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When You Can’t See His Hand

Aug17

Within the past couple of years, I have gotten back into baking things made from sourdough. I’m not an expert. I’m not even a baker, really. But friends and the internet help me along the way. One thing I really don’t know about is chemistry. And from what I understand, baking is chemistry.

The good news is, I don’t have to be an expert, I just have to trust the process.

I have starter from a friend (after I killed the last batch I had, but we don’t need to discuss that here). She gave me a little cheat sheet to help me along the way, and then I was on my own. Just a little water, salt, flour, and the wild yeasties that apparently float around everywhere. I try not to think about that part too much.

But with all the ingredients, a warm environment, and time, I have a happily bubbling jar of starter ready to be mixed into a lovely loaf or whatever other creation I desire to make that week. I usually feed my starter at night so in the morning, I’m always excited to see the growth. It’s like magic.

It got me thinking.

We raised three kids in our house. They had the same parents, the same environment, the same love, attention and care, with only minor variations given their temperaments and whatever might have been going on in our lives at any particular time.

So why haven’t all three of them followed the same path of faith? Why does one totally question the existence of God while another one has wholeheartedly pursued a relationship with Jesus? And why has the third come up with a totally different version of God than what he was taught?

Why are two gainfully employed and one having an enormously hard time even thinking about being tied to a job 40 hours a week?

If the same ingredients were added to each life, why aren’t the results the same? Why isn’t the growth visible?

And then God reminded me of another analogy I’ve been using about how He works.

Years ago we had a line of bushes called Ixoras. They have lovely blossoms of orange and yellow. But they began declining, and so we uprooted them and planted something that would regularly give us more color.

But one day, maybe more than a year later, I noticed a little shoot coming out of the ground near where we had uprooted those Ixoras. What we thought didn’t exist in our yard anymore suddenly showed new life. (The photo on the right shows it many months later.) And then, to our even greater surprise, another one on the other side of the walkway showed up. And though smaller, this one has bloomed. The bloom on that one got a little battered from a recent thunderstorm, but there it is, blooming, right next to where its kin used to be.

Somehow, some way, those roots were still alive. What we couldn’t see below the surface, God knew was happening all the time. It gives me hope.

Like living roots and sourdough starter, there is nothing we can do to cause spiritual growth in our kids except provide the right ingredients and environment, and trust God with the results.

When we can’t see His hand, we can always trust His heart. He promises to work all things together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28). I don’t know what He’s doing under the surface in my kids’ lives, but I know that He loves them. And I know that He wants a relationship with them again. And I know that He will leave the 99 to find the one who has wandered away.

No amount of wringing my hands will make my starter grow better, and I’m not the one who made those little Ixoras push through the surface. I planted the original plants, but I had given up on them.

But God hadn’t. Only He knows the when and how. And I will continue to learn to trust the process.

Cast Your Cares

Mar5

This post is a part of the 5-minute Friday link up. We write for just 5 minutes on a one-word prompt and see what happens. No heavy editing allowed. As today’s word is “carry,” I thought it would be appropriate to share an excerpt from my recently published book, Cast Your Cares: A 40-Day Journey to Find Rest for Your Soul, which released on March 8. This excerpt is from chapter 2, “The Practice of Casting Your Cares.”

Trying to cast your cares on God is like playing with a boomerang. You throw it as hard as you can only to have it come right back to you. That’s the object with a boomerang, but it’s frustrating when this happens with our cares and concerns. We want to throw them to God, and we don’t want them back.

First Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Just cast all the things you are worried about onto the strong shoulders of the almighty God. Sounds peaceful, relieving, and restful, doesn’t it? But what does it look like? How do we practice casting our cares on him?

When we give something over to someone else to take care of, we are saying that we give over control, that this is theirs now. Our cares are gone. Off our shoulders. There’s a prayer called the Serenity Prayer that asks God to grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change (to cast our cares on him), the courage to change the things we can (to do what we can to address the cares), and the wisdom to
know the difference.

It’s often this last part that causes the majority of our trouble. But we worry less when we seek God’s help, asking for his wisdom to reveal what we might do to change or accept the situation.

So when your teenager keeps making bad decisions, you pray and ask God to help you release that child to him. And when the desire overwhelms you to constantly check where they are, or to worry about who they’re with, or to question them when they get home, you take a deep breath and release that worry. They are in God’s hands. Ask God to give you wisdom for how to respond to your child. Ask that he bring friends into your teen’s life who will influence them to make better choices, who will build them up rather than tear them down. You might have to do this over and over again, but keep turning your worry over to God. As you do, his peace will fill your heart.

Or maybe you’re concerned about an aging parent’s health. Perhaps you see them struggling with memory issues or the ability to take care of themselves. Even as you might make decisions to get them the care they need, you find yourself burdened by the load of your care. And so you pray and give that care into the hands of not only your heavenly Father but also their heavenly Father. Each time the knot of
worry pulls tightly on your stomach, take a deep breath and remind yourself of how much their heavenly Father cares for them. The burden is not yours to carry.

Quite frankly, we can’t take care of everything by ourselves. We were never meant to do that. Instead, our loving God desires us to come to him with all our shattered dreams, disillusionment, dashed hopes, and fears. He waits for us.

Remember that what feels like such turmoil within you doesn’t even stir the waters of God’s great love for you. Your anxieties don’t faze him.

Because God is so big and so powerful, those concerns aren’t too heavy for him. Let God have them because he cares for you. Remember, he knows the future, including your future, and his plans for you are good. Cast those cares.

Excerpted from Cast Your Cares: A 40-Day Journey to Find Rest for Your Soul (Zondervan, 2022)

Does God Give Trial Offers?

Jan28

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday link up. We write for just 5 minutes on a one-word prompt and see what happens. No heavy editing allowed. Today’s prompt is “trial.”

I know how to work the system.

At least when it comes to taking advantage of trial offers. I get emails from companies like Sling and Fubo TV, and because we don’t subscribe to cable, if there’s a sporting event I want to watch, I will sign up for a free 7-day (or 3-day or 30-day, whatever. I’m not picky) offer. And then I put a reminder on my phone so that I cancel in time and don’t end up getting charged for a whole month.

I love Fubo TV’s 3-day offers. They remind you when it’s time to cancel, and when you do, they ask straight up why you’re cancelling, and one of the choices is “I just wanted to watch one game.” Yep. Honesty. I love that.

It’s frustrating to me that when it comes to things like Monday Night Football, I would have to pay a premium to subscribe to a service where I can get ESPN, when I rarely watch it. It’s not worth it to me. I only watch when the Raiders are playing. Or there’s some baseball playoff game or other important sporting event.

God is worth way more than a free trial. And yet He tells us to test Him out, to try Him. Psalm 34:8 says “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And if you decide that you’re not getting what you thought you would out of a relationship with God—He’s not living up to your expectations—you can walk away from Him. But you know what? He will never walk away from you. Unlike a company that wants your business because you send them money—otherwise they couldn’t care less about you—God loves you oh so very much. And instead of you paying Him for this relationship, He paid everything for you.

Impossible!

Jan21

This post is a part of the 5-Minute Friday link-up. We write for just 5 minutes on a one-word prompt and see what happens (OK, I confess that I cheated on the time today. This took way longer than 5 minutes!) No heavy editing allowed.

One of the things I like best about a good Cinderella story is the idea that something that seems impossible becomes a possibility with just a little bit of magic, a fairy godmother who will change your circumstances so that you can even get a foot in the door, a chance to catch the eye of the prince, and hope. Lots and lots of hope.

One of my favorite versions is the 1998 movie “Ever After: A Cinderella Story” starring Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott. She is feisty and thoughtful and considerate. The first time she actually meets the prince in person, she throws an apple at him and knocks him off her horse, which she thinks he is stealing before she actually recognizes that he’s the prince. Oops.

Through a lot of subterfuge on her part and assumptions on his, the prince thinks she is a courtier and therefore someone that he can hang out with. But she’s actually just an orphan living in their ramshackle estate house while her stepmother and stepsisters dismantle it from the inside piece by piece.

As the prince and Cinderella spend more time together, hangin’ with DaVinci and talking about education and its importance for everyone, getting set upon by gypsies who they then befriend, romantic interest grows.

But the prince is being pressured by his father to get married, preferably to a princess from another country so that an alliance can be made. And so, of course, the whole story of the ball and Cinderella’s appearance, the glass slipper, the pumpkin turned coach. All those magical things.

And they all lived happily ever after.

“Ever After” was not a musical, but the 1965 Rodgers and Hammerstein version, introducing Lesley Ann Warren as Cinderella, included a song called “Impossible.” Here are some of the lyrics:

Impossible
For a plain yellow pumpkin
To become a golden carriage!
Impossible
For a plain country bumpkin
And a prince to join in marriage!
And four white mice will never be four white horses—
Such fol-de-rol and fiddledy dee of course is
Impossible!

But the world is full of zanies and fools
Who don’t believe in sensible rules
And won’t believe what sensible people say,
And because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes
Keep building up impossible hopes,
Impossible things are happ’ning every day!

“But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’” (Matthew 19:26).

What are you trusting God for today?

The View From Here

Aug6

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back 
and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 
John 14:3, ESV

Sunrise in the Chilean desert

This post is a part of the Five Minute Friday link up. We write for just 5 minutes without heavy editing on a one-word prompt and see what happens. Today’s prompt is “From.”

If we only look around us, we can get very discouraged. Poverty, death, an ongoing pandemic, people arguing with each other in very uncivilized ways, adverse weather events, wildfires. The list goes on.

But I am choosing to keep my eyes focused on where it is I’m going. I have the promise of eternal life with Jesus in a place where there will be no more sorrow or tears or death. If I think that this world is all that there is, then I am in big trouble. I might as well just bury my head in the sand and forget everything. Cover my ears and say “la la la la la!” It’s a completely discouraging world!

But this is not all there is, praise be to God. It’s like being on the Titanic, knowing that it’s going down, and wanting to rescue as many people as we can. Live in such a way that we shine the light of Jesus into this present darkness. Jesus is the only light.

I’m not generally a sunrise person. It happens way too early in my book. But if you have the chance to watch the light start to break through the darkness of night, it’s invigorating. It’s hope giving. We know that the night does come to an end. Every day. Every single day. Without fail, morning comes. The light always shines through.

Keeping heading toward the light. The view is lovely from here.

Photo by F. Char-ESO