Our Broken Meat Grinder--and the Rigorous Exercise of Discernment

Recently Jonathan and I repaired a broken church window in Denver on our way to that cabin remodel estimate I wrote about a few posts back.

Here he is getting the new window carefully out of his truck. 

I helped Jonathan by holding a big piece of plastic underneath to catch the broken glass as he carefully poked at the outside layer of glass to dislodge it.

And then after he was done replacing it with a new pane, 

I helped pick up many little pieces of glass.

I asked Jonathan if he was used to doing this kind of repair, and he said he really hadn't done very many jobs like this.

Every place he works the job is just a little different--many tasks to figure out which he's really never done the exact same way before.

All through life, we are confronted with new tasks,

new twists, turns, angles, 

new sides to stories, 

new twists on an old problem,

and we have to exercise our God-given judgment to decide what we ought to do 

and how we ought to do it.

Unfortunately, too often, there are those who not only fail to discern properly,

that is, according to God's Word and godly principles--

but they don't exercise any discernment at all. 

They just do what feels good to them or what somebody convinces them is okay.

Often they listen to someone else's proposal that sounds good, feels good, looks good or tastes good,

and they fall for it. 

Especially if it is made to look spiritual enough,

or like what would be the "loving" thing to do.

It's so easy to just go with the flow,

float along the current,

do what "everybody" else is doing,

and vote yes just to keep the peace,

or to keep from being the speckled egg or the stick in the mud or the die-hard.

We fail to simply say, "Wait a minute.

What does God's Word say?

How about we take some time to pray about this and look at the long term effects 

before we just make a hasty decision or drop a careless vote?"

It takes experience to achieve maturity,

and it takes exercise and practice  to gain good discernment 

and to become strong not only in body but in spirit and mind.

The other day, our meat meat grinder that Jonathan had spent $80 for,

broke after grinding only about 20 pounds of  sausage.

The plastic gears overheated and broke irrepairably.

I could not find replacement parts online and we had to toss the whole grinder in the trash.

All because of cheap plastic parts that could not hold up to the heat.

Thankfully we were able to borrow another grinder from friends.

This one has all steel parts and it grinds and grinds and grinds

and grinds and grinds.

Steadily and surely, this strong, steel grinder churns out pound after pound of sausage, 

and tonight again, hopefully, it will be churning out pound after pound of homegrown ground beef.

I was reading in an article the other day about how the people of Hebrews, to whom Paul wrote,

needed "reminding that spiritual maturity is gained through the constant practice of discernment."

As a Mom, I need discernment every day as I raise my children.

Two days ago, my little daughter refused to come eat breakfast so she would not have to help with dishes.
It took me a few moments to exercise discernment.

Instead of cracking down on her, I chose to simply permitted her to do what she wanted to do--
but suffer the consequences. 

So she was allowed to play in her room, and she did not have to rinse dishes for Mommy, but she had no breakfast either.

At lunchtime, this is what Mommy set out for little daughter to eat.

To her horrified expression, Mommy replied that it would take dishes to cook the rice or the oats, and that this is about all that could be found to eat without being cooked!

(She hates tomatoes!)

For a few moments, little daughter took off quite indignantly, hiding behind a door and wiping tears from her eyes.
This was not easy for Mommy.
I do not enjoy the pain of watching my young children suffer through learning their lessons. 

I explained that as soon as she would come and do her job of clearing the dish drainer, 

she could have all the nice food that the rest of us were having for lunch.

It only took about three minutes, and little Miss Muffet was rather frantically putting away dishes and enjoyed a nice lunch with the rest of us--

with no one rubbing anything in.  

And she has been doing dishes ever since!

I could have taken the easy way out and decided it was too hard to make her do what was best for her,
and just do the dishes myself and let her have a snack later.
No.
That was not best for her, me, or anyone down the road. 
The author I referred to above wrote, "We too are in a spiritual war and under constant assault. God is calling us to spiritual maturity through our difficult, confusing, sometimes exasperating individual, family, and church situations (as well as our national ones). We are not to begrudge them. There is more mercy in them than we see, for they force us by constant practice to ransack the written word of God, get it in our hearts (Psalm 119:11), and grow in prayerfulness (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and in discernment.

There are far bigger things at stake in our becoming discerning people than the coming election. The United States, and every other nation, is just a drop in the bucket in the eyes of God (Isaiah 40:15). God’s primary concern is his holy nation, the church of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9).

"The main thing happening around the world is not in news headlines, but what is happening in and through the church. What history is all about is the coming of Christ, his work of redemption, the spread of his gospel, and the ingathering of all his people from all the peoples into his church (Matthew 24:14; 28:19–20) — something the gates of hell will not withstand, much less human governments (Matthew 16:18). The more discerning we are, the greater benefit we bring to the church of God.

"That means there is great mercy for us and others, for our local churches and the global church, in God doing whatever it takes to make us more spiritually mature and discerning men and women. The fruit of our suffering and wrestling is never only for us, but also for the good of our brothers and sisters.

Whatever It Takes!

God has many purposes in the American presidential election. He is so powerful, so brilliant, and so complex in his providential weaving of history that it may be entirely possible for discerning Christians to vote differently in good conscience and yet all be serving the mysterious layers of God’s perfect will.

God knows how to tear down the proud (Proverbs 15:25), humiliate the devil and his angels (Colossians 2:15), and keep his saints walking by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). And he often orchestrates events in such a way that no one fully sees his stunning victory coming, until it bursts upon us like a thief in the night. God will reveal to us all someday how all the raging of the nations served to do what his hand and his plan had predestined to take place (Acts 4:25–28).

Let us not try and trace all the threads of his glorious providential tapestry.

 "Instead, let us pursue spiritual maturity by making this our prayer:

Whatever it takes, Lord, increase my ability to discern good from evil through the rigorous exercise of constant practice."

taken from http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/lord-help-me-know-right-from-wrong

One Gynormous Turnip--and How Do You Vote for a Turnip?

This picture hardly does justice to this gynormous turnip we have in our little garden.

Rose was eating another turnip the other day, fresh from our garden,

with salt on it.

Mmmm. she was saying, offering a piece to me.

Turnip is better with salt on it.

And when all you have to vote for in this next election is a Mr. Turnip,

remember that God wants us to be salt.
Sam was watching the presidential candidates debate Monday evening, and some of us joined him watching online part of the time. 

If we feel confused that we cannot vote our conscience, (i.e. vote for someone whom our conscience approves of in every way)

we ought to at least vote in a way that our conscience approves of our action--

action taken with the glory of God and the best interests of our nation and our families in mind.

This may require discernment and hard work,

principle rather than preference.

 That is somewhat the jist of a very good article I came across a few days ago at the following link:

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/you-cannot-vote-your-conscience

Here are some of the best parts of it that I'm copying and pasting, and
these thoughts are good for other matters as well, such as times when there are issues that you have little or no control over in your home, school, church, or community.
In the intricacies of life,
and insofar as our religious beliefs have a role,
we will have to exercise our senses in discernment,
something I hope to write about in my next post.

No Excuses for Bad Decisions

"The distinction between conscience-as-guide and conscience-as-reporter becomes massively significant when we apply it to elections and other important decisions.

For one, understanding your conscience as a guide — as a kind of third-party counsel, other than your own heart and mind — can aid the effort to excuse oneself from moral accountability. It is an easy thing to play the conscience card: “I’m going to vote for Candidate X because my conscience told me to.” Well, who can argue with that? If your conscience told you so, no need for further thought or careful arguments.

In reality, what most people mean by “conscience” is “my gut feeling,” which is to say, the bottom level of a sometimes-sinful, sometimes-good, often-confused, sincere mess of emotions, opinions, and understandings of what’s right and wrong — not exactly a faithful guide. Thus, the conscience often becomes a moral scapegoat either for sinful choices, or for the sin of apathy, or for neglecting the hard work required to make tough decisions.

By pointing to the “conscience,” many expect to be let off the hook for their sinful or unexamined actions. But this is foolish, since what they really mean by conscience is not the unquestionable law of God, but the highly questionable human heart (Jeremiah 17:9). Essentially, this abused understanding of the conscience trades a deceptive excuse like “the devil made me do it” with “my conscience made me do it.” 

For Love of God and Neighbor

A proper, biblical understanding of the conscience should lead Christians in the opposite direction. Instead of washing our hands of the hard work of making difficult decisions, we should be eager to give voting its due diligence and offer up our leanings against the law of God for evaluation. The Christian’s conscience is tethered to God’s law. That means that the conscience always speaks to the summary of God’s law: love God and love your neighbor (Matthew 22:37–40), which is a helpful grid to consciously consider for any election: Which vote (or no vote) will be the truest expression of my love for God and desire for my neighbor’s good?

 In any given situation, your conscience — properly speaking — will not lead you. It’s not your guide. But it will evaluate your thoughts or actions based on whether they conform or transgress God’s command to love him and love your neighbor with all you are — heart, mind, soul, and strength. Your own God-given wisdom — your “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14) — will lead you to understand (and be accountable for) the best way to obey the obligations of love for God and neighbor by voting for this candidate or that (or whether to abstain, not from apathy, but from principle).

 What your conscience will do is convict you if you are voting out of sinful comfort or greed or fear. Or it will minister God’s approval if you act, as well as you’re able, in an effort to obey the command to honor him and love your neighbor.

When this is done — when your vote is a positive expression of a heart that is earnestly “desiring to act honorably in all things” (Hebrews 13:18) — you will receive the testimony of a good conscience. Make that your goal this election season: not to hear crickets, but to receive the peace that comes from “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5).

So, don’t vote your conscience. Rather, in whatever electoral choice you make — hidden to the world, but in the full sight of God — seek to love him and love your neighbor with a good conscience."

The Things That Matter

This Sunday afternoon after coming home and cleaning up our messes and washing the dishes,
I was hungry for God's Word--and something that would relate to what I was dealing with,
something that mattered.


Deeply disturbed about something that had happened earlier, I went out to the deck to read my Bible, doubting that John 4 would have anything to say to where I was at the moment--
but in fact, that chapter was richer than I ever experienced before in my life.

I had read the first part of the chapter another day, how Jesus sat down at Jacob's well to rest.
"being wearied with His journey, He sat thus on the well."
And we, being weary, sit as well, at times,
wondering,
pondering,
sometimes floundering.

But whether He meets us sitting at the well, or we come to Him with an empty water pot,
He will be sure to bring us right to the point of the things that matter.

Water was what mattered to the Samaritan woman,

and Christ used her need of water to offer her the exquisite gift of Living Water--

and more than that,

a Fountain of Water, Springing up into Everlasting Life!

The word pictures were profound.
Nothing sparse or poverty-stricken here!

His words flowed with abundance,
flowing,
gushing,
springing,
splashing,
everlasting.

And when she asked for that Living Water,
Christ again confronted her with something that mattered--
her sin.

He could not give her that Fountain of Springing Water

with the sin in her life.

And so He confronts us today with what matters--our sin

and His righteousness.

Our mess and His salvation.

All at the same time, commentary Matthew Henry notes,
the woman both denies and confesses her sin.
Christ graciously and tactfully puts the best construction on what she said,
taking her denial as confession!

And then He brings her religious question around to not where  we are to worship,

which doesn't matter,

but how--which does matter.

We are to worship not only in spirit,

but in truth.

We cannot worship God while living a lie,
believing a lie, or swallowing something that is not in truth.
We cannot base our lives and worship on the winds of people's opinions
or strange winds of doctrines.

We do not test the spirits by what someone's father did,
or someone's mother said,
but on God's holy word.

When the disciples, who had gone shopping at some country general store, came back to Christ and urged Him to eat, His response was that His meat was to do His Father's will.

Those words stuck with me:
"My Father's will."

When our Father's will means more to us than our food and drink,
we have caught on to the things that matter:

our Father's will,
our Savior's Word,
the Spirit's wisdom.

And when those are the things that matter the most to us
as we follow our Shepherd's way,
then through every busy day,

or every lonely night,

we can be assured that we may experience that Fountain of Springing Water,
and the comfort of
His Sheltering Wing. 

"When You Always Feel Like the Weird One"

I read a blog post recently titled, "When You Always Feel Like the Weird One."
Wonder why I clicked on that title?
The author was telling about a family reunion after which she had been bemoaning that she was always the weird one.
 

This sister was so good with the kids,

and that brother was so fun to be around,

and that in-law was an outstanding cook.

But her?

She was always the weird one!

She said she burst into tears telling her husband about it, and he (who had a degree in psychology or something like that) just laughed!

And he said, "Nobody is normal."

Everybody has been made unique by God.

You are unique.

I am unique.

What if the grape moaned because it was not a peach?

 And what if the peach moaned that it was not an apple?

About a week and a half ago, we picked grapes at one place,

and apples and peaches at another where a couple was so glad we showed up again like last year. 

The squirrels were knocking the apples down and then the deer got them!

They were so happy for our family to put the apples to use,

as well as the peaches.
And we were so happy for that wonderful fruit, all free!

These peaches were delicious!
No spray, just homegrown.

The children had so much fun picking, and I had fun watching my children have fun.
Here they are on the roof of a little shed, picking all they could reach.
Timmy is busy with an apple picker further into the tree.

Each of us may as well be content to be who we are, 

although we ought to be the best we can be.

And it certainly doesn't hurt us to learn new things and grow and improve and stretch and get out of our comfort zones.
Just because a grape is a grape doesn't mean it should be bitter or that it should not grow.
Just because a strawberry is a strawberry doesn't mean it's okay to be a rotten one and not ripen.

Just because an apple is an apple doesn't mean it can be a wormy one, or all shriveled up instead of sweet and nourishing and juicy and crisp and keep growing till it is as wonderful as it can be.
And just because you are a remodeler doesn't mean it's permissible to do a shoddy job.
Just because you are a mom that stays at home doesn't mean you can slop around and be lazy.
And just because you like to write or draw or work with music more than you like to cook or play around with little tykes or sew or quilt or teach doesn't mean you are weird.

"Whatever you are, be a good one," said Abraham Lincoln. 

So if all you are is the doorkeeper at the house of the Lord,

or the one responsible for putting in new doors,

or the one who paints the doors,

or the one who just slips inside the same doors hoping for restoration spiritually and emotionally,

be the best one you can be!
Whether you are emotional, or unemotional,
 unconventional or refined,
noisy or quiet,
funny or creative or serious,
be the best that you are
for the glory of Him Who called you to his purpose and grace.

(Here's a link to the article I mentioned above: http://www.christyfitzwater.com/family/if-you-always-feel-like-youre-the-weird-one/)