Once upon a time, I encouraged Christian parents to raise their children to be rebels.  I boldly continue to preach mutiny.

“…The times grew worse and worse, and soon the children heard their mother say to their father, “All is gone again.  We have but half a loaf left, and then we must starve.  The children must go; we will take them deeper into the wood, so that they may not find the way out this time.  It is the only way we can escape death ourselves.

The children had heard all this as they lay awake in bed …[Hansel] tried to comfort Grethel, saying, “Do not cry; sleep in peace; God will not forsake us.”  

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Want to hear Pastor Mark answer your questions? 

If you haven’t yet, you have 1.5 days left to ask him anything!

At 5 p.m. PST, on November 1st, no new questions can be added, and the top 50 will go to the ‘next round’ of voting.

 So it’s a slim chance to get in the top 50, but maybe you can vote on a question already there you’d like to know the answer to.

 Fast facts:

1. You get 10 votes a day. (that’s 20 possible votes left!)
2. You can vote for the same question multiple times.
3. Click “show more” so you can see the other questions besides the top 10, or look at them all.
4. If you want to vote for the same question more than once, try clicking on the text of the question itself, which will reload the page. Then vote from there multiple times so you don’t keep having to scroll to find your question.
5. If you start typing a question, text links will automatically appear trying to find ’similar questions’ to yours - it’s an easier and faster search for something to vote on.

My question opinions and highlights:

I wrote this question because (more…)

This is your friendly reminder to register for the upcoming Women’s Training Day on December 1st! You barely have a month!

It’s called “Who is Our God?” which sounds pretty all-encompassing and ethereal perhaps, but believe me - it’s solid, practical and specific Bible teaching for the ladies.

These events have always been very encouraging to me, personally, and they are good for women who have been Christians forever, or just recently. They are also good for women who have been around Mars Hill for a long time and those who just set foot for the first time last week.

If you’ve been wishing you could hear good Bible teaching from a woman, come out for this event.

Read details and register here.

A while back, a friend and I had an outfall of sorts. Nothing horrific, but afterwards, time and providence led to a drifting apart.

Weeks pass. Holidays. A cycle of seasons. Years.

This week as I mindlessly picked up the house for Community Group, I grabbed Bacon (a stuffed pig) by the ear, and just as I tossed him into the toybox, my friend’s face registered. She had given Bacon as a gift to my fifth child when he was born. In that instant, the atoms lined up, the stars aligned, the light dawned, the heavens lit up, and clarity came.

The time that had lapsed between our initial outfall and my picking up Bacon had been interesting. None of it directly related to our friendship, but it had been packed with one spiritual pursuit to the next. A pruning here and there. Heat and thorns. Trials and tribulations. A verse here, a passage of Scripture there. Repentance and confessions abounding in many situations. An idol toppled here, a Statue of Liberty golden calf there. Truth and clarity and purity. Fruit. Sanctification.

As I picked up Bacon, I thought of my old friend for the first time in a long time, only this time it was through a new lens. Through the eyes of my real-time sanctification.

I missed her, and the memories we had shared.  Why hadn’t I missed her so much before?

Putting the boys to bed, I was inspired to revisit the last email she had penned me, and one of the lines pierced my soul. Had I read this before? She mentioned her deep pain in our severed relationship, and through my own self-preservation at the time, I never really heard her. Never felt anything, apparently, at all. My heart sunk, and I grieved my ignorance, poor vision, lack of compassion, and mostly the pain inflicted from my end.

I don’t always understand God’s sovereignty, what He’s doing in the seemingly random lessons and trials, and how it eventually all changes me. But this time, He allowed me to see with such clarity, clarity, how beautiful it is to remove me.

The goal is to remove me. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  

I often say that I read and I read and I read Scripture, and then, sometimes, I live Scripture - I actually find myself in His story.  Today, I find myself living Acts 2:37-38:

 ”Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?  And Peter said to them, “Repent…” 

I wrote my dear friend a letter.  A letter not explaining the unexplainable of time and circumstance and all the sanctification Jesus had been working on, but a letter basically saying I see you in a new light, I am remorseful for the pain I caused, and I am counting on God’s grace in you to forgive me. 

 I mailed the letter, and met my husband for dinner.

Crazy.  The old friend that I hadn’t thought of in forever and had just sent a letter to, was sitting across from us at dinner.  We embraced, I told her I had just sent her a present (I had included The Valley of Vision with the letter), and that was that.

Reconciliation.  When it’s time.

(for more elaboration on this subject, see excellent article on The Resurgence entitled “Forgiveness is One Thing, Reconciliation Another“)

Do I paint pictures of Egypt? Am I longing for a place that I hated when I was there? Have I covered the painful memories with a pretty new dress? Has the dust so covered them that I can’t really see them for what they were?
I’ve lived in - or at least been to a lot of places in the last 5 years. Each has presented its own difficulties, joys and sorrows. As I think back to them - for some I remember only the bad, some only the good.
I’ve painted pictures of how I want to remember things, instead of remembering the picture of what they actually were. I’ve deceived myself and sometimes sought my Father to ask Him why He took me out of there, though in the back of my head I have no questions as to why He did it.
He loves me. He desires my best and wants me to grow. My life has had pain, sorrow, grief, guilt, betrayal, anger; joy, love, happiness, and amazement. As I reflect on missions trips, moves, Bible school, people I’ve loved and those that I haven’t, things that I’ve learned with ease, and those that have nearly killed me in the process. I always come back to this: He is faithful and good.
There are a few things in life right now that grieve my heart; things that I cannot change, things that I cannot do. I am left with the refuge of prayer, and the knowledge that Jesus is faithful, that He has everything in control, and that He has let my heart be grieved for His good purposes.
Jesus is truly amazing, and I hope that you don’t forget that or question it as I so often have. I so often feel like Gomer, or the entire nation of Israel in the Old Testament, as I go out searching for other gods, whoring myself out while Jesus diligently pursues me, loves me, and saves me from myself.
A song by Sara Groves called “He’s Always Been Faithful” has been stuck in my head for the last week, it has good and bad memories attached to it in my life. Mostly though, it reminds me of how amazing Jesus is - I hope it lets others see that too.

He’s Always Been Faithful (by Sara Groves)

Morning by morning I wake up to find
the power and comfort of God’s hand in mine.
Season by season I watch him amazed, in
awe of the mystery of his perfect ways
All I have need of his hand will provide.
He’s always been faithful to me

I can’t remember a trial or a pain he did
not recycle to bring me gain. I can’t
remember one single regret in serving
God only and trusting his hand

This is my anthem, this is my song, the
theme of the stories I’ve heard for so long.
God has been faithful, he will be again.
His loving compassion, it knows no end.

I love stories.  I always have.  Growing up in rural Montana, I didn’t have many playmates, so my daschound and I hid in the closet and read books aloud.   Heidi and Huckleberry Finn.  Mary Poppins and The Little Match Girl.  I loved repeating, “Open, Sesame!” to my rusty companion as we devoured Ali Baba & the 40 Thieves.  As a 7-year old, there was a delicious sense of heroic justice as I imagined Morgiana pouring boiling oil on 37 ruthless criminals.

Looking to share these savory memories with my own children, I came to realize that many of the stories I enjoyed as a child are scarcely found on the shelves of Barnes & Noble.  Labeled politically incorrect, many of these stories have either been retooled to a shadow of their former granduer, or axed entirely.  They must be hunted down on the internet or in the “antique” category on Ebay.  

It’s a dad-gone shame. 

I’m thrilled with the time period God has chosen to give me life, so I’m not a sentimentalist looking to bring back to the “good old days”.  I am a bottom-liner; a realist with a reading appetite that endorses iconoclastic reality; that is, stories which break up my inadequate understandings of life in order to take me (and my children) on to a more adequate grasp of the world.   ”Minds, therefore, must ever continue in object-oriented, self-critical thinking, constantly seeking to reach, as the talking beasts of Narnia phrased it, “further up and further in.” C.S. Lewis. 

For the record, I’m an average size 8 brain and I never even graduated from college.  I do, thanks to Jesus, have a track record now of reading & studying Scriptures, and have added to that foundation by learning lots of cool words and ideas from books authored by size 8 to 12’s (intellectual giants).  Which brings me to an underlying live & die principle in all of this:  Books are never ever ever ever (did I say ever) a substitute or precedent for reading and studying the Scriptures.

That affirmed, classic stories are an excellent tool for complementing Scripture to our children.  Give them honest stories that tell the truth (which means they may be raw and wicked). Give them clarity (truth and lies; innocence and evil). And give them heros to cheer for, heros to push them “further up and further in.”

These forgotten stories awaken a child’s moral imagination.  Not only do they delight and divert and assure children, but they provide deep and abiding moral instruction. Furthermore, they introduce an early critical thinking process beyond our contemporary world, where mental wrestling and intellectual reasoning is often reduced to a worldly Universalist approach.  Sidenote:  I highly recommend reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature .   My girlfriend bought this for my birthday, and it’s FANTASTIC.  However, Feminists Beware! In this book you will be exposed to awful truths, like traditional sex roles do not silence women, erase our sexuality, or blot out our personalities. 

I advocate a classic, liberal children’s library.  Liberal is a good word gone bad.  My 1828 Noah Webster’s dictionary defines liberal as:  Of a free heart; open; candid; as a liberal communication of thoughts.  Embracing other interests than one’s own; a liberal mind embracing literature and the sciences generally, as a liberal education. 

With a firm grasp on Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible as our foundational literature, we can enjoy True liberation in our libraries.  I could make a dozen arguments, but by far the most practical one is that many of the so-called “politically incorrect” stories are delightful material to introduce theology to children.  Simple, pint-sized lessons abound.  I am a parent, I love Jesus, and I adore simple.

So if you’re a mom who (a) loves reading Bible stories, but sense your storybooks are a little light & cheesy, or (b) needs a little jump start with relating Bible stories & principles to every day life, stay tuned.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing a few of my favorite children’s stories and authors, as well as practical Simple Simon tips to  turn story time into a rich discussion back to Jesus, every time. 

  

“My mom was a very intellectual person, and she would really rather be reading some philosophical or theological book than ironing.”
Patricia Heaton

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.” Emilie Buchwald

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”  Robertson Davies

Coming Up:

• Scary Good Fairy Tales:  Once Upon a Time with The Brothers Grimm

• Beowulf:  Why Every Boy Should Read This (and they dad-gone better not butcher the upcoming movie)

I started school 3 weeks ago, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been in school – at least working towards a goal at school. And while I used to have a fear of failure (and to an extent still do), I’ve discovered a different fear. I have a fear of what I could do if I applied myself – really applied myself.
I have a fear of succeeding, and this is a weird thought to me. I want to do really well at whatever I’m doing, school, work, ministry, etc. But there is part of me that holds back, I’m not quite sure all that I’m capable of and it scares me a little bit.
When I met Jesus, I flung myself fully into the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, commentaries, etc. As a result, I learned a lot, and it was way cool. I certainly cannot take credit for my retention/application of information, that’s all Jesus.
But it can make for awkward situations when someone who is older and wiser is trying to remember something, and I just want to blab in “oh that’s in ___________”. I have a hard time holding my tongue when situations like that come up, or when people are misquoting something. It is helpful sometimes. but for the most part makes me feel like a jerk.
So, that’s where I’m at right now, exploring this fear, and trying to figure out a way to combat it. In the midst of life happening, I’ve had a song stuck in my head, it’s about Jesus. I like Him. A lot.

So I went to Mexico with high hopes - chart the course of my next 5 years, quit caffeine, sleep, get in wicked shape and… I wanted to read the whole Bible. I mean, what couldn’t I accomplish in 19 days without a job?!

Yeah, um… my trip was not nearly as aesthetic or ascetic as I’d romantically planned. I didn’t finish reading the Bible or even the Old Testament. I didn’t run every day. I drank … less coffee, but didn’t go cold turkey. I didn’t get 8 hours of sleep every night. I didn’t reverse engineer my life.

But you know what? I did something I’ve never done before.

I read the Bible looking to answer one question: “Who is God in this story?”

See, Pastor Mark preached a sermon called “Studied By Scripture” a long time before I was ever around, and it just so happened that I downloaded it before I left since it seemed topically in-line with my Bible-reading goal. And listened to it in the airport while I was waiting to fly into sunshine.

And he called me on something I have always done. I have previously always approached Scripture as a “how to” manual. I want to know what to do. How to do it. How I can be a better person. How I can love someone. How I can accomplish something. Me, me, me.

Mark said the junk with that. Our first priority in Scripture is to seek to know God, since it’s him revealing himself to us. So before we ask those very good practical “so what?” questions from Scripture, we need to seek knowing him and his character first.

“God, who are you in this story?”

What does he do? How does he interact with the people in the story? What is his character like? Where is Jesus? How does this story tell me about Jesus?

It’s actually much more peaceful reading for me. I am not trying to squeeze application out of every verse. It stays simple, just absorbing who God is.

And even though I am still a long ways away from feeling like I first did when Jesus became “real” to me (oh the long-lost raptures), my heart is reviving as my eyes are opened to little glimmers of my Savior.

And my plans to reverse engineer have not delineated any further than this giant, generalized-yet-heartfelt acknowledgment: I plan to know Jesus better before I die.

I am looking for the Man
He said he’d be close by
But he looks like all the others
Though he’s a King on high

I am looking for his footsteps
His shoes are too worthy for me
He is stern and he is gentle
Eyes ablaze with tears on a tree

I am looking for his heart
I am straining for his voice
I still have never seen him
But he is my only choice

Having just read our dog-eared copy of The Little Red Hen for the upteenth time, this entry from Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s Morning & Evening not only reminded me of the story (towards the end of the devotion), but really ministered to my soul.  I wonder if this might bless someone else:

‘I will meditate in Thy precepts’

Psalm 119:15

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech.  We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on His Word spiritual strength for labour in His service.  We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them.  Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times.  The bruisers’ feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must well tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted.  So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth, if we would get the wine of consolation therefrom.  Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process which really suppplies the muscle, and the nerve, and the sinew, and the bone, is the processs of digestion.  It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life.  Our souls are not nourished merely by listening awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the other part of divine truth.  Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inward digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies for the most part in meditating upon it.  Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life?  Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word.  They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it.  From such folly deliver us, O Lord, and be this our resolve this morning, “I will meditate in Thy precepts”. 

…enough said.