Scripture-serving creed

Okay, so I've been thinking about the creedal thing, about how building on history and articulating your doctrinal position are helpful, and yet how a creed obviously doesn't have the authority of Scripture, may take you away from Scripture, and will need to be revisited in light of how people interpret the creed and understand Scripture. So I guess that's where I ended up. Creeds are good but must be continually reevaluated in light of Scripture. Pretty sad it took me that long to come to that. I want to make much of what Scripture makes much of. A creed might help me reach that goal (so long as it serves Scripture.)
and here's a great quote:
Sola Scriptura is more than a historical slogan. The Scriptures must be the rule of faith and practice. They are the means by which the Spirit brings us to faith and regeneration. They are how we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, the way we are equipped for the work of the ministry to build up all the church into Christlike maturity. We are in the disciple-making business—for the believer, that’s what mentoring means. If we assign the authority of moral judgment to anything less than Scripture itself, we don’t produce Christlike disciples. We produce self-righteous Pharisees on the one hand and worldly libertines on the other.
We have to get past the tradition of our own group, past party rivalry, past personal taste, past the false dichotomy of traditional versus contemporary (because every human culture, past and present is marred in some way by man’s sin and Satan’s tyranny)—and we must go to the court of highest appeal. God’s very Words.

- J. Drew Conley

On a ramble

 On a ramble in Edmonton this past weekend, we walked to Muttart and saw the corpse flower, which had already closed, though its strange heady scent still hung about it.

 Guess what? I turned four in April.

 We got to paint with our little cousin in Montana. Well, actually, he just tried to eat our paint.

 Keep climbing.

 All of us. Grandpa and Grandma, aunt, uncle, cuz, and our fam.

 I like to make a splash. Snow doesn't stop me.

 Just when we were about to leave, Old Faithful lived up to its name.

Future scientist.

I read that I should replace complaining with thanks, coveting with contentment, criticism with love, rebellion with submission. And I am impacted because God's Word is the reason for the charge. But do I let it work?
I watch the people gather in pockets of likeness, the trendy lint, the wealthy lint, the intellectual lint, the emotional. I want to belong somewhere. But I wonder if the lint shouldn't just be thrown away. There's still garment left. But it grows threadbare until it seems lint is almost all that is. Still, even the slenderest of threads has beauty and potential.
Between the is and the should be exists a seemingly insurmountable gap. So very few cross it.
I read books and do laundry in my little rooms.
How to make a difference, to reach out, to be empty and filled, in this life under the sun?

So this little guy is my nephew. We had fun with family in Montana, just hanging out, my parents, my brother and his wife and their little Jonathon, and our crew, of course. We played games and joked, trying to reach for each other, with our own brand of soap slippery hands not always succeeding, but glad to try. Children's voices like fingernails on chalkboard, scratching at us to be known as well.

After they left, we went to Yellowstone with our extra day and were blessed to see the geyser, just when we'd given up hope of it. We stood there, shivering, hunched over, yet leaping up with the water and steam.

Then we come back to our everyday grind, some of it more grinding than anticipated. We find ourselves with even more demands upon us and fewer ties than we remembered. We wonder why and what to do next.

We want to value family, even when we frustrate each other, to serve, even while waiting, to be heard, even while muzzled by our own inadequacies, and seen, even in the dark.
And that's life under the sun.

Temptations and the company we keep

We all have our temptations. Many times we find it hardest to refrain from giving into them when no one's looking. The other afternoon I ate quite a lot of Breyer's cookie dough ice cream straight out of the carton. You guessed it, I was all by myself. I'd have stopped a lot sooner if someone else were there--maybe.
Yesterday, I took Lethei to the doctor. She was diagnosed with a bad ear infection. The doctor looked in her ear with a "telescope" and she was all better (medicine has nothing to do with it, apparently).
Having somebody else there can make all the difference: to help us curb impulses and stay on track, to comfort, to inspire. Of course, bad company can do the opposite, encouraging us toward wrong, pulling us down. "He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm."

No Smoke and Mirrors

Saw this scary cartoon where this guy says and then our branch of theology came along and got it all figured out and then another dude says Jesus must be so thankful for us.
John Donne writes about the power of deep real love being less cataclysmic than infatuation, the earth's revolution vs an earthquake. Which one's bigger? Which one makes more noise?
The believers I'm most impacted by are humble, w/ no chip on the shoulder, not necessarily striking me as overly-intellectual (though sometimes they are, but they're never in your face about it) but living loving, joy-filled, pure, and gentle lives. They don't thank God for themselves, but others are truly thankful for them.

My kid watches TV--which really I do try to limit and definitely monitor--while her kid does a language program on the computer. It's so easy to fall into a trap of comparing myself to others and feeling like I constantly come up short. Guess what? There's some reason God gave these kids to me and made me their mom, not anybody else.
I am trying by God's grace to be a good mother.
My kids don't need the pressure of being compared to others any more than I do. They need my encouragement in their strengths and weaknesses. They need me to be there for them, to have fun with them, to like them as people just the way they are right now. They need me to point to Christ, to the always faithful Shepherd.
Last night in kids' club, I took the group through John 10 and one thing we talked about was the identity of the hired man, the one who watches the flock for a while in place of the shepherd. I told them I'm the hired man, the one who wants them to see the Shepherd in me, but who can't be counted on not to run when the wolf comes. I'm not the one they should be looking to. I won't always make the right choices, won't always be a light. Bottom line, I'm going to mess up. Only Jesus is the perfect, always faithful Shepherd.
And guess what? What's true for those kids is true for me too! I need to keep my eyes on Him and trust His work in my life. It's time to quit comparing to the hired man, who no matter how fabulous, does have flaws just like I do! It's the Shepherd's example and help I need and He will lift me up as I humble myself before Him. 

 We were at the Edmonton zoo on Easter Monday: yes, there's still snow on the ground. But we had fun on the scavenger hunt w/ pencils and rulers for prizes. Of course the kids loved the candy being handed out. We also made crafts and saw some friends . . .

and a few animals (not Liam, the sea lion in the tank behind him).

Lici was a bunny.

That's Lukas hanging out on a "fossil."

 

The animals and the information the zookeepers relay about them definitely seem to interest the kids more than they interest me. But I've never been much of an animal person. They're okay in theory. And I like the plush or plastic kind alright, I guess. But up real and close and personal, I kind of freak out, and the creatures always seem to sense it, my irrational fear. Even taxidermy gives me the creeps. I've gotten to where I can hide my feelings better, but the nervousness hasn't gone away. I've told people before that it's because all my pets got killed when I was a kid (my dad ran over one), but it's more than that. I just can't be comfortable with someone/thing I can never hope to respond to me in words, but that is animated and seems like it should be able to speak (though of course I'd also lose it if it did). I second guess clear speech enough; actions alone just don't cut it for me at all. I totally over think them. When the kids were babies, I felt like I was in a constant state of flummoxation (yeah, I made that word up), trying to figure out what on earth they were thinking, why they did what they did, what they wanted from me. I'm just a language kind of gal, language for building bridges and barriers (sometimes unintentionally), as I grasp and look out for both. So generally, my two-legged "critters," now all able to converse (though oddly enough all too often I now find myself wishing they'd occasionally shut up) are more than enough for me. 

While I read Kevin and Sherry Harney's Organic Outreach for Families, I kept thinking "Wow, these people are incredible." I was very challenged to live more openly with our neighbors, striving to make them part of our lives, to interact and to be a light. I  appreciated the suggestions as to how to naturally incorporate a ministry to your children and through your children into your life. But I also felt like while what they did was a good fit for them and their gifts and opportunities, it might not be a recipe for me. I'm praying God will help me be much more of a light, truly seen and known by those around me and clearly pointing to Him, in a way that fits the less outgoing, more introspective, not so sporty person I believe He has made me to be. Maybe God will lead me to shelter my kids a bit more than this family did. Maybe I won't be as intimately involved in counseling and witnessing to so many people. But I do want to make an impact and I'm stirred by reading about how God has helped others do so. Mostly I'm encouraged because I'm reminded that I have the same God who can work through me as well.
I received this e-book from Book Sneeze in order to review it.