Iron Sharpens Iron

Last night I spend some time chatting with a good friend of mine. We talked about a number of different things - but one thing we always tend to talk about is things we may not agree on. I know a lot of people shy away from those types of conversations - they can be hard and make a person feel uncomfortable. I believe it is important to have people in your life that you see eye to eye with on most things but I also think it is vitally important that we have those people in our lives that do see things differently than we do; people with a different perspective. We have heard the verse Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens another." - well if there is no friction there can be no sharpening. I believe we run into a huge danger if we only ever associate with those who think and act just the way that we do. If we do that we will become an exclusive club of people unwilling to listen to anyone else's point of view and therefore always assuming we are right. I always want to be the type of person who is willing to listen to a different perspective, that is willing to ask hard questions, that is willing to look at where I could be wrong and make changes if necessary. I also want to be the type of person who will do that for another. 

I have been spending some time in 1 Peter 5 today. It is a great chapter on leadership and humility. The whole chapter is great, but here are the first 5 verses:

"Now for the elders of the church. I want to encourage you. As you know, I am an elder, too, like you. I have witnessed firsthand the sufferings of the Anointed One as well as shared in the glories which are soon to be revealed. When you shepherd the flock God has given you, watch over them not because you have to but because you want to. For this is how God would want it not because you’re being compensated somehow but because you are eager to watch over them. Don’t lead them as if you were a dictator, but lead your flock by example; and when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will be crowned with honor that will shine brightly forever. You who are younger in the faith: do as your elders and leaders ask. All of you should treat each other with humility, for as it says in Proverbs,

God opposes the proud

    but offers grace to the humble."

I love this passage because it speaks to the leader and the new believer in the same way - and says to "treat each other with humility". The leader isn't the only one asked to be humble and neither is the new believer. Both need to walk in humility towards each other. The believer needs to be humble enough to take the instruction of the leader and the leader needs to be humble enough to listen to the believer's concerns. I believe if we truly grasped this concept in our churches today it would solve a lot of problems! Be open to listen to each other - be open to hear a perspective that may be different than yours. And be willing to go to each other in a humble manner and discuss these things. Yes - there will always be things we won't agree on and never come to a place where we see eye to eye, but we need to at least take time to hear another person out and see where they are coming from. I believe that is what makes us sharp. A sharpened sword is then useful and productive - ready to be used in battle. Let us not go into battle unarmed and dull because we are afraid of the sharpening process. Together we make each other better and our differences are what help us to grow and become an effective team with the same goal and purpose - to show people Jesus! 

Pastors are People Too

Let me just start this by saying that in general I hate blogs. I really didn't want to start a blog at all... but I could not shake the sense that I needed to -- so I did. God gives us all gifts and He gives them to us to use. So... I am trying to use what God has given me and this seems to be a way He would like me to do that at this moment. I dislike blogs that find fault and criticize things -- so in a sense I am writing today the anti-blog blog which I know makes no sense whatsoever. Call me a hypocrite because that is what I am. So here goes... 

I am a pastor's wife. I love my husband with all my heart and I see how hard he works day in and day out. He has a job inside the church and a job outside of the church, he is a wonderful father and a devoted husband, he tries to take care of our house and cars as well as run a mentoring program and be a youth pastor and a worship leader and oversee the creative ministries at our church. He wears a lot of hats. That being said sometimes there are a few things that might fall through the cracks. I am guilty as anyone of letting him know when something does. For that I am truly sorry. 

There is this trend today that we like to find fault in our leaders or our churches. We post about it, blog about it, complain to each other about it -- but what are we really DOING about it? There has got to be something more productive than that doesn't there? To me it seems really rude. What would we do if our children blogged daily about all the mistakes we make as parents and how we do not run our house the way they think it should be run? That would be devastating to us wouldn't it? We'd say, "That is crazy, no parent is perfect - we are doing the best we can!" Well I am here to say today that no pastor is perfect. Pastors are people too. They have real feelings - feelings that can be hurt. We demonize some we think are insensitive, power hungry monsters, but let me tell you that if they are out there then they are definitely a very small minority. Most pastors I know are just doing their best to love the people who have been entrusted to them. They work hard day in and day out to connect with people, meet people's needs and run the church they are a part of. 

I think it is time that we treat pastors like people too. We are quick to say how we are imperfect people who deserve grace and mercy - but when it comes to pastors we have a double-standard. They have to be without fault. If they say a phrase the wrong way in a message, if they don't call as often as we'd like, if they don't communicate as effectively as we think they should they are chastised. This can be very hurtful. 

I know this is not a perspective heard very often so please hear my heart in this. My heart aches for my husband when he comes home from a long day of working two jobs and dealing with very heart wrenching, real problems in both of them and then he gets online and sees another post or another blog about how what he is doing is not good enough. As a mom if I saw those kind of posts all the time about what I was doing wrong as a mom I think I would have a mental breakdown.  I am not saying that you can never raise concerns, by all means please do! But there is a right way to do that and a wrong way. The wrong way is never ok so don't try to justify it. Even if you don't get the response you'd like from the leader right away that does not give you a free pass to behave badly. All I ask is that you'd consider this before posting something and remember that pastors are people too. <3 

A Double-Edged Sword

"The word of God, you see, is alive and moving; sharper than a double-edged sword; piercing the divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow; able to judge the thoughts and will of the heart." - Hebrews 4:12

The Word of God is a powerful thing - no one can escape being affected by it. But so many times it is misused and manipulated. It is compared to a sword. I don't know if you've encountered swords much, but most of the time a sword is not something we think of to make us feel all warm and fuzzy. Unfortunately, many in the Church as a whole today like to use the Word of God to make them feel all warm and fuzzy... but that is not the purpose of it. The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. The Word of God should make you uncomfortable. There should be parts of Scripture that you don't like! There should be parts of it that offend you. Say what?! It's true - if no part of the Bible challenges us and makes us uncomfortable than we are no better than a Pharisee thinking that we have it all together. We don't - none of us do. I would go as far to say that we should seek out those sections of Scripture that we don't like and those should be the ones that we study the most. We all like to go to our favorite Scriptures - the ones that encourage us - as we should. But we should not neglect the ones that challenge us, offend us or make us uncomfortable. 

It is time we look at Scripture as a whole and stop manipulating it to meet our needs. So many times we find Scriptures to back up what we want to say and use it to align with our opinion and circumstances. Instead we should make our opinion and circumstances align with the Word of God. I have been guilty of it myself quite often, but you know what - I am sick of it! I no longer want to go through the Word looking for what I want to say - I want to look through the Word and let God show me what HE is trying to say. 

Lord, forgive me for manipulating and misusing Your Word. It is a precious gift and one that I have often used incorrectly. Thank you for ALL of the Word - the parts that encourage me and the parts that convict me. I don't just want part of You, I want ALL of You. All of You is what makes me complete. 

Out in Force

Well today was a little more exciting than I would have liked. It started like any other Tuesday - I was at church in a mentoring session when I got a call from the school that there was an armed robbery in town and the kids were being held in school longer unless I wanted to come pick them up. 

This freaked me out enough and I decided to go pick up my kids - first my son from kindergarten and then my daughter in 4th grade. I was just going to stop home quickly to get my kids' piano books and then head out of town to my mom's. But... when I got home my front door was wide open. Now on a day that you know an armed robber is on the loose this is not a sight you want to see. I called my mother-in-law over and she enlisted the help of some men who were cutting down a tree in our neighborhood - they looked through the house quickly and said the back door was open too. 

At this point we call the cops and the cops tell everyone to get out of the house and go next door, so that is what we do. I see a cop car round the corner - then another - then another - until there are 5 or 6 cop or trooper cars rushing down my street with their lights on. It was all very surreal. The cops then surround my house with their guns - they go into the house and search it - looking in every cupboard, under each bed, and in each closest. They don't find anything in the house except for a package from UPS by the front door. What a great day for UPS to come put a package inside my door and leave the door open!! 

Lesson #1 - always lock your door, even if you think you live in a relatively safe little town. We only had one house key so I didn't have one, but I guarantee we will be making one tonight. Lesson #2 - If you work for UPS or Fed Ex or any place like that never open someone else's door and certainly don't leave it open, especially in a town that has an armed robber on the loose!! 

So that was my excitement for the day - and I think I am set for a while. I am ready for a nice, quiet, uneventful rest of the week please. 

I was pretty impressed by how quickly the cops responded though and with such force. I know I was already praying my whole way home to go pick up my kids. I am still not sure why our back door was open or if it ever really was.. But I do know one thing: My God was protecting me and my family. 

Psalm 91:9-11 promises "If you make the Lord your refuge if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you, no plague will come near your home. For He will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. " 

As quickly as the cops responded when we called earlier my God's response is even quicker and the force he brings with him is even greater! He has an army of angels he sends to protect us and keep us - and they protect us numerous times a day - many of which we may never even realize there was danger near. I am so thankful for that protection today! As the song says, "I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind - the God of angel armies is always by my side." 

10  n    

For Better or For Worse

Today I am going to be talking a little about my husband and our marriage. We have been married 12 years - we have had our ups and our downs, but I am very blessed to have the husband that I have. We were very young when we got married - I was 20 and he was 18! I know that God knew what He was doing when He put us together when He did - He knew that we would need each other more than we could fathom at the time.

Our first year of marriage was one of the most trying times in both of our lives - not because of our marriage, but because of circumstances outside of our control. Some of our biggest support systems were ripped away from us that very first year. Both of our churches were undergoing huge problems and splits and Dennis' family was experiencing the same. As I look back on it I see what a truly hard time in our lives that was. However, our saving grace in it all was that we had each other and we had God. We did not live "happily ever after" right after we were married. Things got very hard and very lonely for a while, but in reflecting back on it I see how those situations really drew Dennis and I closer together. We had to learn how to stand strong as a couple, even if we were standing alone. We had to figure out who we were and what we stood for. I believe that much of what happened in that first year has molded us into who we are today as people and as a couple.

So many times today people take the easy way out - things get hard and instead of digging their heels in and sticking things out they just decide to run away. Instead of dealing with the problem at hand they neglect it and ignore it and pretend it was never there. Faithfulness is not easy. Marriage is not easy. Sometimes it is going to seem like the whole world is against you - that you are losing everyone you were ever close to. But God gives us a promise: He is there! Isaiah 58:9 says, "Then you shall call and the Lord will answer; you shall cry and He will say 'Here I am'". That first year of marriage brought a lot of tears for both of us, but the foundation that we built during that year will never crumble. Our foundation was not built on any person or any church or any support system other than Jesus Christ our Lord. He was the Rock that we stood on when everything else around us seemed to be crumbling. It was painful to walk through but as I look back I am truly thankful for what God did in us during that time. This week is Thanksgiving and it is easy to be thankful for the victories in life - the good times and our material possessions. But this Thanksgiving I am thankful for those hard times in life too - those times that truly built not my comfort, but my character. Earthly comforts are temporary, but our character will remain. This Thanksgiving be thankful for those things that will remain - those things that this world cannot steal away from you. Those are the things that truly matter.

Rear-view Mirror

The past few days I have been struggling with the past. Sometimes it is hard to look back and see how things have changed. For some of us the past is an ugly place that we don’t want to remember but it haunts us every day of our lives. For others the past is a great place that we long to go back to because we miss what once was and we are not satisfied with what is. In my life I have experienced a little bit of both of those scenarios.

But as I “reflected” on this (no pun intended….well maybe a little pun intended) God brought the image of a rear-view mirror to mind. Webster’s dictionary defines a rear-view mirror as “a mirror (as in an automobile) that gives a view of the area behind a vehicle.” Obviously, sometimes it is important to see behind the vehicle. You need to see behind you when you are driving in reverse to make sure you don’t hit anything and you need to see behind you while driving to keep an eye out for emergency vehicles or anything else that may be coming from behind. The rear-view mirror is a very important part of any vehicle. However, if one tried to drive while constantly looking in the rear-view mirror the results could be disastrous. 

I believe the same concepts apply to our lives. There are times in our lives when we need to “glance” at what has passed. We can use it as a point of reference to remember where we came from – that is very important. Sometimes we need to know what is behind us to know how to appropriately react in our present (for example – if a cop is behind us we need to pull over). But be careful because we've all seen that message in our mirrors, right? “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”. A mirror’s perspective is skewed. We cannot always trust that what we see is exactly what is real. A mirror has a way of skewing our view and affecting how we see things. Remember that how you look back at things may not be exactly how they really occurred. Be willing to recognize that might be the case and adjust accordingly. When we are in reverse we need to use our mirrors to make sure we do not collide with anything and hurt someone else or ourselves - so reverse is another point. Why do we reverse? How long do we reverse? Sometimes we have to reverse to get back on track to where we need to go, but we never reverse for a long period of time -for that would be dangerous. We reverse for the shortest amount of time possible – the length of time it takes to make the adjustment – and then we begin to move forward.

Sometimes in life we get so caught up in what is behind us that we forget to move forward. If we have encountered bumpy roads along the way what good does it do to keep looking in the rear-view mirror and saying “Wow, look at that road back there – that was bumpy!”?  If we do that we can miss what is on the road ahead of us. This never has positive results. It is also possible that we will stop our car altogether and just sit there parked looking at those bumpy roads. That would be a tragedy. We can do the same thing with looking at the scenery we passed. Yes, we will pass beautiful places, but we can’t always stay there. We need to keep driving forward.

Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Let us not become so “past focused” that we cannot see what God is doing in our present or worse yet we miss it totally because we are still “rear-view mirror” focused. God is always doing a new thing! That is what He has been showing me through these last few days. I have taken a little time to look at the view and remember where I have been, but now it is time to face forward, step on the gas again and drive on! Happy trails, friends! 

When Friendship Doesn't Work

It seems I have struggled with friendship all my life. I have always had a hard time making and/or keeping friends for whatever reason. It was never something that came to me naturally as it does for some people - I am not bubbly and outgoing, people are not naturally attracted to my personality. Since it is such work for me to make friends sometimes I ask myself if it is really worth it. Why put all that effort into it when I was just going to lose the friend anyway?

There have been a few points in my life when I did not have any friends. Once when I was a young girl in school and a couple times in my adult life as well. It is a hard spot to be in, but at the same time those were the points in my life when I probably grew the most in my walk with God. Not having those friendships made me no longer rely on human validation for my worth.

In our society today we have become obsessed with popularity. It has become a god for many. We are driven by how many “likes” we get or how many followers we have. It can become an addiction to seek out that validation and affirmation, but it is a false affirmation. It is a facade and an imposter. Those “likes” and followers do not equal true, valuable friendship - they are merely an illusion of it. If we are not careful we can build a kingdom in our mind, but at the end of the day not have any true connection and accountability.

But what if it is true connection? What if we have real, flesh and blood, present friendships and they still don’t work out? What then? I know, for me personally, I get into trouble when I place a friendship at too high of a place in my life. Don’t get me wrong- friendship is a gift, it is a treasure and it is something every person should have in their life. However, if at the moment you find yourself alone and lacking that connection know that perhaps God has a purpose in it. At my deepest times of loneliness I have had to truly make God my Source.

When it comes to friends the truth is that no friendship will stay the same forever. Yes, you may be one of those lucky few who finds a lifelong friend. But even so - that friendship is going to morph into something different all throughout your life. The friendship you had as children is not going to look exactly like the friendship you have as adults (unless you still have slumber parties and talk about boys you like - it is possible I suppose). But friendship is something that changes and grows all throughout your life. No friend is going to meet every need you have socially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Sure, it is a popular idea to have that one “BFF” who is all you need and with whom you share every thought with and do everything with but the idea is just not realistic or even healthy. To put all of our emotional and social needs into one person can be dangerous. We are merely setting ourselves up to be disappointed.

So then… what is the good news you ask? This all sounds very pessimistic and cynical, but I assure you it is not. When we let God be God in our lives and friends be friends it is a very freeing thing. Friends are wonderful, but friends make really lousy gods. If we take a realistic, healthy view of friendship then we will see that we do not need to be exclusive and have that one “BFF” to fulfill all of our needs, we do not need to get possessive and we don’t have to get jealous when our friends hang out with someone else. We are free to the possibilities of having many different friends who each meet a different need. We can have that friend for deep conversations, the friend that keeps us sharp, the friend we laugh with, the friend that we pour into, etc..  and we don’t need to get upset when our friend can’t always be there when we feel we need them. I am not saying we should not try to be there for each other, but we are after all human and it will not always be possible. God is always there. He will never let us down. Humans will, husbands and wives will, pastors will, children will, parents will and yes friends will too.  

Friendship doesn’t work when we put our friends in the place where God should be. He should be our source and the first one we call to when trouble comes. He should be the one we get our validation and worth from. So many times we go to our friends first, or even Facebook first - but we should go to God first. Let Him fill that void in your life. Then your friends won’t be put in that place where God should be, but every friendship you have will be an added blessing. This not only frees you it also takes the pressure off of your friends to feel they need to fulfill all those areas in your life. Enjoy your friendships but don’t ruin them by making them the source
and center of your life. It just doesn’t work.