The Declaration You Need to Make This Morning

God designed you to advance the kingdom through your children–isn’t that fabulous?  A few weeks ago, I commissioned all of you mommas to advance the kingdom right in your own homes (read the blog post here, You are Being Commissioned)

Well, today, in the middle of your crumb-covered floor and next to your waiting-to-be-folded laundry, I am inviting you to make a declaration.

During our series at church, Life’s Work, Pastor Sam also gave us declaration cards, and asked us to read it aloud each day before entering our workplace.  Well, aside from teaching at Northpoint Bible College, one day a week, I wake up in my workplace–ready or not.

So, mommas, I have re-written the declaration for you to speak over your home.  It doesn’t matter if you are a working mom, a stay-at-home mom, or somewhere in the middle.

Will you join me, slip on those slippers each morning and make this daily declaration? I believe God will use it to move in our hearts and our homes.

I DECLARE:

God’s favor & protection over my home.

God’s blessing over my children and husband.

God’s covering over my relationship with my husband.

That this will be a place of joy, peace, and unity.

Health and endurance in times of sickness for my people.

That I will walk through this messy home with a purposed heart.

I am raising children who will run after God’s heart.

That I will set the tone & help my home value what God values.

In this home we will not find our worth in what we accomplish but in what God has accomplished on our behalf.

I Declare-

He is Jealous for Them

It can be exhausting to be so desperately needed by my people; but, I must be cautious not to make myself their provider…not to make myself their Savior.

Many of you are familiar with the song, “How He Loves” originally by John Mark McMillan.

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us, oh,
Oh, how He loves us…

I teach freshmen Composition, and often tell my students changing just a word or two has incredible affects.  Take for example, changing some of the pronouns in this song, and singing it about our children.

He is jealous for them,
Loves like a hurricane, they are a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.

And oh, how He loves them, oh,
Oh, how He loves them.

More and more I am discovering the only thing more difficult that truly believing God’s incomprehensible love for me, is believing that same love for my children these children He has given me to shepherd.  In my post, Do you Trust Him with Them, I wrestle a bit with this idea.

This week, I’ve been singing as I walk through my house, He loves them, Oh, how He loves them.  Oh, how He loves them…

So, moms if we believe God’s love for us and our children, if we believe what the Psalmist declared, “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (86:15, emphasis mine), then I believe we must take three steps in response.

1. Make a Way: for our kids to come into personal relationships with this loving God.  We can do this by reading His Word with them, telling them about His faithfulness to us & the way He has cared for us personally. We can also do this by giving (older children) them the tools to spend time alone getting to know their Heavenly Father.

2. Get Out of the Way: recognize that you are mom, and that is incredibly important; but, you are not Savior.  You cannot (and shouldn’t try) to protect them from all pain & hurt and doing so will actually guard them from the need for a personal relationship with God.

3. Trust His Ways: this is so hard, especially when you see your child going through a difficult season; but, if you believe that His love for those children is far greater than your own, you will trust that He is orchestrating every, sometimes painful, detail of your child’s life to draw him/her to Himself & equip him/her to be a mighty tool for the kingdom.

So, this is a difficult challenge for me–will you join me in making a way, getting out of the way, and trusting His ways?

 

 

 

Don’t Wiggle on the Operating Table

I ask God to make me more like Him–a better reflection of His person and character, and then I push against the very tools He is using to accomplish that purpose.

In church, yesterday,  I sang,

“Hear me running

Feel me run into your arms

Hold me closer

Pull me closer

Bring me closer to your heart

For I desire

Your desires

Write desire on our souls

(From Forever Amen/I Need Thee, Drew Benson)

I do. I desire His desires–I do want to be closer to His heart, so I can hear what moves Him.  And, so I spend time in His word. I ask Him, often in song, to make me more like Him–so I may reflect Him to my husband, my babies, and a world who desperately needs Him. I would guess you feel the same way.

He is a good God, and when my prayers line up with His Word, He is ready and willing to move. He too, wants me to have more God and less Jennifer.

But, the tools He uses to refine me & rid me of selfish attitudes, self-pity, pride, and vanity are uncomfortable.

As Pastor Sam spoke yesterday, in his new series “This is Only a Test,”  about trials, he told us a silversmith only knows the precious metal has been exposed to enough heat to remove its impurities when he can see his own reflection in the liquid silver. He reminded us that as we walk through trials, it’s best to let the master do His work and we are “not to wiggle on the operating table.”

Yesterday morning, when my teething baby boy was hollering at 5:30 am (thank you, Daylight Savings), I felt like wiggling.  Last week, when everything became a bit more complicated with a first-grader who broke her arm, I felt like wiggling.  When I miscalculated some items in our budget and everything was suddenly much tighter, I felt like wiggling…and I did–I felt sorry for myself. I let my frustration hang out there with my tone of voice.  I sent grumpy, self-pitying texts to my mom.

But, mommas, if I keep wiggling during the operation of God making me more like Him, the surgery will be more complicated and time consuming.

I know you desire His desires–I know you want to look more like Him as you raise those little arrows.  So, join me today, and lean into the test, the trial, the discomfort, the whiney toddler, the grumpy co-worker, the surprise illnesses in your home, and an expensive unplanned car repair.

Each day is full of surprises, agitations, little trials (and some that span months), and if we hold still, obey, and let the Holy Spirit work, we will get to the next day resembling our Father just a little more.