money money money!

Being tax season, I’ve had more thoughts about money than usual. Question like, Where should I spend or invest this? How much should I commit to giving away to missions or ministry?  Should I set aside and create a savings  budget to later provide for my aging parents?  If I change to part-time work, how will that change all these things? Most importantly, what honors God and is the best stewardship of what He has put in my care. I re-read Tim Keller’s chapter in Counterfeit Gods: Money Changes Everything. I was deeply affected by his comment of how easily money becomes an idol- as it meets every deep idol of our heart- comfort, approval, power, or control.  Here are some fitting excerpts for this tax-money season.

Each deep idol- power, approval, comfort, or control—generates a different set of fears and a different set of hopes. “Surface idols are things such as money, our spouse, or children, through which our deep idols seek fulfillment... Some people want money as a way to control their world and life. Such people usually don’t spend much money and live modestly. They keep it all safely saved and invested, so they can feel completely secure in the world. Others want money for access to social circles and to make themselves beautiful and attractive. These people do spend money on themselves in lavish ways. ..In every way however, money idolatry enslaves and distorts lives…Deep idols have to be dealt with at the heart level. 

Jesus warms people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no on thinks they are guilty of it. Therefore we should all begin with a working hypothesis that “this could easily be a problem for me.”

Money can become a spiritual addiction, and like all addictions it hides its true proportions from its victims. 

So Lord, turn my eyes back to You as my source of comfort and security. Help me to see this money as belonging to You and give me wisdom and surrender to use it in ways that honor you.  Protect my heart from the deceitfulness of wealth and all it’s booby-traps along the way.

make space.

"Bring me the sacrifice of your precious time. This creates sacred space around you-- space permeated with My presence and My peace"

from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young.

The flowers were all growing in the wrong places and happily filled my yard and lawn. Sad to see the rest all go with the mowing but thankful to be able to put this sunshine in a jar on my table today. 

Firsts

Even if you want to forget, you often can't.... first time getting into a car accident. first autopsy. First time falling in love. first kiss and first heartbreak. first move away from home. first time delivering a slippery newborn baby. …even the first time eating passion fruit.

the other night, I delivered my first stillborn child into the world. He was only 20 wks old… the length of a large yam really, and if you didn't look carefully you would have thought he was a blood clot. When we lay him on his mothers belly in a clean towel, she stopped crying. she just caressed him. the room was silent. there were no words. 

jen and her most difficult patient of the day

She is afraid
She trembles when he yells at her
He towers over her
6 feet tall and unrelenting in his words
meant only for cutting.
She believes the accusations
For a moment only

And then she sees him
As through a looking glass
He carries years of pain
he has a wife and child
who suffer because he suffers
from an illness without cure.
He coughs up blood in the morning
Spiting out his anger
But in his heart
he is afraid.

Here are some small quotes that I want to remember from today.

Following Jesus is like a dice game. You put everything on one number and roll your dice.  That number is Jesus. If you are right, you've won it all. If it is wrong, you've lost everything.  If someone looked at your life, would you be all in?  --Bruce Randall

We are terrible friends to Jesus, but he is a wonderful friend to sinners. 
He suffered at the hands of his friends for his friends, because of His love. 

Are you glad the Bible records that Peter denied Jesus? I am. it gives me hope. This Peter, who Jesus said to "feed my sheep" to "follow me" and "upon this rock I will build my church". This Peter was a messy man, and we are messy as well. --pastor Jeremy


Also, regarding the love of God:

We each have our unmet needs. and we carry them around all day long like an empty cup. In one way or another we hold out that cup to the people in our lives and say, "Can someone please fill this?  Even a tablespoon would help!"

…

How do we "abide" in the love of God"?  We dwell no further from His side than the place we are most keenly aware of His great affection. Was it not the disciple who reclined against Christ Jesus who saw himself as the "beloved disciple?"? Place your year against the Savior so that when troubled times come, you may not know what will befall you, but you can hear the steady pulse of the boundless love of Him who holds you. -- Beth Moore


“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet." - Frederick Buechner

the disturbing truth.

A window into this week.

She looks so put together, volunteers with the PTA, attends a multiple Bible studies every week.  She told me she found her husband in bed with another woman. She refused to sleep with him for about a year and then he raped her. They are in the middle of divorce now.

He is a self made millionaire. Then he fell from a hot tub and 8 back surgeries later, he is still in chronic pain. daily takes pain and anxiety medication doses that would kill many people. He says he has been taken care of by the best doctors in the country but no one can help him.

He has terrible uncontrolled diabetes and can't afford his insulin. He works night shift from 9pm to 8am, then another day shift from 1-7pm. He sleeps 3 hours a day. He is struggling to support his family and his newly adopted grandchild.

She is newly married but in a marriage with "open relationships" with other people. She is a doctor. She says she is happy but can't stop crying when I pray for her.

He came to every prenatal appointment as I cared for his pregnant wife and delivered their second child. I care for his entire family and he always seemed so rational. Then I get a letter from a psychiatric hospital. He tried to kill his wife and children.  When interviewed he says, "I think about it often and there are many ways I could do it."




Oh Lord, you are the Savior, and I am not. You love these people.  You bring life out of ashes.  Teach me what to do with the disturbing truths these people carry to me. Teach me to roll them into your strong hands. It is too much for me. You are the Savior and I am not.