Jesus... I Thought I Knew Him...

Jesus...  I thought I knew Him really well.  And then He really showed me something a few weeks ago.  I thought I knew Him, but began wondering if I really had a clue!!

You see, sometimes "Jesus" comes to your front porch, and stays there ALL. DAY. LONG....  All WEEK long!  "He" plays with your kids' stuff, and threatens to take it and keep it for "himself."  You wonder if "he" will ever go home!  And then, "he" gets really brave and barges into your house whenever you least expect it.  "He" will tell you "he's" hungry and expect food...  Another day "he" will barge into your house with sloppy, muddy feet JUST AFTER YOU MOPPED THE FLOOR...  "He" will demand a wet rag to clean "his" feet up.  "He'll" need at least five band-aids over the course of just a few days.  "He" will refuse to come to your house with shoes on... you know, your house that has a goat-head patch for a yard?  So!  "He" will expect you to pull out the mean stickers that "he" probably deserved in the first place for not wearing shoes!!!!  "He" will actually model to your children really bad things... like how to habitually take "His" own name in vain...  I'm going to far, you say?  Well, then one day "He" will ask you for a drink.  You will be doing that gesture... putting water in a cup and handing it over in a really annoyed manner.  And then... you'll get it because something about the gesture brings to mind Matthew 25:34-40.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,^f you did it to me.’

You'll give yourself a little bit of a break because you know that if you had put yourself in the ministry position on purpose (mission trip, Sunday school, foster parenting) that you probably would have behaved better and been more prepared emotionally and spiritually to handle this Jesus-experience you invited yourself to have.  But then, you remove the "break" you just gave yourself because you realize you are supposed to be prepared to recognize Jesus and who He needs you to be everywhere you go.  You are also supposed to always be prepared in season and out of season. (II Timothy 4:2)  And you should always be ready to show others His hope.

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect. (I Peter 3:15)

You slap yourself upside the head, and wonder how you allowed Satan to deceive you so and wonder how on earth you let your heart have such a crappy attitude.  You realize that these kids (who happen to be girls, by the way) need Him, and obviously they need care... and God chose YOU to be an influence!  Jesus doesn't always present Himself in the most convenient of ways at the most convenient of times!

Through conviction of the Holy Spirit, it's like His breath blew hot in my face, "Arrogant woman!  Wake up and be My hands and feet right where I have placed you!"  May we all be that for Him today, no matter what situation we are placed in, no matter what our occupations are, and no matter how non-Jesus-looking others are around us.  Everyone matters to the Lord and He is looking for us to show them that!

2016 Edit:  As a little background and something I don't mention in this post at all, I was praying fervently on purpose for 40 days about whether or not we should be foster parents.  I think we will some day, but when God brought the mission to my doorstep without the invitation offered by me, I didn't handle it very well.  Through this experience that this post doesn't even fully describe, He showed me why fostering would be hard on my own very young biological children and why it just wasn't time yet for us.  But He also showed me who I am supposed to be when He brings ministry to my door!!!  To MY DOOR!!!  I wish I could say I did a better job, but I'm sure that no matter how poorly I performed, that those little girls knew I noticed them and cared and I'm also sure that my children are in no way scarred because they watched their imperfect mother struggle through something she didn't plan on.  

December 2007: A December I Want To Remember...

Four years ago, I was a mom of three.  My youngest, Andrew, was just over a year old.  My days sort of went like this:  I woke up to a screaming Andrew somewhere between 6 & 6:30.  Every single morning he would do this!  I would be SO annoyed!  I'd get up, and very sleepily try to figure out (while not operating on all "cylinders") how in the world to get him out of his "funk."  I'd take him to bed with me... that'd make him madder. I'd try a drink... sometimes that would work.  Sometimes cheerios would work.  Sometimes something else.  I never knew what it was going to be, but long before he got un-grumpified, the change of hands occurred and I would go through the rest of the morning really, really GRUMPY!  I tried to spend time with the Lord when I could, but with three kids ages 6, 4, & 1... it was really hard!  There were always interruptions and not very often did I have very good quality time sitting at His feet.  I was trying to figure out how to school my 6 year old, and since we butted heads every day, I thought about how nice public school would be almost daily.  I had always wanted to homeschool!  I had envisioned myself doing that from the time I was a teenager.  But the reality of it was crushing my dream-world.  What was wrong??!!  Why couldn't I pull it together!?  I didn't want to be that grumpy mom I had become, but I didn't know what to do.


Now, the picture I'm painting seems pretty bleak... like I was really stressed out or something.  I was... but the only thing that kept me from really being the absolute, awful stressed out mom that you are envisioning, is that I happen to have a bit of a strong will myself.  I cannot tell you how many people told me during my pregnancy with Andrew that having three kids was going to be hard and stressful.  Sometimes I wanted to "HUMPH.." and say, "Thanks a lot... Joy-killer!"  I'm not sure why people think it is their obligation to tell you such things, but I'm not the only mom who has heard such comments... so I'm being real about them, in case you are that mom too.  The more people want to tell me things like that, the more I want to say, "Just watch me!"  So, I sort of held it together, especially in public... but even at home as much as I could, but I was horribly inconsistent.  Sound familiar?  How about this?  I was mostly operating in my own strength... NOW does it sound familiar?  You've been there too, I'm sure. I was virtually trying to figure out how to do "life" while only spending a few moments of interrupted non-quality time asking for wisdom.  


Proverbs 2:
"My son, if you receive my words,
And treasure my commands within you, 
So that you incline your ear to wisdom, 
And apply your heart to understanding; 
Yes, if you cry out for discernment, 
And lift up your voice for understanding, 
If you seek her as silver, 
And search for her as for hidden treasures; 
Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, 
And find the knowledge of God. "


Was I seeking wisdom as silver and truly searching for hidden treasures in those moments of non-quality time?  He was faithful to me... So faithful to me that He remained the jealous God who wanted my whole heart... not just my gasping for spiritual air that I did when I couldn't take it anymore by myself ;)


There was a book I read that December called "Managers of their Homes" that is devoted to helping homeschool moms figure out how to schedule their days.  Though the book itself, is not what I want to share with you, it is what I was reading when I began to "get it."  Over and over in the book, other moms of way larger families than mine were saying, "You have to spend time with the Lord... and you've gotta do it alone."  Most of them chose, even though it can be hard, to put that time slot in the morning before their kids got up. I am a true advocate of morning time with the Lord, especially now that I've realized its benefit in my life.  I used to more often read the Bible and pray at night.  That's not a bad thing...  Any time with the Lord is better than none, but when I began to give Him the first-fruits of the morning on a regular basis, it was amazing how much better my day eventually went (more about that later ;).  My personal decision to do this in the morning meant that I would have to wake up at 5.  My primary goal at first (selfishly I suppose) was to not have such a grumpy day! I already knew how much better it was on those mornings I would get up early (4:45).  Many times I would fix breakfast for Whit before he went to work, but then I would go back to bed.  On rare occasion, however, I would stay up and was awake when Andrew woke up MAD. It was amazing how much better I was able to deal with him then!  It didn't seem to matter that I got so little sleep, because my day was so much better!


I wasn't a stranger to spending time with the Lord in the morning, but motherhood had changed things in that department for the-not-so-great.  So at first it was really, really hard... The very first day that I dedicated myself as a MOM, to wake up early to spend specific, on purpose, quantity AND quality time with the Lord... guess what happened?  Remember that third child I wrote about in the first paragraph?  Andrew woke up that early too... Mad as ever!  I dealt with other issues too every day for two weeks.  It was always something!  I can't even remember them all now.  I just know that every morning there was some crazy thing that happened that kept me from doing what I really believed God wanted me to commit to.  The straw that "broke the camel's back" happened two weeks after I tried to start this commitment:  My carbon monoxide detector went off two minutes before my alarm was supposed to!  Whit was working nights, and I, in disbelief did several things.  I took the alarm outside, and brought it back in.  It wouldn't stop beeping.  I thought, "Am I REALLY supposed to grab all of my sleeping children up and leave the house??  I mean REALLY?"  So, I called Whit.  He told me to do several different things to the detector, and all of the things still resulted in the same thing... it eventually went off again!  He finally told me, "Well I don't know what to say... The other day when the wind was blowing in the same direction, it went off too, but it didn't last this long.  Maybe everything will be fine."  MAYBE?  He basically had no advice for me and I was scared.  What I did after I hung up the phone, you might not agree with.  I mean HELLO carbon monoxide can KILL people!!!  You would have probably advised me to call 911 and scoop my babies up into the car and leave.  But there I was in my living room... after TWO SOLID WEEKS... TRYING to have time with God.  I knew in my Spirit what this was about.  So, as ridiculous as I felt, I spoke, OUT LOUD to that beeping carbon monoxide detector... I am NOT making this up... I remember exactly what I said.  "SATAN!  You are JUST trying to scare me!  You have been KEEPING me from doing what I KNOW I am supposed to do.  GET OUT OF MY HOUSE... in the NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!"  As soon as I finished speaking Jesus' name, that stupid detector shut up.  I laughed HYSTERICALLY, knelt down, and began to pray... An amazing thing began to happen over the next couple of months.  See, the more time you spend with the Lord, the more you want of Him... and the more He gives if you ask.  Andrew began waking up later and later and began waking up more and more pleasant, at that!  


^{Hebrews 11:6 "}But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."  I'm a believer!  And if anything encouraged my belief in verses such as this one, it was this particular time in my life!


I have had my share of challenges over the last four years... and I've had my struggles with giving Him the morning, but I am forever changed and challenged.  I couldn't survive without His wisdom... and I sought Him this morning over something else entirely.  Needing to readjust... reprioritize... Needing to remember the impact of December 2007 and I'm desiring to encourage your December 2011...  I encourage you to seek Him in the morning too.