Oct 6, 2018 | Balance, Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Family, Fear, Friends, God, Grace, Tips
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!
Sep 5, 2018 | Christianity, Faith, Friends, God, Grace
I have a friend that everything comes easy for. Doesn’t everyone? That one girl who just (looks like she) breezes through life, hair that requires no blowdrying, a figure that doesn’t require calorie restriction, kids who require no bribing or threatening, a confidence that doesn’t require herculean effort and all the things/ opportunities/ experiences/ achievements I wish where a part of my life. Can you relate?
We have never been faced with more temptation to envy others than today! We know we shouldn’t give in to it, that God isn’t cool with it and that entertaining envy does not your best life make. And yet, we are not as on our guard as we should be as we assess (judge?) the lives of others and we harbour and hide thousands of tiny resentments towards others and ultimately towards God about the comparisons we are inevitably drawing. Because that is what envy is, “a feeling of discontentment and resentment aroused by another’s desirable possessions or qualities, accompanied by a strong desire to have them for oneself”. Can anyone say: “I want what she’s having!”?
I struggle with this. So much so that I had to work out some anchor points for my own weary soul that I would easily remember when my green-eyed frenemy rears its head! In those moments I need some basic tools to steady my heart and direct my thoughts.
See more clearly what you hold dearly
When you clicked to open this blog you had a particular person in mind. Someone you experience a funny twinge in your heart over. I know you don’t want to call it envy, but that is straight up what it is. I think sometimes we walk with something below the surface for so long and we never call it into the light, name it and shame it. And that is why it continues to hold sway and privately shame us.
Once we get honest about envy, the upside is that we are taking an opportunity to look with greater honesty at the condition of our hearts. Envy can bring to the surface that which we would’ve otherwise kept hidden from ourselves and God, deep desires, hopes, dreams, wishes, beliefs that maybe we’ve never even been brave enough to verbalise.
What we envy is a revelation of what we covet.
Ps 37 v 4 God gives a promise, “Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and he will provide you what you desire most”
When we rest in the promises the rest will follow.
God can give this promise because he knows that if our delight is in the right place (with Him, coveting Him above everything) our desires will be aligned as well. Because when we put Him as the object of our delight, what we desire will no longer be in competition with our affections for Him in our lives, and then “all these things will be added unto us”(Matt 6 v 33). The Bible actually makes amazing promises about what God will gift into the lives of those who make Him their object of delight and desire. Just check out Rom 8v 32/ 1 Cor 3 v 21 – 23.
When envy’s at the table, love is not able
“ Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor.” 1 Cor 14 v 4- 5 TPT
Let’s be brutally honest here. You can kind of talk yourself out of envying strangers. It’s a bit removed from your life and you don’t feel directly affected by it. But it’s harder when it’s someone you are journeying with. Because the things you envy about that person is more in your face, the opportunities for comparison more consistent. Plus you care more and feel more personally affected by it as you compare her life to yours.
And when you do that, right then, you are no longer able to rejoice when she is rejoicing (too resentful to rejoice) or empathize when she is sad (because you’re happy that finally, something in her charmed life is less than ideal. Please, don’t look so shocked!).
Right then, you judge whatever you can find to judge so you can feel like at least a tiny bit like you’re a Christian, wife, mom, whatever than her.
Right then, you can no longer be in her life what she needs OR who God called you to be.
If you have a friendship where envy has been given a seat at the table, ultimately love loses and leaves. And pretty soon, if left unchecked, envy will invite malice and slander to join in to poison your heart and your friendship. And then the devil wins. I don’t want that for my friendships, do you?
When we see her as God’s creation, envy can turn to admiration
Because for all our talk of tribe and gathering and sisterhood we are all still really terrible at cheering instead of jeering, we all still battle to support other women wholeheartedly and well and honestly and authentically wishing our sisters success. For all our lipservice to the contrary, we as women remain our own biggest enemy, the self-sabotage of our own collective efforts. We are all those people and isn’t it tragic! Even more tragic for the girls we are raising!
When we envy someone, we will not, cannot acknowledge their significance and the part they are playing in God’s story. Ironically we also lose sight of our significance and our part in the story! But being genuinely happy for someone and invested in them is very freeing. The best way to do that is to
-
Pray for that person. It’s very hard to harden your heart towards someone you are praying for.
- Actively be happy for the women in your tribe. Hand out likes, hugs, compliments and support like there is more than enough to go around, because there is. Do it like it’s your job! Because it is!
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Ask God to help you see them the way He sees them. He calls us to “ regard no one in the flesh” (2 Cor 5 v 16). Holding on to God’s picture of her, will help you see her through the lens of grace.
“Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” Gal 5 v 25 – 26
God is faithful, focus on being grateful
Ultimately, envy is a faith issue. Because we are looking at what someone else has and we are “believing” that we need that as well in order to be fully satisfied. At the root of envy is unbelief, because as we look at someone else’s life with envy we begin to lose our trust in God, our peace in our circumstances and our contentment. So ultimately it’s an expression of discontent in what we have and where we are at and a distrust that God has a plan for us. Contentment counteracts envy. This is why the Psalmist in Psalm 37 (v3 – 6) maps a path out of envy by encouraging us to:
- Keep trusting God
- Ponder His Faithfulness
- Fix your heart on His Promises
- Get validation and approval from Him
- Be honest with Him in prayer (ummm, see point1)
Own your space, run your race
Envy derails us and defiles us (Mark 7 v 20 – 23) warping our perspective and stealing our potential because we are too busy focussing on what is happening in someone else’s life. Life is no longer a journey with others, but a flat-out competition. On the outside, you might still be wearing the mask of friendship, but on the inside, even subconsciously, this person is no longer journeying with you but racing against you. And you are losing. And human nature, when we feel ourselves at the wrong end of the balance of power in a situation, is to try to restore the balance in a twisted attempt to help ourselves feel better. And soon you find yourself in a sick cycle of comparison, envy, bitterness, discontentment. Not focussing on your calling, not pursuing your purpose, not nurturing your passion, not owning where God’s placed you or the race before you. Don’t let envy steal your energy. We are all responsible for where our zeal, our passion, our energy goes. God’s zeal, his passion, is always for bringing about His purposes. Our zeal should be for the fulfillment of our calling, which is to make Him known. When our eyes are on what someone else is doing, it’s not on the work that is in front of us, and our energy leaks away!
“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you’ve been given and then sink yourself into that (devote yourself to that!). Don’t be impressed with yourself, don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.” Gal 6 v 4 – 5
Devotion to your calling is a weapon against the distraction of envy
Whatever we envy in others we are unfit to carry ourselves, but what we honor and celebrate in others we position ourselves to receive – Lisa Bevere
If you want to be free, bend a knee
Every battle starts in prayer ya’ll. When we confess our sins He is faithful and just. When we confess our true desires that is causing envy in us, He is not surprised and His heart is always tender towards us. Envy enslaves and afflicts – but God is always fighting to keep our lives free. Join the fight by getting on your knees. It’s my prayer for all of us as women to start being the cheerleaders that we all need
Mother Teresa said when we are busy judging people, we don’t have time to love them. Maybe, just maybe, we can all believe together Mommas, that when we are busy (as in actively engaging in) loving one another, maybe we won’t have time to be so judgy?
Aug 19, 2018 | Balance, Christianity, Faith, God, Grace, Work
It was one of those typical “gym bunny” T-shirts. It read: It doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger.
It made me wonder, am I too old to roll my eyes at her? (often at the gym it takes all my considerable strength of character not to be annoyed with people. And their outfits. I’m sorry. Kind of.) It also made me wonder, ok so I know it’s true about exercise, but is it true about life?
Do you sometimes feel under a lot of pressure? Do you sometimes find the pace of your life straight up dizzying? It’s like there is just so much to do and be and get to, and remember, and on top of that so much pressure to make it seem easy and not at all messy and to serve it all up with a smile that reaches all the way to our eyes! And that’s just everyday life, that’s not even when things go wrong as they so often do. Because in between the “standard” pressures of being and doing and giving and going and providing and achieving and solving and fixing and responding that life seems to be made up of, very often a fun cocktail of circumstances, my sin, the sin of others, people, their expectation, did I mention people, and bad timing all conspire to derail this very fast moving train that is your life.
The Bible has lots to say about “pressure”. The word used in scripture denotes the crushing of grapes or olives to produce something useful, precious and lasting – i.e wine and olive oil. You often find this word in the company of other fun words like trial, affliction, suffering, and trouble. So as one continuing to hold on to the promise that God is for me, working all things for my good, and one continuing to hold out for meaning in even the most mundane or maddening parts of my life, I decided to look a little deeper, because surely there has to be some method in the madness of all this pressure!
Pressure has a process: I recently watched a reality TV programme with my boys called “The Forge”. Because when you have boys you end up watching some weird stuff on TV! The science of stupid anyone? This particular one was about blade-smiths (people who make swords and knives and stuff. No worries, I didn’t know that either). I watched a guy banging on a piece of metal and heating it up until it was glowing red hot, and then he plunged it into icy cold water, using a scientific method called “drenching”. Under these extreme conditions of temperature and yes, you guessed it, pressure, the metal becomes stronger, unbreakable. Which is what you want if you are making a sword.
The intention of the process is always to strengthen us, and the dichotomy of it all is that we are strengthened only once we understand our own weakness. Because sometimes what feels like the flat out breaking of you, is actually the making of you.
The process has a purpose:
“The crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, but the Lord tests the heart” Proverbs 17 v 3
When gold or silver is purified, the heat brings the impurities to the surface. That is the purpose of the process of refining. So let’s get brutally honest here for a minute. Us girls are all willfully independent and for the most part extremely capable. It takes a lot for us to experience pressure. We all, to varying degrees (yes A types I am talking to ya’ll) experience an immense internal pressure to control everything, fix everything, know everything, do everything perfectly, be all things to all people. In other words, the pressure to be God. So in a way, a lot of our perceived pressure is internal. That’s the bad news. The good news is the pressure to be all things to all people is an opportunity to learn who God really is (the one who actually is all things to all people, the who works all things for good) and who we are (not that!). Sometimes we are trying so hard to control things that are not within our control, and the pressure that desire causes is actually for the purpose of helping us realise we are not God and we can’t do His job, or our own without His help.
When we learn to rest in Christ we learn to let go of our vain attempt to be God. So when we experience pressure through different circumstances in our lives the purpose of them is actually to rid us of these divine delusions.
The impurity that must be burned out of me is most of the time my pride. And when the heat is turned up and I experience pressure, that is what bubbles to the surface. Because really, how will I ever learn to trust on, lean on, rely on God without the pressures and trails that crowd me to Him?
The pressure has a product:
God purifies that which is precious to Him. And incase you’re still not up to speed, that’s you. YOU are precious to Him!
“You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows it’s true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well developed, not defficient in any way. (James 3. v 3-4 MSG)
In the pressures you are experiencing today, be they internal or external, God is bringing forth something new. That’s kind of His jam. Like silver, like gold, like diamonds, these shaping challenges are intended to reveal in you that which was always there. God uses pressure, not as a destructive force like a forest fire, burning up everything and leaving smokey destruction behind. The Refiners fire purifies, burns away the impurities, making that which remains more valuable, durable, precious. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t abandon us in our impurity, that He promises we will go through the fire but not be burnt up (Is 43 v 2), not even have the smell of smoke on us!
So right now, as you face that pressure, that person, that deadline, that demand that threatens to push you over the edge, trust in the purifying mercy of God, don’t doubt His expertise as a refiner. Remember that even if what is happening right now feels like a bad idea, a detour, an unpleasant challenge or unwelcome interruption, if it has the potential to align you with Christ (and it always does), the process is always meaningful. Because not only will a new picture of God emerge as we yield, but the even braver, even stronger, even more authentic us will too.
Aug 9, 2018 | Bible, Children, Christianity, Discipleship, Discipline, Faith, Family, God, Grace, Parenting, Raising boys
I can’t wait to talk to my sons about girls, sex, dating – said no mom ever! I know, I get it. But I once heard a parenting expert explain your child’s understanding of these type of topics as files being opened in the filing cabinet of the brain. The file will be opened, named and will start containing information gleaned from what they hear, see and their environment. By being intentional about these awkward topics, we are in essence taking the initiative to “open the file”, thereby having a chance to input shaping information that is in line with our worldview, convictions, and morality. Every other piece of information that then comes into the “file” get’s tested against the truth that we put in first. Should we remove our intention we give way to the alternative, a view on women, dating, sex, shaped by the barrage of messaging, content and images that the world is consistently producing and offering up.
I didn’t want to write this. Newsflash: Being a boy mom is not dissimilar to being a girl dad. You experience the same fierce protective streak and compulsion to grab a shotgun. However gracious and “live and let live” you may appear you still secretly harbor the conviction that no one will ever be good enough for your offspring. Even if he is currently obsessed with slouchy pants and continues to be amused by his own farts.
So you can imagine my reticence when The Elder returned from Holiday Club with a hand full of notes secretly passed (some things never change). He had an expression somewhere between bemused and confused on his face as he read me a note from one girl who asked to wear his beanie, another his jacket. When I asked “what do you think about that son?” and he said “I guess they like my clothes?” Ummm, I realized I had some work to do in helping him work out how he should respond. Because how he respond doesn’t just affect him, but as he is being shaped by this interaction so are the girls he is interacting with, all of them at an age that is forming the neural pathways and emotional understanding of those interactions for years to come. Yes, we have ticked the boxes on the body and sex conversations. But this blog is about the fuzzy stuff. The stuff I want him to keep in mind as my son, as someones’ future boyfriend, as someone’s future husband. So here is what I told The Elder about girls…so far….
Be honourable – Every night before my boys go to sleep I say to each of them: “You are my treasure”. And so I have told The Elder that he must remember that when he is interacting with a girl, she is also someone’s treasure too, her mom’s, her dad’s, and God’s. And all treasure must be seen as precious and must be handled with care. Every person we encounter is an image bearer.
Be kind – “respond to girls in a way that protects them and protects you”. My son is 11, an age where possibly there is a disconnect between the feelings he has and his ability to express them. So arming him with “scripts” that enables confident responses that are also kind is how we have chosen to help him. For example: “ I am too young to have a romantic relationship, but I would enjoy getting to know you as a friend. “ or “I am too young to have a girlfriend, but I know how to be a good friend so let’s do that instead.”
Be a gentleman – Even as a 40-year-old woman, I can still recall valentines day slights, offhand comments that I shouldn’t have heard, boys being insensitive boys, all of these things I remember from being an insecure pre-teen girl. So if I am going to be the mom of a pre-teen boy, maybe I can spare some girl having similar, shaping, sore memories. My boys don’t have sisters, but they have 3 girl cousins, and a slew of friends who are like family, so when I tell them to treat every girl like she is Lila, Isabel, Jua, Hannah, Sophia or Ava, Pia or Sienna, they get it (please Lord Jesus, I hope they get it!). I take pains to help them make sure the little girls in the class that the boys know might not get anything for Valentine’s day gets something, albeit anonymously. I (try) to keep sexist joking and name calling out of the house and discourage them (strongly) from participating in it at school.
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 very much alive #everybodyalways #kindnessalways thinking and the golden rule of putting others first that helps our boys to shine a light in the world.
Be careful – puberty and its company of feelings and hormones are hard to manage. And in the right (and by that I mean the wrong) situation, it can be like a car rolling down a hill, i. e hard to stop. Encountering attraction and trying to understand it is tricky for boys, so sound advise for this life stage is to stay in a group. “Don’t put yourself in a compromising position!” For now we steer clear of concepts like “dating” or “going out” until a more appropriate age.
Be aware – “Not only are you as a boy going to be dealing with your own growing awareness of the opposite sex, but you will also be dealing with girls who are going through the same thing.” In every person, the outside is most often a reflection of what is going on on the inside. So I told my son than when he encounters a girl who seems like she is overly desperate for male attention (albeit via what she wears or how she acts), give her a wide birth and keep a careful but kind distance. There are possibly things going on in her heart/life that you can’t help her with and that your attention is not the answer to.
Yes, the pre-teen and adolescent path is a messy meander of navigating confusing, overwhelming thoughts and feelings. However unpopular it might be, that’s where we as parents come in.
Make peace with the fact that you are going to be the good guy in your movie and the weird guy in theirs (there will be allot of “Awww Mom ! Gross ! I don’t want to talk about this with you!”), and launch as deeply as you can and as quickly as you can into the “girls” conversation. Yes, if you are a boy mom, leave the sex convo to the father/ father figure in your boys’ life. But when it comes to the emotive stuff, remember what it was like for you when you were a girl and use that as a jump-off point to help your boy be the kind of boy your 10-13-year-old self would’ve wanted to encounter.
Jul 27, 2018 | Balance, Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Faith, God, Grace
Do you sometimes just feel a bit “at sea” spiritually? We might be calling out to God for a particular answer or wisdom in a situation, but the answer or way forward seems hidden or unclear. We might be in a season of waiting where we desire to experience God’s comfort, but we come up empty. We might be desperate to see God move in our lives but our spiritual vision seems dim, our hearts a bit disconnected. Like a fuzzy spot in our vision, a dirty blemish on the horizon of our faith experience, we just feel like somethings missing.. like we can’t see the full picture…do you know this feeling Momma? It’s like being at the bottom end of the line up in a game of broken telephone.
Last week my morning coffee was interrupted by a whale sighting. “Fetch the binocs” I yelled, and I fumbled with them as I kept my eyes on the exact spot where I had just seen the glorious breach! But as I was peering intently there was a fuzzy bothersome black spot in my eye line. An eyelash? Are these binocs broken? No amount of adjusting that little knobby in the middle (yes, ok, I do not know the names of the parts of a set of binoculars! And if I did I would only confess it to someone with one of those “I brake for birds” stickers on their cars!) brought the precious whale into focus. And just as I decided to make peace with the fact that my vision won’t be clear because I am a binocs idiot, The Elder pointed out (in the tone of voice that you’d expect from an 11-year-old) that one of the lenses still had the lens cap on it. #facepalm
Suddenly it all made sense, the black fuzzy dot was gone, and I feasted on an amazing display of a very playful Southern Right Whale! I felt invigorated, in awe, inspired, like I was just let into God’s inner circle. Something I won’t soon forget.
There are a few things that can “cover the lens cap” of our vision, bringing blurriness and fuzzy lines to our journey with Jesus.
- Frustration: Sounds like a small thing? It was big enough for Moses to miss his entire calling and promised land! We have God’s peace and we must guard it and guard against frustration that disables our ability to wait on God, hear from God, see God at work as we walk in step with the Spirit. If you’re wondering if you have frustration in your life try to “hear” if you are complaining more than usual and how often you use your hooter in the traffic. Life is frustrating, so are people. But our peace is precious and we must guard it, even at the end of a long day or in rush hour traffic.
- Wrong motives: Acts chapter 8 tells the story of Simon, who desired the things of God for his own benefit. Wisdom to be on display, God’s divine hand on his works to gain popularity. Do I desire the things of God for the sake of my own glory or His? Do I ask for wisdom out of my own poverty or for the sake of my own vanity?
- Envy, jealousy, comparison: A vicious distraction of our time, that steals our effectiveness, our calling, and our joy. It sets us against others emotionally, unable to rejoice or weep with them, encourage or comfort them, it disrupts unity and community and our inner peace and rhythm as well. I would go as far as to say this: Our propensity for comparison is a “pattern of this world” that we are unwittingly conforming too, thereby disabling our ability to discern (see clearly) the will of God. (Rom 12 v 2). How much more clear perspective would you have on yourself, your path, your journey if you stopped comparing it to the girl next to you?
- Fear: There is only place in our lives for a reverential fear of the Lord. But sometimes we fear the future, people’s opinions, failure, suffering, uncertainty and it clouds our perspective. In a sense what you fear becomes your god, instead of God. When we live with a holy fear of the Lord, our path and perspective is clarified (Ps 25 v 12- 13)
- Unforgiveness: I know this is a no-brainer, but I also know first hand this is by far the hardest. This is what I preach to myself and to others when it comes to forgiveness: Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never receive. And if God holds nothing against me thanks to Jesus, why should I hold something against someone else?
- Bitterness: Stored up anger, resentment about bygone hurts or unjust treatment, once these take root in our hearts it can parasitically strangle all other growth in our lives, crack our foundation, suffocate the Breath of Life meant to oxygenate our fruit-bearing right out of us. Like with any weed the answer it to definitively and decisively pluck it out. Go back to point (5) Learn to let go. Walk (away) towards clarity.
Proverbs 29 v 18 tells us that when there is no vision, no revelation of God or His word, we can quickly find ourselves on a wrong path or a slippery slope. I heard it said once that dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things but the absence of vision. With impaired vision, we can easily become distracted by short-term, shallow things and ideas and lose sight of God’s call on our lives and the meaningful and purposeful life He has for us. A clear vision helps us understand the purposes of our trials, so the devil wants nothing more than to keep our “spiritual sight” dim so our faith can be diminished instead of strengthened when trials come.
If one of these spots have found its way onto your life lense, I pray that you will:
Find time to reflect and look inward so that you can again look out outward with a more accurate perspective
That you would both repent (if you need to) and let go (if you need to) so that you can grasp a new revelation of how much God loves you. Fresh grace comes more fully into hands that are empty
May that once again bring the wide horizon of God’s love into clear view.
Jun 8, 2018 | Bible, Children, Christianity, Discipline, Faith, Family, God, Parenting
When did ordinary become a bad word? Was it when social media started making even a grilled-cheese-sandwich dinner look “extra”ordinary? (Thank you Amaro filter!) Instagram feeds full of “Don’t let average describe your life” #mondaymotivation has all of us drinking the cool-aid, and unwittingly buying into a side order of perpetual dissatisfaction with it! Is that not why we have a generation of unmotivated, deeply depressed millennials? Simon Sinek (you’ve seen the Youtube video right?) describes millennials as people who want to make an impact, but who want to reach the summit of impact without climbing the mountain required to reach it (a problem by the way, that he lays squarely at the feet of failed parenting strategies. That and unfettered access to technology. Ouch!). I for one think the argument is legit. Because ask anyone, ask Steve Jobs, ask Billy Graham or whoever you view as someone who has done something extraordinary and they will tell you that 99.9% of the steps taken to reach anywhere or anything extraordinary in life are unbelievably ordinary.
So this is what I told my boys about being ordinary…
That it takes courage to be ordinary: If you asked my kids what my husband has achieved in his life, they are likely to be vague about the longevity of his business and his acumen on a mountain bike and with a calculator. But they will be able to tell you in detail about the after work ping-pong matches, the daily swimming pool maintenance and the conversations around the dinner table that their dad was present for. Sure, it’s an ordinary middle-class life but I can tell you right now, that there is nothing ordinary about dads going home daily and diligently to see their families instead of staying late for just a few more emails or just another drink. Nothing ordinary about saying yes to cleaning the pool or killing the spider or hanging the picture on a Saturday and no to becoming better at golf or entering Ironman or whatever other bucket list item will take them away from their families for more hours. Those are the thousand small deny-thyself moments that declares something about where someone’s heart is at. Ordinary is hard because it’s unseen, un “post” worthy, unremarkable. Like the laundry pile and the admin file and the go the extra mile of any messy mom life!
Ordinary is all the seeds of surrender and submission and all the hard and unpopular
choices that build a life God rewards. There is nothing ordinary about faithfulness. It might not be glamorous but is sure is rare.
That we shouldn’t value achievement over discipline: My kids have the amazing privilege of having world record holder Peter Williams as a swimming coach. At our recent club awards ceremony, we were struck by the fact that swimmers received recognition both for points scored/records broken in races and for characteristics and attitudes displayed during training. It spoke to their coach’s conviction that coaches are daily called to the deep purpose of character building and that they are doing more than preparing kids for races, they are in a thousand laps and a thousand ways preparing kids for life. Because the truth is that how you train builds your character, and how you win tests that character.
It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes us, its the consistent habits and behaviors of every day. Having goals is great, but who will you become on the way? Saul had many achievements, but David was a man after God’s own heart. The loud flash of achievement might be what the world honours, but the small daily grind of discipline and service is what God’ honours. If my kids won every medal out there but did not have love or the guts to show up for the everyday ordinary of their own lives, I couldn’t be more of a failure as a parent!
Everyone wants to be special, shine in a moment. But the truth is that it’s the mosaic of unremarkable events that make up days and years that end up making a person.
That obscurity is not the enemy: We live in a world where the humblebrag has been cultivated into a fine art, with everything from how many books we read to how well we rode or ran a portion on Strava (even if we stuck to our Bible reading plan) being broadcast to the world. My kids know that a portion of my day job deals with industries built on celebrity and fame. And it’s normal for kids of a certain age and stage to gravitate towards careers and talents that would get them noticed, like playing a sport for your country or gaining recognition as a musician (both ideas that I actively, maybe obsessively discourage. And no I don’t feel guilty about it. I flipped that switch years ago).
I have noticed that as parents we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get our kids to aim for a definition of special that has been shaped by the world. Instead I hope to show them that God makes us all in a very particular way to tell His story to the world, and this has nothing to do with fame and celebrity. Every pot for a purpose (2 Tim 2 v 20)! Some people are charismatic leaders who bring out the best in others. But it takes equal if not more courage to be ordinary and do the ordinary things and respond to the most ordinary of callings with extraordinary passion.
If we can guard against comparison and a world-shaped-view of value and worth we will stop being so uncomfortable with obscurity.
That each day counts, not just the big days: The message of Scripture is not that only the big days, big things, big people count.
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Rom 12 v 1-2 MSG
God calls us to number all of our days (Ps 90 v 12), even if they are not stand-out, red letter days. Because He knows, you are what you repeatedly do. He knows, the ordinary is where the true story lies, where the true you is crafted and revealed.
“The only way to live a truly remarkable life is not to get everyone to notice you but to leave noticeable marks of his love everywhere you go- Anne Voskamp.
Wise people know that their present will one day be their past and it will show up in their future. This is why the Apostle Paul calls us to “ redeem the time” (Eph 5 v 16). A quiet, ordinary life, unknown to the world, can still be one of much fruitfulness and joy to God. That fruitfulness grows in the realisation that nothing God does in our lives is ever wasted. Most of the time we don’t have to be awesome, we just have to be obedient.
May 20, 2018 | Balance, Christianity, Discipline, Faith, Fear, God, Work
For me, it usually starts with an overly ambitious to-do list and the Sunday night blues. My approach to the one: dogged white knuckle determination to conquer. My approach to the other? Red wine. And popcorn. Together.
Neither of the approaches is particularly successful and usually, by mid-week, there is panic, rushing, yelling, and the feeling like everything is spinning out of control. But there is no need to reach for a productivity book or download yet another to do list app (Yessss, I see you!)! Believe me, that is about as useful to me as watching a youtube clip on calibrating your oven temperature (yes, apparently that’s a thing). Here is my ninja action plan when I feel the to-do-list tsunami heading my way on a Monday:
Ask the difficult questions: Are you overcommitted? If the answer is yes, the next question is why? Is it FOMO? Do you equal worth to productivity (shamefaced as I write this!). Ok, so here is the reality check: Time is a finite thing, we are not able to create more of it and in fact, God deemed the amount we got to be sufficient. So if you are constantly trying to fit more into your day ask yourself why that is? Lack of discipline in what you say yes or no to? Does busyness help you hide from a calling God has given you or a truth you’d like to avoid? Ride the elevator all the way to the bottom floor where your heart/ your ego is pulling the strings and gain some insight into those brutal motivations. Without that no productivity strategy or mantra will help you change.
Stop kidding yourself about what is achievable and learn to prioritize: Just because you wrote it down doesn’t mean it’s achievable! #truthbomb. I know, you are only writing it down because it gives you a sense of control right? I know because I do it too. Learn to prioritize. Our overconnected world with pings and notifications make it seem like everything belongs in the urgent & important box and that it all requires your immediate attention. It doesn’t. If prioritization is hard for you, ask a friend or your husband or accountability partner to help you. Nothing focusses your priorities like sharing your very-ridiculous-God-complex-to-do-list with someone and getting a once-removed perspective (once they stop laughing in your face!) on what truly are the important things to accomplish in a day!
Check your truth: Our to-do list, our children’s schedule, our expectations of ourselves, just like every other action and conviction in our lives, stems from what we believe. Have you ever measured the truth your actions are based on, against the truth of God’s word? We may say with our mouths certain things that we believe, but based on the fruit that I see in my life and the lives of 99.9% of woman I know, what we actually believe is that we can and should have it all, do it all, be the be-all-and-end-all for everyone, and do it in a Pinterest perfect way that also seems effortless in order to gain the admiration from the outside world. Have you checked any of those convictions against what God actually says? If it’s true that we live according to what we believe, then maybe it’s time for a new belief?
Shorten your list: Stop sneering I am serious. There is a huge school of thought dedicated to the idea of a 3 item to-do list, a TODAY list if you will, that helps you prioritise (i.e identify what’s most important), focus (i.e not waste time on trivial to do’s just for the sake of the sense of achievement you get when you crossed it off the list) and gives you a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day because it’s supremely achievable and speaks to more long-term goals. A shorter list will revolutionize your productivity whether you are a stay at home mom, and exec, or someone who works from home or part-time because it clarifies and simplifies every day’s priorities.
Guard your peace: Like it’s a cash in transit van in the UAE. Like it’s the last glass of bubbly at a kiddies party. Busyness is one of the ways the devil can consistently distract us from God’s fingerprints in our lives.
There is a constant concatenation of spiritual events manifesting in your everyday life that you could miss if you don’t lay down your plans and pick up the light yoke offered by the One who is actually in charge here.
Honey listen, it’s not the circumstances that are overwhelming, everyone is busy. It’s the perspective that we should be getting to everything, the conviction that we should be making it look easy and have it all under control, that is the thing that truly wears women out. It’s the lies we believe that we use as a jump-off point that is the thing that actually snookers us.
If we release our desire to control it all and do it all and be it all, repent of the idea that we actually can and should, the fear we experience in being overwhelmed and the frustration we experience every time even the smallest thing threaten the precarious balance of our schedule, will go away.
Between being a time management expert, a fitness guru and clean food aficionado, a work-life balance genius and actually having it all the expectation of women today is ridiculous. Because with every new idea or strategy about what we should do or be, comes the accusation and implication of what we are not. So we find ourselves in a constant cycle of shame for which there truly is no basis. I hope this coming week you will be able to make a decision of the will to resist being overwhelmed by clinging more tightly to the truth about who God is than the lies about who you are supposed to be according to the world.
Apr 18, 2018 | Activism, Charity, Children, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Family, God, Grace
Do you give to beggars?
We pass 7 traffic lights between our house and school, and 7 beggars, 8 if you count the toddler accompanying the woman at the entrance to our local mall. Sadly, in South Africa, this is disturbingly commonplace. And just like you are suddenly more aware of how crooked your handwriting is when the teacher is looking over your shoulder, you are suddenly more aware of how crooked your society is when your kids are in the back of the car. Asking you hard questions.
Stats SA’s poverty report shows that 30 million South Africans live in poverty out of a population of approximately 58 million people. If these numbers alone don’t confront our hearts, then the daily confrontation with the poor among us definitely should.
But how do we teach and model to our kids the right way to interact with the socio-economic needs of our nation? Is it really to just randomly hand out money or food at every street corner? I don’t think so.
“She sets her heart upon a nation and takes it as her own, carrying it within her. She labors there to plant the living vines.” (Prov 31 v 16 TPT)
So here is what I’ve told the boys:
We MUST give, and we must give with joy:
Our privileges and yes, our blessings too, are in our lives for the sake of others, not just for our own sake. We are blessed in order to bless! Our giving is not benevolence for the sake of assuaging our conscience or giving ourselves a (usually public by way of Facebook) pat on the back. According to God’s word, our giving is an act of both obedience (Heb 13 v 16) in response to God’s goodness, but also a joyful opportunity (Rom 12 v 7-8) in response to God’s love.
“God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with” – Billy Graham.
If we consider where God placed us, and what He placed in our hands, how could we not give? I have written before how I’ve tackled what I call the “burden of
privilege” with my boys, so that they can deal rightly, carefully, generously, and intentionally with the privileges that are a part of their lives.
We must be intentional and obedient in our giving:
As believers, our giving takes 2 forms. As citizens of South Africa, both my husband and I honor God by paying our taxes. A portion of our taxes goes towards social grants. More than 17 million South Africans receive social grants, which is our governments’ way of bringing to fruition Section 24 through 29 of our country’s impressive Bill of Rights, which focuses on the socio-economic rights of citizens, including the right to social security. The social grant system is a verifiable, standardized system of care, and the grants available include the child support grant, older person’s grant, disability grant, foster child grant, war veterans grant etc. So already, by merely following the laws of this land, (and God’s command Mark 12v17), we are already taking care of the poor. All people may not be able to make all the choices I have the privilege of making, but in a welfare state, they at least have some protection offered by law.
The second way we respond to the poor is by our tithes and offerings, where we commit our first fruits to our church and it’s various ministries, including it’s outreach to the poor. At my church, as I am sure it is the case at yours,
our social outreach is by way of focussed, intentional initiatives that take a long-term, holistic view of caring for the poor in both a physical and a spiritual way.
We must give to help, not to hurt:
According to a study done by Solidariteit, 90% of beggars in the Twane area use the money they obtain exclusively for drugs/ addictive substances. They make an average of R500 a day. The fact is that when we give money to someone on the street, we are often under the wrong impression that this money will go towards really helping, towards actual material needs such as shelter, food or clothing. But for the most part, this is not the case. Even the clothes and food we give gets bartered and sold. And in our thoughtless giving, we seldom realize the damage we do.
In my city women begging with one or 2 kids in tow is also commonplace. Very often, these kids are “on loan” and not even their real children. In the case of these scenarios, the damage we do in our “giving” is actually far worse and far-reaching. At my local mall there is a woman and a child begging on a daily basis. She keeps showing up with the toddler in tow because suburban housewives with their Woolies packets and their pampered guilt continue to happily part with a few bills on the way home from the mall.
They are under the wrong impression that they are making a difference, but they are in fact just keeping things the same, or making them worse.
By giving in that situation not only are we thoughtlessly enabling an adult to (ab)use a child for monetary gain (there’s a name for that you know! It’s slavery), but we are actually funding the long-term neglect and abuse of the child as a means to make money (and yes, there is a name for that too..it’s human trafficking). We are cooperating in depriving that child of his/ her basic rights as underpinned by our constitution to be educated, protected from exploitation and to be safe, keeping that innocent out of school and enslaved, likely having a shocking long-term impact on his/her development. The adult has a vested interest in keeping the child on the street, out of any early childhood development centre (of which many free or funded ones are available in poorer areas) or school (where a parent can apply for exception from school fees) because she knows if she is there with the child, motorists and passers-by are more likely to give than if she was there without the child.
So what to do? I have engaged (together with the boys) where it’s been possible especially with women and children in these situations, supplying walk-in centre information for organisations such as
MES, which does amazing work especially in inner city environments, and who have the facilities and infrastructure to help with paperwork for Grants, who have Early Childhood Development Centres, Employment programs, Shelters and the like. Instead of arming yourself with small change, arm yourself with information about reputable non-profits or charities that are active in your area. Most soup kitchens and feeding points also have referral and ministry systems in place that go beyond “bread alone” for those in need.
So here is a key question: Does what I give and how I give it keep people enslaved, or provide a way out for them?
We can’t help everyone, but we can help someone:
Having worked at an NGO for 4 years, this is a very hard reality for me to stand in. And it’s a struggle to not become overwhelmed by the needs around us. We can’t help everyone. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, especially if you are a South African, you don’t have to go very far for an opportunity to make a difference. In our neighborhood, at our school, in our kitchens, and on our street corners we are every day presented with multiple opportunities to have an impact, be an everyday radical, to leave things and people, better than we found them. And in all of those encounters, we get to reflect Jesus to the world. In all of these encounters God is always asking, “who can I send?”
If we feel like we should change the world, maybe we will be too overwhelmed to do anything. But if we see how we are uniquely placed to change things for one person, maybe we will be inspired enough to do something. As a family, we recently signed up as sponsors for 2 kids via
Compassion International. It an amazing opportunity to expose the boys to what it takes to break the cycle of poverty and how we can play a role (however small) what holistic care looks like, and by helping 2 boys not dissimilar to my 2, the journey is both relatable, practical and impactful.
Key question: are the people I encounter/ in my sphere of influence, better off or worse off because of me?
We must acknowledge the humanity in every person:
Even though the boys now know that we don’t hand out money to beggars, I try to model to them that we also make a point to greet every person that we encounter on our travels. Regardless of how far we have all fallen, we remain image bearers, and when we acknowledge a beggar by greeting them and making eye contact with them we are doing more than being polite, we are acknowledging our shared humanity, our shared brokenness, and fallenness. It’s both a restorative act as well as an affirmation of value. Their fall from grace might look different from mine, but fallen is fallen isn’t it? And our need for Jesus is the same. Because the gospel informs us that we are all poor. Of course it’s different types of poverty, physical, emotional, spiritual, but in each of those settings, our need for Jesus is the same. we are all in need of God’s grace and above all His deliverance, salvation, restoration and sanctification. Poverty is not the thing that separates us from the people we aim to help, it is, in fact, the one true leveler and the one thing we have in common.
We must continue to sow small seeds because many “ones” soon become “thousands”:
Acts of kindness are cumulative, and with our actions, we choose what we put out into the world. Whether we will thoughtlessly join the streams of negativity and hopelessness, or courageously resist, not allowing ourselves to become fatigued in doing good (Gal 6 v 9) is a choice. To help the boys choose to be a part of the solution, the good in the world, we use the
Game for Humanity cards, the school version (there is an adult version as well). Have you heard of these? Every week the boys take a card with an act of goodness on it, for example:
- Help with recycling at your school
- Make a hungry child a sandwich
- Help someone with their homework
Once they fulfill the action on the card they pass it on to another student, ideally the one they assisted, and so they spread good, one person at a time. It is a great way for them to see that they have control over their ability to infuse their environment with positivity, or the alternative, and to act responsibly within their little circle of influence to build on the cumulative effects of kindness and good deeds.
It’s tough out there. Doing good things takes a lot of bravery. But we don’t have to reinvent the wheels of response, opportunities are all around us. We are called to continue to choose empathy, even if it doesn’t come naturally because that is what Jesus did. I hope to raise children who are more deeply aware of the context they grow up in, of where they have been planted and why, certainly more so than I was as a white middle-class kid in South Africa. I don’t know if I will get this right but these types of conversations are a start.
This blog is an except from my talk about being and raising everyday radicals. For more on talks click here
Mar 19, 2018 | Bible, Children, Christianity, Discipleship, Discipline, Faith, Family, God, Grace, Parenting, Tips, Toddlers
There are more than 3 things. Obviously. Like, that a certain time of the day – the time that was previously referred to as happy hour – would now be referred to as unhappy hour. And that someone else’s bathroom, sleeping and eating habits would be dominating my conversations for the foreseeable future (and that I would see absolutely nothing wrong with that!). While I was pregnant with my firstborn, I read all the books. I knew about sleep training and pureed organic veggies. But there where soul challenges that I was about to encounter on my journey into parenthood that no one ever told me about.
(This blog is an abbreviated version of a talk called The 10 things I wish someone had told me about being a Mom – for more info on booking a talk or workshop please click here)
I have only been a mom for 11 years. According to Malcolm Gladwell that makes me an expert. But he’s wrong. I am categorically not one! But let’s face it, as moms, we really just need all the help we can get, and if you are reading this that means you agree with me on one thing – This parenting thing is flat out hard! It’s by far the hardest thing I’ve done and I grew up with 3 brothers and I am South African and I’ve competed in an International Beauty pageant! I will take on 12 competitive blonds with perfect teeth over an 11-year-old boy on a mission any day of the week!
So here are a few thing that I wish someone had given me a heads up about:
THAT IT WOULD SHAKE THE FOUNDATIONS OF MY IDENTITY AS A PERSON:
When I became a stay at home mom, I dreaded the “So, what do you do?” Question in social settings. I felt unjustified telling people I was a stay-at-home mom. It used to be so easy to talk about the career I was so proud of, and the awkwardness I felt at this new role in my life made me realize how much of my worth and identity I found in what I did for a living.
Woman are meaning makers and meaning-seekers, and when we become moms no one highlights to us the risk that we may now exchange one wrong source of meaning and identity for another. That we may very well go from being defined by our work an achievements to being defined by our home and our kids (and their achievements). That we may go from performance reviews and bonuses to the bar for our lives being Proverbs 31 (oh my goodness can you even imagine!) and the definition of our worth as our kids and their achievements! Can you imagine living under the pressure of having the justify your mom’s entire existence with every school report, or good night’s sleep! Is it any wonder even our kids our stressed!
But God never intended for us to bank our identity on the role of a dice, on the changing landscape of our roles or our seasons. Because then every word spoken in criticism of that becomes the definition of who we are, then our (absolutely inevitable) mistakes and failures (and that of our kids) are not learning opportunities or life happening, but a declaration of who we are, failures, as moms, as people. No, God’s anchor for our identity is the unchanging conviction that He holds about us, and His unalterable word over us.
Because the gospel says that we are who we are not because of what we do or achieve but because of what Christ did and achieved.
When we are in Christ, that is the final word over us.
Then our mistakes or failings will never be the defining story of our lives because grace means that we have never really blown it.
Then all that ever needed to be achieved is finished and that is a work us moms can rest in, not strive for.
Then whatever our accomplishments, achievements, and successes become a reflection of His grace and glory in our lives.
Living this truth as the anchor of who we are testifies much more greatly to our kids than striving for achievement!
THAT WE ALL LIVE BY A DEFINITION OF SUCCESS, WHETHER WE KNOW IT OR NOT
When my eldest was in Gr R they once filled in one of those cute forms for Mothers day, they go something like this:
My moms name is ___________
Her favourite Color is _______________
Together we like to _______________
But it was my son’s answer to one question that really stopped me in my tracks, literally. Where it said My mom says (Fill in the blank) a lot, he wrote HURRY UP. Jip, it was right there in black and white, “My moms says hurry up allot”.
As a mom, I defined how good the day was by how much I had gotten done. For me, productivity has always been the ultimate measure of success. Don’t be lazy, don’t slow down, do do do, go go go! If at the end of the day, the To Do list had lots of little red tick marks on it, then it was a good day. Conversely, if a kid got sick or the car broke down or I locked myself out of the house (jip, it’s happened!) then, the day, and by definition, I – was a failure.
Whether we know it or not, our definition of success, what we deem to be the ultimate measure of “good and enough” in our lives, is what drives our decision making, what we say yer or not to, what our schedule looks like (and our kids schedules) how we spend our money and our time. Comfort, status, being liked, all of these things could be our definition of success, the thing that cracks the whip in our lives so to speak, without us even knowing it.
The challenging thing about becoming a parent is that you are no longer preaching the sermon, you are living it, and they are watching.
So I had to ask myself, what am I reflecting to my boys about what I believe true success is, and I was forced to come up with a new definition of success.
So let me ask you this. If someone were to look at your life, your schedule and your bank account, what do you think they would say your definition of success was? Because it’s this definition that is messaging to our kids what we deem to be most important.
THAT THE DAYS ARE LONG BUT THE YEARS ARE SHORT
I didn’t say this, but since I heard it I tell everyone. Because I wish someone had told me!
Because we kind of all journey through life the way kids journey to the coast, always asking “Are we there yet”. In Highschool we just want to finnish and be a grownup, at Varsity we just want a real job and be independent, when we start out work we just want to reach the top and earn money and success, when we are dating we just want to get married, when we get married we just want to have kids, and then when we have kids and the shole adulting and parenting thing is suddenly very real and very scary and if we are honest, something that we would sometimes very much like to run away from! we’re like, oh my word this is so not fun! And we look longingly at older couples with older kids sitting placidly at restaurants enjoying a quiet meal (while our toddler picks gum up off the floor under the table and we are wondering if there is a changing station in the restrooms!) and we ask ourselves, when is this going to be over?
But now that my boys are 9 and 11, I can’t help but wonder, did I make the most of that time, those tough, early years? DID I see it as a shaping, refining, satisfying blessing God intends it to be or was I just white-knuckling it to get it over with!
Embrace the discipline of the moment instead of the distraction of your iPhone. God has given our children to us so we can teach them, but I have learned more and more, that He has also given them to us to teach us!
Embrace the mundane of the menial so you can find it’s meaning. Because wisdom is a treasure
Be present with your kids so you can make Christ present with them, because in every circumstance we are His witnesses, testifying to our kids what it means to follow Him in every circumstance.
Running on empty – that is how I sometimes feel as a mom. I get to the end of the day and feel like I have nothing left, like in every area, with every offering, I am lacking. Ok, so be honest, sometimes I also feel like that at the beginning of the day. Like my only hope is to just try harder, like trying harder is my slogan, my motto, my anchor. Like I am starting off from a place of lack. But that’s a lie. According to the God’s word, I have a promise not of lack, but of abundance! A promise that says I will be equipped for the Godly work of mothering with more than what I need, “that He is able to make every grace overflow, abound to us, so that in every way – always having everything we need – we can excel in excel in every good work” (2 Cor 9 v 8)
And is that not what we are busy with as moms? The good word, the work of raising the next generation of Christ followers (please
Lord!), the work of raising someones’ future husband or wife! It is the abundance for thís that Paul employs the Greek word Perisseuo for, to describe just how much grace we will receive – grace in excess, beyond average, to surpass/ overflow/ have leftover! And with every sunrise, it’s new, there’s more! Yes, please!
Make extravagant grace your slogan Momma, your motto, your anchor! I am praying for you!
Feb 27, 2018 | Bible, Christianity, Discipleship, Discipline, Faith, God, Grace, Prayer, Tips
(or lost or frazzled or disorganized or distracted or overwhelmed..basically, if you’re a modern-day woman)
I get it!
I am fairly confident that if you are reading this, you have a strong cerebral conviction that you MUST pray. Prayer is good. But sometimes you find yourself in a season where your prayers are trite, one-way conversations that sound allot like shopping lists and allot the same and that happen in the car or in the few minutes before you go to sleep. Or you find yourself disillusioned by a season of pleading desperation that didn’t actually “work”, and didn’t make you feel any more connected to God. Can I get a witness? I know what it’s like to suffer from distraction, frustration, lack of urgency, discipline and motivation in my prayer life. I have had to claw my way back into better habits and rhythms only to fall back into losing prayer in the blur of countless stressful days strung together. So here are some tips, from one struggling, distracted woman to another:
Determine your why: We have a ping pong table at home. It’s become a great opportunity for quality time between my husband and our boys. But my husband, God bless him, once made the fatal error of offering one of our boys a reward if he beat his dad at a heated game of ping pong. This, sadly, set a precedent whereby our son would only play when there was going to be a reward at the end. What my good husband was after, was quality time with his son. What my son was after, was a reward. It came to a point when I had to ask him a tough question: “do you spend time with Dad because of who he is to you or because of what he can give to you?”
Sometimes this is what our relationship with God is like. And this can be most evident in our prayer life.
There is no point in my starting off by saying “You must pray” if you’ve lost your “reason why”. And if you have lost your reason why, ultimately all I can tell you, is that our prayer life (or lack thereof) will reflect what we truly believe about God (eish, I know, truth bomb right!), whether we seek Him out because we have realised that in Him we live and breathe and have our being (Acts 17 v 28). Or whether we only hang out with Him if we can get something/ need something out of it. So first start off not by asking yourself, why don’t I pray, but asking yourself, what do I believe about who God really is?
Direct your thoughts and words: I have confessed before that my brain is always going in a thousand directions at once. I am like a laptop with too many tabs open. That is why “getting in the zone” to pray is hard for me. I also sometimes battle with praising and even thanksgiving beyond the tired, thoughtless phrases that I’ve so overused, and I’ve battled to find the words to pray for the people I love in a more directed, focused way.
In here I write down scriptures, promises to pray for them, affirmations and praises to help me fix my mind on God.
So go on honey, head out to Typo, I am giving you permission to indulge your stationery fetish. Call it an investment in your prayer life. Buy something that can lie open in your hand (that is why I use ring-bound notebooks), that you can easily and quickly add to. I have found that without a firm foundation in scripture, my prayers are just like shopping lists. On the other hand, God’s Word is like a prayer vocabulary and when we use it to shape our prayer language (so to speak), prayer becomes a deep, rich, two-way experience, instead of a one-way list of requests. And having something written down to pray through, for me, is a concrete move against my own internal noise which I battle to quiet down.
One of the purposes of prayer is that it aligns us with God’s thoughts and desires, and when we pray scripture we have the opportunity to internalize His very character and for our daily life to be framed by it.
Actually writing down your prayers is also a way of staying focused during your prayer times. Even if you just have 5 minutes, use them to journal your prayers, giving substance and depth to even the shortest bite of time you are spending with God and inviting Him into your world.
“Don’t just read the Bible. Start circling the promises. Don’t just make a wish. Write down a list of God-Glorifying life goals. Don’t just pray. Keep a prayer journal. Define your dream. Claim your promise. Spell your miracle.” Mark Batterson – The circle maker.
Dedicate time: I know that many of you are in a life stage where even a simple quiet time is a challenge, much less dedicated time to pray (
are you a young mom? Check this out) I am not saying there is anything wrong with praying in the car, or praying when you make the beds – we are supposed to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes 5 v 16)! But when I am talking to my husband while driving to an event we might be
talking, but we are not necessarily
connecting, right? It wouldn’t be considered “
building intimacy”, right? To build connection you need to be fully
present. To build intimacy you need to take
time – ask any husband who has tried to rush it an failed! And so in my marriage, I may not be able to dedicate time and resources to a full-on date night, but we can sit down and have a cup of coffee, be present for and with one another and listen/ talk for as long as a cup of coffee takes. And if you are in a busy and distracting season and it’s all you have, believe me, that is all it takes: 15 minutes in which connection is rekindled, in which time is given to sharing and listening, and we find ourselves walking away anchored in, steadied, heard, connected. So set it out in your mind for your coffee break at work, or the quick lunch you grab before fetching the kids. Put your phone away as you sip that coffee, and instead of being filled with the highlight real of someone else’s fake life (yes, I know you’re are scrolling Facebook when you’re waiting for the kettle to boil!) , open up your prayer book or journal if you have one, and allow yourself a few moments to be present with God and to be filled with the real sustenance of the gift of rest.
Dump Perfect: in fact, apply this across the board to every area of your life! We often approach the disciplines of our spiritual life (devotions, prayer, fasting etc) the same way we approach diets, fatalistically. We go at full tilt, knuckling down for a time, until we fall off the wagon (thanks Cinnabon!) and then, instead of saying, “aww man, I shouldn’t have eaten that whole thing, but ok, I am picking up where I left off”, we say;”Aww man, this day (weekend/ week) is a write-off, I am giving in and I will start again on Monday!” In our spiritual life, we have this set idea that our interactions with God should look a certain way, take a certain shape and amount of time, make us feel x,y or z, and if we can’t have/ do that, we might as well not even attempt anything. And in that we lose our unction, we lose sight of the importance of the spiritual realm and its impact and then we wonder why we feel like our prayers hit the ceiling. I love the saying: “perfect is the enemy of done”. Because surely a simple, sincere prayer uttered in a moment of awe, understanding, desperation, is better than a perfectly crafted doxology left unspoken?
“If in prayer I come before a throne of grace, the faults of my prayer will be overlooked.” Charles Spurgeon
Dare to be honest: I hope you also have a group of friends in your life where you know you can be your authentic, uncensored self. Friends who love you in such a way that they don’t make you feel like your too much, or not enough, for whom you don’t need to dumb down or dress up any part of yourself in order to feel at home. I am blessed to have a few like that. And if I compare how I feel when I am around them with how I feel when I am around people in front of whom I can’t be myself, I know who I would rather hang out with, and I appreciate the authenticity of those relationships all the more. It’s no different with God. We are bound to seek Him out all the more if we experience the truth about His loving character and nature to us if we enter in with a conviction of His grace. We are bound to avoid Him if we have allowed the burden of sin and shame to pile up like dirty dishes in our soul, bound to skirt formally around Him if our picture of Him has become affected by half-truths and earthly wisdom and religiosity.
You have permission to be unhappy before God, desperate, ungrateful even, superficially joyful, just plain you.
Just take a stab at praying through the Psalms if you don’t believe me.
In Genesis Hagar refers to God as El Roi, as she experiences God as One who truly sees her in a world where she feels utterly unseen. You are seen darling, and loved, chosen, sought out not just despite of who you are, but because of it. That is the God we draw near to when we draw near in prayer.
Can I encourage you in whatever season you find yourself, to make small shifts in your schedule and perspective to have your daily life transformed by prayer?
“To pray is to change. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives. For those explorers in the frontiers of faith, prayer was no little habit tacked onto the periphery of their lives, it was their life. It was the most serious work of their most productive years. Nothing draws us closer to the heart of God. “ Richard Foster
Jan 25, 2018 | Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, God, Uncategorized
Does this ever happen to you? You sit down for your quiet time (yes, you’ve managed to hit the snooze button only once, got up before everyone else, you have your crispy new journal and your gel pens, and a warm cuppa – so you basically just hit a perfect mommy trifecta) and your mind does one of 2 things:
It either goes blank. Completely blank. Like the look your 9 year old give you when you ask him why he can’t just remember to put the toilet seat up.
OR
Your mind goes in 50 different directions at once. Now, I am an expert juggler. For example, I am constantly juggling my out of control love for my children with how much they sometimes annoy me (oh please, I know I’m not the only mom who thinks that but never says it!). But juggling 20 thoughts at once does not a productive quiet time make. And if I just sit down and close my eyes and start “trying” to “focus”, my thoughts just run amuck. No matter how hard I try, I am making a grocery list, a to do list, a list of deadlines or dinner dates or a don’t forget list from the minute I sit down.
The other challenge is that in our content driven, content crazy, content overload world, it’s not only hard to switch off to the many distractions but it’s also hard to actually select and stay on a focussed path of spiritual progress. The constant beeping of your phone and the million options of blogs, books, bible-studies, devotions, podcasts can leave you overwhelmed and spiritually rudderless.
Sometimes the fact is that we are so overwhelmed by content and choice, that our quiet time struggle has more to do with a lack of focus than a lack of time.
I have struggled with all of the above as a confessed information junky with a minuscule attention span, and so I wanted to share with you today the super simple structure I stick to to stay focussed during those precious meeting times with God.
Find the right spot: build an altar, the place where you praise, worship, remember, give thanks, receive. Clear a space for your body and your mind. I know you are always last on the list Mom, but be unapologestic about this!
Get in the zone: I light a scented candle, take 5 deep breaths while pressing hard on my fingertips or squeezing a stress ball (don’t judge ok this works for me), and then start off with a prayer of adoration. I often find that my spirit is sluggish to start with, regardless of the time of day that I meet with God, so I write out scriptures and psalms of adoration in a prayer book to lead me into God’s presence and centre me in His will. I have it ready as I sit down to start and I read those prayers, out loud if I can.
Adoration reminds my soul who I am about to sit down with and breathes expectation into my spirit.
Eliminate (mental and physical) noise: My phone used to be the first thing I reached for when I woke up in the morning. Before sitting down to read my bible I would already know how many emails I had to respond to later that day. Not good for focus or motivation. I found that keeping it off until after my quiet time helps me to bring my thoughts in line with the priorities of God’s Kingdom, instead of the priorities of my own. I also have one of those handy little mini note paper stacks. The moment a thought/ to do/ person that I have to call’s name pops into my head I quickly write it down and set it aside so it doesn’t completely derail me.
Have a plan: If you are into devotionals, have that at the ready. If you’ve started off the year with different areas of your faith that you want to study and grow in (think grace, forgiveness, faith, contentment), take out your concordance as a starting point. Maybe you’ve chosen a book of the bible to do. That’s what I prefer. But the best thing is to know what works for you but whatever you do, make sure that God’s word is at the centre of it. Go for quality and not quantity.
Set yourself up to crave the word. Whatever you are reading during your personal devotions must be taking you deeper into being able to hear God’s voice in His word for yourself.
Have a back up plan: because: life. And because: snoozebutton. If I oversleep or had very little sleep the previous night, if I’m feeling particularly mentally overwhelmed or even if I know I only have 20 minutes instead of the hour and twenty I was hoping to spend, I reach for a Psalm. Every year, I pick 2 Psalms as my “go to Psalms”for that year. Yes, only 2. Some days truth be told a couple of bites of a Psalm is all I can handle. There! That’s my real sometimes Mommas! And I am ok with that. And you know what, I think God is too. Having a plan AND a back up plan means I never sit down and hit a blank during my quiet times.
Make it plain: As in, make your plan something you can see. This is probably the thing that has helped me stay on track the most. Think of it as the agenda for the meeting you are about to have with God. I use one of those weekly planner pads with the tear off sheets so I can update it when I need to (subscribe to the blog this week to recieve a handy personal devotional schedule printable for your desk!)). This goes onto a whiteboard in front of me. On here I record what I am focussing on or reading at the moment, as well as who I am praying for each day.
Mondays I pray for my husband and sons and our housekeeper
Tuesdays the people I mentor/ disciple and my close friends and their families
Wednesday is my extended family
Thursday I have the privelage to pray for family and friends who don’t yet walk with Jesus. I also pray for all the missionaries I know on Thursdays
Fridays are for my kids’ school, my church and my country. On Fridays I pray longer, hiehie!
Saturdays are for my personal prayers, plans and goals, my writing and work.
Having this list up means that when I have promised to pray about someone or something, I can easily add it to the right place on the list. I can stay on track during my prayer time as I know every day of the week who I am praying for and it helps me pray with purpose. I also record here what I’m reading, what my memory verse is that week (which I also put on Q cards and stick all over the house) and I also keep a “spill over” list if I already know what devotional or word study or book of the bible I want to do when I am done with the current one.
Record and engage: Maybe you journal. Maybe you don’t. But when I study the bible, I make notes. It helps with focus because it’s an activity that I am physically engaged in, as in I am not just sitting there, I am doing something. And in the front of my journal are the 4 things I look for each time I sit down to read the Bible, and this is what I write down. This is something my mom taught me to do when I was still very young. So, I look for
- Confirmations, commands, corrections and/ or promises from God
- Keywords (you know, those ones that just “jump out”
- Who is God (what elements of His character are evident in this scripture, what can I praise Him for?)
- Who am I (what does this passage highlight about me, things I must repent of or see about myself?)
This is also a handy rubric that our church distributes to assist people during their queit times (
get the explanation here). Whatever “method” you choose, make sure it engages you mentally, spiritually and physically and helps you to develop a pattern of discipline during this precious time of devotion. As I engage with the content, I pray, I confess, I plead, and what I studied then forms the jump off point for a time of prayer, confession and supplication.
If the God of the universe tells you something, you should write it down – Henry Blackaby
Go forth and share: Telling someone what you have gained from your time with God is a great way of internalising that knowledge. What do you talk about with your girlfriends Momma? With my closest buddies we can go from talking about the latest and best liquid blusher (my latest obsession!) to what God is speaking to us about right now in the space of a 10 minute conversation. I pray that you are as immensely privelaged as I am to have such an inner circle of women!
Your intentional engagemet with God and His word will reap a harvest, not just for yourself but also for the people God has placed in your path.
February is looming and I am sure you , like me, had lots of ideas about staying on track spiritually this year. I hope that these inputs will help you, and please share in the comments other tips and tricks that you find valuable in keeping your focus during your time with God! If you are in that babies and toddlers lifestage and a set time of personal devotion seems about as out of reach for your as 12 hours of uninterupted sleep, I have hope and encouragement for you to,
read here! And remember:
God delights in you and is more interested in you showing up to spend time with Him than in what you accomplish in your quiet time. Eventhough in the world our measurement is achievement (think before and after photos, activity trackers, reading the bible in one year, and to do lists) what God honors and has always honoured is discipline. Your relationship with Jesus is the light that will shine out of your life, pointing others home, pointing you home.
The amount of time we spend with Jesus, meditating on His Word and His majesty, seeking His face, establishes our fruitfulness in the Kingdom – Charles Stanley
Nov 8, 2017 | Bible, Children, Christianity, Discipleship, Faith, Family, God, Grace, Parenting
“What about my quiet times?”
Three times in the last 2 weeks. That’s how many times I was asked this question by moms of young children. That’s how I knew it was a thing. That’s also how I knew I must be old!
How do you keep growing with God when you are in the throws of the not-sleeping, always-feeding-burping-changing-or running-after, why-must-they-get-up-at-5AM-on-Saturdays madness of those early years with kids?
It’s not as complicated as you think:
Raise your expectations of God and lower your expectations of yourself!
Because what would your life, your walk with Jesus look like if you expected to see God every day all day any time of day, and you got rid of the expectations of what your walk with Him is supposed to look like (which very often mostly depends on things you do)? What if you placed all your expectations on the promise of His nearness in this season of your life, instead of placing it on your own ability to carve out 60 precious quiet, uninterrupted minutes. The dichotomy is that nothing will test the fiber of your faith like being a mom, and yet in that season you are relegated to noisy cry-rooms listening to half of a sermon and you can barely carve out time to wash your hair much less wash your spirit in a solid daily quiet time. You can barely go to the bathroom alone, much less have alone time with Jesus. And there you are in a season where you need Jesus more than ever!
The good news is that I have some points that may encourage you. In other good news, I will keep it short. For obvious reasons! There is a way that we can journey with God and grow in our faith in the challenging season of early parenthood if we can just let go of the idea of that we have in our head that it’s all supposed to look a certain way. So..
Let God do what God does: Too often in life, we have a very high expectation of ourselves and actually a very low expectation of God. You can hear it in the way we pray. The way we are always asking Him to help us do things and how seldom we just ask Him to do them. He is still on the throne, even if you feel you might have lost the plot.
Do your best but don’t trust your best. Instead see parenting for what it really is – the biggest trust exercise you will ever complete and your biggest ever leap of faith! Trust God.
Let the Word do what the Word does: It’s sharper than a two-edged sword (Heb 4 v 12) and it never returns void (Is 55 v 11). When your days are long and your attention span is short, take one verse, or maybe 2 (on the days that kid slept through the night). Write it on a cue card (I use these all the time) and give yourself time to memorize it. Read it in the morning when you wake up and just before you go to sleep, meditate on it as you make dinner, sink into it as you stand at the sink, keep a card in your car and next to the feeding chair or the changing station, pray it over yourself and over your kids. Let it do something in you, instead of you trying to do something with it! Oh and listen, I love me a good ‘ole girlfriend devotional any day of the week, and of course there is a season for that, but I really believe that in the long run 2nd hand conviction won’t carry us. Each of us is responsible to get into the Word for ourselves. And the year that you have that first or second or third baby is NOT the year that you also read through the bible. Just let that go ok! Take a bite-size, chew on it for a couple of days. See what happens.
Let worship do what worship does: Do you worship in your home, or do you leave that for Sundays? Worshipping God is a powerful thing. Whether you are blasting Hillsong at full force or simply out-loud-my-neighbors-think-I’m-crazy speaking gratitude and praise to God (ascribing to Him the Glory due to His name alla David style in Psalm 29v2) as you pack the lunchboxes; there is power and authority in the act. The act of worship draws our eyes upwards and our hearts closer to God as we see Him more clearly and ourselves more clearly. Be intentional about bringing worship into your home and creating a spiritual atmosphere that can influence your spirit and help you draw near to God when the slog of parenting leaves you parched for intimacy with Him. It will do you good. It will do your children good.
We end up walking around with this huge expectation that we as moms are somehow letting our faith “slip” and we really should just “try harder or get up earlier” with some pinterest perfect spirituality when in fact there is no better time than when you first become a mom for you to realise that
weak is the new strong and that the whole parenting deal doesn’t rise and fall on your ability to parent but on your ability to trust God MORE.
AW Tozer says that it is in the nature of God to speak, He is never silent, and the one who doesn’t expect to hear God speak will discount what He says. Soooooo, higher expectation of God, lower expectation of self. Do you know what you need for the chaos and the fears and the battles of parenting (no, of LIFE!)? You need songs and prayers! And the Bible is full of both! And all the sisters said: AMEN!
