Judging Judges

Christians generally love to say that the Bible is a beautiful book, a love story, where Jesus is present throughout. And while I believe that it true in many respects, I also have to challenge the idea that the Bible is always encouraging and refreshing to those who read it. At times, it can be downright horrifying.

I’ve been reading through the Old Testament, and I recently finished the book of Judges. Throughout my time reading through this book and all of the previous books in the OT, I’ve struggled a lot with God’s Word. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of horrible things in these books; truthfully, I have found most of it to be either horrific or pointless in terms of applicability to modern life. Trudging through these sections has not been easy.

I’ve read about hundreds of thousands of human lives brutally taken, often in battles over territory, greed, or personal disputes. I’ve read about the slaughter of innocent children, and animals. I’ve read about rape, women being forced into “marriage,” incest, and prostitution. Many of these events were seemingly accepted, condoned, or even ordered by God. Frankly, I find it impossible to swallow.

What am I to make of all of this violence and disgusting human behavior? What am I to make of a God who not only allows, but at times instructs his followers to do such things?

The honest answer is that I don’t know. The honest answer is that I don’t understand.

And yet, I have chosen to continue to have faith in my God. I choose to trust in Jesus, who lived a life of love, and who died for love of me. I choose to trust in a God who has protected, guided, and provided for me all my life.

Sometimes, it seems that the God I know and the God of the Bible are two different people. But I know that the harder truth is that they are the same God; He is just a God that I do not fully understand, because I am human, and he is so far beyond me.

A God that cannot be put into simple terms actually makes perfect sense. If God was a human construct, he would be understandable, easy to put in a box. But God is not created by humans on our terms, we are created by Him on His terms. Sometimes (often), that means we don’t understand him.

My prayer today is that God can work in my heart and mind to help me surrender to the not-understanding. As a logical, thoughtful, reasoning type of person, I find this incredibly challenging. I am challenged to be humble, to accept that I can’t control God, or force him into my parameters of understanding. I must learn to surrender to him fully, to let go of my pride, to let go of my control.

Perhaps, for me, this is the whole purpose of these books in the Bible. They bring me to a place of surrender to God, a place where I must admit that I don’t have the answers. This is the place where I have to simply close my eyes and trust him. When I do, I know that I will find peace in my savior’s love. This is exactly where he wants me to be.

 

What’s Your Golden Cow?

What is the most important thing in your life? What do you spend your time, energy, thoughts, and money on? If you’re a Christian, is your answer Jesus? I think all of us have room to grow in this area, me included.

As believers, we are called to put God first in our lives. But what does that mean, in practical terms? This is a question I have wrestled with for a long time.

I believe that God places us where we are in life for a purpose, and that we are called to serve him right where we’re at. We don’t all need to be missionaries, preachers, worship leaders, or charity presidents to serve Jesus. We each have ministry opportunities all around!

Putting God first means that we are intentional about noticing our ministry opportunities. It means that we treat our roles in life as ministries, doing them to the best of our ability to honor God. We can serve God in any role: as a significant other, spouse, parent, family member, friend, co-worker, boss, employee, customer, neighbor, volunteer, and so on. All we have to do is treat others with love and kindness, putting others before ourselves, and we are automatically pleasing God.

Putting God first means that we strive to see all of the people around us the way God sees them; with love, and with the desire to draw them closer to Him.

Putting God first also means that we take time to nurture our relationship with Him. There should be nothing more valuable to a Christian than our relationship with Christ. How we treat that relationship is a reflection of our spiritual health.

Am I taking time to plant seeds of truth, wisdom, and understanding– from God’s word– in my heart and mind? Am I taking time to talk to God and listen– to pray? Am I taking time to learn about the ways of God from those called to teach? Am I taking time to worship him, both through music and through service? Am I taking time to develop and strengthen relationships with other believers, so we can support each other spiritually?

It breaks my heart when I see people who call themselves Christians but don’t have any daily interactions with God through the Bible and prayer, who don’t go to church, or who have no spiritual support system. They may or may not be believers in their hearts, but they certainly aren’t living the God-centered life that they have been called to. That is the life where the most blessings are experienced, both in this lifetime and for eternity. That is the life God wants for all of us! One that is deeply connected to Him.

Putting God first in our lives also means we cast aside any idols, or things that we may be tempted to make more important than Him. In our modern world, it may seem like idols don’t exist. But just because we aren’t making golden cows or statues to bow down to doesn’t mean we aren’t worshipping idols.

Many things can become idols in our lives. Even well-intentioned things can become more important to us than God, if we let them. Our significant others or spouses, our children, our families, our friends; we are called to love others deeply, but never more than God. Our education, our jobs, our success, our money; we are encouraged and enabled to do our best work and to prosper vocationally, but never to the detriment of loving and serving our God, and loving others. Our bodies, our fitness, our outward beauty; we are called to treat our bodies as a temple, but never to replace our pursuit of the eternal God with pursuits of this temporary world. All of these things and more can become idols. So what’s your golden cow? Perhaps it’s time to put that cow in its rightful place.

Is it time for a spiritual checkup? How are you doing in your walk with God?

I’d love to be a part of your spiritual support system. I know I certainly need more people in mine! If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, send me an email to let me know. Let’s share prayer requests, pray for each other, share our questions and insights into God and his word, and share each other’s burdens as brothers and sisters in Christ. I am here for you!

Let’s support each other in putting God first.

Happy Seven Months Birthday, Abigail!

In the beginning of this month, Abi turned seven months old. Our silly little girl is more than halfway to one!

At seven months, she is able to sit up on her own, but usually prefers laying on her belly. She hasn’t crawled yet, but she’s getting pretty close. She loves to play with toys or interesting objects, and gets bored easily. She’s not content to just sit and observe things, she wants to explore with her hands. Holding her while trying to do anything else is very difficult, because she grabs everything!

For a couple of weeks, she seemed close to night-weaning, meaning sleeping through the night without having to nurse. But unfortunately, all progress was lost soon after that, when she started nursing even more frequently than ever at night. Typically she nurses anywhere from three to six times per night. Thankfully, three is more common than six.

She has teething pain and other signs of teething (like soaking her shirt in drool) sporadically, as she has since about three months, but no teeth have emerged yet. We can see them under the skin on her bottom gum, so I expect them to come out soon, but they’ve really been taking their time!

Somewhat concerningly, she still weighs 18 lbs, which means she hasn’t gained any weight in the last month. But because she’s still quite a chunky baby, still in the 64th percentile (down from the 78th), and seems active and happy, we’re not too concerned. She grew so fast in the first 6 months of her life that she’s probably just “catching down.” 😉

Abigail loves her nightly bath. She gets excited when we say “bath” and when she sees the tub. She starts bouncing in our arms and gets the biggest smile on her face! It’s really cute. On the flip side, she generally hates her after-bath lotioning, and usually cries or fusses through the entire lotion-diaper-pajamas process. But after that drama, she happily nurses to sleep, and the world is right again.

Just after turning seven months, Abigail said “mama” for the first time! Now it seems to be her favorite word, and she uses it frequently to summon her milk slave. For the record, she did say “dada” first, at about six months. It’s up for debate whether she had the intention, or was just babbling, but she did say it a lot so it could easily be her true first word. Now that she’s also said “mama,” I’m more willing to give the first word award to “dada.” ;P (In all fairness, Cody’s first word was “mama,” so it’s a good balance that we each get one.)

At this age, Abi takes three naps; morning, afternoon, and night. Technically the last nap could be considered part of her nighttime sleep, but we wake her up before we all go to bed as a family in order to give her a bath and keep her eczema at bay. She sleeps about 9-10 hours at night (waking up on average four times to nurse).
She has stretches of being content playing on the floor or in her bouncer, as long as a parent is close by. She also has stretches of being very clingy and crying any time she’s put down. She never really has times when she cries inconsolably, and when she is fussy even while being held, it’s a sign she needs to nap. Typically, she goes down fairly easily for her naps.

As the weather is beginning to warm up, I am enjoying dressing her in little dresses and skirts, showing off those adorably chunky baby legs! Oh what fun to dress a baby girl.