Mom, the change agent

If you’d ask the happiest moments I had as a mother, I’d include those weekly trips to the public library with two preschoolers. Each was allowed to check out ten Mom-approved books (meaning no witches). We’d spend hours reading together, scrunched together under an afghan in their Dad’s recliner. Among other fuzzy-warm memories (which, I admit, are getting fuzzy as I age): “Aggression Cookies” (kids mixing dough with their hands), “Tent City" (living room creativity with blankets and chairs), and bath time with a bucket of water toys.

 

I’m grateful I got in on motherhood.  I was 34 when I married and 35 when the first baby came along. This summer, after my 66^th birthday, I’m looking forward to holding my first grandchild. But maturity (read that: getting old) tends to make you philosophical about parenting and reproducing God’s image on earth.  What parent doesn’t want that child to succeed and honor God?

In her book The Resolution for Women (BPH, 2011, p. 207), Patricia Shirer addresses those sobering parenting fundamentals. There’s nothing wrong with playing on the floor, making homemade waffles, and snapping first-haircut photos, she says. But “we must remember that our principal charge and mission as parents is to send our boys and girls into the world as young people who bear God’s Spirit, who are purposeful about His mission for their lives, and who are intent on being His agent for change on the planet.”

It doesn’t happen on its own, she adds, as children naturally lean toward “the flesh” of selfishness, rebellion, and disrespect and disregard for others. Left to themselves, they’ll “invariably succumb to the subtle (and not so subtle) thrusts of the latest TV shows and cultural trends.”   Enter Christian mothers. “You are in position to intervene,” she adds. “You…have been placed specifically in your children’s lives to make them rebel against a culture that’s telling them to rebel against you.”

Even as I type her words, I pause and choke back some tears. I pray for several mothers whose children have rebelled in some way. For these women, there is no “Happy Mother’s Day.”

I have no pat answers for those sorrows. But as Corrie ten Boom often said, there is no sorrow so deep that our God is not deeper. When I embrace in prayer a difficult parenting issue for myself or someone else, if often goes into that wordless yielding that the Bible describes as this: “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).

Other times there are words, simple ones, but faithfully lifted up. For years my prayers for my children, besides including specific needs, have included seven big areas of life, divided over the seven days of the week:

            Sunday: a growing faith and place of ministry.

            Monday: delight in God’s word.
            Tuesday: purity.
            Wednesday: health, safety.
            Thursday: careers, value system.
            Friday: positive attitude, gratitude.
            Saturday: true, godly friends.

            Any woman can bear a child. But to “mother” that child for God keeps us on our knees.

Heaven: The Greatest Home Makeover--Day 24

THE LIBRARY
“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may…grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”--Ephesians 3:17b-19

Grand homes, in contrast to ordinary homes with a bookcase or two, boast vast home libraries. You probably remember old movies that showed a silver-haired scholar browsing his floor-to-ceiling bookshelves via a rolling ladder, dusty light pouring through leaded windows between velvet curtains. Some may think that if (and that’s a big “if”) Heaven has a library, it might be like those portrayed in film. If so, it will also exist on a scale so grand as to make the Library of Congress look like the paperback rack at the convenience store. Others say Heaven couldn’t have a library because books are an invention of our earthly life. The Bible provides no answer for that. But remember that God chose to communicate to us through a book called the Bible.

Maybe the better issue to address in considering Heaven’s “library” is the acquisition of knowledge. Sometimes people say, “When I get to Heaven, I’ll understand everything.” The apostle Paul seemed to suggest that when he said that when “perfection” (Heaven) comes, “Then I shall know fully” (1 Cor. 15:12). But Paul didn’t mean that he’d have instant, entirely-complete knowledge. We won’t know everything because only God is all-knowing. Only an omniscient God can carry the burden of infinite knowledge. But Heaven will open our eyes in ways we cannot imagine.

I think that the God who created us to have curiosity, imagination and understanding will certainly allow us to continue learning without boredom. Mysteries will be explained: creation, Black Holes and the extent of all the universe, why God permitted evil, how the sun temporarily stopped for Joshua’s troops (Joshua 10:13), how a little bread multiplied for Jesus to feed five thousand—and on and on. God might even have us teach one another. Think of it: Adam teaching botany, Christ-honoring musicians like Bach explaining classical composition, and Calvin and Wesley finally reconciling their theologies in public forum. Maybe our “learning” will be the never-ending discovery of what the apostle Paul called “the incomparable riches of His grace” (Ephesians 2:6). We’ll fill innumerable pages with discoveries about God’s character. We’ll understand the prediction of an old, well-known hymn—that even if the seas were an ink well and the skies a parchment on which to write, we couldn’t write enough about the love and mercy of God. (1)

Another part of Heaven’s library strikes fear in many hearts. It’s what might be called a combination biography and reference section. Among its billions of volumes, there’s one with your name on it. “God has planned that the records of all our lives be preserved,” wrote Wesley Duewel. Your book has “all the facts of your thought life—your ambitions, your hopes, your prayers, your intentions, your motives, your efforts, your carefulness, and your carelessness. All your words, all your deeds, all your prayers, all your love or the opposite—all have been recorded.” (2) Jesus said our secret lives--those words and actions that we don’t want others to know about--will be public record (Luke 12:2,3). Every condemning thought, word, or action will be there, blatant evidence that you don’t belong in God’s perfect, holy Heaven.

There’s only one way to change the parts that bar you from Heaven. You must have your name written in another book, called the Book of Life. That’s the list of those who believe that Jesus died for every sin, including theirs, and who ask God to come into their lives. As for the other book, those forgiven sins will be blotted out, washed clean, as it were, by the blood of Christ. Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers, preached of that image: “Repent, then, and turn to God, that your sins may be wiped out” (Acts 3:19). There will still be record of your faithfulness to God, to determine your rewards in Heaven. But the damning entries will be gone. You need not fear the “Records Room” of Heaven.

Instead, Heaven will release you to learn what is most important. The Bible puts it this way: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Prov. 9:10). Your earthly education, or lack of it, will no longer impair you. When we delight in God, He delights in revealing Himself. That includes understanding His handiwork and eternal plan. Don’t worry about not having enough time to learn in Heaven. If Heaven has a library, it will never close. God will lift any veil of confusion as you delve into the subjects that capture your heart. Best of all, no “overdues.” Remember, it will operate on eternity-time!

Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus, for wiping my sins off Heaven’s record books, and for inviting me to learn more about You for all eternity. Amen.

(1) The 1917 hymn, “The Love of God” by Frederick Lehman
(2) Wesley Duewel, “Your Biography in Heaven,” Women Alive! (May-June 2003), p. 11. Article taken from his book God’s Power Is For You, © 1999.