Lesson 4. Spend Time with Him: Throughout my childhood, my parents modeled an active and thriving prayer and devotional life. I remember walking downstairs in the early morning to find my mom seated in the big recliner in the family room with a cup of coffee close by and my dad laying on the sofa in the living room, both spending time with the Lord as soon as they began a new day. Look through my parents’ and grandparents’ Bibles, and every margin is filled with the personal narrative scribblings of a man or woman completely in love with its Writer.
When I was little, my dad would visit the room that my sister Leslie and I shared and snuggle in between us to read stories from our children’s Bible and pray with us. I remember a special ritual, even, of spinning a globe kept on a shelf in our room and closing our eyes and selecting a country to pray for that night. I’ve wondered since moving overseas whether my little finger ever landed on Kenya. Wouldn’t that have been a trip to know back then? And every Sunday afternoon after lunch, we spent time in family devotions. Every family dinner, my dad led us in marathon prayers at the end of the meal, instead of before it – most likely to serve the dual purpose of allowing us unlimited time to talk with the Lord as a family as well as to be able to dive into eating our meals before anything got cold.
I’ve been remiss in applying this example in my own life as I’ve grown up. There was always something more pressing – or more appealing – to do with that time. I’d occasionally sit down for a big date with Jesus and feel deliciously filled up and satisfied afterwards, closing with the line, “We should do this again sometime.” And then I never called Him back. And for another few months, we’d chat for a few minutes a day or even go without any communication at all for days on end. If Jesus were my boyfriend, then I’d definitely deserve to be dumped. Thank goodness He’s so gracious and forgiving.
I used to be able to get away with that. Not here. Here, in a place where I’m reminded that my personal comfort and safety aren’t guaranteed – where I’m constantly suffering from physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion – where I’m in daily battle with my Enemy – I can’t screw around anymore. It’d be like joining up for the Army and developing an eating disorder. Good luck getting through basic training – let alone battle – when you’re starving yourself of the energy and strength that you need. I’m constantly reminded of my absolute, desperate need for Him to enter into my life and take over. Every day. It used to be that I could get by on my own fairly well. Didn’t need a Lord to reign over my life in His wisdom and sovereignty and love. I could manage well enough on my own. That plan just doesn’t hold any longer.
I listened to a John Piper sermon a few weeks ago, and I remember him saying that in our lives, only about 5% of the things we do and say and think are premeditated. So only 5% of the time am I actually thinking about making a decision or what I’m going to say to that person or I’m actively checking my thought life. The rest is unpremeditated. I don’t go to the store and think about which cereal purchase will glorify God the most. I don’t rehearse [every] conversation I have before I have it. Even in my teaching, where I generate lesson plans for every class period each day, I know that when I put four or five little bulleted activities in a box on a weekly chart, that’s merely providing direction for what is generally a spontaneous activity. So that means that 95% of my life is unplanned and undirected.
I don’t know about you, but that terrifies me. To think that most of what I do is just byproduct “fruit” of the root I’m feeding each day. So that root had better be receiving the nutrients it needs, instead of the toxic waste of anxiety and fear and frustration and bitterness and everything else I choke myself with each day. I need to spend time with Him daily to have even a hope of growing into what He’s designed me to be.
*The English teacher in me senses right now that I need to apologize for the overuse of unrelated metaphors in my explanation of Lesson 4. I believe I just paralleled my relationship with the Lord to dating relationships, eating disorders, grocery shopping, and plant root systems all in the same narrative. Horrifying.
Lesson 3. Seek and Apply Truth: If you’ve been following my life here for at least the past year, then you’ll know that I’m a total sucker for Truth. I could hold somebody captive in a room somewhere talking about Truth for hours. I can and I have, actually. A year ago, I picked up Nancy Pearcey’s book Total Truth and fell in love. Having only experienced being a student in a secular classroom, I was completely captivated by the way Pearcey was able to put a finger to the pulse of current culture and philosophy. I hadn’t been that wrapped up in an academic study of Biblical Truth since the summer before I began college, when I attended Worldview Academy.
This year, our school has adopted Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project. A fourteen week video course, we’ve learned and discussed such topics as our origins, God and Man’s relationship, history, the Church, the State – all from a Biblical worldview. Great clips from incredible thinkers like Os Guinness and Ravi Zacharias mixed with excellent teaching by Dr. Del Tackett and little interview montages with “lay people” from various backgrounds. All excellent food for thought. Every week, the Lord helps me find some great way to connect my learning to my approach to teaching and I’ve even got my kids on board with Worldview matrices that we fill out for each text we read in class, discussions on ethics, morality, and common philosophy, and one heck of a class session where I watched as my entire class of juniors crinkle their foreheads in disapproval of the pervasive relativism of our postmodern society. “People think they can make up their own reality based on what they think is true? And then tell everyone they can believe whatever the heck they want to?” one student asked. “That’s so stupid!” I completely agree, juniors. What a mess.
But even greater than my desire to seek and apply “capital T” Truth in an academic context, emphasizing logic and the study of rhetoric and context with my own students, is my desire to seek and apply the Truth that God has written just for me. Because the Truth He’s interested in sharing with me goes deeper than satisfying my thirst for knowledge. I feel I’m finally learning to crave His wisdom - seeking and applying what it is that God has planned for my life and my own ministry and desires.
It’s easy to get discouraged in the mission field. Scratch that. It’s easy to get discouraged anywhere doing anything. I’m sure you know this to be true. Maybe a month ago, my roommate Jen picked up a notion that she was going to find a piece of Truth each day, chew on it for a bit, and make sure she told me about it. The Truths she shared with me varied from things she was learning about relationships, about teaching, about ministry, and about who God is. And it was a lovely reminder that every day, I have an opportunity to seek and find Him and be changed by Him. The ball’s in my court every time.
Only two more lessons to go in this 27 Life Lessons series, but I’m certain that as soon as I post that final entry, dozens more will flood to mind. Isn’t that just how life goes? The learning just never stops…
