Posted in Devotionals

A Walk in the Dark

 

Have you ever lost something extremely important or valuable? Misplaced items is one of my husband’s pet peeves. It makes him crazy! I can’t say it’s a good feeling in my mind, either. I realize my limits when something is lost, because I can’t find it. No amount of wanting to find it will make it appear to me. I feel powerless to locate the item, no matter if it’s important or insignificant. I am limited, because I don’t know where it is.

 

One of the items that seems to often go missing in our house is our three-year-old Hannah’s lovey, “Nini.” And she’s always lost at bedtime. There have been numerous times that Andrew and I have torn the house apart searching for Nini, sometimes for hours, while a distraught Hannah waits in her bed for her beloved blankie to be found.

Last week Nini was lost at bedtime, and as we retraced our steps through the day to try and remember the last time we saw her, I recalled seeing Hannah take her outside. Into the darkness I went in search of Nini, even though Andrew had already looked there. We had searched the house high and low for nearly an hour, so I figured a second look outside was permissible, and the urgency to locate her was quite real in my heart.

 

 

Out there in the quiet darkness of the night as I walked my yard, God’s presence felt so much more tangible than in the hustle and bustle of the day full of many distractions. As I searched, God called to mind several passages and parables of lost items from the Bible. But the one that stood out boldest in my mind was this:

 

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jer 29:13)

 

I was searching for Nini with all my heart, with an urgency that I rarely feel when seeking the Lord. Yet, how much more valuable is his kingdom and his wisdom? Jesus teaches several parables on the worth of his kingdom in the gospels.

 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matt 13:45-46)

 

All he had, friends! He sold all he had. His whole life didn’t compare to that pearl! We should be seeking Jesus and his kingdom with all that we have, because nothing on this earth compares with him.

 

How many worthless pursuits are we on in this life? What are we spending energy searching for and seeking that amounts to chasing the wind (Ecc 3)? Solomon calls those pursuits meaningless. Yet we chase them as if life depends on us obtaining them.

 

Isaiah also speaks of our earthly ambitions in a similar way:

 

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (55:2)

 

As I walked over every step of my backyard looking for Hannah’s beloved Nini, I felt my priorities re-orient mentally. My faith and my pursuit of Jesus need to be first.

 

What in your life is taking time and energy that should be given to seeking Jesus? I know that we can’t just clear our schedules every day, call off work, sit in the woods and bask in his Spirit all day every day. We are called to our families, our jobs, our ministries. We need to do these things. But what are we doing to be filled with Jesus, to seek his kingdom, “and search for it as for hidden treasure” (Prov 2:4)?

 

I think it is as much a posture or attitude of our hearts as it is a time issue. First, we need to make time to seek Jesus. But, we can also orient our hearts towards him through all those things that we need to do, so that we are seeking him throughout our whole day. And when we do spend time alone in his word, our hearts and minds should be seeking him like precious treasure, rather that a casual exchange, as if scrolling through social media. I want my time with Jesus to be life-giving, active, and engaging, not just a mind-numbing scroll-through of my passage of the day.

 

At long last, Nini was found, hiding under the spare blanket at the foot of my bed. (Did I mention that Hannah is also a stasher? She likes to hide things… It’s SO fun, guys.) I was so relieved when we found Hannah’s precious lovey. But I was thankful that God took me outside to walk in the quiet and the darkness, to meet with him in an unexpected place and unexpected way. He’s there, in the middle of your ordinary, if you look for him, seek him out, search for him like a precious pearl. You will never be disappointed at the energy you spend seeking him with all your heart! And the good thing about searching for Jesus is that you won’t feel limited and powerless, because He always shows up to meet you!

 

 

Peanut Butter Easter Eggs of Grace: Unwrapped

Last week I shared with you an object lesson I used to teach my kids about grace. They received a peanut butter egg even when they behaved badly and didn’t deserve one. This, I taught them, was grace. If you missed that post, you can read it here: https://catherineburleigh.com/devotionals/peanut-butter-easter-eggs-of-grace/

It occurred to me as I further contemplated this object lesson that there was a piece of the lesson I hadn’t unwrapped — the unwrapping of the egg. At the end of my post I touched on the invitation to open and enjoy the egg. But I didn’t delve in to what so many of us do with the grace that is offered to us.

We leave the it sitting on the table unopened. Unenjoyed.

You can imagine that when my children received their peanut butter egg of grace, they didn’t just leave it to sit on the table. I would have thought they were nuts if they did!

Can you imagine a child saying to his parent, “Wow, that’s so nice, Mom, I think I’ll just admire this treat on my shelf rather than eating it.” Or even more shocking: “No, I really don’t deserve this treat, so you can’t give it to me.” As parents, we would be shocked to hear this response to the offer of a treat. The treat is meant to be opened and enjoyed.

My kids didn’t save it for another time.

They didn’t fuss or moan about how unworthy they were.

They didn’t try to tell me, the giver, that they were unqualified to receive the egg.

They eagerly opened it up and devoured all its goodness. They simply enjoyed the grace that was given to them.

So many of us carry around this same type of arsenal of excuses as to why we’re unworthy of God’s grace. Why we leave it sitting on the table unopened.

But the fact of the matter is that it is HIS GRACE TO GIVE.

He is the one who determines who receives it — and he offers it freely to all. It’s not up to us to decide if we are worthy of his grace. Of course we aren’t. That’s the whole point. Yet we seem to allow ourselves to believe that we can’t receive his grace because our own merits are lacking. Grace is a gift, free and clear. If we don’t allow ourselves to receive it because we’re unworthy, then we are missing the point altogether.

It’s not meant to be admired from afar. It’s meant to be consumed, taken in, enjoyed fully.

Don’t leave God’s grace wrapped up, sitting on the table. Don’t save it for another time. Don’t make excuses and whine about how unworthy you are. Just enjoy it. Unwrap the grace and be thankful for a God who loves you and lavishes grace upon you.

Peanut Butter Easter Eggs of Grace

Grace is a concept that I have really struggled to explain to my kids. It often comes up when we’re talking about forgiveness and what Jesus has done for us, but that’s so abstract for little minds to take in. This past week, we had the perfect object lesson for grace.

We were at Walmart… Doesn’t every good story begin that way?

I rarely take all three of my children to the store with me, except during the dreaded grocery trips of summer. But sometimes, circumstances necessitate an after school trip with all three of the babes. Sophie’s new glasses coming in after nearly two weeks of all the other pairs being lost (the third pair since December, friends, Arg!), was the extenuating circumstance that led us all to the store together after school last week.

And I also needed paper clips. Of course. So we couldn’t just go into the vision center at Walmart and then sneak right back out. We had to actually travel into the store itself.

As we passed through a check out lane in reverse, heading into the store, Sophie spied the Easter candy and swiped a bag of peanut butter eggs. Now folks, I really love peanut butter eggs. There’s no comparison, in my book, of any other candy that comes close to the peanut butter egg. So I consented that they could get the eggs, IFFFFFFF they would behave in the store.

I bet you can guess where this is going.

They DID NOT BEHAVE.

All three of them threw fits and cried at one point during our brief (BRIEF!!!) trip, over some sort of nonsense. I scolded them and threatened them about losing their eggs, even told them that they weren’t going to get an egg when we got home. But I’ll be darned if I wasn’t going to get one after my bravery in taking ALL THREE CHILDREN to WALMART. So we bought the eggs. Most definitely.

The car ride home was very quiet. While I didn’t lose my cool on them, they knew they had pushed it too far. When we got into the driveway, it was Micah’s tiny, meek voice I heard: “Mom, are you still going to give us an egg?”

Calmly I replied, “You know what son? Yes. Yes, I am. You don’t deserve one at all, do you?” (Everyone agreed with me.) “But I am going to give you one anyways. Do you know why?”

Blank stares in my direction. Confused faces. Shakes of the heads.

I continued: “I’m going to give you something that you don’t deserve because I love you, and that’s called grace.”

Finally, the lightbulb went on! That is GRACE!

As I passed out the eggs at the table inside, I asked each child, “What is this called?”

And they all replied, with varying degrees of speech impediment: “Grace.”

That, my friends, is grace. It’s getting the peanut butter egg of life, even when we’ve been a rotten monster. It’s receiving Jesus’ love and accepting his gift of life even when we least deserve it.

So go ahead and enjoy that delicious life that Jesus has offered you. Don’t let the enemy convince you that you shouldn’t have it because you don’t deserve it. That’s exactly what makes grace so magnificent — you don’t deserve it. And yet it is offered to you, full and free and wonderful, because He loves you!

A Good Helper is a Good Listener

My older kids are 7 and 4, so they are in the prime age to be little helpers. They LOVE to help! But as anyone knows who has been helped by a young child, “help” is a relative term. Even though sometimes allowing my children to help me means the job will be slower for me, I want to honor their desire to help and to learn. So I find ways to allow them into the process of whatever I’m doing.

Because we believe in teaching personal responsibility and family teamwork at a young age, our children have weekly chores. (I could write an entire post on the benefits of chores!) One of Sophie’s jobs that she loves to do is to be the dinner helper. When I’m getting ready to put dinner on the table, Sophie’s job is to make sure the table is cleaned off of all toys and craft supplies, and then she can begin helping me with getting dinner on the table. She’s usually very eager to do the second part of this process, but very resistant to doing the first part. She doesn’t want to clear off the table and put away her toys. This week, this conundrum resulted in a meltdown. She didn’t get to help with putting dinner on the table, because she was still engaged in the first task of putting toys away, because she didn’t get to it when I asked her to. Sophie was devastated that she didn’t get to help in the way she wanted.

Again the next day she was eager to help me with a load of laundry I was folding and putting away. I gave her a task to do, but she didn’t want to do that particular part of the job (putting away the clothes which were hers from the load). Instead, she wanted to take one bath towel to put away. Given that she can’t reach where the bath towels are kept, and that there were several other linen closet items, I resisted her request to do this task. While I continued folding the remainder of the laundry, she argued with me about how she was going to help.

“But I want to put the towel away” she whined.

“I asked you to put your items away” I reminded her.

“But I want to put this towel away too” she replied.

“Ok, thats fine, but you haven’t done the first thing I asked you to do yet.”

“But I want to help with this towel” she persisted.

I’m sure you can see how this played out. She argued with me so long that again, she didn’t get to help at all. I finished folding and gathered up all the other items and put them away. This really set her off. And since it was almost time to leave for school, the conversation continued into the car.

“Why didn’t I get to help with the laundry this morning?”

“Because Sophie, when you are a helper, you do what the boss asks you to do. Helping isn’t done through doing whatever it is that you want to do. It’s done by doing what you’re asked to do. Sometimes what you want to do isn’t the most helpful thing or even the thing that needs done or even something that you are able to do. If you truly want to help someone, you have to do whatever it is that they need you to do.”

And I finished with a line that my children probably could say in their sleep: “A good helper is a good listener.”

Since I was already on my soapbox, and since the Holy Spirit was nudging me yet again through my own words, I carried on in our morning prayer. “Lord, help us to be good helpers to you today. Help us to do not just whatever it is that we may want to do, but help us to listen so that we can know what it is that you need us to do. Help us to be good helpers who listen and do what you’re asking instead of just what we want.”

This conversation really impacted me. How many times do I ask God what he needs and then just charge ahead with whatever I want to do anyways? This is exactly what my children, particularly Sophie, like to do when helping. I love that they have the desire to help, and I want to include them, but it would actually be helpful if they were listening to me and aiding me, instead of just doing their own thing.

If we’re honest, we all could probably improve upon our listening. If we took a closer look, I’m sure we would all find instances where we asked God how we could help, but then we did what we wanted instead. And maybe that wasn’t the thing that He needed done the most. Maybe we missed out on truly helping because we were too busy throwing a fit about what we wanted to do when he asked us to do something else. Like children who want to help a parent, we all need to remember that a good helper is a good listener.

Memories of Daddy: Prayer

When I was a little girl, I recall vividly the way my Daddy prayed. He prayed about everything. All the time. We’d be pulling into a parking lot, and I’d hear his familiar prayer, “Lord, we just need one parking space.” It seemed like such a silly thing to pray for. And yet, as an adult, I find myself saying the same thing, out loud, with my own kids in earshot as we pull into a parking lot.

My Daddy had an ongoing conversation with his Heavenly Father. If we passed an accident, he always prayed, “Lord, those people need your help.” If he couldn’t find something, I’d hear, “Lord, where is so and such. You know where it is. Please show me.” If anyone in our family was sick, he was quick and ready to lay hands on us and pray for healing. Before every meal, he prayed more than just “Thank you for our food,” often tearing up as he spoke with his loving Father. My Daddy was a man of prayer.

While I sometimes catch myself praying similar prayers as an adult, I don’t think I realized the full impact of his continual dialogue with God on me until just recently.

A grandmother in our church shared with me about a time she visited our preschool classroom with her granddaughter who was visiting and wouldn’t stay in the class alone. The teachers asked for someone to lead in prayer before snack, and my son Micah was a ready volunteer. As he began to pray, her eyes bulged out, recounting it to me, she exclaimed, “He took us to church!” as people often say of someone who prays a moving prayer. She was blown away by the prayer of my four year old. (But, not to worry, she said, as he was soon talking about poop and being a typical four-year-old again!)

In that moment of talking with Pam is when my Daddy’s legacy hit me. He was a man of prayer. He made me a woman of prayer. And now my children are becoming people of prayer.

My Daddy left a legacy of prayer in my life because he was always doing it in front of me. I’m sure we can all identify problem habits that our children have because they’ve seen us model them. But are we modeling the good habits also? My Daddy modeled “pray without ceasing” every day of his life when I was growing up. And now it’s ingrained in me. I want the same thing for my children. But I realize that if I don’t model it for them, then they won’t grasp it in that way. If I never prayed with them or in their earshot, then how would they learn to pray?

Many people like to use rote prayers that are repeated before meals or bedtime, “Now I lay me down to sleep” stuff. That’s alright, but I don’t think it captures the real relationship I have with my Heavenly Father. Sure, there are things I don’t pray about in front of my kids because they don’t need to know the intimate details of certain situations. But there are a lot of things I do pray about in front of my kids. I want them to know what authentic conversation with God sounds like.

That’s what prayer is in our house — a conversation with God. And my kids know they can talk to God anytime. He’s always listening, I tell them. My kids are invited in to prayer time throughout our day. Sometimes they choose to repeat what I’m praying, and sometimes they pray their own prayers.

I’m thankful I had a Daddy who taught me to pray continually through the way he lived his life. And now, in turn, I hope to model that for my children as well.