The Glorious God Who Hears

I was reflecting this morning on Paige Benton Brown's conference message from 1 Kings 8 and in rereading the passage, was struck by these words: 


"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built! Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, 'My name shall be there,' that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive... If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemy besieges them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing the affliction of his own heart and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways ( for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers." (1 Kings 8:27-30, 37-40)


God cannot be contained by even the highest heaven; He is all-glorious, all-holy, all-knowing. And yet, He has regard for the prayers of His people, not only to forgive (glorious truth!), but also to hear and act on the many and varying afflictions, however small, that His people lift up with humble hands toward Him, and all to the praise of His glorious grace! It reminded me of Hebrews 4:14-16:


"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."


What an encouragement to pray! Through Christ then, let us come before this glorious and lofty God, who hears and forgives His people!

Lessons From the Check-Out

I was THAT mother today. You've seen her before--the one who's desperately trying to decide whether she actually needs those discounted bowls (she didn't), while also attempting to keep 3 children from biting each other's heads off with their words, and all the while, a 4th child is in the grocery cart, wailing at the top of her lungs. She makes a good effort to avoid the annoyed, or occasionally sympathetic, gazes of the others in the check-out line, slams the groceries onto the belt as fast as humanly possible, then makes a beeline for the parking lot the second the card is authorized. I've seen her, too. I've been the onlooker thinking, "Can't that poor woman keep those kids in line?!" Well, today I WAS her.

But I need those kind of shopping days to help keep my pride in check. I need to remember that we all fail as parents at times, that we're all weak, that we all need a Saviour, that there is nothing in myself or my kids that I can rely on--I must depend solely on the grace of God.

This was SO not today!

These words from Elyse Fitzpatrick are so encouraging to me:

"The weaknesses, failures, and sins of our family are the places where we learn that we need grace too. It is there, in those dark mercies, that God teaches us to be humbly dependent. It is there that he draws near to us and sweetly reveals his grace... It is a kindness when he strips us of self-reliance, because it is there, in our emptiness and brokenness, that we experience the privilege of his sustaining grace. It is only when we arrive at that dreaded place of weakness that we discover the surpassing power of Christ. It is only when we are finally freed from those oh-so-constricting straightjackets of self-righteousness that we are able to experience the true comfort and warmth of the robes of his righteousness." (Give Them Grace)

So the next time I'm behind that mother in the grocery store, I want to be patient and remember that I fail, too. I want to give her an encouraging word, rather than an irritated glare. And the next time I AM her, I want to rejoice that I've been counted righteous in Christ, despite my inability to keep the kids in check. He alone is strong, He alone never fails, He alone is always faithful, and His grace is with me in my weakness.

Preserving the Gospel

My husband, Nathan, spent a few years as a cell phone salesman. As most phone stores do, his stores carried a cell phones and also numerous accessories to go with them. Now suppose that Nathan thought the phones were all well and good, but he had a particular obsession with all the nifty cell phone cases in the store. Instead of spending his time pouring over the various features of the phones, he spent all his breaks looking over the cases, comparing the benefits and pitfalls of the different models and designs. And when a customer came into the store, he just assumed they already had a phone and jumped into selling them a great new case. "Phones are nice," he'd admit. "But what's really important is that you get the best case possible. This one here has several great features. And just look at the cool design on the back..." If all he ever talked about were the cases, and if he sold them with enough passion, he might just sell a few to gullible customers who didn't own a phone to put in the case. But while they could certainly find other things to keep in there, other ways to put it to use, that case wouldn't do them any good at all if they were in a bad accident on the highway and needed to call for help.

Now this story seems absurd. What cell phone salesman in his right mind would focus only on the cases? But as Don Carson pointed out at the Gospel Coalition conference this past weekend, in his message "Preserving the Gospel", this is something we often do as believers when it comes to the gospel. His point was that the people around us will catch from us what we are most passionate about, and what we repeat most often. If we assume the gospel, if it's not our primary focus and passion, we won't pass it on to others, intentionally or not. If we talk more about some issue than about the gospel, those around us--our children, our fellow church members, unbelievers--will pick up a passion for that issue, rather than a passion for the gospel, because they will see that this other thing is what we consider to be most important.

Of course, the cell phone illustration is incomplete. Having a cell phone is not essential (I know, because we had no phone and no GPS for our entire trip to an unknown city, and we came back alive and happy!), whereas having the gospel is THE essential. But if it's so important for a salesman to be passionate to sell actual phones, and not just their cases, how much more important is it for us to be passionate about the essential gospel of life!

So I'm asking myself: Is the gospel my passion? Do I care more about feeding on demand, or homeschooling, or healthy eating habits than I do about the gospel? When I talk with other believers, am I insisting on the gospel first and foremost, or am I spending all my time debating what the Bible says about a woman's role in the home? Are we more focused on arguing over mode of baptism, or the continuation of the gifts, than we are on preaching the gospel to each other? And for those of us with kids, are we more focused on the law and its rewards, or on the gospel of grace, when we instruct and discipline our them?

I'm not saying, and neither was Carson, that these issues aren't important, that there isn't a time and place to discuss them, to make distinctions, to decide for one side rather than the other. But without the centrality of the gospel, it doesn't matter how much time we pour into other even very important biblical issues. When I die, the deciding question for me is not going to be "Do you think it is righteous to send your kids to public school?" or even "Were you baptized as an infant?" The question will be "What gives you the right to stand before God and be counted righteous, rather than thrown into hell to suffer his just wrath for all eternity?" And the only answer to that is the gospel that I do indeed deserve his wrath, and yet he, in all his holiness and in all his mercy, sent his perfect son Jesus Christ to live a perfectly righteous life and die in my place to take the punishment for my sins, and to give me his perfect righteousness as my own, as if I had never sinned, nor been a sinner, so that now, I have all of God's approval and love and forgiveness, and the hope of knowing God as his beloved child for all eternity. THAT is what I want to be most passionate about. THAT is the primary thing I want to communicate to my husband (who actually cares far more about the phones than about their cases), to my children, to my brothers and sisters in Christ, to the lost around me every day! And it is only in light of THAT that all the other issues have meaning and importance.

Lord, give me a passion for your glorious gospel that far outweighs the issues of the day, or the issues of my day. Help me to be intentional about beholding your glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18-4:6), so that my love for the gospel would increase, not only for my own perseverance in the faith, but also so that my family and my friends and even the strangers around me would see what is truly central and essential, and by your Spirit, be encouraged to pursue it, too!

TGC Women's Conference 2012

As I mentioned last week, I had the great privilege this past weekend of attending The Gospel Coalition Women's Conference in Orlando, Florida with two other women from my church. It was a privilege because I should have been at home taking care of the kids and house, but my husband joyfully insisted on taking over that role for a few days so that I could go. It was a privilege because conferences like that are expensive and I didn't have all the money to go, but some family members generously contributed so that I could. It was a privilege because I thought I'd be going alone, and God provided for two other women to come with me so that we could not only process the conference messages together, but also begin to put it into practise in our interactions with each other (and it was a whole lot more fun - I haven't laughed that much in a while!). It was a privilege because while millions around the globe don't have ready access to the gospel, not only does God grace me with such teaching each Sunday at my local church, He also poured out such an abundance of it at this conference that it made my head spin! Honestly, this past weekend, I felt like I got sprayed by a gospel fire hose!

Between the 8 main sessions, the 3 workshops, 2 pre-conference sessions (there was one more, but it took us a little while to make our way to the conference centre and we missed the first one), and an extra evening "focus gathering", I've come back with enough notes and things to think about to keep me busy for the rest of the summer (not to mention the applications which will easily take more than the rest of this earthly life to put into practise)! I'm planning to work through my notes on each session, at the rate of a couple a week, and make a new shorter set of notes outlining what is most important and applicable about each session (and the conference as whole), so that it will no longer be a jumble in my head. As I do that, I'll be posting some blog entries with thoughts on some of the main points that were made. Others may consider other things more interesting or important, and I'm sure there will be a lot of entries on various blogs about the messages over the coming weeks, but what I want to write here are the things that spoke most to me because that's what I'll be meditating on. Trying to put it in my own words and illustrations and applications will help me process it all. And I hope these notes will also be helpful to you, whether you attended the conference or not.

Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of hearing your Word preached, and may I also explain it clearly for the benefit of others!

Gospel Motivation

I could say much more about internet use, but I have the privilege of attending the Gospel Coalition Women's Conference this weekend, and I'm hoping that in the coming weeks, I'll have plenty to think and write about in relation to things learned there, so I'm going to bring this discussion to a close for now.


I've spent a few posts talking about practical things to consider when using social media, the "how" of social media, if you will. But I don't want to leave you with a 12-step program to break unhealthy internet habits. I want to leave you with the gospel.


If you think that cutting back your Facebook time, controlling what you say on Twitter and how you say it, and guarding yourself against pride in your blogging is necessary because you need to earn God's favour, and be a good enough Christian to merit your relationship with God and prove to the world that you're for real, you've missed the point. We CAN'T do enough good to earn God's favour. In fact, apart from Christ, all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags in His sight (Isaiah 64:6). No amount of scrupulousness in your internet habits (or any other habits) will ever justify us in God's eyes. None of us keep even our own internet standards perfectly, let alone GOD'S standards. So do not change your habits to make God happy with you; it won't work, and in fact, will only lead to self-righteousness, a sin that drives us even farther from grace.


Here is the reason we want to be careful about our use of time, the reason we want to avoid evil and impurity in online entertainment, the reason we want to use our words to build up rather than tear down and to express humility rather than pride: We who are in Christ have been given a free gift of grace so lavish and so undeserved that gratitude toward the Giver moves us to love and obey His commands, seeking to live in a way that glorifies and pleases our Saviour. He gave His life for us; He paid the sin-debt that we could not pay, and overwhelming thanksgiving for such mercy motivates us to want to do whatever it takes to become more like Him. If you are finding it hard to become a better steward of the time and energy that God has given you (and even if you're not!), don't just spend your time planning practical steps to do it. Spend time marinating in the gospel. Meditate on the depths of God's mercy toward you, an undeserving sinner. Pray for intense and joyful thankfulness, the kind that moves us to true and heart-felt commitment to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12; note that in context, the "therefore" relates to Philippians 2:5-11, which is the gospel.)


And when you fail--again--don't give up. Don't wallow in guilt and self-pity. That failure is not the end of your righteous standing before God. Confess it; repent of it, turn again to the cross in thanksgiving for God's unending forgiveness, and press on in reliance on the Spirit, in the confidence that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion, not because of your good work, but because of His steadfast love and faithfulness.  


"The way sanctifying growth takes place is not, in essence, by redoubling moral efforts, writing out new resolutions and intensifying spiritual disciplines. The fundamental means of change is deeper and deeper reflection on the very gospel that rescued us in the first place. It sounds backward, but the path to holiness is through (not beyond) the grace of the gospel, because only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart." - Dane Ortlund in Defiant Grace


"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)


Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Status Pride

Have you ever had this experience?: You post a status on Facebook about something that just made you die laughing. An hour later, you check back in--no one’s liked it yet. “Oh well,” you think, “everybody’s been off doing something else. They’ll like it when they check their news feed in a bit.” You wait another hour and check in--still no likes. You think, “Where is everyone?” By the next morning, when you realize that there are still no likes and no comments, you are inwardly crushed. “What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they think it’s funny? Don’t they think I’m funny? See if I bother posting anything funny again!”

Or maybe you’ve had this one: You post a status on Facebook about something that just made you die laughing. Almost immediately, a friend clicks “like”. Within the hour, 15 people have liked it and several have even commented. By the next morning, you have 73 likes and 14 comments. You are ecstatic. “Yes! I gave them all a good laugh! They think I’m funny! I can‘t wait for the next time I come across something that hilarious!”

All forms of social media have some way of gauging how many people have interacted with what you post. With Facebook, you can count your likes and comments. With Twitter, you can count your followers and who’s retweeted your tweets. Youtube tells you how many views you have, and allows for comments, too, although I assure you, only about 0.00001 percent of them are worth reading. Blogs will tell you how many page views you have, and from which sources, at which times, in which countries, and even what browser they are using (tell me how many ordinary people care). I don’t use Pinterest, but I’m told you can track your followers there, too.

Now this can be a good thing. We share things on social media to a large extent because we want others to enjoy what we’ve enjoyed, in order to make our joy greater. We share things because we want others to grieve with us in our grief, in order that we may have sympathy and comfort. We share helpful links or raise awareness of causes because we want others to be encouraged and spurred on. We write blogs because we want others to benefit from things we’re doing or learning. And knowing you’ve been heard, having others interact with you about these things, is what social media is about. At face value, there is nothing wrong with this.

The problem with these kinds of gauges in social media is that they tempt us to pride. And we need to be aware of this so that we will be on our guard against the temptation. Whether we are posting out of pride or not is evidenced by our reaction to how others respond to us. It is one thing to post something so that others will share your joy. It is quite another to be angry or wounded when they don’t react the way you had hoped, or to place your confidence in how many people like your status. 

Maybe I’m a little dense, but while I’ve been on Facebook for many years, it’s taken getting back into blogging for me to become aware of my own pride in this area. Perhaps because you invest more time in a blog post than in a Facebook status, or perhaps because you can track so many more details with a blog, I quickly became aware of how much I was inwardly captivated by the numbers. When they were up, I was happy and confident. When they were down, I was tempted to think poorly of people who weren’t "taking advantage of such helpful thoughts". And when I noticed it with blogging, I realized that it extended to Facebook posts as well. In fact, part of the drive to be on Facebook so often was to check who was interacting with my posts. If I had a recent post, I’d be on quite frequently. If I hadn’t posted anything for a few days, I was less eager to check in. In short, my motives weren’t as altruistic as I thought. I wanted others to share my happiness or the things that I was learning, but what I also wanted was the flattery of man, the stroking of my ego.

One of the reasons I’ve decided to schedule my Facebook check-ins is so that I will be less able to give in to the temptation to constantly check on my own posts. It also means I don’t post as frequently, because if something occurs to me after I’ve already had my one visit, I have to wait until the next day, and by then, it may well not seem as important or worth sharing as it did in the moment. And when I do post something, either on Facebook or on the blog, I always need to come back to it with my humility guard up.

I must remember that my approval does not rest in how many likes or comments or visits I get. I don’t deserve any of them. I deserve only to have the full disapproval and hatred of all people, and especially of God. But because Christ stood in my place at the cross, I undeservedly have God’s full approval, and that can’t be changed even one bit by how many people do or don’t appreciate the things that make me laugh or cry or leap up and down!

So when I post something, whether on Facebook or on this blog, I want to do it humbly, thanking God that He gave me something so helpful, or joyful, or hilarious, and that even if no one else cares, I'm secure in my approval in Christ. And if many others find it helpful, or joyful, or hilarious, then I need to immediately stop and give the glory back to God.

Living for "likes" is, to use C.S. Lewis' well-known illustration, like being content to make mud-pies in the slums when we have been offered a holiday at the sea. Will we be pleased with the paltry flattery of other people, or will we instead hand the glory to God, to whom it rightfully belongs, and receive the reward of infinite joy He offers us in the good news that we do not deserve His approval and yet we have graciously been given it in Christ?

Blame-Shift

Early last year, a study at Stanford University showed that Facebook usage leads to depression and misery because of the overwhelming positive bent in other people's status postings. Because Facebook gives everyone the opportunity to personally handcraft their image and post things that reflect favourably on them, while minimizing negatives, the average user often thinks that the lives of others are far more satisfactory than his/her own. Most of the articles on this study have titles such as "Facebook Is Making Us Miserable" or Is Facebook Making Us Sad?". But while I think the study is probably quite accurate, the insinuation that it's Facebook's fault is not.

Facebook can't make you do anything. Granted, there may not yet be a "dislike" button. Granted, Facebook is accessible to any self-glorifying person who wants to use it. But Facebook is an inanimate being. It can't force you to be discontent with your own life because someone else's looks better. And it can't force you to post all things in the most flattering light, either. Facebook is used by people. People can be discontent. People can be deceptive, intentionally or not.

And WE are those people.

Facebook may be a tool that squeezes our hearts, causing sour juice to overflow, but it doesn't put the sour juice into our hearts. It merely reveals what was there to begin with. If we are dissatisfied because our friends seem to be always having fun, because their children say the cutest things and never seem to throw all-day temper tantrums, because they obviously have the ability to make birthday cakes look store-bought, make amazing gifts from scratch, and handle a 30-kid party all in the same day, we shouldn't blame Facebook... or our friends, for that matter. If we are dissatisfied with our lot in life, it is because we don't believe that God loves and cares for us in the best way possible and gives us exactly what we really need. It is because we think we deserve better, when we really deserve far, far worse. If we are struggling with discontentment and misery because of comparison with our friends' Facebook lives, we need to humble ourselves before God, remember what we really deserve, and be grateful that instead, we have received unfathomable mercy at the cross. And instead of being miserable, we need to earnestly seek the Spirit's help and strive to "rejoice with those who rejoice".

But we also need to recognize that WE may be part of the problem of carefully planned Facebook images. I might be tempting my friends to discontentment by the things I choose to post and the way in which I post them. Does my Facebook wall reflect only the best experiences of my life? Do I tend to post things in an overly positive light? I'm not saying we should all go post miserable things on Facebook, or that it is wrong to share your excitement about something with others. But we love the adoration of man, and so it is very easy to post things (and pictures) that make our lives look great, and not very tempting at all to post about how much we feel we're failing in our parenting, or our homemaking, or our job. In fact, when we do post about the bad day, most of us Christians feel a certain pressure to end it with a "But praise the Lord! I'm still happy!" Really? Are we being totally honest? If we are, that's certainly something to praise God for. But if it's been a bad day and I just want to crawl into bed and moan, I shouldn't save face by putting the negative in a falsely positive light. Maybe it would be better to skip the details of the day and just post a good lamenting Psalm longing for God to strengthen me in my weakness. Maybe one of my friends who's also had a bad day will be comforted by the Scripture and encouraged to plead with God for mercy, instead of feeling like they just don't measure up as a Christian undergoing trial.

If, on the other hand, we're posting good news, we need to be careful not to exaggerate, and we also need to beware of pride as a motivation for our posts. Am I just posting this to prove that my life really is great (even if it is), or to somehow compete with my friends' posts? Social media easily becomes a game of one-upmanship, and that's a game we don't want to play!

And of course, the best way to get an accurate view of our friends' lives, and let them have an accurate view of our own, is to spend time with each other in real life situations. Facebook can be used to enhance our friendships, but it is no substitute for the real thing!

Facebook: Tool or Time-Waster?

I love Facebook. I have family and good friends all over the globe, and it is a great tool for staying in touch with them far more often and more easily than I would otherwise be able to. I love being able to see pictures of my friend and her children as they play and grow in far-away Indonesia. I love being able to know what my mom is up to or thinking about across the Atlantic in Germany on a day when I might not normally be able to talk to her. I love hearing news from friends back in Louisville and not being totally out of the loop when we go back to visit. I love having an easy way to interact with local friends about their thoughts or upcoming events. And I love that it's all in one place.

But several months ago, I realized that my Facebook usage was causing me to regularly lose focus on the things I was responsible for in my own home, with the very real people and things in my immediate environment. It's not easy to teach the kids to focus on their schoolwork when Mom is busy taking a momentary break to check her Facebook. And it's not easy to carry on a deep conversation with my husband when I'm also trying to engage with the pithy saying some friend posted on their wall. Try getting the house cleaned up while also making sure to check every 15 minutes if someone's responded to your message. Trust me--it doesn't work too well!

So I had to ask myself: Why am I on Facebook? If Facebook is a tool--and that is what it is!--what am I using it for, and what do I want it to do for me? Am I master over my Facebook, or is it master over me? And then, once I've decided what kind of tool it is, what are practical steps I can take to keep it a useful tool, and not a waste of time? Now your answer to what kind of tool it is may be a bit different from mine, so your practical steps may differ, too. But I'd encourage you to ask yourself those questions and then make a list of ways to keep Facebook as something you are master over, rather then slave to.

I've decided that for me, Facebook is primarily a communication tool to stay in touch with the people I care about, not unlike email, aside from being faster, more public, and having the added bonus of lots of pictures.

So I decided to take a few practical steps to make Facebook do for me what I want it to do:

1) I cut my friends' list down once or twice a year. A few months ago, I had it down to 100 (it has crept up slightly). If Facebook is a tool in my relationships with people I care about, then I want my friends' list to reflect that. I don't need to know what every single person I've known since I was 2 is currently doing. It has little to no lasting value, and I find it makes much less time for the people I'm close to. Yes, I occasionally look up an old friend I've lost touch with (and I have rekindled at least one friendship that way--as in, we actually get together face-to-face sometimes). Yes, I occasionally add someone I've just met, in the hope that I will get to know them better. But I want my Facebook to be about the people I would want to invest time and energy in, even if Facebook didn't exist. So I keep my friends' list fairly short.

2) I am selective about my news feed. There are a few people I want to keep in contact with, and whom I genuinely care about, but whose regular postings are unhelpful. I hide them from my news feed so that I'm not bombarded with these links every time I log in. I do this with people who consistently post critical and/or depressing things, too. It's not that I'm against critiquing things, or being real about trials in your life. I'm not! And when genuine friends mention genuine suffering on their Facebook wall, it helps me know how to pray for them. But it is not helpful to me, or to my view of others, when people use their wall as a great big gripe about the world. It doesn't help me think well of those people. So I hide that stuff. Then I can send them messages or visit their wall when I want to, and not when Facebook wants me to.
For the people I'm closest to, I also ask Facebook to show me more of what they post, and less of the postings of people who are a bit more peripheral, so that my news feed better reflects the amount of investment I would otherwise make in these various relationships. It's most important to me to keep in touch with my family, local church members and a few other dear friends. So just like these are the people I make more time for outside of Facebook, I make more time for them on Facebook.

3) I schedule my Facebook time. I decided a few months ago that as a general rule, I was going to visit Facebook once a day. It's not a legalistic rule--I break it occasionally when I'm having a more leisurely day. But my general routine is to visit Facebook once in the morning, do my commenting and message writing, and then be done with it until the next day. Because honestly, when you only have 100 friends, some of whom don't show up on your news feed, there's not that much to check that can't wait until tomorrow, unless, of course, I am in a running comment or message streak about something that is happening today, in which case, I break my rule. But actually, even when I am responding for the 5th time in a day to a message, I try to keep my news feed visits to one a day. This leaves a lot more time in my computer usage (yes, I try to schedule that, too) for more personal emails, important tasks, and reading blogs that will help me in my walk with God. This also helps keep me from being more attentive to Facebook than I am to my immediate family. And I've found that whereas before I limited my time, when I was away from the computer for a few days I couldn't wait to get back to Facebook, I no longer feel the need to jump right back on after after a couple days away.

Now you may use Facebook more for networking, in which case, having lots of "friends" is probably helpful. And I'm sure there are other legitimate uses where these kind of things would not apply. I'm not saying that if you follow Steps 1, 2 and 3, you'll be doing it the "right" way. This is just how I decided Facebook needed to work for me. And I'd be lying if I said that I was always master of my Facebook time. Part of my incentive to write this down is to help me remember these things. But if you're not sure if you spend too much time facebooking (and especially if you are sure that you spend too much time there!), I'd encourage you to think and pray about what kind of tool Facebook should be for you, and then write down and stick to practical steps that will make it a tool that serves you, rather than hinders you.

Stewarding our Internet Time

Have you ever added up the time in one day that you spend on the internet for non-work purposes? I'll admit that I haven't, either. But my guess is that if I did, it wouldn't always be information I'd like to see written up in public. We live in a culture where popping in and out of the World Wide Web all day long (or even being tied to it all day long) is the norm. When your phone sends you automatic email, Facebook and Twitter updates, and you have non-stop access to Youtube and your favourite websites and blogs (including this one, of course!), it's easy to be in constant communication with the internet. Even if you're a bit of a relic like me and don't have a cell phone with a data package (or even a cell phone), the internet calls you all day long. "Pssst... I'm your inbox. Why don't you give me a quick check in case something new is in?" "Hey there, you haven't checked Facebook in at least 30 minutes... What if some friend has posted some incredible news and you're not in the loop yet?!" "You've worked hard at that job for a good hour. A nice Youtube break will help you rejuvenate!"

Yes, we live in the internet age, and surfing is a way of life.

But is it helping us?

I'm not here to say that the internet is evil, that Facebook is a total waste of time, that Pinterest is completely useless. I am thankful that we have quick access to information and the ability to communicate easily with people who live very far away from us. I am often encouraged, convicted and spurred on to greater faith by blog posts that I read, and I praise God for using the writings of people I would not otherwise have contact with to point me to Him. Being able to answer one of those impossible "why" questions of a 7-year-old is a lot easier with a quick search on Google. But I need to be careful how I use these things, or the drawbacks will quickly outweigh the blessings.

Over the last several months, I've spent a fair bit of time examining and cleaning up my internet usage (though I still have plenty of room for growth!), and was about to blog some of my thoughts on it, but before I had a chance, Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre started a series of posts on GirlTalk about examining your internet consumption, so I'd suggest you go read what they have to say in the way of really helpful questions to ask yourself (start at the bottom of the page for the first post and then scroll up to read them in order), and then I'd like to just take a couple posts to mention some practical things I've done or am doing to help steward my web use. And if you have some of your own, I'd love to hear them, too!

Lord of the Fleas

Every year, the week before Easter, our church has a special week devoted to prayer and specific Bible study. Every year, there is spiritual growth in the church as a result of that week. And every year, that week is full of multiple difficulties and trials.

This year was no different. It was the week that the kids were all at each other's throats, with a particularly nasty brand of infighting. It was the week that the schedule did not go as planned (not that this doesn't happen often, but it was particularly noticeable this time). And it was the culmination of the weeks of mystery bugs.

A few weeks before, the weather had warmed up to almost summer temperatures (well, actual summer temperatures for Ontario). The kids were outside a lot, playing in the newly growing grass. And they were getting some bug bites, of which I thought nothing, because I'd seen some mosquitoes out for an early spring rendezvous. But then the weather got colder and rainier and the kids were inside. They were still getting bug bites, and so were we. And as the tallies started ramping up to 10-15 new bites on at least one of us every day, the anxiety started creeping in. My first thought was "fleas", because we have a dog, and because the bites were consistent with flea bites. But I couldn't find evidence of fleas anywhere, and they're usually not too hard to spot. So then we started thinking "bed bugs"... Uggghh! You know that creepy-crawly feeling you get when you think hard enough about little biting bugs? Well, we were feeling it all the time. We searched the beds, the mattresses, the couch... to no avail. There were no visible bugs in the house, and yet "they" were eating us alive.

So by the beginning of the Week of Prayer, as I was writing on anxiety, I was being forced to actively implement the things I was writing about. My prayers went something like this: "Lord, something is eating us, and we can't figure it out, and if it's bed bugs, I don't even want to think about the cost and effort to get rid of them, not to mention the fact that I'll probably have the creepy-crawlies for the rest of my life! Please help me to cast these anxieties on you, knowing that you are the Lord of even the tiniest, unseen bug. And Lord, please give us wisdom to know how to proceed! Please show us what is biting us! And whether you do that or not, you are the God who brought the gnats and flies in to Egypt and back out again, so you are able to command these mystery bugs to move out. I fully believe you are able to cast them out of this house, but if it takes me lots of work and money, help me to be content in your sovereign care for me."

By mid week, I was starting to feel desperate. I mean, anxiety is hard enough to deal with when you know all the variables and they're just beyond your control. But it's far more difficult when you are not in control AND you have no idea what is going on. And yet, even then, we must fight to cast those anxieties on the one who IS in control and knows perfectly well what is going on, and what the outcome will be.

Now I know that God does not always answer our prayers in the way that we would like, or in the way we deem best. And in those cases, He still has our best in view, and knows we need something other than we have asked for. But I am writing this blog post because sometimes He does answer our prayers swiftly and just as we have asked, in ways so clear that it cannot be coincidence and must be the work of our caring and powerful Father, and I am so compelled to greater faith in His mighty care for us, even in the small things, that it must be shared.

On Wednesday morning, I was so tired of the itching and the kids' complaining and the uncertainty of the source of all this that my prayer was simply, "Lord, show us the bugs and/or march every last one of them out of this house and far away! Just order them to go!" And I believed He could do it, but I admit that I was expecting to be taught some patience and hard work instead.

Well, Wednesday afternoon, as I was doing the laundry, I noticed that the dog's bed was significantly dirtier than it had been the previous day, so I figured I should throw it in the wash. Now I had checked the bedding several times before and seen nothing, but as I lifted the blankets out... yep, there they were - those dirty little creatures, jumping around all over the place. And while many people might be horrified at the sight of a bunch of fleas making a home in the dog bed, I was actually relieved to see them. Mystery solved! And I was ready to take anything easier to deal with than bed bugs. So we did a bunch of laundry and vacuuming, and quarantined the dog outside because right at that moment, we didn't feel up to dealing with a bath, and didn't have the necessary supplies on hand anyway.

Since the weather was reasonably nice, she ended up staying outside for a couple days before we got around to bathing her. But we finally decided we'd better just get it done. So we brought her back in and soaped her up and then ran her coat through with a flea comb, expecting from the number of bugs we'd found in her bed that she'd be horribly infested. But we did not find a single one. Or a single egg. She was completely free of any sign of fleas. And from that weekend on, the bites stopped. I was fairly diligent about the laundry and vacuuming for another week or so, but even that dropped back to its normal schedule, and they haven't returned. And I have no explanation for it other than that God commanded those bugs to leave, and out they went.

So I just want to testify to the fact that God is in control even of the movements and lives of tiny, annoying, biting bugs, and that He cares not only for our major life decisions and great crises, but also for just how long a bunch of relatively insignificant and certainly invisible fleas will be allowed to bother your family. He is also fully able to answer prayers for miracles with the miraculous. So may we be spurred on to pray more often, with more faith, even about more insignificant things.

The Gift of Weakness

Well, I'm still here. May is normally a busy month in our house, but this year's May takes the cake! There was little time for pondering, and even less time for writing. But God was kind to sustain us through the busyness, and now we're in to June, with the 2011-12 school year behind us and a calendar that is (currently) relatively clear, so I hope to be able to spend a lot more time reading and writing (and cleaning and organizing and planning activities to help keep the kids occupied).

Due to various issues related to busy schedules, health problems and parenting troubles, I've been thinking quite a bit this past year about weakness and how to count it all joy. This morning, I was rereading a bit of Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick. (If you are a parent and haven't read it, I highly encourage you to put it on your summer reading list - I've found it very helpful, not only for relating to my kids, but also for my own understanding of how the Gospel relates to my practical daily life.) Here is her challenge from 2 Corinthians 12:

"Paul understood that personal success and strength were barriers to his experience of God's grace. God's sustaining power is seen and developed in our weakness and failure. It is never developed anywhere else. The power of Christ flows through parents who boast in and embrace their personal weakness, not on those who think they don't need it. Of course, every one of us will quickly confess that we know we need the power of Christ. Yes, yes, of course we do. But the veracity of our confident confession will be tested in our response to our weakness and failure and to the weakness, failure and sin of our children. Do we see these trials as God's gift to us? Do we see our children's struggles as our Saviour approaching us in love to make his grace strong in our lives? Do we believe that we must have this kind of humiliation so that Christ's grace will flow through us to our family? Do we really want his grace that much? Do we really want to glorify him?"