Originally posted in late December, 2008
Recessions are bad (obviously), and Christmas time usually stretches people's budgets almost to the breaking point (if not beyond), too. We're no exception. Yet, just as in other tight times, God has provided in little ways that are too awesome not to proclaim.
First was in the unexpiring milk. This milk is like that terminally ill patient that's waiting for something known only to them. It should've gone to the Dark Side days ago, yet it's still good. I definitely taste it before adding it to my cereal or oatmeal, and each day I'm surprised to find it still palatable.
Next is in the cheaper-than-expected car insurance bill. Our auto insurance premium is due this month (seems everything comes due in even-numbered months), and the usual payment is about $173.00. We were figuring a budget for the rest of the month, taking into account outstanding bills and remaining Christmas presents, and my husband asked me what we owed for car insurance and when it was due. I went online, noted the due date and had to look twice at the amount owed. It was $60.00 less than I was expecting! Woohoo! I think we had a $60.00 gap in there that God just covered for us.
Praise be to God and his wondrous provisions in all things, not just financial!!!
Monday, July 13, 2009
God at Work
Originally posted at Y360 in mid May, 2009
Maybe it's a leftover from my Divinity School days, but I'm used to spending my days in active and passive prayer. It's not just me sitting down in a quiet place to pray, but it's also me listening for God to speak, as well as me speaking to God throughout the day, perhaps just a sentence or two.
We are three weeks from closing on our first house - we hope! As we have gone through this process, I've lost sleep from stress - stressing about getting us packed, stressing about making the new home livable and our townhouse clean, stressing over the number crunching. Stress, stress, stress!!! Problem was, I wasn't getting enough sleep for one person, let alone two. I couldn't take it anymore and in a desperation borne of fatigue, I prayed, "God, I need sleep! Please take care of this for me."
Since patience is the one spiritual fruit tree that doesn't exactly thrive in my spiritual garden, I'm used to God making me wait for answers to prayers. Given that, I was prepared to wait this time as well. Instead, I should've prepared myself to hang on tight!
This has been a wild ride of God tending to one thing after another. The house we found is a foreclosure. Rebecca, our realtor, told me that we can expect a minimum of 72 hours before the seller gets back with us after we offer and, in fact, that the whole process could take a few months - just the nature of the beast. I started sweating it a little bit. After all, we don't exactly HAVE a few months before we should move, not with the baby due in August.
First, the price dropped by $10,000 in a week-and-a-half. Then the seller agreed to closing costs, almost unheard of when dealing with foreclosures. We agreed on a price that was $14,400 less than what we'd prequalified for. We figured out our closing date (my one mistake was not pushing it a bit later). Then we came to the nitty gritty - the inspection.
That happened last week. Rebecca and I were pleasantly surprised at how well the inspection went. He found a few things that'll need our attention, but nothing outrageously expensive. While we were at the house, we discovered that the appraiser would never sign off on a couple of the needed repairs; those would be deemed as making the house uninhabitable and would block the loan until they were fixed. Oh boy, what a fix that'd put us in! If we didn't get them fixed, then we wouldn't get the loan which means no house. However, if we were to have them fixed and the closing somehow fell through, then we'd be out that money. Rebecca said that since they were lender-required, they'd likely be required by every lender, so she'd see if the seller would pay for those.
We were standing in the kitchen going over the inspection report and dishing about our own visual inspection when my cell phone rang. It was my OB's office, calling to let me know that my glucose from my 1-hour glucose test on Tuesday was a little high, and I'd need to do the 3-hour fasting glucose. Yea. Like being stuck 4 times isn't bad enough, I'd get to do it while fasting.
We finished at the house and I headed home. I had decided to stop at the first rest area on the way home to use the bathroom and eat my lunch. As I drove I prayed for three things specifically. One, I prayed about my husband's job situation. Our plans of him transferring to a sister lawn care company fell through and so he's having to apply with another company. He faxed his resume to them last Tuesday. Two, I prayed for the results of my test. And three, I prayed that the seller would agree to the lender-required... In the middle of that third part, my phone rang, and the caller ID told me it was Rebecca. I answered the phone and she told me that she'd already received an email back from the seller's agent, and they had agreed to fix all the lender-required fixes. I gasped, "Wow, Rebecca! I literally was just praying about that when you called!"
I arrived home without incident, only to learn that God had answered the prayer about my husband's job two hours after I'd prayed for it. The manager from the other company had received his resume, was really impressed and wanted to set up an interview. That's going to be going on next Tuesday, after several rounds of phone tag last week and a longer phone conversation today.
Thursday's 3-hour fasting glucose test was brutal! Given a choice, I'd rather follow a diabetic diet throughout the rest of my pregnancy than go through that again. I passed out twice, threw up once and after 4 sticks, my arms looked like they belonged to a heroin addict. Then came the wait. The phlebotomist said that "No news is good news. If they don't call you, then you're fine." So, all day Friday, I waited for that call to come through. The office closes at 5, but I gave it until 5:30, because they sometimes will call after hours if they get behind. Well, that, and I fell asleep. I awoke at 6:30, and there hadn't been any calls from the doctor's office. I passed the test! In two days, God answered all three parts of this one prayer.
There have been other answers to other prayers even since Friday. People have said that if it's going this smoothly, then only God can make that happen. I believe it. The other thing we've been prayerful about is, there's a reason why God wants us to move to this particular town, a reason why things have happened as they have. I prayed that we'd recognize what that reason is when God shows it to us. Two people have suggested that I plant a CBF-affiliated church down in that area. The closest one is half an hour away, which is too far to be from a faith community. So, maybe that's it. Maybe outside-the-box me will be part of a church plant, and that church will live out its mission in a way that's radical, loving and extremely Christ-like. If we can't take our church with us, that would be the next best thing.
Maybe it's a leftover from my Divinity School days, but I'm used to spending my days in active and passive prayer. It's not just me sitting down in a quiet place to pray, but it's also me listening for God to speak, as well as me speaking to God throughout the day, perhaps just a sentence or two.
We are three weeks from closing on our first house - we hope! As we have gone through this process, I've lost sleep from stress - stressing about getting us packed, stressing about making the new home livable and our townhouse clean, stressing over the number crunching. Stress, stress, stress!!! Problem was, I wasn't getting enough sleep for one person, let alone two. I couldn't take it anymore and in a desperation borne of fatigue, I prayed, "God, I need sleep! Please take care of this for me."
Since patience is the one spiritual fruit tree that doesn't exactly thrive in my spiritual garden, I'm used to God making me wait for answers to prayers. Given that, I was prepared to wait this time as well. Instead, I should've prepared myself to hang on tight!
This has been a wild ride of God tending to one thing after another. The house we found is a foreclosure. Rebecca, our realtor, told me that we can expect a minimum of 72 hours before the seller gets back with us after we offer and, in fact, that the whole process could take a few months - just the nature of the beast. I started sweating it a little bit. After all, we don't exactly HAVE a few months before we should move, not with the baby due in August.
First, the price dropped by $10,000 in a week-and-a-half. Then the seller agreed to closing costs, almost unheard of when dealing with foreclosures. We agreed on a price that was $14,400 less than what we'd prequalified for. We figured out our closing date (my one mistake was not pushing it a bit later). Then we came to the nitty gritty - the inspection.
That happened last week. Rebecca and I were pleasantly surprised at how well the inspection went. He found a few things that'll need our attention, but nothing outrageously expensive. While we were at the house, we discovered that the appraiser would never sign off on a couple of the needed repairs; those would be deemed as making the house uninhabitable and would block the loan until they were fixed. Oh boy, what a fix that'd put us in! If we didn't get them fixed, then we wouldn't get the loan which means no house. However, if we were to have them fixed and the closing somehow fell through, then we'd be out that money. Rebecca said that since they were lender-required, they'd likely be required by every lender, so she'd see if the seller would pay for those.
We were standing in the kitchen going over the inspection report and dishing about our own visual inspection when my cell phone rang. It was my OB's office, calling to let me know that my glucose from my 1-hour glucose test on Tuesday was a little high, and I'd need to do the 3-hour fasting glucose. Yea. Like being stuck 4 times isn't bad enough, I'd get to do it while fasting.
We finished at the house and I headed home. I had decided to stop at the first rest area on the way home to use the bathroom and eat my lunch. As I drove I prayed for three things specifically. One, I prayed about my husband's job situation. Our plans of him transferring to a sister lawn care company fell through and so he's having to apply with another company. He faxed his resume to them last Tuesday. Two, I prayed for the results of my test. And three, I prayed that the seller would agree to the lender-required... In the middle of that third part, my phone rang, and the caller ID told me it was Rebecca. I answered the phone and she told me that she'd already received an email back from the seller's agent, and they had agreed to fix all the lender-required fixes. I gasped, "Wow, Rebecca! I literally was just praying about that when you called!"
I arrived home without incident, only to learn that God had answered the prayer about my husband's job two hours after I'd prayed for it. The manager from the other company had received his resume, was really impressed and wanted to set up an interview. That's going to be going on next Tuesday, after several rounds of phone tag last week and a longer phone conversation today.
Thursday's 3-hour fasting glucose test was brutal! Given a choice, I'd rather follow a diabetic diet throughout the rest of my pregnancy than go through that again. I passed out twice, threw up once and after 4 sticks, my arms looked like they belonged to a heroin addict. Then came the wait. The phlebotomist said that "No news is good news. If they don't call you, then you're fine." So, all day Friday, I waited for that call to come through. The office closes at 5, but I gave it until 5:30, because they sometimes will call after hours if they get behind. Well, that, and I fell asleep. I awoke at 6:30, and there hadn't been any calls from the doctor's office. I passed the test! In two days, God answered all three parts of this one prayer.
There have been other answers to other prayers even since Friday. People have said that if it's going this smoothly, then only God can make that happen. I believe it. The other thing we've been prayerful about is, there's a reason why God wants us to move to this particular town, a reason why things have happened as they have. I prayed that we'd recognize what that reason is when God shows it to us. Two people have suggested that I plant a CBF-affiliated church down in that area. The closest one is half an hour away, which is too far to be from a faith community. So, maybe that's it. Maybe outside-the-box me will be part of a church plant, and that church will live out its mission in a way that's radical, loving and extremely Christ-like. If we can't take our church with us, that would be the next best thing.
What IS God's plan for couples?
Originally posted at Y360 on 16 February 2009
Friday night we went over to Mom and Dad's to participate in Dad's motorcycle group's Bible study. This is generally a great time of delicious food, getting to know newer members of the group and catching up with the old-timers, followed by stimulating, soul-enriching Bible study. This past Friday night, we got the formers, but the latter was lacking. However, I got something out of it... Thinking about that study for the past 48 hours has had me researching and digging back through my knowledge of the Old Testament and Hebrew. My heart and mind have been open to what God's been disclosing to me through the Holy Spirit.
The study had some strong Promise Keepers vibes. That's an organization that I just can't support or espouse. No, it's not really about their whole "women should be submissive" schtick, though I don't agree with it. Quite a bit of PK's views and beliefs aren't in accordance with the Bible. The problem is, he taught with this agenda, instead of teaching the Bible itself.
First, he sited Genesis 1:26 when God decides, "Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness..." First, that's not just man; that refers to humanity. The plural pronouns can be problematic for some people. In Genesis 1, the word for "God" in Hebrew is Elohim, the plural for El, which means simply, "God." This doesn't mean that God is more than one; the scriptures state that over and over. Usually, referring to a singular God in the plural denotes that deity's superiority and supremacy. Some trinitarians see this as proof for the existence of a Trinity - that God is talking to the other two members of the Trinity, the Christ and the Spirit.
The study leader went from this verse on to the next one, but completely skipped Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them." This specifically says that God created male and female, and there's no hint of a time lag between when God created the male and when God created the female. God created them both on the sixth day. The study leader skipped down to Genesis 2: 19ff, in which Adam's named all the animals and plants, but among the animals, no suitable helper's been found for him. Because there's a gap of quite a few versus between Gen. 1:26 and Gen. 2:21-22, the study leader inferred that woman came along some time after the man.
Stop! Hold it! Back up! All of Genesis 1 and I suspect through Gen. 2:3 are from the E source - the Elohist source. Genesis 2:4-25 are from the J source - the Yahwist source. (There's no Y in German, the language of the majority of Biblical scholarship, so a J is used instead.) If you read them, it's the creation account repeated in Chapter 2, but it's different, condensed, with greater emphasis on geography - versus 10-13 give details about the location of the Garden of Eden - as well as providing more information on Adam and Eve themselves. If you read Gen. 1:1 - 2:3, you'll see that God, Elohim, did all the creating. In the rest of Gen. 2, however, repeatedly you'll find, "the LORD God," Yahweh God, the one whose name we really first learn in Exodus 3 when the LORD reveals to Moses that He is, "I Am."
Then, after a brief foray into Isaiah 3 in which God through the prophet predicts and promises anarchy and societal chaos if the men don't get themselves straightened out and actually act like leaders (you can see where he was going with that), then we hit the New Testament. Now, it was at this point where I started getting just a bit more talkative. (LOL... I can see the look of non-surprise on the face of the Div School's dean now.) We visited Romans 12:9-21, followed by I Corinthians 13, the famous "Love Chapter." Both of these passages deal with loving others and the Romans passage expounds on love by also discussing peace.
I was relieved and strangely disappointed when the study leader just glanced over Ephesians 5:22ff. He threw out the question, "What are husbands supposed to do?" I replied, "Love their wives sacrificially." Strangely, this didn't go over so well, even though it's purely biblical. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25). Uh oh. Was I supposed to answer that husbands are supposed to lead their wives, boss their wives around, dominate their wives? Then I'd be wrong, which goes against everything my perfectionistic self believes in. Dad, my more religiously conservative parent, stated that husbands should defer to their wives before going off and doing whatever they want. Apparently, it wasn't just an age or gender thing, because that comment didn't go over so well, either.
Dad and I both spoke from our experiences of married life lived within the context of Christ's love and lordship. I know of a husband who loves his wife sacrificially, because I'm married to him. This is the man who sat outside on Superbowl Sunday and helped me sell soap after he'd been working six straight days, simply because he didn't want me to have to lift my heavy tables and soap bins in my condition. That's just one example. Dad will defer to Mom out of respect for her, as will my husband. Of course Dad loves riding his motorcycle on the weekends when he can, but he'll first make sure Mom doesn't want or need him for anything around the house.
Mom and I give this back. Mom still irons Dad's work shirts every night, even though Dad's perfectly capable of ironing his own shirts. She does it out of loving sacrifice. Lately my husband and I have been having trouble agreeing on issues that arise - some pretty minor, some a bit more important - because we both stubbornly want what's best for the other person.
Obviously, it's no big surprise that what I learned about how husbands and wives interact, I learned from observing my parents through their 38 years of marriage. I was thinking about them and thinking about my own marriage, and it dawned on me that there's no sense in either case of the wife being submissive or just the husband being the head (the head protects and nurtures the body; it's not a hierarchial image of a boss and subordinants). In fact, I'd posit that both marriages are ruled by I Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 5:21: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." After all, before Mom and Dad became husband and wife, they were both in a personal relationship with Christ, just as with my husband and me. The wives submit to the husbands; the husbands submit to the wives. The husbands protect and nurture their wives and children; the wives, being nurturing females themselves, will care for and take care of their husbands and children. It might seem to outsiders that Mom and I are the more dominant partners most of the time, but that's simply because we're the more talkative partners, married to quiet men. Appearances, however, can be deceiving.
As I thought about my own marriage in particular, I thought, We love each other, we make sacrifices for each other, we defer to one another and we live wanting what's best for the other. And we do all this as we walk as individuals, as a couple and as a family with God. So what's wrong with this? Are we sinning because we're like this? I thought and I examined. I searched my mind and, more importantly, my heart. At the end, I concluded that No, we're not in sin because of this. Could it be that we've perhaps moved beyond this exhortation found in Ephesians? My thoughts took me back to the beginning, back to the Garden, back to Adam and Eve and God's design for couples prior to the Fall.
Nowhere in Genesis 1 and 2 does God ever grant the male superiority in any way over the female. In fact, God created them, both male and female, in God's image (Gen. 1:27). Woman was created to be a suitable helper, a partner, for the man. The woman was formed from one of the man's ribs, not his foot or head - a rib, from his side, making her neither superior nor inferior to her mate. In short, when men and women were created, they were created to be equals, though each with his and her own strengths and weaknesses, divinely designed to complement the other. It's only after the Fall, beginning in Genesis 3, that the hierarchial language starts to emerge in the text.
When a couple is walking with God, deferring first to God, trusting in God to provide their every need, staying with God through the valleys and on the mountains and also remembering to look outside of their own home to see the needs and joys of others... Then and only then can they find that they're able to come together as equal partners. When things slip - and sometimes they might - then the couple can feel the balance in the relationship swinging one way or the other, leaving the whole thing just feeling "off." We've been there, and probably not for the last time, but we always find our way back as we resume our close walk with the LORD.
Friday night we went over to Mom and Dad's to participate in Dad's motorcycle group's Bible study. This is generally a great time of delicious food, getting to know newer members of the group and catching up with the old-timers, followed by stimulating, soul-enriching Bible study. This past Friday night, we got the formers, but the latter was lacking. However, I got something out of it... Thinking about that study for the past 48 hours has had me researching and digging back through my knowledge of the Old Testament and Hebrew. My heart and mind have been open to what God's been disclosing to me through the Holy Spirit.
The study had some strong Promise Keepers vibes. That's an organization that I just can't support or espouse. No, it's not really about their whole "women should be submissive" schtick, though I don't agree with it. Quite a bit of PK's views and beliefs aren't in accordance with the Bible. The problem is, he taught with this agenda, instead of teaching the Bible itself.
First, he sited Genesis 1:26 when God decides, "Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness..." First, that's not just man; that refers to humanity. The plural pronouns can be problematic for some people. In Genesis 1, the word for "God" in Hebrew is Elohim, the plural for El, which means simply, "God." This doesn't mean that God is more than one; the scriptures state that over and over. Usually, referring to a singular God in the plural denotes that deity's superiority and supremacy. Some trinitarians see this as proof for the existence of a Trinity - that God is talking to the other two members of the Trinity, the Christ and the Spirit.
The study leader went from this verse on to the next one, but completely skipped Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them." This specifically says that God created male and female, and there's no hint of a time lag between when God created the male and when God created the female. God created them both on the sixth day. The study leader skipped down to Genesis 2: 19ff, in which Adam's named all the animals and plants, but among the animals, no suitable helper's been found for him. Because there's a gap of quite a few versus between Gen. 1:26 and Gen. 2:21-22, the study leader inferred that woman came along some time after the man.
Stop! Hold it! Back up! All of Genesis 1 and I suspect through Gen. 2:3 are from the E source - the Elohist source. Genesis 2:4-25 are from the J source - the Yahwist source. (There's no Y in German, the language of the majority of Biblical scholarship, so a J is used instead.) If you read them, it's the creation account repeated in Chapter 2, but it's different, condensed, with greater emphasis on geography - versus 10-13 give details about the location of the Garden of Eden - as well as providing more information on Adam and Eve themselves. If you read Gen. 1:1 - 2:3, you'll see that God, Elohim, did all the creating. In the rest of Gen. 2, however, repeatedly you'll find, "the LORD God," Yahweh God, the one whose name we really first learn in Exodus 3 when the LORD reveals to Moses that He is, "I Am."
Then, after a brief foray into Isaiah 3 in which God through the prophet predicts and promises anarchy and societal chaos if the men don't get themselves straightened out and actually act like leaders (you can see where he was going with that), then we hit the New Testament. Now, it was at this point where I started getting just a bit more talkative. (LOL... I can see the look of non-surprise on the face of the Div School's dean now.) We visited Romans 12:9-21, followed by I Corinthians 13, the famous "Love Chapter." Both of these passages deal with loving others and the Romans passage expounds on love by also discussing peace.
I was relieved and strangely disappointed when the study leader just glanced over Ephesians 5:22ff. He threw out the question, "What are husbands supposed to do?" I replied, "Love their wives sacrificially." Strangely, this didn't go over so well, even though it's purely biblical. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph. 5:25). Uh oh. Was I supposed to answer that husbands are supposed to lead their wives, boss their wives around, dominate their wives? Then I'd be wrong, which goes against everything my perfectionistic self believes in. Dad, my more religiously conservative parent, stated that husbands should defer to their wives before going off and doing whatever they want. Apparently, it wasn't just an age or gender thing, because that comment didn't go over so well, either.
Dad and I both spoke from our experiences of married life lived within the context of Christ's love and lordship. I know of a husband who loves his wife sacrificially, because I'm married to him. This is the man who sat outside on Superbowl Sunday and helped me sell soap after he'd been working six straight days, simply because he didn't want me to have to lift my heavy tables and soap bins in my condition. That's just one example. Dad will defer to Mom out of respect for her, as will my husband. Of course Dad loves riding his motorcycle on the weekends when he can, but he'll first make sure Mom doesn't want or need him for anything around the house.
Mom and I give this back. Mom still irons Dad's work shirts every night, even though Dad's perfectly capable of ironing his own shirts. She does it out of loving sacrifice. Lately my husband and I have been having trouble agreeing on issues that arise - some pretty minor, some a bit more important - because we both stubbornly want what's best for the other person.
Obviously, it's no big surprise that what I learned about how husbands and wives interact, I learned from observing my parents through their 38 years of marriage. I was thinking about them and thinking about my own marriage, and it dawned on me that there's no sense in either case of the wife being submissive or just the husband being the head (the head protects and nurtures the body; it's not a hierarchial image of a boss and subordinants). In fact, I'd posit that both marriages are ruled by I Corinthians 13 and Ephesians 5:21: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." After all, before Mom and Dad became husband and wife, they were both in a personal relationship with Christ, just as with my husband and me. The wives submit to the husbands; the husbands submit to the wives. The husbands protect and nurture their wives and children; the wives, being nurturing females themselves, will care for and take care of their husbands and children. It might seem to outsiders that Mom and I are the more dominant partners most of the time, but that's simply because we're the more talkative partners, married to quiet men. Appearances, however, can be deceiving.
As I thought about my own marriage in particular, I thought, We love each other, we make sacrifices for each other, we defer to one another and we live wanting what's best for the other. And we do all this as we walk as individuals, as a couple and as a family with God. So what's wrong with this? Are we sinning because we're like this? I thought and I examined. I searched my mind and, more importantly, my heart. At the end, I concluded that No, we're not in sin because of this. Could it be that we've perhaps moved beyond this exhortation found in Ephesians? My thoughts took me back to the beginning, back to the Garden, back to Adam and Eve and God's design for couples prior to the Fall.
Nowhere in Genesis 1 and 2 does God ever grant the male superiority in any way over the female. In fact, God created them, both male and female, in God's image (Gen. 1:27). Woman was created to be a suitable helper, a partner, for the man. The woman was formed from one of the man's ribs, not his foot or head - a rib, from his side, making her neither superior nor inferior to her mate. In short, when men and women were created, they were created to be equals, though each with his and her own strengths and weaknesses, divinely designed to complement the other. It's only after the Fall, beginning in Genesis 3, that the hierarchial language starts to emerge in the text.
When a couple is walking with God, deferring first to God, trusting in God to provide their every need, staying with God through the valleys and on the mountains and also remembering to look outside of their own home to see the needs and joys of others... Then and only then can they find that they're able to come together as equal partners. When things slip - and sometimes they might - then the couple can feel the balance in the relationship swinging one way or the other, leaving the whole thing just feeling "off." We've been there, and probably not for the last time, but we always find our way back as we resume our close walk with the LORD.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)