I don’t want to be a hypocrite

Remember the post from a couple of days ago when I lost my phone? Well, it happened again. I got my phone back Tuesday, and just had it taken away on Thursday morning. You’re wondering what I did to deserve this, aren’t you? I did the exact same thing as I did on Monday; I texted during school hours. I was making plans to go see a movie that night with a friend, when I was supposed to be focusing on my school work.

Here’s the part where I would like to say that I received correction from my mother with a godly attitude.

Nope. Both of our ugly sides came out. My mom yelled in frustration. I faced her with an expression on my face that said “Bring it on.” My rebellion didn’t last long. I quickly turned from thinking “this is totally unfair” to thinking “ah… I get it now.” My mom punished me, apologized for losing her temper and then praised me for my quick attitude change.

If I’m honest, sharing this with all of my friends is humiliating. It’s so much easier to write about my victories than it is about failure. It’s especially humiliating when my victory post was only 2 days prior to a repeat of the same sin.

But when it all comes down to it, I consider my failure a gift—especially when it’s a repeated failure. Gods Grace is very real to me. I know people who beat themselves up because they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again and don’t believe they can be forgiven. But my repeated failures remind me of my need for my Savior.

Before I decided to write this post, an old Sunday school song was going through my head. It’s called “ I just wanna be a sheep” And the line was “I don’t want to be a hypocrite, cause they’re not hip with it” ( Anybody else remember that song?) 

I’m sharing this with you because now the song going through my head is “Grace Greater than all my sin.”

            “Grace , Grace, God’s grace

            Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

            Grace, Grace, God’s grace,

            Grace that is greater than all my sin.

…. ALL my sin.  Even the repeats.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10

Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I Have an Enemy

I have an enemy. It’s name is Distraction.

This year I have many goals for myself. My biggest goal is having three years of college done by the time I would graduate highschool, which would require passing the accuplacer test with high enough marks to place into pre-Calc at Anoka Ramsey Community College as well as taking more CLEP tests for credit this year. I’d also like to be more scheduled in my blogging, make Varsity next year in at least one of my three sports, and get my drivers license.

This morning, I woke up with a plan for my day. I was going to get up, start my schoolwork and finish it in time for my Ski Meet. I watched my math lesson, sat down on my bed, opened my math book… and promptly grabbed my phone to read my text messages. I knew this wasn’t a good idea. It’s wrong, and it’s against my mother’s rules, and it’s a roadblock to accomplishing what I set out to accomplish. And yet this is a mistake I tend to make over and over again.

I asked a friend who is older and wiser than I am about how he manages to reach his goals without giving in to distraction and he gave me the following advice: Forget about boys, make growing in your relationship with God your first priority and submit to your parents authority because there is a reason God put them in authority over you—you’re not grown yet and you’re bound to screw up.

After that reassuring note, I decided to use his advice to analyze my choices today (right after my mom caught me texting and took my phone away for the day), and came up with a few interesting notes.

·         My major problem is starting any work that requires sustained focus. I will go as far as doing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom to avoid my one hour of math homework. This is a constant struggle for me because I have not put the effort into training myself to focus for an extended period of time. I’ve ignored my parents advice to write in my planner, and bring my school out to our living area instead of my bedroom, where I tend to be more distracted.

·         I am a follower, not a leader. My parents always said since I was a little girl, I’d jump off a bridge if my friends told me to. Since I know this about me, I should be surrounding myself with friends who have common goals in order to keep me on track. That doesn’t mean I can’t have fun, but there is a time and a place to goof off, and it isn’t right now.

·         Boys aren’t a problem, because I have made a commitment to myself and to my parents that I will not date until I’m 18.

·         I always feel like I could be stronger in my faith. I know right now I’m really lucky because I have parents who can lead me in that area of my life, and friends who are seeking Him too.

Seeing as though the one area that is not a problem is the boy dealio, and that submitting to my parents authority on the issue of dating is more than likely the reason for this, I can only come to one conclusion:

I need to submit to my parents authority in other areas of my life. Yes, my parent’s have high expectations of me, but they aren’t unrealistic. And I like that they believe in me. I like that they require me to be the best version of myself. I believe them when they say that I will look back on my teen years and be grateful that I pushed myself to succeed.

I plan on beating my enemy with my most powerful weapon available to me: Loving parents with high expectations, and faith that God put me in their care for my own good.

Ephesians 6:1-3    Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right, “Honor your father and mother.”- which is the first commandment with a promise-“that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.”

Set an Example

I have a close friend who I’ve known all of my life. As I’ve been focused on the idea of kindness and servant-hood, her demeanor and behavior has caught my attention.

My friend has a very strong work ethic. One of her greatest strengths is working towards a goal and maintaining her own plans for her life. Her goal is to get through four years of college debt free. To do this, she oftentimes says no to fun things in the moment so she can get her homework and extra curricular events done. She joins every single academic club available, because she knows that she’ll have a better chance at getting scholarships. When I see her at church, after she has an extremely overwhelming week, I have never heard her complain about her life. She has a goal and is content to live out the steps to reach it.

My friend is very welcoming, at home and away. When she sees me or other friends her face brightens and we know she is genuinely happy to see us. She has a quirky sense of humor, and within a minute she has me laughing. When we’re at church, she makes everyone feel loved and included by talking to each person and showing individual interest in them.

 

I can see her faith show through her actions towards others. She radiates love, joy, faithfulness, self-control and discipline.

Is she a world changer?

That is a good question.

Whenever I’m around this girl, I feel loved and accepted. More importantly, she has become a role model for me. Her example has helped me set the bar high for myself, not only by being kinder to my family and more engaged with my community, but also more disciplined with my schoolwork and responsibilities.

I’ve never realized how big of an impact another person’s behavior towards me can make. It made me realize how important it is to make a positive impact on others.

So yes, she’s a world changer, because she’s changed mine.  

1 Timothy 4:12

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers, in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

Cookie-Cutter Kindness

It’s hard being kind.

One of the things that can be hard about being homeschooled is being stuck in a house with the same people every day.  Patience sometimes wears thin and we end up snapping at each other.  Although everyone in my family has good relationships with the others, we go through patches where we only notice the things that annoy us and become more frustrated with one another. 

Here’s my dilemma.

I worked really hard at being kind this week. 

While talking to my family, I made my voice soft (in my head I sometimes rolled my eyes), I didn’t talk back when I was frustrated with my mom and dad (all the while holding on to my anger), and I went through the motions of doing the right things.

In the end it all led to more anger toward my family members.

What was missing?

Galations 5:22 reads:

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

On the outside I was showing cookie-cutter kindness, but inside I lacked all the fruits of the spirit.

Here’s the great thing about my family:  I get to talk things out.  We have scheduled meetings throughout our week to talk about what is going right and what is going wrong.  This week, in response to my frustration with how my plan was going, my dad pointed out that our family has been watching too much television and that our choices in programs were not ones that would draw out the fruits of the spirit.  He made a decision that the shows we watched would be planned events that we watched together and not a way to escape from each other and from responsibility. 

My dad was right. After two days of no television, there has been a significant change in my feelings toward other people. I’ve taken another step into my plan. Instead of being kind on the outside, I actually feel real kindness towards my family.

My conclusion?  I believe kindness can’t be an act.  It has to be real.  In order for it to be real, it needs to be the result of a heart that is full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control -Impossible if I’m distracted by selfishness and irrelevant things. 

 

So, I am hopeful that God will show little by little the changes I need to make in order to be the kind of person He wants me to be.

Let the New Year Begin

My Vocation is Love. –Mother Teresa

Happy 2012!!

It’s a fresh start to a new year and resolutions have been made. I heard that 78% of people at the end of the year have failed to complete their resolutions they made at the beginning. Part of the reason we fail is because we think we’re going to complete our goal all at once. For most of us, that would involve a complete 180-degree turn towards the other direction, with no room for error.  Oftentimes we quit when we don’t achieve instant success.  This doesn’t mean our goals are too big, it just means we need to take smaller steps to reach them.

My resolution this year is to change the world. I don’t plan on solving world hunger or bringing about world peace, but I firmly believe I can change my little corner of the world by being a kinder, gentler version of myself beginning right here in my home. Let’s face it, sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones we live with! Making an effort to love them the way Jesus taught us to love is the perfect training ground for loving and serving my neighborhood and community. 

 

In a church service I was in this morning, our Pastor was talking about different people who have made a big change in this world. People like Mother Theresa, The Wright brothers, Sir Isaac Newton, and Martin Luther King Jr. When you look at what these people accomplished, you see that their success was not instantaneous and it was not without effort. They took small steps to reach their goals, but they were always moving in the direction of those goals.

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. –Reggie Leach

Over the past couple of years I’ve prayed for God to change me. It finally dawned on me that God wasn’t instantly going to change me into the perfect version of myself, but instead if I am focused on delighting in His will and walking in His ways He will give me the opportunity to change. As Pastor Levi said today in his sermon “Change doesn’t happen instantaneously, but rather happens one stride at a time.” So 2012 is the year I take one stride at a time to become the kind and loving adult I want to be.

Luke 10:27    “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and Love your neighbor as yourself.”