Who You Say I Am

Hi Friends,

I wanted to share these two videos that I came upon while preparing the worship set for the LFA Celebration on Sunday. The first is an interview of Brooke Ligertwood of Hillsong by Rich Wilkerson Jr. She talks about some powerful truths of worship, songs, life, manure, people and Jesus.  One thing she says in the beginning is, “Songs are like poo. What songs you feed yourself will come out!” She’s spot on. Listen to her words, how she approaches the church as a body, how she looks at song writing and worship leading. You definitely do not have to be up front of a church to be a worship leader. I have always taught, as a worship leader myself, you are your own worship leader. 

The second video is one of the songs she leads called, “Who You Say I Am.” As we are now entering the holiday season, please hear the words of the song. Remember who He says YOU are. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Many people quickly start a random dating relationship during this season due to the pressures of having “that someone” during the holidays. Then, I watch January roll around and a lot of those relationships break up. Remember who He says you are. Family get togethers can be very hard. Remember who He says you are.

Side note: I do a Love Language test in my office, and for 22 years, receiving gifts has come up LAST as people’s love language, so don’t run those credit cards or drain those bank accounts trying to prove yourself either! 

Listen to the song link and be blessed Friends!!

Interview link

Song link

—Lois Robinson

Extrapolation

Before I married, I was the engineering clerk for thirty young light oil engineers in R&D at Atlantic Refining Company in Philadelphia. There were no computers then, and my job was to create charts and graphs for use in their presentations. They would give me their raw data, and I would plot it on a graph, which would then be photographed for a slide. Sometimes past data determined yet unseen future results, and I could plot the curve I had and then extend it to approximate the future testing probability on my graph. This, as you probably know, is called extrapolation.

 In life, we often use this same method in determining the best course for our present decisions. We all should know that decisions we make today may influence what happens to us next year. But sadly, not everyone gets it.  And then we end up in circumstances we never would have chosen and don’t know how to fix.  And the people in this boat for whom I hurt the most are loving, well-meaning young parents, who do not seem to apply the principle of extrapolation in their authority issues with their little ones.

 Absolutely basic is the necessity to establish authority from a very early age.  Households where the children are in charge are very unhappy places, which I personally avoid at all costs, not having earned the right to do bodily harm. The image of inmates running the asylum comes to mind. These poor children have never accepted, indeed, have never been taught, that their parents are the absolute authority in their home, and that there will be consequences for disobedience. Perhaps their parents hate to crush their little spirits. Perhaps they hate to hear their little ones cry.  Perhaps they think it’s cute when little Joey punches his Daddy.

Let’s extrapolate. How about a ten-year-old who has never had his wishes denied, rolling around the floor in a tantrum in a large department store (I’ve seen it!)  and screaming at his mother? How about a girl who knows that all she has to do is to cry to get what she wants? And how about a teenager who actually physically attacks one of his parents? I know that there can be psychological problems and other factors which can adversely affect a child’s behavior, but the roots of even some of this can be found in early training. Sometimes the parent him/herself has grown up rejecting authority , and is having to learn it as an adult. A child who grows up without respect for or recognition of authority will fight it in every relationship, and believe me, the world is a hard, tough teacher. It is so much easier, and infinitely kinder, to instill this in a little child.

So how to start? Moms, Dads, be aware of the small, seemingly insignificant things you do and say!

                        “Do you want to go to bed now?” 

                        “Shall we get dressed now?”

                        “What shall I fix you for dinner?”

And on and on. Of course we should give our children appropriate choices - but not ones where they can say “no.”  These matters may seem unimportant to us, but they are not so to the child. He learns one of two things: that his wishes supersede everything else, or, hopefully, that doing what Mommy and Daddy want is safer and much more fun. And there is something far, far more important.

As Christian parents, the thing we desire above all else is that our children know and love God. TELLING THEM ABOUT JESUS IS NOT ENOUGH! If a child hates authority, why would he want to love a God who is going to tell him what to do? Why would he want to follow Jesus, when he is very sure that he himself knows what is best for him? When he has no respect for any earthly authority, why should he believe in any other?

God created family. God created authority. A child who is raised with full acceptance of the strong, loving authority of his parents will so much more easily accept the concept of a Heavenly Father who loves him beyond understanding and a Savior who loves him in spite of his failings, and died for him. As parents, the very best thing you will ever do for your tiny baby is to determine in all circumstances to model God for him or her, and to show consistently a loving authority in your home.  Extrapolate every decision, and with God’s help and direction the result will be a child who feels loved and feels safe, who understands authority and consequences, and is ready to open his heart to the One who loves him best. 

—Norma Stockton

He Gives to His Beloved Sleep

“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.”

Psalm 127:2 ESV

This is a hard season of life for me. It’s a hard season of life for my husband. We’re just struggling. And one big thing I’m learning in the middle of it all is that when I’m struggling, I have a strategy for how to fix it all. And guess what? I’m pretty sad about it because for my whole life even though I haven’t really been aware of it, I’ve used this strategy to make it through stress and seasons of struggle and uncertainty, and I guess I thought subconsciously that it was a pretty good or useful strategy. But I’m finding out in these days, in this struggle, that my strategy pretty much sucks. I know that might seem like an offensive description, but if you could step into my soul and see how highly I’ve held onto this strategy to hold my life together when I thought it was maybe falling apart…and how sad I am that my strategy doesn’t work, maybe you’d understand my choice of words.

I’ll explain what I do. I take in all of the things happening, asses all of the very real threats and fears and what-ifs and unknowns. That’s all just sort of information-gathering. Then, what do you think is the next logical step? If you’d say find a solution, then thank you. That’s been the logical progression for me, too. I start to ruminate on the problems…sort of like a cow digesting their food. Eating it once, bringing it back up, eating it again…I just keep chewing at those problems. Turning them around in my mind, looking for a solution. What piece of spiritual wisdom would solve it all? What emotional health component would be the answer? What prayer can solve it? It all even often looks like throwing ‘spiritual’ solutions at it…in my mind. And of course, there are the not spiritual solutions thrown in there, too. The defensive thoughts, insecure conclusions and imaginary action steps. But it’s all in the realm of the mind, swirling around, over and over. 

I don’t think it makes sense when I try to explain it. Maybe that’s why I never even knew it was my strategy before now, because it doesn’t even make too much logical sense. But here it is: if I just think about it enough, the problems will get fixed. They’ll become un-entangled. 

You probably guessed it. And I already mentioned it. Surprise! That strategy doesn’t work. Letting all the components of your problems take up all the mental space in your mind doesn’t equal a solution. It just basically equals worry. And worry is pretty much what I’ve been left with: it even wakes me up more often than I care to admit in this season of struggle in the middle of night with thoughts I ‘didn’t think through yet.’ 

So as I’ve been realizing this about myself and feeling quite sad about it all, sad to let go of what I have wanted to make work for so long, of course I’ve needed to know what do I do instead?! If that doesn’t work, what does? 

Well, I don’t have a perfectly developed answer. I’m still on this journey, and I’m more on the side of the journey where I’m just more sad and straight up surprised that “If I think it to death, it’ll be fixed” was my strategy for dealing with stress and scary situations. (Like, seriously??) But I have two things I am embracing. The first is let go. 

To ‘let go,’ to me, means that I say, in my mind, “I can’t fix it. I can’t. I thought I could. I thought if I could just think a bit more, pray a bit more, just a verse, get a spiritual truth, emotional truth, understand SOMETHING, then it would all be fixed. I would understand and there would be harmony. But I can’t. I let go of my strategy.” Letting go feels like death. I have cried as I have embraced mentally letting go. It’s embracing my smallness. My inability. My vulnerability. My neediness. 

The second thing I am attempting to embrace is I am safe. There are scary things around me. We are struggling. I don’t know the answers, and I just gave up my life-long (stupid) strategy to save us from all of these threats. But in all of that, I am actually safe. I am safe because God sees me, God loves me deeply, and God is completely in control of all of my circumstances. Those things don’t often seem experientially true, but when I let go, and embrace in my mind that I am safe, instead of my strategy of I will be safe when I can figure it all out, I start to create a space to experientially know those things more. And my hope for help, my hope for intervention, my hope for what I need in this season isn’t myself and my over-thinking brain with no space for anything else. It’s in the God who sees me, the God who loves me deeply, the God who is completely in control of all of my circumstances. And my new strategy, even though I’m not great at it, is to let go of my anxious toil, to realize that I can’t, to allow new space in my mind where there once was just over-thinking, and to wait on and trust in Him.

—Sarah Howard

How Can I Cultivate An Effective And Fruitful Faith?

Glad you asked! So many times we fall prey to thinking that faith is all we need. Or perhaps we fall into those seasons where discouragement settles in and we feel like we have lost tracking. God has given us, through the apostle Peter, some clear ways to cultivate a faith that is effective and enduring.

2 Peter 1 not only offers us an imperative exhortation to “make every effort” to “supplement” our faith with certain disciplines and attitudes, but it also presents us with some warnings of what would happen if we do not do so.

The apostle Peter urges us to supplement our faith with virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

If you are like me, I need some synonyms to help me understand some of these seven nouns. So here are some aides…
Virtue = excellence that is acceptable or pleasing.

Knowledge=knowing, understanding.

Self-control=seize, arrest, self-control

Steadfastness=remain, patient endurance, stay

Godliness=devotion, piety, reverence

Brotherly affection=brotherly or friend love

Love=unconditional “God” love

These are the disciplines and attitudes that help us cultivate our faith in God. Comparing this list to Galatians 5:22 reveals that things like self-control, patience, faithfulness and love are fruits the Holy Spirit generates in us—they are qualities we can’t produce on our own. So we do need God to work these things out in us.

The importance of supplementing our faith with these qualities is highlighted by the following statement:

“For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind” (verses 8-9).

Did you hear the sobering truth expressed by Peter? If we lack the qualities listed above, we become useless and unproductive in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. So it is possible to have a faith that is, sort of, futile. He goes further in saying that there is a kind of faith that is shortsighted or blind—the kind of faith that lacks these qualities.

The good news is that if we posses these qualities and they are increasing in our lives, we will be effective, fruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and we will have a more clear sight of reality.

I can’t read what Peter is saying and not be prompted to evaluate my heart to see where I am in terms of these qualities. As we do an honest assessment we can then lean on the grace of God to meet us in our places of need. He already “cleansed us from our former sins” (v.9) to show us that He can do the rest of the work needed in us!

—Diego Cuartas

Hope for the Hurting Mother

In 2005, I was pregnant with my first child. That pregnancy was filled with a lot of emotional uncertainty and some scary medical complications. After my daughter was born and I was finally able to bring my daughter home from the hospital, I hoped that the worst was behind us. Instead, the complications seemed to continue. She had colic for the first eight months of her life. I couldn’t seem to do anything right, and I never seemed to be what she needed at that time. I couldn’t seem to comfort her, I couldn’t nurse her well, I felt hopeless and scared and I dreaded being alone with her. After some time, I remember getting to a point of complete emotional shut off. I would just sit and stare at her as she screamed in her crib, feeling absolutely nothing. When I would start to feel things again, it was mostly intense shame. I was so ashamed of the mother I was turning out to be. I felt a long depression during the first year and a half of her life, then I became pregnant again. This pregnancy went much smoother, and I was hopeful I would have a very different experience, that maybe this time I could do it right. However, when I gave birth to my son, my world seemed to become even darker.  

I found myself again at home with a newborn who I couldn’t comfort or nurse adequately, and a toddler who I had always struggled with. I felt completely alone. The depression felt like someone had pumped lead through my body; I felt like I was walking around in a thick fog all day. I became angry, anxious, and completely hopeless. I didn’t want to be a mother anymore. I said and did things that were completely out of character for me. I didn’t have any idea what was happening to me. My family was scared, “Something’s wrong with Lu…,” but they didn’t know what to do or how to help me. Finally, I admitted to my husband the dark thoughts that I was having more and more frequently. I was convinced that my family would be far better off without me or maybe with a different mom. The scariest thing upon reflection is that the enemy made this lie feel and seem so logical to me in my pain.

I went to my doctor for my son’s three-month checkup, and I began to talk about what I was experiencing. I was eventually diagnosed with Postpartum Depression. The doctor explained that Postpartum Depression can last much longer than people think and that I was likely still suffering with it when I got pregnant and had my second child. I had to stop nursing my son so I could go on medication. I was so ashamed. In my mind I was failing as a mom and wife in every possible way.

Over time, I started getting healing from the symptoms I was having. God brought part of that healing in the form of medication. God helped me to think through things with a little more clarity, to start to let go of unrelenting standards I’d placed on myself and redefine some ideals about motherhood I was holding onto. These are still things God is bringing healing to in my life, and motherhood has never looked for me the way I thought it was supposed to.

As time passed and my children grew, I started to notice the consequences of this experience on their life. (My daughter has allowed me to share her part in this story hoping that God could use it to bring healing to others.) The things I did and said when I was in the throes of Postpartum Depression, and the patterns of behavior that that crisis established in our family, had resulted in intense emotional pain for my daughter. As she grew, I noticed that she couldn’t stand to be touched. She had strong walls around her heart, she fought trusting us with every fiber of her being. Again, I was reminded how much I had failed her, and I felt like the damage was irreparable. In fact, I had convinced myself that I deserved for her to grow up hating me.

These last few weeks as we’ve learned about Joseph and taken a closer look at the providence of God, I’ve revisited this experience over and over again in my mind. I’ve tried to see and be aware of the invisible hand of God, and the ways that His goodness has always been intertwined with my story. I’ve been given opportunity to offer forgiveness to myself and others and ask for forgiveness for my own actions. I can see God’s goodness played out in car rides where my daughter and I are weeping as we talk about how hard that was to live through, and confronting lies we’ve believed as a result of that experience. God has, over time, brought intense emotional healing to our relationship, and there is tenderness and trust where there wasn’t before.

I may never fully understand why God allowed me to walk through that experience. I may only get glimpses of His faithfulness and goodness as He brings continued healing to these relationships and uses my story to impact others. But one day I will see clearly, and I will know the why.

So, to the mother who is struggling with shame. The mother who feels that she has lived through such pain that it has led to irreparable damage. The mother who feels hopeless, or unnecessary in her life…God sees you completely and loves you fully. His invisible hand is weaving a beautiful tapestry through your areas of brokenness and for your ultimate good. And He promises that in your pain He is closer to you than you can imagine.

Psalm 34:18 (NIV)

“The LORD is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”

—Lindsay Thompson