I started off my final teaching on Ephesians chapter 6 with a quote from the epic movie, “The Usual Suspects” (because I’m old but I am also cool and Bible study can be cool!) that goes like this:
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.
This is a true saying. Most of us make two errors when it comes to spiritual warfare. We either see it everywhere or don’t notice it anywhere. We either underestimate the spiritual realm or we overestimate it. Some of us live so out of step with the Spirit that our discernment of patterns and events has become muted, like the volume is turned way down on the spiritual reality around us. Others of us tag a “no weapon formed against me shall prosper” from Isaiah 54 on anytime we’ve proved someone wrong, recovered from a stomach bug or almost missed a flight but then didn’t.
My husband always says, if you’re not getting shot at, you’re not in the war. It’s possible that in our woeful carnality, we can miss the spiritual battle taking place around us. It’s also possible that we are constantly feeling “under attack” when in fact what we are simply finding ourselves living out consequences or living in a sinful fallen world where people are going to sin against us and stuff is just gonna go wrong. Scripture tells us that spiritual warfare (general) is a consistent reality, but also that spiritual attacks (specific) can be expected in the life of a believer.
We know that we have the victory in Christ, because He was victorious over sin, death and Satan, but at the same time, we also know that these things are still a reality, and they still trouble us this side of heaven. Christ came into the world to overcome sin, to overcome death, and to overcome Satan, but He also came into the world so that sin, death, and Satan would be overcome in our lives. And thát He has given us the power to do. But that overcoming is a progressive reality for us, not an instantaneous reality and that is very often where the battle lies. Yes, we have the victory in Christ, but we need to appropriate that victory to our own battles as His Kingdom comes more and more in our own lives.
And so, because Satan cannot undo the work of the gospel for our sake, he will want to undo its manifestation in our life. The enemy cannot destroy us but he can distract us, diminish our progress, damage our testimony and derail our maturity. And this understanding of his game plan (Eph 6 v 11), also helps us understand the key places where we might experience a spiritual attack, namely:
Our identity
Our purpose
Our territory
Our unity
Identifying specific areas of spiritual attack:
A spiritual attack will often take place in these areas of our lives because these are the areas where, specifically, we are called to glorify God and experience Him, where Kingdom dynamics will mean we engage so differently that salt and light become evident. These are also the areas where we can expect God to be at work in our sanctification. So you see, the battlefield is clearly laid out.
Identity:
as we find more and more our identity in His acceptance instead of that of the world, as we find ourselves more and more desiring to bring him glory in our purpose and work instead of ourselves (Eph 2 v 10),
Purpose:
as we shift from selfish ambition (Phil 2 v 3 – 4) to kingdom-minded service (Matt 6 v 33), from success to faithfulness, from status to significance, from fan to follower.
Territory:
as we take ground in our families, breaking past generational patterns, making disciples, healing from the past and stepping into new places of Kingdom effectiveness, particular places of fruitfulness and breakthrough and finally
Unity:
as the closest relationships in our lives start to reflect more and more the unity through the bonds of peace (Eph 4 v 3) and a love that is different from that in the world around us (John 13 v 35) that the Bible calls us to!
In these areas, we are called to be specifically watchful (1 Pet 5 v 8) using the protections afforded us in Scripture (Eph 6 v 14 – 17), on our guard against the devil’s chief weapons, namely lies and deception, attacking them with our single biggest weapons – the Word and prayer (Eph 6 17 – 18) when we find ourselves under attack!
Discernment markers of a spiritual attack
Ok so it’s a word I made up ok, I don’t know if “discernment markers” is an actual thing, but it’s the best way for me to describe the below points as things to prayerfully take note of in a particular season that may indicate we are experiencing a spiritual attack.
An exhaustion of our critical thinking
An incapacitating lack of soundness of mind and or body
Events of calamity that seem to form a pattern or seem insidious, with often a specific starting point or trigger
An atmosphere of pressure or oppression
A sudden and noticeable lack of the sense of righteousness, peace and joy that are ours as members of the Kingdom of God (Rom 14 v 17) .
An unshifting sense of condemnation instead of conviction, a pattern of thinking that brings you to doubt of your salvation.
Unexplained yet abnormal difficulties in key relationships, for example, a distortion of communication between people or consistent miscommunication that cannot be clearly explained.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive, they are from my own and collective experiences in ministry these last 2 decades, from what I’ve observed in scripture – for example in the story of Job, and from talking to people ahead of me on this journey…..and simply on looking back at this year it has helped me understand some of what has occurred in my own life. And please note, this is not a formula. God’s Spirit does not work in formulas. He works in patterns and principles, signs and promptings, rhythms and roadsigns. In our struggles, His goal is our refining, perfecting, maturing (James 1 v 4), and conversely, the devil also has a goal when our days of disaster come – our discouragement, derailment and ultimate deception.
The truth is that often we will not know if we are being refined, attacked, punished or tempted. We will need to rely on God either way, lean into His Word for a quickened word (rhema – a particular word or verse – which is the word Paul uses in Ephesians 6 to describe our sword) to wield against attacks on our minds, our hearts, our people and places, and hold up the shield of faith – what Paul says we need “above all” (Eph 6 v 16) – because faith has the power to produce dynamic results (Mark 9 v 23). God’s word is pure, and He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him (Prov 30 v 5). I hope you can find as much refuge in that as I have these last few months.
You only have to spend 30 minutes on Instagram or Pinterest to become acutely aware that you are not effortlessly whipping up gooey gluten-free brownies or whipping off to the South of France at a whim in your #oldmoneychic capsule wardrobe. And to add insult to injury, you and I both know that the likelihood of either of us trying that pinned ab workout or test-driving that kale smoothy for breakfast with our kids is pretty slim too. So just a little bit of “downtime” on social media has the immense potential to make us feel not only like our kitchen is blah, our wardrobe is bland and we have nothing to look forward to, but also to make us feel like in inadequate wannabee at the same time whose friends are all living their best lives while we roam around in last seasons sneakers. Thank you Third Industrial Revolution.
What is meant to inspire has not only enslaved, indebted and indoctrinated us, but it has also made many of us ungrateful, dissatisfied and stuck. And social media is not the only culprit – although it’s a big one. Hand in hand with easy access loans, our ongoing competition with the Jones’ (everyone has “that one family” right?) aggressive marketing tactics and celebrity culture, it has normalised things that aren’t even normal, like custom kitchens, wardrobes that seem bottomless in their #ootd options, professionally organised closets and perfectly filtered vacations. And it has – from what I can see – successfully morphed the aspirations of even the most down-to-earth among us into thinking, well, if only I had MORE of this or a BETTER that or LIVED here and VACATIONED there. I have become more and more aware of the restless discontent that marks so many conversations that I am in, conversations with people just like me, who in truth (and certainly in the SA context) have very very little to complain about and much much much to be grateful for. Our cravings have pierced us with many pangs (1 Tim 6 v 10) and we not only live like that’s normal, justifiable even, but these cravings are costly – most especially in terms of our relationship with Jesus. Maybe this is why the Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs spoke of “The rare jewel of Christian contentment”. A restless discontent is at the root of so many of our struggles. Our debt. Our dissatisfaction in our marriages and other relationships. Our disproportionate (again, considering our context) ingratitude over the roofs we have over our heads, that we may finally be satisfied with if only we could put in those screed floors or stacking doors. For many of us contentment seems not only unrealistic but also, sadly, unimportant.
But if your life, like mine, has changed drastically in the last 4 years, you have maybe discovered, as I did, that what the Bible says about contentment is not only fascinating but certainly worth deeper consideration. Paul – in the famously misquoted verses of Phil 4 v 11 – 13 tells us that he had learned to be content both in the worst of times and the best of times, in being degraded and being exalted, in having more than enough and in having too little. And that this learning is based on being strengthened by Christ. And the writer to the Hebrews warns us in Heb 13 v 5 to keep our lives free from the love of money and be content with what we have based on the promise of the presence of God.
From these 2 verses, let’s unpack what contentment is, and isn’t!
What contentment is…….
What it isn’t……..
Contentment is utter dependence on God and delighting in Him as a daily decision.
Contentment is not legalism or some inverted spirituality
Contentment requires supernatural strength (see point 1)
Contentment is not something we will gain in the absence of God’s help
Contentment is trained within our circumstances and is not independent of them.
Contentment is not stoic independence from our circumstances or obliviousness/ pretend disregard of trial and difficulty
Contentment is learned in diverse circumstances
Not learned in buying into the prosperity gospel and believing that a Christian’s life graph must only ever go “up and to the right”.
Contentment is contingent on dealing with our love for money
Contentment is not acting like we don’t desire anything or have goals or dreams. God knows we have those, but are they rightly ordered below His goals and dreams of us as set out in His word?
Contentment is something that can be learned.
Contentment is not a personality trait or based on a person’s temperament.
Contentment is commanded of all believers
Contentment is not something for only hyper-spiritual or super-disciplined people.
Contentment is independent of our circumstances. It is, more than just being happy with what we have but is, above all, being thrilled that we have him.
Contentment is not finally getting to a place where our lives are finally perfectly balanced, the bucket list and the bank account are looking good. Discontentment is a product of our striving, so even the best circumstances will not breed in us contentment.
Contentment is learned in seeing our greed for what it is, seeing Jesus for who He is, and ordering and surrendering our desires and cravings under His Lordship and worthiness.
Contentment is not “settling” or acting like we don’t have desires or cravings.
Contentment is a satisfaction dependent on the person and promises of Christ.
Contentment is not satisfaction dependent on a particular outcome.
Contentment is learning to trust God despite our circumstances.
Contentment is not mere shallow positivity despite our circumstances.
“My brethren, the reason why you have not got contentment in the things of the world is not because you have not got enough of them. That is not the reason. But the reason is because they are not things proportionable to that immortal soul of yours that is capable of God himself. Many men think that when they are troubled and have no contentment, it is because they have but a little in the world, and if they had more then they would be content. That is just as if a man were hungry, and to satisfy his craving stomach he should gape and hold open his mouth to take in the wind, and then should think that the reason why he is not satisfied is because he has not got enough of the wind. No, the reason is because the thing is not suitable to a craving stomach.” – Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
But can we really be content…..like, really? To be honest, I am not sure. But I for one desperately want to be! So I have come up with some personal methods to practice contentment that I am happy to share with you:
Learn to tell yourself the truth. For me that has not meant necessarily setting aside things I long to have or do, it has meant simply accepting that, in this season of my life, there are things that I can’t afford to care about. It has become somewhat of a mantra for me. This has been particularly helpful for me in light of the lifestyles of friends who are not in self-funded ministry as I am and therefore have more disposable income than I do.
Interrogate your aspirations in light of the truth of God – not the “truth” of the world. We cannot make what we strive for a higher priority than a pursuit of the Kindom of God (Matt 6 v 33), nor make the achievements of those aspirations the bar for our personal peace and satisfaction (Ps 37 v 4). It will be easy to see if we have – if we are willing to do some hard introspection and look past our own justifications about how we have made “desires” into needs. Repent of selfish ambition that may have caused you to become out of step with the Kingdom you are a part of (Phil 2 v 3) and lose sight of it as a priority in both a spiritual and practical sense.
Ask God to give you divinely set aspirations and a desire to view them as something more worthwhile to be gained than anything on your Amazon wishlist (1 Tim 6 v 6 – 8).
Simplify your life. Contentment takes courage in a culture caught up in consumerism and excess.
Delight in God as a daily decision. Maybe take a break from Social media and turn off the Amazon and Superbalist notifications, both of which will give you an endless stream of “things to delight in”. In light of our pursuit of contentment, those are, in the words of Puritan Burroughs, “distracting, heart-consuming cares”.
Wow this blog was hard for me to write! The truth is this is an ongoing wrestle for me. But in some ways, I am glad to be wrestling. I believe it’s better than the alternative.
AW Tozer said, “Contentment with earthly goods is the mark of a saint; contentment with our spiritual state is the mark of inward blindness. ” May – with God’s help – our religious complacency and consumerist striving swap places in our hearts – because we will be, in the end, the sum total of our hungers.
How are we to respond as believers to everything that is happening in our country? Is there an alternative response that is deeper than “you have to stay positive” and more nuanced than “just trust God?” Most South Africans find themselves in a state of either despondency or desperation when it comes to the state of our nation. There seems to be this corporate anxiety that every water-cooler convo is feeding and every “kuier” around the campfire is stoking. I have found a few things more challenging in the last 3 years than navigating my fear for the future in the context of my faith as a South African. And when I am braving traffic at stage 6 load shedding where it seems everyone forgot how a 4-way stop works, while my food rots away at home in my fridge, it’s hard to feel or act like a Christian, much less think like one.
Listen, the irony that I am writing this to you in a month where we are up to stage 6 load shedding (we all know it’s actually stage 8 right?) and our crime stats have just been released is not lost on me. It has meant that what I share with you here is what I have had to wrestle through and wrestle down in my own spirit first, as I struggled with wave after wave of fear, frustration and hopelessness, same as you.
As believers, we live in this tension, between what we know about life and what we know about God. Between what we see and what we believe. Between faith and fear. And we are always either feeding one or the other. Given greater credence to one or the other. Allowing the one to shape/ influence/ guide us (and our conversations) most, or the other. It’s no wonder we are always called to take our thoughts captive (2 Cor 10 v 3 – 5), to focus on what is good (Col 3 v 2), to practice gratitude and persistent prayer (1 Thess 5 v 16 – 18), to trust in God’s reasonings and abilities over our own (Prov 3 v 5 – 6). It’s for this very reason. Because God knows how fragile our faith is, our egos, and our minds. Because the alternative is for our peace to be completely dependent on and for our faith to ultimately be derailed by our circumstances. I have never come closer to this reality as in this season of my life.
But what does this look like practically, in our feelings and responses around where we are at as a country?
We are afraid:
Let’s be honest. For many of us, this fear is based on facts…on first hand experiences. Many of us represent the actual faces of the actual people that make up the actual (and frightening) crime statistics of our country. I do not talk about fear metaphysically anymore. For me is a visceral thing as much as a mental thing. So please don’t think I am going to flippantly throw around “faith over fear” slogans and just tell you to try harder not to be afraid. I know what it means to be truly afraid for my life and the lives of those I love. But that means I have been confronted with this argument that, because I have a legitimate reason to be afraid, I should have that fear govern my next move. My every move.
But the Bible calls us to live carefully, not fearfully. The Bible uses words like prudent, circumspect and wise when it comes to making decisions. Not fear. Never fear. The only worthy form of fear that Scripture acknowledges is fear of the Lord – i.e having God in His rightful place in my life based on an accurate acknowledgement of who He is. And that tracks, because when (fear of) the Lord is in the right place in our lives – we are not likely to be slaves to any other forms of fear and we are more likely to live lives of practical wisdom and insight (Prov 9 v10) We are often much more knowledgeable of the things we should be afraid of – swopping “did you hear what happened to so and so” stories – than we are of the character and nature of God. We often put fear first instead of putting God first. But what if I allowed what I knew and understood about God to govern the way I live, instead of all the things I was afraid of? I refuse for my decisions to be governed by any fear other than a fear of the Lord. I refuse to have my emotional well-being dictated to me by Load shedding and my spiritual stature to be stunted by crime stats. And I refuse for decisions based on fear to misalign me with God’s will for my life.
“The way we make our anxious thoughts smaller is by making our awareness of God’s greatness bigger. “
Louie Giglio
We feel uncertain:
There are just so many “what ifs” right now. What if the grid does collapse? What if our businesses go under because of load shedding or corruption? What if commercial opportunities dry up and our children can’t find jobs? In fact, “We need to give our kids better opportunities” is one of the key (fear) factors that it the motivation behind people leaving. Uncertainty fuels fear. We as believers can deal with uncertainty not because we know the future but because we know the God who holds our future. We know what He is like. We know what He has purposed for us, not a life of prosperity and pleasure, but a life of passion and purpose inside His providence and provision, even in the darkest times. And we know these are not empty promises because God put the weight of His love behind them when he sent his Son. If he has already done the hardest thing, can we not then trust Him with the details of our lives (Rom 8 v 32)?
The promises of God are not a myopic and thoughtless response to reality, a band-aid for the melancholy of the masses. They are declarations of ultimate truth, ultimate reality, that we can direct our thoughts towards every time someone sends us a doomsday newsletter or traps us in a fear-ridden conversation. They are what is most true about us, even in our circumstances.
It is there, in those moments, that I remind myself (and others) that my children are safest in the hands of an all-knowing God (Ps 37 v 25), that I can trust that He will show me which steps to take when I stay surrendered to Him (Psalm 143 v 8).
We are negative:
How long have we wallowed in this perpetual state of mind that believes that everything is bad? It’s all we see and all we hear. From potholes to the failing Rand, from Andre De Ruyter’s truth bombs to the ANC winning another election – Lord help us. We wonder about how the land appropriation or labour laws will affect our children, how the ever growing public wage bill and grant burden will pressurize the dwindling number of taxpayers and whether inflation is going to turn us all into vegetarians (no offence to the vegetarians). The state of our country (and the world) means news channels are never short on clickbait. If being the spokesperson for Eskom is currently the worst job in the country, then being a journalist is probably the best. And easiest. They have a consistent stream of fodder for their fear machine.
And no doubt, things are very very bad. And there is no indication that they will improve. But when we buy into this idea that it’s ALL bad ALL the time, we risk missing what God is doing. God doesn’t not only work on a cosmic canvas. He is also always at work in the micro and the minuscule, where He knows our meaning lies. That is what we read about in Hebrews 11 v 1 – 4! The Bible does not propose gratitude in all things as a self-care strategy, but because gratitude cements our faith. It makes our well-being dependent on something more than just our circumstances and our eyes open to something more than just the tangible and terrible. That is what faith is after all (Heb 11 v 1). Don’t allow the “everything is bad” narrative to steal your zeal and drain away your readiness to see God at work. When I have gotten stuck in one of those “everything is bad” conversations I remind myself of what my friend Lisa Whittle said, that things can be good and hard at the same time. In fact, it’s what Jesus himself said that in this world we WILL have trouble, but that we can’t take heart, He has overcome the world (John 16 v 44). There is a danger in the lie that we are actually supposed to have this trouble-free life. Or worse that it is our right. It makes us think the goal of life is to exert energy to get rid of all and any struggle or risk or discomfort and it makes us ineffective for God’s Kingdom. Beware the unbiblical pursuit of a trouble-free life dear friends.
“The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer. Because the smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is in the end the one who suffers most.”
Thomas Merton
We feel frustrated:
Probably because we feel powerless. Frustration is a type of energy that pents up in us when we feel there is nothing we can do. Many of us feel stuck in a state of perpetual, anxious disempowerment. But I think we’ve missed a trick.
Jordan Petersen in his study of human nature rightly encourages us to not forsake the good we can do (as does Gal 6 v 10), and yet, every day, we make thousands of choices that place our good (our comfort, our goals, our lives) above the greater good. And that, in the way we foreswear our responsibility to the highest good, we tear something out of the fabric of being that is of inestimable value.
For us as believers, we should feel this more than most. Because we know we are called and sent. Nothing about our lives, not even where we live and raise our kids, is random. Because we are planted in particular places at particular times to accomplish particular things (Eph 2 v 10). Robin Hood said one man fighting for his home is better than 10 hired soldiers. I believe one (wo)man answering the call of God right where (s)he is, is better than 50 overpaid, unproductive civil servants. I believe if instead of moaning and moving we started investing and improving we could do what God has asked all of us to do, which is to expend effort for things to be better because we were here. And I don’t even mean tons of time, effort or money! I just mean a little more than we are expending now waiting for someone to come and complaining that no one is coming! If we spent half the time we did complaining and half the money it takes to move to greener pastures to fill in a pothole, clean up a park or report a traffic light, our communities would start changing. When the righteous thrive our cities rejoice (Prov 11 v10), when we are blessed cities are built up (v 11) and when we pray for our cities to prosper instead of cursing them, we will prosper too (Jer 29 v 7). What if we intentionally supported small businesses and paid our bills on time? What if we encouraged entrepreneurship and creativity in our kids? What if we prayed for civil servants and government officials? What if we took back that park or that street corner? What if we were generous with the people we employed and diligent with the work we’d been given? What if we saw every conversation about the hopelessness of load shedding and the future here as an opportunity to share about where our hope and peace come from?
Only God’s promises can help us look at our realities differently. Only an ever-deepening understanding of His character and nature can help us trust Him more even in all of this. It doesn’t mean we act like these things don’t affect us. But they don’t have to afflict us. Our present circumstances can call us into a greater state of anxiety and distress or into a greater desire and dependence on God. But let’s not kid one another that we don’t ultimately get to choose one way or another. Uncertainty is always an opportunity for greater surrender to the one Who knows the future. And fear is always an opportunity for a deeper faith in the one who loves us perfectly.
And I am praying for you in these things as much as for myself.
Do you battle financial fear in your everyday life? I think, at least post-pandemic, it’s real for most people on some level ( I dunno, maybe not so much for the people who manufacture sanitisers?) The pandemic, for most of us, was like having the carefully placed chess pieces of our lives all thrown up into the air, with every piece coming down in a different place, and many falling on the floor.
The Bible has a lot to say about financial fear. But I think, as is often the case, the way we approach these scriptures sometimes hinders us from truly extracting the transformational value God has for us in His word. Because, as is often the case, we come to the Word of God looking for it to say something about us, looking to it to affirm us and tell us something about ourselves that might help us. When really, what would likely help us most, is not knowing more about ourselves, but knowing more about God, the one we are truly called to trust. As I always say, you can’t trust someone you don’t know! The fact is that we cannot find the solutions to the problems that plague our inner lives with more truth about us. Most of the time, we are the problem. Our inner lives are the problem. Our hearts are the problem (Jer 17 v 9) and we certainly can’t be on the right path by following it. Truth and wisdom are not found in more of us but in more of Him (Prov 14 v 14).
I recently turned to Luke 12 v 29 – 32 to seek comfort for the fears that have plagued me about my own uncertain financial future.
“Don’t strive for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don’t be anxious. For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his Kingdom, and these things will be provided to you. Don’t be afraid, little flock, because your Father delights to give you the Kingdom. “
Luke 12 c 29 – 32
Sure, if I were to look at this verse trying to figure out what I needed to do, I would easily see that I needed to NOT STRIVE and NOT BE ANXIOUS. Have you ever tried to tell yourself/ your mind to simply stop worrying about something? Me personally? I have never managed it with any success. And if you have you must be mentally far stronger than me. In my experience, it’s like telling a toddler to stop doing something. Sometimes it just makes them want to do it more. But what if I looked at this verse to tell me something about God? Then this is what I would see, a list of powerful truths about the character, nature and abilities of God:
1. God knows I have fear around money. That is why He tells me to not strive, not be anxious, not be afraid. His knowledge of me comforts me, because through that I know, He sees me, He knows what it’s like inside my head (Ps 103 v 14)
2. He is my Shepherd, that’s why He calls me His flock. If I am the flock and He is the shepherd that means I can look to Him for guidance to pastures that would feed me, and I can say like David in Psalm 23, that if God is my shepherd, I lack nothing that I need.
3. He is my Father. That means I am his child. I have kids, and just like I, an earthly parent, know what my kids need and try to give it to them, God, who is a perfect parent, knows what I need and I can trust Him (Luke 11 v 11 – 13).
4. He is my King. Because, according to this verse, He delights to give me the Kingdom. Only a King can do that. A king can take all the resources of His Kingdom and apply them in accordance with His will. He is able to exert power and sovereignty over all that is in His Kingdom on my behalf. If you, like me, work for yourself, with your work dependent on support and opportunities, then this is immensely comforting.
5. He is generous. The verse tells me that He “gives” me the Kingdom. He doesn’t rent it to me, or lend it to me. He doesn’t wait to see if I qualify. He is generous, thus He gives freely.
6. He is delighted to do it. The verse actually uses that word. I do not have to convince Him, He is not reluctant or unwilling. Actually, this word in the Greek (eudokeõ), means He thinks it’s a good idea, an idea He is well pleased with.
I don’t know about you, but for me, financial fear is an almost daily battle. I am not a salary earner. Neither is my husband. We both experience huge fluctuations in our monthly earnings, which can be nerve-wracking. So when I talk about a battle, that is what I mean. It’s not something I just struggle with occasionally. And when you are in a battle, you need a form of attack. You need weapons, and you already know, that because this is not a flesh and blood battle, the weapons need to be different too (Eph v 12 – 17).
That is why I have found these 6 truths to be a powerful antidote to my daily battle with financial fear.
Dear friend, may this truth also minister to your heart today, and every day that you battle financial fear. That God is a shepherd who can guide you, a Father who knows what you need, and a King who can exert authority over your circumstances, and He is and does these things with generosity and delight.
Sending your kid off to “big school” is hard, even if it wasn’t during a pandemic! If you have a new Gr1 in your home this is a uniquely challenging year, and I get it. I was the mom in the oversized sunnies weeping haplessly in the car on the way home on that first day. Like trying to hold water in a cup made of toiletpaper. That was me trying to hold back tears on my eldest’ first day of school. He’s 14 now and won’t read this so I am not embarrassed to say it (or to post a picture of just how adorable he was mind you!).
As I recently mentioned over on www.wifemomtravel.com, being a boy mom is like someone breaking up with you very very slowly. But regardless of whether you are sending your boy or girl off to school, that walk away from the school gate feels like a tear in the fabric of your heart, here are 10 things I learned that I hope will help you through that first year (and all the ones to follow!)
Remember that anxiety is contagious. Kids are like dogs in that way, it’s like they just know when there is fear, panic or anxiety around. What has really helped me is to shroud this day, this event, and me and my child in it, in prayer. Need help with this? 5 Ways to pray for your child in the new school year
Expect more from God and less from yourself. Remember, parenting will test the fiber of your faith. Your biggest battles will not and should not be fought in the principal’s office or at the parent/teacher meeting, but on your knees before the Lord. That is where you will make the most progress and see the greatest results in the life of your child.
And speaking of expectations, right now, going in, set your hope in the right place. Especially among some spheres of our society, the school convo is a big one. But the majority of our countrymen do not have a choice about where their kids go to school. This one thing I know for sure: My child’s future is not in the hands of a school – regardless of how fancy, a principle – regardless of how well regarded, a set of strategically executed moves – regardless of how well reasoned. It is in God’s hands. We should not rely on things, people, countries, institutions or relationships to deliver in the lives of our children what only God can deliver – a secure future and an eternal destiny.
You cannot control what is about to happen. But I couldn’t say it better than Lysa Terkeurst when she said: “One of the best things you could do as a mom is recognize that God is good at being God.”
Get clever with the time in the car. Whether it’s a 10 minute trip or whether you have to get up early to trek across the city, the opportunity of having your child as your captive audience for that time is precious. Use it wisely. My book, the mommy diaries, evolved out of conversations I had with my kids in the car. Conversations about winning, losing, about things that happened to them at school, among their friends. on the news, and it’s a great tool to help you transfer your values so you can raise kids with courage and character, simply by using their everyday experiences and your everyday opportunities.
Be prepared. You are inevitably going to arrive at school when it’s raining. Or wish you had change for the tuck-shop cause he forgot his lunch on the counter. Again. Or you’re going to arrive at 7 and it will already be scorching and no one thought to pack sunscreen. Here is what I keep in the car for the 433 hours a year I spend between home and school . Also be prepared with some clever questions so you can draw out more than a “fine”/ “nothing” to your “How was your day?”/ “What did you learn?” questions on the trip home after school. Be sure to check out my stories on Instagram this week OR check the Mom of Boys highlight on my profile here!
Get involved at school. And no, I don’t mean be one of those parents who are forever complaining about things. Go ask anyone, it’s always the parents who complain the most who do the least! Don’t be that mom! Research reveals that there is a direct link between your involvement at your child’s school and your child’s performance. No matter their income or background, kids with involved parents are more likely to have higher marks in class, attend school regularly, have better social skills, show improved behavior, and adapt well to school. And your involvement will not just bless your child. If you are in a racially and economically diverse school, your involvement will bless the kids whose parents are not able to be involved, bless the teachers and the school as a whole.
Embrace this transition in your child’s life as an opportunity to foster independence. For example prepping/ packing their own schoolbag/ using a planner/ diary, setting up a study space or desk and using an alarm clock in the mornings. Why not make a list of skills you want your child to learn by the end of the first school year and put it on the fridge so you can track his/ her progress together.
Have the big discussions early. I heard Hettie Brits speak about it this way once. When we are intentional about discussing certain things with our kids, for example sex and other tricky things, it’s like we open a file in the filing cabinet that is their brains. If we open the file first, giving them God’s truth about that topic first, every other thing they hear and see into the future needs to line up with that truth. But if we lack the courage or intentionality to have that discussion with them, someone else might open the file and place information in it that does not agree with your values or world view. Do not underestimate the spirit and insight of your child, have the hard talks. And do not underestimate what of the world your child will be encountering in the first year of school. It is both your job and your calling to prepare him/ her.
Be nice to the teachers. Not because you are trying to get into anyone’s good graces, but because, well, they deserve it! Teachers have a tough job at the best of times, and the last year has taken a toll on our teachers as they had to adapt to changing conditions, as they had to continue to try to serve our kids under challenging circumstances, as they risked their health to be with our kids and as some of them unfairly bore the brunt of many parents’ unwillingness to continue to pay school fees. We can honor teachers by not complaining about them in front of our kids, and we can serve them by recognizing the challenges of their job, doing something kind for them and by staying involved with our own child’s educational development. Check out this great gift idea for the beginning of term!
You are going to be tempted to worry about a lot of things. You are going to find yourself outside the school gate with other worried moms, with concern over this teacher/ that news bulletin/ the fact that your kid keeps losing his jersey gathering like a storm in your heart. Breath, remember Who is really in charge of it all, and then parent like that’s true.
How can we help our kids cope with COVID19? Do you also feel like at the moment we are making a gazillion dreadful decisions every day, go to work/ stay home, go to school/ school at home, eat out/ eat-in, visit/ don’t visit? All the regular things of life have been upgraded to monumental declarations of position, opinion and faith. And our kids have a front-row seat to the whole thing, to the anxiety, the struggle of work, finances, “home” school and the constant flux in context and every other impossible challenge this pandemic has thrown at us, with their own little lives, not to mention futures, currently residing under a giant question mark. These are hard days.
The undercurrent of anxiety that is now part of our homes affects all of us in different ways, even our kids. Their stress might not look like ours does, like too much coffee and too little sleep, or too many hours escaping in Netflix, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Kids become unmotivated, discouraged and younger kids even regress due to stress. Have you seen any of that happen at home? Here are some helpful focus points in shepherding our kids through this season:
Create predictability
Stress is most often a product of uncertainty, and so in this our kids have the same needs we have when we are stressed – predictability, security, and practical tools! These must include regular exercise, and a daily routine that takes at least some of the uncertainty out of a very uncertain time and helps them know what to expect in a time of a lot of unexpected things. One of the things that kids stress about the most is not knowing what’s going to happen next. And even if the one minute they can go to school and the next minute they can’t (which is one of many uncertainties we as parents can’t control), there is a lot of comfort in creating a little bit of predictability in their day in order to better cope with the unpredictability of life. Doing this for them (even if it doesn’t come naturally) and for ourselves is one of the best ways to deal with the stress of this season. If you are suddenly juggling work/home/school a flexible but predictable routine will be your saving grace.
Learn to Pivot
No, this point does not oppose the first one! If you’ve been around here for any length of time you will know that I believe flexibility is like a superpower. And by flexibility I don’t mean chopping and changing, I mean creating structures and routines that are more task bound than time-bound. That means our routines can adapt to changes in our circumstances, like someone getting sick or a car breaking down (or some new and unexpected news from the President’s command council let’s say). It’s about knowing what you want to get done but being flexible about the when and how. A goal-driven routine (as opposed to a time-driven one) will help you accomplish that and allow you to pivot when you need to. Keep an eye on the blog for a course on this coming soon.
Provide Perspective
In my book I used some of the many names of God to teach my kids about His character. As AW Tozer rightly says, what comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us. In the face of a global tragedy, what do we tell our kids about God? Did God cause this to happen to us? What does this tragedy reveal about His character? Our faith remains the lens that we view all of life through, so we need to help our kids (and maybe even ourselves) to have the right perspective on this pandemic. Our older kids might have questions, and our younger kids are at the perfect age for us to deliberately bring biblical understanding to this confusing context. I will just briefly highlight some helpful discussion points.
God did not cause this pandemic:
Like other natural disasters and pandemics, it’s a product of living in a fallen world, where there exists natural evil and moral evil, sometimes acting separately and sometimes converging to cause disaster. The pandemic once again evidences to us that there is brokenness between us and creation and us and our Creator and in a broken world, human sin, suffering, and pain are simply inevitable. If we did not want to recognize this fact before we have to recognize it now because it cannot be ignored and it’s a wonderful waypoint to discuss the gospel with our kids and what it means for us today and into eternity. God didn’t cause this pandemic, but He can use it in the lives of people.
We live in scary times but we don’t need to be scared:
What did Jesus want us to know about being here on earth before He left? In his “farewell discourse”, in the 13th to 17th chapters of the Gospel of John, Jesus clearly displayed the truth that his death and resurrection had both temporal (for today) and prophetic (for eternity) application, and these are great words to go over with our kids. Some of His final words to us include tellings us to “take heart”, in Greek the word means to take courage. How can we be courageous? By remembering that Jesus took the sting out of death and the teeth out of suffering, both of which we will face on earth but neither of which have the final say over us. This truth means we face the realities of COVID 19 differently. It has to!
(I know sometimes the gospel/ biblical concepts can be hard to explain to kids, and as adults sometimes we understand something in our heads/ hearts but we don’t have the words for it. My book helps with this. Just saying.).
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Process Disappointment
Disappointment. It’s become a staple of this season for grown-ups and kids alike. On some level, we are all mourning losses, canceled plans, even the death of loved ones, all the “could’ve been’s and shoud’ve been’s” of school tours and galas and matric dances and hopes and dreams and plans and goals.
Validate their experiences
One of the best ways to help our kids deal with their disappointment is to validate its existence. To acknowledge that it’s terrible that he won’t be going on hockey tour/ she can’t have a birthday party/ we can’t go to granny’s house. It’s sad and sore and unfair. One of the most precious things we learned as a church this year has been the value of lament (Thank you Pastor Richard!).
The examples of lament in scripture is of people allowing themselves to come before God with their heartbrokenness, their disappointments, not with complaining as the end goal, but for the sake of drawing them near to a God who hears, sees and understands. Why not use this opportunity to teach your kids to mourn and then release their disappointing experiences to God? There are almost 42 Psalms of lament that you can use to help you.
Practice Gratitude
In lament, we mourn the loss of something good, and in that sense, it is also an acknowledgment of all that has been good in our lives. That we have things/ people that are worth mourning is a wonderful privilege! Is your son sad about not going on a hockey tour? Why not talk about what he would’ve enjoyed about it most? Frustrated at not being able to visit her favorite places? What makes it a place she loves and misses? In the context of loss and disappointment, we can highlight for our kids how much good we truly have in our lives, and in doing so shift the focus to what remains good instead of what is less than ideal right now.
I think we talk way more now about what we can’t do and don’t have, much more now about what we lost than what we’ve gained. But this is not the example set for us in scripture. Asaph in Psalm 77, in the context of his difficulty and disappointment, after a heartfelt lament, pivots, makes a diligent search, and comes up with a list that reflects God’s faithfulness. And then he goes one step further, he talks about it.
Lean into Prayer
I honestly don’t know how people are getting through this season without Jesus. With so many burdens and concerns, within our own homes and outside our walls, understanding the power of prayer has never been more important. Prayer is also our (and our kids’) first line of defense in helping them bear up, process and cope with so many emotionally and mentally challenging truths of this time, such as increasing poverty and fearful situations and unpredictability. This is what I taught my boys about prayer.
Protect them from the Media
TBH I use to listen to the news a lot more. One of the reasons I started writing the blogs that ended up turning into The Mommy Diaries was because my kids starting asking me about things they heard reported on in the news, such as #FeesMustFall and #metoo
But the old adage, don’t believe everything you read, remains true, especially in South Africa where we do not have a well-regulated and appropriately accountable news media. I learned first-hand this year that even the most “reputable” (and I use this word VERY loosely) news outlet will do anything for clicks and shares even if it means exploiting children and their trauma or blatantly reporting in an unbalanced way. This is what we need to know when we engage with the news: the side of the story that wins every time is the side that induces the most fear, anger and morbid fascination because that will keep us clicking. If we don’t tell our kids this they will also haplessly follow every trend or news story down the rabbit hole of half-truths and sacrifice their very peace in the process!
And now, our kids have phones and WhatsApp and they hear and see everything. And it is 100% up to us to teach them how to walk the line between being watchful and informed on what is necessary to know on one hand, and unaffected, unoffended and unafraid on the other. I don’t get this right all the time, I don’t know many people who do. But in this season where we are constantly being overloaded with information that provides no solutions and burdened by bad news we can do nothing about our discerning consumption is a vital act of safeguarding our kids and our own soul- and spirit-wellness.
This blog is focused mostly on kids between the ages of 8 and 15, but if you’re kids are younger and you are looking to spark a conversation or simply give them a tool to help them process the mixed emotions of a global pandemic, I can highly recommend you visit https://www.stronganchor.co.za for some very helpful resources. 1 New subscriber to this blog will win their books, Monster in my neighborhood and Monster in my School!
As parents, it’s up to us to equip our kids to contextualize, understand, and engage with what is happening around them on a basis of truth, compassion and hopefulness. But that’s not always easy. But in an era-defining pandemic, if we do not concern ourselves with our and our kids’ worldview, both our approach and perspective and even our faith and hope will be on shaky ground. The Mommy Diaries was written to help you with this and you can get it here!
What word would you use to describe your faith in this season? In our online prayer meeting at church a few weeks ago (yes, cause that’s a thing now), a live poll indicated that more than 70% of people felt that their faith had grown during lockdown! Yay for them, but if I am honest I know that I have struggled to stay within that 70%. I wanted to. But it felt like a fight. A fight for faith. A fight I refuse to walk away from because I know what a life apart from Christ is like and to me that is just not an option. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been hard. Most of the time I felt like I was faltering. To be fierce means to show heartfelt and passionate intensity. I want to be a fierce woman of faith, who intently and intensely displays faith.
But what does the fight for fierce faith look like in this season? I don’t know about you but it feels like there are blows coming at me from all sorts of directions! How can we keep choosing the walk of faith when the journey is this hard? Faith is more than a spiritual position. Sometimes, no often, it’s also a response. And a response is always a choice! Job gave us that example, so did many others in the Bible. So how do we keep choosing fierce faith when we feel like we’re faltering?
We choose fierce faith when we stay fully convinced of God’s intention to perform what He promised:
If anyone needed ferocious faith it was Abraham and Sarah! Am I right? I mean talk about unlikely people in the kind of circumstances that made what they hope for flat out impossible nevermind what your God promised! But even as the years ticked by and the promise remained just a highlighted set of verses in his bible, Abraham remained fully convinced (Rom 4 v 21) that God was able to perform what He had promised. How did he remain convinced? In him and Sarah’s waiting, they continued to “judge God faithful” (Rom 11 v 11) They fixed their eyes not on the impossibility of their situation, not even on the set of highlighted verses of promise, but on the intention of God to do what He said ((Is 14 v 24). They assessed His track record and became fully convinced that yes, He is able, and in His time also ready to perform His word (Jer 1 v 12).
We choose fierce faith when we acknowledge God’s ability in the face of impossible circumstances:
If Abraham was taking our Corona Poll at Rosebank Union Church, he would have been firmly in the 70%, because rather than growing weak, his faith in God grew stronger while he waited. We read in Rom 4 v 20 that Abraham did not allow himself to waver through unbelief – he did not falter – which just blows my mind by the way! And through the act of simply holding on, his faith was strengthened. Wow, right?
Faith is not as some people might think, a denial of impossible circumstances. It’s not tattooing “with God all things are possible” on your arm and not watching the news so you are more able to maintain a “positive attitude”. Yes, I’m using inverted commas. And yes, with all the snark you’ve come to expect from yours truly. That is not faith. Faith is not a denial of the problem, it’s believing God’s word in the face of the problem. Biblical faith does not deny the problem or circumstances but holds fast that God remains greater than the problem or the circumstances. Is that the God you know? Because it’s hard to trust someone you don’t know, as I discovered in my fight for hope through the uncertainty Coronavirus.
We choose fierce faith when we choose to believe God has the final word over our circumstances:
Not our words. Not our feelings. God’s final word is yes! Because faith is taking God at His word, not taking our feelings so seriously that we can’t see past them.
You see a guarantee, the one we’ve received, is not a feeling, it’s a contract. What we have been given in the Holy Spirit is not about good vibes (which obviously don’t last long in bad situations), but a guarantee, a pledge. It’s God’s commitment to complete His work in us (Eph 5 v 5, Rom 8 v 23), thereby confirming the Yes that is Jesus, the complete portion, the fulfillment of every promise God ever made! But how does that help me? By His Holy Spirit, we are enabled to live God’s perfection in imperfect situations. God’s perfection is Jesus, who lives in us, making us more and more able to respond perfectly in the difficult and challenging circumstances of our lives, oh and bonus, offering us grace when we don’t!
We choose fierce faith when we choose what we know over what we feel:
Here is the thing that I am realizing. Pastor Dave one of our pastor’s said on Sunday during online church (cause yeah, that’s a thing now too) that our faith in suffering is really our biggest testimony. We are all, right now, becoming what we declare. How scary is that? Right now, all over the world, believers are wrestling, and it’s because our doctrine, what we truly believe about God and what we believe about the world in relation to God is never more apparent than when we are in crisis.
The fact is that our doctrine is our everyday companion, it is coming out of our mouths and our fingertips, rolling around in our thoughts and manifesting itself in our homes all the time, maybe without us even being conscious of it. What we believe about God and the world is evident in how we work, how we entertain ourselves (jip, in the TV series we pick!), how we speak and eat, and yes, in how we suffer and struggle. One of the reasons I wrote The Mommy Diaries is because of this fact, that our fundamental beliefs are not some random mental state we engage from time to time, but it actually shows itself in every action and situation. And that it’s ultimately our children’s beliefs that drive their behaviors, as is the case with us, whether we like it or not. So addressing the beliefs rather than the behaviors if you’re a parent, is critical.
All of my life is the outworking of my beliefs. If so many of us are experiencing a crisis of faith, what we should be doing is working back from that intense worry, anxiety, need for escape, emotional low to the core belief that drives it and measuring that against the doctrine we profess to subscribe to so it can reveal itself as either true, or a lie. So as we go through whatever we’re going through, I hope what we are asking ourselves more is: what do I believe – i.e what is my doctrine? About God…the world…all of this. And hopefully what we are listening to a bit less is: How do I feel? Faith is not a feeling.
Jesus calls us to do the “work of believing” (John 6 v 29). That work is this: consistently lining up your convictions and your action. And for that work to be aligned, correct, built on truth, not a house that will falter and fall when shaken, Jesus should be the plum-line, the ultimate reference point. That’s what a cornerstone is!
Kona Brown
So how can I have this kind of faith? Paul said he could suffer while remaining full of faith because he knew WHOM he had believed and was persuaded beyond any doubt in His ability (2 Tim 1 v 12). The focus of his faith was more than just what he believed, it was in knowing WHOM he had believed. His faith was about more than merely holding on to a set of promises, it was about holding on to the Person behind the promises, so that even if the promises are not fulfilled, then he would remain convinced that even that would be, MUST be, for his good because of the character of Whom he believed, the one who works ALL for our good (Rom 8 v 28), even something that looks like a broken promise or disappointment. Fierce faith rests IN Him (1 Cor 2 v 5), abides in Him (John 15 v 4, 7) and cannot be separated from the loving personhood of God in the Lord Jesus (Rom 8 v 38, 39)
Choosing faith may not eliminate our present pain or difficulty. It probably won’t even stop the many questions we still have. It will not “explain away” our present circumstances. But it will remind us of Who is really in control and produce in us endurance (James 1 v 2 – 5), and yield in us even greater fruit (Heb 12 v 11). I know I want that, even if it’s hard!
This is all I’ve got. I know how hard it is right now. Remember I am praying for you.
Teaching kids about prayer in times of uncertainty
In this year we have faced trauma at school, family members threatened by a dire drought, and now, Covid 19, it’s effects reaching into every corner of everything we do, have, own, trust in. Never before has it been more important to be able to pray. And I was confronted through all of this with this question: Do my kids really know how to pray? Do they know why we pray? Do they truly have access to the power of prayer in times of loss, uncertainty, worry, fear and trial, or do they just know how to pray before they eat or before they sleep?
So here is what I told my kids about prayer:
We should pray because it’s a conversation with God:
Imagine living in your house with your parents and your siblings, and never talking to them. Imagine going to school and flat out ignoring your friends. That would be so weird. It would make you feel awkward and it would make your friends and family feel awkward too. Talking is one of the things we do to maintain, foster and build relationships. And prayer is talking. With God. That is why prayer must be honest, just like any conversation between you and someone you love whom you know loves you back. Just like when you talk to that person, prayer doesn’t have to be full of fancy words, not flowery or over the top. Prayer is a conversation, not a sermon, a monologue or an eisteddfod performance. And just like talking to someone who you know fully accepts and loves you, prayer can change the way you feel, the way you see things and even the way you act. And that is why prayer must go both ways and include talking AND listening, just like any conversation. Otherwise, you are just making a speech. The problem is that we are all better talkers than listeners for the most part, and that is true when we are around people we can see and hear! So listening to God, whom we can’t see and whose voice is not audible, is even harder. But it’s not impossible, and prayer can be a time of talking and listening if we do exactly what we would do if we had a friend we wanted to listen to, which is to intentionally keep quiet.
Set aside the time and create an opportunity for God to speak to you. Yes, you can pray any time and anywhere, but setting aside disciplined prayer time where you are not just venting to God means you are creating space for Him to speak to you.
We should pray because it’s a command from God:
And just like all other types of commands, God insists on them because he knows they are good for us. God through prayer wants us to keep the channel of communication open between us, because He knows that without communication, relationships don’t survive and thrive. And if prayer is a command, that means when we pray we are being obedient, right? And before you think obedience is boring, think about it this way: Another word for obedience is trust. So every time we obey God, we are also trusting Him, and when we trust someone, we share our hearts with them, everything about our lives, the good and the bad. And that is what prayer is, and act of obedience and an act of trust. And that is why prayer is so powerful
We should pray because Jesus did it:
Which shows us that it must be a very important thing. And when we start copying Jesus, the more we will become like him. And the great thing is that Jesus, in the way He himself prayed with and for His disciples, shows us exactly how we should pray
Faithfully (Rom 12 v 12)
Even for our enemies (Matt 5 v 44)
In watchfulness about what we notice and gratitude for what we have (Col 4 v 2)
With the help of the Holy Spirit (Eph 6 v 18)
We should pray because prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us. And also because God gives His grace and Holy Spirit only to those who pray continually and groan inwardly, asking God for these gifts and thanking Him for them.
Heidelberg Catechism
We should pray because it’s powerful and releases God’s power into our lives and the lives of others:
The Bible tells us that the prayer of the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5 v 16), and thanks to Jesus dying for us, we all are “righteous” because we have Jesus’s righteousness. God uses prayer in the lives of us and of others because His desire is always for a relationship, to partner with us in bringing about His will on earth.
The Bible we read about many instances where the power of prayer overcame enemies (Ps 6 v 9 – 10), brought about healing (James 5 v 14 – 15), conquered death(2 Kings 4 v 3 – 36) and defeated the power of the demons (Mark 9 v 29). God uses prayer to bring healing and restoration, to give us wisdom and to open our eyes. It is a way to draw on the infinite resource of power that is the God of the universe!
Note to parents:
Prayer is a posture, it’s a conversation, it’s correcting and it’s a contribution to the work of the Kingdom, and in The Mommy Diaries I expound on how to journey with our kids on this and also how to teach them to pray. All orders of The Mommy Diaries during lockdown will come with an amazing free resource by Rev Leigh Robinson called “A solid foundation: Biblical Truths our children must know by heart before the age of 12”. Perfect for discipling your kids and using all the time at home to sow eternal seeds!
For blog subscribers, there is also a handy infographic with an easy rhyme that teaches kids about praying anytime about anything, some quick crib notes to help you answer those tough questions on prayer (if God knows everything why should we pray?) and how to use the ACTS acronym to teach your kids how to pray.
The sobering news about having kids is in the realization that you are not as in control as you thought you were. And few seasons in life attune us to this reality like sending our kid off to school. There our child encounters a thousand situations, relations, temptations that we will not even be present for, won’t even know about, cannot choose or control. In that, prayer is not just a comfort but a call. It is the admission, the submission, that there are things our kids need that we can’t provide, situations they will be in we can’t control and that there is a God who is God over it all. How humbling to be a parent!
But has this ever happened to you: You sit down to pray and you have nothing to say? By your conviction of the power and importance of prayer you come to pray for your children only to find you have dull words, mundane requests and circumstantial insights that don’t make a dent in the eternal, true needs of your child and do not spiritually connect you to God’s vision for them. I have felt like this many times. In these moments I have found God’s word to be a great tool to direct my prayers to be more powerful and effective.
Pray Expectantly
I have written a lot about expectation, and that we, especially as moms, often have a very high expectation of ourselves and a low expectation of God. Moms are the “do-ers” in the lives of their children, and we often mistakenly get into a mode of “if I don’t it won’t” when it comes to parenting by faith. I know, I’ve been there. But what if we placed all our expectations on the promises of God instead of our own abilities in the life of our kids?
“If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith.”
Charles Spurgeon
Pray Persistently
Luke 18 v 1- 8 must’ve been written especially for the parents of teens! It’s the parable about the persistent widow. When prayer becomes a practice, it encourages persistence that actually guards our hearts against discouragement. And let’s face it, parenting can be discouraging at times. An attitude of persistence &perseverance in prayer springs from a heart that acknowledges that God’s love for us is a fact that exists above and often despite what we see in our circumstances. That’s faith. Our steadfastness in praying for our children declares that we know God loves them. Set an alarm of your phone if you want to, pick a day of the week, find a way to make persistent prayer a habit.
“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”
Samuel Chadwick
Pray Insightfully
Some of the most touching and beautiful prayers in the Bible where written by Paul, but here’s one thing I’ve noticed. In all his prayers for those he loved, he never requested a change in their circumstances. Now as parents we all want the same things for our kids, for them to be well adjusted, you know, not sociopaths. For them to be kind, happy and hardworking. But more than that I want them to encounter Christ in a real and relevant way, follow him with passion and perseverance, see the world through the eyes of His word so they can face their personal challenges and the challenges of their day with courage and character. That is why I wrote The Mommy Diaries. And that is why when I pray for my kids my prayers focus on these areas:
Their faith
Their character
Their hearts
And their future.
By subscribing to the blog today, you will receive a free printable one week prayer calendar along with a template to make your own. Print it out, pop it on the fridge or in your journal or planner. It focuses on praying God’s word over these areas of your children’s lives!
Pray Thoroughly
I keep what I call a “Warrior woman’s book of prayers” – I know, what an ambitious name! It’s actually just a little ring bound notebook. But in it I have written down scriptures and prayers for all of my loved ones, including my kids, my family members, my friends. And as I sit down to pray for them, my heart and my prayers are guided by God’s word and that way I know they are guided by His will. I do it this way most of the time not because I’m such a clever excellent Christian, but actually because of the opposite. I am a doubtful, worrying, wondering, perpetually distracted ants-in-my-pants Christian with a desperate desire to be a faithful prayer. This way really helps me.
And let me tell you the truth, I have seen more accomplished in the lives of my loved ones through prayer than I have ever seen accomplished through my own efforts, cleverness or ability to turn situations around.
Why do I use God’s Word to help me pray?
So much of what is written in the bible match our circumstances. It gives us words when we don’t have any. Even Jesus used the Word to pray – for example when he prayed from Psalm 22 in Matt 27 and Mark 15.
It helps me focus. Often I find my worries, anxieties, my concerns and my “lists” become the highlights of my prayer time with God. They take up so much space that aligning with His will in prayer, reordering my priorities and desires to line up with scripture, praising and worshipping Him get crowded. Praying God’s word is an intentional way of making those things a more weighty part of my conversations with God.
It helps me pray with confidence – especially in situations where I don’t know what to pray. It contains God’s will, reveals his character, explicitly lays out His promises.
It instructs my heart – actually praying through the Word changes the desires of my heart as His Spirit ministers to my spirit.
It helps me fight earthly battles with heavenly weapons. God calls us to pull down strongholds (2 Cor 10 v 3 – 5) and for that, we need a spiritual arsenal. That is what the Bible is.
Pray Together
Praying God’s word with our kids, lays for them a foundation of understanding about what truly matters in life. God’s word is applicable to every area of challenge our kids face, from bullies, to worries, to friendships and everything in between. In the next blog I will share some insights from my book about how to talk to your kids about prayer and teach them how to pray.
Most recently we have prayed persistently for rain in the Eastern and Northern Cape. It showed my kids not only that God cares about the everyday challenges we face and is deeply invested in the lives of those He loves, but after a time, it showed them how powerful prayer can be and how amazing it is to see your prayers answered. Thank you Lord for the rain in those drought-stricken areas!
Be encouraged mom, your prayers are heard by God himself (Psalm 4 v 3), and your words of supplication move the heart of the King of the Universe (Matt 21 v 22) . Prayer connects you to the strength of God – and which mom could not use more of that! And prayer prepares us to be met by his blessing (Matt 7 v 11)
Do you need help explaining prayer to your child and teaching him/ her about it without all the “christianeze”? Check out the chapter on prayer in The Mommy Diaries – ideal for kids between age 7 and 15!
Holidays with family always sound nicer on paper than they are in real life. There, I said it! It’s all fun and games when it’s winter and you’re desperate for a change of scenery and that family WhatsApp group brings all the feels and all the ideas. But come December, once you’ve had to deal with a thousand more WhatsApp’s on dietary requirements, gotten offended at your aunts’ refusal to get on board with the “no gifts for the kids over R100” idea, and rolled your eyes at you’re a-type sisters’ insistence on capturing it all (yes all of it!) in Excel, it’s all about as fun as a visit to the dentist (no offence dentists!). And your daydreams of bonding with your sibs and your resolve to not allow that one disruptive personality to ruin.absolutely.everything seeps out of you like your confidence on the eve of your 20 year high school reunion.
Oh, and did I mention no one is every happy about where they are sleeping, the dustbin is always too small and every “look at our perfect huge extended family Christmas” post you read on Facebook (and there will be many) is going to make you feel like a failure. Maybe you can identify with this? Or maybe you’re thinking “Family holiday? Don’t be crazy! I don’t know if I’ll survive Christmas lunch!” I see you girl! There’s no judgement here. But here are my tips on how to survive Christmas with “the family”:
Keep your expectations in check:
This is a HUGE one. Expectations ruin relationships. Let me repeat that again for those of you in the back:
Expectations ruin relationships
I’ve seen and experienced this time and time again, and never more so than with family. Expectations set you up to be offended because if you are going to for example expect everyone to happily spend each day together and 1 or 2 people would rather do their own thing, you are going to be offended. Not because it’s wrong for people to want to do their own thing, but because your unmet expectations lead you to feel hurts and offended. When we build up a future scenario in our heads that looks like a very specific thing and we arrive and get something that is even just slightly different often the experience loses all possibility, meaning and joy. Blame that on your expectations! You are better off going with an open heart and mind and letting the time together be what it is.
Keep it short:
You can get through anything if you know it’s going to end. Most of us have jobs and our time off is precious, so yes, make time to see your family but make sure you don’t get stuck in a situation where you get robbed of your rest. Family visiting is like fish in the fridge, it’s fine for about 3 days, after that it starts to stink. Don’t hurt your family by deciding halfway through the holiday that you can’t do it anymore. Commit to a time that seems reasonable and realistic to you and make that commitment count. Three days of being willing, present, connected and available are better than 7 days where you can’t wait for it to be over.
Keep it to yourself:
Maybe your nephew only eats white bread and tomato sauce and spend most of his time playing Minecraft and your sister seems totally fine with it – to your absolute shock and dismay. Maybe your aunt would be a great object lesson if you had to explain the phrase “Mutton dressed as lamb” to your 10yo. Maybe your oldest nephew arrives with his new girlfriend without telling anyone (millennials am I right?) and you spend the whole afternoon scrambling to reorganize the Christmas table so she has a place setting to enjoy some Karoo lamb when she loudly (and with no shortage of pride) announces that she’s vegan. Of course she is.
Yes, these are inane examples, I realise that. But I bet you have a whole list of examples and situations from the last holiday you spent with your family that shocked or surprised you, that even hurt and concerned you. And because it’s family, we think we automatically have permission to speak some “helpful truths” into the situation. But unless someone has asked you to speak into their life and situation, i.e have actually given you permission, you really, really shouldn’t. Keep it to yourself.
Let me share a tip with you that has really helped me: People make decisions based on their values. And yes, even in one family, values can differ. Once we grasp that even the most simple decision was born out of a value that person holds dear, the decision might still hurt us, shock us, annoy us, but it can no longer offend us, because we simply don’t get to be offended by the values around which another structures their life and decisions. If you’re hurt or shocked, you need to let it go.
Keep the kids in mind:
This might sound strange, but there is great value in allowing our kids to develop their own relationships with their aunts and uncles. Because mark my words, there will come a time when your kid might need to hear a voice of reason, but they may have stopped listening to yours. They might need some strong wisdom from a grownup and he/ she WILL NOT want to hear it from you. Allow people you trust in the lives of your kids is priceless and your investment in the lives of your nieces and nephews is bound to be priceless for them (and for their parents!). Be intentional about investing in those relationships!
The other reason to keep the kids in mind is of course because our children are listening to us and understanding from us how family should be treated, spoken of, valued. And since we are all raising someone’s future wife, daughter in law, husband and son in law this is something we should not lose sight of. How do I want my kids to think about family? Because their beliefs will be based on my own actions, because my actions reflect what I value.
Always, always value people. This is never ever something you will regret.
Keep leaning into grace:
People are disappointing sometimes. Mostly because people are selfish. But you know what that means? It means you and I are disappointing and selfish.
So, what we all need is grace, grace and more grace. An anecdote to expectation, more than effort or planning or intentionality, grace will hold your family relationships together. Grace with grumpiness, differences, indifference and difficulty. Because grace is accepting when you could reject, serving when you could instead demand selfishly, forgiving when you could stand on your rights. Grace, more than blood, more than shared values, more than anything, is the glue that holds relationships together. You CAN choose grace over judgement and if you’re on holiday with your family, you SHOULD!
Don’t let God’s grace to you through Christ be wasted on you, rather let it be reflected in your most challenging situations and relationships.
Keep opportunities in mind:
Jesus’s example shows us that the path down is the path up. That it is in serving others, in being inconvenienced, in giving up agendas or positions, that we are truly learning to love. Because in all of that it stops being about us – and that is what love looks like. That is what love actually is. But how often in a family get together scenario do we do that? Do we willingly set aside our comfort, our agendas, or positions in order to love and serve? I can tell you truthfully and shamefully that I have seldom done that, and certainly didn’t do it when I should’ve.
But our time with family, with others, is not just an opportunity to learn to love others well, the way Jesus did, through service and sacrifice, but actually that same opportunity benefits us as well. Life in community makes us better people. The more isolated you live, the harder you are to be around. Other people, especially family, are there to knock the edges off us. Don’t avoid that growth opportunity! These couple of days (or hours) could be something you have to white knuckle through, or it could be the very thing God is presenting you with to help you become the mature, loving person you actually really want to be.
You might be reading this and thanking the Good Lord that you love spending time with your family and patting yourself on the back about what an exception to the rule ya’ll are. Good for you. You should thank Him! I am pretty sure you might be the exception! Maybe your people make a gorgeous “House & Home worthy” Christmas card, or maybe they put the fun into dysfunctional. Either way family can be hard, complicated, and time together often brings up many more hurt and frustration than it should. I feel ya! And I hope this will help you grow in love for your people while you are with your people, whether it be for 3 hours or 3 days (or 3 weeks for those brave souls out there who insist on embracing the triumph of hope over experience!).
My son saw the #metoo #amInext march in Cape Town last week on the news. The conversation went like this:
“Why are they marching Mom?”
“Because violence against women in South Africa is like an epidemic my son”
“But why Mom?”
“Because there is something fundamentally wrong in our society?”
“But why Mom?”
“Because my son, there is something fundamentally wrong in our hearts.”
I stand behind that protest 100%. But a protest is like a volume button, it get’s your attention. but making something louder doesn’t make it better. It is certainly no substitute for action (Yes this is actually also something I’ve spoken to my kids about). But action by whom? As a mom raising boys, I find myself at the coalface of where I believe the change must happen. Graca Machel was right as she addressed mourners at the memorial service of tragically slain student Uyinene Mrwetyana, when she said: “it is in our families”. The correction needs to happen much closer to home than in a courtroom or a police station or via some system or law. At home is where the shaping happens, make no mistake. Your home is the frontline where mutual respect (yes, boys should respect girls and yes girls should respect boys because people should respect each other. Bottom line ) is modeled or distorted, where we either uphold or disregard, instill or destroy the fundamental truth of our shared worth, value and humanity. We don’t need governments and systems to change. We need people to change. And we are people…raising people. That is actually why I wrote The Mommy Diaries, because we are raising kids in a complex world that is only set to become more so. But there is a way to live and lead in that complexity with courage and wisdom.
The hashtags of #metoo and #amInext and #femicide is a call to a higher standard of engagement. But as parents we must call ourselves to it if we are hoping to call our kids to it. And so I believe it is above everything not a call to governments and leaders, but a call to action directed at families, a call to parents.
It’s all of our responsibility to raise the kind of kids who appreciate the uniqueness, equality, dignity and value of the opposite gender. That doesn’t just happen.
It has never been more important to engage with our kids in a new and focused way around these things and to be intentional about it. So this is what I told my boys:
The way women are treated is an atrocity:
This is not limited to South Africa or certain communities or cultures. It’s true everywhere. And women have had enough. Our breaking point has been centuries in the making and now it’s here. And I want my boys to know why. It is based on certain misinterpretations of biology and theology, that didn’t take into account a full set of facts or context. Misinterpretations (i.e the “glasses” through which people “read” these things) that have been accepted as truths, but that are in fact lies. And I have no problem in calling them lies because the idea that women are somehow “less than” has no biological, cultural or scriptural basis. These lies have informed everything from how women are treated and paid, to where they are and aren’t allowed to be/ serve/work/play and have snowballed into the utter disregard with which they are hurt, abused, spoken of and to. These lies are present in homes, in businesses, in churches and in cultures. I know this first hand.
But the problem is not in how women are treated:
The true problem lies in the way women are viewed. The problem is deeper than history, than a culture of patriarchy, than biases and blond jokes. Because all of those things find their origin in one place, in the way one person sees another person. In that sense racism, xenophobia (another evil that rocked our nation again this week) and femicide/ gender based violence is not that different. Because at their root they all find their origins in the way one person sees another person. And as is always the case, the way you see someone else is most often based on how you see yourself. If you see someone as less than, it’s because you see yourself as “more than”. If you see someone for some reason as less deserving, it’s because you see yourself as more deserving.
So yes, it’s important that we address equality, pay equity, femicide and all those good and essential things, but lets make no mistake, real change happens in a different direction.
I don’t want to raise boys who know how to behave in a way that honors, values and respects women. Having the good manners to not tell blond jokes and not hit girls is not the same as holding firm to a fundamental believe that all people are worthy of honor, value and respect.
Because ultimately if we wish to see changes in our society, in legislation, in our communities, there can be no fundamental change effected on that level if we don’t dig down a little deeper and try to affect change at a heart level.
Change will not come through laws and loudspeakers if it doesn’t first come in hearts and homes
Always fight lies with truth:
This is the definition of truth in our house: God’s opinion about EVERYTHING. And if God sees everyone the same so should we. His opinion is that we are all equal (Gen 1 v 27/ Deut 10 v 17/ Rom 2 v 11/ Gal 3 v 26 – 29) and have equal standing with Him.
In God’s eyes we are endowed with worth not because of this or that attribute but because of His likeness in us and His love for us. It is not dependent on status, race, gender or culture. This is something that is true of every human person.
God gives us a different lens through which to see the world. In fact Jesus in word and deed was an example to us in how women are to be regarded and treated in society, in defiance of the social, judicial and religious customs of His day. In all things He is the embodiment of what loving others should look like. Jesus shows us that our lens must never be culture, or history, or tradition or popular opinion. The examples that proves that there is no “less than” attitude in the bible when it comes to women are too many to mention, but I like to throw some at the boys from time to time just to make sure they know: “The first person Jesus told He was the Christ was a woman, the first person He appeared to after He rose from the dead was a woman. Oh, and just incase you were wondering what God thought about women consider this: none of you would even be here if it wasn’t for us”.
The call on all of us is to regard everyone not by what we see on the outside, but by the truth of them as spiritual beings (2 Cor 5 v 16) and image bearers. Misogyny (and yes, my kids know what misogyny is because they understand prejudice. Thank you South African Public schooling) is based on a skewed idea of worth that we can only correct by acknowledging a higher truth.
Consider carefully, don’t consumer carelessly or accept mindlessly:
When we say things like “the problem is in society or culture or whatever” what we are often trying to communicate is that something has been “normalized” over time to a point where it is accepted. If we do not pinpoint those “accepted lies” and reveal them, they will hide in our hearts forever. That is why I encourage the boys to look and think a little deeper whenever I get a chance.
At a recent school prizegiving, a Gr 7 girl in The Elder’s class received an award for taking the most wickets in a cricket match at provincial level. Even though my kids attend a wonderfully integrated and dynamic school, there was still that ripple of suprise that went through the audience, and it made me chuckle a little. But it also presented a great object lesson for the boys. Why shouldn’t a girl perform well on the cricket field, or any field? Look, I’d be the first to tell you I don’t enjoy watching women play rugby, for example! Because frankly if I wanted to watch women shoving and bumping at each other aggressively I’d much rather just go to the Woolworths Quality sale, am I right? But that doesn’t mean women shouldn’t play rugby, or go to space. I don’t want my boys to just mindlessly go along with what societal pack thing dictates as the “norm” and so I look for opportunities to challenge that thinking and to put forward this truth:
Roles, jobs, positions and participation should be based on gifting, not gender! Always. Everywhere.
Our words reveal our attitudes and so I am pretty brutal when it comes to blond jokes, the use of phrases such as “women driver” and I strongly discourage the boys from listening to music that objectifies women. As an Afrikaans speaking female I am deeply horrified at how often in my culture songs contain those types of messages, but they serve as great object lessons to explain to the boys:
Make sure that even to the level of the content you consume and the jokes you tell you are reflecting the honor and respect that you yourself would like to be on the receiving end of.
Recognize and respect:
I tell the boys to pay attention to the contributions of not only the women in their lives (there are some epic ones!) but also the women in our world. Reading female authors, watching female athletes and considering the specific strengths and traits of the girls and women in their world that they admire. Not in an “anything boys can do girls can do better” kind of way, then all we are doing is swinging the pendulum the other way. That also doesn’t reflect respect or value. But in a way that sensitizes them to recognize and respect women equally in a culture and society that is possibly not set up for that to happen naturally.
We have the power to change things.
In a world of man-bashing (mostly rightly so), we as boy-moms should try to encourage positive masculinity and chivalrous behaviour that has nothing to do with long-dead ideas about men and women, but has everything to do with the heart attitude that there is never a reason to be mean, that kindness is always the best response, and the golden rule of putting others first that helps our kids to shine a light in the world.
When we sensitize our boys to inherent biases I believe we are actually empowering them. It equips them with an understanding of the world that helps them make sense of things, and an understanding of themselves that helps them grow. The power for real change lies not in the pressure we can put on a government or system or institution. Because at a fundamental level it’s not society, history or culture that govern what we do and don’t to, it’s what we have accepted as true, have bought into on a belief/ heart level.
It is only change at a heart level that helps us see things differently. Only then can we do things differently.
Maybe this is one of those things that only some people struggle with. Like complaining about bad service or sending food back in a restaurant or wearing flowery patterns. But here’s the thing. I need help…to learn to ask for help! I recently embarked on the most terrifying, anwer-to-prayer passion project of my life, a project that I hope to be the first of many. And in the last 2 months as I have struggled to fit the rest of my overfull life around accomodating this big dream I realised, sadly, terrifyingly, that I needed help. I wish I needed to have a root canal. I wish I needed to have ducks tunnel into my scull with their beaks. I wish I needed to look after a spoilt 2 year old on a sugar high. I would rather have to do any of those things instead of having to ask for help. Is it just me?
So I’ve analysed it and here is what I have so far:
Normally when we don’t want to do something or struggle to bring ourselves to do something it’s because we think it’s going to be bad for us. Here is why we don’t want to ask for help:
Our story: We all have one. Maybe in yours, like in mine, you where praised for being independent and strong as child, or maybe in yours, like in mine, there where seasons where you realised that you needed to be responsible beyond your years because there was no one else to do what needed to be done. Family of origin can influence whether we see letting people in and asking for help as a part of normal life or as a sign of weakness, whether we view not needing anything from anyone as a definition of our value or whether we view needing help from others as being not at all connected to our sense of self. Or we may have been brought up to believe that asking for help is a weakness.
Being told you don’t actually need help: Sometimes when we try to ask for help, the response we get is one of a reframed perspective. Sometimes what we really need is a reframed perspective so yay! But sometimes what we need is help. Like, actual help. Sometimes the person we ask just ends up telling us why we shouldn’t see this as an actual problem, or telling us to just get over it. Sure, we all need a “put your big girl panties on” kinda talk from time to time, but if you’re anything like me, those panties are kinda the only ones you got and so when you do ask for help it’s usually not because you need to “woman up” to something, or because you need a pep talk, it’s because you do actually need help. But these ironically unhelpful responses to us reaching out for assistance can be the thing that keeps us from doing it again in the future.
Fear of being judged: We want to appear to be self reliant and independent. That is the be all and end all and shame on us if we appear to be dropping some balls am I right?
Fear of rejection: I don’t want to ask because what if they say no.
Pride: Pride is insidious and tricky to spot. My husband likes to call pride the “sin behind the sin”. It hides in all kinds of respectable and justifyable places. So let me save you some time and tell you what I figured out:
If I
am covering up my shortcomings = pride
feel an offer of help is an insult to my capabilities and it makes me prickly and hard to serve = pride
am embarrassed and ashamed at being an inconvenience to someone when they offer to help me = pride
Needing helpforces us to admit to our shortcomings and vulnerability and exposes the lie that we have it all together – one we thought all the while everyone believed. Sure, I can call out to the Lord, He already knows I am weak and wobly. But other people don’t. I would like God on my side as my superpower behind the scenes, all the while hoping everyone thinks I am a super mom. You know like when you take all your Le Creuset dishes over to Olivia’s and they put the ready-made food right in there and you present it as your own to your dinner guests! I secretly love it when people say, I don’t know how she does it, voices tinged with awe, but mostly with envy. I know. I’m bad. But I don’t think I’m the only one!
Fear of reciprocity: I have a sibling who literally has a mortal fear of reciprocity. He can think of nothing worse than “ someone doing him a favour” and so he never asks for any. Isn’t it funny how we often measure our relationship interactions almost in an economic way. I think it’s called transactional interdependence. Also, IF we generally say yes too easily and regret it afterwards (in other words do not guard our words and motives) we are hyper aware that someone else might be similarly motivated and don’t want them to be put in that position where they can’t say no. Twisted right? And I think it’s kinda sad for us, as a human race.
Because it’s just hard ok: like I said, maybe not for everyone, but certainly for introverts. It just takes so much energy, all that explaining and answering questions, all that interacting. It seems so overwhelmingly exhausting that I’d just as soon avoid it all together.
We are all adults here, I am not trying to convince you of the benefits of kale or colonoscopies or anything, so let’s just keep this in perspective. What if I told you (and myself) that asking for help is a good thing? What if I told you what you’d be missing out on by refusing to ask for help if you need it?
Here is why it’s good to (learn to/ force yourself to) ask for help:
Because we develop courage: Vulnerability is truly brave and thanks to Brene Brown it’s also the new black. It takes allot of self-awareness and understanding to ask for help. That is not weakness ya’ll. That is courageous. It means we are aware of our strengths and our abilities and where their limits lie. That is why God said to Paul to write this down:
“My grace is always more than enough for you, and my power finds its full expression through your weakness.”
“So I will celebrate my weaknesses, for when I am weak I sense more deeply the might power of Christ living in me.” (2 Cor 12 v 9 TPT)
Because we develop community: Our recognition of the boundary of our strength in asking for help also means our recognition of the skills and strengths of others. When we ask for help we give someone an opportunity to use their strengths, to collaborate and pool resources with us, resulting in a stronger whole. How often do we say we value authenticity but we are not authentic. Because are we not most authentic when we admit to areas where we need help? Could our strong sense of independence and our preference for pretence be the reason why we struggle to develop significant
community? God wired us to need connection, to need each other. Actually refusing to ask for help stifles community. If we are not good at asking for help, we are likely not great at giving it. This is because we see other people not as they really are, but as we really are, and that drives how we relate to them. If we find our own need for help as unacceptable, we will project that same orientation onto someone else, hardening ourselves against their need the way we’ve hardened ourselves against our own.
Because we all need feedback: Feedback is good. We have to let people in. In his book PEAK, K Anders Ericsson explores the process whereby people gain expertise and become excellent. He proposes that the process of deliberate practice is the key to superior performance and one of the building blocks of deliberate practice is feedback.
Because rejection won’t kill you:I’m serious. When we ask for help and the answer is no, we need to remember that the answer is a no to our question, not a no over us as people. We tend to over personalise rejection way too much, making very”no” a definition of us instead of a response to our request or the outcome of a situation. What if the person we asked didn’t have the resources, whether mental or emotional to assist us? NO is a full sentence and just as much as we need to learn to say it we need to learn to hear it and be ok with it.
Because, reality: I know you are amazing at lots of stuff, in reality you are not amazing at everything IN. THE. WORLD. None of us know everything about everything. You are not Google. And none of us possess every skill in the world. We don’t expect that from other people, why do we expect it from ourselves.
Because, progress: Progress is good. Needing help and being unable to ask for it leaves us stuck – trapped in our own heads. Sometimes that is the one thing that is the blockage to the flow towards resolution or completion, whether the help you need is with a project or a problem. The relief of realising there is help available frees you up towards progress.
I know how hard this is Momma, for me it’s almost paralyzing. But we can’t fully realise our potential in any given calling or area if we refuse to draw on the help God offers us through others, just like limbs in the body need each other. He kinda planned it that way I heard! We not only deprive ourselves, but also others of the blessing and the redemptive work that being in service to each other brings about in us.
God is always working. If God is moving you into accepting a new challenge or opportunity and preparing something in you, could He not also be preparing someone else to assist you? Don’t miss God’s goodness and help because you are relying too much on your own!
Keep it short:
I know how hard this is Momma, for me it’s almost paralyzing. But we can’t fully realise our potential in any given calling or area if we refuse to draw on the help God offers us through others, just like limbs in the body need each other. He kinda planned it that way I heard! We not only deprive ourselves, but also others of the blessing and the redemptive work that being in service to each other brings about in us.