Category Archives: purpose

dealing with the mess

Posted on by August 17, 2022

A week ago, a large bag of wooden clothespins showed up on my desk and it’s been squatting there ever since. And it wouldn’t be a big deal except someone opened the bag, which means that over the last several days the contents gradually hemorrhaged everywhere. A variety pack – dozens of clothespins, all different sizes, decorating the surface of my desk.

The clothespins need to go into a big jar, but all of the jars are downstairs in the kitchen, and why they didn’t stop there first to deposit themselves properly is beyond me. Why I can’t remember to take them back downstairs to the kitchen during any of my daily 138 trips up and down the stairs is also beyond me.

dealing with the mess: what we do, what God does, and what He can't do for us

I do love having a clean desk. But aside from moving everything to the floor (my normal method of cleaning it in a hurry) I have yet to figure out how to keep it that way.

The desk is smothered under stacks of books as I type this: notebooks, school books, research books, books I’m reading. Keeping all these company are pens, sippy cups, and other detritus constantly trafficked in and out of the office, aside from the aforementioned clothespins sprinkled everywhere. Also, there’s a half-emptied basket destined to become yarn storage that I’m planning to move to the bookshelf, which will give me more surface area on the desk. But that will have to wait, because it’s currently storing Knightley, instead.

dealing with the mess: Knightley in a basket

And just to be clear, when I say “stacks of books,” the word stacks should be interpreted loosely. Very loosely. As in, some books truly are placed on top of each other in a (mostly) congruent, vertical direction. But others are…um…just overlapping, sort of like a giant, bloated, bookish version of Jenga.

It’s not just my mess – you heard me mention the sippy cup, right? – but it is my mess to take care of. No one can clean it for me. Even if they wanted to, I have to do it myself. God help them if they try; hell hath no fury like a writer-mama (or wife) who can’t find the stack of books she needs to pull citations from that took her half a day to round up from all over the house in the first place.

Of course, it would help if people would stop spewing their mess in my space. I have my own junk to deal with, but all we sinners share the love, and we have a tendency to give each other more to forgive and clean up. We all add to each other’s messes.

Oh, wait – I was talking about physical messes. Not the other kind, when we are hurting and we hurt others, and the mess goes everywhere, and it’s so much harder to clean up than a hundred scattered clothespins.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

– 2 Peter 1:2, ESV

Finn is on the floor by my feet, putting together a puzzle. He knows he can play up here while I’m working as long as he’s quiet. And our versions of quiet are two different things, but normally he’s fine.

And usually Knightley is in here, and normally she’s fine too, except when she walks across the laptop and makes me bless the inventor of the Undo button, so help me.

The mess the kids leave on the floor is usually theirs to clean up. But when the mess bleeds onto the desk, with all my own stuff in various states of organization and disarray, it becomes my job to take care of. Mostly, I take care of them by not allowing them to be made in the first place. Boundaries, rules, whatever you call it – the desk is my space and the kids have mostly learned to respect that.

Prevention is the easiest way to take care of everything, right? If we could just keep the hurtful words, the hard feelings, or the negative habits of others out of our headspace, life would be so much easier. I have my own thoughts to take captive, and that’s a job of its own to deal with. But once those other things penetrate, they’re my problem, too.

Oh, wait, I was talking about physical messes. I keep forgetting.

It would be easier if it none of it ever happened in the first place – the physical or emotional messes – but the world is a bloody battlefield. It would be easier to just not enter the fray, but we can’t prevent everything…and really, would we want to? We’re made to help each other navigate the mess.

But we have to be invited to do so. And if the mess is ours – whether we made it, or we just inherited it and now it’s all over our space – we have to be the one to initiate the cleaning.

I read this verse a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to get it off my mind:

The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

– Zephaniah 3:17, NAS

Most versions of this verse end with “He will rejoice over you with singing” but when I read this version and the phrase “shouts of joy,” the Lord told me something new.

When do parents shout for joy over their children? He asked me.

Well, I thought, parents shout for joy when they see their kids achieve – when they succeed, when they score a goal, when they win something big, when they hit a milestone. We cheered over Kavanagh getting his first tooth, and we’re ready to whoop and holler when he takes his first steps.

But as adults, all of our success, achievement, or milestones are things He does for us, and through us. We know we’re not doing them on our own. So why would He shout for us when He’s the one doing the work?

I don’t, He said. I shout for joy over you when you do something I can’t do for you.

What can’t You do for us? I asked.

I can’t choose surrender and obedience for you, He said.

I can’t choose for you to clean up your mess. I can help you do it, but you have to want it first.

I can’t choose for you to stay steadfast in the battle, still fighting and standing, in spite of everything around you. I can want those things for you, and I can help you through them, but only you can choose to move forward in growth, instead of retreating.

That is what I shout for joy over. 

 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, 

and virtue with knowledge, 

and knowledge with self-control,

and self-control with steadfastness,

and steadfastness with godliness, 

and godliness with brotherly affection,

and brotherly affection with love. 

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

– 2 Peter 1:5-8, ESV

Just as the main battle we fight is less about violent movement and more about steady abiding, the victories He shouts over in our lives are the small-but-huge efforts that come in the quiet:

When we choose truth over rumor, or grace and forgiveness over hard feelings.

When we address our own bad habits, and choose healthier thought patterns.

When we choose to pray and thank God even when things look ugly.

When we tackle the hard-but-necessary conversation when it seems easier to let it slide and pay the consequences later.

When we push forward in doing the good things: Gratitude, repentance, teachability, honor.

When we stop to hug the kid, kiss the spouse, and clean up our mess…even if someone else started it.

He can’t wait to for us to take those first steps, and to cheer us on as we keep moving forward. It’s our obedience, and integrity, and gritty steadfastness that He shouts over.

dealing with the mess: clothespins

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This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume 6: Surrender to Win, available here.

pace car: the forced pause when leaders want to run

Posted on by October 5, 2023

The day ahead was packed, and I was nervous.

The facility was secured, and after weeks of untangling the schedules of seventeen leaders to bring everything into alignment, the lineup was finally set: Seven chapters and twenty-one slots, over three days, to finally film the remaining portions of a book study we’d been working on all year.

pace car: the forced pause when leaders want to run

And it all started that night. But first, a completely unrelated meeting. No biggie.

Kavanagh is seven months old now and outgrew his ability to sleep through these meetings weeks ago. So halfway through, I checked to see if there was an urgent text from Vince summoning me home to feed him.

There were no texts of that nature, but I’d just missed a call from my dad. It was an odd time of day for him to call. And he’d also left a voicemail.

I stepped out of the meeting to listen to it, and immediately called him back.

He said Grandma was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. She’d collapsed while she was on the phone with the neighbor; the neighbor called my dad, who rushed over, used his key to get in the house, and found her. Called the paramedics. Called my uncle. Called me.

I wanted to rush to the hospital, too. Instead, I left the meeting and went the other way; I came home and nursed the baby. Tried to read the Bible but stared at the page without seeing words. I wanted to see her. Wanted to be there. Wanted to know what was happening. Wanted to know if this was anything like last time or if this was going to be the last time.

But I sat on the couch with Kavanagh and waited for him to fall asleep.

Once I was finally out the door and on the highway, the first few lights were in my favor and I caught up to the train running parallel, blaring its horn at every crossing. I got ahead of it for a minute and then stopped at a red light as it passed. Caught up to it again when the light turned green, then it got ahead again, leapfrog style, as I stopped at another intersection. Cars pulled up behind me while we waited for the light to change.

The light turned green and I hit the gas, and the train and I were even. But a white pickup had pulled onto the highway just ahead and was cruising at a cool 35 miles an hour when I wanted to go twice that. And maybe I could’ve gotten away with it. But maybe not.

It is your pace car, the Spirit said. Sometimes I put things in front of you to slow you down on purpose.

Getting there earlier wouldn’t have mattered. My dad and uncles were in the waiting room when I got there and they’d been there for a while. Grandma was sedated, getting a temporary pacemaker, and then she would be medivaced to Anchorage. And it wasn’t like the last time. This time we couldn’t be in the room with her.

So we waited. My uncle finished reading the paper and I took it from him and found the crossword puzzle. I started working on it as people came to the intake desk and talked way too loudly about intimate health issues for everyone in the waiting room to hear.

A young woman came in, hysterical and in pain. I tried to ignore her but she didn’t want to be ignored, and years of parenting flagged my extremely sensitive BS-o-meter. That, or I’m a terrible person (could be) but she didn’t sound genuine to me. And maybe I was wrong…but maybe not.

She sobbed and asked for a wheelchair. Asked the nurse to slow down as she wheeled her in front of my family. And then parked a few feet away and kept crying…loudly.

And I kept trying to ignore her. Tried to avoid looking in her direction. Just filled in all those little crossword boxes and tried not to hear her.

But I heard the Lord, and He said, Go pray for her.

And I said, You have got to be kidding me.

In a beautiful demonstration of His ways are not our ways, He did not take my iPhone, revoke my internet privileges, or strike me with lightning, which is what many of us parents wish we could do when our children talk back to us.

But no, He didn’t do any of those things. He just repeated Himself. Go pray for her.

And I said, She doesn’t need prayed for. She’s faking.

He said, She still needs prayed for.

And in a beautiful demonstration of petulant-but-resigned reluctance, I said, Fine. My uncles and cousin were across from me. My dad was next to me, helping with the crossword puzzle. And I asked, Can’t I just pray for her from here?

And He said, No. You go put your hands on her, and let Me touch her.

And I had nothing to argue to that. But in my heart I thought, Well, crap.

I let out one of those huffy, frustrated, scoffing breaths through my nose. Bad, bad Christian.

“Here,” I told Dad, throwing the pen down and pushing the crossword puzzle over to him. “I’m gonna go pray for this girl.” God help her.

I walked across the room and – set your mind at ease – I was a nice person. Truly. As soon as I decided to obey, ministry-mode kicked in and the Spirit took over.

I asked her if I could pray for her. She said yes (people usually do). I told her my name, asked her what hers was, and then I prayed for her healing. For her comfort. For her protection and wisdom. I said amen, and she said thank you. I asked if she wanted some water, and she said no. I said, “Well, I do,” and I left and got some.

Somewhere in there I missed the helicopter taking off. When I came back with my water, my uncle told me it left, and we all waited for the nurse to come out and tell us what we needed to know.

Grandma would get a real pacemaker that night. They would reassess in the morning. And as long as she responded well, she would probably stay in the ICU for a day or two, then come home.

And home is where I needed to be, too. Vin texted that Kavanagh was up and needing me, and a bazillion things still had to be done before the first night of filming.

I drove back up the highway and approached the biggest intersection in our little town as the light turned yellow. There was no time to get through it before it turned red, so I stopped. But a white pickup – probably not the same one as earlier – was in the lane next to me and blew right through it.

Cars pulled up behind me while we waited. And I heard the Lord say, Sometimes you lead by being the one who stops when it’s the right thing to do.

So, it’s like I already told you. I might be a terrible, awful, mean, unfeeling person…but maybe not.

carrying fire: when obedience takes us outside the comfort zone

Posted on by March 30, 2023

The Lord gave me this amazing idea, and I was so excited to follow through…until it was time to actually do it.

As responsible people do, I came up with a lot of excuses. I hadn’t showered the night before; my hair was a mess and in no condition for video. And, as writers do, I found the most productive ways to procrastinate. Suddenly, cleaning my desk was of utmost priority. I put away the tape and scissors, filed a few papers, and stacked the books. Considered sweeping the floor, or washing the windows. I mean, it was that bad.

Add all of this to the fact that I have the technical skills of a Chihuahua.

So when the Lord asked me to start praying online every week – which, as I type it, sounds like the easiest thing ever and nothing to be intimidated by – I had no idea what was the best way to go about it.

carrying fire: when obedience takes us outside the comfort zone

When I finally did do it, it was in two parts – first, in hands-free mode, until I ran out of space and had to add the rest in selfie mode after figuring out how to splice and trim the video (gah). Because, like a Chihuahua, I told you.

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.

– 1 Timothy 4:13-15, ESV

But the opportunity to pray with and for anyone who wanted to join me on a weekly basis was a no brainer. Until my brain kicked in and started making excuses for me, of course.

Isn’t that the way it is with going forward, though? He calls us outside the comfort zone, but somehow we’d rather put it off or just not bother because we don’t understand how much breakthrough is at stake in going there.

Too risky. Too scary. Too unfamiliar. Too unknown.

I’m confessing to you right off the bat so you know you’re not alone in this. I don’t usually think of myself as a risk taker but when I look back at my life I realize I am one – but little things like praying online can still make me pause and squirm. Sounds stupid, yes?

We ask Him for direction, to light our way, and often the way He does that is by lighting a fire under us. We often respond by extinguishing those fires in any number of ways instead of having the boldness to pick up the fire and carry it.

We are our very own wet blanket, smothering our own growth.

We pooh-pooh it, telling ourselves it was just a silly idea and not Him at all, when in reality these steps of obedience are the key to unlocking answers we’ve been searching for.

Or we put it off. And our delay, like most symptoms of laziness, makes us work harder and longer in the long run.

And sometimes we give up before we start because it won’t be perfect, and we can’t control how people will respond to us. So we sacrifice our breakthrough on the altar of perfectionism and control – which is really just a monument to ourselves and our pride. If that altar were made into an idol, it would look like us.

But we usually need to accelerate our pain to accelerate our progress, so we might as well jump in and start doing it, whatever it is.

Starting that business. Filling out the adoption paperwork. Making that phone call. Researching that ministry opportunity. Writing that book.

Going on that mission. Taking that leap.

Saying yes.

Once the words leave your lips, they no longer belong to you. We have a monopoly only on our own thoughts. The act of speaking is not a conquest, but a surrender. When we open our mouths, we are sharing with the world – and the world inevitably interprets, indeed sometimes shifts and distorts, our original meaning.

– Frank Luntz, Words That Work

We wrestle with the feeling of exposure and tension after being vulnerable and laying it all out there, in teaching, writing, speaking, mentoring, moving — however you are leading others as they watch you follow Jesus.

But it turns out, the best way to go about anything is usually forward.

Going. Doing. Obeying. As opposed to stalling, fretting, and backsliding. Because life has a current to it, and every moment we are either moving further up and further in, or drifting back downstream. There is no neutral.

What answer can human intelligence make to God’s love for the world? What answer, for that matter, can it make to our own love for the world? If a person loved the world – really loved it and forgave its wrongs and so might have his own wrongs forgiven – what would be next?

And so how was a human to pray? I didn’t know, and yet I prayed. I prayed the terrible prayer: “Thy will be done.” Having so prayed, I prayed for strength.

– Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

There is a cost to disobedience, and it is much higher than just going outside our comfort zone.

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

– Genesis 3:24, ESV

When we move in obedience, we go in freedom – bringing light, making progress, carrying His Presence as fire. But when we are forced to move by our own disobedience, we are pushed out in slavery.

The truth is, we move outside the comfort zone either way.

When we say yes, facing our fears and excuses, we’re no longer afraid of what the fire will do to us. We are invincible to burning when we learn to carry it.

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This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume 5: Obedience to Move Forward, available here.