Saving and Counting the Cost

I have to tell you that I thought a lesson on saving money -- that's the Weekend Bible Study (WBS) lesson I was supposed to teach at the Big Church -- would be a pretty boring lesson. I mean, what is there to it? "God wants us to save money." Now what else are we going to say? So, to be honest, I was pretty relieved when Easter Sunday morning "bumped" me from my usual teaching schedule.

However, just for drill, I read through the material and studied the lesson anyway and was quickly reminded that, as with everything in our lives, the reasoning, the heart, if you will, behind why we do anything -- saving, spending, or whatever -- is really the meat of the matter. And with that in mind, I discovered that there were actually some pretty important points we needed to consider behind the idea of saving. So when it came time to teach my next class, I knew I needed to combine the lesson we'd missed with the one for the current week, "Counting the Cost."

It turned out that a lesson on counting the cost was a full of as much food for thought as any other lesson we'd had, but if I were honest, metaphorically, it was one of the few all-you-can-eat buffets that, left on my own, I'd have had no trouble passing up.

I mean, the truths those lessons exposed us to are hard ones -- ones that I personally struggle mightily with. Like most folks, including many of us "set-apart" people, I tend to think of the money in my bank account as just that: MINE! And if there's any left over after paying the bills, then it's MINE to SPEND! but if I take the time to recognize and acknowledge that it's all really Papa-God's and that I'm the steward -- the caretaker -- of those funds, then well, it puts a whole 'nother spin on things. One that, frankly leaves my head spinning!

Still, if I truly want to pour myself totally into Papa-God's hands, then that means pouring all of myself into His hand -- including my finances. Now I'm used to trusting God to provide finances -- and He's always been faithful -- but I'm not used to His trusting me to then, in turn, proved Him with finances. And isn't that part of what we're learning? that He provides us with resources so that we can then use those resources to accomplish His will and purpose? (Top often, I find myself much more committed to accomplishing my will and purpose.)

Yup, recognizing that Papa-God's name is on "my" bank account definitely puts a different spin on things, and sometimes it leaves us all felling a bit dizzy.

Food for thought. Eat up!

Grins!

Pamm

Contentment

I once heard a well-known tele-evangelist comment on the need for some "retail therapy." She'd had a busy few days, she said, hadn't had a chance to go shopping for a while (at least a week or two), and so she told her husband that she really needed to stop by a favorite store on the way home from the conference where she was speaking, just to buy a little something to perk herself up. There was a definite sense of entitlement hanging in the air as she shared the details of her exhilarating drive-by shopping trip. I don't remember her story having any point other than that God wants to indulge all of His children with nice baubles and beautiful things -- that after all, as as children of the King, we should be cloaked in nothing less than the finest of royal robes, with our jewel-encrusted signet rings firmly in place (my words, not hers, but that was the drift).

Except for the attempted spiritual spin, isn't that the same message we're bombarded with daily from the Madison Avenue marketing crowd?

You know you want it. You need it. And, heck!
You've earned it, and you deserve it! (Oh, and if
you haven't yet earned it, you can always get it
on credit! You know, "Fake it 'til you make it!")

And when that kind of message comes from those who are supposedly on our team, is it any wonder that many of us who are called to be the set-apart ones end up acting not a whole lot different from the rest of the world? Is it any wonder that we, too, begin to develop our own sense of entitlement? That we, too, buy into the idea of purchasing power -- the idea that if we can buy sex appeal, status, and significan stuff, then surely financing a little contentment ought to be a drop in the bucket.

But we are called to be the set-apart ones -- those who live differently because of who we are in Christ. And how we use the resources we're given -- whether we use them to garner the things we think will bring us contentment or whether we trust God for our contentment and allow Him to direct how we use our resources -- is one of the greatest indicators of whether we're living the set-apart life.

Financial guru Dave Ramsey puts it this way: We are to "live like no one else so that we can live like no one else." I can't think of a better way to describe every aspect of the set-apart life we are called to.

Sitting Pretty - Part 2

Well, I'm still sitting.
After three days back at work juggling papers, entering grades to make sure my kids' report cards would get out on time, trying to get caught up on anything else that had lapsed in my almost-four-week absence, I finally got around to calling the district's benefits department to ask about my short-term disability payments. (Yes, I know I should have done this much earlier, but that's another epistle entirely.)


"Are you in a weight-bearing cast or a walking boot?"

"No, but I'm in a wheelchair, so I'm okay."

It seems I wasn't. Our school district gives new meaning to the phrase "stand on your own two feet." It appears that that unless I can do that, I am not fully able to teach my children, and that means I must stay home until I can. (Stand on my own two feet, that is.) Thus, I have once again become one with the couch and shall remain so for at least the next three weeks.

While this frustrates me to no end -- as I feel it is my kids who will end up "sitting on the sidelines" right with me; there's no way around it, a guest teacher can't do what I do -- it gives me more time to practice my sitting, and as you may have gathered from my previous writing, I haven't done it all that well so far.

I admit to having a few moments of intense feeling sorry for myself (please don't ask St. Michael to elaborate -- there is that idea of spousal privilege, y'know), I have decided to choose to look at this as the gift I know it is: I am being given another chance to maybe get this sitting thing right.

So if you see me, hold me accountable and ask me how my sitting is going. Am I sitting and stewing (like something on the verge of boiling over)? Sitting and sour-ing (like a nasty old kitchen sponge)? Or am I spending my day sitting and soaking up the Son (like the Kingdom citizen that I truly am in my innermost being)?

Yup, you'd better ask me. I need to know you will.

Sittin' Pretty

I am learning that I am not a good sitter.  

This is a surprise for me because I always thought I could sit pretty well; in fact, maybe even sit with the best of 'em.   After all, I love sitting on the couch, vegging out in front of the TV, at the end of a hard day's work.  I love sitting on the couch engrossed in a good book when the TV's not on and no one else is around to disturb the silence.  I love sitting on the couch catching up with E-mails and blogs, laptop nestled in my lap or propped up on a nearby TV tray.  And since I think of myself as basically a pretty lazy person by nature -- a bonafide sloth, to use the biblical term -- sitting, I thought I could do.

Not so much, I'm discovering.  

I've been sitting for the past thirteen days, and I don't think I'm doing it very well.  I mean, I think if I were doing it really well, I'd be enjoying it a little more.  I'd be experiencing some kind of fulfillment, y'know?   Some kind of satisfaction in the knowledge that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm getting it right.  Right?  

In the past, guilt has sometimes kept me from enjoying sitting moments, usually because there was something else (or more often than not, several something elses) I was supposed to be doing instead of just sitting.  At other times the noise and distractions of others have kept the zen of sitting at bay.   And once in a while, the racket in my own brain, has disrupted my sitting groove.  

Still, none of that should apply now.  I am supposed to be sitting.  I am supposed to be doing nothing but sitting.  Sitting and letting my fractured-but-now-plated-and-screwed-back-together fibula heal.  Doctor's orders.  

But it's hard.  I don't like it.  And I'm frustrated.

I guess, as tends to be the case with everything else, I only want to sit on my own terms.  I want to be in control of the when and the where and the how and maybe even the end results of my sitting.  I'd like to say that's the wiggler and the squirmer in me because that sounds kind of cute, like I'm some hot-pink-antennaed neon-chartreuse glowworm pulsating to her own inner cartoon beat.  But I'm not.  I'm just human.  Painfully human.  From my broken spirit to my broken ankle, I am painfully human.  And it's not cute.

So, what to do?

First, I will confess that I am not in control of my sitting.  (Duh!  Y'think!)  Sounds simple enough, huh -- kind of like Twelve Steps for Glo-worms.  But I think that with that word confess comes the idea that, if I am truly coming into agreement with Papa-God about this control issue, then as an act of my will, I choose, also, to let go of my wanting to be in control. (Now, for me, that's where the rubber meets the road, like the kid who sits down in the backseat of the car and hollers, "But I'm standing up on the inside!")   

Second, I will ask Papa-God what He wants me to do in the midst of this sitting.   (Arghh!  More control issues, obviously, as I have a feeling He is calling me to sit quietly and listen, something I'm not especially good at -- the "quietly" part or the listening.  Ever notice the ears on a glowworm?  Yeah, me neither.  As I think about it right now, perhaps that why I'm being given so much time for this sitting assignment; it's going to take lots of practice to get it right.)

Third, I will choose to obey:  What He says, I will do.  Even if that means the aforementioned sitting quietly and listening.  (In my humanness, I'd rather be singing, "Where He leads me, I will follow . . . "   At least then I would be moving up and out and off to somewhere.   For a glowwormy human like me, it's much harder to yield to the "Whatever . . . " when the whatever may mean not moving up and out and off to somewhere else.)  

And last, I will write about it.  Quietly.  If Papa-God says it's okay.

Small Things Count

Okay, I admit it.  I've become addicted to Facebook.  I'm writing on the walls (that's leaving messages for you not-yet-Facebook-ers) of people I haven't seen or even talked to in years.  I'm catching up with former students, "meeting" their spouses and their babies.  I'm joining "I Support . . . " groups and "I'm a fan of . . . " clubs.  I'm not sending those little "free gifts" (or "water balloons" or "bouquets") to people, though.  (At least not yet.)  And I don't usually take the surveys or IQ tests (well, duh!) either.  Still, on a whim, I did take a "Find Your Spiritual Gift" quiz the other day.

Five quick questions.

Only five?  (Well, no wonder the answer was wrong.)  According to my five answers, the quizmaster said my gift is compassion.  I don't think so.  I'm the one who says that ministry would be great if you didn't have to deal with people.

Okay, just kidding.  (Well, kind of . . . at least for the most part and on most days.)  Actually it'd be awfully hard, if not downright impossible, to be part of the body of Christ without dealing with people.  In fact, I'm pretty sure -- okay, I'm positive -- that to be a healthy, fully functioning part of the body of Christ we must not only deal with people, we must deal with them in love.  Yep, we have to love them.  We get to love them!  It's not just our responsibility, it's our privilege as Kingdom people.  Papa-God invites us to partner with Him in growing the Kingdom . . . by loving those He loves -- those who are like us and those who are not.

Even the smallest gestures, done in love, have the potential to become building blocks of the Kingdom.  The smile we share with the person who checks our groceries.  The tip we give the person who delivers our pizza.  The time we spend listening to the co-worker whose spouse has walked out.  How we respond to the driver who cuts us off in traffic (especially if we have one of those fish thingies on our car) or the way we treat the colleague who always takes too long at the copy machine (or leaves it jammed).  It all counts.  It all matters.

When we filter our reactions and our responses to others through the heart of Christ, we begin to look more and more like Him.  In small things and in big things.  We become Kingdom builders.  Inside and outside.

Lord, make us ever aware that in our actions and words, large and small, we can be destroyers or we can be builders.  Let us strive to be Kingdom builders.  Amen.

"So Great a Cloud of Witnesses . . . "

Well, I missed my self-imposed deadline of Valentine's Day.  That's when I had planned to have all of my Christmas things packed away.  Think whatever you want about what that probably says about me.  (Yes, I am too busy; yes, I watch too much television; yes, I'm undisciplined; yes, I am a terrible housekeeper; yes . . . oh, heck, just go ahead and pick one or "D.  All of the above.")

Still, it's not all bad, y'know.  How many people eat their Wheaties each morning while nine wisemen, three Marys, three Josephs, three baby Jesuses, and an assortment of cows, sheep and shepherds, and asses stand watch.  (Okay, some of you do eat breakfast with asses, but what about the rest of that illustrious band?  I'll bet you don't see them every day.)  It just happens that my kitchen table is where three of my nativity sets landed (along with my Santa teapot and assorted frosted fruit pieces and a grouping of red, green, and gold looks-like-glass-but's-really-plastic balls).  And I've actually grown to enjoy having them there.  Every time I sit down -- sure, I may feel a bit crowded -- but I can't help but think of Hebrews 12:1:  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us . . . " (ESV).

Those wisemen.  Those Marys and Josephs.  The infant Jesuses nestled in their mangers.  The Shepherds and their whole barnyard lot.  The whole crew.  I imagine them for a brief moment each morning as my very own cloud of witnesses, cheering me on as I prepare to enter my lane for today's leg of the race.

Pettiness.

Criticism.

Self-centeredness.

Gossip.

Indolence.

Just a few of the links in the chains I sometimes, foolishly, parade around in.  Not very flattering.  Certainly not the uniform of the day for kingdom-class runners.  And that is, after all, what I aspire to be.  With eyes on the prize, I want to fly down the track like my hair's on fire!

Then I remember.  It's not a dash; it's a marathon.  It's not about sprinting between the chalk lines; it's about staying the course.  It's not about speed; it's about endurance. 

" . . . let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted" (Hebrews 12:1b-3, ESV).

Yep.  Gotta lay aside those chains, lest I grow weary or fainthearted for sure.  And there's too much ground left to cover to stop now.

Proud Mama!

I've been claiming Shaun Rogers for years, but now I finally have real-live Longhorn of my very own! Daughter Leigh Muzslay Browne got notice today that she has been accepted into the graduate program at UT and on a fellowship, no less!