Diary of a Discipleship Relationship

After our friend Lexi responded so enthusiastically to AWANA and her new Bible, I feared spiritual attacks aimed both at her enthusiasm, and at our ability to disciple her. After she completed her school homework on Thursday, she put her Bible in a plastic grocery bag and headed over to our house.

I know this how, exactly? Because Peter loves to look out the window and announce the comings and goings of his friends.

Lexi, being highly distracted, got involved in squabbles with neighborhood kids along the way and it wasn't until after 6:00 PM that she made it over here, her Bible still in one piece. :)

That squeezed our evening awkwardly but we did manage to serve her ice cream and have a Bible reading and study time with her. And some more good news!  We got permission to take her to church with us this Sunday, at her suggestion. She's still very excited about all this, thank you, Jesus.

I must be better organized to accommodate regular Bible study with her. One-on-one discipleship is something I strongly believe in. In my mind it's the most effective method for The Church to grow strong enough to really impact society for Christ--and I don't refer to strength in numbers. Too many Christians live like everyone else, resulting in a weakened, low-impact presence in our world.

One-on-one discipleship is not only training in the Word, but a concentrated question and answer, teacher and student relationship that builds trust and digs in deep, meeting the believer, or the seeker, right where she's at.

Satellite church groups popular now, in which small groups of a congregation meet during the week, don't meet the need for personal discipleship. They certainly help identify problems and prayer needs and keep people accountable for attending church regularly--making them feel welcome, as though their presence matters to people. But without someone studied in the Word willing to meet one-on-one with a stagnant, new, or weak believer, the impact of these groups remains low as a whole. Pastors and deacons often can't commit to the time-intensive endeavor of one-on-one discipleship, especially when marital problems, hospital visits, and crisis management take up so much of their time. It's up to individual believers to commit to one-on-one discipleship in the name of Christ, through the strength of Christ.

I benefited greatly from two years of one-on-one discipleship from a fellow school teacher, after which I married and began receiving teaching from my Bible-scholar husband. As soon as I believed through my teacher friend's leading, there were constant question and answer sessions and on-going Bible Studies, all with a widow who needed the fellowship as much as I needed the discipleship. God works wonders when we let Him use us--when we say yes to His agenda. 

When I became a mom to my first colicky baby and held a part-time, at-home job, my walk with Christ weakened, strengthening again when I quit working and when special needs in my son, accompanied with husband's job loss, drove me to the Word for answers, for comfort, for survival.

Without that foundation laid through intensive discipleship, I wouldn't have known--wouldn't have experienced--that Bible and prayer hold all the answers. Often our first response is to look to the world for answers, but when someone trains you, really trains you, in how to cling to God, it becomes your knee-jerk reaction to the trouble in this life. And as you fall in love with the Lord through your study, your time with Him is a pleasure.

Last night revealed something important: One hurdle in training Lexi in the Word will be her reading ability. She repeated third grade and now in the fourth grade, she's still presumably toward the bottom of the class, at least in reading. Retention, which my state does a lot of, is rarely the answer for students not making the grade. Another year of the same type of institutionalized learning doesn't help and could hinder. 

Lexi miscued on half the words she read from the Gospel of Mark and without my husband's verbal recounting of the passage for her, she would have comprehended little. She wouldn't let me read it while she followed along. Turns out she likes to read aloud. I didn't make mention of her reading difficulties. She was happy to miscue and keep going, not concerning herself with whether the sentences carried any meaning for her. It was as though she liked being the center of attention, more than anything else, but she did listen attentively to husband's teaching and she asked many questions as he spoke, which allowed him to hone in on her misconceptions.

A couple common misconceptions were cleared up last night. Lexi thought that if you sin a whole lot or commit a really big sin, you would go to hell--which she thought was just a burning and instant death, rather than eternal suffering. And if you just committed regular sins, you would still go to Heaven. Husband also explained Satan's background and a little about how he works his evil.

I'm going to introduce her to Bible web tools, including a site allowing her to listen to the Bible online, and read it online with different sized fonts.  

She has ADHD and 65% of these kids have co-morbid disorders, which could include OCD, tic disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, learning disabilities, and oppositional defiant disorder. She has anxiety which causes her to pick scabs mercilessly and cut herself, she has oppositional defiant disorder, and some difficulty associated with reading.  It took me several years to figure out that my son's ADHD comes with dysgraphia, which is difficulty with all aspects of writing--spelling, handwriting, and organizing thoughts on paper. Obviously I'm no expert on processing disorders, but I hope to help Lexi nonetheless, maybe using her desire to read aloud to help her practice--without her even knowing I'm remediating her, hopefully.

But I'm already a busy mom and this all feels overwhelming, just as Satan wants it to! 

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I'l keep chanting it. I know a couple of you have been praying for Lexi and I want to thank you. Fruit is forthcoming, I believe.

Lots of progress on day one! And a bonus is that my children witnessed all of it, making them more apt to disciple someone on their own in the future, as they watch it unfold. I disciple them throughout the day, but they're so used to it they don't know what I'm up to. Seeing it done this way, they can identify it in their minds as discipleship in action and mimic it when God presents the opportunity. Our neighborhood has become a means for them to practice their faith, to stand up for Jesus and withstand the pressure to fit in, with mom and dad right there to provide assistance, strength, and prayer, as needed.

I think it's so neat--looking back on those years of a quiet neighborhood and us praying for friends--that God waited until my boys were strong in the Lord to present them with a broken world looking in all the wrong places for answers. Everyone, kids and adults alike, want to be accepted, to belong, and therein lies hidden mines, planted by Satan, capable of destroying hearts and futures.

They all need the same answer. Christ. The Redeemer, the Lover of Your Soul, to whom you will forever belong, to whom you can always go, through whom you receive love, purpose and peace.

Go! Tell them the good news!

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Hallelujah! 

Praising the Lord Tonight

I'm up to no good again. Sprawled on the couch you'll find three days of clean laundry and though it's midnight, dirty dinner dishes still crowd the counters.

Shoot me.

I could list other evidence of my shortcomings as a housekeeper, but I still want you to like me so I won't torture you with details about the dropped or forgotten kid items crowding our walk spaces and the cyclone we call a playroom.

Thursday is our easiest homeschooling day so there is hope for the house.

Did I tell you? Peter's decided to raise crickets. He's got a green tree frog, purchased after asthma broke his hamster-lovin' heart. Crickets are ten cents each, so he figures we'll save a bundle.

Ahem.

That is, if I can get used to this racket. Surrounding me now is a cacophony of cricket calls, and while it may be peaceful camping music, I don't prefer it while I write.

On AWANA night the kids come back so hyped, doing well means having them asleep by ten--and that's with showers and baths taken before AWANA. Poor Paul was still awake tonight at 10:30, what with three different cricket containers placed all over their room, screaming at him from every angle.

So I brought the crickets out here to the living room and now Paul sleeps soundly and I'm left wondering: Will they make this flirtatious racket all. night. long? Because I'll surely be able to hear this from my bedroom?

But Peter, he dozed right off. He's half-human, half-insect, that one. Today he placed a ginormous grasshopper in my face and didn't understand why I kept backing away. "It's not harmful, Mommy."

"It's never about harm, Son. It's about flying. up. in. my. face. I don't share my personal space with creepy crawlies. But I agree with you...they're fascinating works of God."

He also has two Walmart goldfish and a truly amazing water bug, caught at the drainage ditch (aka frog pond). Mr. Water Bug, who eats small fish and crickets, happened to be fed the third goldfish for dinner--the one that died shortly after Walmart rung up those orange buggers.

I don't have to tell you, do I, that the vicious, shark-like consumption of said goldfish by Mr. Water Bug, both fascinated and horrified my four children?

Last week Peter forgot to put the lid on the water bug's container. They jump and/or fly, so it ended up on the floor of the girls' bedroom, where I later saw it and panicked, wondering if we had cockroaches all of a sudden.

"Mommy! That's just silly. Roaches are a lot bigger and they're not rounded!" 

This, from a boy who's only seen a Madagascar cockroach--at the zoo.

Anyway, I did have a purpose for writing tonight. It wasn't just to ruin your appetite for that late-night ice cream.

We're all giddy that Lexi--a neighborhood friend we've prayed for and shared our faith with--got permission to go to AWANA club with us! And that Lexi bursting with excitement as I dropped her off at 8:22 PM?

It just made me smile and wink at God.

As she exited the van, she told us she couldn't wait to get her AWANA book. She would stay up late every night studying the whole thing, she told us. And by the way, could she come over tomorrow and read her new Holy Bible with Peter?

Yes, our beloved AWANA church gave her a copy of The Holy Bible. And do you know, every time she mentioned it she called it The Holy Bible. All the way home.

Grins, I tell you. I've been all grins tonight over this and now my cheeks hurt, some four hours later.

Never mind that she told her verse teacher about the fight she got into with a neighborhood girl. "I called her a really bad word."

Never mind that she did several other things that embarrassed Peter, though overall she behaved well.

Peter:  "Mommy, why did she have to tell Mr. Dale about all that fighting and bad word stuff? He looked surprised." (No, Lexi didn't mention which really bad word she uttered, though I trust it wasn't what you're thinking. Young children exaggerate the badness of bad words, I've found.)

Mommy:  "Well, Honey, if she went in there smelling of roses, Mr. Dale wouldn't have thought to pray for her. This way, he'll probably pray for her all week long. She needs all the prayers she can get, Peter. Trust God to work through every last detail, and remember that church is for sinners."

Mark 2:17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

The Bible tells us that God calls the ones who will believe. He awakens them spiritually and then they respond to Jesus. Since we never know who He'll call, we witness to everyone.

 Lexi was not someone I expected to hear this excited response from. And that's why my cheeks hurt from smiling tonight, and why tears keep threatening.

And the woman two houses down who didn't respond to my dinner invitation some time ago? She now sends Landon here to play several times a week, and she's thinking of putting him in AWANA. 

The Lord is good. All the time. Hallelujah!

More thanks for Thankful Thursday:

~ A friend got a part-time job, postponing some major worries

~ My boys reading Freedom Train about Harriet Tubman, and seeing with new eyes how blessed they are.

~ The Holy Bible and Lexi's excitement over owning one.

~ Mr. Dale, Peter's verse teacher at AWANA...a dear man who blesses my Peter and inspires him to do his best. 

~ Lexi's family saying yes.

~ My husband's eyes welling up when we told him about Lexi's response.

~ Late-night dish duty (hard hallelujah)

~ 12 little Cubbies struggling to understand it all and looking so adorable while they do. Ages 3 and 4, they can't quite get the concepts right for sin and dying on the cross. "What is sin?" the Cubbies teacher asks every Wednesday night. "It's when Jesus died on the cross!", the pastor's son answers with confidence. There have been many answers, but never the right ones. They don't understand why they need to love God. They just love him and it's precious. If you ask them...why do you love God? I'm sure they'll say...because He loves me. Amen to that!

And one last word about little ones and their "wisdom".

My five-year-old daughter, quite stubborn, was angry about something Peter did to her the other day. I reminded her that God forgave us, and so why couldn't she forgive a wrongdoing?

"Because he's God and I'm not." 

I had no words.

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.