Growing up Solid
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:11-14).
The riding lawn mower quit working recently. Apparently, grounded tree limbs and freeway driving speeds over top of said tree limbs don’t make for a good mix. I’m not surprised by the breakdown. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
After a few days at the shop and a costly repair, I informed the “lawn mowers” in my household that mowers and sticks don’t mix; they nodded their understanding. It didn’t sink in; not fully. For just the other day, the “lawn mower” man was at it again, driving like Mario Andretti, all the while crunching and munching the remnants from a recent storm beneath the blades of the newly renovated mower. When I confronted him about the issue, he looked at me with all sincerity and ease and simply replied…
“Mom, I don’t do sticks.”
My immediate response to him?
“Son, that is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You don’t do sticks? Are you kidding me? How old are you?
I’ll spare you the rest of the details. Your imagination is ample enough to create a fairly clear picture of just how it all went down.
I’ve raised two impatient sons as it pertains to the “doing” of the rudimentary tasks of daily living, which includes anything that doesn’t make their list of “how a young man should be spending his time.” And while they’ve always been willing to comply with these daily chores (and to their credit, with little grumbling alongside), the rules of engagement for accomplishing the tasks share one common denominator.
The faster the better. The sooner it’s done, the sooner the fun. Sometimes it works out that way; sometimes it doesn’t. They are both finding out via personal experience that faster isn’t always the best route for progress. That speeding through life sometimes presents them with a yield—a pause that forces them to grapple with their impatience and their choice to either “grow up” in this area or to keep returning to the bottle of their infancy.
As it goes with them, so it goes with me. There are seasons in my life when the pressure to mature burdens me with the responsibility of having to make a choice along those lines. In the days of my youth, I couldn’t wait to be older; at least then I would be in control of my decisions.
I was right; I’m now in control of my decisions, but there are times when the comfort of a little milk and a warm blanket are tempting. Times when I wish I could revert to the cradle and leave all the decisions up to someone else. Times when I, like my sons, say dumb things to others and to God, in hopes that my words make sense, but all the while knowing that they don’t. That they are offensive to the ears of those on the receiving end.
Unreasonable words. Thoughts based on emotion rather than truth. Casual statements issuing forth from a place of unbelief, fear, and selfishness. Justifications that aren’t thought out but, rather, are based on inconsistent sentiment that shrouds my flesh in self-interest.
I spoke as much to God this morning.
“Where are you God?”
“I think you’ve forgotten about me.”
“Could you just hurry up with the answer?”
“Is there really any point to this day?”
“I imagine that this is about as good as it’s going to get, so I’d better get up and get it over with.”
Yammering unbelief like that, on and on for a few moments, only to be quickly followed up by my confession.
“I’m sorry God. That was really a dumb thing to say.”
And then I laughed; and then he did. And thus, the conversation was opened up for a better word; a truer truth; a love and a grace that exceeds my stupidity to say,
“Now that we’ve cleared that up, elaine, let’s move on to some solid food.”
It’s time to move on with some solid food, my friends. Our maturing doesn’t happen overnight or with a quick ride around the lawn. Our “growing up” in the faith takes time … takes a willingness on our parts to bend to the menial tasks of picking up sticks and slowing our pace. Of entreating the pauses that find us, whether forced upon us by others or freely chosen by us because we’ve come to the conclusion that faster doesn’t always yield better. That solid food requires a longer chew.
And that chewing can, in fact, bring pleasure to the process of our becoming.
How about you? What excuses are you bringing to the table of grace today? What could you possibly offer up to our God as a justification for your staying as you are? What bottle of milk tastes better than a steak? What questions could you ask him that remain without answers? What elementary understanding stifles your “gettin’ on with the gettin’ on” as it pertains to your faith journey?
Can this mother’s heart be honest?
It’s time to grow up. Time to slow down and sit with Father God and listen to what he has to say. Why? Because if we don’t, we risk a lifetime of infancy, never tasting the freedom and joy that comes with moving onto our maturity in Christ. Jesus didn’t go all the way to the cross and back so that we could stay as we are; he made that journey so that we could become a living conduit of his kingdom and his grace.
And that kind of sacred consecration and calling, my friends, deserves more than our menial attempts at maturity. Kingdom bestowment deserves our unparalleled obedience and humble willingness to grow into our crowns and to be thankful for the grace it has taken to make them a worthy fit.
Leave the bottles for the infants and keep to the table of rich meats this week. I’ll meet you at the table of grace where the food is solid and the communion is ever sweet. As always,
A Sacred Exchange
“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (John 4:15).
Where is your “here”? The well you return to, time and again, in order to quench your insatiable thirst? What “deep and dark” cavernous hole beckons your ladle and, therefore, your strength with empty promises of lasting fulfillment?
These are the questions that linger in my heart this day. My friend, Lisa, has challenged me to visit them … to be a “lady on a mission from the inside-out: lay it down seven day challenge” (LOAM). Several of us have answered the call for intentional discipleship with the Lord; not with man, or in this case, with several women, but rather with him. On our faces, before his face, with his Word and the prayers of our heart as our guide.
Lisa is prompting the daily retreat by an offering of prayer and Scripture readings for reflection. This morning’s reading led me to few verses from John 4. I was compelled to read more. A familiar story about a Savior whose thirst led him to a well in Samaria and a woman whose thirst kept her there until understanding arrived and she presented, what I believe to be, one of the purest offerings we can make to our Lord.
An exchange.
Her ladle for God’s water. Her strength and daily “labor” for God’s strength and abundant overflow. Her sin for God’s grace. Her temporal for God’s eternal.
“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
And with that offering, Father God reaches down, deep down into his personal storehouse of eternal love and lavishly pours his own offering of excess into her empty cup.
Living water. A wellspring of holy consecration flowing in and out of her with headwaters issuing forth from the Spirit of the Living God who decided that she was an appropriate dwelling for his holy presence. He’s made the same offer to each one of us.
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John4:13).
So again, I ask you the same question I’m asking of myself this day. Where is your “here”? Where does your thirst lead you? To a man-made well that is deep and dark, sapping your strength every time you notice your thirst? Or, to a God-made well that is amply filled to overflow so that strength can be given to you rather than taken in equal measure from you?
The journey to God’s well is a simple walk; it doesn’t require the heat of the day so as to hide you from the shame of your sin. You can make that pilgrimage in the quiet of your own room, in your own way where the only “eyes” on you are the ones belonging to your Savior. He’s been waiting for you and the refreshment you will bring him because of your obedience to come and sit with him.
Yes, our Father is refreshed by our presence. It’s part of the exchange.
Living water from the living Word … loving worship of the living God.
Sacred intimacy at the deepest level. May your heart know the value and the beauty of such a sacred exchange this day. As always…
a wave of empty
“So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me. Nevertheless, we must run aground on some island.” (Acts 27:25-26).
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received came from a counselor during a time of great personal crisis nearly fourteen years ago. It went something like this…
Elaine, you spend a great deal of your time trying to “out swim” the waves that are chasing you. You expend your valuable energy in trying to reach the shore before they have the opportunity to consume you. Sometimes you make it; sometimes you don’t. How much better would it be if you stopped swimming, anchored your feet into the sand, and turned to face the wave … head on and with the full confidence that your survival has already been written in the history books?
Facing the wave. That’s where I am today. Actually, where I am is in an upstairs bedroom where two beds are stripped of their linens and where closets are mostly bare. The trophies remain … the bookshelf filled with yesteryear’s reads, and the dust all the more; but what I notice most about this room this morning is not the remnants left behind. What I’m most keenly aware of is its emptiness. The silence. The incredible void that fills this place because two young men are no longer making this room the place where they lay their heads at night.
My tears have mostly dried, and the exhaustion has nearly subsided; for the most part, I’m ready to “get on with the gettin’ on.” But before I do, before I have clarity about “what’s next” for me and for those of us left behind, I want to spend some time this week “facing the wave” and allowing the full force of change to hit me squarely in the heart, therefore requiring me to grapple with some questions that are worthy of more than my casual acknowledgment.
Questions that arrive because routine has been stripped away and because there is now ample time and space to formulate some answers, out loud and before God in a way that wouldn’t have been possible a week ago. A week ago, I was still walking through this parental obedience of “letting go” with the objects of that “letting go” still shadowing my every move. Today, the shadows are removed. They are gone, casting their depth on the campuses of two universities that are just out of my reach.
Truly, I’m fine with the distance between us. It is part of their “becoming”; it’s part of mine. All of us are searching for the “next thing”—the next step in this journey called faith. And while their search leads them along different paths than mine, one thread remains constant for us all. Change has arrived, and when change comes, we can do one of two things with it. We can fight it, or we can bend to it … bow to it, turn to it and allow the full force behind its pulse to hit us where we stand and to shape us accordingly.
I choose to turn and face the wave this day, knowing that regardless of the “hit” my survival has already been written in the history books.
Some days … some seasons … our ships, like the Apostle Paul’s, get the “go ahead” from God to run aground. Our safety isn’t in question. We may feel as if it is; after all, the waves are high and the surge is certain. We may have lost all hope of being saved from the storm; but even there, our God comes to us in the dark of the night and reminds us that not one of us will be lost. We live with the assurance that our lives will be spared. But our ships? Our comfortable and our familiar?
Well, sometimes they know the splintering and breakage of an intentional island, placed in our paths on purpose and with the sole intention of stripping us down to the basics. The island is never intended to destroy us but, rather, to save us. Without it, we are at risk of succumbing to the treacherous battering from a sea’s fury whose relentless passion has sent more than a few ships to a watery and forgotten grave.
With the island, we get reprieve. A fresh start. A place of beginning again; of rebuilding and renewal and re-examination of a life that will continue down a new path, yet one with the same destination in mind.
Home to God.
He will use many routes to get us there, all manner of detours and obstacles to accomplish our arrival. We may not always welcome the change … the “stripping down” and painful emptiness that calls for our contemplation and our maturation. But to deny its reality is to delay its intentional good. And God is after our good; not for goodness’ sake, but for his sake. For his plan. For his perfected end that gloriously welcomes and includes our “becoming” as part of the determined process.
Perhaps this day the waves are fiercely and desperately chasing you from behind. Your ship is hanging by a thread and your efforts at “lightening the load” are doing little to quell the fury. Your “frantic and frenzy” at trying to “out swim” the inevitable embrace of the waves in order to reach the safety of the shore has worn you out and your exhaustion is complete.
Would you be willing to pause, to stop where you are, to dig your heels deeply into the soil beneath your weary feet and then to courageously, turn and face the wave? Sometimes a ship has to be willing to be broken in order for a life to be saved. It maybe your ship … your life. It maybe the life of someone you dearly love. Either way, the willingness to invite the “stripping down” of the waves is the beginning of the “building up” of a new way of doing life with Jesus.
Thus, keep up your courage, friends, and I will keep up mine. I have all the confidence in my God to lead us as we go and to bring us safely home, just as he has said. Our God is ever faithful. He will do it.
Even so, do it today, Lord Jesus. As always…
Packing…
Today, we packed our second-born son for his freshman year at college.
Tomorrow, we’ll move him in.
On Saturday, we’ll pack our first-born son for his junior year at college.
On Sunday, we’ll move him in.
And somewhere between now and then, my heart will hurt and grieve the passage of time, all the while being incredibly grateful for the years we’ve been given together beneath the same roof.
A family. One I would have never predicted, yet one that is so beautifully woven with the golden threads of heaven and a Father’s sacred and unifying love.
I love my boys. Seems like yesterday we were packing bookbags.
Now, we’re packing our good-byes. Ones that cut more profoundly and with more clarity. Ones that leave me hoping that our years together have been enough to launch them in the right direction.
Pray for me friends. I’ll see you on the other side of some miles and some hugs and some tears that are sure to wet my heart. As always…