Rockers and Shakers

I must have sat in that antique rocker for 10 minutes contemplating if it would be a good way to spend the birthday money I got from my dad.  While I sat there rocking, I looked around at all the delightful relics of bygone days. Directly in my line of sight was a cabinet full of salt and pepper shakers. There was quite an assortment…everything from pink elephants to lighthouses…and I wondered what would cause someone to want to collect them. I purchased that rocker and left before I answered that question (thanks, Dad!). But one thing is certain… it is about the outward appearance of the vessels and not the contents. Salt is salt and pepper is pepper, no matter what unique container they are shaken from.

There is more to this illustration, of course. Not so much about the pepper, which I could totally live without, but about the salt. Jesus talks about salt. In speaking to those whom He called Disciples, those who were intentional about following in His footsteps, He said,

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses it saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Matthew 5:13

In our culture, we think of salt simply as a seasoning to make our food taste yummy. Dad always says, “I don’t really like food. I just like the seasoning.” Or maybe something that comes in 40# bags that is used to keep our water soft, or tossed onto the sidewalk to melt the ice. There is validity and a message in all of the above. We should make life “taste” better for those around us; we should bring better quality to life; we should do what we can to provide safety for others around us. Those are all good, kind, loving things to do. BUT you don’t have to be a follower of Jesus to do those things. That is just something that a decent human being naturally does.

In the culture to which (or is it to whom?) Jesus spoke, salt was used to preserve food. To prevent spoilage. If you have ever returned from vacation to find that an electrical storm took out your deep freeze that was full of meat, you know well the importance placed on preserving meat! That smell haunted me long after the mess was cleaned up. The people Jesus addressed didn’t have a freezer or even a refrigerator, so salt was used to cure the meat so that it wouldn’t spoil. Without it, their world would be full of rotten stench and deadly conditions.

So, let’s bring that home. If Jesus wants us to be the preservative that keeps the world from rotting, wouldn’t that begin at home? As parents, wouldn’t Jesus be saying, “Preserve the souls of your children, your spouse, your friends and family. Make sure that your life is a sprinkling of My peace and My joy and My wisdom and My hope.” Would He not be dismayed when He sees that our lives at home look just like the world? Anger, frustration, anxiety, and more concern for the appearance of the pink elephant shaker than what’s inside of it?  Wouldn’t He be looking for the salt that keeps life from being stinky and rotten?

Here is what many people don’t realize… we don’t supply the salt that preserves life. That comes from walking with Jesus. We can’t buy it. We can’t mine it. We can’t create it from our great heart and Godly desires. The salt that we, as disciples/followers of Jesus, provide for the world is a gift from God. We can only be filled as we learn from Him, live with Him, talk and listen to Him. And it is His desire to provide it, free of charge because He has already paid the price. His disciples were transformed … over time … by close encounters day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year… of being with Jesus. Don’t be that person that gives up because your salt isn’t salty. Even the disciples, who walked with him every single day, took years to figure it out. Keep your eyes open and pay attention to how things look at home where life is real. That’s where the gauge is to tell you if your salt has lost its saltiness. If you are being stinky, dump that out and spend some time with Jesus so you can be filled with the salt that will bring hope and light and joy into your home.

My new rocker is in my bedroom and my Bible is right beside it. It’s a great place to sit and just be with Jesus. It isn’t easy to find the time, but in our culture it is difficult to carve out time for basically anything! Just make time to be with Him and let Him fill you with the salt that preserves. It’s the best thing you can do for your family.

Peanut Butter Dill Pickle Sandwich Challenge

“The receiving is in the giving.” What a wonderful life lesson made simple. It doesn’t seem to be a true statement. It runs contrary to our keep-things-fair, what-about-my-needs mentality. It’s kind of like a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich. It sounds awful, but once you taste it, it is surprisingly good. I read this quote in a blog that was shared with me this week and I think everyone should read it. Our defensiveness can destroy our relationships. Over the years Dana and I have learned that lesson well and we can testify that giving works and feels so much better than taking, regardless of the outcome. It is just exactly the way Jesus taught us to live. When we let go of our need to justify our feelings and fight back, we can truly begin to love from the heart.

Take a minute to read this blog. Cut and paste it in your browser.  

http://lemonlimeadventures.com/grandma-saved-my-marriage/

Give it a try. It can’t hurt! It will transform how you do life together.

A Valentine

It’s Valentine’s Day! I would like to dedicate this blog to all of you out there who are in a relationship and desire for it to be better than it is.

In the beginning God decided to breathe life into a man He had created in His own image. That “image” has been debated over time by people much smarter than me, but for sure God is LOVE and therefore, we were created to be love. Not just a vessel to hold  love; to give and receive love; but to actually be love, a noun that doesn’t really exist unless it is also a verb. Much of the fear and anxiety and stress and struggle that we wrestle with is because we are not living as we were created to live. We are not being love. We don’t receive it well and we don’t give it well and we don’t live it well. When that is the case, we are living in a state that wasn’t designed for us. We were fashioned by our Creator to be the visible reflection of Him to the world and when we withhold or refuse love, we are not functioning according to the Manufacturers specifications. We are essentially like a fish out of water… miserable and on our way OUT.

The best way to discover if you are truly reflecting the love of God is to take a look at how you love your partner. Not how you feel about your partner. Love isn’t a feeling. Love is a decision we make repeatedly… to give without first receiving, to keep no record of wrongs, to be kind even when you’re hangry and patient even when you are tired. Love is throwing away the score board. Love is learning to cherish because that’s how God feels about them and learning better methods of communicating respectfully. Love is work. Love is constant. Love is life.

If you are feeling like you fail to meet the above standard, please understand that you are surrounded by the rest of us failures. Love is not a destination, it is a journey. If you stop traveling toward loving better, you will never arrive at where you always dreamed your marriage would be and where God wants it to be. In 41 years of marriage we have had times when we failed miserably and times when we just stopped trying and times when … well… I just wanted out. But I can happily say that we both circled back, after every failure, and realized where we wanted to go and gave up a little of ourselves to get a little closer to the goal. We discovered that when you lay down your “ideal partner” list and learn to love the one you have, you gain something far better. 

Our marriage isn’t perfect. We still frustrate each other and misunderstand and allow our feelings to get in the way of the fact that we are on a mission. But mostly, we enjoy doing life together every day. We laugh and we smile and have a lot of fun together. We don’t worry that we don’t have a lot in common, but enjoy what we do, and are learning to do life together better. And that, my friend, is my prayer for you.

There is so much good that God wants for you. In order to receive it, you must let the walls fall down and pack away the pride and let your heart be filled with His love, rather than your resentment. When your heart overflows with His love, pure and unconditional, I believe you get a little taste of heaven on earth, because His love will become complete as it is manifested in you.

No one has ever seen God.

But if we love each other,

God lives in us,

and his love is brought to full expression in us.

1 John 4:12

That verse says, to me, that we are in partnership with our Maker to demonstrate His love. Home is the best place to hold up your end of the bargain.

May your Valentine’s Day be unforgettable,

not because it is like a fairy tale,

but because it is the beginning of a wonderful love story,

 starring the One who is truly Love.

The Vessel

The word is out. People must be talking about how much I love helping families find more joy and fulfillment because more and more people ask me how they can have a better relationship with their kids or their spouse. Women want to know how they can be a Godly woman. The answer is clearly found all over the pages of scripture, God is LOVE, so go love!

The whole thing gets complicated, however, as each person tries to sort out what LOVE is. What does love look like when you are sad or mad or struggling with …. life? How was love manifested in your home as a child and is that what you want for your kids? Does it differ from the way your husband or wife received love as a child? Is there a right way and a wrong way to show love? What about tough love? How long should I continue to give love when there is no love coming back?

These are all good questions and all worthy of discussion, but if you truly want a happy and emotionally healthy life, you have to look directly at the life a Jesus and see how He allowed the supernatural love of God to live in him and spill over to others. His was a sacrificial love. He didn’t ask for anything in return or expect anything up front. His was a non-discriminant love. He loved all people, regardless of what society thought of them. His was an everlasting love. It had no beginning and no ending. By comparison, we tend to feel like we have to expect something in return for our love. We shy away from those who are difficult or have lived in such a manner that they don’t ‘deserve’ to be lavished in love. We wait to see if it makes sense to invest our love and if bad behavior ensues, we pull out and slam the door.

A young mother recently told me that she has never felt more like she is living her life for  God than in recent months. It isn’t about doing everything right, or reading more or praying more or going to church more… although those are important to her. It is because she is putting love into action and not being content to consider love as a feeling or a phase you use with someone special. She is going outside of her comfort zone and giving to someone who has no possible way of giving back. Someone who has made harmful choices. Someone most would walk away from.

I know why she feels God using her… why she feels His presence… why she feels fulfilment.

“If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:12)

Think about that…  Do you struggle to feel God in your life? Perhaps that is because you are defining love as a feeling, or as something that has a price tag… something that must be deserved or earned in order to be received. If you struggle to continue to love in difficult situations, then stop loving with human power and allow God’s love to flow through you and overflow to everyone on your path.

The part of that verse that I just can’t stop marveling at is that, if we love one another, “God’s love is made complete in us.” The implication I keep seeing is that, without us as a vessel for His love, His love is incomplete. The God … who IS love, has chosen us to complete that perfect love… and frankly… we are far from perfect!

My conclusion is that love isn’t love at all if we can do it alone, without God in us. We will fail miserably, in time, and we will never find fulfilment and joy and create a home where love is the foundation.

When you stop and think about it, it’s pretty amazing that God chooses us to be the vessel for a love that is perfect, yet incomplete, if we don’t choose to carry it in us. Wow! If you truly want to be a Godly husband and father, a Godly wife and mother, then GO LOVE ONE ANOTHER with the powerful love of God in you.