large family...

(This is actually Anda writing): So I bought this book called "Large Family Logistics" hoping to get some helpful little hints for running the show around here. One of my kids sees the title and says "What? Is that book about how to have a large family?" A couple of the olders start giggling as I say "No...." And he says, "Oh yeah, y'all already know how to do that!" More giggles from the more informed of my offspring and the mama who can't suppress the laughter anymore. I love these kids!

Nothing important to say

There is just something so empowering about being able to type something that can immediately be seen by people all over the world even if nobody every reads it.

A haiku in honor of the fact that in just 2 short days my wife and I will be leaving on a trip to Tennessee without our children:

Silent pond. White chairs.

Rainbow trees. My Love and I.

Anticipation.

And in honor of my parents who will be caring for our children:

Loud noises. Children

in perpetual motion.

Whining, pain, and joy.

I love the noise and chaos of 7 children. Driving home yesterday I was overcome with gratitude at the blessing of the life God has given us. Every morning when I leave for work, I have the delight of eight people hugging me and telling me that they love me. What great way to start the day.

Thank you Jesus.

Randy

Love

Yesterday a.m. I was praying that the spirit of religion would be broken off of my community in Jesus' name. And He came and He broke a little more of it off of me. I was overwhelmed with gratitude yesterday at the outpouring of love in my neighborhood. There is a large church here that comes every year and heads up an outreach to Como. They join with our church and several other churches in Como. The Lord revealed my prideful attitude toward the volunteers who come to help - this is yuck, but sometimes it's easy to think that doing something like this outreach is just one more thing that people can check off their lists and then they get to go home while we're still here. (I told you this was a yucky attitude - brought out into the light, it loses its power). Anyway, yesterday when I was praying, I was asking once again for His love to be poured out on me so that I could really see and love the people in my hood. I suddenly saw that my neighbors aren't just strangers or the recipients of my condescending benevolence. They are MY people, like my family. When He showed me this, I was overwhelmed that so many volunteers would come and work their tails off to bless my people. This may sound simple and not that earthshattering, but it was a huge shift in my heart. More confession and repentance. I love the Body of Christ.

So I'm pondering the love of God again this morning....Seeing how little of my life has been spent actually obeying the Word of God. Let me explain what I mean. A couple of weeks ago in CORE a guy was teaching about the Great Commission and asked us what the last commandment was in that little section of Scripture. Several said "teach". He said "that's not what it says." He pointed out that it says "teaching them to OBEY". There is a real difference in teaching someone and in teaching someone to obey. One is a pouring in of information and quite necessary and good, but teaching someone to obey is discipleship and this is much harder. It is a pouring out of your own life. A guy in our class said that it's like the difference between a school teacher and a parent. One is in a classroom; the other is life on life. This was a huge revelation to me. Our culture in general is all about acquiring information, but actually pouring out your life to help someone follow Jesus - that's H-A-R-D. Simple, but very difficult to do. One of the last things the speaker said that night was that so much of what Jesus says in the Word is simple to understand, but hard to actually obey. So what we tend to do is make His teaching complex so that we can make it easier on ourselves.

So I've been thinking about "loving your neighbor as yourself." "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-40

As I sit here this a.m. I have a picture on my piano of a man named Stanley Shipp. He's with Jesus now, but he greatly shaped who Randy and I are today because he was an amazing lover of people. In the picture he's sitting with a man in another country intently looking at him...sitting with him on the ground...getting in his world. Like Jesus. Stanley always said, "People will either be in your life or in your way." People were rarely in Stanley's way. So, yes, I do believe I'm rambling. LOL! But what I'm trying to say in all of this is that I want to know the love of God. And in knowing it, I want to love people. I have deceived myself into thinking I was doing this so many times, but God (in His GREAT mercy) is speaking through His Word and through the Body right now to show me that there is SO much MORE! And I want it...at least in theory. It. Is. Hard. And as I look at my life and realize how impossible it is to love like He has called us to love, I am encouraged. This is not an assignment for my dead flesh. Only the living Spirit of God in me can accomplish this unfathomable mission to love others as myself. Love this quote from John Piper's book, What Jesus Demands from the World: "We are in the company of incomparable superlatives - the two greatest commandments in the entire Word of God, and all of that Word hanging on them. We should take off our shoes in reverence here. There are few texts of Scripture greater than this....The second commandment seems to me to be an overwhelming commandment. It seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person so that I feel that i am that other person; and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were me. It is an absolutely staggering commandment. If this is what it means, then something unbelievably powerful and earthshaking and reconstructing and overturning and upending will have to happen in our souls. Something supernatural. Something well beyond what a self-preserving, self-enhancing, self-exalting, self-esteeming, self-advancing, fallen hunan being like me can do on their own."

And only when we see and receive the love of God for us can we even begin to be the expression of that love to others. I'm LOVING the love of Christ right now. And I'm beginning to see and enjoy and be fascinated with His creation, the beat of His heart. People. Sensing that the coming months will be more laying down of our rights for the sake of the Body and the lost. He is beautiful and I can't wait to see what He does as we just try to walk further in with Jesus. He is good. He is good. He. Is. Love.

the dance

The Religious can’t dance. I try. That’s the problem. When I am Religious, it is about me. How spiritual can I be? Have I checked off everything on my “this-is-what-people-who-really-love-God-do” checklist? As much as I know the utter loathsomeness of this thinking, I unconsciously slip into it over and over again. White-washed tombs, beautiful on the outside; full of death and stench on the inside. I have played this game much of my life, wanting everyone to think that I had it all together. I laugh as I think about how when I was a kid, the only people who went up front for prayer at our church were those who were really needy and quite frankly, “dysfunctional”. Now, I seek out prayer every chance I get at “ministry” time - I AM really needy and dysfunctional! This is a free place to reside. But how easy it is to slip back into the rigid reality of wanting to have it all together, wanting to get it right for God and anyone else who may be watching. And then I get shaken back to reality by my deadness and I realize that I have stopped dancing with Him. There is no freedom in religion. I can hardly even move my feet. And it is there, in that place, where I have a choice to make. Either continue in the “trying to get it right” where I just keep stepping on my own feet and ultimately crash to the floor...or surrender my trying, lean over against His chest, confess my brokenness once again, and let Him take the lead. His warmth, His love, His forgiveness and security envelope me and the dance resumes. And the knots in my shoulders dissolve and while the outside may not look at “beautiful”, the inside comes alive again and the fragrance of Christ becomes my scent instead of my dead religion. Today I come back to Him, the One who said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The One who “cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.‘“ And Lazarus came out. Today I choose to COME OUT to Him and dance, leaving my stench behind for one more day. It's another day of grace.

my sad Malachi

There are hazards inherent to living with 6 siblings - you might get stepped on, you might get hit (not always unintentional), you may miss out on the last piece of cake if you're not fast enough...and then there are those risks involved that one would never dream up even in their most creative moments. You might just be trying to hug your daddy goodbye in the morning and get stabbed in the eye by your four-year-old brother as he passionately flings his arms around daddy's legs. Oops. It was an accident. Probably time to trim Isaac's nails? Sweet Malachi cried off and on ALL DAY. One trip to Daddy's office to get a diagnosis (abrasion on the cornea?) and then on to another doctor appointment at the opthamologist's. He patched it after putting some antibiotic cream in his eye. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. There has been MUCH wailing today. But you have to admit that the little guy is just pathetically adorable! :) And, by the way, his eye should be much better by tomorrow (at least that's what we're praying)!!

Is this not a really cool worm??

Yes, this is a random post, but my little boys found this caterpillar outside the other day and I thought it was fascinating. The Author of the universe...quite creative.

melancholy night

Those of you who tend to be more melancholy understand maybe the desire to write more when you're down? Don't know; maybe that's just me. One week ago today I spoke at this small mom's get-together about the glory of God in my messed up life. :) Topic was walking in the grace of God - talked about things that kill grace in our lives and the weapons we need to use to keep walking in it. It was from God; it was much of my story, past and present; it was good stuff - wish I would listen to myself tonight! LOL! I know I'm different now. I know I don't believe all the old lies. I know He is here and He is with me. But it's as if the old demons love to rear their miserable heads right on the heels of me celebrating the freedom that God has brought and continues to bring. Sigh. So here I sit. Listening to my melancholy music. Writing my melancholy words. Kind of just wishing I had a two week break from life. But here is what I know that I know that I know (that I didn't used to know)...He is right here with me in my melancholy. And Hope whacks off the heads of the demons once again. :)