Is it possible to think about Lent in the middle of moving? Ash Wednesday kicks it off next week (if you can use such an exuberant term for a 40-day period of repentance, fasting, and anticpating Holy Week), and I will be on the road somewhere between Wyoming and Oklahoma that day, but I had to share with you a book that I think would be appropriate for the season:
It's Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. I bought the Kindle version. It's kicking my behind, spiritually speaking.
In the book Bridges confronts what he calls the "respectable sins" of the Christian community--not abortion, divorce, homosexuality, etc., but things that we tend to not view as sin at all, like anxiety, anger, and complaining. They are sins, as he clearly points out.
How about this one? "Ungodliness." This is Bridges's term for "living your life as though God is irrelevant much of the time". It occurred to me yesterday, when I was feeling discouraged because I had to scrub some 3-day-old baby puke off of my recliner, and it WAS 3 days old, that I had been operating in my daily work in this way. I had been behaving as though the amount of housework or homeschooling I got done depended solely on me, or possibly also on the Husband.
Really, of course, it's God in His sovereginty Who decides whether something will explode or leak and whether I will get the laundry folded. Does this mean that I don't try to plan, work hard, and get my laundry folded? Absolutely not--the book of Proverbs pretty much makes it clear that we're to work, and work pretty hard at times. But I can't get the ridiculous idea that the effectiveness of my work depends on me. I can't do anything without His enabling.
Think about it as you go through your day today. Since we're supposed to eat, drink, and do everything for the glory of God, is there something that you habitually do without a thought of Him?
(Another kind of silly example: I used to think it was somehow silly to pray about football games. Honestly I try to keep it to "please, let that player who's down not be badly hurt" and not so much to "please let the Steelers win", although we certainly HAVE prayed for the Steelers to win before. {In a "only if it's Your will" kind of way, but hey, the Bible does say if you have not to ask, right?} But it occurs to me now that it's probably more appropriate to pray about a football game than to spend that whole two hours without thinking once of the Lord.)
I realized I do a whole lot of things every day without thinking of God. Not okay.
There is a practice I first read about in A Mother's Rule of Life (another book I recommend), where, having built a schedule centered around your vocation (in the case of a mother, around children, husband, prayer, and housework), you consciously dedicate each chunk of time to the service of God. I.e., say it's toilet-scrubbing day. Well, give that job to the Lord, and then scrub the toilets like Jesus was the One who asked you to do it. Because, in fact, if He made you a housewife, than He did.
Certainly makes you think...and want to do a better job at some things...and want to quit doing other things altogether.
More as I get further into the book, this Lententide. I have to read the "Ungodliness" chapter again.
Cheers,
Breanna
It's Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. I bought the Kindle version. It's kicking my behind, spiritually speaking.
In the book Bridges confronts what he calls the "respectable sins" of the Christian community--not abortion, divorce, homosexuality, etc., but things that we tend to not view as sin at all, like anxiety, anger, and complaining. They are sins, as he clearly points out.
How about this one? "Ungodliness." This is Bridges's term for "living your life as though God is irrelevant much of the time". It occurred to me yesterday, when I was feeling discouraged because I had to scrub some 3-day-old baby puke off of my recliner, and it WAS 3 days old, that I had been operating in my daily work in this way. I had been behaving as though the amount of housework or homeschooling I got done depended solely on me, or possibly also on the Husband.
Really, of course, it's God in His sovereginty Who decides whether something will explode or leak and whether I will get the laundry folded. Does this mean that I don't try to plan, work hard, and get my laundry folded? Absolutely not--the book of Proverbs pretty much makes it clear that we're to work, and work pretty hard at times. But I can't get the ridiculous idea that the effectiveness of my work depends on me. I can't do anything without His enabling.
Think about it as you go through your day today. Since we're supposed to eat, drink, and do everything for the glory of God, is there something that you habitually do without a thought of Him?
(Another kind of silly example: I used to think it was somehow silly to pray about football games. Honestly I try to keep it to "please, let that player who's down not be badly hurt" and not so much to "please let the Steelers win", although we certainly HAVE prayed for the Steelers to win before. {In a "only if it's Your will" kind of way, but hey, the Bible does say if you have not to ask, right?} But it occurs to me now that it's probably more appropriate to pray about a football game than to spend that whole two hours without thinking once of the Lord.)
I realized I do a whole lot of things every day without thinking of God. Not okay.
There is a practice I first read about in A Mother's Rule of Life (another book I recommend), where, having built a schedule centered around your vocation (in the case of a mother, around children, husband, prayer, and housework), you consciously dedicate each chunk of time to the service of God. I.e., say it's toilet-scrubbing day. Well, give that job to the Lord, and then scrub the toilets like Jesus was the One who asked you to do it. Because, in fact, if He made you a housewife, than He did.
Certainly makes you think...and want to do a better job at some things...and want to quit doing other things altogether.
More as I get further into the book, this Lententide. I have to read the "Ungodliness" chapter again.
Cheers,
Breanna
No comments:
Post a Comment