MY BLOG POSTS

People are messy. I don’t mean unhygienic or leaves-the-dishes-in-the-sink messy (though, yeah, there are those…). I’m talking personal messes, stuff that people do over and over again – hurting our feelings, frustrating us, driving us crazy – messes that we feel like we are constantly walking over or cleaning up or drowning in. Messes that make us wonder if the relationship is even worth all that work, all that clean-up, all that forgiveness.

So how do we deal with the messes people bring?

Before I answer that, let me show you a picture. My son, Thomas (age 10), was told to make his bed. About 30 seconds later, he announced that task was accomplished…

Yep – those lumps are the sheet and two blankets he sleeps under every night (I know we live in Florida, but Thomas can’t sleep without a fan in his face, causing him to freeze, thus requiring four layers). He just threw his comforter over the mess underneath and “done.” Back to the XBox.

My husband called me in to take this picture (“this would make for a great blog post,” he said), and laugh. Were we laughing at Thomas’ laziness or his rush-through-the-chore-so-I-can-play-Madden2013 attitude? No. We laughed because we love Thomas. We know him, we know where his areas of weakness are. We don’t think laziness is funny, and we don’t want Thomas to grow up thinking rushing through chores is acceptable, but even as we train him and teach him and discipline, we love him. He is ours.

But here’s the reality – I HATE that trait in others. When I interact with someone I didn’t give birth to who does this, I get angry! That student who wrote his essay the class before mine instead of taking it home and really working on it?? That is a huge pet peeve. And what about the coworker who leaves it to the rest of us to accomplish a “group” task? Annoying!!

But I am reminded of a couple things. 1) Things that annoy me about others are usually areas of “mess” in my own life: I can be quite lazy if a task doesn’t appeal to me. 2) God is constantly putting up with #1 and forgiving me, training, teaching, and disciplining me, all the while loving me unconditionally.

And God loves EVERYONE like that. Even the student who always procrastinates his work or the coworker who shirks her responsibilities. And what about the REALLY messy people? The ones who say terrible things about us, the ones who hurt us, the ones who hurt those we love? God loves them, too. They are his beloved children. God wants to help clean up their messes as much as he wants to help clean up ours.

So how do we deal with messy people? 1) Recognize we are one of them 2) Recognize God loves them as much as He loves us.

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19

“Why are my parents so overprotective?”

Teens I know (my own included) ask this all the time, with a roll of their eyes, arms folded across their chest. They are annoyed, frustrated, feel like their parents don’t trust them.

So why do parents today tend to “overprotect” their kids? Is is because we don’t trust you? We want to make your life miserable? We want to do all we can to make your teen years as dull as possible?

Believe it or not – no. None of the above.

Some of you reading this may babysit. When you do, are you careful with that child? Do you let her run around with scissors or hop up to the stove and fry up a burger? No way! you know you are responsible for her. And you know you won’t get paid – or asked to babysit again – if you’re irresponsible.

That’s how parents feel. But times a thousand. We are responsible before God for you. It’s scary! And we want to do a good job. Sometimes, we get carried away. Sometimes we drive you crazy. But it really is done out of love for you because you are precious and we don’t want anything bad to happen to you.

I know that when you’re a teenager, life sometimes seems to go in slow motion. But for your parents, it is in fast forward. Yesterday, you were a baby. A few hours ago, you were losing your first tooth. We know that, when we blink, you’ll be leaving for college. We want to hold on to you as long as we can because the 18 years we get with you are far too short.

So try to let the overprotectiveness be something that makes you smile instead of something that makes you cringe. We mean well. We really do.

Marriage has taken some pretty serious hits in the last few decades. With divorce rates rising and discontent rampant, I know many young people wonder if marriage is even worth the bother. Is it just an antiquated system that needs to be eliminated? Are we really designed to be “together forever?” Or should we date, live together as long as it is convenient, and move on? Wouldn’t that be easier on everyone?

The truth is one that we all see, even if we don’t all admit it: we crave “forever.” Look at romance movies and romance novels. What do we love about them? These stories are all about the “forever” love that overcomes obstacles, that brings two people together – through sometimes difficult, sometimes comical situations – and always ends with the “happily ever after.” Forever.

But here’s what many of those stories miss: love isn’t just a feeling. It isn’t something we “fall” into or “fall” out of. Love is patient, love is kind…the love God demonstrates and that Paul describes in I Corinthians 13 is the love that we should strive for. It is the love we crave because God has placed a desire for that love in us. And we will never be fully satisfied with anything less than the love God has for us. Single or married, the greatest love we will ever know is the love of God, demonstrated in Christ Jesus. Once we know that love, we are free to love the way we were created to love.

So my advice to those of you wondering about “forever”? You already have it. It has been given to you by our amazing God. And as for marriage? Make sure the guy/girl you choose knows that love and is committed to Him first and you second, committed to a “forever” love that will wade through the hard times and not give up.

Our school took grades 8-12 to see the “God’s Not Dead” movie on Friday. The film was terrific — GO SEE IT! (Pause while I get on my soapbox…The only way to encourage the production of more Christian films is to support the ones that are out. Don’t be cheap and wait until it comes out on Netflix! Save money somewhere else and spend it on a ticket THIS WEEK for this movie! Stepping off soapbox now…)

After the film, several of us teachers talked about our “God’s Not Dead” experiences – especially as it relates to college professors. So I thought I’d share my story with you:

It was my junior year of college, and I was taking a glorious amount of literature courses. While I loved getting to learn about great works from great teachers, I was getting tired of hearing EVERY professor say in EVERY course that the Bible, silly students, is just another work of literature and NO intelligent person would ever build their entire lives around its teachings.

One prof, in particular, made this argument repeatedly and passionately. He was in his 70s, brilliant, and claimed to have attended seminary as a young man. Having studied the Bible, he said, he knew it was full of contradictions and inaccuracies, and felt compelled to let us know that often. “Study it as a companion to great literature, even as great literature itself. But don’t follow its teachings.”

I have to admit – I didn’t have the strength of character the protagonist in “God’s Not Dead” has. Rather than standing up to this professor, I began to wonder if he was right. He, apparently, had spent a lifetime studying scriptures. I had attended a Bible college before going to USF, but that was just two years. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Bible is just a book. Maybe Christianity really is just a crutch for people who don’t want to face reality.

Like Thomas, I was doubting. Big time. So I prayed and asked God, if he was really there, to show me. Give me a sign, something. I knew my faith should have been stronger, but it wasn’t. I was struggling.

Not long after I prayed that prayer, I sat in class, listening to that prof discuss a biblical allusion found in a Faulkner novel. It was an allusion to the story of  David cutting a peice of fabric off Saul’s tunic while Saul was sleeping. I knew that story. I’d read it. As had he, apparently. Further comfirmation of how well he knew the scriptures.

“This story,” the professor said confidently, “can be found in the book of Second Daniel.”

Second Daniel.

There have been a few times in my life where I have felt the presence of God right next to me. This was one of them. It felt like a hug and a whisper in my ear that “I’m here. I’m real. This man has no idea what he is talking about.” If he doesn’t even know that Second Daniel isn’t in the Bible, he doesn’t know the Bible as well as he claimed. (The story is in I Samuel 24, btw.)

I walked out of that class feeling like a HUGE weight had been lifted, knowing that not only is God not dead, but he loves me and is incredibly gracious. I have served him without a doubt ever since.