Monday, August 29, 2011

Process of Letting Go


As a Mother a Large part of my job is a process of letting go. I have to constantly remind myself that I am raising a Man and a Women who one day God willing will be someones Husband and Wife, A future Father and Mother. They are not mine to keep they are mine to teach. It is my job as their Mother to give them all the skills they will need to be the best Christians, spouses, parents and friends they can be. To know that when times get hard (and they will) and they fall short they are still loved not just by me but by God. To help them learn from the earliest age what being grown Godly Men and Women looks like now and help them grow in those things over time.

For sure it is a tall order. It's a lot to think of your tiny baby you have carried within your own body for 9 months as some day leaving you to start their own family and lead the lives God has etched out for them, not the one you may envision. That's why our loving heavenly father allows us to let go in baby steps. From birth to nursing were you still have that sweet closeness. Then those first steps were they are off exploring independently from you but still needing you so much. You begin to leave them for hours and then maybe even overnight. Then they are off to school. They learn to drive, begin to date and one day God willing marry. As well as a million other little steps along the way. Little opportunities for both you and them to learn the art of letting go.

I constantly try to remind myself to parent with the end in mind. To parent in a way that I will be able to whole heartily rejoce in my children's steps they make to become independent of me and dependent on Christ. To prepare them as best I can for each step along the way. To rejoice when they get there that they are ready and prepared. To rejoice when one day they have their own families and I go from being their world to ranking behind their relationship with God, their spouse and their own children. That on that day I won't lament at this but I will reach that place in life with resounding joy. That I have raised them to know what is most important in life. Also to know that God will graciously fill in the gaps when I fall short and that I will have taught them rely on him.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Our Checklist Security Blanket


I constantly am amazed to see people who are far from God drawn near to him by the power of the holy Spirit. I am saddened though to think of how many people go to church and still do not know God. They walk their "Christian" walk by living a check list. As long as they are doing the right things they think they are okay.Try harder do more, add more things to your ever growing check list. The saddest part is that we cling to a check list like a security blanket and freak out if someone tries to free us from it. We cling to the very thing that keeps us in bondage and Christ has already freed us from. Or we fool ourselves into thinking they we are just not that bad in comparison to others. As long as we can find someone doing a worse job or living a more sinful life the balance is in our favor and we are okay.

How many will attend church every Sunday and never taste the sweet freedom and joy of God's grace to us. Their is nothing they can earn.‎"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Corinthians 5:21 Jesus did what we could never do. He lived the perfect life because we could not. God asks for our faith not our works because works alone can not save us."yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified." Galatians 2:16 We are justified by what Christ has accomplished for us and out of our deep love and gratitude to him we serve God and love others. Otherwise are we not just like the pharisees who did all the right things out of their self righteousness.