"If you want to know 
if someone loves God,


                                        ask their neighbors."

Hats off to moms.

I've been working as a nanny for around 6 months. It is surely an adventure and may or may not end in me writing an additional blog about the irrational behavior of two year olds.


The more I am around these children, the more I learn about God, sin nature and the mental stability of preschool teachers & single mothers. A specific incident comes to mind.


I was eying the two year old from across the room as I changed the baby's diaper. I waited for her to change her mind about taking the thermometer off the coffee table. She slyly looked over her shoulder as her fingers grasped around it.

"Put that back please."

She runs upstairs. Only a few minutes pass before I am in a familiar, parental pose. Kneeling, eyebrows high, hand flat, sticking out in front of me. "Please hand that to me. Hand that to me. Will you please give me that? One...two...."

And of course, I want nothing to do with that slobbery thing. It has been on the floor multiple times this morning, not to mention the mouth of a barfing baby, it's got something on the corner that I can't identity and is currently in the hands of a child whose hands are always sticky with God knows what. And of course, I could just grab it from her. She rarely outruns me and I'm (usually) stronger than her. When she does get something in her hands that I consider dangerous or threatening, I just grab it from her and skip the obedience lesson. I don't want the thermometer, I want her to want to give it back to me. I want her to listen to me.

We often withhold things from God. Things that are already his, that he created or designed or gave us. He doesn't actually want what we have gripped in our hand, he could just take it from us in an instant. He wants us to listen to him, to trust him and to want to hand it over. And sometimes if it's dangerous or keeping us from him, he just takes it. Or maybe not, I have no idea.


Just a thought.

Thankful for commute.

 I've been listening to this series on Ecclesiastes on my way to work every morning. It is making me wish I could do extreme things, but all I've been able to follow through with is simplifying my closet & my social networking.

You can find the series

here

if you're interested.

Nameless men.

 I was reading through Luke this morning and skimmed over a familiar story. 


Jesus is teaching to a crowd, maybe in someone's house, it seems. A few men who knew that he could heal people and perform miracles had brought their friend there to meet Jesus. The crowd was too large and they couldn't get to him, so they climbed on the roof and lowered their friend into the room with Jesus.

"...as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, "Man, your sins are forgiven you." Luke 6:17-20

I believe everything in the Bible is true and really happened. So, that's my starting point here. Unfortunately, I am often underwhelmed by these miracles and lack an appropriate reaction since I am so removed from it. I find it astonishing that Jesus can and would do these things, and I am confident that he still performs miracles like this today.

However, my astonishment in this text is aimed at someone else this time. 

                                  who are these men? 

They loaded up their paralyzed friend on a bed and carried him through town (well, maybe...their starting point is never mentioned). I am not very strong, and physical labor is hard for me, so this part alone greatly impresses me. I imagine it is very hot and sticky, their feet are in archless sandals, covered in dirt and sticky with sweat at this point. They see an overcrowded house and no access to Jesus. Being gentlemen, they don't want to barge through the crowd with their friend. (Or perhaps they weren't being gentlemen and the doorway was simply too small, I don't know.)

So, they lug him up on the roof, in front of what I can only assume is an unsupportive crowd that would also like front row seats to hear Jesus teach, pry off tiles from the roof, scrounge up some long rope and lower the man down to Jesus. 

I want to be a friend like that. 
I want to think of others,
follow through on my ideas and intentions, 
do things that are uncomfortable and hard (in the heat nonetheless!), 
& selflessly put my friend's needs in front of my own. 



Most importantly, 
I want to be the type of friend that will do anything to help someone meet Jesus. 


Just a thought.