter to Him by spending more time in prayer, more time in the Word. Getting to a place of submission and obedience will help the process along.  We just need to lay down on the Potter's wheel and let God have His way.  

Carpet Beetles & the Infiltration of Sin

One day several months ago, I saw a little black bug on the ceiling in my van.  I didn't know what it was, but it was tiny and motionless... and sort of cute, really.  Considering it harmless, I ignored it.  Over time, I began to see a few more.  Not really realizing what they were, I wondered about it, but again, decided to ignore them.  More time passed, and the kids would occasionally mention seeing a "tick" in the van, but when they described the bug, I knew it wasn't a tick, just some bug.  About the third time this happened, I looked at the bug they were talking about, and it was one of the same little black bugs.  At that time I noticed they were growing in numbers, but still there weren't that many.  I knew at that time that I needed to clean out the van, but being so busy, I put it off.  Again.

Finally, on the afternoon of Thursday, August 23, 2012, the day before I attended the Beautiful Awakening conference at Victory (Lisa Bevere - Lioness Arising), my mom came over to babysit while I went grocery shopping.  After filling a basket at Walmart, I went out to put the groceries in my van.  When I opened the back of the van, sunlight shone on the floor in that area, and it was covered with these tiny black bugs.  Covered.  I looked through the van with new eyes, and finally saw that these little bugs were taking over.  I was disgusted and completely creeped out.  Now instead of thinking of them as harmless, they were "demon bugs"!

I scoured the internet to find out what these pests were and found out they were carpet beetles.  I was alarmed to learn that they are really hard to kill... and almost impossible to get rid of completely.  I read that I could sprinkle borax on the carpet and seats to try to kill the bugs, then vacuum them up.  I got to work immediately!  Praying the whole time for every unseen beetle to die, I took everything out of the van, including the seats, covered everything in borax and let it sit for a little while, then vacuumed those little creeps up.

My biggest fear at that time was that one of those monsters... not so cute anymore... would get into my house.  I took the vacuum bag out while I was still in the garage and threw it away in the outside dumpster, then left the vacuum in the garage for over a week. Steve and I prayed over it before I brought it back in.

I read that a washing machine kills every life-stage of carpet beetle, so I took every blanket, carseat cover, hat, and piece of clothing out of the van and washed and dried it on hot.  I put pillows and anything else that couldn't be washed in the hot dryer and ran it twice in a row.  I was on a mission!

After getting all of that cleaned up and getting rid of every visible bug, I knew I had to watch out for and immediately kill any bug I saw after that.  Over the next two weeks, I carried my version of a carpet beetle haz-mat kit in my van... Kleenex and Ziploc bags. Every time I left the house, I checked the van first.  I would use a Kleenex to pick up the bugs and put them ever-so-carefully into a Ziploc, which I would immediately close tightly and toss in the trash.  I killed close to 100 bugs in that two weeks, but I was diligent and I finally stopped seeing them every day.  Occasionally, one or two pop up... thankfully, they usually fly to the ceiling of the van, so they are easy to spot.  Yesterday was Friday, September 21, 2012... almost one month later... and I spotted and killed another one.

It wasn't long before I realized that the bug infestation was symbolic of what was happening in my life at the time...  

The Lord has been speaking to me in several ways this year about seemingly "little" sins that turn into big problems.  If I had been on top of things, I would have killed the bugs before they infested my van.  If my eyes had been open and aware of my surroundings instead of constantly distracted, I would have noticed one bug turning into ten and taken care of it before they turned into a hundred or more.  They were a disease spreading right under my nose, but I was oblivious.

This very thing has been happening in my own life.  I often choose to be distracted from my life instead of engaged in it.  Because I'm feeling tired, lazy, or I don't want to face problems, I ignore and neglect the issues... and fall into sin.  If I don't act immediately, my life will eventually become infested with strongholds that will knock me off of God's path for my life.  Neglected, sin can turn into deep roots of bitterness that could take me out of the fight permanently.  At the very least, which really is the most important thing of all, this ongoing sin taints my intimacy with the Father.  He can't get His words into me or through me to others without bringing me to a place of repentance before Him.  And He is willing to do that as long as I am willing to submit.  And when I do submit to that process and let Him lead me into repentance, the outcome is sweeter than anything I've experienced with the Lord so far.  There's deeper intimacy, friendship, peace, and joy in those times... and it makes me hungry for more.

Love Not Withheld

"Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!" Psalm 66:20 

Genesis 22.  God instructed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his only son whom the Lord had given him.  Abraham, seemingly without question, took his son to the mountains of Moriah to follow God’s command.  When Isaac asked, “Where is the sheep for the burnt offering,” Abraham, who loved his only son deeply and achingly, replied that God would provide the sheep.

I can only imagine Isaac’s reaction when, after he finished building the altar for the sacrifice, Abraham tied Isaac down upon it and reached for his knife.  I cry just thinking about how Abraham was feeling inside to have to see, hear, and feel his son’s fear.  Did Isaac scream out?  The Bible doesn’t say.  One can only guess how old Isaac was at this time, but it's possible he was as young as 5 years old (though more likely he was in his teens.)  I can only imagine Abraham’s physical and emotional struggle as he greatly desired to obey God.  He knew that he must obey the Almighty God who had given him so much, yet the thought of killing Isaac threatened to irreparably shatter Abraham’s heart.

As we know, upon picking up the knife to kill Isaac, the angel of the Lord spoke to Abraham and told him not to touch the boy.  It was a test.  God provided a ram, caught in a thornbush, for Abraham to sacrifice in place of his only, beloved son.  The angel said, “Now I know that you truly fear God.  You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”

Here are the next few verses that complete the story:

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the LORD will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” Then the angel of the LORD called again to Abraham from heaven. “This is what the LORD says: Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your son, your only son, I swear by my own name that I will certainly bless you. I will multiply your descendants beyond number, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will conquer the cities of their enemies. And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me.” (Gen 22:13-18)

Two things come to mind as I think about this scripture.  First, I don’t know God completely.  Of course, it’s impossible for me to know Him fully and deeply because He is Awesome God and I’m only human.  I know a bit about His love for me and others, how He does things, and His direction for my life.  However, it’s hard for me to understand why God would direct Abraham to do this to Isaac.  Didn’t God know what Abraham would do?  Was the test more for Abraham’s benefit?  To teach him something?  Maybe so.  There was no buffer between God and man at that time.  And God is completely perfect, holy, and just.   Abraham may have been building an altar to his son in his heart… and God may have needed Abraham to tear that idol down so he would be useful to Him in the future.  I understand this because Isaac was Abraham’s long-awaited, one-and-only miracle of a son… whom he loved very much.  He was a gift that very well may have taken Abraham’s eyes off of the Lord.  If so, Abraham would have become at least partially blind to the things of God, and possibly completely useless in the long run.  While walking Isaac up the mountain, Abraham would have had to make his choice.  By the time Isaac was on the altar, Abraham would have realized and demolished any false idols of the heart that he had built to his son.  This would have allowed him to obey God completely and wholeheartedly.  And that’s when God stepped in.

That’s one very real possibility.

And maybe it was for my benefit.  For the benefit of all people who would read Genesis 22.  I think this is true because of the second thing that came to mind as I read this scripture….

“You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”  Who else did not withhold His only Son? But God took Jesus right to the altar and did sacrifice Him.  And Jesus did die.  There was no other sacrifice provided to take Jesus’ place.  There was only “the Lamb of God who [took] away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).  Because of His deep, profound, aching love for us, God took His Son to the mountain and sacrificed Him for the undeserving masses of humanity.  Sin had come into man’s relationship with his Creator and broken it to pieces.  The Old Testament shows us that it is not possible for us to be worthy of that relationship by our own efforts.  But God wanted a close relationship with us.  He yearned for us to know Him because He made us… He made all of creation for us.  Everything from creation to now has been all about God’s desire to form deep relationships.  More to love.  And for us to love Him back.

So, that’s why God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the mountain.  To show us how much He loves us.  And to give us a hint about the future… a foreshadowing of Christ.  I know I’ll never be worthy of that sacrifice, but I want to take part in that deep, intimate relationship God desires to have with me.  If that’s not mind-blowing, I don’t know what is.

Planting

 
Hello, dear friends and family.  I finally worked on my front flower beds.  I yanked out the ancient, overgrown, nasty monkey grass which looked like two giant caterpillars and housed the largest grass spider I've ever seen in real life.  And ants.  So many ants. 

I planted lantana and nandina.  I've got some liriope coming from Mom tomorrow, and I have plans for coreopsis, sweet potato, and purple cone flower.  These are easy, drought/disease tolerant plants that should be hard for me to kill.  And that's important. 

Now, if I'll only remember to keep watering them.  I might have to put it in Google Calendar and schedule repeating reminders that show up in my email.  I have no problem remembering to get online. 

Multiplication Help

I've been thinking this week that I'm so glad I don't have to homeschool on my own.  I'm happy that there are people in the world who are putting curriculum together, or blogging about their unique teaching styles, or coming up with fun ways for kids to learn.  I'm very thankful to know that all the ideas I need are only a click away!

Case in point:  For the last year I've hated the fact that I'm stumped when it comes to teaching my boys the times tables.  Disciplined, consistent repetition of facts is NOT my strong suit.  I'm a go-with-the-flow chick (when I'm not Anxiety Girl), and it's difficult enough to get our regular work done every day with all of life's many distractions.  So, I put on my aforementioned Anxiety Girl cape and stressed about it forever, while trying out my own ways of practicing the facts that simply didn't work for me or my kids.

Then, I recently overheard a friend mention a music cd with multiplication songs on it, and that bit of info stuck with me.  After a little research, I discovered that there are many options for help with teaching the times tables.  There are games, video games, cds, and dvds of all kinds!  I should have thought of that before, but you just don't know what you don't know, ya know? 

The two dvds that I'm planning to buy are:

Link: Times Tales

Link: Schoolhouse Rock

(There's also regular Schoolhouse Rock, which we use for grammar reinforcement.)







I haven't decided on games, yet, but these look good: 

Link: Zoom

Link: Math Games

I haven't found too many online math games that my kids like.  But Learning Planet is fun, and Xtra Math isn't horrible.  If anyone has ideas for online math games, please email them or post in the comments section.  (Thank you!) 

Homeschooling is hard sometimes.  I say take every opportunity to make it easier on yourself, and more enjoyable for your kids.  YES, require them to work hard and meet higher standards, but if you can disguise that as FUN, all the better.