Wait! I’m not ready!

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2: 8-10

Ephesians chapter two was my Bible reading for today. This is a familiar verse, one I probably memorized for confirmation. As is common, when we are led by the Spirit through scripture, today it has a fresh meaning for me.

I am focusing on the last phrase "to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." The thought that circles in my poor addled brain is this: He prepared the works in advance; it doesn't say He prepared me in advance.

And boy, am I feeling that truth right now. I am, learning all over again, how to write papers with lots of the redundancies that make my past editors cringe. All my years of learning how to write have not prepared me for keeping professors happy; yet, this is the work He has prepared for me in advance.

I feel disoriented about many things for which I feel woefully unprepared. 26 years of teaching young children math, a GRE math score that puts me in the bottom 1/3 (excuse me, at least two standard deviations below the mean) and the work He has prepared for me includes statistics?

26 years of teaching children how to understand what they read and another 10 years of teaching adults how to teach comprehension and now I need to be able to read APA style (Barney, 1997) which puts (Dinglefritz, 2005) stupid (Carbuncle, 2009) references in the middle (Hoosenfuss, 1977) (Peabody, 2001) (Jingleheimer, et al, 2008) of what you are trying to understand.

26 years of wiping noses and solving petty arguments and now I am reading journal articles that are a whole new level of petty arguments. These are solved, not with familiar playground banter, but with huge meta-analysis studies. Yet, they still sound like "but, he said . . . ." Can you even put a theorist in a time-out?

This prepared me . . . how?

The only thing in my past that is working for me is years of convincing administrators that my idea is really their idea so they will be more comfortable allowing me to try it. (insert "professor" for "administrator").

Somehow I doubt this well honed skill will work with my committee. Sigh.

God doesn't prepare us in advance. He prepares us as we need it; sometimes the night before the test or moments before the paper is due. Sometimes He doesn't prepare us at all, and allows us to fail so we can learn something else. He doesn't dress us up in astronaut suits that take care of our every need, and put us in a ministry rocket that has been prepared and checked over and over again. He doesn't even warn us with a countdown. He simply sends us off; ready or not, here we go.

God does not prepare us in advance. God prepares the works in advance. He has the plan, He applies the grace. He knows where we are going to land and has prepared the work waiting for us.

Right now, I am selfishly praying for a soft landing.

Abba, father, amen.

Competent confusion

I was more confused than usual reading the chapter on competence. It was posted on-line and I had it blown up 200% to make reading a bit easier on my eyes. I couldn't shake the feeling that things were not making sense. I would be okay in the middle of the page but moving from page to page left me re-scrolling up and down to see if I had skipped something. Slowly it dawned on me: the pages were out of order: 62, 63, 60, 61, 58, 59, etc.

The really sad thing is it took me half an hour to figure it out.

The other day the research we read talked about testing motivation with reading passages that were purposefully confusing to see how long the subjects would persevere. I wondered if this is what the professor was attempting to replicate? I started to panic; what if I did not have the correct kind of motivation? What if I had an entity view of intelligence instead of the much more productive incremental view? What if my attributions were about blame which would obviously mean that I didn't have what it takes to succeed? What if all of this was in vain? Maybe my deepest fear is true – I am not competent to see this assignment to its completion.

Take a deep breath, have some chocolate, relax.

Our first discussion in this class was over a reading that basically took 20 pages of really big words to tell us that we cannot trust the meaning of any terms. Most of my studying this last year has been an effort to bring me up to speed on vocabulary, so I can hope to comprehend what is on the textbook page. Now they tell me that the words I have been writing down in my notes and committing to memory have no meaning.

It is times like these when it is really great to be a child of God. When you have faith you have certainty. When I worry that I am not good enough, or smart enough, or motivated enough; my faith reassures me that I am right. In fact, I can do nothing.

I am so very glad this doesn't depend on me. God is good enough, God is smart enough; God is in control. Sometimes He puts the pages in the right order and gives me a glimpse of His plan. Other times, He tells me to just keep on reading, writing, listening and learning.

When I read my psychology text books I get an interesting picture of mankind's folly. We strive to understand ourselves and how we think, work and hopefully, thrive in the world in which we live. The folly is in believing that we can understand ourselves. One of the researchers cited in my textbook is named Eccles. See if you don't think this is God's sense of humor:

"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher.

"Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Eccles 1: 2

It is meaningless, isn't it? I don't mean to say the work God asks us to do is useless. He has a purpose for everything that happens and a promise to bring good out of it. It is just that it is meaningless to us because we are the children and not the Father; we are the tools and not the Artist. We are to trust and obey, to believe and have faith, to work and to wonder. We leave the meaning and the outcome up to God. Now that makes sense.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Colossians 3:17

Perfect peace

It's been a long week. It started with frustration and ended with grief. From the computer to the cat, we ran the gamut of stress and sadness. One thing piled on top of the other until I felt inundated. I had trouble ordering my text book for class, so, now I don't know if I will get one book or three books; I just know it will be late. The wireless router wouldn't work so I had to travel all over Lincoln to find a place where I could successfully download readings for the class. When I finally got copies of what I needed, reading them left me stunned and confused. By the middle of the week, the long term care facility, where Grandpa lives, called to tell us he is getting closer to hospice. Then the week finished with the kids and I taking our 22 year old cat for her last trip to the vet.

It is interesting how some things are easier to cry over than others.

At the moment we are blessed with unusually cool July weather. In 40 years of Nebraska summers, I don't remember another July day when I woke up to temperatures in the upper fifties, and left the windows open all day. A rare blessing, to sit out on the deck at this time of the year, and to feel God's love in a warm breeze. So tonight we will eat a picnic supper; enjoy chicken, corn-on-the-cob, and watermelon and we will thank our God for the goodness of a warm summer evening. We will laugh and tease and talk about the next cat. There will be spoken and unspoken memories about Grandpa. We will remember how God loves us.

And He does love us. He loves us when we are basking in the sun of happy events. He loves us when our confusion leads to anxiety and stress. He loves us when we face loss and when we anticipate the good that awaits us in heaven. He loves us.

Next week we will return to the frustrations of work and school. We will find ourselves looking for our cat in her favorite sunbeam spot. We will begin talking about what hospice means and what lies ahead for Grandpa and for us. And God will continue to love us in that perfect and complete way that sustains us, forgives us, saves us, and gives us peace.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him,

so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Is your life a spiral or helix?

A spiral is an interesting line. When flat it can be referred to as a whirl, when three dimensional it becomes a helix. It is common in both nature and human design, being a symbol for sun, starlight, and even hypnotism. It is a strong and efficient design as found in staircases and it is easy to doodle when one is bored with a lecture. My favorite spirals when I was young were those made by my Spirograph toy. I could sit for hours watching my pen create layers of colors and lines. Perhaps I was unknowingly practicing self-hypnotism.

A spiral could be a good metaphor for our lives. We often feel like we are traveling in a circle with the illusion that we are getting somewhere cruelly dashed as the same sight comes into view, once again. We try to venture into new territory but part of us wants to remain tethered so we simply travel in circles. I believe this describes my journey with sin, quite nicely.

I am losing my love for spirals.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. Romans 7: 15-20

I think I am getting a little bit dizzy.

Now with a helix, the story is a bit different. A helix is a spiral with the center pulled up, like the curved edges on a screw. With a helix you are still traveling in a circle, you are still tethered to the center, but you are making progress by moving in space. If you draw a spiral on a piece of paper, then take a scissors and cut along your line, you can attach a string to the center and hang your helix from the ceiling. It will spin and twirl with the air in the room.

A helix is a more apt metaphor for what our life in Christ can be. We move about our world with our faith tethered to God's word and as we move about we progress ever closer to Him. It is a slow process. It is a careful process. And, in this process we are moved by the breath of the Spirit.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17: 24-28

In a helix we still struggle with our tribulations and our sins. In a helix we remain tethered to the Word of God. As we move about the world, the faith God has given us will keep us from wandering away. But, in a helix we don't just travel in circles; we make progress. We live and move and have our being; as the Spirit moves us ever closer to Him.

Hardwired for Faith

The PBS Nova show was about chimpanzees and how they learn. Through demonstrations of experiments we saw that chimps can solve problems, work together, use tools and copy the actions of a human, but they do not learn. They may work together accidentally, but they cannot coordinate their efforts. They can copy what they see but are not hardwired to learn. They don't look to each other or to humans as a source of learning. But humans do. In fact, the earliest example we see of this is a baby pointing at something he wants a parent to pay attention to. The baby expects the parent to look and give a response. And the baby will understand when her parent points. A baby chimp will ignore pointing, because its brain does not look to another chimp or human for the purpose of learning. This explains how chimpanzees have developed differently from humans. Of course, according to the scientists, this was all planned and designed by evolution. Funny, I always thought evolution was a theory about a process; I didn't realize it could "plan" or "design."

The experiment was fascinating to watch. The chimpanzees would copy the humans when the answer to solving the puzzle, that resulted in a piece of candy, was not readily apparent. As soon as the answer was made obvious, the chimps stopped copying the humans. When the same activity was tried with children, they followed the directions of the scientists even if they didn't need to. They were learning from the scientists, and they had faith that these adults knew best even if their actions did not match what the eyes observed.

Once our brains and our faith reach a level of maturity that allows us to understand things at a more abstract level, our lives become a constant journey of reclaiming our child-like faith. We see evidence all around us that the world is a sinful, evil place and we are sinners amongst the rest. We know the world is dangerous and possibilities of disaster loom, always, just ahead. The only way we can survive the mess we create, and the mess in which we live, is to cling to the faith given to us. That faith must be the faith of a child. We must be able to hold on to God in spite of what our senses tell us, not because of what they tell us.

We can see evidence of God's love and care, all around us. We experience His healing; we are spared many trials and helped through many troubles. We can see God everywhere, but, we cannot prove Him. Still, He is more than a theory. He is our Designer, Savior, and Comforter. He has hardwired us for faith and learning.

Hold on to instruction; do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life. Proverbs 4:13

Often our lives take an unexpected turn. Our human side may think we know the wisest course of action, but, through our faith, God tells us otherwise. This is when God helps us to look to Him for learning and direction, in spite of what we see around us. This is when He blesses us with childlike faith. This, I can confidently say, is part of His design!

My youngest child suddenly looks so much older as he asks to borrow the car to run an errand. Then he comes back from a youth choir servant event to show me the 5 pound jawbreaker he got at the Mall. Sigh, he is still my little boy. Likewise, his sister has grown into a fine adult who handles a budget and makes plans for her future. I must admit that I still treasure the times she comes back to me and figuratively sits in my lap asking for a small piece of advice. No matter how big they get, no matter how mature, no matter what adventures await them, I pray they are always blessed with a childlike faith in the Savior who loves them dearly.

He called a little child and had him stand among them. And He said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 17: 3-4

Now Cats

Our cat is 22 years old and she has gone a bit senile. She pretty much sleeps all day with only one exception: 6:00am. When the radio alarm goes off the cat alarm comes on. She becomes a diva, planting herself between us on the bed and howling away.

For this cat, there is no past: even though I have been fed every day for years, today might be different.

For this cat there is no future: why should I believe they will feed me in a few minutes?

For this cat there is only "now". "Now" is hungry and "Now" knows that there are cat-food-giver people in the bed. Although, "now" probably wonders what the people have to be so grumpy about.

If Face Book had a "What Biblical Character are You?" quiz I am sure I would score as an Israelite wandering in the desert.

For the Israelites there was no past: so what if God performed countless miracles and wonders to get us here, what has He done for us, lately?

For the Israelites there was no future: how can a land of milk and honey be better than slavery?

There was only "now": I am tired of eating the same thing and not being allowed to worship what I want to worship. Here are my earrings; make me a golden calf.

That is sooo me.

Never mind what God did to get me into a degree program that people in the Ed/Psych department gently try to talk me out of. Never mind that He has a future planned for me that will bring blessings. What has He done for me, lately? I am a "now" cat; I want everything fixed and easy and wrapped up in a package with a bow. Oh, and I want it "now". Being a "now" cat makes it really hard to trust.

I have been reading Acts and find that Peter has a different kind of ""now"" issue. His is more of a "now" what?" situation. A vision tells him that everything he thought he knew about Jews and Gentiles and segregation was changing. Generations of warnings of no intermarrying, intermingling or interfaithing, was to be set aside for a new future. "Now" was being turned on its head. This was a new kind of trust. This was a new world for faith. This was God's love and mercy for all mankind.

"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." Acts 10: 14-15

A "what now?" faith is the kind of faith to have. It is a faith that, while it isn't usually ready for a surprise, can handle one none-the-less. It is a faith that can make a 180 degree turn because it is a faith that is ready for the way God's plan unfolds. It is a faith that can respond with the words "Yes, Lord." It is a faith that reminds us that God loves us and cares for our every need. It is a faith that fills our heart with gratitude at the prospect of serving Him. This is the kind of faith God gives us. A childlike faith that moves through life with the confidence that, even though I am clueless about what is going on, this is how things are supposed to happen. This is the faith God gave me at my baptism. This is the faith that the Spirit nurtures when God teaches me through the Word. I was given this kind of faith. The question is: "What have I done to it along the way?"

At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father," Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was Your good pleasure." Matthew 11: 25-26

Restore my childlike faith that reminds me that "now" is about God, His plan, His love, His mercy, His grace, now.

Walking humbly

It's that time again, when graduation invitations line themselves up along the counter. The smiles on the senior pictures look familiar but my brain replaces the images with the pudgy cheeked five-year-olds of my memory. On the last day of kindergarten, twelve years ago, I assured these children that they would always be my students even if they grew up; and they did.

I recently saw one of my daughter's high school band directors at a local ice cream establishment. He had a momentary look of surprise on his face when I told him Anne would be student teaching this fall. He was a first year teacher when Anne was his drum major so I suspect my announcement might have been his first experience with realizing his former students grow up. He'll get used to it. If I can watch former students grow up, marry, and bring me their babies to hold, he can get used to seeing his teenage students grow to adulthood. Life marches on.

It is still strange to me, as I think of these young people beginning their college and work careers, that I am, once again, a backpack-lugging-note-taking-paper-writing-ID-bearing college student. It still fascinates to me what wonderful twists God weaves into our lives. This past year has been stressful, terrifying, edifying, satisfying, enlightening, and most of all, good. God is good. God is good, all the time. What have I learned, or relearned this past year that I could pass on to those fresh young faces on the graduation invitations? I suspect my message would sound much like my words to them in kindergarten:

1. God loves us, no matter what. God loves us when things are going well. He loves us when we get the job we applied for, when a professor puts a kind comment on a well-done paper and when we find any joy or success on our life. It is easy to remember that God loves us when things are going "our" way. However, it is vital that we remember that God loves us even when we fail, or when we are disappointed by the circumstances of our life.
   
2. God expects us to love each other, no matter what. This means we not only love the people who love us, but, with God's help we also love the people who hate us, who are different from us, who are being hurt by us, or who are in circumstances beyond our control or reach. God expects us to do this and His love is the power by which this is accomplished.
   
3. God is in control. This seems easy to accept, but, in my experience is immensely difficult to live. 99% of my stress comes from my mistaken belief that I can fix, handle, or otherwise survive the pickle I am in. God is in charge, He has the plan, He knows where I am going, and He will see to it that I get there. If He lets us in on the future He has planned that is just icing on the cake. He asks us to walk, with Him, in faith.
   
4. God talks to us and nourishes our faith through His word and sacraments. Seek His counsel in scripture. Read His word, everyday. Pray and seek His forgiveness, everyday. Thank Him for His love and care, everyday. Listen, be still and know He is God.
   
5. The fellowship of believers is a gift from God. Seek and build relationships with other sinners who walk in God's light. Be a blessing to them as they are to you.
   

I pray for these young people, now at their graduation, as I prayed over them when they were in my kindergarten class. I pray that God's will for them will unfold, day-by-day. And even as I pray for God to bless their lives with joy, I know that the sin we bring into the world will guarantee that joy will be made even more intense as it is help up against the pain and sadness that will be an inevitable part of their lives.

God be with us, keep us in Your care. Bless us with peace and strength. Abba, Father. Amen.

 

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8