However, in search of “God’s will”, I get concerned when I see people carelessly attach God’s name to things and boast about what [they think] God told them. They say, “God has called me to _____” or “God told me _____”. Sometimes it seems the stronger the statement the more they can make themselves believe it and it will happen. Now, I’m not doubting that God is speaking, he very well may be. But often, in my experience, the ones who are continually boasting in this way never get around to doing “it”, and before long they have a new “calling” for their life. I think someone is off and I don’t think it’s God!
Proverbs 19:21 says, “A man may have many plans in his heart. But the LORD’s purpose wins out in the end.” We can get so caught up with a good idea and want it so desperately that we feel like it should be God’s will for our life, but its not. It may have never been to begin with.
Maybe instead of saying, “God told me to go to Africa” (or wherever) say “I really feel like God may be leading me to Africa”. Then if you suddenly realized you got your continent wrong you can just say, “I was wrong”, not God. We can feel so pressured to have a “plan” with our life that we try to rush what God has for us. It’s easy to get ahead of our dreams and caught up in the idea of what we want, but if we’re not careful we can lose our credibility among other people and ultimately become a bad witness for God by making such bold, hasty statements.
It’s the little things in life that give us hope and happiness about life. In a previous post here I shared that we started the whole potty training thing with Lily. We have definately made some incredible progress since those first couple days of practically living in the bathroom. For the last couple months we’ve been in a pattern where at home she wears “big girl panties”, but pullups when we go out in public- because, frankly I don’t want to deal with it when we’re out. Maybe that’s bad, but I don’t really care at this point- with another baby to take care of this is how I can handle both of them and not completely lose my mind.
Before we started the process I read a great
book on potty training that teaches to put the emphasis on staying dry not actually going potty. This way the control stays on the parent side, not the childs. Having this focus stays consistent whether she’s wearing big girl panties or pullups. BUT needless to say, she(I) shouldn’t have to rely on the pullup. So, tonight we went to The Gate (our high school service) and I decided to give it a try. There’s only 3 kids in the nursery so it was an easy risk. To my surprise she made it through the night with no accidents! I guess it’s not that surprising since she does well every time with a pullup, but of course I got a little nervous that the first time I try her without it would be the one time she forgets or gets distracted or something.I don’t know how she’ll do tomorrow or the next day, but today was a good day. A little bit of hope for tomorrow.
I have been wanting to get family pictures done for a while now…and we finally did it, and they came out great!!!! A friend, Robyn Leigh, from church offered to do them for us and we finally took her up on it last week. She did a fabulous job! You can check out more of her work here.
Please know that taking pictures with a baby and a toddler is no small task, there’s always something that could come up at any moment to potentially ruin the whole ordeal. The day of I had everything all ready to go- dresses bought, clothes ironed, bags packed with anything that would help keep the girls happy. I showered and got myself ready while the girls were taking their nap. I went to wake Lily up and she had a fever! I thought, “oh no!”- note, Lily NEVER gets sick. So I gave her some Motrin and hoped she would feel better in an hour- or at least long enough to do the pictures. We headed to the beach, and things started okay- except Lily all of a sudden decided she didn’t want to get her feet dirty! My child who loves getting dirty in the backyard all of a sudden as a phobia of dirt or maybe its the sand!!! The girls laughed, cried, and even ingested some sand, but, despite the minor disruptions, the pictures turned out great- I couldn’t have hoped for better.
I thought I’d share a few favorites- take a moment to appreciate them- that was a lot of work!!
Margin has been a word I’ve been hearing everywhere lately- and in unrelated places. So, I’ve been curious as to what the implication of it is and how it matters in my life. While at the Drive conference I heard it in three separate places from different speakers. Here are some of them:
“Without margin, there is no room to serve.” “Without margin, we seek first our kingdoms.” Andy Stanley
“Focus creates more personal and creative margin.” Jeff Henderson
“Fun requires margin.” Joel Thomas
Here’s the Wictionary definition: margin
(Printing): the edge of the paper that remains blank
(finance): the yield or profit; the selling price minus the cost
a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits, as a margin of error
Here’s my interpretation.
We often hear of boundaries and their importance for success in relationships, work, and even among family members. But imagine reading a book or paper that has only boundaries and no margin. There would be words from top to bottom and side to side. They are within a boundary, but no margin. You would get a headache reading something like that because your eyes would have difficulty focusing. By the time you finish reading one page of something like that you would be more caught up in how to get through reading the thing then the content of what you’re actually reading. I think this might be the same with our lives. We need margins so that we can focus on what we are doing and not get frustrated just moving from one thing to the next without taking a breather. We need white space, blank space so that we can relax a little. We need margin for error so that if something runs over, it doesn’t mess everything else up. We would likely accomplish more and be more effective if we do so. I realize I need margins in my life. I’m sure I would be less stressed and freer to do what I feel called to if I did.
At Drive, I attended a breakout session with Jeff Henderson called “A Healthy Staff Culture”. He is so incredible to listen to and learn from. Guys like him have an amazing amount of practical business wisdom and I love hearing how they relate it to the church world.
Here are a few quotes from the breakout:
“If you are not intentional about developing a healthy staff culture, then you are unintentionally creating an unhealthy one. It’s that simple…and true. No leader intentionally creates a dysfunctional work environment. It simply happens over time.”
“In a healthy staff culture, you will have the RIGHT PEOPLE doing the RIGHT WORK the RIGHT WAY for the RIGHT REASON.”
Jeff emphasized the burden he felt for the well-being of his staff. He said that for him, “staff burnout is unacceptable”. It’s really sad to me that so many pastors and church leaders suffer from burnout. As leaders in the church, we should be the healthiest workers of all. I believe that if we are doing exactly, and only, what God wants us to do then we will be healthy: physically, emotionally & relationally. I think the enemy sucks us into being busy so he can destroy us (and the body of Christ for that matter). We make the mistake of thinking the busier we are doing “God’s work”, the more spiritual we are. This is so wrong and I can be just as guilty at times. Since my daughters were born, I’ve really tried to evaluate and be cautious about what I add to my schedule-sometimes days I succeed more than others!
Jeff quoted someone (whom I forget their name):
“Great thinking speeds up as we slow down.”
Session 1- Andy Stanley
“The church should be the BEST organization to work for.”
I love this thought! We should set the example in the business world. When you got money coming in and going out- it’s a business- maybe Kingdom business, but business none the less. If the church has staff and money, we should manage it with highest level of accountability and efficiency as possible. Outside businesses should come to us for tips on efficiency and success not vice versa. (OK, so this wasn’t actually the main part of session 1, he only talked about this for 5 minutes and my mind spun throughout the rest of it.)
The rest of the session was about trust and being trustworthy. The main points were…
TRUST- Commitments to make to our team members:
1. When there is a gap between what I expect & what I experience, I will fill it with trust.
2. When I observe someone filling a gap w/ suspicion, I will come to your defense.
3. If what I experience begins to erode my trust, I will come directly to you about it.
TRUSTWORTHY- Commitments to make:
1. I commit to do what I say I will do and when I don’t, I’ll tell you.
2. I commit to not over promise and under deliver. But, if it looks like that’s where things are headed, I’ll tell you.
3. If you confront me about the gaps I have created, I’ll tell you the truth.
“As leaders, we must learn to fear the consequences of concealment more than the transparency of a culture built around trust.”
We celebrated Lily’s 2nd birthday on Sunday. I can’t believe she is 2!!! We celebrated with our family & Elmo! Here are a few pics of the day.
The day started with breakfast in bed.
Lily loves Elmo!
We went to church in the morning and then our family came over for lunch.
An Elmo cake-my masterpiece!
