Serving Others When I Feel Like I Should But Don't Want To

Sometimes I know without a shadow of doubt that God wants me to invest myself in someone’s life because He gives the burning desire in my heart – a burning desire to meet a need or merely connect with them or to come alongside and encourage each other.  The fire is one that can’t be squelched and the Holy Spirit fills me with motivation to follow through even if it is tough. 

Other times, I feel like I OUGHT to minister to someone but the desire is not there. I don’t want to do it.  God loves a cheerful giver, so if I don’t feel cheerful about giving my time, emotions, resources, I shouldn’t do it, right? If I don’t want to do it, does that mean that God is not leading me to do it?

I struggle with this because it is emotion-based and the heart can be deceiving.  Just because I don’t want to do it does not necessarily mean that God is not leading me to do it.  I have several choices. I could:

1.       Deny how I feel and devote my energy to simply doing it instead of how I feel about doing it.

2.       I can try to convince myself that I really want to do it.

3.       I could do it even if I don’t want to and feel guilty for not wanting to or not doing it well.

4.       I could do it and maybe God will change my heart in the process.

Maybe the first thing to do is evaluate why I feel like I ‘should’ do something when I don’t want to do it? Is it to please others or is it to please God?  Is someone putting an expectation on me that God is not requiring of me or that God is reserving for someone else? Or do I know it is God leading me to do it, but I am afraid of how people will react so I’m reluctant to face rejection or being thought a dork?

I think sometimes God can convince me that it is His plan for me to do something even if I don’t “feel” like it merely because He inclines my heart to do it.  Obedience should not be based on feeling, but what if the inclination isn't there either?  The flesh and spirit are constantly at war in me.

All I know to do is pray that God will change my desire, to incline my heart, or give me a knowing that will help me move beyond the “don’t feel like it” feeling. 

How do you know God is leading YOU to do something when your feelings don’t match up?

From the Library of C.S. Lewis - Book Review

C. S. Lewis, one of the most influential Christian apologists and philosophers of the twentieth century, and those who inspired him speak into the needs of our own generation, helping us to see beyond our own generational blindspots.  In the book From the Library of C.S. Lewis, compiled by James Stuart Bell with Anthony P. Dawson, you will find a rich smorgasbord of food for thought (aka writing ideas). 

This eclectic collection of writings from spiritual mentors includes over 200 excerpts from over 100 literary giants of a variety of genres from a vast range of time periods.  Genres vary from poetry, fantasy, and science fiction to journals and theological treatises with authors as old as Aristotle to as recent as G.K. Chesterson.  The selections are organized into 18 categories by subject, such as suffering, obedience, writing, humility, death, sin and temptation, grace and redemption, and living a devout life.

I tried to read this book in order starting from page one, but after reading through the first quarter of it, I found it to be tedious and boring.  However, when I changed my approach by reading a page or two a day at random based on my momentary subject of interest, I found it to be a delightful source of ideas, mulling them over and meditating on them.  This is a book that I will keep on my nightstand and read repeatedly.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing in exchange for my honest review.

My 397-Day Journey

 Today marks day 397 – the end of this journey of contrasts. Pain and joy. Betrayal and forgiveness. Despair and hope. Apathy and love.  

When day 1 was logged, I had no idea how long this journey would be.  When I sprinted across the starting line, I didn’t know I would be running a marathon.  If I had, maybe I would have paced myself differently.

When I reached 166 days, I “hit the wall”, ready to completely crumble, not knowing how much longer I could survive it while somewhat resembling the woman God wanted me to be. 

Chronicling this leg of the race in my life would have created a meaningful blog, but I dared not even journal it privately.  I would prefer to erase the hurdles that tripped me up. I wonder if someday I will regret not documenting it in writing.  If I don’t have the written tangible evidence of how concretely God worked in these difficult days to show me what it means to live like Jesus, will I forget?

 I look at the topics of my blog over the last 397 days for any record of the valleys and mountains of where I have been and here are a few posts inspired by this journey:

·         Getting a Grip When Under Attack

·         Victim or Warrior – Choosing Unshakable Faith

·         The Meaning of Hope

·         Life is Hard: Hype or Hope

·         Prickly Burs – Forgiving the Little Things

·         Should I Forgive If They Aren’t Sorry?

·         No More Mr. Nice Guy - Speaking the Truth in Love

·         Loving a Brother Who is Hard to Love

At times, my flesh exposed all my selfishness, self-centeredness, and ugliness that I bowed in shame, clinging to the foot of the cross.  At other times, my spirit soared with compassion, empathy, hope, and love at times when I could have felt disheartened, frustrated, resentful, or self-righteousness instead.  Maybe in these times, this is what it looks like to live and love like Jesus.

 I can find no rhyme or reason why one wins over the other, why God sometimes infused me with unexplainable strength and other times left me on the verge of unravelling.  Yet He sustained me.

I want to find out why I sometimes have “it” and why sometimes I don’t, and then find out how to have “it” now that I know “it” is possible in the most unexplainable of moments.  In any circumstance – even despite circumstances. 

I want to live “it” all the time.  The outcome of this 397-day journey – it’s a gradual transformation through which the obstacles serve as catalysts.

So now one chapter closes, and a new one begins.

Linking up with A Pause on the Path

Tough Guys & Drama Queens - Book Review

My little princess is now a 16-year-old drama queen, and my sweet little boy is trying out his new role as tough guy at the age of 12½ . With the teen years, my confidence in my parenting skills has plummeted down the tubes with no help from this technologically-driven and sex-saturated culture.  Maybe the ways I have been parenting my older teen have not been working.  Mark Gregston showed me that what works well in the early childhood years can backfire in the teen years.  He explains how and why I may want to take a different (yet still biblical) approach in his book Tough Guys and Drama Queens: How Not to Get Blindsided by Your Child’s Teen Years.

As I began reading, my hackles were up and I became defensive.  Who is Mark Gregston, a grandfather, to tell me what will work? But I kept going, and it was worth it.  He truly does have the credentials and experience to assert these biblical ideas that are different than the ways that many of our parents raised us as teens. He has been working with teens for nearly 40 years and has witnessed the cultural impacts on the way teens think.  He provides practical tools and tips to help parents abandon old-school parenting styles that no longer work and replace them with relational methods that engage teens. And he explains why – and why it’s different today than it was even a few years ago.

The most valuable tips that I garnered from Mark Gregston in this book is knowing what to let go of and what to re-focus on with the big picture of what is truly important.  I think this book is designed specifically for the very involved parent or one that wants control in their child’s life. On the other hand, it may not be fitting for a neglectful parent, but I suppose those kind wouldn’t be reading parenting books anyway.

I highly recommend this book to every parent of pre-teens and teens in order to know what is lurking under today’s murky waters of adolescence and to know what to do if you are stuck knee-deep in the muck already (me!). I rank this book among my favorites as a parenting resource.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishing in exchange for my honest review.

It's Called Grace

 It’s moving relationally toward a person when they have wronged you. 

It’s opening the door of your heart when every part of you wants to close it. 

It’s engaging when you have every right to disengage.

It’s offering help when someone’s actions have violated everything you believe in, hope for, and want for that person. 

It’s staying involved in the relationship when someone has violated your rules, ignored your advice, or hurt you through lies, deceit, and manipulation.

To love someone when you have been wronged is tough, but it’s essential in communicating a love that is beyond your capability. 

It’s a love that will win out if you don’t quit.  Even if you don’t feel like it.

When you feel good about giving grace, it probably isn’t grace.

(excerpted from Tough Guys and Drama Queens , by Mark Gregston, page 170).

50 Days of Hope - Book Review

Cancer – the word that can knock the breath out of you and leave you wondering which way is up.  Surviving it is not forcing optimism or positive thinking that isn’t realistic; we were created with emotions and life is best lived when we acknowledge and express them.  After acknowledging and expressing emotion, not getting stuck there but moving on to hope is essential, a hope that is not based on the odds.  While the quantity of life cannot be guaranteed, having a positive attitude will definitely give you a better quality of life.  A positive attitude helps you heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually, but may or may not cure you.  Optimism says “I’m going to be cured.” Pessimism says “I’m going to die”.  Positive realism says “I have a life-threatening illness and may or may not get better, so I will plan for both.”

Lynn Eib is both a cancer survivor and patient advocate, so she has tons of stories to share in her book 50 Days of Hope: Daily Inspiration for Your Journey through Cancer.  Her stories of hope will make you laugh and feel encouraged while keeping you turned toward God and pouring your heart out to Him who hears, understands, and has the power to respond. She relates how to combat worry and how to refuse to let cancer control your life.  Plus, she provides insights into the ways you can enlarge your picture of what it means to beat cancer.

If you want a book that will help you stay realistically positive and hopeful, not living in cancer’s shadow but the Heavenly Father’s shadow which is secure and protective, then you will want to spend 50 days this little devotional book.  Lynn Eib will help point you and/or the one living with cancer in the direction of positive realism and surround you with hope. 

This little purse-sized book would be a perfect gift for someone battling cancer or their loved ones. It truly is a gift of real hope that can be reached for and easily read in a waiting room or a hospital or by your nightstand.

Disclaimer: I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by Tyndale House in exchange for my honest review.

Confronting Jezebel - Book Review

Do you worry or feel anxious when things are out of your control? You may be a control freak.  Do you get angry when you aren’t in control? Are you ambitious, independent, critical, boastful, self-centered, volunteer for everything, manipulate to get your way, play the drama queen, love to vent, and use self pity to gain sympathy?  Or does this describe someone in your life? Then you, or they, might be operating under the influence of  a Jezebel spirit, according to Steve Sampson in his book Confronting Jezebel: Discerning and Defeating the Spirit of Control.

Steve Sampson shares chapter after chapter of stories of people who possess a Jezebel spirit to the extreme and the havoc they reap in people’s lives in business, in culture, and especially the church. While the illustrations seem extreme and leave you feeling disturbed that people could act like this, it is not hard to perhaps find some aspect of the characteristics in yourself or a key person in your life.  Each chapter ends in a prayer that points you inward to repent of any Jezebel-like tendencies. 

By the last chapter, I was desperate for the answer - how do I free myself from the cycle of manipulation at the hands of others?  The final chapter was way too short, truncated, and lacking in illustrations.  Throughout most of the book, Steve Sampson details the characteristics of a Jezebel and the destruction it causes with proliferous illustrations, but he ended abruptly with simplified solutions in the last few pages.  By attributing it to a demonic spirit, the author seems to excuse the person from their behavior and doesn’t offer much hope for change in his examples, but his answers in the last few pages did offer hope, though illustrations were lacking.

Whether or not you believe controlling people are ruled by an actual demonic spirit, this book is at least interesting and opens up the eyes to the deceit in your own heart and more understanding of the behaviors of others. 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Chosen in exchange for my honest review.

Loving a Brother Who Is Hard to Love

If I have to walk on egg shells to keep from upsetting him,

If I often wonder if he treats me rudely because of past offenses,

If I do things his way so as not to aggravate him,

If I avoid him because his pride is disconcerting,

If I find him impossible to talk to because he doesn’t hold a conversation,

If he expresses no interest in me and puts up walls –

        I continue to wonder, does he really love me?

       

If love is patient, kind, not rude, keeps no record of wrongs, is not easily angered, and is not self-seeking (1 Corinthians 13:4-5), then I could conclude that no, he does not love me.

But….

If I treat him with respect even when he is callous,

If I show interest by asking questions even if he does not reciprocate,

If I am patient and do not mirror his emotions when he gets flustered,

If I do not judge what I cannot understand,

If I gently speak the difficult words that need to be said (even while cracking the eggshells),

If I forgive him for not loving me back,

        Then I love him not just with words but actions too.

Jesus said it is easy to love someone who is loveable. Anyone can do that.  But if you love someone who is hard to love through the love of Christ, then you honor Him even more.

It hurts to love someone who doesn’t love you back, a feeling that God must be well acquainted with. He calls us to do the hard things and then infuses us with His power so that we can do them. 

I love you, brother. If I don’t say it, I hope you can someday see it.

Ridding Our Homes of Youth Entitlement

Do we love our kids enough to let them fail? To make them work? To step aside rather than step in? Kay Wyma, blogger turned published author, can certainly relate to the desire to jump in the driver’s seat and take control for her kids, even when she knows her meddling isn’t helping in the long run. When she observed that her children felt they were entitled to be served rather than to serve, she decided to embark on “The Experiment”, a 12-month journey to teach her children how to be productive at home while instructing on basic life skills, and she tells her accounts in her book Cleaning House: A Mom’s 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement.

Kay Wyma describes herself as a wife, organizationally-impaired mother of 5 (ages 3-14), a controller, procrastinator, manipulator, and recovering enabler. But as she weaves her way through each of the twelve months, it’s obvious she is clever, witty, and down-to-earth.

In the year-long experiment, she designates a theme for each month in which she assigns specific tasks that teach life skills such as how to: cook and clean a kitchen, do yard work, run errands, do laundry, host a party, perform handyman jobs, etc. Each chapter tells of her humorous journey of giving charge to her kids on the new task for the month and what was accomplished (or not accomplished) both externally in the home and internally in their character.

She doesn’t sugar-coat her stories by proclaiming sickening success; in fact, some aspects are big flops with lessons we can learn from. With hilarious detail, she conveys how she dealt with attitudes of apathy and entitlement as well as mood swings. At the end of each chapter, she summarizes the month’s successes and failures and what both she and the kids learned.

In my last post ("Should Kids Do Chores?"), I quoted some practical insights from this book. She gave me the idea of the “stock market” method for allowances, and I have not had to remind my teenagers to do their chores or help around the house ever since!

This book is fun and full of ideas that parents can implement in order to equip children with life skills and defeat the attitude that the world is there to serve them. I highly recommend this book to every mom who has kids of any age living at home.Disclaimer: I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by WaterbookMultnomah Publishing in exchange for my unbiased review.

Should Our Kids Do Chores?

“We don’t have chores because school is our job,” announced my 10-year-old niece as my son cinched the overflowing trash bag in the kitchen to take it outside.  Never mind that it was summer and school was not in session during the season my nieces and nephews came to live with us. At first my nieces gloated and waited to be served while my kids poured their own drinks, washed their own dishes, made their own beds, cleaned up their messes, did their own laundry, took care of the dogs, and mowed the lawn. To compound the difficulty, their sweet mom said she didn’t believe in chores because “serving them is the way I show love”.   

Maybe I appeared as selfish and unloving, but I didn’t give my kids chores out of selfishness.   Most of the time, it would be easier to do it myself than to teach, remind, and follow up.  As a working mom, I need my kids to help, but even if I did not work outside the home, I would still have them doing the same chores. It’s just a part of being in a family and learning to take care of your space.  Work is not a curse; it's a gift. Besides, play is more relished after working hard.

In Kay Wills Wyma’s book Cleaning House, (see my book review), she says that when we do everything for our kids, they receive “a big fat load of free time, reinforced expectations of being served, and confirmation that they belong on the sidelines of life. We made it easy for them to assume that many doable tasks fall outside their realm of competency or responsibility.” (p.168)

Could you hear me cheering as I read that?  I have felt much in need of reinforcement that I was doing the right thing by assigning chores to my children, especially when they perform their tasks grudgingly, while recently my nieces and nephew actually get excited about pitching in and helping out joyfully for no compensation.

“We should view daily household chores as a necessity because the kids themselves need to work. Our kids need to know how to persevere. They need to know that no job is beneath them. They need to know what it takes to operate a home. They need to know that sometimes you have to get dirty to get things clean. They need to know how to serve. They need to know that a family operates as a unit, everyone pitching in. They need to know that they belong, that they are a part of the group, that they are needed.” (page 169)

The best part – my kids actually have started to feel a little good about the fact that they have chores. I think maybe deep down they like being entrusted with responsibility, and they are becoming aware that it is building their character and preparing them for adulthood. Yes, our kids should do chores. 

Linking up with A Pause on the Path and Finding Heaven