Wow, I have been gone for a long time. I hope everyone will forgive me for my negligence. It is one of the many struggles that I have when it comes to managing time and resources. We did not have Internet for a long time and it was virtually impossible for me to manage a blog without it.
It finally became evident that I would have to invest some of our resources in finding an Internet Service Provider as school began. Since the girls are both in college now and need access to it daily and the younger kids need it for their school lessons and research, it seems like a reasonable expense.
So here we go again, the school year in full swing for all five kids, and me trying to make ends meet between work, kids, everyday needs and keeping a roof over our heads. Sometimes I am very hard pressed and I feel like there is too much on my plate. It is easy to begin to feel hopeless. I wonder if I will ever feel like I have a cushion or if I will always be on the edge of overwhelmed.
Where is hope to be found? How do we live in such away that our children feel that there is hope? Lamentations is a powerful book filled with hope and chapter 3 is a magnificent resource for understanding many things about life, our circumstances, and the Lord's role in things. It is well worth the time you might take to give it a read. I warn you though it takes a while to get to the hope in Chapter 3. The first 18 verses describe utter hopelessness. The worst part is that the hopelessness comes from the Lord as a result of His righteous wrath against sin.
Verse 18 ends on the happy note:
So I say, "My strength has perished,
And so has my hope from the LORD."
You might ask what is the point of this happy blog? Well, I have had some experience with teaching and parenting and I have found that even the smallest of children need hope. Hope that they can please their parent. Hope that they can please their teacher. Hope that when we fail, somehow we can be restored. All of us need hope that we can get back in the good graces of those in authority over us. When we as adults show grace to those over whom we exercise authority, we are demonstrating the Love of God in a most tangible way.
After the first 18 verses, the writer gets to the good part. He remembers the grace of God and God's mercy...
Lamentations 3:19 Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. 20 Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me. 21 This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. 22 The LORD'S loving kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him." 25 The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. 26 It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD.
I often struggle to live with hope, but these verses help remind me of the source of my strength and hope. It helps me remember that my circumstances are not where I find hope, but my hope is in the Lord and He will never fail to keep His promises.
I am going to keep this blog short, and next time I want to share an experience that I had as a Children's Church Teacher. This experience had a profound impact on me and the way I do things. It shapes my thoughts and approach toward the people in my life. But, more on that later...
I ended my last blog with this sentence:
"As a teaser, on my next blog I will explore the life altering riddle concerning the person who put a nickel in a .50 cent Juke box, and expected to get a coke."
This is that blog...
Life altering may be a slight exaggeration, unless you're the guy with the nickel. The truth is I think this may describe more of us than we would like to admit. It is one of the prime sources of anger and frustration in the lives of most people. I often find when I am angry with some one it is because they haven't met my expectations in some way.
There is a legitimate anger that may arise when this happens, and some things require a response. When sin is present there is a righteous anger, tempered with humility that should be present. The response is carefully outlined in Scripture and has as its goal the restoration of the offender. Unfortunately in our daily existence, too often righteousness and humility are not present, nor are they even thought of.
Generally speaking we get angry and do not consider our own sin. Sin that may have even caused the other party to sin. Sin that may blind us to our need for humility. Self-righteous sin that has us condemning the other without first considering the Log that is in our own eye, as it were, or seeking to understand the offence.
That, by the way is the "Judge" part of "Judge not lest ye be judged". We must judge in the sense of discerning truth from error, sin from righteousness, Godly from ungodly. We can see wrong behavior in others and we can call it what it is. Sin. But we do not need to condemn them for it. God has already condemned the behavior and He will either judge them according to their sin, or on the basis of salvation, He will forgive their sin according to His grace.
We should rather be clear and in all humility condemn the behavior, and pray for repentance of the offender. We should also pray for ourselves that we would not fall into the same sin.
I used the riddle "put a nickel in a .50 cent Juke box, and expected to get a coke" comment when talking with a friend to help illustrate the problem. An event that they were struggling with, had left them angry and resentful. I wanted a gentle way of talking about how easy it is for us to get angry as if another person was sinning against us. We should remember that all sin is an offence to God and while the sin effects us we need to be careful that we are angry for righteous reasons and not because we had wrong expectations.
We will put a nickel's worth of effort into finding out the what, where, when, and why of someones behavior. We establish expectations based on what we think they should do, and then we are angry and frustrated when we do not have our expectations met. We don't even get to hear any music because we didn't go the whole nine yards and put in .50 cents.
With respect to married folk, this is what it means in 1 Peter 3:7 when Peter says, "You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered." We are to invest the time to develop expectations in keeping with the woman we are married to, and she likewise needs to develop expectations in keeping with the man she is married to.
How often does a woman expect to receive flowers and poetry from a man who expresses his love by keeping a well tended garden, and caring for her car. Likewise the woman who expresses her love with cute notes in his lunch box and dinner on the table, when he expects moon eyes and a spotless house. Both are expecting good things but both are disappointed because they are not living together with understanding. Both should be willing to grant to the other those reasonable expectations, even though they are difficult and not their preferred way so that there is peace and joy in the home.
In the process of granting your partner the coke for a nickel when you are actually a .50 cent juke box, you demonstrate genuine sacrificial love and your marriage will have long lasting strength. There will also be less anger and stress.
