This Age

In But not Of

The fact that you’re reading this blog and I wrote it for you to read, shows the times and age we live in. It is a stretch for me to be doing this, this is a girl that only until recently began to venture into the blog hemisphere. The extent of my internet surfing encompassed sending e-mails, paying bills, checking out the news, and balancing my bank account. I feel we’re living in the Hellenization (spread of the Greek language, culture, and religion throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.) The spreading of the gospel was made possible across the region because they all spoke the same language. Our common language, in this case, is of course the internet. It is amazing to me how we can use this avenue to reach out literally to people from all over the place, if God is willing. As Christians we are called to live in this world, and not be of this world. The internet has been used, as we all know, in more evil ways than we can imagine, but using it to glorify God and exhorting others to do so, is a privilege I’m blessed to be part of. So I decided to come out of my cave and expand my idea of serving and spreading the gospel.

In the section of our blog called “THIS AGE” you shall see issues of life that this world throws at us or Satan uses to rob the joy and sufficiency in Christ that we feel. We hope to challenge you as well as ourselves in the many areas that pertain to our everyday life which could really include anything from the clothes we wear, to the things we eat, the movies we watch (or not), the music we listen to, and of course the people we vote for to lead this country…

To give a token of what we’re talking about and keeping with the Mother’s motif, I found this thought provoking article in the Kenosha News (April 29, 2008). It was entitled "Sacrifice: An American Virtue on Rebound". While the article argued that Americans are sacrificing more, though they don’t recognize it as that, our government and leaders keep avoiding asking people to sacrifice more. Nevertheless, government data shows that people are volunteering at historical rates and that whether we’re asked to …”join the military, feed the poor, conserve energy…", the next president is likely to find the most receptive audience since John F Kennedy’s “ask not” address…”. He goes on to quote people about what they think of the sacrifices they’ve made; one says “I think there’s something in each of us which wants to make things better for other people….I get more out of this than what I give—by a longshot.” That sums up the article, it starts with man and it ends with man—no thought of God and that is how the world works.

What in the world does this have to do with Moms you may ask yourself? Motherhood comes with a great deal of sacrifice. Physical sacrifices are the name of the game, just ask a new mom. Our bodies change never to be the same again, sleeping eight hours straight is a thing of the past, and the list goes on. But more than that, moms (myself included) are far too often, willing to sacrifice truth for a lie. In I Samuel 15:22, God tells us what He thinks about sacrifices “…to obey is better than sacrifice..”. Too often, we buy into the lies of this world that define what we should be doing, for the sake of gratifying ourselves. It may be a shopping spree, a makeover, or giving all our time and energy to our jobs, when our time should be spent at home caring, teaching, and correcting our children. While I was writing this piece, I had a deadline and was trying to meet it, but this time my kids kept needing me to break up “selfish fights”, refill their sippy cups yet again, and to make things worse; my littlest got behind the computer desk and turned off the computer. Yeah, I lost most of my article. I disciplined him, but then I realized that my job was to care for these guys first and if God wanted me to do this blog, He would have to provide a way for me to do it. And He did.

There are a million ways we can sacrifice our God given role and responsibilities in the name of a “good cause”, but as I was reminded: to obey is far more honoring to God than to make sacrifices…. Let me ask you Moms, what sacrifices are you making today that are keeping you from obeying God first?