Dependence On God

Something that I've been turning over in my head for weeks now is what it means to have dependence on God.  I think this question really arose in my head out of something that Katie Davis, adoptive parent and missionary to Uganda once said.  She was speaking about coming home to the US after being in Uganda and how she started to feel this distance from God.  It took her awhile to figure out what was causing it.  Then it occurred to her that in Uganda when someone is sick, they prayed.  When they were hungry, they prayed.  When it hadn't rained, they prayed.  Here in the US, everything is handed to us -- for as much as we often don't realize it, nor want to admit it.  We get sick, and we go to the doctor.  We are hungry and we can always get Ramen noodles no matter what's in our bank account.  It's raining, and we have shelter.  It's cold, and we have blankets, a thermostat and for some lucky ones, even a generator or a gas fire place.

We can take care of ourselves so we don't rely on God.

This has even had an impact on our prayer life.

Remember the Lord's prayer.  Give us this day our daily bread.  It wasn't: give us tomorrow's bread, next month's bread, or that fancy bread maker I saw on eBay.   We've stopped praying for what we need and started wishing for what we want -- changing our view of God from our provider into our Santa.  Somehow in our first world thinking it doesn't always seem like that big a step, right?  Today's bread is a need, but I'll need bread tomorrow.  And I'll need something to make the bread with, and brownies are just LIKE bread with sugar.  Everyone around me has brownies.  Is asking for brownies really too far a step from asking for today's bread? 

YES.

I'm not trying to get you to start being all nit-picky about your prayers.

I'm just saying that I've been really pondering what it means to really be dependent upon God.  And I think there are a few things that we should be trying to do.

1.  Praying boldly for our needs.

I think God calls us to boldly ask Him for our needs.  Often we think God is in tune with us and will ease our lives and give us what we need because He knows us and loves us.  Scripture counters that.  Christ often waited for the recipient to ASK Him; miracles were only granted by God once the prophets asked God.  We need to boldly come to Him and ask.

2.  Our daily quiet time with God needs to be sacred.

We often feel like if we're singing in the car to Christian music, go to church regularly on Sundays and participate in the occasional outreach project at church, then we are standing on awesome ground where God is concerned.  But the truth is that God is passionately pursuing our hearts and we won't be in a whole, dependent place until we seeking him daily.  And I know that lives are busy, but I also know that I make watching at least two TV shows a crazy-priority (like a can-someone-else-put-my-kids-to-bed priority!  Try not to judge.) during the week.  And if I can do that, why can't I make some time for God each day, too?  

3.  Our continual effort to "praying without ceasing"

The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, but what exactly does that mean?  I think it means that we invite God to be part of every moment of our lives.  While we are in the check out line at the grocery store, we can pray for the disheveled elderly person in front of us who looks like she might be alone in life.  We can talk with Christ in our hearts as we help her load her groceries onto the conveyer belt and offer her a kind smile, or offer to help her to her vehicle.  We can ask God to help us understand mercy when our teller seems rude or crass.  We can ask God to help us see their brokenness and remind us of our own brokenness -- not to become haughty or judgmental. 

In these ways, we learn to depend on Christ for our existence in a modern world that tries to tell us we don't need God anymore.  What we need to know, though, is that this must be intentional.  This world, and the Evil One, will world diligently to steal our hearts from Him who loves us so -- who gave His Only Son.  Let us not treat this truth with a sense of triviality, but let it change us. 

Christ died for us.

Let us seek after Him and feel the joy of heart's first love.

Starting Again

So I haven't posted in this blog for a while, a long while actually.  Long story short: I started a new job, and then left that job, as we realized a few things, one of which was that our little guys needed a lot more attention and care than I had energy to give them after an emotionally-wrought day at work.  They needed 100% and I wasn't able to give them that.

This past summer was rocky and then we headed to the Empowered to Connect Conference.  It had been 4-5 years since I went to my first and last one.  But this year, it changed my world.  I had heard (almost) everything they had to say before, seen (almost) all the videos before -- but this year somehow the organization was different or *I* was different and it all fell into place.  I got it.  I felt like the light bulb had come on and the Holy Spirit had breathed new life into me.

I'll be honest with you.  The first day I had to grieve a bit.
It's hard to take in that despite ALL MY BEST INTENTIONS I was not reaching my child's deepest needs.  I had been trying to do everything right but the core of it all was still traditional parenting with logic and consequences, and it was driving my children deeper into despair, masked with a LOT of anger.

But the second day folks were saying things like, "Hey! We can start NOW!  We can't get hung up on guilt for acting a certain way when we didn't know before.  We are just responsible to change now that we know the better way."

Sooooo . . .  the big question:  how's it going?
The political answer is: GREAT!
The truthful answer is:  I'm EXHAUSTED.
The longer answer is:  I think my kids are working though some of their issues and finally feeling like they have a voice in our family for the first time ever.  It's unearthing deep fears that we talk through, but I don't think we've ever been in a more honest place.  It's definitely all-hands-on-deck.  I couldn't do this alone.

And this is what I want to tell YOU.
If you had asked me two weeks ago how All-Star was doing, I would have told you: Awesome.  He's got fantastic grades in school (straight As for 5 years now), has a ton of friends, is well rounded, is articulate, etc.

But now that I went to the training and now that we've started these strategies, I can see that he's not had it all together.  He just likes everyone to think he has it all together.  He's a stuffer.  He likes to stuff his disappointment and fears and anger.  He believes he can't change the outcome of his life and the problems that he faces.  He believes that he doesn't have a voice to make any difference.

All these strategies are causing him to process and to deal with things as they come along.  It's good, but it's hard.  And I wonder how many of us have adopted kids and think mistakenly, our kid is fine. 

All that trauma they once experienced was profound; the scars are often still oozing because we aren't looking close enough to notice.

My prayer for my kids and for yours is that 

we are not just attentive, but attuned.  

That we put aside our assumptions about 

what good parenting looks like and delve 

deeper to what our kids truly need.  

They're worth it.  God loves us this much.  

Aren't we willing to do the same?