ApprehendingGrace.com

  
No one will ever know the full depth of his capacity for patience and humility as long as nothing bothers him. It is only when times are troubled and difficult that he can see how much of either is in him.
          Saint Francis of Assisi
 

A friend e-mailed me after my last blog saying that it was just the message she needed that day. She had a great line in her e-mail, though – much better than any of the lines in my blog.

“…your blog message said what I needed to hear,” She wrote. “It changed my perspective. God was not testing my patience. He was growing my patience.”

I love that line – not testing my patience, but growing it. What a great way to look at it. Thinking and saying “God is growing my patience” carries a hugely different message than “God is testing my patience.”

God has been speaking to me about perspective a great deal over the past four months or so. There is ALWAYS more than one way to view the circumstances around us and we ALWAYS have a choice about how we will view them.

Here’s a another example of God adjusting my perspective: A few weeks ago I laughed out loud at myself while working. I have a big honking computer monitor on my desk. In my “real job,” I sit at my desk all day, every day, and I use software that can take up more than a third of the screen with menus and options. So about a year ago we invested in a large monitor. It’s wonderful. I love it. It makes my life so much easier. Most of the time. A few weeks ago I was working from a typed list of numbers to the left of my keyboard and monitor, looking for the number in a list of numbers displayed on my monitor, putting my cursor on that number, then moving to the far right of my monitor to click on an option. An easy process, but because my monitor is so large I was moving my head back and forth like I was watching a tennis match, and I was finding it difficult to keep my place on the sheet of paper and in the document on my screen. After doing this for awhile I was starting to get frustrated. That’s when I laughed. Here I was getting annoyed because I have this wonderful monitor that is so big I actually have to turn my head to use it. Upon realizing my foolishness – that I was becoming annoyed at a blessing – I changed my approach to the job at hand and went on about my business rejoicing about my wonderful monitor instead of being frustrated by it.

About the same time, I read an article by Jeffrey Gitomer about viewing problems as “Wow!” opportunities. It’s a short article and worth reading. Near the end of the article he writes:

“WOW! is now a thought changer, and a mental refocus from a negative that forces a positive response or action. If that’s not a WOW!, what is? And here’s the cool part: you can begin to WOW!, NOW!”

“Thought changer.” If I remember correctly, that’s what being in Christ is all about:

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
Romans 12:2a (New Living Translation)

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12:2a (New International Version)

God has allowed things into your life and mine to help conform us into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29) and transform our thinking. It is when our mind has been renewed, when our thinking has been transformed…

Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
Romans 12:2b (New Living Translation)

That is when we begin to see the world through the eyes and mind of the Lord. That is when we laugh in the face of difficult circumstances, knowing that they have already been overcome by the Lord and that they are meant for our good.

Lord, continue to change my perspective when it needs to be changed. Keep me looking upward in the face of all frustrations and challenges the day might bring.

I was talking to an appliance last night when God decided to enter the conversation. It was a short conversation, but I thought blog-worthy.It was late, I was tired, and the appliance wasn’t cooperating. I had taken some of the gadgets off and was trying to put them back on so I could put it away. Like I said, it wasn’t cooperating. That was when I started talking to it. To my credit, I suppose, I only said something like “Come on….I don’t have the patience for this.” And God decided to respond for the appliance. It was a simple sentence. “That’s when you need patience,” He spoke into my head.That’s all. “That’s when you need patience.” It had several affects on me.

First, it relieved my stress immediately. I had been a bit harried, wanting to be done with the day so I could relax a little before I needed to go to bed. His simple act of speaking to me said as much as His words. “Chill out; relax,” was the impact that His words had. It reminded me that He was there and that He was in control.

Then, of course, there was the content of His words. I’ve been thinking about them quite a bit. Yes, it was a simple sentence, but you don’t want to gloss over it when God speaks to you.

It didn’t take long (I was still sitting with the disassembled appliance) for me to realize that you don’t need patience when you don’t need patience. Duh! And you don’t learn patience when you have all that you need. Actually, in my having-just-been-spoken-to-by-God state, I was kind of awed by this. Maybe I’m just easily impressed when I’m tired, but it’s pretty fundamental that the only way to grow in patience is to be taken beyond the point where we are comfortably patient. Fundamental, yes…but so easily forgotten. I don’t usually go through life with that perspective in the front of my mind. Even when I read those great passages about patience, they seem to have such a “supernatural” perspective to them. Like God will just bestow me with supernatural patience. Well, He might, at times when supernatural patience is required. But most of the time, learning patience is a process of regularly being taken beyond the level of patience I have so that I learn to have more.

There was one other thing about God’s communication. It made me realize (again) that God uses the everyday things and people in our lives to help us to become more like Jesus. That’s blog-worthy and praise-worthy.

Today is my husband’s birthday. The day his mom struggled then knew the joy of having her fourth (and last) child. The day he cried his first audible (to humans) cry. More likely than not, the day I was conceived. Since I was born 9 months to the day after Phil was born, we often say that God created me especially for him as a gift to him on his true birth day.

I think it would more accurately be said (from my perspective) that the Lord who knew me even before I was conceived was working, even before I was conceived, to create the perfect husband for me.

 I wrote this tribute in 2008, but was reluctant to publish it in my blog because it seemed so self serving. This year, I am rejecting that notion for several reasons.

• Phil has been a fantastic example of a godly husband throughout our marriage. If reading this helps any man become a better husband to his wife, that is a worthwhile use of this space.
• Our culture is awash with women who do not choose to honor their husbands. If this blog encourages a single wife to honor her husband today, it is a worthwhile use of this space.
• This tribute gives a glimpse of a life lived for Christ and a marriage committed to Christ. There will always be difficult times to work through and doing so together is one of the joys of marriage.

With that being said, here is my tribute to the greatest man on earth!

Phil –

Thank you for loving me. For seeing in me more than I could ever see in myself. For showing me God’s unconditional love. It seems that no matter how much I fall short, you love me. And without heaping negativity on me in any form, you urge me to become better than I am.

Thank you for being my cheerleader, loving me the way God created me and encouraging me to  be me when others have said “no, you can’t.”

Thank you for making up for my weaknesses (like not cooking or cleaning much), covering them with your actions, demonstrating your love for me.

Thank you for putting our future ahead of our past and our present. For always knowing that God had more for us, even when I slid toward doubt.

Thank you for introducing me to God. For your tenacious faith in the midst of my anti-faith. For your patience and perseverance until the Holy Spirit to change my heart.

Thank you for pursuing God in good times and bad. For all you’ve taught me as we study together or prepare to teach others together. What a blessing to be a study partner with you! You enrich my relationship with God.

Thank you for encouraging and guiding my walk with God. For recommending books you think I should read. For asking me how my spiritual life is going. For praying for and with me.

Thank you for your tender heart and willingness to take risks. What a risk I was 32 years ago! (And maybe still am today!) Thanks for seeing the payoff, even before I did.

Thank you for being my business partner for 21 years and my life partner for 31. What a life! God has been so very good to me!

Thank you for holding me together in the hard times, for celebrating with me in the great times and for making the in-between times more fun that they ought to have been! Thank you for being the fun that balances my seriousness.

Thank you for loving me.

I love you…more than you can ever know, more than I can ever say.

Happy birthday, love.

Our Pastor said something that has stuck in my brain this week. He was describing the frustrating Sunday morning he had had – nothing big, just lots of little things that were starting to annoy him. Pretty soon those little things add up and the annoyance grows and if you’re not careful all that UN-Christ-likeness inside of you spills out on everyone around you. (Well, maybe not you…but that’s how it happens to me.)

In his frustration, he muttered the question “what’s going on here?”

And the very act of asking the question brought enlightenment. It gave him enough of a pause from the earthly frustrations to let His spirit kick in and remind him that what was going on was the enemy trying to arrest his attitude and mood. He saw the day for what it was – a day to worship the Lord (like every day is, of course), a day for allowing God to enable him to rise above the frustrations, a day to serve others as the hands and mouth of the Lord. If he had not asked the question, he would have continued to get ready for church, but his frustrations would have continued, and perhaps even increased. Eventually, they would have “spilled over” onto:

• Spilled over onto the worship team
• Leaked on all those who help prepare for the Sunday morning service
• Creeped into his tone of voice or expression as he delivered the message and prayed.

Eventually, everyone attending that morning service would have been affected by his frustrations. Wow! The enemy sure can get a lot of traction out of a few frustrating annoyances.

You may not be preparing to lead a Sunday morning worship service, but your life is not so very different. When I allow the frustrations or fears of the day to impact me, those frustrations and fears leak out onto my husband, everyone in my office, and everyone I meet during the day. We’ve all experienced it –been waited on by the person who is annoyed about the previous customer in line. Or we’ve waited on someone and their attitude has spilled over onto you. It doesn’t matter which side of any transaction you’re on – if you have allowed the frustrations of the day to seep into your soul, it’s going to spill out on those around you.

I don’t want that to be my legacy. The easiest way to stop the whole process is to ask the question early. “What’s going on here?”

I’m not trying to write an easy-fix-it blog or a pie-in-the sky remedy for difficult circumstances. I’m not even saying that adjusting your attitude is easy after asking and getting the answer to your question. I am saying, however, that if you don’t ask the question, you continue down the negative path and the farther you walk down that path, the farther you have to walk back before you can go down the right path again!

God has been speaking to me a lot about perspective lately – how important it is to look at things from God’s perspective, not mine. That’s another blog for another time…but I know that one of the first steps in keeping the proper perspective is to quickly recognize when I’m drifting. It’s at those times that it is most important to just ask the question!

Because today is a day to worship the Lord, a day for allowing God to enable you to rise above the frustrations, and a day to serve others as the hands and mouth of the Lord.

Psalm 136 reviews Israel’s history and recognizes at the end of each sentence “His faithful love endures forever.” Verses 1 through 7, 10, 13, 16, 17, and 26 all begin with the phrase “Give thanks to” followed a name or description of God. So in 26 verses, 12 of them specifically say “give thanks” and all 26 of them remind us that God’s “faithful love endures forever.”

Has the writer made his point? When I look at society around me, and truly when I look at my own attitudes sometimes, I don’t think he has! How sad!

Significant snow has fallen early this year. I was watching a friend go out to his car after the first big snow the other day and he first had to brush snow off the doors before he could open them, then he had to scrape all the snow off his windows before he could drive away. As I watched him (from the cozy warmth of my house), I thought “I bet he’s annoyed about this.” That thought was quickly followed by “He’s going to spend the next five or six months in a cranky mood if he lets himself get annoyed by the snow on his car at the beginning of each day.” And that thought was even more quickly followed by the Lord whispering “so will you.” Yep. I don’t like having to go outside and scrape snow off my car in the morning, especially if I’m dressed for a meeting and not wearing proper “snow” clothes. I like to stay inside in the warmth and look at the beautiful snow outside!

‘Tis the season for crankiness, it would seem. As if the weather turning cold and snowy isn’t enough, it’s also the season for too many cars in the store parking lots, too many people pushing overflowing shopping carts in the stores, and too many people to have to wait in line behind at the check-out counter.

God has been speaking to me gently about attitude lately. The truth is He probably needs to be hitting me on the side of the head with a frying pan about my attitude because it hasn’t been very good lately. But He’s been dealing with me gently about it. (And for that I’m thankful.)

His faithful love endures forever…despite my tendency to focus on the negative sometimes.
His faithful love endures forever…despite the wrong choices I make.
His faithful love endures forever…despite…all that is my life that is not what it should be.

I am convinced that the change in attitude that I need, is one of increased thankfulness. And in order to increase my thankfulness, I must change my focus. That’s the example set by Psalm 136. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good! He created all that has been created. And He did it really well! Give thanks to the Lord for He has repeatedly rescued us – even though we didn’t deserve to be rescued! Give thanks to the Lord for He provides for ALL my needs! Give thanks to the Lord because He is not like me…He is not prone to crankiness when He has to practice patience. (If He was, He would surely be cranky all the time because He shows incredible patience with me.)

For God so loved the world…He didn’t complain bitterly about it. For God so loved the world…He didn’t scold us or beat us up. For God so loved the world…that He loved us more! He loved us in a way that cost Him a great deal and in a way that we could identify with. He sent His son to make up for the difference between our behavior and attitudes and God’s standard of perfect righteousness.

‘Tis the season to set aside ourselves and to focus on the God whose faithful love endures forever. From eternity past when He created the world through eternity future when those who trust Him will live with Him forever. I hope you’re one of those people! Watch for my next blog series about what it means to be a Christian – what it means to trust God.

In the meantime, be thankful! Because God’s faithful love endures forever!

And have a blessed Thanksgiving day.

So this morning I was on my way to a family reunion. I was supposed to be there early because I was one of the planners. The reunion was a bit more than an hour away. I was running late. And the car in front of me was driving below the speed limit. Aargh. Finally, I reached a decision point — do I go straight, which is a little longer, or veer left and stay with the slow guy. I opted for the slow guy, hoping I’d be able to pass him soon.

Much to my delight, he put his turn signal on soon after the go straight/veer left decision point. He’s going to turn into a local restaurant…after coming to absolute stop before making a right-hand turn. Aargh. But finally he’s turned. Sigh.

And another guy pulls out in front of me going about half the speed limit — much slower than the first guy. He begins to wash his windshield spraying me (through my open car windows) with windshield washer fluid. Guess I should have gone straight instead of veering left. But Mr. Windshield Washer (sloooowwwwly) pulls into a parking space on Main Street in the little town we’re driving through. By now I’m more frustrated at how slowly he’s pulling into the space than happy I’ll no longer be behind him.

And then God speaks to me. “What makes you think your schedule is more important than his?” Ouch! And I realize that impatience is almost always (always?) placing my agenda, my schedule, my plan above someone else’s…and quite likely God’s. I don’t know what the two drivers in the slow cars are going through — who they were driving to meet or what they would face when they got there. Perhaps they needed to drive slowly because their minds were on some tragic events in their lives. Perhaps they are naturally cautious people. Their reason is pretty irrelevant. God seems to have placed them in front of me so I might as well sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Who has He placed in front of you lately? Is He teaching you patience on the road? It’s probably one of the best places for learning it! Enjoy the ride!