Holiness in parenting

Posted on by justinlewis78

The following is a 5-day glance at some difficult moments that God has used to bring me back to him…and redeem a father’s heart:

  • Saturday morning – I had the privilege of joining other pastors and worship at a conference.  I was three hours away but getting home seemed to take forever thanks to some hurricane-related traffic.  The reunion at home was perfect; I was both excited to be with my family and rejuvenated from the time with other leaders.  That is, until…
  • Sunday – “I don’t wanna go to church.”  Our day began with feelings of frustration especially as the kids resisted our Sunday morning ritual.  Our morning worship experience went well, of course.  But emerging from our family time in church, I had some fresh urgings to read the bible again with my children at bedtime.  So a plan was set…only to be challenged by the evening meal, not eating+whining drama.  Alas, early bedtime.  “We will try again tomorrow,” I tell myself…no-so-convincingly.
  • Monday – I kept thinking: “We have to read tonight.”  And yet again, we had another battle before bedtime.  In spite of the chaos of jammies, oral hygiene, clean up, etc., we pushed through and actually had “Bible time” —   (although I certainly felt a healthy dose of hypocrisy).
  • Tuesday – This is the day I completely lost my patience.  I’ve heard parents talk about how parenting makes them more patient…but I swear, this is the day when I realize I have none.  Thank God for bedtime… but wait, we have to read before bed. Here’s when it hits me like a tackle from behind, “Justin, you need to pray for them.”
           I realized that in all our daily “prayers” I had stopped praying for them. So hours later, I use my super-stealthy tooth fairy/ninja footsteps to enter their room and fall on my knees.  That night I prayed over them while they slept.
    In some ways, it’s easier, since I do not have interruptions or the need to translate my phrasing to little ears. In another way, it’s more terrifying.  As I bow my head and hold my little boy’s arm, I lay my heart out before God and feel the humbling need to repent of my attitude.  My heart floods again with the love I have and the love I choose to have for these little minions.  I am reminded of my dreams for them… that these days are passing quickly… that there is a day when I will stop raising them.  All I could think (as I wept for my sin) was that they deserve better …and that I needed healing.
  • Wednesday morning (today).  As I write this entry, I have just put Joshua in the car for Holly to take him to preschool only to realize that the Spirit was convicting me:

“Joshua?”  [he begins to get situated in the car.]

“Joshua, can you look at me?”  [I hold his face to look at mine…hoping to get his full attention.]

“Son, I am so sorry for being mean to you lately.  I love you so much and I love the little man that you’re becoming.  Will you forgive me?”  [He nods.  Probably baffled at the words I just spoke.  But I grab him anyway, we hug, and I knew that he knew I said something important for me.]

So I write this today out of a call to authenticity.  For I read and know these words:

For the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:12  NLT

AND

Fathers, do not make your children resentful. Otherwise, they’ll become discouraged.
Colossians 3:21 ISV

…and I am reminded of the true heart of my heavenly Father and leader in parenthood.

I am not a perfect father.  But I have one.

I am not very patient.  But I am forgiven.

I am not always present.  But He still walks with me.

Friends and readers, parenthood is not about having the correct response and attitude in all encounters with our kids.  It’s about learning about the love of our perfect Parent. The One who raises us and molds us into better stewards of these precious lives.

If you, like me, struggle with your attitude today (or lately), I dare you…sneak into their room tonight and unleash everything on the throne of heaven.  Hold nothing back. Perhaps your child, like mine, is waiting for the same words: “I’m sorry.  Will you forgive me?”  

I for one and am glad my Father is teaching me this on my journey to holiness.

Keeping the Stream

Posted on by justinlewis78

First…a parable of our souls. (watch below)

I’ve been reading John Ortberg’s Soul Keeping in the days leading up to a trip to the Dominican Republic with Mission Emanuel.  Part of my assignments for these days is to lead 2 seminars on “Getting the most out of our time with God.” 1

Here in the beauty of Cielo (meaning “sky” or “heaven”) we work and play and dig deep wells of beautiful relationships.  Americans and Dominicans (and sometimes Haitians) work together to create and dream for justice and healing.  For these days (or rather, hours) of teaching, I gather with two groups: American teenagers and young adults serving here for 3 weeks and Dominican men and women who work in the ministry office.

There are two distinct cultural perspectives at work: young people who are just learning about their spiritual journeys…still forming to words and phrases to capture the relentless love of Christ and a personal relationship with their Creator.  And then there are those who serve the ministry every day – keeping the books, organizing projects, managing staff, maintaining the campus and its resources.  Amazing men and women who come from different walks of life and together care for an entire community. No matter the differences between these two groups, it is clear… every soul hungers for God.  That’s why every hand goes up when I ask, “who here would like to have a better devotional life?”.

Our first day is spent on “Spiritual Personalities”.  I discovered this phase almost 8 years ago when leading a group study on An Ordinary Day with Jesus, by Ortberg and Ruth Haley Barton.  A major premise of the study is to admit that each of us is designed uniquely, and in our rebirth in Christ, we have particular tendencies defined by our soul’s hunger and learning styles.2

Just like the video above and the story of the “keeper of the stream”, we must be caretakers of our souls.  With debris on the edges and branches that fall and disturb the flow, our souls require attention.  The personalities each of us discover can point to the way we connect to God (Relational, Worship, Intellectual, Creation, Contemplative, Activism, Service) and categorically experience nourishment in his presence.

It’s amazing how throughout my life and most other Christians, we adopt a discipleship strategy that’s akin to “one size fits all”…or as one friend described a bad medicine experience, “when I was sick, (my friend/non-doctor) gave me an antibiotic that worked for him, so I took it.  But I got sicker.  Later, my doctor told me I was having a reaction and it would take weeks or months to recover from taking that antibiotic.”

Imagine the freedom of discovering that God has wired your soul to connect with Him while being relational with others – and the frustrations you experience in being in solitude or attempting contemplative disciplines are simply not your personal pathways to growth.  It DOESN’T mean we can avoid those disciplines (in fact spiritual disciplines is our topic for the remaining session).  But it DOES mean that we understand our souls better and stop taking the proverbial medicine that works for someone else and expect the same result in us.  It means that we can stop pushing others to experience the same emotional joy that we experience at a breathtaking sunset, a piece of art, a song in the order of worship, an explosive teaching of Scripture, a cause of justice or a humbling act of service.  We free ourselves from such expectations and bless others by doing the same.

So let’s return to the stream of our souls and care for it well.  Let’s enjoy the beautifully unique ways God has made us and be grateful.  Let’s pursue an experience with the Lover of our souls and connect with him in the life-giving ways we would incorporate with a loved one.  And let us learn from others and appreciate the ways they are uniquely encountering God.   If you have not taken such an assessment, I encourage you to do so.  For you might discover what I and thousands of others have and grow stronger in your devotional life by living in the “personality” you already have and enjoy God more fully in the process.

Footnotes:
1 I came up with the title a few days ago and regret how consumeristic it sounds. Perhaps “How to enjoy our time with God”…

2 I have since also discovered Gary Thomas’s work on the same – Sacred Pathways.  Yet I found the former assessment works a bit better when translating to young people or in Spanish.)

Not about the “Nail”

Posted on by justinlewis78

438313505_6404408bbe7954eIf you haven’t already seen the YouTube clip “It’s not about the nail,” you should humor me by taking a few minutes to watch it. This past week it seems the reoccurring theme of sin has been the topic of different discussions I have had with others and with God. Be it about temptations, having enemies or the fall of man, they have all led me back to the problem of sin. It’s a topic no one wants to talk about and everyone can relate with.  In his book “The Me I Want to Be,” John Ortberg presents the idea that our temptations are unique to each of us much like our finger prints are each our own. If this is true, then you could argue that our sin is too.

For myself I have discovered that much of the sin I have been stumbling around in lately comes from a temptation that speaks to a deeper longing I am looking to fulfill with misguided judgment. Just like Eve in the Garden, we can often find ourselves deceived by taking that which looks fulfilling and good for gaining wisdom, only to receive the shame and guilt from our sin. It can become the never ending cycle of bondage that keeps us from living life more abundantly in Christ. We will never know that kind of freedom if we don’t seek the love and forgiveness He gives us in dealing with our sin, and remind ourselves that He is the only one who can satisfy our deeper longing that brought us to that point in first place.

This is where the video clip comes in, because much like the woman with the nail in her head, I will sometimes sit in denial and tell God that my sin is not the problem. I come to Him with all the grief and misery resulting from my sin and argue that all I need from Him is His understanding, which thankfully He gives, but arguably that’s not really what I need. Instead I ought to receive His forgiveness and allow Him to pluck the nail from my head.

What is the nail in your head? The unfulfilled longings you’re trying to fill on your own?  Are you able to recognize your sin and allow God to take it from you? There is grace and freedom to be had in the asking. Let Him remove it and love you in this way.