My Mind Instructs me in the Night

I've been working on a project that has become something of an obsession. The general idea is to create an online store. But I don't know how to make a website (yet) and I don't want to rely on one of those ready-made ones that you can get for really an amazing low price. I have a feeling that eventually the price would rise and kill my idea...or that their limitations would hamper what I'm doing. Maybe not. But first I wanted to learn everything I could about websites. 


In the process I have learned an incredible amount about the amazing resources available online, and realize just how easy this whole thing will be. I've checked out some books. I didn't know that you can build a webpage on Microsoft Word! Wow. And I have, last I checked, 17 pages of links that have to do with starting a business, building a website, or finding work online. I think I could blog forever about this! But not today. 


The fantastic thing about this is that even though in this obsession, I've felt that I haven't been as deep into God's Word as I want to be, as I usually am (though I haven't neglected it, it just hasn't been as much at the forefront), I woke up this morning with some terrific ideas about this business idea. I know they're from God. I know that I can use them in setting up my business to His glory. 


One thing is that I can put a percentage of what it makes toward a cause my Katie woke me up to, the sex slave trade. Her church did a seminar about it, and she went to Nepal lately on a missions trip to see how her church could make a hole in it there. They worked through the organization, She is Safe. Katie learned a lot before and during her trip and inspired me, but I was thinking, "What can one (pretty broke) person do?" I felt helpless to do much for her cause, though I cared about it. But without my even thinking I was building this business idea for that purpose, God connected the dots for me. 


Then He also showed me, also in my sleep, the other ways this could glorify Him. I could have a blog connected with the business that could help others see the way to build their own online shop; therefore once I get my feet more or less on the ground with this, I could help others out of financial hopelessness. That's so exciting to me!


The icing on the cake? I even have a name for my business now, and I didn't strain my brain to find it; it was in my head when I woke up. I'm not telling what it is until the business is unveiled. But I'm excited. I tried finding a website with it online. There wasn't one; chances are it's available. Is God not amazing? Yes, we knew that!

Psalm 16:7 I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.

Improving on Graciousness

I find that blogging is one outlet that helps me analyze puzzles and come to conclusions. When telling my daughter so, she said she does so too. This is one of those blogs for me; I'm trying to become better equipped against the challenges that today's sermon provided.
Today at church the sermon was about God's grace to us; then in the second service, during which we have prayer time and discuss the book, Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy, we read the chapter that covered God's grace to us. One very sweet man acknowledged a time, humorous in retrospect, that he found his patience tried, struggled against the impulse to take revenge (that was the funny part), and learned another picture of God's grace in the process...and all the while I was thinking how creative we are in thinking up ungracious responses. I said so; even while I said it, I could feel a deep blush rising up from my neck to my face as I recalled in my mind many instances lately where I had been so creative.
That very creativity is sneaky and entangles me in my unguarded moments. Because the scenario is new every time, at times trivial and at times monumental, and because my heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9), I can easily trick myself into thinking that ungraciousness is the right response. In fact, it can take another person to point those things out to me, so strongly deceived I can be. Sometimes the magnitude of it, though it is sin all the time, can be so lacking, so trivial, that it must be for God dealing with me as with a two-year-old. If I were able to have it all pointed out, if I could write a book on it and review all the different ways I had allowed myself to be ungracious, had tricked myself into thinking I was right when in fact I was wrong, I think reviewing it would hardly help me; I would still be challenged by such new and different scenarios so frequently and justify my evil responses stunningly. This is where my cleverness is most excellent and needs stunting.
How do I train myself against such a tendency? I hate to think how long I've been a Christian, and how I still need to ponder, analyze, and review the right means to avoid falling into this trap, become more armed and clever against my own sinfulness. How do I become more gracious in responding to others?
The opportunity to share God's grace is certainly often bound up in a spiritual battle. This battle can make or break my Christian testimony in how I live out my faith toward unbelievers that surround me, so it is vital that I learn how to be more gracious. Ephesians 6 is the first thing that comes to my mind--to put on the full armor of God, praying for God's help before the specific need arises, before the battle begins, and to remember that I do not wage war as the world does, but that my weapons are the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, and prayer. Also 1 Corinthians 10:13, about avoiding temptation--that God will provide a way out--is another, but I have to realize it's temptation I'm facing (even the temptation to rely on my own strength) and be quick-witted enough to pray for God's help in order to apply it. I find that occasions where I am least gracious are those that happen quickly and least prayerfully. Those times when I "rush in where angels fear to tread" are doubtless my most unguarded occasions. I need to remind myself of where I would be without God's grace to me, without His salvation, if I were still stuck in the wretched bondage to sin--then I could look at others through His eyes, see their incapacity and have mercy. In these things I need to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)--not forgetting that I was not saved because of my own righteousness, but by God's grace.
Since these weapons that God has provided have the power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor. 10:4), I am foolish not to use them; I cannot win a spiritual battle without them, and will waste too many opportunities to share His gospel of peace.

Protection can be a Judgment Call

Today's sermon brought our pastor to mention that we as parents have to be willing at times to not over-protect our children. One of the parents later asked the pastor to what that looked like. The pastor asked people to share what they do in terms of that, and I had a few things to share regarding our own children. While I will not apologize for raising my children in a more protective environment than most parents I know, because I feel that for them it has been more beneficial and suitable, there are circumstances and times that seem God-given to expose them to the world's ways and allow them to impact the world if they might, or be impacted for the sake of learning and prayer and discussion at home.
It's strange how at our previous church we were considered over-protective, whereas at this church I suppose we may seem less-protective, maybe even the most liberal family in the church in the things we have allowed Katie to experience. I'm not sure which position makes me most uncomfortable! Still, we don't live to please people at any church but to please God. He is the One who has given us all these opportunities and He is the One who entrusted these children to us and to Whom we entrust them in return.
I know though that while they were little, I would not have been able to foresee us allowing Katie to take part in so many of the opportunities that have molded her life thus far. There are a number of them that would have frightened me a great deal if they had come her way before we were ready, before she was old enough, and I'm sure I would have said that I would "never allow" any number of them.
First of all, with Katie, the youngest exposure I can remember for her to a fairly large variety of unsaved people (other than relatives) was enrolling her in a secular co-op preschool. I was new to Christ, and I don't remember expecting it to be inappropriate or risky, though it was sometimes offensive. I had an advantage in that I was there with her. We did end up sometimes running into conflict with the other mothers. I remember one boy wanting to hit another, and when I would restrain him, one of the mothers was indignant that I was inhibiting his self-expression. For the most part, though, I think it was a positive experience and I remember having some interesting discussions with other moms, such as regarding where Adam and Eve's boys got their wives.
Also of course, we've always had issues regarding exposure to unsaved relatives. Interestingly, most of them severely curtailed social interaction with us when salvation entered our household, so that exposure was limited to say the least (for which I am somewhat grateful, to tell the truth). Nevertheless, Katie's concern for her unsaved grandfather was highly instrumental in his coming to Christ a week before he died--and he had been a pastor of six churches in his life. He's the only relative who has come to Christ yet. She was only about 12 when he died.
Katie didn't play with many unsaved children; being homeschooled made that easy, and living in a strange old neighborhood where substance abuse and witchcraft abounded, made that vitally important.
We allowed Katie to go to the Snow Retreat into the Cascades and on College Preview Weekends down to the Master's College in Santa Clarita, California. I remember one very protective mother asking whether the girls' dorms were separate from the boys' dorms at the Snow Retreat. That was of course a given--and her daughter was probably the most trustworthy one in the group to send on such an outing. The consideration I recall coming to mind is, "Do you trust God with your child?" and then, "Do you trust your child?" and then, "Do you trust the leaders of the church with whom your child is going?" Perhaps you don't trust the boys, at least not the whole group--but I've been to one of those retreats, and there's really hardly any chance anything would happen, especially when the interest would be one-sided. Katie also was in the realm of the trustworthy. There really were no boys in the entire group whom she found even slightly interesting in any romantic sense, and in response they found her quite boring in that regard as well.
When Katie was 16 she had the opportunity to be a Senate Page. She stayed down in Olympia at Senate Page housing that was made available. I had signed her up to be in a house with all girls, but she got reassigned to a house with some girls and some boys. We assumed that she would be amongst a good amount of conservatives, if not Christians, but it was not the case...the vast majority were liberal kids with very unholy ways of living. I was a bit alarmed at her house assignment, but we prayed about it, and it turned out to be a good and safe exposure for Katie to what she would have experienced in public school, and what the world she was going to meet in adulthood would be like.
When Katie's cousin Kristin (who is about 8 years older than Katie) was 16, she went over to Germany for a year to stay with a family that her family did not know. I remember saying, "Can you imagine? I cannot imagine sending my daughter all the way to Germany at age 16." (I do believe I said "to stay with a family we've never met." Still...) When Katie was 16, what do you think happened? The youth ministry was planning a three-week missions trip to Germany. At least we had met the family she would be staying with, and they had a strong Christian testimony. We signed her up to go with a team of leaders and--this sounds shocking but really wasn't, for the same reasons as described regarding the snow retreat, above--five teen boys. She was 16, and she was going to Germany to distribute invitations to the Bibelgemeinde there, a small Christian church in Berlin. It was a great experience. Something happened to her world view, her picture of the global Church, and she changed from being something of a theoretical Christian to one who had experienced a big picture of it, and her understanding was more clearly defined. She seemed more real after that. If we had decided not to let her go, it would have left an integral part of her learning and spiritual growth unfinished. We couldn't have taught her at home what she learned and experienced on that trip.
She has since worked at Safeway, at Let's Dish (a "Dinners Ready" kind of place), at Lavender Hills Farm, and at Red Robin, and attended Everett Community College--many of these environments are replete with non-Christians who at the very least gossip and backbite and compete, and at the worst have foul mouths and speak of their foul lives with no shame. And a great many of them rarely see a Christian and know very little about Christianity in general or Christ in specific. Katie had many opportunities to share various aspects of her faith; if not intentionally then unintentionally. Without asking, they knew that she would not be interested in their nightly drinking parties, and one was very amused and went on at great length about it when she thought Katie had used a swear word--only to find out that she hadn't. In her speech class, Katie gave one speech on the Resurrection, and another speech (she had two minutes from being given the topic for preparation, and another two minutes for the speech) on her stand regarding premarital sex. Wow. She asked if she could use an outside source, and when the professor said, "If you can find one in 2 minutes," she pulled out her Bible. Her speeches were well-received, though it seemed they didn't convince anyone.
Tim is another, different consideration. We now live in a mostly unsaved and amoral but comparatively safe neighborhood of unsupervised and unkind children. I know this sounds contradictory, but it describes it to an extent. I feel safe allowing Tim to go out and play as long as he doesn't go into anyone's garage or house or back yard, or the park that we can't see from our house. He has told the Hindu and Sikh girls about Jesus, and they now consider him racist because he has the gall to consider Christ better than their many gods. If they were to consider the whole story, they would have to recall that when no one else in the neighborhood would come to their birthday parties or invite them out to birthday parties, Tim would. There were many ways that we tried to help their families out and participate with them, but they have turned on him. Now it's not much fun for him to go out there, so he stays home or plays with friends from church, when we can drive him there or bring them here. When it was possible, he's taken opportunities to be kind when mistreated, and the kids are aware also that he doesn't swear, as they do.
I am excited to recall the opportunities that Katie had to see and experience things, to be a witness, to become girded in her faith for the future as the time unfolded. Now Tim is reaching an age where that will be my anticipation as well. There may be times where we protect him more or less than we did Katie, depending on prayer impact, his character, the circumstances and the timing. I am eager to see what God provides in his life.