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Learning about Prayer

November 4, 2014November 4, 2014 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

Lately this sweet little one has had a renewed interest in praying. For a while she hasn’t wanted to pray when we’ve asked her to, and we haven’t pushed it. Recently she’s been spontaneously praying throughout the day or asking to pray at meals or bed time. Her prayers are so sweet, so profound even though she has no intention of being profound. Often she asks the Lord to help her obey, thanks Him for the wonderful life He’s given us.

I recently received this child’s book to review and it seemed appropriate to dig into it this week with my daughter. It is part of an “interactive, fun-filled series that uses a train locomotive theme as a method for teaching kids core Christian beliefs and principles.” Some of the other books in the series cover basic theological topics such as baptism, church, faith, grace, salvation, worship, etc. The series is inspired by the familiar scripture in Proverbs:

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).

Naturally, the book and the accompanying CD start off with the child’s song “Get on Board, Little Children.” We listened to the whole book on CD as we turned pages and then listened to many sweet children’s bible songs about prayer sung by a chorus of children.

My little one enjoyed the book but kept asking who the children were, what their names were. I think it was maybe difficult for her to connect with it since it wasn’t written in story form but more conceptually. I’m not sure what the target age is for this series but it would probably make a great homeschooling resource or supplement to bible study time with kids who are early elementary aged. The book ends with a simple quiz about the concepts covered. I thought it was a sweet, easy-to-use resource that we will return to. And we will definitely listen to the CD as well!

What strikes me is how naturally prayer comes to children. How they don’t try to dissect and understand prayer, but rather just talk with their heavenly Father, sharing the ramblings of their little hearts. How much we can learn from them about prayer!

* * * * *

Tyndale House Publishers sent me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. My review is not required to be favorable, and the opinions expressed are my own.

On Worship

November 2, 2014 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

“I see three stages of movement toward the ideal experience of worship. We may experience all three in one hour, and God is pleased with all three — if indeed they are stages on the way to full joy in him. I will mention them in reverse order.

1. There is the final stage in which we feel an unencumbered joy in the manifold perfections of God — the joy of gratitude, wonder, hope, admiration. “My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips” (Psalm 63:5). In this stage we are satisfied with the excellency of God, and we overflow with the joy of his fellowship. This is the feast of Christian Hedonism.

2. In a prior stage that we often taste, we do not feel fulness, but rather longing and desire. Having tasted the feast before, we recall the goodness of the Lord — but it seems far off. We preach to our souls not to be downcast, because we are sure we shall again praise the Lord (Psalm 42:5). Yet for now our hearts are not very fervent.

Even though this falls far short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt adoration and hope, yet it is a great honor to God. We honor the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied “ahhh” after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it.

In fact, these two stages are not really separable in the true saint, because all satisfaction in this life is still shot through with longing and all genuine longing has tasted the satisfying water of life. David Brainerd expressed the paradox:

“Of late, God has been pleased to keep my soul hungry almost continually, so that I have been filled with a kind of pleasing pain. When I really enjoy God, I feel my desire of Him the more insatiable and my thirsting after holiness more unquenchable.”

3. The lowest stage of worship — where all genuine worship starts, and where it often returns for a dark season — is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love. “When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant, I was like a beast toward thee” (Psalm 73:22).

E. J. Carnell points toward these same stages when he says,

“Rectitude, we know, is met in one of two ways: either by a spontaneous expression of the good or by spontaneous sorrow for having failed. The one is direct fulfillment; the other indirect fulfillment.”

Worship is a way of gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of his worth. This is the ideal. For God surely is more glorified when we delight in his magnificence than when we are so unmoved by it we scarcely feel anything, and only wish we could. Yet he is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beast-like insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on his beauty?

Yet even this sorrow, to honor God, must in one sense be an end in itself — not that it shouldn’t lead on to something better, but that it must be real and spontaneous. The glory from which we fall short cannot be reflected in a calculated sorrow…

Neither God nor my wife is honored when we celebrate the high days of our relationship out of a sense of duty. They are honored when I delight in them! Therefore to honor God in worship we must not seek him disinterestedly, for fear of gaining some joy in worship and so ruining the moral value of the act. But instead we must seek him hedonistically, the way a thirsty deer seeks the stream, precisely for the joy of seeing and knowing him! Worship is nothing less than obedience to the command of God, “Delight yourself in the Lord!””

-John Piper, Desiring God (p. 85-86, 87)

Savoring the End

October 31, 2014October 31, 2014 MarthaKimball2 Comments

Well, it’s the last day of this writing challenge/series! I have really enjoyed it, and it has definitely been a challenge. Here are a few things I learned along the way:

1. Blogging every day can make it a challenge to savor the present moment. Whew! Did it ever. This month has felt like the busiest October we’ve ever had, when my whole objective was to slow down and savor it before the busy (or just crazy?) newborn phase arrives. However, it just so happened that this month I’ve been doing the bulk of the work of getting set up for baby, while juggling a few other responsibilities and also dealing with end-of-pregnancy insomnia and anxiety. It was a challenge most days to find time to blog when the kids weren’t around, and usually that happens during afternoon naps. Which is hard, because nap time also happens to be my lowest/most exhausted time of the day. And some days I just plain didn’t have anything to say. It was a challenge to be real and actually spend time savoring the moment instead of trying to keep up with the blog. Most likely, blogging every day is not ever going to be my jam. 🙂 But it was fun for a month!

2. The challenge to think about “savoring” every day helped force me to savor more. I guess professional bloggers, which I am not (hah), plan their content ahead of time and write posts in advance with scheduled postings. That’s all well and good, but for me, the reason I actually took on this challenge was to literally walk each day through without a plan for how to savor or what I was going to blog about. Instead I wanted to be sensitive to God’s leading and to listen for Him and to journey through the process of savoring it all. I didn’t come to this series with something to teach, but as a learner wanting to be open with others about what God was teaching me. So, even though taking on the commitment to blog every day in some ways filled up my days with just one more activity to potentially distract me, it also forced me to be thinking constantly and intentionally about savoring. About what it means to receive all things, each day from the Lord.

3. Writing every day encourages a lot less self-editing and posturing. Because I didn’t (don’t) have a lot of time to write, I found myself posting more freely. Writing more freely, self-editing less, and just being more vulnerable instead of over-analyzing. It has been really freeing and in many ways has made me braver in writing!

4. Savoring the good is good, but savoring the hard is essential. This is the big one, huh?! I had so much I wanted to write more on this but honestly just didn’t have the time or energy to devote to it. Of course it’s easy to delight in the fun, happy days where we’re visiting orchards, eating pumpkin everything, playing in the leaves, snuggling by the fire.

But what do you do with the days where nothing goes right?
The days where your 3-year-old fights you and argues with every single thing you say all day long?
The days when you’re so sleep-deprived and anxiety ridden you spend most of the day crying?
The days when your soul is just blue?
The days when you have ugly fights with your husband?

Yeah, all those days happened during this month, too. What does it look like to delight in those days? Is that a ridiculous thing to even consider? I thought often of what Job said: “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10). To live with open hands means to receive whatever God gives and to find a way to see His hand of good in it. To hunt for glory in it.

When nothing goes right, to remember that He is in control, not me.
The days when it seems your 3-year old is against you teach you how tiring it is to have a child who will not trust your wisdom and love as a parent. It can force you to repent of this sin that you yourself commit against God every day, and to thank Him for being such a merciful Father to you in your weakness, to ask Him to help you to extend that kind of grace to your own child.
When you are anxiety-ridden and exhausted, to say no to a few more things, hold loose the day’s plans, and practice casting all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.
When your soul is just blue, to just quiet and to listen for Him and to hold onto Him through it.
When you have ugly fights, to remember how sanctifying marriage can be. That God uses our failures to bring us to repentance and humility. That failure can be a place where the enemy gloats over our defeat and accuses us, or it can be a place of repentance and treasuring Jesus who foreknew our wickedness, paid for it in full, and washes us clean when we confess our sins to Him (1 John 1:9). What a Savior.

This is how we can practice delighting in whatever God gives. Whatever the day brings. We have no control over what comes to us, but we can choose how we respond to it. We can choose how we look at it, how we behold, and we know that whatever our eyes are fixed on we begin to resemble (Matt. 6:22-23). So we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author + perfecter of our faith (Heb.12:2) and how He looked toward the suffering He faced, and we trust that as we gaze on Him, and gaze on Him, and keep gazing on Him, God transforms us steadily into His same image, the image of His Son (2 Cor. 3:18).

So that wraps up this series! Here’s one little family picture of us from this month:

Happy Fall, folks! Thanks for reading along, and I hope some of you new readers will stick around + continue with me in the journey of savoring everything He gives.

Finish the Day

October 28, 2014 MarthaKimball1 Comment

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Borrowed this quote from this lovely blog, a good word for the late end of this day.)

My Soul’s Delight

October 26, 2014October 26, 2014 MarthaKimball1 Comment

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
Matthew 13:44

“Once we had no delight in God, and Christ was just a vague historical figure. What we enjoyed was food and friendships and productivity and investments and vacations and hobbies and games and reading and shopping and sex and sports and art and TV and travel…but not God. He was an idea–even a good one–and a topic for discussion; but he was not a treasure of delight.

Then something miraculous happened. It was like the opening of the eyes of the blind during the golden dawn. First the stunned silence before the unspeakable beauty of holiness. Then the shock and terror that we had actually loved the darkness. Then the settling stillness of joy that this is the soul’s end. The quest is over. We would give anything if we might be granted to live in the presence of this glory forever and ever.”

(John Piper, Desiring God)

May you find your soul’s delight today in Jesus, God’s treasure chest of holy joy for you.

Savoring the Gospel When You Fail

October 25, 2014October 25, 2014 MarthaKimball2 Comments

There’s nothing like failure to make you treasure the Gospel. I most savor the Gospel when I am most aware of my depravity and continued, seemingly constant need. It was one of those days, today. I am feeling a bit broken and grace-hungry and don’t have much to offer, needing to preach the Gospel to my own soul tonight.

These words from one of my favorite books:

“God joyfully puts the treasure of the gospel into our clumsy, butter-finger hands despite our sinfulness, inadequacies, and failings. But sometimes we just don’t buy that. Two main reasons come to mind.

First, it is contrary to our natural logic that God would choose to use the foolish and the weak to show himself to be wise. We have difficulty seeing how God is praised through our insufficiencies. Wouldn’t the Lord be more glorified through a flawlessly planned and executed hospitality event? Wouldn’t the Lord’s name be more honored if we knew how to articulate his goodness with enthusiastic clarity? Wouldn’t it give more praise to the heavenly Father when his children look presentable and don’t have any unsightly blemishes? Wouldn’t the Creator be praised even more if his redeemed were admired the world over and lifted up as spectacular specimens of humanity? We find it difficult to comprehend how God chooses to use the weak and the broken to show himself to be strong and sufficient.

Second, we’re uncomfortable with our weaknesses and failures. We would much rather host flawlessly planned and executed hospitality events. We’d prefer to articulate ourselves with clarity. We work so hard to look presentable and defer the effects of aging. We want to be admired. Our preference boils down to just that–we are the ones want to be admired. We want to live for our own glory. We’re sinful, self-centered, and reluctant to worship God as our creator who has the right to do with us as he pleases….

There is hope for us who forget on a daily basis the work of Christ on the cross. When we realize that we’ve blown it yet again, we must throw ourselves at the mercy of God shown to us at the cross. When our attitudes are poor, we must cry out to Jesus for help. When we’re certain that we’re doing fine and the shroud of pretense begins to envelop us, we must repent of our pride and grab hold of Jesus, confident that he will heal our broken hearts.

The grace of God reminds us to live in the reality of the gospel and the future that he has promised to us in Christ. Our confidence comes from what Jesus has done and will do in the future in raising us from the dead to eternal life, just as he was raised. We can reject the self-loathing and prideful gloating. This will happen when we see Jesus as he truly is. In seeing him truly, he becomes more and more precious to us, and we in turn become shaped by him as we behold him (2 Cor. 3:18).”

-Gloria Furman, Glimpses of Grace {151-152, 155-156}

“And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, which is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18 NET)

There is good news

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 MarthaKimball1 Comment

In the dead of night it can be hardest to hold onto the truths we believe. For some reason in the dark of night, when it just seems so very dark and you can barely remember the day, it is hardest to hope. During the day and the busy ordinary rushing, the fear sometimes seems to lessen, seems silly, even.

Maybe you’re coming off of a difficult night, a night spent battling anxiety, fear, worry over the future instead of spent sleeping. Maybe you’ve had a night where you’ve felt nothing but weak and faltering, where you’ve whispered the words, “Lord, I cannot do this. I am failing You!”

There is good news
There is good truth
That you could never change
No matter what you do

You are loved
More than you know
More than you could hope for
After everything you’ve done

As sure as the sun will rise
And chase away the night
His mercy will not end
His mercy will not end

There is good news
Theres a promise
That no matter where you go
You will never be alone

In the dark
In the doubting
When you can’t feel anything
Always, love remains the same

Even through the night, oh
Silver stars will shine, oh
Hope of glory’s light
That will wake us once again

* * * * *

As sure as the sun rose this morning, even after a very dark night of soul, the sun will rise again. His mercy will. not. end. You are not alone. Even though you feel like you have to go through this alone, you are never alone. He abides. He abides with us when we are faithless and failing.

So if you’re going into the night, if you’re in the dark of night.. He is with us. Where no one else can go, where no one else can walk, in the very valley of the shadow of death, His rod and His staff will comfort us. “All the way, my Shepherd leads me, what have I to ask beside?”

Leaves are Falling

October 23, 2014October 23, 2014 MarthaKimball3 Comments

It’s hard to believe it’s nearly the end of October. We’ve had a very busy week, but here are some moments from the last day or two captured. The leaves are turning and the higher winds this week are blowing many off the trees prematurely, it seems. We’ve been enjoying chilly afternoon walks in this beauty!

When you’re falling apart a little bit

October 19, 2014October 19, 2014 MarthaKimball1 Comment

Sundays are for worship, for naps + snuggles, for wrapping fingers around steaming mugs, for breathing fresh brisk air, for resting in this truth:

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
{Colossians 1:17}

He’s got this. So, you can rest.

The Measure of Success

October 15, 2014October 15, 2014 MarthaKimball5 Comments

The day reaches its end, a good day, yet the weariness is still there. The pots and pans are scrubbed, leftovers tucked away. The children, too, are scrubbed and tucked away. Only the blowing wind, the rain pattering on the sill, the occasional rumble of thunder now.

How do we measure our days? How does my soul measure the fruitfulness of a day? These thoughts weigh on my mind as I turn on the faucet and let the hot water beat on my skin. The days end, a good day, yet I feel that I didn’t accomplish enough. I didn’t get to this or that. Pictures still wait to be hung on our walls here, piles of clutter still wait to be organized. For heaven’s sake, I have nothing ready for the baby coming in just a few weeks. I groan inwardly as I think of all that needs to be done. Hospital bags packed, baby clothes pulled out and washed and organized, freezer stocked with meals. Carving out and setting up a little space for this little life that is coming. My social media outlets are filling up with news and pictures of all my friends and family that were due ahead of us, each one welcoming a baby. Each a reminder that soon it will be our turn.

So much left to do, and my heart feels unprepared. So many people have given us words of woe about the transition from 2 to 3 children, and I groan every time. Really? So few encourage or speak words of strength. I need the borrowed strength right now, I think. It seems my preparations have been mostly around labor this time, trying to fight back the fears and worries of a repeat of what happened at Noah’s birth. {A baby in distress, taken from me right at birth due to swallowed meconium, while my body experienced its own trauma from a broken/separated pelvis and postpartum hemorrhage. Not to mention a very slow and complicated recovery.} How to prepare my heart and mind for the adjustments that are to come?

All I want to do is savor this season a little longer, this time as a family of four, before we transition and never pass this way again.

Then these words via Ann Voskamp’s blog today:

“The thing I know most about seasons — is that God made them to change. And it is in the passing through them, the move from one season to the next, that true beauty is brought forth.” {Laura Boggess}

It makes me think about labor, just one kind of passing from one season to the next. All that comes when that baby comes, all the unknowns and questions and uncertainties, all the newness all over again. I want to resist the change and the fears surrounding the unknowns. But true beauty is brought forth in the passing. The letting go, the welcoming what is to come, whatever it is. Trusting, surrendering to this wild and untamable yet good God who is most certainly more intent on my conformity to Christ than my comfort, my holiness rather than my happiness. {Why again is surrender so hard, so daily?}

And so I look back over the day.. what is the measure of my days, Lord? What is the measure of success? Is it every task crossed off the list? Is it what my hands can accomplish that makes me feel worthy, worthy of having been given another day breathing air? Why is this always what my soul comes back to? Like a dog returns to its vomit, why do I return over and over the stinking pile of guilt and shame? If I feel this way now, how will I feel in a few weeks when I am totally unable to lift a finger to accomplish much around here besides feeding, swaddling, changing a newborn? What do you say, Lord?

“When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of His mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior. And so, since we have been justified by His grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life.” {Titus 3:4-7 NET}

The passage goes on to exhort the readers to good works, because of the example of the Good Work that Christ did for us, and because our good works are profitable for others. Ahh yes, this balance again. The Lord’s gentle grace whispered again:

“My child, it isn’t what you do that can ever attain worthiness. You cannot measure yourself or your days by the works of your hands. You must rest in what I have done for you, what I have accomplished, what I finished. I have made you worthy. And yet, yes, you must work, there is much work I have for you. The work of love, of likewise pouring out your life. The work of kindness and ministering grace and reconciliation to all that I put before you. The work of the mundane tasks and necessary preparations in each day. These things are the practical avenues through which you can show love. And of course, you fail and grow faint and weary. But I am your God, your Creator, the One who formed you. I remember that you are dust. Come to me, let me pour out grace afresh. Let me restore and renew.”

I think of the words I studied in the Gospels this morning: Come to me like a child. I watch my daughter dance amidst the mess of toys, the unpacked boxes, the unhung pictures, the scattered books. Unhindered, unhurried. Delighting in being delighted in. Lord, let me be the daughter who dances freely and lightly in the unforced rhythms of grace.

Help me to “be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge.” {Eph. 3:17-19} To measure the immeasurable love of Christ for me.

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