“Christianity is not about a new moral teaching – as though we were morally clueless and in need of some fresh or clearer guidelines…Christianity isn’t about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example, as though our principal need was to see what a life of utter love and devotion to God and to other people would look like, so that we could try to copy it…Nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can ‘go to heaven when they die.’…Christianity isn’t about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself…Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this – the finding, the saving, the giving of new life – in Jesus.  He has done it.  With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all.” (N.T. Wright Simply Christian)

That is the story of the whole of scripture…God’s Epic Rescue of his creation, heaven and earth colliding and the power of grace and mercy triumphing over the power of the law.  We are to daily experience the rescue of God in our lives and be the rescue of God in others’ lives!  David Crowder’s song Remedy constantly pours through my head…

Oh, I can’t comprehend
I can’t take it all in
Never understand
Such perfect love come
For the broken and beat
For the wounded and weak
Oh, come fall at His feet
He’s the remedy
He’s the remedy

He is the one who has saved us
He is the one who forgave us
He is the one who has come
and is coming again

We are currently teaching an 8 week series through the story of all of scripture and making sure we don’t lose or cut up our scriptures into unrelated parts, resulting in just a collection of stories and truths.  I am rediscovering how by keeping the whole in perspective, it brings out the richness of the details and specifics of scripture AND how my life is still part of this great rescue story.  This isn’t something that has merely taken place thousands of years ago, but a new-life story that is played out over and over through the days that you and I live!

If you are interested, I am posting the audio recordings of each week in my podcast media tab of this site.  (We have had some problems with some of the recordings that we hope to have worked out in the future.)

“Use a pumpkin “globe” to make learning geography fun.  With a magic marker, have your child draw the equator and the continents.  The North Pole can be the stem.  The pumpkin’s natural grooves can be lines of longitude.  Ask him to tell you about what he’s drawn on his “globe”.”

I thought this sounded fun and plan to make our own family pumpkin globe   I thought I might get creative and crazy and try to cut out the continents or practically do so, so that the light of a candle shines through – but don’t hold me to that.  I always dream up stuff bigger than I can accomplish, and the point is for my kids to have fun.  Not for me to WOW everybody!!  They would have fun with markers and probably not need to cut stuff out…

If you give this a try let me know and send pics!!  I will share mine when we have done ours.

Happy Fall everyone!  I just LOVE the fall!!! – and pumpkins too!!  pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie dip….mmmmm!!!!

In the Bible, God challenges us with these words through the writer Paul:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12.2)

Conformation or Transformation are both something that happens TO us.  Something that we can choose, but can’t completely direct.  Something that we can seek after, but can’t control exactly how either happens.  We can actively resist one, which ultimately leads us toward the path of the other.  Returning to the thoughts of the season’s change…a tree could resist the Fall transformation (if it could) but soon it would find itself conforming to the death that the climate that the winter freeze will bring.

I want to choose the path of transformation in my life!  This is the more difficult path immediately…it is so much easier to stay in what I know, in what is comfortable, in what is the norm that I see around me.  But in the end the more difficult path is truly the path of conformity as it leaves us barren, lifeless, stripped of true fulfillment of the deep desires God has put in us.

“…this is fundamentally what spiritual transformation is all about: choosing a way of life that opens us to the presence of God in the places of our being where our truest desires and deepest longings stir.  These discoveries are available to all of us as we become more honest in naming what isn’t working so that we can craft a way of life that is more congruent with our deepest desires.” (Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms)

If you are involved in my life, in my journey through this land, please ask me how I am putting myself in places of transformation!  Sometimes you will ask me at just the right time when I am drifting into conformity and away from true inner renewal transformation.

Also, share ways that you have experienced God’s transformation in your life so that we can encourage one another to live in and embrace “what is good and acceptable, and perfect.”!

Last year I experience what I would call MAJOR reverse culture shock when we returned to San Jose Costa Rica and were back in civilization.  I remember feeling like I wanted to run and hide and had no ability to talk or relate to people, everything was just so overwhelming and I wanted to just run back to the village!  This year I felt the reverse culture shock again, but in new ways.  Two items just seemed to scream for my attention and reflection.

I was first struck by the sight of ladies wearing makeup!  For six days I, as well as the other ladies on the trip, had not as much seen a mirror larger than a pocket mirror much less put any makeup on!  When your out in the village makeup has no purpose, even caring about what you look like has no purpose!  There is something about getting to talk to ladies without the veil of makeup that is wonderful and vunerable!  (and I like wearing makeup But when we returned to city life I found myself brought to tears over the veil of makeup.  It is as if we as women need to hide behind cosmetics to continue the facade that everything in our life, and on our face, is perfect so don’t ask.  So my first revers culture shock was MAKEUP!

A few days after we got back to the USA I found myself in the grocery store with reverse culture shock number two.  I looked over at a mom and her young daughter standing there in a clean grocery store, while wearing sandals, and my mind was washed with the privilege that was happening before my eyes!  Now I will tell you as a mom of little ones going to the grocery store with them is not something I normally consider a privilege!!  But here was this mom and daughter, in sandals!!, in a clean store picking out food.  They had not hiked miles in boots up to their knees that were then covered in mud to reach a store that was hours away.  They were not covered in mud in dirty clothes that are only washed in a river.  They were standing on a clean store floor, not standing in mud…did I mention the mud?  And they were picking out food and were then going to head to the checkout line to purchase it, walk out to their car, drive home and eat…all with in a few minutes!  I was just overwhelmed with the privilege of a clean store and easy food acquiring!

It is amazing to me how these simple normal things of life here in America can be so challenged and altered after living in a community where they are not a member.  A community where makeup has no place and traveling to a store is a true adventure.  Coming back to America makes it a shock indeed!  I am willing to learn from the Kabeka community

I was left with the thought that a year is not a long time and stepping down from a volunteer ministry position for a year is not the end of the world!  My thoughts turned to Study & Share, the woman’s Bible study that I have the privilege of teaching from time to time.  This is one of my favorite commitments, but I needed to consider stepping down for a year.  I wrestled with it for a few weeks.  Even made the decision a few times, to go through with the break, but then rethought it in my mind…  Finally, I laid it to rest and made the decision to not just step down, but to step up to trusting where God was leading me.  So for this coming fall and possibly this full school year I am taking a break from teaching at Study & Share.

It feels good to trust the Lord and follow in His steps, even when it is stepping away from something I love.  I look forward to the journey back

So check back.

“…life will present us with hundreds of opportunities in a single week to take a look at our internal world, to walk with God there, to become more fully his.  Don’t let your internal life go unshepherded.” – John Eldredge, Walking With God (p. 192)

The tendancy in our society/lifestyles is to only check the internal world when something is seriously wrong, but whatever is going on in the internal world is what drives or controls that which we do on the outside.  How I deal with my kids is a result of what’s going on inside, how I respond to the “idiot” driver at the intersection is a result of what is going on inside, what I say when I feel threatened by someone is a result of what’s going on inside, and how I plan my schedule is a result of what’s going on inside.  As Eldredge said so well, we have so many opportunities daily to do a quick or deep internal check.

I have realized that the analogy of shepherding doesn’t really help most of us, because we have never had sheep, been on a sheep farm, been to a petting zoo, or even worn wool!  BUT we have all had or been coaches…a coach seems to be the closest common analogy to a shepherd.  A coach encourages, resources, challenges, celebrates, and even gets in our faces from time to time.  A coach identifies things that we need to do differently as well as put us in positions to let our strengths shine and be used for the greater good.

Are you coaching your inner life on a daily/weekly basis?  I am so thankful for friends of mine who help me coach my inner world, who push me to make the hard decisions and celebrate the strengths God has put in me.  Let me encourage you to not let your inner life go UNCOACHED so that you are more fully his, for the greater good!

What makes you say Awesome??  What takes your breath away each day??

“All together now—applause for God! Sing songs to the tune of his glory, set glory to the rhythms of his praise.  Say of God, “We’ve never seen anything like him!”  Take a good look at God’s wonders— they’ll take your breath away.”  -Psalm 66.1-2,5 (The Message)

We had an activity with the students to draw/paint/write/etc on large mural paper about something that makes the awe inspired and here are a few of their inspirations:

What causes you to be awe inspired…small or big, everyday or every so often??

And there were much more great inspirations!

It is amazing how many times recently the realization of mine or someone else’s assumptions has been part of conversations.  We each see life in very different ways than others simply because we come to the exact same situations with a whole different set of assumptions.  This can get you going down the wrong path very quickly and lead to conclusions that are WAY off and dangerous.

One of the biggest of these assumption categories is making assumptions of other people.  Whether it is their motives, desires, or beliefs, they are coming with assumptions and we are making our own assumptions.  To complicate things more we communicate a lot these days through more impersonal ways like email, blogs, facebook, twitter, IM, etc.  This is why I think the best policy is to always assume the BEST of other people.  Mandy and I seek to do this in our marriage, and have to sometimes ask each other, “are you assuming the best of me?”  Our staff team at work has a covenant with each other to always assume the best of each other.  When people criticize me, I dig deep inside and ask God to give me the ability to assume the best motives and intentions…and when I do that, it usually is right AND I learn a whole lot more from the experience.

Thinking about it, I realized that our justice system is based on assuming the best. “Innocent until proven guilty”  Some might say that this is a naieve approach which sets people up for being taken advantage of.  And there are certainly people who, knowing I try to think the best, will seek to take advantage of a situation.  But assuming the best doesn’t mean that you don’t gather the facts and seek the truth about a situation.  And it is key to always be ready to have your assumptions corrected and act accordingly.

So, our assumptions range from what we think about God, to our life, to other people, to the mundane…but these assumptions all have a profound effect on the outcome in a given situation!

It may be difficult, but try it to have your assumptions challenged or extend an “assume the best” attitude toward a coworker, spouse, or friend, and see how many problems are solved!