Walk With Him Wednesday: Selflessness and How To Get There?

At not quite eight years old, Harriet Tubman's life took a tragic turn. While her younger years were carefree, spent with her family in the fields or exploring the woods and catching frogs, as an owned piece of property, a slave, she was expected to work her young body to exhaustion on very little food or restorative sleep, sun-up to sun-down.

On day, while still seven years old, Harriet cared for a fussy baby for hours and then did more strenuous chores in a plantation mansion. At dinner time she helped serve the rich plantation owners, feeling exhausted, hungry, and faint. A dish of candy enticed her in her weakness and need. She tried to sneak a piece and the cruel Mistress, her owner, took down a switch to beat Harriet's already weakened body.

Harriet ran out of the house as fast as she could, with the landowners on her tail. Shrewd for her age, she hid in a pigpen for two days, eating out of the trough at night while the pigs slept, until her father found her and brought her home. She feared being sold for defiantly fleeing, but her father negotiated for a whipping instead.

The Mistress whipped her mercilessly and shoved her against a wall, leaving her to stumble and crawl home on her own. The pain was worse than she'd ever felt and for days she drifted in and out of consciousness, left alone most of the days in her parent's primitive cabin quarters.

Dorothy Sterling's account of Harriet's life, in the book Freedom Train, reveals unbelievable suffering. My heart wandered from tears to anger back to tears, at the magnitude of cruelty this young girl experienced. I could only stare at walls after reading it, trying to process the suffering and cruelty.

The book goes on to describe a teenage Harriet with a courageous, determined spirit. She thought and planned for years how she might escape and in the end she went alone, the memory of the beatings giving her the courage she needed. She wanted to be like Moses, leading her people to freedom.

After she made the trip herself, she ventured back into the South 18 times over many years, bringing more than 300 slaves to freedom. Her people called her Moses and waited for her in the dark of the night, the thought of freedom chasing away their terror.

She risked her life many times over, including in the Civil War that followed. And at 93 years old, pneumonia took her last breath. To all who read her story, she is an epic heroine. One of the giants of our world.

She had strengths and weaknesses like all of us. Admirable and regrettable qualities. So what was it, ultimately? What made her so different? So much a giant in our hearts and minds?

I submit to you yet another reason to rejoice when you face trials of many kinds. Because suffering? It's the only avenue to selflessness. The Bible tells us to be selfless, but it's only through suffering that we get there.

When all comforts, including food and safety, rest and the absence of fear, are taken away, we have to dig deep into our human soul, and finding inadequacy there, we find God and His strength, and make His purpose ours.

Selflessness. That is what made Harriet Tubman an epic giant. That is what gave birth to her Moses-inspired legacy.

And as we read about her life, drinking in the magnitude of her selflessness, we suddenly feel shame at our own complaining and selfishness. We can't be exactly like Jesus, but what about Harriet? Can we marvel at her life and see our suffering not as a curse, but a blessing? Not as a means to ruin our life, but as an avenue to make it count for all eternity?

Matthew 16:25
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

Exploring the spiritual practice of suffering this week, along with Ann Voskamp and other ladies. 

Multitude Monday: Something About Jonah, Part 5

Read the rest of the Jonah Series:

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

We conclude our study of Jonah today with chapter 4, verses 5-11.

What happened to Jonah, the man who uttered the long, emotional prayer of thanksgiving at the Lord's gracious providing of a fish to save him--a fish that subsequently spat him onto dry land in a magnificent display of God's mercy? That Jonah revered God. That Jonah knew gratitude.

Here, as the book of Jonah ends, we have a wildly angry man obsessed with viewing what he hopes will be the massive destruction of Nineveh. We learned earlier that the Ninevites repented and God spared them, angering Jonah exceedingly....for Nineveh? Jonah hated its people with every fiber of his being--every man, woman, child. 

The powerful hate so overtook Jonah's heart, he no longer revered God. He transformed into an unashamedly indignant, disrespectful, spiteful man, wanting to die in his anger because he couldn't accept God's love and mercy toward his enemy.

Jonah sits and waits out the rest of the forty days, hoping the people will return to sin and be destroyed after all.

Jonah 4:5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 

As I wrote in part 4, Jonah behaves so reprehensibly that God could, justifiably, strike him dead on the spot.

But remember what God does instead? Jonah 4:4 Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

He says it ever so gently, as though conversing with a 4-year-old boy instead of a grown man. Amazing what God puts up with, isn't it? We behave foolishly, devilishly, and He still loves us. He still desires to restore us--to bring us back to the fold of his Fatherly arms. Thanks be to God! 

Let's see what God does next:

Jonah 4:6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 

The Lord showed compassion on Jonah, even as Jonah burned in anger and sin. Just as a mother would gather up a raging, over-tired toddler and lovingly nurse him at her breast, instead of punishing him.

The Scripture tells us that Jonah was very happy about the plant--exceedingly happy, it translates.

But what is lacking in Jonah now, at the gifting of this plant, compared to the last time God displayed mercy toward the wayward prophet--fashioning a fish to save him?

Gratitude. 

Jonah now cares nothing for God. He will take from God alright--take this gourd plant with its broad leaves to protect him from the harsh Mediterranean elements--but he won't acknowledge the plant as a gracious gift...or give thanks for it.

This ingratitude proves too much for God. The Almighty decides it's time for an object lesson.

Jonah 4:7-8 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah 4:9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? 

Again, this gentleness from God. As I said in part 4 of our study, the Book of Jonah is like a how-to manual on godly discipleship. 

Oh, Lord! Let these words, this gentleness, sink into every parent's heart. For this is how you want it done. This is godly parenting.

Jonah 4:9: And he (Jonah) said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

Oh, my. What a dirty rotten sinner that Jonah is, right? How could he speak to the Almighty like that! 

Do we feel this same heated disrespect from our own children sometimes? Do we recognize it in our own hearts, as well? How many times have we let righteous indignation trump mercy? How many times have we felt a prick from the Holy Spirit, but kept right on going with our indignation, as though deaf? 

The completion of the book of Jonah, now: 4:10-11 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

Bible scholars disagree about the more than 120,000 people God speaks of here. Some believe this number represents all the people in Nineveh, none of whom know God, and others think this number refers only to the youngest children residing there, who cannot tell right from wrong yet.

Nineveh was an ancient city with a long history--a city in which God invested much. He created every last soul there, every last animal. Nineveh being the work of His mighty hands, he had Fatherly feelings toward it, understandably. Every single soul matters to God. 

We mustn't forget that as God places hurting, lost people in our midst. We may feel disgust at these people, but God feels compassion. Oh, but to have His heart! His infinite capacity to love!

The Book of Jonah ends with verse 11. Strange, yes, how it ends? We don't discover Jonah's response to God's object lesson. Does Jonah repent? Does gratitude return to his heart? Does the Lord's gentle treatment of Jonah restore him to his senses, making him see the folly of his anger, of his hardened heart? Does Jonah eventually come to rejoice for the people of Nineveh, marveling at their repentance?

When I first began studying Jonah, I thought the main theme was lack of mercy. All these study sessions later, I think this book speaks loudest of ingratitude. 

Jonah couldn't desire mercy for Nineveh, he couldn't reconcile himself to unmerited grace for an arch enemy, because he failed to see himself as a fellow beneficiary of God's grace. The Jews didn't think they were God's chosen people because of the Lord's unmerited grace. They felt they were superior because of their righteousness.

Even the saving fish God provided? That was life-saving, unmerited grace, and yet Jonah felt fleeting gratitude only, as though God owed him that fish.

Gratitude comes out of a humble position before God. When we fail to see ourselves as a charity case, we fail to be thankful. What do we really deserve from God? Food, clothing, shelter...a job?

Really? We deserve all that? Or do we deserve death with everlasting suffering? 

I'm acquainted with a man who is a couple months away from total disaster. Though he's always been hard-working, he's a victim of the economy, about to be left with the shirt on his back and a few prized possessions...with no place to put them. 

And, oh, the anger. This man's anger is vile and seething. Frightening, even. Every syllable he utters, every bit of body language...it all screams of his self-righteous indignation at what life has handed him, a hardworking man.

He deserved success; he was a self-made man who worked for every last prized possession, every last penny. Now, at age 50, he's about to be left with nothing but a few fancy pieces of furniture. His fancy truck, his fancy custom-designed house...all to be repossessed. He lost his wife, his livelihood....everything.

And he hates God.

When I think of him now, I see Jonah sitting on that hillside, angry at God's mercy toward a "lesser" people, angry at God's sending a worm to eat his precious vine. The vine he obviously felt he deserved.

Is anyone self-made? Is anyone deserving of prized creature comforts, such as fancy homes and sheltering vines? People do work very hard to build businesses. They sacrifice to make it through lengthy university programs to get advanced degrees, to get law practices and medical practices. They work long hours, weekends included, to sell insurance or real-estate until finally, they have ample rewards. They're finally basking in money and possessions. They worked hard. They're deserving of their riches.

Right?

And when those riches are taken away? What do they have left but their anger? But their self-righteous indignation that threatens to swallow them whole?

Beware Jonah's folly. He cared more about a vine--about a creature comfort--than about souls. He cared more about himself than about God.

Everything that isn't death and eternal suffering, is unmerited grace. Everything that isn't death, is gift. We don't deserve our homes, our beds, our vehicles, our free country. Because we have so much of God's favor compared to the rest of the world, we have little gratitude. The slightest calamity, such as the withering of a vine, the losing of our jobs, our homes, angers us something fierce...as though we deserved them in the first place.

The Lord was patient, kind, and gentle with this wayward prophet. He wanted restoration for Jonah's heart, but Jonah would have nothing of it.

We're left with the total depravity of man here, in the book of Jonah.

The answer? The coming Messiah. The Savior. The Cross. It is the only answer for restoration, and all the Bible, taken together, points to it.

And God wants one thing from us, most of all. Our unwavering gratitude for the Cross. He wants our hearts to be so full of gratitude, that we live gratitude...that we live for Him, who saved us.

Giving thanks today:

~ For my God, who has given me life abundant.

~ For my husband, a devoted Christ follower.

~ For my children, who daily bless my socks off.

~ For God's Holy Word, which points us to the Cross with every word.

~ For Jonah, in whom I see all humanity.

~ For prayer, which puts me back in my place before God.
~ For writing, which helps me respond to God's heart.

Linking with Ann today, for Multitude Monday.

photo credit

A Note to Readers

A note to my readers:

I've lately written about various neighbors to help illustrate God's teachings and God's heart and His work in my life. I think it's time to let you know that care is taken to preserve privacy. The stories are true and the situations represent actual life circumstances and brokenness, but enough is altered to protect privacy and prevent hurt feelings.

As well, I am careful not to reveal my location or our real names on this blog. As always, thank you for reading and for your encouraging comments.

Something About Jonah, Part 4

When we last studied Jonah, Nineveh repented and earned the Lord's favor (Jonah 3:10) "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened."

Read:

 part 1

 part 2

 part 3

On to Part 4 today, Jonah 4: 1-3

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah's passions ran hot about the Lord's mercy toward a vile enemy. So hot was he, he felt it better to die than live. Oh, but that is the ugliest of pride! He was refusing to let God be God-- he wouldn't accept God's sovereignty.

The created angry at the Creator. The saved angry at the Redeemer. Oh, but the folly of it all! 

Our passions often corrupt our hearts, to be sure. 

His own nation, Israel, repeatedly refused to repent and Nineveh's quick repentance, in contrast, made the Israelites look all the more proud and evil. Jonah feared what God's favor for the Gentiles would mean for his own people, as though God didn't have enough grace in Him to cover both Jew and Gentile.

Jonah also feared the loss of his good reputation back home. His long-time prediction, that Nineveh would be destroyed, was proven wrong. Would he henceforth be thought of as a false prophet?

Bigotry is at work here, too. Jonah believed that God's favor should be for Israel only, not for Gentiles. We see the same issue in the New Testament with Peter, who at first could not reconcile himself to salvation for Gentiles.

What stands out here as well is how God works through us so often, so perfectly, even in our brokenness. Jonah's heart was hard toward the people to whom he preached. We can safely doubt he preached with any compassion or civility at all. Nineveh responded to God, not to Jonah. Just as when we witness to someone, they respond to God, not to us. 

We mustn't say: "But I'm not an evangelist. I can't witness!" Excusing ourselves from it is a prideful position, not a faithful one.

Jonah 4:4

Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

Oh, but the Lord is tender toward us! He knows a soft answer turns away wrath. And the hard part? He desires the same softness from us, toward our family and neighbors. He could have struck Jonah dead on the spot, so ashamedly did Jonah behave. Instead, the Lord desires to restore Jonah.

Let restoration always be our goal, and not the feeding of our pride and passions.

Here we have a picture of discipleship in action. Discipleship is hard. It's laborious, slow, frustrating. How many parents are secretly thankful when school starts in September? This isn't because it's hard to keep kids entertained, but because discipling them hour after hour, day after day, is so hard. 

Discipleship means not accepting that haphazard cleaning job, that prideful tone of voice, that ungrateful tirade. Not accepting, but also not condemning in anger. Instead, we're to put a lid on our passions and restore in love. "Doest thou well to be angry?" We should always ask ourselves this same question.

Teach and reteach. Love and love some more. That's the work God has for the mature Christian, and he will put children, friends, and acquaintances in our path to help us practice.

I am reminded of my neighbor Joanna. She is young and a mother of four, the children having three different fathers. Every week she borrows something from me, whether it be foil to cover a cookie sheet, a quarter cup of milk for mac n' cheese, gas for the lawnmower...whatever. I don't mind helping because each item is so small, and I know how hard it can be for a mother of four to get to the store, and right now especially, since their family is down to one working vehicle.

I heard from her children that they were low on vehicle gas one week. She didn't ask or tell me about this herself, but three days after the kids first mentioned it, hearing that she only had a gallon left, I gave her son a $20 to give to his mother for gas, writing to her that we often have trouble making ends meet, and I know God would want me to help. This was my conviction after praying. To help in their time of need. She works at a nursing home and had missed work due to an illness the previous week.

I didn't ask for any money back, but she wrote back that I was surely an angel and no one had ever been that kind to her. She also wrote that she would pay me back when they got paid, and that she would see us in church that Sunday. I hadn't even mentioned church.

No, they didn't go to church, but she did pay me back.

After their payday we noticed they bought each child a new toy, (the children happened to come over and share their new remote-control toys and Ipod). As well, they spent several hours at the township carnival down the street, which features rides more expensive than the county fair.

The following Wednesday right before I took her son to AWANA, she wrote me a note saying they needed gas money again and could we spare another $20? She signed it "God Bless". She would pay me back in two days when her husband got paid. Her hours had been cut because she has to drive the children do and from their schools. (Though she now works all day Saturdays, as does the husband, leaving the children with the 12-year-old, unfortunately).

The truth is my husband had to count change to get his own gasoline (we had a repair that cleaned us dry). I relayed that we were low on money too, and I was sorry I couldn't help. 

But later that night, my husband and I talked it over and we wouldn't have helped in the same week they had bought their children new toys and spent too much at a carnival, because that is more mismanagement than shortage. 

When I got the note asking for money, I have to confess: I was thoroughly disgusted. But the Holy Spirit quickly spoke to me, telling me that discipleship is hard and that I needed to have patience, rather than writing someone off because I was irritated at childishness (or lack of money-management training).

The Holy Spirit reminded me that the Lord works with us right where we're at. I need to do the same with my children, and with my neighbors. Where was I fifteen years ago, as a new Christian? And how did I get here, and how will I continue to grow? Because of the Lord's slow, patient discipling. Because of his unrelenting mercy and grace. Because he will never give up on me.

Philippians 1:6

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

My neighbor may or may not be churched. She might know nothing about God. 

This is where she's at: She buys processed macaroni and cheese and corn dogs and makes them for dinner. She overspends and then keeps her children home from school because she doesn't have enough gas money to drive them to school some days. (I'm sure the truant officer will be out soon.) She lets her 12-year-old, whose bosom is already full and mature (a C at least), dress provocatively, prompting the high-schooler boys and 20-something men around here to gawk at her cleavage, unbeknownst to her tender 12-year-old heart, I trust. 

And lastly, this mother lets her 12-year-old watch three younger children.

Prayer and the Holy Spirit will draw my neighbor's heart. God will convict her of each thing, individually, in time, with no help from me. He will also provide the income to make wiser choices, such as different childcare arrangements and different clothing choices for her daughter. 

When she's ready and the Holy Spirit prompts me, how can I come alongside her and teach? That's the question the Lord has for me to pray about. How can I show her how cooking real food will save her money, and improve their health? Show her how a 12-year-old can't be responsible for three younger children? Teach her that the financial stress is at some level, self-inflicted?(Although I'm sure a low wage doesn't help.) The divorce rate for third marriages is 90%, so she may need relationship counseling down the line, as well. Being low-income, or being in debt, is a severe stress on a marriage, to say the least.

I can't wait until I feel together enough myself, to come alongside her and teach. I simply need a willing, obedient heart and a decent control over my anger, my judgments, my passions. I can't look down on her and want to write her off, because she's too much trouble or too far astray.

Beauty from ashes. That's the work of the Lord. Thank goodness He didn't consider me "too far astray" to be redeemed!

The book of Jonah is, among other things, a how-to book on godly discipleship.  

It's hard to swallow, perhaps, but discipleship is the work God has for the mature Christian. We mustn't run away to Tarshish or get too busy for it. If the Lord's worked steadily on us for years, he expects us to extend the same blessing to others, starting with our own children. Using an exemplary measure of patience and love and mercy.

We're not done with Jonah yet, but this is sufficient food for today. 

Prayer Time: Dear Father, thank you for your grace and mercy. Thank you for gently teaching and reteaching. Thank you for the lessons in Jonah. Thank you for the loving example and for the challenge to help others in their search for you, and in their Christian walks. Keep us from being too haughty, too busy, too exasperated, to help our children and neighbors. May we live in gratitude and obedience to you and be about your Kingdom work, acting justly, loving mercy, walking humbly.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

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Neighborhood Evangelism, Oh My

She comes to the door, crocodile tears falling, desperate to have audience with me, the harried mother attempting to get four children to AWANA on time.

A bully at school calls her drama queen and I don't scratch my head when I hear it.

Lexi is soft-hearted and hard-hearted, stubborn and pliable, hungry and starved, beautiful and homely, high-maintenance and higher-maintenance.

And right now she wants to go to AWANA but her mother won't let her. And Aidan, another neighbor of ours and a classmate of Lexi's...his mother will let him come and that burns a jealous whole in Lexi's heart and I can't seem to shut my door on her drama, even though we need to be there in twenty minutes and my children haven't finished their spaghetti and I haven't combed out the girls' wet hair or taken a bite myself.

And the church is eight minutes away.

As I listen to her sobbing and her begging, it's all I can do to keep my tone even. My demeanor controlled.

My son is not unlike her and I know she doesn't choose this drama. The Lord has her crying and begging at the right house because even as she stretches my patience daily, my heart aches for her.

I'm no stranger to begging myself, as my Heavenly Father will attest to. And drama? I can dish that up too.

I long to wash her dirty, disheveled hair and trim her bangs. I long to have the money and time to peruse thrift stores for her like she were one of my own. She's ten and her clothes are too tight, too short, and her tops resemble camisoles.

"Maybe your mom will let you go next week", I offer in desperation.

"I won't be here next week."

Never mind that this is a lie we've heard before. What she really wants is for me to defy her mother and drive her to AWANA anyway, I suppose.

Finally, I do get our front door closed and Lexi does leave the premises and I do get the crew to the church on time. Sort of...if you consider that the teachers ran late.

On the road there, I remembered. For six and a half years there were no neighborhood children to play with and we prayed for friends. Now, as new children show up weekly from various streets and the yard resembles a school playground, I wonder at my naivete.

Boy did I have it good before.

For neighborhood children? They resemble the world in all its brokenness. And me? I'm redeemed but really just as broken and what was God thinking in making my home this hubbub?

Most days I'm so spent by 4:00 when these kids come knocking, I want to lock the door, slump down and hide.

All these kids know we're homeschooling, church-going Jesus freaks and how can I possibly shine for Jesus when the dinner and bath show must go on as planned and doesn't God know the witching hours are hard on my nerves, anyway? How do I add the dance of playground referee while draining my spaghetti, washing preschooler hair, and setting a nightly table?

I don't know God, but I trust you?

Tonight was AWANA missions night and a missionary from the Ukraine asked us to pray for Ukrainian children because their daily realities are dark and painful, lonely and loveless.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The spiritual poverty in the Ukraine is as shocking as the physical poverty in Kenya.

Ukrainian children are expected to be married by eighteen and to have their first child in their first year of marriage. By the third year of marriage eighty percent of them divorce.

And that child they had in the first year? He becomes inconvenient as another spouse is sought.

So they drop the child off at an orphanage. Extra baggage.

I'm listening and ready to cry at the darkness in another mother's heart, all those miles away. How could she? Atheist or not, how could she?

I look over at Aidan, my neighbor boy sitting across the church pew from me, listening to this same story. I brought him in my old, rotten, 220,000 mile van, to this church, after praying for two years that my witness would be strong.

I thought of the darkness in the Ukraine and the darkness on my street and I realized something.

I don't have to be ready at 4:00 when the children come knocking on my door. I don't have to be all smiles, ultra-controlled, full of stamina and patience. I'm not on display. My lifestyle is not on display. My children are not on display.

The God of the Universe, He's on display.  And he'll do just fine, whether I've had a good day or not. He doesn't need me, but he'll use me, brokenness and all.

Tomorrow when they come knocking, my nerves might not be ready but my heart will be. Before Christ plucked me from a dark, hurting world, I was a dirty sinner like the mothers in the Ukraine who drop their firstborns off at orphanages. I want to think I was better, but I wasn't. I was lost, hurt, confused. I wanted my own way and I desperately needed the Light.

While we were sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Prayer Time: Dear Lord, thank you for the cross. Thank you for the glorious life we have in you. Help me to say yes to playground referee and to lost souls. Shine your Light from my home, my porch, my yard. May all these children burn to ask about you. Give me the patience, the right words, the right prayers. Help my children to grow in you, to tell about you, to uphold you. They are in a battleground now, Lord. Protect their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and may they say yes to evangelism. Yes to putting others above themselves, yes to the Gospel-driven life. Shine, Jesus, Shine.

In Your Son's name I pray, Amen.

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