The Bigger Picture

Is it paying off?

Am I really bearing fruit?

Are my kids getting it?

Is God getting glory from my life?

Have you asked these questions too? It can be hard to keep going sometimes, not knowing if all your labor is worth it. If it’s even making a difference.

Did you know? Abraham never saw the generations promised to him. They certainly came, and the number of his descendants is increasing - but he didn’t live to see it. Neither did Isaac, or Jacob; they all lived with the belief that this particular promise from God would be fulfilled - yet they never saw it in their lifetimes.

They did see forward motion. Progress. But they were each only a part of God’s big picture.

So it is with us, friends. We each are only part of God’s big picture. There may be things in this life that He places before us and calls us to, that we never see to completion. Someone else may continue our ministry and see the more abundant fruit; one of our kids or grandkids may pick up the baton of a certain discipline and perfect it.

What matters is our faithfulness. We must remain faithful to what He puts in front of us, whether we see the results or not. He desires our obedience and trust. This life is so much bigger than just us! He knows what He’s doing. He has plans that involve people, time, places, and things; He works all these things together in His perfect way and timing.

Look for fruit as a mark that you’re in the right direction, to see what the Lord is doing - but focus on faithfulness. Trust that He has a plan, and you are a part of it. Thank Him you are a part!

In Him,

Amy Parsons

That Time God Said YES

It’s easy to lose the awe that comes when we experience direct answers to specific prayers. We think we’ll remember, but the mundane and the busy redirect our brains, and those amazing moments can be lost. Some years ago, I began recording each of those treasured times, those times when I just knew it was God’s yes in a very specific way. I call it my Little Book of Miracles—and I’m now on book four. In the month of March, I’m excited to share a few of these precious stories with you. Some are profound. Some are almost silly. Yet all of them remind me of the ways God has met my needs and often my wants … miraculously. I hope you enjoy celebrating these moments with me, and I urge you to start your own Little Book of Miracles.

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” —Jeremiah 32:27 ESV

It was my daughter’s birthday. Her husband was overseas for the year and unable to celebrate with her. I decided to help my grandchildren, ages seven, five, and three, buy little presents for their mama—teaching them the joy of giving and, at the same time, blessing their mom during a hard year in her life. Off we trotted to the van, where three little bodies were strapped in safe and sound, full of chatter and excitement about the Big Adventure of shopping at the mall with me, their Nina.

I had set a $10 limit for each of them, so they would have to choose carefully what special present they wanted their beloved mama to have. We hadn’t even made it out of the driveway before it became apparent they had no idea how much $10 would buy. The excitement was building as they discussed what they would purchase. “Diamonds!” shouted one. “I want to buy her many jewels, Nina. And gold,” said another. “Oh dear,” thought I, trying to prepare them by suggesting we shop at a little costume jewelry store and chip in all the money together to get one pretty necklace with “jewels.” They were not having it. “Oh, no, Nina. We want to buy her earrings and necklaces. Each of us our own.” I tried to explain that $10 could not possibly buy both earrings and a necklace, but they were so excited that my gentle attempts at reining them in fell on deaf ears.

This was quite the situation for a Nina who has a very hard time saying no to her grandchildren. (See Nina Lost Her “No” Button for further information on this sad fact.) I broke through the chatter and did the only thing I could do when facing the impossible, I said, “Let’s pray for God’s help, okay?” They seriously bowed their little heads as I pleaded with God for some help here please. Suddenly this adventure didn’t seem quite as grand as I had imagined. I pictured very disappointed little ones trudging home with something much less than they had envisioned. I loved their desire to give their mother something big, but I really couldn’t spend more than the allotted amount. So I prayed. With a very little bit of faith. In a mess of desperation.

When we arrived at the mall, we headed toward the costume jewelry store. On our way, we passed a much finer store—actually their mom’s favorite store. I saw a “sale” sign in the display window and suggested we go in and look. Sure enough, the beautiful necklaces with gold and “jewels” were $24.95 on sale. Great! But certainly not cheap enough for each grandchild to buy their very own to give their mom … let alone earrings as well. I started to explain this to them, but the lady behind the counter overheard our conversation and came over to help. She smiled and said, “Follow me.” She led us to another section of the store, where their extreme sale was going on. Buy earrings for $9.95 and choose a necklace for free! I kid you not.

Each child, happily unaware of this little miracle, chose with glee the necklace and earrings he or she thought were the prettiest for their mom. The kind clerk wrapped them all individually with each child’s name affixed to their package, so their mom could see what each had chosen especially for her.

I walked out of that store just stunned. I have to confess I hadn’t really expected that God would actually do what I had asked. I was more hoping He’d help me stem their disappointment. As we celebrated with pretzels, the oldest grandson led us in a prayer of thanksgiving for God’s help. I felt like doing a victory dance. It was so much fun to see how God had orchestrated our morning and taught the children (and Nina!) a valuable lesson in giving and in asking.

Oh, you should have seen the joy as each child presented their “gold and jewels” to their mother on her birthday. She loved seeing their happiness and their desire to give—perhaps even more than the “jewels.” But she liked those, too. After all, we had shopped at her favorite place. It was a sweet birthday celebration despite the absence of the father and husband they all loved and missed.

I tucked away the memory. A sweet time when a crazy little desperate prayer was answered with a resounding yes by a God who says, “Is anything too hard for Me?” Sometimes, we just need to ask. Like a child. Trusting that God will answer us as He knows best. I’m so glad I did that day. We would have missed out on a “little miracle” that turned into a big reminder that our God cares about us—in the little and the big things of life.

Father, I’m still smiling over Your amazing provision. Such a crazy little wish not to disappoint my grandchildren, answered beyond my imagination. Thank You. Help us come to You whenever we have a trouble, big or small. Nothing is too hard for You, Lord, and You welcome Your children to come and ask. Help us to trust Your answers, knowing You are good. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Originally written by Sharon Gamble of Sweet Selah Ministries. Used with permission.

Comparison Is Not the Thief of Joy

Comparison isn’t the thief of joy.

Helping my seven-year-old write a compare-and-contrast essay on puppies and kittens is like a jaunt into the human psyche. We educate our kids so that they’re really good at articulating what’s the same and what’s different. We make sure they can evaluate all the ways a puppy measures up to a kitten. But when they notice a child in a wheelchair or a figure skating man who’s acting like a girl, we clam up and wish they hadn’t noticed any of it. And once they start drawing comparisons with themselves, we do more than clam up; we call it sin.

If Teddy Roosevelt’s maxim is true, that “comparison is the thief of joy,” then it seems we’re all comparing and contrasting our happiness away.

Roosevelt is clearly onto something. Head over to Pinterest or Instagram or Facebook, and you’ll see a thousand posts memorializing his proverb. Listen to Christian talks, sermons, and podcasts, and you will start to think that this little saying is God’s — all that’s missing is chapter and verse. The solution seems plain then: stop doing that. Stop measuring yourself up against others. Stop noticing the discrepancies; it will only lead to misery.

The problem is that we can’t stop comparing. Comparison is a fundamental part of being human, because it’s how we acquaint ourselves with reality. The very first thing Adam did when he saw Eve was to write his own brief compare and contrast essay. “She’s like me! Only different!”

Not only is it impossible to opt out of comparing, but God actually wants us to do it.

Comparing Is Necessary

Comparing is how we discover what holiness is. It’s how we see what is set apart as distinct from us. It’s also how we know what we ought to be like. To abandon comparing is to abandon our understanding of God, and of ourselves. What we need to do is train ourselves how to compare properly, not cut ourselves off from the necessity of comparison.

If we took all the measuring — the comparing and contrasting — out of the Bible, we wouldn’t have much of a book left. God’s laws and instructions fundamentally help us to see what we are and are not, what we should and shouldn’t be. They also help us see how we measure up to others, so that we can either imitate them or do the opposite of them. This is not sin — it is essential to growth, and health, as Christians.

My concern is that, far from letting comparison fuel our growth in godliness, we actually have trained Christians that it’s good to ignore the ways someone else might be doing something well, so that they can spare themselves the discomfort of how they might not measure up. With this logic, bad feelings about my situation or sin problem are the real issue — that’s what must be avoided. When we admonish ourselves or others to stop comparing, we may actually be insulating ourselves from reality.

Of course, we have to evaluate if the comparisons we’re making are real or not. We shouldn’t compare our real life (the house with actual people in it and sticky faces and hair-raising smells) with the fake life of someone we’ve never met on Instagram (the tasteless, odorless, iocane-powder version). That’s a false comparison. Remember, our goal is figuring out what’s real and true, not inoculating ourselves to it through make-believe images.

Make Comparisons Fuel Joy

What if, rather than pretending not to notice that our friend is excelling in homemaking and parenting (while we’re scraping by), we honored her by giving thanks to God for her obedience, her diligence, and her example of Christ that we can follow? What if we started observing her more closely, making more comparisons rather than less, so that we could tease out the principles of godliness present in her life and do likewise?

What if, rather than smugly disdaining the mom who can’t get her act together, we offered her a better way? What if we actually said with Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” not because we think we’re better than she is, but because God has really done something profound in us and we’re confident he can do it in her, too (1 Corinthians 11:1)?

Leading our comparisons in the right direction — away from envy, pride, covetousness, and self-pity, and toward Christlike imitation and the fear of God — will turn us into better parents, mentors, and friends.

Parenting Children Through Comparison

Faithful parenting means discipling our children into reality. Many parents balk when their kids make observations about themselves and their siblings like, “I’m not good at school. Eliza’s good at school.” We rush in to say, “Oh no, honey! You are good at school!” But, are they? Does it even matter to us as parents if what they’ve said is accurate or not? It should.

If our child is doing poorly in school and their sibling is doing great, we shouldn’t pretend like that’s not the case. If we do that, we will be training them to ignore what’s real. We will be training them that true speech is too scary or too difficult for us to handle and, therefore, too difficult for them to handle. We will give them the impression that what’s different about them is so scary and hard to deal with that it’s unspeakable. We shove reality out of the picture so that we can coddle them — while really we’re coddling ourselves. We ignore deficiencies as if they were too much to bear.

But what if we acknowledged that what they’re saying is true, at least in part? Their sister is doing well in school and they are struggling. Then, we can shepherd them to give thanks to God for how he’s made their sister, and ask God for the discipline and grace to help them do better. And while they struggle, we can teach them to ask God for the contentment in the areas that are hard for them, and give thanks for the particular strengths he’s given them that are different than how he’s gifted their sibling.

We won’t be able to do any of that if we haven’t asked God for the thick gospel-skin that helps us live in a world of differences and similarities, without making it all about a narcissistic insecurity that someone, somewhere has more than me, or is working harder than me, or is doing better than me. That is a sickly way for Christians to live! In Christ, we have it all — we dare not dishonor him by our self-pity (Romans 8:32).

Differences Are God’s Design

The Bible assumes some will have more faith, and some less. Some will have this gift and another that gift. Some will be rich and some will be poor. Some beautiful, some homely. Some with lovely homes, some with drab. There will be children with disabilities and children without. There are Gentiles and Jews, tribes and tongues, men and women.

The Bible even assumes that some will be more Christlike and mature than others. Noticing these things isn’t a sin, but a gift, and it need not lead to the evaporation of our joy, but can be the water for its growth.

Holy imitation isn’t about cramming ourselves into another’s mold. It’s about recognizing the Christlike principles another has applied to their life and figuring out how to apply them to ours. It’s not about making all of our voices sound the same, but getting us all to learn the same song of the Lamb who was slain. It’s not about making us all identical, but about training all of us, amid our diversity, to walk together in the light of Christ.

Originally written by Abigail Dodds for Desiring God. Used with permission.

Best Pre-Marital Advice We Got and Love to Give

Wanna hear the best pre-marital advice Mark and I received?

Well, maybe it’s not the best, but we sure do refer to it a lot. We use it and we tell it to other couples all the time. It even feels a little bit like a marriage hack because it’s so simple and yet pays huge dividends.

Here it is:

Whenever we deal with my family, I do the communicating and whenever we deal with his family, he does the communicating.

Probably not the profundity you were expecting. But I promise, it’s gold.

Our pastor wisely instructed us that each of our families of origin would always love us—meaning the one who came from that family. My parents are always going to love me. There’s nothing I can do to make them disown me. They may roll their eyes at me and not agree with a lot of what I do and say. But I’ll always be theirs. I’ll always have a place at their table. They’ll always have to take me back.

But not so with Mark (and vice versa with me and his family). It’s possible for him to rub my family the wrong way, to annoy them, to tally up enough points against him that they don’t really like him anymore. It’s far more likely that my family would reject him than they would me. He’s an outsider. There are boundaries in their love for him.

This is human nature. This is the reality of all marriages and families of origins. There will always be just a little bit of suspicion towards the other spouse.

In real life this has been very handy. If we can’t go to dinner at his parent’s house, he makes the call. If we can’t take a trip with my mom, I make the call. If my family has offended him or hurt him in some way, I defend him. I speak up. I take the responsibility of pursuing reconciliation. And likewise for him with his family.

Bottom line: we each champion and defend and run interference for the other to our families of origin.

Thankfully, by God’s sweet grace, we both come from great families. And they all read this blog and they’re all going to wonder what specific infraction I’m talking about. I promise, I’m not referring to anything specific! We are so very blessed to have solid and wonderful relationships all around. But we do use this hack in small ways all the time—it’s a way of life, an automatic way of communicating for us.

Like I said, not profound, but I promise it’s gold. As we’ve counseled many, many couples over the years and shared this advice, we’ve seen it work beautifully. It has the power to mend broken relationships in extended families, to bring peace to previously contentious relationships, to smooth things over and to set the stage for a lifetime of peace and harmony.

A couple examples to help paint the picture:

Say a husband’s parents want to babysit a couple’s toddler. But the couple knows the grandparents will feed the child junk food and they really don’t want them to. It’s the husband’s job to say so. He has to communicate the firm boundary to his own parents. In this way, the wife is protected from that difficult conversation, the in-laws won’t be tempted to think of her as a strict and cranky daughter-in-law, and peace is maintained. They may roll their eyes at their son, but they’re likely to respect his wishes, whereas if the wife had had the conversation they may be more willing to blow her off.

Or say a wife’s father is great with finances and wants to be really involved in the couple’s purchase of their first home. But say the husband is uncomfortable with his father-in-law knowing so much about their finances and also not too keen to follow his father-in-law’s advice. It’s the wife’s job to tell her dad that he can’t participate in the process. While the father may be disappointed, he’s likely to respect his daughter’s wishes. Whereas if her husband had this hard conversation, the wishes may be respected, but there would also likely be tension. The husband would probably be seen as hard-headed or foolish or a bully. But as the wife has the conversation, she protects her husband from harm and maintains peace in the extended family.

These kinds of things come up all the time and having a game plan in place ahead of time makes a huge difference. Whenever my husband’s family poses a question to us, I simply look at him and let him take the lead in answering. And the same goes for my family. While we really have sweet relationships, it’s a deeply ingrained habit for us, and I think a large reason why we do indeed enjoy peace all around.

May the wisdom of our pastor in pre-marital counseling serve you well too!

Mark and I are coming up on our 20th wedding anniversary. I cannot overstate what a joy that is for us to celebrate! We both come from much brokenness and divorce. To have an intact marriage that is vibrant and life-giving is almost too much for me to fathom. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to God for the gifts he’s given me in Mark and our long life together, thus far.

Originally written by Jen Oshman, wife and mama of four girls. Used with permission.