A New Year!

As many students might agree, the "new year" doesn't start on January 1, but rather on September 8 (or whatever date your particular school starts on). I've decided to take the fresh start of the year as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, so to speak, for my personal life. I'm hoping to make some dramatic changes, so perhaps posting it on this blog will help me be held accountable by my church family! :)

Our pastor has just recently finished a sermon series on self-control, which dealt quite a bit with laziness versus diligence and procrastination versus responsibility. I have felt incredibly convicted the past month or so about my own laziness, and I need to stop procrastinating (oh, the irony!) on getting my life together. A lot of people tell me the same thing when I confess my laziness: that I am so incredibly busy I could not possibly be a lazy person. Let me take a second to clarify: not true!! I am so lazy! I am learning to look at my life a bit more acutely and see that business does not equal diligence. During the school year, I typically leave the house at 7:30 or 8:30 in the morning, barely waking up on time. Then my day is typically filled with catching up on the prior day's assignments, which will be turned in within the next half hour or so, going to classes, sometimes without my materials (so I take notes in the wrong notebooks), and rehearsals and lessons, which I have not practiced for. Then I come home at perhaps 9 or 10 in the evening, sit around for a few hours because my brain is "fried" from the day, and go to bed without doing that day's homework or spending adequate time in the Word. What a horrible way to live!

I confess all this to you bloggers so you are not fooled by the responsible appearance I'm told that I have. I am a sinner, and it is most obvious in the ungrateful way I manage my time day after day, year after year. After much thought, I had decided a few weeks ago to make some changes that will, Lord willing, reflect the gospel in my life. My life is a testament to God's faithfulness, so my self-control in day-to-day living should reflect the perseverance of the saints that the New Testament continually refers to. I need to be a good steward so that I can more accurately reflect Christ! I'm reading through the gospels right now, and I am amazed at Jesus's unceasing work. Even when he was tired and withdrew from the crowd, there was always work for him to do, whether it be explaining the parables to His followers or praying to His Father. I want my life to be like His.

I've made a daily schedule in which I budgeted time to do all my homework, attend class, eat, sleep, practice, blog and journal, pray, and study Scripture. The last few weeks of summer were a joy to me because I saw fruit in my life with this self-control that God is graciously giving me. I had time to do everything that needed to get done (including the hard things! I scheduled those first!) as well as the things I wanted to do. I'm more willing to make cuts where necessary (something I struggle with) because I see what I physically cannot do due to over scheduling versus what I won't do because I'm lazy. God has been gracious to me!

Now with school beginning I hope to do the hard things first, be diligent, spread the gospel as much as possible, and, most importantly, LOVE CHRIST MORE. I pray that I will be able to do so, as He sustains me and gives me grace! God is good.

Sins of a Father

So the other day I was reading in 1 Samuel 30 and 31 about Saul & Jonathon, as well as David & the worthless men that hung around him. As I was reading about Saul and the end which he came to, it caused me to pause and meditate on how the choices we make really do have great effect on those around us, particularly our children. How sad it is to see Jonathon, who by all appearances was a godly man, die because of his father's sinful choices. In contrast though, I can also see how our choices for good pleasantly affect those around us. David is a man who is humble and seeks God. As a result, he is blessed by God and the Bible says that even the worthless men who followed him were blessed as well (at least temporarily while they were with David) (Chapter 30 of 1 Sam).

I wondered to myself: Why would God allow the actions of the proverbial righteous man and proverbial wicked man to affect so greatly those around them? Various thoughts proceeded from this.

Maybe the answer is to build into people an understanding of community, how we need others and they need us. Ultimately, being created in the image of God, who is three in one, and relating to Him perfectly and continually, perhaps we are made to reflect that through our relationships on earth and fail miserably because of the fall. That is, in our selfishness we want to be free to sin with impunity and very little consequences (or no consequences). In our pride we want to live a happy life without the influence of others and as a "lone wolf". But maybe God made this principle of our sin/obedience affecting others, because He wants us to see our need of Him and our need to work alongside the body of God-followers for the good of all and God's glory.

In my limited view of the story of Saul & Jonathon, I may look at a situation like theirs where a son (and entire lineage) suffers because of the sins of Saul their father, and focus on the kids, thus saying "THAT'S NOT FAIR!" However, if I take a few steps back, I may see that the point isn't the suffering kids. The bigger issue is that God is showing us the seriousness of our sin and causing it to adversely affect those around us so we'll see that we're a part of a body. Everyone is a part of some kind of body: As a Christian I'm a part of the body of my husband (Ryan), then of the Ryan Aldrich family (my kids), then of the greater Aldrich family, then of the local church body at TBC, then the greater universal church body and ultimately all of mankind. All of which I affect either for good or evil by either submitting to God or rebelling against Him. Even an unbeliever is at the very least a part of the greater body of mankind and his rejection of and rebellion to God affects mankind.

So then my thoughts go to our American society... which has endeavored to change this God ordained truth/principle of cause & effect. For example, if a father won't work, we'll feed his kids so they won't starve because of their father's laziness. As such, many men don't feel the need to get a job they can stay at home and get welfare and food stamps and energy assistance and even rent assistance. They can even get tax relief and nice sized tax returns for money they could have earned, though they didn't work (and as such didn't pay taxes) because they have lots of kids that they aren't able to support. That's just one of many examples that come to mind. I am sure that our government is (or was when they enacted so many of it's laws) trying to show compassion to the "underdog" and be helpful. But it seems that we have taken our eyes off the ball and so removed the consequences of sin, that we are in reality encouraging sin. I can also see a distinct lack of trust in God in so many of our laws and programs that seek to rescue the "underdog" by relieving the consequences of the person practicing the wickedness (not that I expect our government or society to trust God). Certainly Jonathon suffered because of Saul's sinful choices, but he had the same opportunity to either submit to God or rebel against God (even in his suffering). He chose (seemingly) to submit and though he suffered temporarily and even died in the process, ultimately (I believe) he was rewarded eternally; which is much to be preferred.

Mind you, I am not "preaching" government reform necessarily (I too have benefited in lean times from many of the helpful programs our government offers and understand that nothing is perfect), but I am trying to see beyond the immediate story of Jonathon & Saul & David, to the ways of God and it's effects and application in our daily lives, this age and our perception of things. I hope to see and understand God more as I read His word and these are my thoughts for the day from this particular passage.

Decisions, Decisions...

I have given much thought to decisions of late. Specifically, my thoughts have returned to the finality of a decision made. We make decisions all day long, often without putting much (if any) thought into them; yet once I have made a decision (whether in thought or in deed), that decision is done, gone. Whether good or bad, I cannot take back my decision. I cannot make it better or fix it or redeem it. A decision made leaves no room for undoing but only for consequences… and generally our consequences will be reflective of the quality of our decision. If I make a bad decision it will bring bad consequences. If I make a good decision, it will bring good consequences. Sometimes the discernable consequences for a good or bad decision will be the beginning of a newly formed habit (either good or bad). As such, tomorrow it will only be easier to walk in the same path that I walked in the day before, whether it is one of disobedience or faithfulness.

Now, that is not to say that we can always judge the quality of the consequences by our own standards. We must hold up God’s word as truth and judge our consequences or results by what God says is good. If I choose to honor God through obedience, but am treated badly by others because of it, one could wrongfully say that the consequences didn’t match the decision (bad consequences for a good decision). However, God says in His word that we are actually blessed when we are persecuted for the sake of Christ and will be rewarded greatly in Heaven. The long term consequences may not be discernable to us for many years to come or not even until we enter into eternity with our Lord. But I think it would be much more honoring to God if we took a good hard look at the things we think about and do (both of which are decisions we make) and examine them to see what is motivating them and where they will lead us.

God can and does save us from our sin and the ultimate consequence of death and hell for all who have believed in the saving work of Jesus on the cross, but He also will faithfully discipline us for our daily sin (in order to make us holy) and bless us for our faith-filled obedience. However, every time I decide to believe a lie of Satan (and this perishing world), my attitude and actions will reflect and react to that false belief (the root decision). So I am challenged to really examine my belief system, and the resulting thoughts, attitudes, and actions. This is the only way that I can “redeem the time.” For, though Christ has redeemed us from our sins and our slavery to sin, He has graciously left us the earthly (temporal) consequences of them, so that we may learn to stop walking in them (our sins) and rather turn to Him in faith filled obedience… moment by moment, decision by decision… for His glory.