following instructions: how obedience leads to breakthrough

Posted on by October 1, 2021

Having kids who bake is a dangerous thing. I know it sounds lovely, but there’s only so much experimentation with sugar that can happen before you gain fifteen pounds, get tired of the mess, or something explodes.

following instructions: how obedience leads to breakthrough

Case in point: A child was making caramel sauce for an ambitious birthday cake, and it seized into toffee which turned into concrete in the bottom of my favorite cooking pot. Enter an hour of aerobic stirring while adding cream; the result was an extra two and a half cups of caramel sauce, which was not going to help me stay away from sugar.

So in desperation after a week of baking frenzy, I asked the kids if we could teach them to make green smoothies, or salad, or something, in a what-have-we-done kind of despair. And Afton, my son who makes professional-level biscotti, breads, and pizza, answered, “You can teach us, but that doesn’t mean we’ll make it.”

Gaaahhh.

I can’t be too hard on him, because I tell the Lord the same thing so often, in so many words. He says things like this:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 

– Philippians 4:4

…and also, this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.

– Proverbs 3:5

…and I basically respond with, “You can tell me to _____, but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.” I complicate my life by trying to do things my own way until finally going back to Him and follow His instructions that I should have just obeyed in the first place.

If the Lord has said, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you (and He has), then I need to do those things in order to see the breakthrough I’m waiting for.

Could it be that our breakthrough is waiting for us to rejoice in advance? Could it be that when we wait to rejoice until we feel our circumstances give us a good reason to, we delay our own breakthrough? What might happen if instead, we followed His instructions and rejoiced at all times because He is good and we can trust Him? 

We gain so much when we see with His perspective. We tend to make things so complicated, but often, He has already told us exactly what to do.

Just like we tell our kids.

In the afternoon on a fall day, our kids had been outside for all of ten minutes before they asked to come back inside. “It’s freezing,” they said.

I checked the thermometer and noticed the temperature was in the upper thirties – definitely, scientifically, not freezing. So being the sympathetic mom I am, I said, “No. You’re Alaskan, get used to the cold again.”

Five minutes later one of the kids asked again, and I reconsidered. Okay, let’s make a deal.

“You can come in early if you plant the garlic,” I said. “This is the last day to do it before it snows, so if you do that, you can come in as soon as you’re done.”

“Okay…” she hesitated, “but I don’t know how.”

Ever feel like that? God says “Do this” and we’re like, Uhh… just like this kid.

So I said, “Grab the book right there. The skinny green one that says Gardening With Vegetables.”

The child grabs three fat books in succession that do not say anything about vegetables or gardening, then declares the book isn’t there.

I point to it for her. “That one. No, to the right. The skinny one, right there. It’s green—no, lighter green…GARDENING WITH VEGETABLES, I said — yes, there you go.” Good grief. 

We both review the garlic section for thirty seconds. The child goes outside with instructions, a garlic bulb, and unveiled skepticism.

She returns two minutes later, declaring the ground is frozen, and requests to use Vin’s shotgun to dig post holes for the garlic cloves. Alaska grown, I tell you.

Vin chimes in to remind her of the current temperature, and introduces her to the tool called “shovel.”

Thirty minutes later, all the children start filtering back in the house, right on time (what do you know!)…and I didn’t have to plant the garlic.

In sum:
Gardening — check.
Homeschooling science lesson — check, check.
Parenting win — check.

I’ll be in here knitting (and trying not to eat all the biscotti) if anyone needs anything else.

__________
This is an excerpt from ABIDE volume 5: Obedience to Move Forward, available now on our site and everywhere books are sold.

ABIDE volume 5: Obedience to Move Forward

the new road: finding reward on the other side of obedience

Posted on by September 20, 2024

Our area of town has been under construction all summer, and the new road annoyed me before I even saw it. I’m sick of the noise and frustrated by the obstacle course of cones and rerouting that I have to take every time I leave the house.

But then I tried it.

the new road: finding reward on the other side of obedience

Well, to be honest, at first I went the same way I always do, resentment already bubbling underneath as I anticipated the barricades and one-way markers. And then, about 150 feet later, I remembered and hit the brake.

I checked; no one was behind me. So I reversed the entire way back, turned around in my driveway, and went the other direction to try the new road.

And, oh my gosh. It’s gorgeous.

This is a good time to tell you that, like many of you, I am averse to change.

I like patterns and routines; I don’t like surprises; I want to know the gender of the baby every time and I like to shake presents under the tree weeks before Christmas.

But our lives are full of change. We often need new patterns and routines, and sometimes our alignment needs adjusted.

Our natures writhe when our lives are misaligned with our beliefs. So if there is writhing, it’s a good indicator that change needs to be made. God calls us to live out our convictions, whatever they are.

So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

– Matthew 7:17-20

If you feel strongly about something, it is important to live in alignment with that belief rather than succumb to pressure, popularity, convenience, or pride.

We have confused virtue signaling for righteousness, and we have put fear of man on a pedestal, making approval from others an idol. Whenever Jesus corrected people, He had more to say to the hypocrites than anyone else.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

– Matthew 7:21-23

The trick is, there are some things where He doesn’t give a blanket rule. There are blanket rules, of course – refer to the Ten Commandments, as a starter – but there are other things He convicts us about personally that apply to us, in a certain season, for certain reasons.

For me, one of those convictions in this season is this: I cannot keep using and supporting Facebook and Instagram because they oppose free speech, information on health, religious freedom, election integrity, and so many other issues. God called me to leave those venues. I’ve never “taken a break” from them before and this is not a break; I closed and deleted my accounts.

And it was hard. I was torn about it for a lot of reasons. I hate to lose contact with so many people. It’s not convenient to miss out on the updates, the local weather and traffic reports, the small group notifications and such. It doesn’t make sense from a business or ministry standpoint – although, on the other hand, I’ve been censored and shadowbanned so much that it makes perfect sense. (If you think shadowbanning is just conspiracy theory, bless your heart.)

I’m not telling you this because I think God has called everyone to leave Facebook. Maybe He has, but I don’t know that. I’m also not telling you this for anyone’s approval or applause; I am beyond caring about the number of hits on the “like” button and I don’t care if you don’t like or agree with my reasons. I’m telling you this because He’s called me to leave that venue, for those reasons.

But I’m also telling you this because God has probably also called you to obey in some big area — maybe not to leave Facebook, but to some other hard step of obedience.

Because here’s the thing: Obedience is hard, but it’s a no brainer.

Obedience is messy but it’s the right thing to do. We can’t control the outcomes, but it’s the right thing to do. We don’t always understand all the reasons God tells us to do something, and we can’t always make others understand our reasons, but it’s the right thing to do. We can’t guarantee that we’ll even do our part in the best way without somehow messing up or offending someone…but it’s still the right thing to do.

There will be change and noise and inconvenient rerouting. Yes, obedience is hard, but when God has been clear, it’s a no brainer.

There is always reward on the other side of obedience. But there is always loss on the other side of disobedience.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

– Matthew 7:24-27

The decision and direction is ours. We can keep butting into the same traffic barriers and keep complaining about the circumstances, or we can go the other way and see what He has called us to. Once stubbornness is put aside, it’s a pretty easy choice.

That new road has gentle curves edged in green, sloping lawns (probably created using enough GMO seed to sink a ship, but I digress). I turned south to approach the highway and the sun was setting after the rain had fallen all day, and right there was the biggest rainbow I’ve ever seen in my life.

All the way from one side to the other, so big and so close that my camera couldn’t catch it all in one frame. I parked in the middle of the road to take the photos – I checked again; no one was behind me. The photos never do it justice, though. I can’t show you, but you know what it is. It’s overwhelming in the best of ways.

I turned onto the highway and drove right toward the middle of the rainbow.

God, does it mean something? I asked. Because it has to mean something. The color, light, and shadow; the brightness after a deluge of rain.

Yeah, Love. It always means something, He said.

________________

Related: Need more on obedience? We’ve written a whole book on it. ABIDE volume 5 is called Obedience to Move Forward and you can order it here.

as weird as you are: what homeschool really is

Posted on by March 10, 2022

Homeschooling has always been misunderstood, but 2020 didn’t do it any favors and now there’s even more confusion.

The fall of 2020 saw an unprecedented number of families transfer their kids from public and private school to homeschool. And this fall has been the same, for many of the same reasons; even more parents this year want to make the move to homeschool.

as weird as you are: what homeschool really is

It’s a bold, brave choice that requires a family to make significant changes, and it can be overwhelming. That has never changed; the overwhelm has always been there whether it was last year, this year, or sixteen years ago, when we started.

But this year I’ve noticed one difference: Many parents who wish they could get their kids out of public school have washed their hands of homeschooling because they feel like they tried it last year with the forced lockdown, and it was miserable.

So let me clear something up real quick. This is important:

If, because of lockdowns, you were forced into schooling at home, schooling online, or doing a ton of assignments with your kids that their school told you to do, then I hate to break it to you, but…you didn’t homeschool.

I hope that’s a relief to some of you.

Just because your child did assignments at home doesn’t mean it was homeschool.

If they were still registered with another school and doing everything that school told them to do, a repeat of that experience is not what you would be signing up for if you chose to (really) homeschool.

Because homeschool is not checking off a list that someone else assigned you. Homeschool is not hours and hours in front of a screen in zoom meetings or other online classes. Homeschool isn’t just doing the same things you would do at school, but moving the location to your kitchen table (or the couch, or your bed).

Homeschool is none of those things. So if you were given that impression last year and it left a terrible taste in your mouth, I am so sorry. No one can blame you for saying “We tried homeschool last year and we hated it” because we would hate it that way, too.

But we can show you what it really ought to be. And that should give you hope, especially if you wish there was an alternative to the indoctrinating mess that many public schools have become. If you are tired of the CRT and other agendas, the unhealthy mask mandates, the disregard of parental rights, and you want to make school about education again (whoa, what a concept!), let’s talk about what homeschool really is.

And right from the start, I admit that I can’t give you the full picture. Because homeschool is different for everyone, and that is the beauty of it. It is for you and for your kids, not for a predictable system so they will all go in different and come out the same after being squeezed to conform to a mold they may never fit into.

But here are some basic principles:

– We read. A lot. Out loud and quietly, to each other, to younger siblings, to older siblings, to Grandma, to the cats if they will listen. So many books, so little time. When someone’s sick, audiobooks work in a pinch.

– We do stuff: Projects and hikes and visits and crafty things and cooking and watching videos and I can’t even tell you what else. At home and elsewhere, on our own and with others, and we’re not limited to a 7 am to 3 pm schedule.

– We talk to each other, to extended family members and friends, and others. We discuss what we’re reading and learning. We visit people and talk on the phone, and we’re not segregated into only talking with those in our own age group, economic group, neighborhood, or gender.

– We try and fail and change things up, and try again. We’re not stuck with the math program that we hate. We try new language arts programs that might be a better fit. We don’t read the dry textbooks that put you to sleep.

– Our curriculum and schedule work for us, not the other way around. We are not a slave to the checklists and to-do lists (and neither are our kids). We adjust our school schedule to our lives instead of adjusting our lives to our school schedule. A new baby is born, or someone gets sick, or some major catastrophe occurs? We learn about basic skills and caring for each other for a few weeks, and the algebra and language arts can wait. There will be time to pick it up again when things settle down. We are flexible when we need to care for each other, help friends, do a major home repair, or get involved in community projects. So much that needs to be known is never learned in school…but it can be learned in homeschool.

Some of the most important learning is not academic, so don’t be afraid to go there.

So friends, if you want to homeschool this year but don’t think you can for a dozen or more reasons, listen to me:

You will be a terrific teacher for your kid. You’ve already been doing it a long time.

You can teach your kids. Yes, it’s hard sometimes. Yes, you’ll be sanctified. But you can go slow, read the books you want, do the activities you want, partner with friends, take advantage of online resources (they cover every subject or topic you could imagine), and make it your own. Make it for them. Make it for your freedom. Make it for their future.

We have all these preconceived ideas about what school should look like, and we feel like we can’t fit the mold. So, newsflash:

There was never meant to be a mold.

School is supposed to be as weird as you are. Go ahead and quote me on that.

____

Need a quick resource for more info? HSLDA has a terrific site right here, with everything you need to know (legal, local, academic, and otherwise) to get started.