Well Worn Words

We have a blind dog.  I’m talking completely, 100% blind.  Cannot. See. A. Thing.  Bless her heart.  It is amazing, though, to watch her navigate her surroundings without the use of her sight.  She knows where the water bowl is.  She knows where the doors are that lead out and can find her way back to them when she wants to come in.  She has only gotten lost out on the property once when she followed the sound of me and the other dogs out to the chicken coop and we forgot she had come with us.  She works in 90 degree angles most of the time following the sidewalk, the lay out of the furniture, the doorways.  She has a couple of favorite spots and she can find them without fail.  It’s fascinating to see her begin to lift her paw a bit higher when she knows a step up is coming.  Her paths are well-worn and automatic to her.  But, with 3 other dogs and 4 kids walking those same paths, they are not always unobstructed.  You leave one football on the ground, one tennis shoe on the step, one sleeping dog in the way, and my poor blind girl will trip.  Not only that, she will turn back, now confused about the direction she is heading.  Her paths are well-worn but they are easily altered.

I am continually convicted of my well-worn words. (I was going to write “I have been convicted lately,” but that’s a lie.  Continually convicted is the truth).  You know the ones?  They come out of your mouth without thinking.  They are your automatic response.  The words you do not contemplate.  The words your mouth seems to find without trying.  I am not simply taking about R rated language here, I am not speaking of gossip or slander.  I am talking about the words you continually declare over yourself, your life, your circumstances without a second thought.

Let me give you an example… Multiple times a day I catch myself saying, “I’m so tired.”  I am so tired.  Am I really so tired?  I mean sure, I get up well before the sun most everyday.  I walk with a dear friend at 6am 3 days a week, I like to spend time in the Word and in prayer before anyone else is up.  And once that first bedroom door cracks open, the day is usually a rush of school, activities, housework, shopping, cleaning, laundry, cooking, more cleaning.  There are animals to take care of and friends to touch base with.  There are parties and events and holidays to plan for.  There are errands to run and phone calls to make and bills to pay.  Sure.  But, that is life.  That is life for most everyone I know.  Yes, by the time the last dish is loaded in the dishwasher, the last little tooth has been brushed, the last homework assignment has been checked, the last story read, I am ready to put my feet up and shut it down.  But so tired?  So tired all day?  So tired everyday?  No, I am not.  It’s a habit.  I assume I formed it when I had 2 babies 13 months apart and never slept for more than 2 hours at a time.  The paths were well-formed.  The grooves were worn deep.  And now I can’t stop saying these well-worn words.  Maybe it is, “I’m so stressed out,” or “I’m so frustrated.”  Perhaps, “I don’t feel good,” or “I’m failing.”  Possibly, “we will never be able to afford ___” or “I can’t get it together.”  I don’t know what your well worn-words are but I do know they have power.

One of the most fascinating studies I have ever embarked on was about blessings and curses in the Bible.  I had never given much thought to the power of words until then, reserving “blessings” for the dinner table, and thinking curses were a little hocus-pocus.  Not according to the Word of God.  Do you remember the story in Genesis 27 of Jacob stealing his twin brother Esau’s blessing?  Their father Isaac requested his last meal from his first-born son Esau, on his death-bed.  While Esau was out hunting, their mother Rebekah pulled her favorite boy Jacob aside and hatched a plan to fool poor, blind Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that rightfully belonged to Esau.  They pulled a little Project Runway and dressed Jacob is Esau’s clothes, even going so far as to cover his smooth arms and neck with goat’s skin so that he felt like his hairier brother.  The deception ultimately worked and a suspicious Isaac indeed spoke the blessing of the first born over sneaky Jacob.  When Esau returned and Isaac realized what had taken place he said, “I blessed him just before you came.  And yes, that blessing must stand.” (Gen. 27:33 NLT)

Why?  Why must that blessing stand?  Couldn’t he just take it back?  At this point nothing had exchanged hands.  No property been deeded, no signature had been signed.  Just words.  Just the spoken blessing.  But when Esau begged his father to take it back, or at least bless him as well Jacob says, “I have made Jacob your master and have declared that all his brothers will be his servants.  I have guaranteed him an abundance of grain and wine- what is left for me to give you my son?”  (Gen. 27: 37 NLT)  He guaranteed it with his words.  They were binding it seems both in the natural and spiritual worlds.  His words held weight, they mattered, the blessing stood, and it altered their lives forever.

There are stories in the Bible where curses stood as well and an almost endless supply of scripture about the power of words.  Here are just a few to meditate on today:

• Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.  Prov. 18:21
• But what comes out of the mouth proceed from the heart, and this defiles a person.  Matt. 15:18
• There is one whose rash words are like swords thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Prov. 12:18
• I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak. Matt. 12:36 (YIKES!!!!)
• For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.
  Matt. 12:37
• Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
  Prov. 13:3
• Do you see a man who is hasty in his words?  There is more hope for a fool than for him.   Prov. 29:20
• Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth keep watch over the door of my lips.  Ps. 141:3

And on and on and on I could go.  So here is my prayer for myself, and maybe for you too…  I’d like these verses to be the football left in my path.  I’d like to stumble over them as I blindly speak my well-worn words.  I’d like to bump into them, and have to wake up, turn around and recalculate what is coming out of my mouth.  Instead of “I’m so tired,” I’d like to declare, “I’m so thankful.”  Even in my prayers I have well-worn words that may not be what God has for me.  I pray everyday, “Make me strong.”  Maybe He is throwing an obstacle in the way so I will get out of my rut to pray, “make me soft, make me compassionate, let me hear, let me see.”   If words matter and blessings (and curses) stand, then I assume that as I declare over my day, my body, my home “I’m so tired,” I will in fact be so tired.  If you declare that you are so stressed, poor, sick, frustrated, depressed, then I can only assume, with the Word of God as my witness, that no matter what your actual circumstances are, you will in fact be stressed, poor, sick, frustrated, and depressed.

Here is something I have noticed about my poor blind dog’s well-worn paths.  No grass grows on them.  They are dead.  If we stay in a rut for too long it will get deeper and deeper, taking us lower and lower.  No life.  Just dirt.  Are you inadvertently heaping dirt on top of yourself with careless, well-worn, habitual words?  Wouldn’t that be a curse really?

I can study The Word daily, I can boldly use my words to pray big prayers, I can hope to write  Words That Matter and put it out there to all of you, but maybe all of these words get lost in my well-worn words.  Can you hear me from down here in this rutted path?  Evidently I’m the extremely tired one.  (Insert eye-roll).  Habits are hard to break.  They say you can’t teach an old (blind) dog new tricks.  Don’t believe it!   Join me in praying that God lovingly throws an old shoe in our path and stops us short before we keep on speaking those destructive, life-sucking words over ourselves.  They will stand.  A new path might be just what we need!

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.  Psalms 19:14

 

God Bursts Through

“What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”       William Shakespeare

Forgive the cliché Romeo and Juliet quote but currently I am neck-deep in Shakespeare For Children, a lovely read-aloud for school that keeps my 10-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter riveted…. Not really.  But, let me ask you, is it true?   Do any of us really believe this?  I have never met an expectant mother who flippantly dismisses the privilege of naming her child saying, “What does a name matter?”  All four of my children have some aspect of a family name within theirs.  A grandmother’s middle name, the same initials as Dad (and his dad, and his dad), and the baby has both Daddy’s name and my precious grandmother’s.  When he is grown, he may not remember her sweet face and soft hands, but he will know that he carries her middle name with him because there isn’t a week that goes by that I do not say, “Who are you named after?”  The tow-headed 5-year-old answers proudly, “Nannie.”  That’s right, Baby.  Don’t ever forget it.

The Bible is a virtual endless study on names.  We read about lineages and “begots.”  We read how names changed when God intervened and altered life paths.  And we could mediate forever on the many names of God, what they speak about His character, and what they mean for our lives.  Places in the Bible have significant names as well, often marking an event that took place there.  For example, Genesis 35:15 says, “And Jacob named the place Bethel (which means “house of God”), because God had spoken to him there.” (NLT)

Well, I came across one such instance lately that has me simply churning inside.  I am hopeful it will be as profound to you as it was to me:

So David went to Baal-perazim and defeated the Philistines there.  “The Lord did it!”  David exclaimed.  “He burst through my enemies like a raging flood!”  So he named that place Baal-perazim (which means “THE LORD WHO BURSTS THROUGH.“)  2 Samuel 5:20 (NLT)

Floods, hurricanes, tsunamis… we have been bombarded lately with pictures of how powerful water can be when it bursts through.  Perhaps it has been more than an image for you, maybe you have seen the damage it can cause first hand.  I get water.  I grew up surrounded by water.  I know that the same gentle water of the lake that laps at your toes as you catch minnows by the shore, will feel rock-hard when you fall full-speed from your skis.  I know that the tide that brings endless treasures to the sandbar will quickly destroy your sand castle, or sometimes the sea-wall.  I know that often, right beneath the ocean’s stunning blue-green waves, lies a dangerous undertow.  In a drought we pray for water to come.  In the storm we pray for water to subside.  Water is a thing of beauty.  Water is a thing of power.

The Lord who bursts through…  I literally cannot get enough of this imagery.  Anyone out there need a little bursting through?    There was a season not long ago that I was fervently praying for some breakthrough in my husband’s life.  Daily.  Earnestly seeking God on his behalf.  Interceding.  During this time, the Lord gave me a compelling picture.  I could see my husband like a statue, almost like The Thinker, bronze, frozen, hardened.  As I prayed, the outer shell began to crack and fall to the ground.  In my mind’s eye he began to break free, stand-up and stretch out.  He burst through what was entangling him, what was trapping him.  As I continually put this picture before the Lord in my prayer time, I watched small changes happening in my husband’s life.   I watched him burst through distraction, burst through apathy, burst through a hardness of heart.  I love a little bursting through.

Often in the storms of life we pray for Jesus to calm the wind and the waves like He did in Mark 4:39.  To be sure, ours is a God who has the authority to say, “Be still,” and all elements, both natural and supernatural, must obey.   But I wonder how often we pray that Jesus would be the storm?   How often do we pray that He would not only subdue the forces coming against us but that He would BE the force that bursts through?  Like a tidal wave of justice and goodness and blessing, He would burst through our circumstances and we could say like David, “The Lord did it!  He burst through my enemies like a raging flood!”    None of us are probably facing Philistines today but someone reading this is facing financial uncertainty.  Someone is up against the enemy of apathy and disinterest in their marriage.  Someone is fighting hopelessness in their singleness.  Someone is being bombarded with illness, depression, and strong-holds of sin and wrong-thinking.    Someone is contending with fear, sparring with shame, brawling with unforgiveness, battling bitterness.  Me too.

So, maybe instead of asking God to calm the storm we can ask Him to BE the storm in our battles today.  If calming the storm is defensive (and we love defense, don’t get me wrong, defense wins games), BURSTING THROUGH like a flood is offensive.  I don’t know about you but I think it’s time for a little offense!  Maybe a calm storm is overrated sometimes and what we need is a hurricane of Jesus proportions.   Visualize the dam breaking, picture the geyser erupting, envision the rolling power of a tsunami and then remember that your God is the GOD WHO BURSTS THROUGH!

Names matter.  They hold power.  I may be calling our little Ranchito out here in West Texas Baal-perazim for awhile.  Heck, I may be calling myself that too.  I want this home to be known as a place where the Lord burst through.  I want these kids, this marriage, this man of mine, my tribe, and my needy flawed self to be marked by the flood of His presence.  Baal-perazim- the Lord who burst through.  Do it Jesus!  BE THE STORM!

Dwelling in the Storehouse

Can I tell you a verse that haunts me?  That wrecks me no matter how many times I read it?  I mean no one wants to be haunted or wrecked alone, so here it is: “You do not have because you do not ask.”  James 4:2.  After all of the studies I have done on prayer, all the books I have read, all the scriptures I have memorized and meditated on concerning prayer, this is the one.  Let me be completely transparent and vulnerable for a moment and tell you that I am sure there are some things that I do not have because I have not asked.

I think this gets worse over time, compounded by the years, and the doubt, and the growing up.  My kids are awesome at asking for what they want.  Every time we walk into a store- be it a gas station, a grocery store, or FAO Schwartz (JK, they’ve never been in a FAO Schwartz.  It’s more like Target – but you know what I am saying) they find something they want and they will ask for it.  Even if we have had the “don’t ask for anything in here,” conversation just seconds before.  The younger two still have no problem asking for things they want from their friend’s houses, be it toys or snacks.   They are all busy making Christmas lists right now, as catalogs and commercials entice them daily.   My oldest has even qualified who she thinks should give her what based on their likes and personalities.  For example: “Globe from Pop.”  (FYI Dad!) (Side note: if this one said: “Unicorn and trip to Bali from Pop,” she would get it… I think the globe is aiming a little low but whatever.)  This can be annoying.  I am in constant fear that I am raising entitled, spoiled children.  But let me tell you when it is awesome;

In their prayers. They will pray about anything, believe for anything, ask God for anything.  Your sick dog, their friend’s skinned elbow, their sister’s cough, the rabbit’s hurt feelings? They are on it.  I am learning so much from them in this.  Jesus did say in Matthew 18:3, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I can assure you that my “little children” will not fall into the “have not because they asked not” category… at least for now.But I have been convicted lately that I do fall into that category, which seems strange to me, after I have held so tightly to prayer, after I have seen so many victories, after I have developed such a passion for it.  Maybe my mature theology and knowledge is not serving me well though.

Let me tell you another really wonky theology I have developed as I have lived a little life: I think I believe that there is some sort of cosmic sliding scale of blessing,  and I have already had my share.  Which means I have no right to ask for more.  You see, I sort of hit the lottery when it comes to family.  My parents are great!  They loved us really well and they introduced us to Jesus.  Not perfect, but pretty fantastic.  My brothers are two of my favorite people on the planet.  Like, I like to hang out with them.  Like, our texts are my favorite.  I have 4 sisters in law that are more like sisters and that is incredibly fun.  My husband and I haven’t always had an easy road but I have loved him since I was a little girl and would choose him out of every man in the world forever.  And he’s hot.  He loves to go to work everyday at a job that provides well for our family and I don’t take that for granted for a moment.  I get to raise my 4 healthy, beautiful children.  My friendships are real and deep.  Our school is a gift.  Our church is a blessing.  Our home is a refuge.  See what I mean?  I have had hard days, hard seasons, sad times, but I have not known real tragedy.

And as I type those words fear strikes my heart.

Because surely the shoe will drop at some point.  Surely this is all the good a girl will get.  Surely I am overdue for loss, devastation, unanswered prayers, the bottom to fall out.  I think I believe that if I am granted one more blessing a starving child in Africa will die.  Like there is a limited number of them and I have used all of mine up.

Here is a perfect example of this:  You may have heard of a little storm that recently came through named Hurricane Matthew.  As it neared Haiti, we got a text from a friend who had spent time there serving the poorest of the poor this summer.  She loves these people and has such a burden for their dire situation.  She reminded us to be in prayer for the Haitian people as Matthew slammed into their poverty stricken country.  We prayed.  I prayed.  And though the village she loves so much was spared, the death toll rose in Haiti.  The next day, Matthew headed toward my home state.  As I sat on my couch in West Texas, glued to The Weather Channel, watching reporters being beaten and blown miles from the dearest place on earth to me, fielding endless texts from my family with tears running down my cheeks, I was paralyzed.  How could I pray for a sea wall to hold, for a surge to subside, for the eye of the storm not to destroy a building, when the Haitian people were dying.  See?   It was right to ask for their lives to be spared, but it did not discount asking for my home to be spared as well.  It is wrong theology to think that it has to be one or the other… That God is limited somehow and has to choose…. I would never say that your past misfortune disqualified you for future blessing, but in my wonky theology, I believed that my past fortune disqualified me.

Perhaps one reason I have arrived here is my distaste for entitled, spoiled people, both out in our culture and within my own home.  See, I DO have the “don’t you dare ask for a thing” conversation all of the time.  My kids know that as soon as they tell me they are bored or have nothing to do, I will go on a 30 minute rant about all the hundreds of dollars worth of toys and books they have.  Not to mention pets and land.  Same goes when they complain about their clothes, or what’s for dinner.  “Don’t you know that there are starving children in Africa who would love to eat your ______?!”  True.  All true.  You know that verse in Matthew 7 that says, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?”  (Matt. 7:9-10).  Can I say honestly, me.  Sometimes I want to give them the stone to teach them a lesson.  What lesson?  The “stop asking for things” lesson.   So here I am, thinking my Heavenly Father is like me.  That He will parent like I do.  That He will view my asking for one more thing as spoiled entitlement.

Here is another reason I think I ask not, and one I had not recognized until Shauna Niequist highlighted it for me in her book Present over Perfect:  I believe I can’t ask God for help with situations I have gotten myself into.  She says in the chapter entitled “Yellow Sky,”…

“One confession.  More often than not, I found myself praying some version of: You got yourself into this; you get yourself out.  Something inside me tells me that I can’t pray for things that I’ve selected into and now need help with.  If I’m honest, my theology of prayer seems to be: You made your bed; now lie in it.” 

 I never knew I felt this way until she penned those life-changing words.  For me it feels like this: “Well of course you’re overwhelmed!  Why the heck did you choose to do school this way?  You could always send them off everyday like smart moms do.  And whose fault is it that you have 4 kids anyway?  And you’re stressed about $$$?  Well, maybe if you hadn’t (bought that, gone there, done that) things would be a little better.  Oh, you’re frustrated that your hubby is working long hours- at the job he loves and provides for you- how dare you, spoiled brat!  And your days are too full to get it all done?  Too full of friends and healthy children and activities YOU committed to?  Seriously?”  I hear those as  Jesus’ words, but they are not.  Those are lies.  And the more I listen to them, the further the distance is from my need to my asking,  from my heart to my prayers.  I have sort of adopted a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps and deal with it” theology that is in complete opposition to dependency on God.

Let me tell you where I desperately desire to dwell these days, in God’s storehouse. Don’t you love this imagery?  God’s storehouse of blessing?  Unlike me, God’s parenting never ceases with good things.  Matthew 7:11 goes on to say, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?”

Here are a few more verses that are paving the path for me into the storehouse:

“The Lord will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand.” Deuteronomy 28:12

“How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have wrought for those who take refuge in You, before the sons of men!”  Psalm 31:19

“How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!  People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.  They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink form your river of delights.”  Matthew 36:7-8

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”  Ephesians 1:3.

This does not sound like a limited God.  This does not sound like a God who measures out blessing and when you reach your limit, it’s a stone for you, or a snake, or a tragedy.  It is not about deserving it, after all we know from Lamentations 3:22, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.”  And it is not about the stuff of physical blessings.  It is about having a right view of my limitless, loving Father.  It is about tearing down the walls that keep my heart far from His storehouse.

So, there are a couple of things I am hoping will work out for my family right now.  They are not needs.  They would be good for us, but not necessary.  They would be cherry-on-top blessings, if you will.  In my wonky theology I wouldn’t dare ask for such things.  I would be afraid that one more good thing would tip the scales completely and all of my blessings would fall and shatter.  But not anymore, because as I sit here in the storehouse of my Father, I realize His blessings are limitless. And He loves me.  And He will do what is best and I can trust Him with my wants.  I might mess up often in many ways but I hope to learn from those (sometimes spoiled) children of mine.  I want to be like them and never have it said of me that I have not because I asked not.

I will dwell in the storehouse.  Will you join me? After all, there is plenty to go around.