Tonight, while reading Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot, I came across a great chapter. It was pretty great, so I'm going to write it out here.
Several Ways to Make Yourself Miserable
1. Count your troubles, name them one by one-at the breakfast table, if anybody will listen, or as soon as possible thereafter.
2. Worry every day about something. Don't let yourself get out of practice. It won't add a cubit to your stature but it might burn a few calories.
3. Pity yourself. If you do enough of this, nobody else will have to do it for you.
4. Devise clever but decent ways to serve God and mammon [wealth]. After all, a man's gotta live.
5. Make it your business to find out what the Joneses are buying this year and where they're going. Try to do them at least one better even if you have to take out another loan to do it.
6. Stay away from absolutes. It's what's right for you that matters. Be your own person and don't allow yourself to get hung up on what other expect of you.
7. Make sure you get your rights. Never mind other people's. You have your life to live, they have theirs.
8. Don't fall into any compassion traps-the sort of situation where people can walk all over you. If you get too involved in other people's troubles, you may neglect your own.
9. Don't let Bible reading and prayer get in the way of what's really relevant-things like TV and newspapers. Invisible things are eternal. You want to stick with the visible ones-they're where it's at now.
Clearly, she using sarcasm. No one really wants to make themselves miserable. But so often we (at least, I) do these things subconsciously. I often get caught up in complaining and only looking out for myself. But it's those times where I take my focus off myself and look around me to see if there's a way I can help someone else that I have true joy. Looking out for self really does only lead to being miserable. I am so grateful for women like Elisabeth Elliot who will point out this kind of thing, because other wise I probably would not be thinking about it. I would like to encourage anyone reading this to remember this and learn to focus on eternal things and other people's needs rather than their own.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Dying Every Day
Luke 9:23 - "And He was saying to them all, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.'"
Gospel.com, when talking about this verse says, "Following Jesus isn't always easy--in fact, it often requires us to go against the grain of our natural human impulses. The work of loving Jesus and acting righteously is an everyday struggle of denying our own desires."
I like this statement. So often, as Christians we subconsciously think that it should be easier to follow Him. We think that if we have our priorities straight and love Him above all else, then nothing would truly feel like a struggle. Really though, there are many hardships, no matter how much you love Christ and have an eternal perspective. Also, I like how the author of that statement said that following Jesus means doing things that are unnatural to us. It's not natural to be holy ('set apart'-honestly, who really wants to be different from everyone else?) or to obey when it's hard. It also says that loving Jesus and acting righteously are work. Of course, these things can be easy at times and will produce blessings out the wazoo, but sometimes they are hard goals to have! The last part-"...everyday struggle of denying our own desires" is what I really want to focus on.
First of all, let's take a look at what "death" means. Dictionary.com defines death as "the act of dying; the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism" and "extinction; destruction". There are some other definitions it gives too but they pretty much all mean the same things. As Christians, we have died to sin and are made alive in Christ. Our sin's life has ended; all the vital functions of our sins have totally and permanently ceased. It is no more. We, of course, still sin. But we are no longer held captive by the bondage of sin. We can now escape it.
But death to sin is not the only death we encounter as believer in Christ. We must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, as Jesus said. The term "deny self" implies that it will be a hard thing. Each day we have to surrender to God and ask Him to help us deal with our sin and live righteously. We have to let go of our fleshly desires and learn to want what God wants. In her book Passion and Purity, Elisabeth Elliot says, "Life requires countless 'little' deaths-occasions when we are given the chance to say no to self and yes to God." Denying myself means that when I want to go to sleep instead of finishing my homework, I need to press on and finish what I've started, still doing it as if it were for the Lord (Colossians 3:23). It means that when I don't want to volunteer to do the dishes, I should do it in order to serve my sisters. I have to say no to my flesh and do what God requires of me.
A big part of being a Christian, or a woman seeking to please her Lord, is denying self and doing what God requires. Thankfully, we know what He requires of us- "He has told you, o man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). God is not someone who expects things but never tells us what it is that He expects. He shows us through His word and through the example of His Son exactly what He wants from us, and will gladly help us do it. The only thing that is needed to be able to do this is denial of self.
Addison Leitch said, "When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die." Every time I want something that God would not want, I have to let go of my own desires. This is hard work, but it brings immeasurable joy.
Gospel.com, when talking about this verse says, "Following Jesus isn't always easy--in fact, it often requires us to go against the grain of our natural human impulses. The work of loving Jesus and acting righteously is an everyday struggle of denying our own desires."
I like this statement. So often, as Christians we subconsciously think that it should be easier to follow Him. We think that if we have our priorities straight and love Him above all else, then nothing would truly feel like a struggle. Really though, there are many hardships, no matter how much you love Christ and have an eternal perspective. Also, I like how the author of that statement said that following Jesus means doing things that are unnatural to us. It's not natural to be holy ('set apart'-honestly, who really wants to be different from everyone else?) or to obey when it's hard. It also says that loving Jesus and acting righteously are work. Of course, these things can be easy at times and will produce blessings out the wazoo, but sometimes they are hard goals to have! The last part-"...everyday struggle of denying our own desires" is what I really want to focus on.
First of all, let's take a look at what "death" means. Dictionary.com defines death as "the act of dying; the end of life; the total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions of an organism" and "extinction; destruction". There are some other definitions it gives too but they pretty much all mean the same things. As Christians, we have died to sin and are made alive in Christ. Our sin's life has ended; all the vital functions of our sins have totally and permanently ceased. It is no more. We, of course, still sin. But we are no longer held captive by the bondage of sin. We can now escape it.
But death to sin is not the only death we encounter as believer in Christ. We must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily, as Jesus said. The term "deny self" implies that it will be a hard thing. Each day we have to surrender to God and ask Him to help us deal with our sin and live righteously. We have to let go of our fleshly desires and learn to want what God wants. In her book Passion and Purity, Elisabeth Elliot says, "Life requires countless 'little' deaths-occasions when we are given the chance to say no to self and yes to God." Denying myself means that when I want to go to sleep instead of finishing my homework, I need to press on and finish what I've started, still doing it as if it were for the Lord (Colossians 3:23). It means that when I don't want to volunteer to do the dishes, I should do it in order to serve my sisters. I have to say no to my flesh and do what God requires of me.
A big part of being a Christian, or a woman seeking to please her Lord, is denying self and doing what God requires. Thankfully, we know what He requires of us- "He has told you, o man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). God is not someone who expects things but never tells us what it is that He expects. He shows us through His word and through the example of His Son exactly what He wants from us, and will gladly help us do it. The only thing that is needed to be able to do this is denial of self.
Addison Leitch said, "When the will of God crosses the will of man, somebody has to die." Every time I want something that God would not want, I have to let go of my own desires. This is hard work, but it brings immeasurable joy.
Monday, July 12, 2010
A Life of Prayer
This year on Mother's Day, my pastor Dr. Rick Gregory spoke on motherhood. He had some very good points, and though I am not a mother it was things that could still apply to me now, and things that would be great to remember when I am a mom. One of the things he talked about was prayer. While I am unmarried and childless, I need to cultivate a life of prayer. My pastor was saying that though every believer needs to have this, it is especially important for mothers to have a heart that loves to pray. Even now, I need to be praying that my future children will be God-loving and God-fearing. I need to pray that they see their sin and feel a desperate need for Him in their lives. I need to pray that I will raise them well together with my husband. Of course, that is just one of the things that I need to pray for consistently, but that was mostly what he talked about since it was Mother's Day.
I really hope that as I grow older and mature and become more and more like Christ, I become a woman of prayer. Paul said to pray without ceasing. This means that we need to continually be in the mindset of prayer. I have days that I am continually seeking the Lord's face and asking Him to show me His will. Those days are the ones that I don't look back on and think of as wasted. Every morning when I wake up I need to remind myself of the gospel and ask God to never stop showing my need for His grace and mercy. My first thoughts should be praising Him for who He is and for the love that He shows. My mind should constantly be engaged, thinking about who needs prayer-for health, encouragement, salvation, etc.
The second semester of my senior year of high school, our school's superintendent Dean Hallberg became the teacher for my Bible class. He said that if it weren't for the prayers of faithful women, many churches today would not be in existence. Of course, he did not tell us this to say that women pray better or to discredit men in any way. He was just saying that very often it's the women who spend so much focused time on their knees. It was cool to hear a man who had been a pastor before acknowledge the church's need for women who are faithful pray-ers. What an awesome encouragement! As a woman who wants her life to be Christ-centered, it is good to see a specific thing I can do that will help God be more glorified in my life.
I really hope that as I grow older and mature and become more and more like Christ, I become a woman of prayer. Paul said to pray without ceasing. This means that we need to continually be in the mindset of prayer. I have days that I am continually seeking the Lord's face and asking Him to show me His will. Those days are the ones that I don't look back on and think of as wasted. Every morning when I wake up I need to remind myself of the gospel and ask God to never stop showing my need for His grace and mercy. My first thoughts should be praising Him for who He is and for the love that He shows. My mind should constantly be engaged, thinking about who needs prayer-for health, encouragement, salvation, etc.
The second semester of my senior year of high school, our school's superintendent Dean Hallberg became the teacher for my Bible class. He said that if it weren't for the prayers of faithful women, many churches today would not be in existence. Of course, he did not tell us this to say that women pray better or to discredit men in any way. He was just saying that very often it's the women who spend so much focused time on their knees. It was cool to hear a man who had been a pastor before acknowledge the church's need for women who are faithful pray-ers. What an awesome encouragement! As a woman who wants her life to be Christ-centered, it is good to see a specific thing I can do that will help God be more glorified in my life.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Without even meaning to....BAM!
I had thought that the first topic I would discuss would be something really awesome and deep like "fighting for time in the Word every day" or something along the lines of "not going by feelings but by doing what is right, regardless of how I feel". The idea of talking about modesty to begin with was something that crossed my mind but was immediately disregarded, partially because I thought it was too typical. Of course it is an important issue, but I wanted my first real post on the issue of being a woman the way God intended it to be "deeper" than modesty. I wanted it to be a heart issue that people struggle with, and modesty just did not seem like a good enough place to start.
Man, was I wrong. Without going into too much detail on how I got there, I was directed to C.J. Mahaney's blog, where he did a short series on modesty. I read each part of the series and was convicted. I realized that it was a serious heart issue, and that all issues of the heart are really the same. Immodesty, like so many other sins, is a result of wanting to please others instead of wanting to please God. It is just as big of a deal as any other sin issue.
Mahaney's blog used I Timothy 2:3-10 as its scriptural support. Over and over, he went back to those verses, showing piece-by-piece what it meant. He explained several things that I had heard before but were good to think about again. Mahaney talked about how modesty shows humility. He said that dressing modestly is a way to serve our brothers in Christ. In one of the short "chapters", he had two young men describe their fight to stay pure in their thoughts in the midst of immodest women. Those men described what a fight it was (even at church!) to have pure thoughts. One said that he sometimes had to walk looking at the sidewalk while listening to worship music because nothing else could guard his eyes from seeing things that he wanted to see and his mind from thinking things he did not want to imagine. Those young men, as so many others, really have to fight to keep their minds from going down the wrong road.
This spoke volumes to me. I teared up thinking of what I had done to my brothers in Christ. Have I made it hard for them to focus on conversations with me because of my clothes? Can they look at me without stumbling? Am I hindering their goal of God-pleasing thoughts? These guys are my brothers in Christ, and I may be making them sin rather than encouraging them to love the Lord more. Many godly men fight to keep their thoughts pure-am I helping them in their quest for mental purity, or hindering them? My prayer is that I, and anyone else reading this, fight just as hard to be modest as my brothers in Christ have to fight to think purely. I want them to be able to spend time with me and be able to relax, knowing that they won't have to constantly guard their thoughts from wandering where they shouldn't go.
I was so convicted by this and hope that I never forget this important lesson. I need to serve my brothers in Christ by paying attention to what I wear so that I make sure it will not hinder them. As I said before, I was not planning on discussing this topic quite yet in my blog. I did not even mean to come across the topic of modesty, but I did, and it was so in-my-face that I had to share it.
I'm going to end with one last question: Do the clothes I wear show that I am with the world or with Christ?
**An afterthought: This morning I remembered something relating to this that I meant to put in this post when I first wrote it, but forgot. During one of our dorm chapels (CDub, of course), our RD Amber brought up the subject of modesty and the way she put it spoke volumes to me. She talked about Adam and Eve, and how they were naked from their creation until their fall. Then, once they sinned and God came looking for them, they knew they were naked and had to hide from Him. Because of their sin, they had to cover their nakedness. I can't quite remember all that she said, because it was so early in the school year, and I do not want to mess up the doctrine, so I'm not going to go into more detail than that. Basically, they needed clothes to show their humility before God. When we clothe ourselves, we need to think about the fact that the reason to cover ourselves is to show our humility before God. If we are not properly covering ourselves, we need to ask ourselves if we are properly humble.
Man, was I wrong. Without going into too much detail on how I got there, I was directed to C.J. Mahaney's blog, where he did a short series on modesty. I read each part of the series and was convicted. I realized that it was a serious heart issue, and that all issues of the heart are really the same. Immodesty, like so many other sins, is a result of wanting to please others instead of wanting to please God. It is just as big of a deal as any other sin issue.
Mahaney's blog used I Timothy 2:3-10 as its scriptural support. Over and over, he went back to those verses, showing piece-by-piece what it meant. He explained several things that I had heard before but were good to think about again. Mahaney talked about how modesty shows humility. He said that dressing modestly is a way to serve our brothers in Christ. In one of the short "chapters", he had two young men describe their fight to stay pure in their thoughts in the midst of immodest women. Those men described what a fight it was (even at church!) to have pure thoughts. One said that he sometimes had to walk looking at the sidewalk while listening to worship music because nothing else could guard his eyes from seeing things that he wanted to see and his mind from thinking things he did not want to imagine. Those young men, as so many others, really have to fight to keep their minds from going down the wrong road.
This spoke volumes to me. I teared up thinking of what I had done to my brothers in Christ. Have I made it hard for them to focus on conversations with me because of my clothes? Can they look at me without stumbling? Am I hindering their goal of God-pleasing thoughts? These guys are my brothers in Christ, and I may be making them sin rather than encouraging them to love the Lord more. Many godly men fight to keep their thoughts pure-am I helping them in their quest for mental purity, or hindering them? My prayer is that I, and anyone else reading this, fight just as hard to be modest as my brothers in Christ have to fight to think purely. I want them to be able to spend time with me and be able to relax, knowing that they won't have to constantly guard their thoughts from wandering where they shouldn't go.
I was so convicted by this and hope that I never forget this important lesson. I need to serve my brothers in Christ by paying attention to what I wear so that I make sure it will not hinder them. As I said before, I was not planning on discussing this topic quite yet in my blog. I did not even mean to come across the topic of modesty, but I did, and it was so in-my-face that I had to share it.
I'm going to end with one last question: Do the clothes I wear show that I am with the world or with Christ?
**An afterthought: This morning I remembered something relating to this that I meant to put in this post when I first wrote it, but forgot. During one of our dorm chapels (CDub, of course), our RD Amber brought up the subject of modesty and the way she put it spoke volumes to me. She talked about Adam and Eve, and how they were naked from their creation until their fall. Then, once they sinned and God came looking for them, they knew they were naked and had to hide from Him. Because of their sin, they had to cover their nakedness. I can't quite remember all that she said, because it was so early in the school year, and I do not want to mess up the doctrine, so I'm not going to go into more detail than that. Basically, they needed clothes to show their humility before God. When we clothe ourselves, we need to think about the fact that the reason to cover ourselves is to show our humility before God. If we are not properly covering ourselves, we need to ask ourselves if we are properly humble.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
What This Is All About
Hey there! Recently the idea of this blog came into my head. I prayed about it and talked about it with a couple friends with wise advice. I, of course, was so excited about the prospect of doing something like this, and soon my friends became excited too. I know that God has specifically ordained the roles of men and women to be different but complementary. This blog may occasionally touch on the roles of men, but only to show the contrast that exists between their role and women's role. God has showed me much these past few years, especially this past school year, what it looks like to be a woman who embraces the role that He has given.
I do recognize that part of biblical womanhood is learning from older, godly women. I also recognize that I am only nineteen years old. But my goal in writing this blog is not to teach, but to merely show what I have been learning and hope to encourage my peers to learn with me. Much of what I will discuss comes directly from the Bible and commentaries on it. Often, I will quote authors such as Elizabeth George, who are in the "older, godly women" category. I will talk about sermons that I have heard on being a godly woman. As you can see, though it is I who writes, my thoughts will be a compilation of what older godly women (and some men too!) have to say on this subject.
This is a topic that is controversial. This view of womanhood is becoming less popular and more offensive simultaneously. I realize that some people who come across this will think that I am old-fashioned and a little ridiculous. But I am not doing this for their sake. My goal is never to offend or criticize. I am just going to share what God is teaching me. My view of femininity is becoming increasingly "out-dated", but here is the truth on that matter: God does not change. Malachi 3:6-"For I, the Lord, do not change..." In other words, society's view on femininity has changed, but God's has not. I want to look to Him and see what He wants from me as a woman, because in doing that I know I will be able to please Him.
I do recognize that part of biblical womanhood is learning from older, godly women. I also recognize that I am only nineteen years old. But my goal in writing this blog is not to teach, but to merely show what I have been learning and hope to encourage my peers to learn with me. Much of what I will discuss comes directly from the Bible and commentaries on it. Often, I will quote authors such as Elizabeth George, who are in the "older, godly women" category. I will talk about sermons that I have heard on being a godly woman. As you can see, though it is I who writes, my thoughts will be a compilation of what older godly women (and some men too!) have to say on this subject.
This is a topic that is controversial. This view of womanhood is becoming less popular and more offensive simultaneously. I realize that some people who come across this will think that I am old-fashioned and a little ridiculous. But I am not doing this for their sake. My goal is never to offend or criticize. I am just going to share what God is teaching me. My view of femininity is becoming increasingly "out-dated", but here is the truth on that matter: God does not change. Malachi 3:6-"For I, the Lord, do not change..." In other words, society's view on femininity has changed, but God's has not. I want to look to Him and see what He wants from me as a woman, because in doing that I know I will be able to please Him.
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