Perseverance According to a Preschooler

Perseverance.

One of my kiddos showed me what that is this week. One of my sweet girls was attempting at riding a tricycle that was way too big for her. Her feet could just barely reach the pedals.

When she first got on the tricycle, she too quickly realized the difficulty and skill involved in riding one. She’d push as hard as she could, only to find that she could push no more or to find that her feet had slipped off the pedals. And oftentimes, that tricycle would make its way backward—undoing the pushing and work that she had done to move forward.

After a while of watching her struggle, I asked her if she wanted a push. I told her that in order to push her, she had to pick her feet up off the ground and pedal while I pushed her, instead. When she reached divots or rough patches in the road, I would help her get over them. Soon, she learned that when she got stuck, all she had to do was turn around and look at me—and in seconds, I would be there to reroute her or give her a push. Even when other preschoolers were occupying my attention when she wanted a push, she would sit and patiently wait on the tricycle, knowing that I’d come when I could.

That, my friends, is called perseverance. I think oftentimes when we’re faced with something difficult, we try to face it on our own. We oftentimes realize the hard way, that we’re not going to make it anywhere on our own (there’s a reason why John 15:5 says “without Me, you can do nothing”). If we’re smart and if we decide to endure, we resolve to let God push us over those rough patches. But in order to let our Father push us, we must pick our feet up off the ground and start pedaling. That way, we can be helped over difficult surfaces, and rerouted when we hit a wall. And when the going gets smooth again, we can lean into the momentum from the push—enjoying the fact that it’s easy and also resting in the fact that when it gets hard again, all we have to do is look at the Father, pick our feet up off the ground, and start pedaling (for He’ll be right there and He always has been).

James 1:3-4 When your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Lessons on Shame, From a 4-Year-Old

At work this week, I met a very self-aware 4-year-old. Only minutes after he met me, he told me that he liked to bite himself. He proceeded not only to do it, but to show me the teeth marks on his arms. Heartbroken, I flipped over the worksheet we had been doing together, and gently looked him straight in the eyes. I started to ask him questions and used covert metaphors to dumb it down to “4-year-old understanding.” We came to this conclusion (spoken right out of his mouth): that he hurts himself so that when other people hurt him, he’s used to it. I tried to reason with him—telling him that a bite is going to physically hurt whether he does it or someone else does it to him. Upon further reflection however, I realized that it’s not so much the physical pain he’s worried about, but the emotional pain.

I wonder how many of us live like this. I know I did for a long period of my life. It makes sense. If you’re used to getting hurt and shamed by people, it’s so much easier to shame yourself and kick yourself down as low as you can. Therefore, when those people hurt and shame you, it seemingly has no emotional effect on you. They can’t kick you down any lower because you’ve already kicked yourself down. The problem with that lifestyle though, is that it’s soul-deadening. You start to lose all hope of being great, as everyone—even yourself—tells you that you’re worth nothing more than the concrete you’ve kicked yourself down to.

Living this way makes us wear “shame glasses.” We see everything through the lens of not being worthy or valuable or lovable. And because we’re faced down on the ground, it’s natural to focus on the evidence supporting those claims. We don’t even see the evidence above us that is screaming our value and our worth in Christ.

We have a choice however. We can decide to pick our heads up and look toward the sky. I’ve found that the greatest way to combat shame is gratitude—looking up and looking for evidence that you are indeed valuable in God’s eyes. Looking for the ways that you’ve seen His love in your life. It’s risky business. When you’re standing up tall, secure, and confident in your worth, it’s going to hurt when other people shame you. It’s going to hurt a whole lot. You might cry. You might face-plant smack into that concrete again. Yet once you get a taste of what it means to live confidently and wholeheartedly, you’ll do anything to get it back.

I’ve found that taking off those “shame glasses” is worth the occasional wounds given to me by other people. Standing secure makes me realize how incredibly grateful I am to serve a God who will never stop calling me worthy of being His daughter when He looks at me. And the more we choose to believe that, the easier it will become to negate the evidence that tells us we’re unlovable and not valuable. Because we’re walking tall, the evidence proving our worth and value in Christ seems to be everywhere.

I’m still a work in progress. We all are. We will fall. Even when we are living in light of our worthiness, given to us by Jesus Christ, we will still undoubtedly find ourselves with our faces to the concrete every once in a while. However, we have the choice to take off those shame glasses and get back up (Proverbs 24:16—for though they fall seven times, they will rise again).

As far as my 4-year-old friend goes, I pray that I would be a beacon of hope in his life, and that God would surround him with people who will persistently pursue him with love.

El-Roi: The God who Sees

Genesis 16:13 Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, "You are the God who sees me."

In Hebrew, the phrase "You are the God who sees me" translates into El-Roi.

When we're up on the mountains, tasting the Lord's goodness and running in freedom, El-Roi. You are the God who sees us. The Lord sees us as we serve and as we aim to be more like Him. God is the One who sets us on those mountains and keeps us there.

And yet I think we so desperately need to cling to this truth in the valleys and the trials. El-Roi. You are the God who sees us. He has not left us alone. He sees the tears that fall and He longs to clothe His children with comfort and compassion. El-Roi.

We might not always see Him move, but He sees us. Just as the Lord saw Hagar in her pain, the Lord sees us. He longs to meet us there.

I am reminded of a song that the Lord has shown me recently. The chorus goes,
"I know You're able and I know You can save through the fire with Your mighty hand.
  But even if You don't, my Hope is You alone.
  I know the sorrow and I know the hurt would all go away if You'd just say the word.
  But even if you don't, my Hope is You alone."

Regardless of whether or not we see God in our lives, we can cling to the hope that God sees us. We can cling to the promise that the Lord is faithful to His promises and that He is a compassionate Father. What Compassionate, Good Father, would do nothing if He saw one of His children in pain? Friend, the Lord sees you. In the good and in the bad. He knows what you are going through, even if no one else does. As we place all our hope and trust in God alone, we will find abundant joy, comfort, and peace. El-Roi. You are the God who see us. Rest in that promise and watch Him be faithful.

Thoughts on Crushing and Anointing

Have you ever thought about how olive oil is made? Olive oil comes from the olive itself. In order to get olive oil, the olives must be pressed and crushed.

Oil was used to anoint kings in the Old Testament. Anointing with oil was used as a sign that they were God’s chosen one and that God would be with him. But, in order to get the oil, there needed to be crushing. Before there is anointing, there has to be crushing. Before there is purpose, there needs to be pain.

I don’t find it a coincidence that Jesus was in the Garden of Olives (Gethsemane) right before He was betrayed. Nor do I find it a coincidence that Jesus says, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38). In Matthew 26, Jesus prays to avoid the crushing. He prays three times that “this cup of suffering be taken away” (Matthew 26:39). Yet, in order to get to the anointing of Sunday’s resurrection, He had to submit to the crushing.

I think this principle applies to us. In order for us to be anointed for a purpose, there has to be crushing first. The only way to arrive at the anointing is to submit to the crushing, believing that God will hold us fast and sanctify us through it.

My prayer is that we will submit to the crushing of life, and while we submit, that we hold on to the hope of our coming anointing.

“We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies”

-2 Corinthians 4:8-10