Letting Down My Hair

Matthew 11:28 (ESV)
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Good morning Zebras,

I have always struggled with my hair.  It is too straight to really be curly and too curly to be straight.  It doesn’t seem to want to behave and I do not have the talent necessary to make it. My hair and I have lived in an uneasy truce for most of my life. 

A few years ago, when I was preparing for my first retreat, I decided that I needed to change my appearance to mirror the inner transformation of God.  God may look at the heart, but women look at clothes and hair.  So I lost weight, bought new clothes and went to a really expensive place to have my hair cut.

At first it was fun, sort of.  I was not raised with money and I find that people who have it can be very intimidating.  But the lady who cut my hair was really talented, so talented that she goes to Europe and styles hair for the runway models, so I kept going.

But slowly it started to get stressful. 

I was spending a ton of money on my hair and it wasn’t working anymore.  Try as I might I could not make my hair behave.  And I felt like a failure.  I dreaded getting my hair cut, because I felt like I was letting it down.

I could no longer live up to my hair.

That’s when God said “Trust me.”  Quit spending a fortune on your hair and trust me.  Go to the nice lady that I told you about and trust that it will be okay.  So I did.  And you know what, my hair looks fine. 

And then I realized that is how some people feel about God.  They feel like they can’t live up to His standards.  They feel like they are constantly letting Him down.  Instead of living a life of joy, they are living a life of stress.  And eventually they walk away.  Who wants to be around someone they can never please?

But that is not the heart of God that is the heart of man. 

God knows we will never live up to His perfection and He loves us. He does not want us feeling bad about ourselves and hiding from Him.  He wants us to bring our broken lives and pathetic attempts at perfection to Him so that He can make us whole and perfect in Christ. He wants us to relax and learn who He is.

He wants to give us rest-not stress.

Love,

Jill

Petty Heart

Good morning Zebras,

I have been having a rough morning this morning. I couldn’t get my mind focused on God because I was so frustrated about something someone did. What they did was wrong and I am really struggling with the fact that they got away with it.

I kept reciting verses from Psalm 37 in my head but it wasn’t helping.

Psalm 37:1-4
Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Take delight in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
I mean I know I am not supposed to worry when evil men succeed, and I know that God will bless me and keep me if I delight in Him, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling of “not right.” What they did was “not right” and they need to be punished.

Then my friend Max posted this on his Facebook page.
"The deepest revelation of our character is what we choose to dwell on in thought”
(Dallas Willard)

And God showed me I had a choice. I could continue to dwell on what this person had done which would show that I had a petty, unforgiving heart or I could dwell on God, who is perfect and holy and in control.

I decided to refocus on God.

The truth of the matter is what someone else does really is no concern of mine. God has forgiven me much worse plus it is His job to deal with them. And deal with them He will, just as He will deal with me when I am out of line. My only responsibility is to make sure that I am behaving in a way that is pleasing to God.

And focusing on what others did wrong and hoping that something awful will happen to them is not exactly fulfilling Christ’s command to love others.

So have a great day little Zebras looking up at our Father and remember- no matter what is going on-God is still in control!

Love,
Jill

Grateful, Deligent and Faithful

2 Timothy 1:6–7 (ESV)

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

Good morning Zebras,

This week I had the privilege of taking my daughter Katherine to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and dropping her off.  It was a wonderful experience.

On Wednesday night they had a dedication ceremony for the incoming class and the president of Moody gave a short welcoming speech.  During his speech he made three points.

First he said studying at Moody was a privilege.  For every person who got in, he reminded the students, there were two or three others who did not so the students needed to be grateful.

Second, studying at Moody was an opportunity.  Because of its location and single minded focus on ministry, the students have lots of opportunities to grow in not only their faith, but in their knowledge of ministry so they need to be diligent.  They only have four years and they were encouraged not to waste any of it.

And finally he said studying at Moody was a calling.  Students who come to this college are called there because they want to devote their lives to full-time ministry and they need to remember to be faithful to that calling, not to lose focus or get discouraged.

I thought it was a wonderful speech.  But I thought it also applied to every Christian not just Moody Bible Institute students.

First, knowing Christ is a privilege.  The Bible says that God revealed Himself to us.  It wasn’t anything we did.  We were lost sinners whose eyes and ears were closed to the truth until God chose to open them.  For that we need to be grateful.

Second, God has given each one of us an opportunity to glorify Him with our lives.  Unlike the Moody students, who only have four years to complete their task, we have our whole lives.  I, personally have wasted far too many of them.  But I can’t go backwards; I can only go forward, resolving not to live any more years, weeks, or days following the desires of world instead of the will of God.

And finally all of us are called by God to do something.  He has gifted each one of us with talents and abilities and He expects us to use them.  He wants us to be diligent in our pursuit of Him which includes working to understand His Word.  He wants us to be faithful to our calling and not forget the gift that He has given us.

Love,
Jill

The Cost of Obedience

John 12:26a (ESV)

If anyone serves me, he must follow me

Good morning Zebras,

Last time I shared with you that I had to stand by and watch God shut a door in my life.  Today I want to share a couple of the lessons I learned along the way.

First, obedience costs.  My decision to step down as commander affected more than just me.  It affected my family because we have served together in Awana for ten years and it affected the church. It’s not that they wanted to close Awana; they just didn’t have anyone who was called to step up and run it.  I know they would’ve been happy to let me continue on as commander.  But I couldn’t.

And because of that decision, sixty kids don’t have an Awana program to attend and our family had to find a new church home.  (As members of the Northern California-Northern Nevada Ministry Team it’s important we attend a church that offers Awana.)

We know our sin can affect others, but the truth of the matter is that our obedience can too.  But, like Abraham who left his home to follow God dragging his family along with him, we need to obey God and leave the results to Him.

The second thing I learned is that I wanted someone to be “wrong.” As I was watching the door on Awana slowly shut, I wanted it to be someone’s fault, but God graciously gave me a great story about a couple of birds to reassure me that wasn’t the case.

The cuckoo bird is a large bird and it lays its egg in an English sparrow’s nest and flies away.  The sparrow hatches the egg as if it is one of her own. When the egg hatches, the large cuckoo bird pushes the smaller sparrows out of the nest or starves them out by hogging up all the food.  The book said “You can always tell when there is a cuckoo bird in an English sparrow’s nest because the ground is littered with dead sparrows.”

What God showed me from that story is that neither of the birds is “wrong.” Each one is just doing what God has designed them to do. They just shouldn’t be doing it together.

And somehow that stupid story set me free.  I knew I was doing what God was calling me to do and I had to trust that everyone else was doing the same.  It was just time for us to go our separate ways.  Maybe the greatest thing we can do for the kingdom is to obey God and give others the freedom to do the same.

Love,

Jill

Closed Door

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV84)

However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”

Good morning Zebras,

Waiting on God is a completely underrated discipline.  We think of waiting as wasting time, but in reality it is giving God time to work.  We think we are so clever and necessary to God’s plans when the actual truth is we often get in His way.

Recently I have had the unpleasant experience of watching God shut a door in my life.  It wasn’t a quick slam; it was a slow, creaking closure that I think I could’ve prevented.  But God didn’t want me to.

He told me if I stuck my foot in the door to prevent it from closing, either my foot would get crushed or I would be trapped doing something that He no longer wanted me to do.

After much prayer, I officially resigned as commander of our church’s Awana program, and I prayed someone else would step up.  No one did. This Sunday my home church, of fourteen years, announced they wouldn’t be offering the Awana program for this school year.  And the door was shut.

Christians often say in these situations “When one door closes another opens” but that isn’t found in the Bible.  God does not promise an open door, He promises to make our paths straight, He promises knowledge and wisdom, and He promises never to leave us or forsake us.  He does not promise to immediately open another door.  Sometimes He does, but sometimes He wants you to sit in the room for a while and wait. 

But waiting is hard.  It is much easier to squeeze out the first open window we see rather than wait upon God’s revealed will.  Yet everyone who has waited on God has experienced the blessings that come from it.  

Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” And I think that’s too often true.

Like Lot’s wife we look back at what God has “taken” away instead of looking forward to what He has for us.

So have a great day little Zebras,waiting on God and looking forward with expectation to the blessings He has in store for you.

Love,

Jill

Major Changes

Galatians 5:22–26 (ESV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Good morning Zebras,

I hope you all are doing well.

I am having a repeat summer, and trying not to make the same mistakes.  Last summer I used the blog to vent some frustrations under the guise of teaching God’s Word.  What I’d said was true but it wasn’t kind or respectful and a few months later God had a small chat with me and I had to delete quite a few of my posts.

It was an unpleasant experience and one I don’t want to repeat, so this summer I am following the advice of Thumper…”If you can't say something nice... don't say nothin’ at all.” Of course that is found in the Bible as well.

James chapter three has a very disturbing discourse on the use of our tongues which starts with, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”  It goes on to call the tongue a fire, a restless evil that can set the course of our life, an untamable evil that is full of deadly poison with which we praise God but curse people who are made in His image.  But, James says IF you can learn to control your tongue, you can learn to control your whole body as well.

So that is what I have been doing, learning to control my tongue.  And what I have learned is the best way to control my tongue is to let Christ change my heart.

Out of anger, jealousy, and self-centeredness come unkind words and thoughts.  They are simply a symptom of an ugliness that lives inside.  And controlling the symptoms is never as good as curing the disease.

Acting patient is not the same as being patient, acting loving is not the same as being loving, and acting humble is not the same as being humble.  One takes a lot of work, the other takes Christ.  For only God can impart to us the gifts of the Spirit.  But if we act patient, loving and humble and pray for God to make us that way, He will.

To be honest, I’m not sure how it works.  I just know that it does. 

Love,

Jill

God's Training

1 Timothy 4:8 (NIV)

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.

Good morning Zebras,

Katherine, my daughter, is on her summer mission trip to South Korea, but before she could go to South Korea, she had to spend a week Washington where she and the other students who were going underwent some training.

Since I was at camp during her training week, I didn’t get to talk to her until I got home.  At that point she had a whole week’s worth of stories to tell me about what Youth Missions International had been doing to get them ready for their trip. After she finished with her “training” stories, she started sharing about what was going on with her.  Her own personal struggles completely unrelated to the training that YMI had developed.

Maybe it was because she was immersed in a training situation but as I listened to her I could tell the situations she was experiencing were also training.  They were God’s personal hand-picked training for Katherine.   Only God knows what Katherine needs to learn to be able to do the job He has called her to do.  And He was training her accordingly.

As I was talking to her a thought crossed my mind- “Maybe”, I thought, “that’s how we are supposed to look at all the situations in life.  As training from God”

A week later I watched Secretariat.

Secretariat is considered the greatest race horse ever.  He won the Triple Crown in 1973 and his time in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes are still the fastest on record.  But what caught my attention was the training Secretariat went through to win.

While the other horses were resting between races, or training at a leisurely pace, Secretariat’s trainers continued to train him hard.  According to the movie, people thought they were training him too hard, they thought that they were going to “ruin” the horse.  But they knew Secretariat loved to run so they let him run.

The last scene in the movie where Secretariat is flying down the track and heading for the finish line is inspirational.   He was obviously crafted by God to be a runner, but the hard training paid off and he won the last race by a record-shattering thirty-one lengths.

It was so spectacular for a minute it made me wish I was a horse.  But then I thought…no, I’d rather be a well-trained Zebra.

Love,

Jill