devotion

Gotta’ do what you gotta’ do

/ Jaimie / 4 Comments

Whoever said pregnancy was magical must not have dealt with morning sickness. I have, in my four pregnancies, experienced varying degrees of first trimester ickyness. This time hasn’t been too bad until the past week or so. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that folks ask how I am feeling and up to this point, I’ve been able to say that I’m feeling great despite a little fatigue and the occasional nauseated moment. So since I was bragging, I am getting hit with the big guns. I am not feeling so good these days! Even as I sit here and type, I feel more and more rumbly in my tumbly. I’m sure this post will be cut short and revisited before it becomes complete as a result of this.

I realize that this is a completely normal part of a healthy pregnancy so I try not to complain about it too much (though my husband may disagree with me about the quantity of my whining). I also know there are little things I can do to stave off the nausea. The most effective is for me to eat something which always makes me laugh when I think about how ironic that is. When I feel the least like eating and the most likely to be unable to eat, I must eat in order to feel human again. What an awful trick?!

Like so many other things in life, the principle holds true that sometimes we need to do what is good for us regardless of whether or not we feel like it. My kids rarely jump out of bed first thing in the morning bursting with excitement about another day of school, but they need to go in order to grow. I rarely revel in the thought of a tough workout (try NEVER these days), but if I want the results I go for it anyway. I rarely find my kids begging for more zucchini or broccoli (except for my oldest who is abnormal and prefers veggies to meat at ALL times) but I know they need healthy foods to be healthy so they eat them anyway. Sometimes, I don’t feel like spending an hour in prayer or a little extra time in the word, but without prayer and study, I cannot maintain my spiritual health.

I am sitting here at lunch time trying to determine what I’m going to try to ingest to calm my queasy midsection and nothing sounds appetizing but I either eat or I continue to feel miserable. What we need may not always match what we want but that doesn’t mean we won’t end up with the desired result. God knows exactly what we need and what’s best for us. Instead of trying to beat the system and get our way, maybe we should just do what we know is best and get rid of the ‘icky’ for awhile. Sometimes we just gotta’ do what we gotta’ do.

Courage

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My kids and their cousins ready to conquer the world of canoeing

My daughter is working on an essay about Courage. She asked me the other day to name someone I found to be courageous. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t think of anyone, it was more that I can think of so many acts of courage that happen daily. To name one courageous person seems difficult in the light of so many who have given their lives in sacrifice for others or who face great odds to accomplish great things.

 

Honestly, I didn’t think too much more about the subject until this morning when I opened II Samuel chapter 4:1 “When Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his courage failed, and all the Israelites were troubled and dismayed.”  Then dropping down to verse 4 “Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was a cripple in his feet. He was five years old when the news came out of Jezreel [of the deaths] of Saul and Jonathan. And the boy’s nurse took him up and fled; and in her haste, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.” 

 

Later in the chapter, we find Ish-bosheth napping (not exactly an act of heroism) and he is killed upon his bed. Poor Mephibosheth is crippled for the rest of his life because of one woman’s fear which proved to be completely unfounded in the end.

 

Fear causes us to do dumb things. It can cripple us if we allow it to. We fear what others think of us so we do nothing or we hide. We fear rejection so we don’t connect with others. We fear being hurt so we put up walls around our hearts. We fear failure so we keep our ambitions to a minimum. We’ve heard it said that the only thing we should fear is fear itself. Maybe there is an element of truth to that. When I read II Samuel 4, it is pretty clear to me that the results of fear or the lack of courage led to destruction and death.

 

So what is real courage? I think David gives us a pretty good example. In I Samuel 30, David and his men came home to find that their wives and children had been taken captive. David was “greatly distressed” (verse 6) “But David encouraged and strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” Then he did the most courageous thing of all, rather than reacting blindly, verse 8 “David inquired of the Lord, saying, shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them? The Lord answered him, Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all. 9 “So David went…”

 

Over and over again, we find David in overwhelming circumstances with enemies coming after him and armies surrounding him. Each time we see the same words, “David inquired of the Lord” True courage is found in true faith. David strengthened himself in the Lord and knew that without the Lord, he could do nothing. In each situation he waited for the voice of God to speak into the circumstance and then he acted in obedience. Philippians 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”

 

Courage isn’t just the absence of fear. Courage is the knowledge that despite the circumstance, God has is under control and His plans are good.

 

Lord, let my first reaction to every situation be to inquire of you. Then give me the courage to do what you tell me to knowing that You are good and You will never leave me. I am completely secure in Your hands and completely able to accomplish whatever you set before me with You leading the way. Thank you that you choose to do great things through vessels of clay and dust. Thank you that you can be glorified in any circumstance when we are courageous enough to get out of your way and walk in obedience.  I love being yours!

The Correction Connection

/ Jaimie / 4 Comments

I hate that I hate criticism!  I’ve always struggled with this. The smallest of critiques can make my brain shake. I know in my heart it’s ridiculous. I know the truth is that, “Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.” Proverbs 12:1. My head & heart have run laps around this mountain for years, but still I sit here in my office fuming over accusations that are trivial in proper proportion, but just the fact that my proficiency has been questioned makes me crazy. The fact of the matter is that I was not created to be fully proficient at everything anyway. Again, I know that, but this awareness does little to still the maddening quakes of my pride.

I’m not proud of this fact, in fact I’m questioning whether or not I’ll actually allow this post to exit my computer & enter the world of the living. I hate that I am proud. I hate that I have flaws; I want to be perfect after all. The sad truth is that the very desire of my heart to be perfect may be one of the most imperfect things about me. I remember being in the fifth grade & crying myself to sleep every night for two weeks because I got a “B” in Science on my report card. I kept that report card for years. There, lost in the middle of the monument to my “smartness” was a lonely little “B”. I realized a few months ago when I came across it in a drawer that I must be crazy for keeping it for 25 years but more so that I must be crazy that instead of taking pride in the accomplishments evidenced by all of the “A’s” staring back at me, I was ashamed of the lonely “B”. I kept this for all those years as a tribute to my perfectionism. Now I seek to kill my perfectionism & start a new desire for excellence without condemnation. With that, I threw the report card in the garbage can.

Why not start memorializing things that I’m actually proud of? No one really cares about what I got on my 5th grade report card anyway. To be honest, what people think about me doesn’t really matter. Whatever good I do, I should be doing for the Lord and not for men to praise me.

Matthew 6:3 “But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.”

Colossians 3:23 “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men”

My greatest accomplishments are the simplest of things, the way I serve the Lord and my family as a wife & a mother, the way I abandon myself in worship and the moments spent in prayer that no one sees. The biggest mystery of all is that the best things are always born from the times I allow myself to decrease. Upon the death of my pride & my selfish nature, I can begin to live and accomplish great things. So why do I let myself get caught up in the criticism of others when I really desire to change from who I am and be changed into the likeness of Christ? 

I can almost see myself, lying down on the altar ready to present myself as a living sacrifice Romans 12 style, then someone questions my Budget calculations and I start kicking and screaming & hurl myself down from the wood and flames ready to fight and defend my math to prove to everyone that I am capable while God sighs, shakes His head and says “I guess we’ll be revisiting this lesson again”. I’m so glad He’s patient with me. It really is laughable that I waste so much time and energy trying to defend myself, when I have the greatest defender whose only requirement is that I do everything unto Him. He will gladly do the rest.

Lord, help me to acknowledge when my pride is trying to rise up & overthrow the village of my soul. Help me to deal with it quickly and stay right where I’m supposed to be, surrendered on the altar of your grace. There is no better way to live. Let me see that correction makes me better. Let me embrace it with an open heart & a willing Spirit. Help me to discern when it is true & I need to change or when it is silly and I need to ignore it, shake it off and move on. God, let me be so focused on YOU that everything else I do and say will be filtered by Your Spirit, then I won’t blow it.