Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 30:1-32:52

“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:8

Well friends, I have a praise report to share with you today!

My son Gabe has been best friends with, we’ll call him “Phoenix”, since Kindergarten. The two of them have been inseparable since that first year. They were constantly visiting each other’s houses. Until one winter we got a call from Phoenix’s mom with some sad news. There was something in our house that Phoenix was allergic to. It seemed like every time he would come over he would have horribly bloodshot eyes and a headache. None of us, including his allergist, could figure it out but we assumed that perhaps it was the two cats. So since that day Phoenix hasn’t been able to come over to our house and play other than a few nights when we had big backyard parties for the last day of school. And even then he stayed outside.

Well, at the beginning of this summer Phoenix had a sleepover with their group of five friends and they all decided that they each should have a sleepover at some point during the summer so that they could all see each other at least five times while school was out. Yesterday was our turn for Gabe’s birthday. Watching those boys play was pure bliss. They were SO EXCITED to see each other, it’s been over a month, and they’re used to seeing each other every day. I can’t even come up with words to describe how good it was to watch their joy in relationship to each other. My Little Pony is right, Friendship is Magic! Anyway, concerned with Phoenix’s allergies as soon as we sent out the invitations Sean and I prayed that God would make it so that Phoenix could be here and that He would keep his allergies from flaring up. When we found out that he was actually coming I was floored and beyond excited. Best friends since Kindergarten are a very special thing not to be taken lightly. All evening last night Worry kept gripping my throat and causing me to once again pray for Phoenix’s lack of an allergic reaction. We’ve missed him so much over these last few years and I so wanted him to be able to come back. And every time I would start to pray, God would stop me cold in my tracks to the throne room with an, “I’ve got this covered. And you know it, so stop WORRYING.”

When I woke up to a THUD at 5:30am from across the house my first thought was of Phoenix, was he ok? I prayed. God stopped my worried refrain, “I’ve got this.”

Around 7am when Phoenix emerged groggy and silent from Gabe’s room Fear crept into my heart, “Is he ok? Will he get to come back?” I looked him in the eye and asked him if he felt alright, it wasn’t like him to be this quiet and I was scared. He nodded silently eyes half closed, “Yeah. I’m ok.” Deep breath girl, God’s got this remember. Whew.

A couple hours later Phoenix was whisked away by the mom taxi along with the other boys and I breathed a sigh of relief, we made it. But then I got the text from Phoenix’s mom:

“Great news!! Phoenix’s allergies are NOT bothering him after being inside with your fur babies!! Not sure what happened but I’m pretty excited!”

Feigning a confidence I had not had just a few hours earlier I replied, “We prayed! Simple as that.”

“Well it worked!”

Then I confessed to the enormity of the miracle, “He actually spent a lot of the night on Gabe’s top bunk which is Socks’ favorite place to be. I actually bought new sheets for Gabe yesterday to help Phoenix with his allergies and Gabe never even put them on!”

But his mom wasn’t done filling me in on what God had done for us, “Awww. That was super sweet of you. The crazy thing is, Phoenix’s eyes aren’t even bloodshot (the standard). Did you use to have a different type of pet way back when? The Dr still never figured out what he’s allergic to so I’m very interested.”

And that’s just it we haven’t really changed anything; not detergents, not brands of cat litter or their food. In fact, we ADDED a pet dog! But we did the one thing that really makes the difference, we prayed and He answered. God has said to us, “Do not be afraid or discouraged (or worried) for the LORD will PERSONALLY go ahead of you. He will be with you, He will neither fail you nor abandon you.” He loves you that much my friend. If only we would trust Him that much. (Yes, this is the pot telling the kettle not to worry.) 😉 From one worry wart to another, my friend, don’t be afraid; He’s got this.

Deuteronomy 28:1-29:29

“The LORD our God has secrets known to no one.” Deuteronomy 29:29

You know what? I have a secret. You’re never going to guess what it is.

*whispered aside* “I have dirty dishes.”

Shocking. I know. But it’s true!

Tonight is Gabe’s second birthday party, a sleepover with his four best friends, I don’t know what I was thinking! As I was racing home from work tonight to try and do a *little* more cleaning before they all got here, I was more compelled to clean my desk than the sink FULL of dishes. Which I found interesting, but since my desk is right in front of the front door I supposed it made sense because the other mom’s most likely wouldn’t be coming all the way into the house, but rather just standing in the entry way. But then later, as I was cleaning up that sink full of dishes after dinner so that I would have room to make breakfast in the morning, a thought occurred to me.

“Why don’t we want other moms to see our dirty dishes (or desks for that matter)?” I mean, it’s not like they don’t have them too. Or that they assume that you don’t since you never actually USE those things right? (That’s sarcasm by the way.) We don’t want those other moms to see our messes. Why? Do we feel like those messes will make them think we’re a substandard mom? I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly had those thoughts before! Tonight being one of them!

As I stood scrubbing the mold from the Rubbermaid lid pondering the mortally shameful consequences of getting caught with dirty dishes, a revelation of monumental proportions came to me. If I’m defining my quality of mothering by the cleanliness of my house, or the number of loads of laundry I get done in a day, or the cuisine that I’m serving my children, then what kind of a mother will I be when I am no longer able to do those things? Take a moment to read that sentence again and again until you can feel the Truth of that statement lifting something unnecessary from your shoulders.

Sometimes I get so focused on the temporal I forget the importance of the eternal. Dirt is temporal, memories are eternal. When my children leave this nest if I’ve defined my mothering by the temporal tasks alone, then I’ll suddenly find myself a mother no longer! And yet NOTHING could be further from the Truth! There is so much MORE to mothering than cleaning and laundry and cooking!

Mothering is LOVING!!! And that NEVER ends!

It never goes away and it never stops.

There was a funeral I attended once where every single person that stood up to talk spoke of how much of how important cleanliness was to their mom. They said a few other things, but mostly, they told stories of how they got in trouble for making messes. That’s just not what I want my kids to remember about me when I’m gone. There will come a day when I leave this earth and my children will gather in my memory and reminisce about me. And when they do, what do I want them to say? “Boy, Mom sure could keep a good house!” “Mom was so good at keeping our clothes clean and organized.” Or “Gosh Mom was such a great cook!” No. Not me.

I want them to remember the way that I held them when they were sad. I want them to remember how I sang while I cooked dinner, and perhaps burned it on more than one occasion to the point of setting the smoke alarms off. I want them to remember how I watched their favorite shows with them and how I played cards with them until bed time while the dinner dishes sat in the sink waiting until we were done. I want them to remember dancing with me in the kitchen to our favorite songs. I want them to remember how I hugged them so tightly at night that we joked that their heads were going to pop off. And then I said, “I love you” with all the emotion and sincerity that those simple words could possibly muster. I want them to remember how I showed up to every recital and play and program, even if I *might* have forgotten about it right up to the very last second; but I was there. I want them to remember how I sat there on the sidelines at the tennis court season after season cheering them on, just for hitting the ball back across the net; even if it didn’t go into the right box on the court.

No. I’m not the perfect mom. I don’t have a perfect house, or a perfect yard. Our laundry is NEVER done and neither are my dishes. But you know what, that’s OK. Because while those things may not be getting done all the way all the time, my kids KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that I love them and that I will always be there for them if it is in my power to do so. I think that’s a mothering definition that will far outlast me. Don’t you think so?

Deuteronomy 6:16-10:11

“You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars.” Deuteronomy 7:5

“So I took the stone tablets and threw them to the ground, smashing them before your eyes.” Deuteronomy 9:17

I spent several hours yesterday hanging pictures on our living room wall behind our entertainment center. This is a project that I’ve been working on for weeks. There are quite a few frames and I’m dealing with a slant in the ceiling and Sean and I are both pretty particular about things being LEVEL and looking nice so it’s been a challenge. Every time I attempt to hang these poor pictures something comes up. I’ll have them all laid out on the living room floor, sorted and organized and then I’d run out of time and have to pick them all back up where they would sit on the dining room table for two weeks (or more) until I had time to mess with them again. But by then, whatever order I had them in before has been forgotten and so I’d have to start all over again. Except then I would realize that I don’t have enough 3M picture Velcro to hang them all, so they would again get stacked up and put on the table to wait. So this week has been set aside as the week where I do all that stuff that’s been sitting around waiting for me to get it done. I painted the laundry room, got the fish tank moved out, put all the china back in the hutch and off my desk, so yesterday was all about hanging those blasted pictures that I’d been working on for months now without getting them actually ON the wall! I knew I had enough Velcro, it was just a matter of organizing them and hanging them.

It took me hours of, sorting, measuring, doing math in order to make sure that everything was lined up and level, and then FINALLY hanging them. But I didn’t even have half of them hung before they started falling! I don’t know if it was the high humidity in our house from all the wet clothes hanging everywhere, or the type of paint we used on the wall, some wacky combination of the two, or even just some little demon going up there and plucking them off the wall but at this point I’ve had five or six of them fall, three of them breaking the glass! One fell last night while I was writing Stay on the Path and the sound of the glass breaking was different than the other two. This time the glass didn’t just break it shattered! I could hear the tinkling of all the glass as Sean swept up the pieces. The interesting part is that it shattered just as I typed the word “push-over”.

“But a big part of that may be the fact that I’m kind of a push-over when it comes to people asking me to do things. I’m working on that, slowly but surely. The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem right?”

Last fall God told me that I needed to grow a backbone, and I’ve been working on it. But lately He’s really been pushing and stretching me in that area. It’s hard for me to tell people “no”. I hate to feel like I’ve let someone down, maybe because it proves to me how less than perfect I really am. But I had quite the wakeup call last week in the car when a story about fear came on the radio and my nearly twelve year old son piped up from the back seat that his biggest fear is disappointing people. I wanted to crawl back there with him and squeeze his little heart! I said, “Gabe, you’re human buddy, you’re GOING to disappoint a lot of people in your life. And you know what, that’s OK.” The most frustrating part for me is, I know he picked that up from me. L

When Gabe was born I was terrified of dentists. Just walking into a dentist’s office made me shake like a leaf and want to throw up. I prayed and prayed and prayed that my kids wouldn’t be afraid of dentists like I was. Then a couple years ago Gabe ran into a pole at recess and knocked his two front (permanent) teeth out, forcing us to go to a dentist. (You can read more about that here and here.) I was actually pretty ok until he was back with the dentist getting his teeth reformed and I was in this little private waiting room and my cell phone died and I had no one to talk to. That’s when I started to freak out. I started praying, begging, that Gabe wouldn’t be afraid of dentists like I was. Then Holy Spirit piped up, “Gabe will NEVER be afraid of dentists like you are. Right now it’s the dentist who is saving the day (and his teeth).” In that very moment I decided that I would never be afraid of dentists either. I had no logical reason to fear them in the first place. I had no real traumatic event to tie the fear to; it was just there – lingering in the shadows of my mind poking me with sticks. It was in that moment that I decided to kick that fear out of my life and my mind. And I said out loud, “I am no longer afraid of dentists.” A couple months later I actually made my own appointment, the first in probably seven years. I went and while I was a little nervous, I wasn’t afraid and I certainly wasn’t terrified. God’s perfect love had cast out my fear.

Today I read the next section of Beth Moore’s So Long, Insecurity You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us. This section was more stories of people who have allowed Insecurity to make a fool of them. Waaay too many of these stories were all too familiar to me. And I’ve been sitting here thinking back, trying to trace the origin of my Insecurity. Beth says, on page 135*, that “Lying has a titanic link to insecurity”. When I was in elementary school I remember lying to my friends and making up stories just to get them to like me more. Praise God I don’t do that anymore, but still, elementary school!!! That’s the oldest memory I have of my insecurity getting the best of me. How sad is that? I’ve lived this life in fear of people rejecting me and for what? I’ve bent and changed who I was in order to get people to like me more. Why??? It’s like I said the other day, if I have to change who I am in order to get someone to be friends with me then they’re not really being friends with ME are they?

I feel like I’ve made a “break”through this morning in boiling Insecurity down to one thing: Fear. Yes, it has many other branches with their tentacles wrapped tightly around us, but at the tip of the root – sitting in the driver’s seat of Insecurity you’ll find Fear holding the wheel and making demands. It’s Fear that speaks those words of Doubt and self-condemnation into our ears. And it’s high time we kicked him out of the driver’s seat and let Jesus take the wheel! We know that according to 1 John 4:18 “there is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” That last phrase “he who fears has not been made perfect in love” used to really freak me out. “Does it mean that if I’m afraid then I haven’t been made perfect yet? Which won’t happen until I’m dead, which means that I’ll never live without fear!” Then I studied it a little deeper and meditated on it and God clarified things right up. That phrase “made perfect” in the Greek is the word “teleo” which is also the word Jesus used on the cross when He said, “it is finished!” Teleo is used when there is the sense of a cup being filled to the absolute brim so that it’s so full that if there was just one single drop more the cup would overflow. That’s the sense that we get with this verse too. If you’re afraid, then it’s because your love cup isn’t filled with God’s love for YOU. When I meditated on this verse God showed me a glass with a ping pong ball in the bottom. The glass was my heart, the ball was Fear. Then He began pouring His Living Water (the Word) into the glass. At half-full there was still plenty of room for the ping pong ball to be there inside my heart. However, when He kept pouring – and He poured to the point of overflowing and then some because His love is never ending, He never stops pouring it out – the ping pong ball floated to the top of the glass, out and off the table never to be seen or heard from again. God’s perfect love for you casts out Fear! No matter what that Fear is, no matter how deeply entrenched, God’s perfect Love has the ability and the willingness to cast it out of your life FOREVER!

My friend, Jesus loves YOU! And I pray that today you receive that Love so fully and completely that it causes your Fears to flee in Jesus’ name! He is SO GOOD to us! Receive that goodness with thanksgiving today, He is pouring out in an un-ebbing flow so get under that flow and soak in it awhile! Splash around and make a mess in God’s love for YOU today, get it on the people around you and liberate them from the Fears that hold them back. A “no” may be required somewhere in there, but that’s ok. If they get mad at you for telling them “No” because God told you to, then they’re the ones with the problem, not you.

So Long, Insecurity You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us! You’ve caused us to act contrary to our true self and we’re done doing that! From this point on we will be True to who God made us to be; victorious conquerors who live in the Truth that Jesus loves us enough to die for us. And if He’s willing to do that, then He definitely willing to do other things for us as well! Like bless us abundantly so that we can be a blessing to others!

In Jesus’ name!

Amen!

Deuteronomy 3:23-6:15

“So Moses told the people, ‘You must be careful to obey all the commands of the LORD your God, following His instructions in every detail. Stay on the path that the LORD your God has commanded you to follow. Then you will live long and prosperous lives in the land you are about to enter and occupy.'” Deuteronomy 5:32-33

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy as the LORD your God has commanded you.” Deuteronomy 5:12

These verses bring such comfort to me today. Mostly because they give me hope in looking forward to my own Sabbath! I’m exhausted from yet another day of heavy duty cleaning and laundry. From almost the very beginning of this writing career God has stressed to me the importance of REST. Rest was my third book; the second book that originated from the blog posts. It details my journey to learning the importance of rest for mothers and how they are so much better at functioning when they are well rested. Not to mention happier too! Over the years this is a topic that God has continued to stress. Occasionally He calls me to quiet my soul and come to Him for a Daddy-Daughter day on those Sabbaths, but usually it’s just me taking a day to sleep and rest my body and brain from the constant activity of a mother.

When I started working at Dollar General I told them that I could work, pretty much any day or time EXCEPT Fridays, they were off limits. And wouldn’t you know it, I was only there for a week or two before I was scheduled to close on a Friday. Siiigh… I called my husband to ask him what he thought I should do. Do I put my foot down and stand my ground, or do I let it slide – it was a closing shift after all. He said that I needed to stick to what I had originally told them, no Fridays. I’ve been there for almost three months now and Fridays are still supposed to be my days off, but I continually have to remind them of this. Now I’m not complaining mind you, but I am pointing out something that may not have occurred to you yet if you’ve attempted your own Sabbath rest. Satan will do ANYTHING to keep you from taking that Sabbath rest.

You may look at that and shake your head and say, “well of course he will”, but have you thought about the things that he might be using to keep you from taking that day of rest? I didn’t, not at first anyway. But the longer I went and the more serious I became about them, the harder it became to stick to my guns. There was always something being scheduled for a Friday, a birthday party, a funeral, a meeting, you name it! And usually they weren’t events that were easy to say, “no” to. Why? Because it was a test! What would I choose? The birthday party, or hanging out with God all day? There was one instance in particular that I don’t think I will ever forget. Our church secretary’s husband died suddenly and his funeral was on Friday. Thursday night I spent forever chopping potatoes and onions and cooking potato soup for the funeral dinner. All the while telling the other church ladies arranging the lunch that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it to the funeral or not.

Friday morning dawned and I was WRACKED with guilt. This was our church secretary! She does SO MUCH for all of us, and I was the women’s ministry director with no job outside my home, how could I NOT go??? She would be so offended! I mean, yeah it’s nice that you made the soup and sent it but how could you not also go to the funeral? What kind of cold heartless woman are you?

I can’t remember if it came from my husband or my pastor’s wife but someone told me to stay home and remain faithful to the LORD. Was it easy? NO WAY!!! But was it worth it? Absolutely! Did I get some strange looks from the other church ladies who did go? Yeah. In today’s culture, the whole concept of a Sabbath day of rest has become so foreign to us that most people don’t even know what it is, let alone how to have one. We’re all so goal oriented that we forge ahead despite the fatigue, charge up on caffeine and keep going even though our human bodies are screaming out for a break. (And we wonder why we get sick and feel like crud all the time.) Yet the principle of the Sabbath is the oldest and most long standing tradition known to mankind. It was the FIRST of all of God’s commands to humanity. Genesis 2:1-3 “So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when He rested from all His work of creation.”

All the rest of the commandments: do not have any Gods before Me, do not make any idols, don’t misuse My name, honor your father and mother, do not murder, do not commit adultery, don’t steal or lie, do not covet your neighbors possessions, all those came later; much later. But the Sabbath, it came right after Adam and Eve’s creation. While God’s week ended with rest, their week started with it. Are you starting to catch my drift here? The Sabbath is kind of a big deal. Not because the Law says so, or even because the Bible says so, but because your body was created with a Sabbath rest in mind. And when it doesn’t get that rest your entire person suffers for it. Will it be easy? No. Does it get easier with time, eeeehhhhh, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I’ve been doing this for about two and a half years so far and it’s still not easy. But a big part of that may be the fact that I’m kind of a push-over when it comes to people asking me to do things. I’m working on that, slowly but surely. The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem right?

Right now I’m pretty sure that there are some of you out there reading this that you are EXHAUSTED. I’d also wager to bet that God has been putting it on your heart lately to set aside one day of your week to rest and to seek Him once you’ve slept for as long as you could possibly sleep. I’d also go so far as to say that there is something that Satan is putting in your path to make you feel guilty for taking that step. Whether it’s your current commitments, your finances, you name it; there will ALWAYS be something that Satan is going to try to put between you and God. Trust me, I know! But I also know this, physical fatigue is one of the easiest ways for Satan to pull you down and it makes it so much easier for you to fall for his temptations. Again, trust me on this one, I know because I’ve been there!

Sweetie, you are not Super Woman. You weren’t created to be Super Woman, or even Bat Girl. You were created to be human with a body that needs its REST. And there is NO SUBSTITUTE for it either. No amount of energy drinks, or caffeine, or even exercise and health drinks can equally substitute for the benefits of a whole day OFF. Beloved the Sabbath was created for your benefit, take it. It may mean telling a few people, “no”, and that might be hard for you (it may not be) but it will be soooo good for you and you will be sooooo very glad that you did it. Trust me on this one!

Take a day to lay around in your PJs all day, wear the ones that you wouldn’t DARE to be seen wearing in public. That way if something comes up they’re a reminder that you’re not supposed to set one foot outside your door all day long – that’s 24 hours for anyone who needs to get legalistic about it. After you’ve slept until you can’t possibly sleep any longer, start praying, God will tell you what to do from there. It may be to get up and watch those recorded shows that you just haven’t been able to get around to lately. It may be to lay in bed and read that book that’s been eyeing you from the shelf. It may even be to simply lay there and just listen to the stillness and to wait for that small voice inside that guides us into all Truth. But no matter what you do, just the fact that you’ve dedicated that day to resting in order to honor God is keeping the Sabbath holy. (If you think about it, it’s actually a form of fasting! You’re fasting from WORK!) And He will honor YOU for having kept it.

I can’t even come close to explaining to you what it feels like at the end of that day of rest. You feel like a newer fresher version of yourself and it’s amazing! You should try it some time!

Maybe today! 😉