Loving Well

3 Jun

Loving Well

 

So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

(Ephesians 5:33, NLT)

Two links to help you love well in the covenant marriage you are in, or the one you are preparing for:

  • One great post on faithfully consummating  marital love by Sheila Wray Gregoire. (Click here.) Shelia blogs at To Love Honor and Vacuum. I frequently read her blog posts as I find them on Pinterest. Her site is packed full of biblical counsel for women in particular and couples in general. 

Satan likes a marriage without sex as much as sex without a marriage. Why does the church only condemn one of the two? ~Shelia Wray Gregoire

  • One wonderful sermon on love and lust by Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York. Very much worth 30 minutes of your time whether you are single or married. (Click here.)

You’ll never be well married unless Christ is the Spouse of your soul. ~Timothy Keller

Ron and I recently celebrated 12 years of marriage and I am so grateful for a husband that strives to love me well in every way. May the content linked within this post today serve to enrich your marriage or your biblical view of marriage in general.

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Three More Reasons I am Glad I Ditched Facebook

30 May

Three More Facebook

On Wednesday I told two reasons I am glad of the decision to quit Facebook. Today I will roll out the last three reasons why I think this was a good decision for me.

1. Judgmental reactions are avoided. 

Many times a person would post a picture on Facebook and I would immediately send out my judgmental antennae labeling exhibit A as too revealing, infomercial material, or fake to the hilt. Judgmentalism is a subtle sin that Christians can overlook easily in light of the  more offensive,  in your face sins like swearing or underage drinking or the like. However, judgmental and pious attitudes are equally sinful as the aforementioned.  Cutting out Facebook equated cutting down on judgmental attitudes that held everyone around me to my own and often unobtainable standards.

2. Freedom to live without constant need for affirmation.

Often times, I would post a picture, statement, article, or blog post and have no response from friends. When this happened I would worry that I had said or done something wrong, that people were tired of listening to my voice, or that I wasn’t accepted or liked. Without putting myself out there for the friend world to respond to I feel freedom to be myself and invest my voice into the people within my sphere of influence in face to face relationships and within this community at This Temporary Home. You show up to read my writing without any sense of compulsion other than because you want to. Thank you is not enough, but all that I have to offer. So…thank you!

3. Regaining a measure of privacy. 

It is my experience in our world of social media and the blogosphere that people can know very much about you without ever talking with you. I am really not sure how comfortable I am with that. On the one hand it is great to share in what God is teaching me or what adorable thing my children are doing at their current age, but on the other hand, I loose sight of who in fact is reading that information when I share it with over one-thousand friends. In ditching Facebook, I have regained a sense of my children’s privacy and my own. Not everyone needs to know what I am doing or thinking or struggling with on a daily, or update-by-update basis.

Regaining private moments and marking them as private makes them more special and gives me stories to tell and share as I recall them. I have no idea how putting our kids out there for so many people to see will affect them in the long run. I want to guard these precious children I have been entrusted with and for me that started with Facebook and has lead to cutting down significantly even with pictures I post on This Temporary Home.

What about you? Have you considered dropping one form of social media? Have you already done so? What are some of the benefits or lessons that you have learned? 

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Two Reasons I Am Glad I Ditched Facebook

28 May

 

Two Reasons Facebook

I decided to take a break from Facebook the beginning of this year. It was a decision that I had grappled with for some time. I excused my forbearing with Facebook because it was and is a great way to gain readers for This Temporary Home. I held onto that social media outlet for the sheer reason that it promoted traffic to the blog and perhaps provided a glimmer of light and substance on the Facebook market.

Fast forward several months and I am more convinced than ever that I made the right choice when I listened to the still small voice of the Father asking me to trust Him and let the stat counter for the blog fall where it may.

That being said,  my goal is to provide encouragement for those of you who may be sensing it is time to take a hiatus or a permanent departure from Facebook or other social media that you currently use. Some people, like my husband for example, are not driven to check the latest status updates or page patrol. But others, like myself, waste time and emotions on digital portrayals of people I know but would otherwise not keep up with in real life. Or, if I do communicate with them in real life, then I can send a text message, email, share a cup of coffee, or make a good old-fashioned phone call to catch up.

Here are two reasons why I am glad I ditched Facebook:

1. Reduced use of one form of social media seemed to contribute to overall decline in time spent on other social media outlets.

I continue to use some forms of social media. However, I found that by eliminating Facebook I dramatically decreased my time spent mindlessly surfing the other social media outlets that I continue to use. I do not find myself checking the remaining social media with the fervency as before.

2. The twin monsters of envy and  jealousy have drastically quietened themselves.

Envy and jealousy are two of the sins that Jerry Bridges refers to as subtle sins. I’ve written about them on numerous occasions because they pose a problem for me as a Christian woman and for most women in general. Since quitting Facebook, I have no idea what other families did this weekend and therefore less temptation to be jealous or envious that while others were out snorkeling in the Florida Keys, I was at home scrubbing toilets and cleaning dishes. I know about my friends adventures via real life conversations and chances are extremely high that I will celebrate with and for them.

I found it too frequently the case that I would hear about an amazing day at the beach or some such tale and then become jealous that I was stuck in the mundane that day while reading that post.  Facebook ran interference with my contentment.

Join me on Friday for three more benefits of quitting Facebook. 

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Riding the Waves

20 May

At times he would glance at me with those beautiful blue eyes and flash his charming grin as if to check and assure himself that mommy watched his feats of strength. Other moments, he would forget he wasn’t the only boy splashing in the ocean and though he was feet from the next child, would dive bravely into the next wave with the gusto of Alexander the Great. Then there were those moments that the wave came with greater strength than he anticipated and he would stand coughing and looking about as if, “What just happened here?”

Riding the Wave

Often we adults resemble the above description in reference to the challenges and opportunities that waves of life bring in peak, trough succession. Some opportunities in life we look at and think I got this. Other, more humbling opportunities, we stare in disbelief and wonder why we were chosen to ride this wave into shore. Sometimes we give it our best go and end up gasping for breath.

Where are you in the ocean of life right now? Are you relishing a good time and looking about to see who will join you in rejoicing? Are you facing a daunting wave that could either provide the ride of a lifetime or the fear of failure? Or, are you so far offshore, perhaps as a result of your own choices or unexpected events, that you haven’t considered catching a wave in months or even years.

Despite the prevailing circumstances, and your choices to date, the truth remains:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26, ESV)

The truth is, we need to pray and seek to make God our chief desire in a ocean full of cruise ship distractions and temptations. When we do, we may fear being overcome by our calling, but we will catch the waves intended for us. Or, if failure prevails, we will learn from the maneuvers that result in a mightier challenge than supposed and subsequently leave us sputtering up salt water with thoughts of, “What just happened here?”

The Apostle Paul was a man acquainted with daunting waves…literally. Three times he was shipwrecked and spent one night and a day adrift at sea. (2 Corinthians 11:25) In any or all of these circumstances was Paul outside of the will of the Father? I cannot find reason in the Scriptures to support such a claim. Therefore, could we not attempt to catch a wave in obedience to God’s calling on us and find ourselves gasping for air? Indeed that may be the case, but we will never know the outcome if we do not first attempt the feat.

As I stood on the shoreline watching my son with pride as he fearlessly jumped into the waves and swam with big boy breast strokes I was watching him with joy. I watched rejoicing in his efforts and cheering his successes. I checked to see if he was okay and encouraged him to rest and try again when the waves crashed and left him coughing up salty water. (I also yelled several times that he was going too far!)

Don’t you think our Father watches our efforts and acts of obedience in a similar and even more perfect way?

I do.

So go ahead. Go all in. Jump into the crashing waves and swim with all your might.If you hear your Father on the shore cheering you on and encouraging obedience you can proceed with this knowledge:

Only one life,’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last. ~C.T. Studd

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Prayers for Ukraine

25 Mar

 Prayers for Ukraine

Between my husband and I, we have traveled to Ukraine eleven times. Even now, six years since my last visit, places, sights, and smells will take me back to the beautiful countryside or the bustling brick streets in my mind within seconds.

The people of Ukraine have many lessons to teach: how to share, the enjoyment of creation, laughter, creativity, and simplicity. This was at least my experience in the more rural areas and with the children and younger generation of Christ-followers that we interacted with. On the opposite end of the spectrum were the hardened, worn faces we encountered of people who had lived under the iron curtain for longer than they had been free of it. They bore the marks of distrust and fear.

Communism leaves a mark long after its iron grip is loosened.

It pains me, as it does the souls of many, to see the powers that be straining to make the country of Ukraine once more wear the yolk of communistic slavery. As Putin seeks to take back all that the countries freed in the eighties, for I am convinced that is one of his highest aims,  he, akin to others in Ukraine’s past, will want to strip this beautiful country and her people of their language, freedoms, and identity. He wants to squelch the liberty in their lives for the end goals of his own dreams for Mother Russia.

I am no expert in foreign policy nor current affairs. I am simply a Christian-praying-thinking-woman who desires to see liberty and justice for the people and the orphans of Ukraine, Russia, and all the former Soviet countries.

Today, I ask you to join me in praying for this country that has made an everlasting impression on my life. For this region of Europe full of people who love the Lord Jesus as well as people needing to hear and receive the message of the gospel. I am asking you to make a difference in the history of the world. Will you join me? I know my God answers prayers and He is concerned with every facet of life. With God there is no split in the secular and the sacred; it is all a matter of sacred to Him.

  • Pray for the government leaders of Ukraine to act with wisdom and justice for all her people.
  • Pray for the leaders of NATO and the USA as they attend to the needs of Ukraine and the surrounding countries of the former Soviet Union. Pray that the powers that be will cut the rhetoric and act with reason and a sound mind.
  • Pray for the gospel to go forth in the land of Ukraine and for the people’s hearts to be receptive to the message of salvation and a Christian worldview.
  • Pray for the Ukrainian believers for wisdom to understand the signs of the times and to act in accordance with God’s will. Pray they will know how to respond to this face of adversity on a daily basis and for the long term.
  • Pray for daily needs to be met for the poor and the orphaned.
  • Pray that steps will be taken towards energy independence and/or other options for energy apart from Russia.

 You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.

~John Bunyan

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Gym Lessons

21 Feb

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Being in my early thirties, I should know how to jump rope with ease. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case until a few months ago. Working out is one of my favorite activities and setting small physical goals has become one of the motivations for helping me achieve new accomplishments and avoid a rut. Learning to jump rope was one such small goal.

A few months ago, I entered the gym with a purpose: get a good workout in and see if the CrossFit videos on jump roping would prove beneficial to me. Whom should my gaze find as soon as I entered? A handsome, twenty-something male at the computer in my all-women’s gym! I decided to stall, as any intimidated female would, and I hit the cardio deck.

One mile on the Stairmaster later, I worked up the nerve to pick up my pink jump-rope. I rehearsed the pointers I had learned: “Elbows tight by my side, hands forward at an angle and jump.” Twenty-five revolutions in and I was feeling great! I paused and geared up for a reset to continue jumping after a minor glitch in rhythm, swung the rope and… WHACK! The jump rope hit the ceiling fan and was flung across the room with a loud thud.

Want to find out what happened next? Join me at iBelieve over here.

Enjoy your weekend!

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You are Lavished With Love

14 Feb

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I have never really been a fan of Valentine’s Day. Sure, I love pink and red color combinations, beautiful bouquets of flowers, and chocolate as much as the next female, but a mandatory day to show love via purchases and swipes of the credit card just have never been appealing.

I remember every February 14th from elementary to high school as the flowers and teddy bears would flood the offices. Parents and grandparents sending their love one red rose at a time. My parents loved me and showed me in a multitude of other ways. I was never jealous that my name wasn’t on one of the bouquets, but I just didn’t get it. What was the big deal?

Two years ago I read about St. Valentinus of Rome. He is the priest, born 200 years after Christ, whose martyrdom we remember every February 14th. It seems that Valentinus disobeyed the ruling of Emperor Claudius the Cruel to cease all marriages within the Roman Empire and to worship the Roman gods. Claudius needed more men for battle and believed that unmarried men would make better and more willing soldiers. Valentinus knew this was against the law of God and chose to secretly marry couples under the blanket of night so that men could depart for battle having married their loves.

Valentinus was soon found out and taken prisoner of Claudius the Cruel. He was beheaded on the 14th of February for his crimes of love and loyalty to the One True God and His commandment for men and women to join together in holy matrimony.

The faithfulness of Valentinus is a day that I can recognize with deepest respect and gratefulness for the many people held prisoner around the world for their faithfulness to the gospel and for those that have died in the name of Christ Jesus. Sure, I gave small gifts as tokens of my love for the kids and Ron this morning, but Christ’s love was lavished on us that we may become sons and daughters of God. Valentinus, and all Christian martyrs like him, died for their faith in Jesus and are presently being lavished with the love of their Savior in eternity.

Perhaps today you are suffering with a broken heart like those of the many Roman citizens who were told they could not marry their love because of battle and Roman decrees?

Does this February 14th hold heartache and pain because of the loss of a loved one, a relationship severed, or some other relational disappointment in life? Can I honestly say, we are lavished even still in our love by Christ?

I am saddened today as well. This last month has been hard for this former foster-mom’s heart. My foster son, Little E, was reunited with his birth dad in November. This month he turned three the same week our daughter turned six. While we celebrate birthdays and Valentine’s Day as a family, it is with a twinge of sadness for the son that I cannot see. I pray continuously for him and his spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. In some ways, I know what it is to have loved and lost.

This Valentine’s Day, may your hearts be comforted by the lavishing love of Christ. May you find moments to rejoice and be glad and may you find beauty in the everyday gifts of the One who died in your place. There is still much for which to be grateful.

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A Little Help from Our Friends

11 Feb

 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. ~ Hebrews 13:15

Moses was admittedly weak of tongue and all-but refused the job that God set before him in a blaze of burning glory. He doubted his own strength and abilities to complete the assignment of bringing God’s people out of Egyptian slavery and into the promised land. Little did Moses realize that his greatest tribulations would not come from the hard-hearted Pharaoh of Egypt, but the ungrateful, complaining hearts of God’s chosen people. Time and time again the Israelites cried out to Moses with complaints to which Moses replied something to the effect: “Am I God? Cry out to God!”

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The lips of God’s own, newly-delivered people did not acknowledge His name; rather the embittered Israelites questioned the intentions of the one whom God sent. Why have you brought us here to die? It was better for us in Egypt. Did you bring us here for us to hunger and thirst to death?

But in each case, Moses produced fruit of lips that acknowledged God’s name. He petitioned the Father on the people’s behalf and interceded when as yet the Intercessor, Christ Jesus, was yet to come. Moses was a godly, gracious leader who lived continually in the practice of praising and petitioning God. Yes, his temper had the better part of him on a few occasions, but his example is primarily exemplary.

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.~Hebrews 13:16

Sometimes that which we are called to share is simply our strength.

Moses, shortly after exiting Egypt, appointed Joshua to gather men to fight with Amalek. Moses, with the staff the Lord had provided at the burning bush, went up to the top of a hill overlooking the battleground. He took his brother and spokesman, Aaron, and another man, Hur, with him. As the battle raged, Moses discovered that whenever he held up his hands, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.

Moses needed his hands to be lifted high towards heaven in order for the battle to be won. A stance of surrender, a stance of awe and praise towards God. But oh how we grow tired and weary in battle!

But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. ~Exodus 17:12

Sun Set

Are you a Moses in your own time, or perhaps you know a fellow servant like Moses? Remember, Moses needed a rock on which to rest and friends to help him persevere in a surrendered posture until the setting of the sun.

Could it be that God has brought us into someone’s life for such a time as this? To stand alongside and declare, “I am here to serve you with the strength God has given me until the sun sets on your battle.”

May we find the practice of praise a midst our arsenal and the pursuit to serve one another in our creed. May we see each other to the sunset and our arms can rest in Him.

Do you ever wish you could keep all the people documented in the Bible straight in your head? For instance, “Who was Aaron? What was his relation to Moses?” Have you ever wondered how the pieces of the Bible weave together to form the story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration? Well, my husband Ron and his ministry assistant have written a wonderful resource that I would like to introduce to you. The book is called, Connect the Dots Making Sense of the Bible: A 50 Day Journey Through the Bible. This resource documents in brief narratives 50 of the most well-known characters in the Bible along with 12 of the vilest characters in the Bible. Additionally, there is a fifty day reading plan to develop an overview of the Bible and a synopsis of the 66 books of the Bible entitled,Connect The Dots Making Sense of the Bible: Group Guide (Volume 2).

I would love for you to visit Amazon by clicking on the link below. You can purchase their book there along with a wonderful small group curriculum guide to help your small group make sense of the Bible. I hope you will join us on the journey to connecting the dots.  Ron and Deborah have done the heavy lifting like Aaron and Hur for Moses. Will you let them aid you in the strength to stand as an equipped ambassador of God? I hope so.


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God’s Grace, Our Grief

7 Jan

119

I may be intimately acquainted with only my own grief and sorrow, but Jesus is acquainted with the sorrows of all mankind.

There are moments when I stop to ponder rampant human trafficking, people dying of unclean water and unsanitary living conditions, children dying of malnutrition, or simply the plight of a young child whose mother is yelling and belittling him in a McDonald’s restaurant. In those moments, I look at the fallen world and weep as Jesus wept.

However, more often I chose to look away, or look only long enough to give my money and not my energy in prayer, my sympathy but not my savings, my pity but not a passion for Christ-centered, gospel-driven change.

Please join me over at iBelieve today for the rest of the post.

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Here By Design

15 Nov

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 Create…design…

These are terms that most all people would throw about when talking of crafts, woodworking, interior decorating, or art. However, insert the terms created and designed into a conversation about the earth and its beginning, and we will immediately bring a battle of worldviews into the discussion.

Your worldview is the lens through which you view life. Your worldview is your paradigm, your philosophy, pertaining to the reason we are alive, how the human race was born, and the origin of time, space, and matter. Additionally, your worldview affects all decisions that you make and the value you place upon human life.

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People operating from a Christian worldview look at all of creation as a work of God Almighty as outlined in the Genesis account. First, we view man superior to the animals because he was created in the image of God. Next that man is now fallen, a sinner, as a result of his initial disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Finally, we preach the redemption of sinful man through Jesus Christ alone by the forgiveness of sins. Our sins are forgiven through the spilled blood of God’s sinless son, Jesus, on the cross of Calvary over 2000 years ago.

Creation, Fall, Redemption, the divine narrative of the Author of Life.

Let’s take a look at the predominant counter worldview I would propose is pursuing the minds and souls of people today, that of naturalism, or an evolutionary worldview.

An evolutionary worldview holds that man evolved over millions of years from a series of natural processes under the chance of macroevolution. This suggests a large scale change in kind with the change being progressive. Catie Frates, a biblical scientific creationist teacher refers to evolution as “the ultimate frog to prince fairy tale.”

Evolutionists preach macroevolution although it cannot be tested nor proved by the scientific method. It is neither repeatable nor observable. In fact, ask any evolutionist to point to a change in kind from one species to another and they will not be able to give you even one example on the level of macroevolution. Sure, they can provide various examples of microevolution; what we could call adaptations to environmental change, but no change in kind. Moreover, they cannot determine the origins of the first proposed amino acids that would have kicked off a form of living organism on earth in the first place.

Further disheartening to evolutionists is the fossil record supports only fully formed fully functional species with no transitional fossils. They don’t have a leg to stand on… pun intended.

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Dr. Henery Morris of Institute for Creation Research puts it this way:

Since there is no real scientific evidence that evolution is occurring at present or ever occurred in the past, it is reasonable to conclude that evolution is not a fact of science, as many claim. In fact, it is not even science at all, but an arbitrary system built upon faith in universal naturalism. (Henry M. Morris, 2013)

Dr. Morris continues to explain:

The fact is that evolutionists believe in evolution because they want to. It is their desire at all costs to explain the origin of everything without a Creator. Evolutionism is thus intrinsically an atheistic religion.

Did you catch that? Evolution is a religion…not a science but a religion.

Some may prefer to call it humanism, and “new age” evolutionists place it in the context of some form of pantheism, but they all amount to the same thing. Whether atheism or humanism (or even pantheism), the purpose is to eliminate a personal God from any active role in the origin of the universe and all its components, including man. (Henry M. Morris, 2013)

It is imperative for each of us to understand that evolutionists and creationists are faced with the same scientific data. The difference lies in our interpretation of the data and the causation of the earth that we see around us today.

Evolutionists need millions and billions of years, plus a good deal of imagination, to explain merely the topography of the earth today. Creationists explain the same data as a result of a catastrophic world-wide flood as the Genesis account teaches.

Study the Word, the world around you, and the scientific evidence to date, and decide for yourself. You might be surprised to find, we are here by design.

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