Staying Home: Going Home, part 8

This journey with my mom while she has been on hospice has been a bit of a microcosm of life.  We have taken off on a journey, having some sort of vision of the destination as we depart, but the route there has not been anything like we had imagined it would be.  And in its unpredictable nature there have been a number of pleasant surprises.  All of which is to introduce the latest surprise…my mom is staying home.

We had been planning to travel to Milwaukee tonight and to move her back into our home tomorrow.  I wrote about the move in the most recent post of this series.  Yesterday, my wife, Robin, and I figured that we had most of the details worked out.

Then I had a call from my brother, who was with our mother, who had some news for us.  And the news, in a nutshell, was that she was going to be staying in the Milwaukee area for the foreseeable future.  A care option that had not been on our radar earlier was now a viable choice for her, and she was choosing to use it.

And that is okay with us.  We were looking forward to spending this portion of her life with her and there is a bit of disappointment that it won’t be happening.  On the other hand there were a few issues that we hadn't fully sorted out and we can now just set those aside.  Most of all we are glad that her day-to-day health has improved and that there is a viable option for care that keeps her close to her friends and in the geographic area that, for her, has always been home. 

As Robin and I came to a place of offering our home as a place for my mom to live we did so primarily as an act of faith in Christ.  But if we believe that God is calling us to something and as we follow along things don’t turn out as we expected, does that mean that God wasn’t calling us in the first place?  I don’t think so, and neither does Robin.  You can read her thoughts here.

Maybe the idea of opening up our home to my mom was intended by God for some other purpose.  It could be that my mom will come to live with us, but at a different point in time.  Or maybe God led us in this way for some other purpose.  Not to test us, but to prepare us for something else in His plans for us.  Something to be revealed further down the road.

I don’t know His intent to this point, and I’m not going to worry about it.  I’m just going to keep praying.  To praise Him for who He is.  To thank Him for what He has done.  To lift to Him the concerns of my heart.  And to continue to seek to discern and follow His will in my life.

“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.”  Psalm 130:5

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Boundaries

Last Friday was International Mud Day.  I have never heard of it before but my wife learned about it on the internet, so it must be true.  And given that Robin is fun-loving schoolteacher she set-up an event to celebrate it.  For two hours there were 6 kids ages 3 through 6 running around in the backyard, engaged in various activities, nearly all of them making liberal use of mud.

Each child was given a bucket of dirt and access to a hose.  They danced in mud, made mud cakes, threw mud at each other and wiped their muddy hands on their clothes, and then on each other’s clothes.  When the muddy children needed a break they rested while eating popsicles and drinking lemonade.  They went through a lot of popsicles and lemonade!

When I got home from work and Robin was filling me in on the details she said that here was one particular activity that the boys present were absolutely enthralled by.  On the property where we are living there is a pick-up truck that hasn’t moved for a number of years.  It has sat so long that the wheels have sunk into the ground nearly to the axles.

Robin picked up a handful of mud and chucked it at the truck.  The boys were dumbstruck!  They didn’t quite understand what was being made available to them, so she told them clearly, “Throw mud at the truck!  As much mud as you want to!”  And they did so, with great enthusiasm.  They spattered the truck from front to back, on all sides. 

While there were some boundaries to the Mud Day celebration, such as no throwing mud at the moms or the house, something that they had assumed to out-of-bounds as a target for their mess-making, a parked truck, was actually in-bounds.  And they took great delight in this knowledge.  In our human nature we sometimes push back at boundaries as being restrictive to the things that we want to do.  But as the children learned, there can also be great delight while staying within the boundaries.

One of the things we learn as we follow Jesus is that God has set boundaries for our lives, something the Psalmist makes clear in the writing of Psalm 16, particularly verse 6, which in the NIV reads:

“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.”

The ways in which God makes known his boundaries for us varies.  Some of them are very clear, such as in the Ten Commandments.  Others take a bit more discernment to determine, calling us to prayerfully consider the words of Scripture and apply them to the circumstances we are in.  An example would be in the words of Galatians 6: 16-24.  Paul lists a number of things that are clearly outside of God’s boundaries on our behavior and then follows it with a short list of characteristics that describe what is found within his will.  If what we are considering is in agreement with those characteristics then we can be assured that we are living within God’s boundaries.

God’s boundaries are not meant to oppress us, but to give us freedom.  Psalm 16:9-11 closes with this confident assurance of the joy to be found living within God’s boundaries:

            “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

                        my flesh also dwells secure.

            For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

                        or let your holy one see corruption.

            You make known to me the path of life;

                        in your presence there is fullness of joy;

                        at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Like the children throwing mud at the truck, may you know great delight living within the boundaries God has established on your life.  He delights in our joy, and our delight in him makes his glory known to the world.

Listening for God

How do we know when God is talking to us?  It’s not as clear today as it was for Moses, who first heard from God through a burning bush and them met with God repeatedly during the Exodus.

There are many other places throughout the Old Testament where God is reported as speaking with people, particularly his prophets.  The New Testament also has some accounts of God appearing and giving direction to his people.  The story of Saul on the Damascus Road being a prime example.

I believe that God still speaks to us today, but I sometimes find myself struggling to hear his voice and to discern the nature of his message.  And in that vein I share a few means of helping to listen to the voice of God today.  He may whisper.  He may yell.  But however he speaks and whatever he says, you can count on it being important to him, even if it doesn’t seem important to you.

I was discussing this topic with a friend/mentor several years ago and this was the guidance he gave me when you are trying to understand if God is calling you to something:

1. It is something God wants done.
2. It matches and challenges your particular gifts.
3. It is work that you find internally meaningful.
4. Others affirm you in doing this.

My deciding to write this blog is one example of these four points in action. 

How do we know what God wants done?  One of the best ways is that the things we are thinking of doing are consistent with what is taught in the Bible.  I am virtually certain that nowhere in the Bible does God give instructions to “write a blog!”  But God does want people to think about and understand his teaching and then communicate that to other people, which is the heart of what I try to do each time I sit to write here.

Over the past ten or so years I have acquired the ability to think and write theologically, hopefully coherently, if not always clearly.  Thinking and writing also stretch me, to think and write more.  And they connect with and develop other skills, such as developing my prayer life and my preaching.

And as I follow God’s lead here I do find it to be meaningful work.  I have no idea how many people read my blog.  But living in a world that is often resistant to God I find meaning in speaking what I believe to be truth as he nurtures it within me.

And lastly, I do occasionally hear from others that something I wrote had meaning for them, which meets the guideline for some external affirmation, not that what I write is good on its own merits, but, I believe, that through my writing God is offering something of himself to them.

Other people have written more articulately on the topic of discerning God’s voice than I have.  One is Kevin DeYoung, in his book Just Do Something.  One of the topics he addresses is a paralysis that can come over us as we seek do know and do God’s will, so that we end up letting good and Godly opportunities pass by rather than doing what God may be laying before our very eyes.

Another example is here, where Roger Barrier gives an overview of the topic, one that is biblically-grounded, as any attempt to discern God’s voice must be, and also addresses the subtle ways in which Satan can distort our hearing and lead us astray.

One way, of several, that God has spoken to me today has been in this brief bit of writing, which I hope has been pleasing to him and helpful to you. 

How is he speaking to you?