God sent me... the Mormons?

Wow, I totally missed the month of May in myspace world.

Okay: in May I got to attend a Beth Moore Bible conference (wow!), had a visit from my in-laws one week and then the next week a visit from an old college friend (and her five kids!), read the 216 page book Prince Caspian the night before going to see the movie, taught 5 days of intensive GIS classes, experienced my first tornado, adopted a kitten, cried more than I have in the past year (it was a very emotional month), said good-bye to my stepdaughter as school ended and she headed off back home, and still managed to re-write the first third of my book.
However, I spent no signfiicant amount of time in devotions or prayer and as a result I feel all strung out and stressed.

It all came to a head, I realized, when two Mormon missionaries showed up on my doorstep a couple days ago. Of course I invited them in, I love to debate with the Mormons. I don't often have a chance to thrash people with my stunning knowledge of the Bible (ha ha). However, my Bible skills have become so rusty that I was really struggling to find the Scripture I needed to refute some of their beliefs.

For instance, this pair was all about assuring me that the Latter Saints agree with the Biblical view of "it is by faith that you are saved through faith, not by works, lest any man should boast". However, we differed drastically on the extent of salvation. To me, once "you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God rasied him from the dead, you will be saved" - you are saved forever. You cannot lose that salvation because Jesus is always interceding for you, and His sacrifice not only covers all our past sins but all our present and future ones... even unconfessed ones.

The Mormons believe that if you subsequently turn away from God that you can lose your salvation. They are all about how it is man's choice. We must continually choose God, choose to obey Him, choose to turn back to Him... if we stray away from Him, he does not apparently come out like the shepherd to search for us and bring us back to the fold; we have to make our way back ourselves.

I was horrified that anyone could believe in any sort of religion that didn't promise an absolutely sure and irrevocable path to heaven! I argued, no it is God who draws us. It is His grace that saves us, and also His grace that continues to draw us when we stray away, and when we return, empowers us to live the obedient life.

Problem was, I was having a terrible time remembering the scriptures to back this up. For a few horrifying minutes I couldn't even find my Bible. I hadn't cracked it open in so long that I couldn't remember where I'd left it! I kept mumbling apologies to the two young men as I dashed up and down the stairs and peered into dusty corners in my desperate search. Once I unearthed it, I was able to find a few Scriptures to back up my belief in the security of salvation and the absolute Sovereignity of God, even over the capricious will of man.

I challenged them to study all of Romans 8 - the ultimate chapter of security that begins with "Therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" and continues to "those He predestined, He also called, and those He called, He also justified, and those He justified, He also glorified" and finally ends with the crescendo "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?... no, we are more than conquerers through Him who loved us... neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is Christ Jesus our Lord."

I also remembered Hebrews 7:25 "Therefore He is able to save forever those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them" and John 10:28 "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand".
I even got a promise out of those guys that they'd study these verses some and come back and discuss them more with me (yet somehow managed to wiggle out of commiting to study verses from their book of Mormon).

But I also had to admit to myself that the real reason why they showed up on my doorstep wasn't so we could debate theology, but because God was showing me how much I'd neglected Him and His Word lately. Since then I have been digging back into the Word and rediscovering some more wonderful verses on security such as Ephesians 1:13-14. Also, some insight into why the Mormons might be confused about the security of salvation - might they be confusing salvation with sanctification? We are saved once and forever, but after that comes the never-ending process of santification, of being brought into obedience, of being conformed into the likeness of Christ (1 Peter 1:2, 1 Thess 4:3).

I really hope those Mormons come back.

Spring '08 family slideshow

Spring 2008 pictures

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Harry Potter and Beth Moore

Anyone who knows anything about Harry Potter and Beth Moore knows the very high unlikelihood of those two names ever occuring together in the same sentence. Harry Potter is... well, who needs to explain Harry Potter? Boy magician-in-training, JK Rowling's phenomena in the publishing world. Beth Moore is just about as famous, in Christian womens' circles, that is. She writes incrediable Bible studies, gives hilarious presentations, and mooches sunchips from innocent bystanders.

So this past week has been noteworthy in that I both started, and finished, the nearly 800 pages of the last Harry Potter book, and Heather invited me to a Bible study that is showing the latest Beth Moore Bible study, on the topic of asher (biblical happiness), and both of these events provided inspiration to my life in different ways.

I've only read the first Harry Potter book, and now the last, and actually I am not really a huge HP fan. It's great fun to read and author is enviably imaginative. The books are certainly worth all the hype. Part of my lack of zeal is because the Harry Potter world is all about witchcraft, which the Bible very clearly states as a sin (Gal 5:20). But then, the children's book I'm writing is full of magic, both good and evil. The good magic I am carefully (and prayerfully) linking to the power of God. I'm trying to make my unicorns, in their highest and best form to be servants of God, like a type of angel, whose powers only work when they are using them to help others. The Harry Potter books also distinguish between good use of magic and the "dark arts", but the author makes no attempt to explain where the power for magic comes from, either good or evil.

Anyway, my point for bringing up Harry Potter isn't to debate whether it's okay stuff for Bible-living Christians to be reading (I'll just plead Romans 14 and leave it at that), but how the last HP book inspired me with some new ideas for my own fantasy world, much in the same way the Twilight series did. The book "stirred the juices", so to speak, so that my journal and my calendar and my purse notebook are all bristling with notes about ideas I need to find time to write into the story, itself.

Ah, finding time to write! I've written nothing in this blog for over two weeks, and in those same two weeks less than 700 words on my novel. My "valley" Word document is open on this computer as I am typing this blog, in the theory that bloggin will start up some writing momentum so that when I'm done here I'll seamlessly switch over to writing fantasy...)

In the same way that Harry Potter has provided inspiration for my writing life, Beth Moore has provided a much more important sort of inpsiration, for my spiritual life. I highly recommend the three hour sessions on this DVD we are watching, A Day With Beth Moore (you can order it on the Women of Faith web site, it's listed under Beth Moore: preconference). Her talk is based on the Hebrew word "asher" which is translated as blessed, or happy. Two Hebrew words are translated to blessed in the Old Testament, "barak" and "asher." Barak means "you are blessed" - it is positional. Asher means when "you feel blessed" - it is emotional. Biblical happiness, like generic happiness, is based on our circumstances... but it is not bound by circumstances. There is no circumstance in our lives that God cannot work in. If you make happiness your life's pursuit, it will become an idol to you (2 Kings 21:7), but if you make God your pursuit, happiness will follow. Happiness cannot be obtained by pursuing it, it is only something you can receive. Biblical happiness comes when we are awakened to a work of God.

Well I haven't been pursuing God very much these days... I guess I've been trying to manufacture my own happiness... and my own writing, too (no wonder why I haven't been very productive!) My goal this week is to spend time with God everyday in his Word and in prayer (I am rediscovering how wonderful it is to pray through a Psalm). I have not set any writing goals. Instead, I want to see where God takes me with my writing this week if I take the time first to pray about my writing. But prayer for my relationship with Him, with my family, my friends and church family will come first.

beware of starting Bible studies

Beware of starting Bible studies on better marriages - it’s sure to backfire. I feel like I am on the brink of a cold war with my husband, and the only reason why it’s on the brink and not in deep is because he’s never home, always working, working, working. He just started a new business in January, and we’ve had no regular income since then. So of course he has to work, work, work if we ever want to stop living on credit cards and maybe one day start to get them paid off (me picking up more hours isn’t really practical when it means paying for babysitting for three kids... but I have been trying to work a couple nights a week after the kids are in bed). I feel like I’m not married anymore but this fellow comes and sleeps at our house everynight and eats some food and occasionally leaves us some money in return. Okay, it’s not that bad, but my emotions tell me it is practically that bad.

So here is the premise of this Bible study we’re doing, based on the book "Love and Respect"

Ephesians 5:33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

The Greek word used for "love" in this verse is agape, the unconditional, self-sacrificing type of love. So the author contends that since the man is required to give unconditional love to his wife, it follows that the wife should give unconditional respect to her husband. Men crave respect like women crave love.

But as soon as I learned this, my evil twin soul rebelled. But I don’t want to give him unconditional respect. He has to earn it! I just erased several sentences of ranting and raving about why he doesn’t deserve unconditional respect. The point is, easy to understand but absolutely the hardest thing to live, is that it is possible to give unconditional love AND respect because that is what Jesus did for us.

My battle is more with myself than with B. I understand, but I have such a hard time doing. Duh, that might because I haven’t been spending any time in the Word or with God lately... Like for several months now. Where else do you get the strength to accomplish the impossible?

I still haven’t picked up my Bible but I have started reading Oswald Chamber’s "Still Higher for His Highest" (another great devotional in the fashion of "My Utmost for His Hightest"). Here are some fantastic quotes from it that have provided me with inspiration.

Faith cannot be intellectually defined; faith is the inborn capacity to see God behind everything, the wonder that keeps you an eternal child.... Beware of losing the wonder, and the first thing that stops wonder is religious conviction... the only evidence of salvation and sanctification is that the sense of wonder is developing, not at things as they are, but at the One who made them as they are.

When the facts of life have humbled us, when introspection has stripped us of our own miserable self-interest and we receive a startling diagnosis of ourselves by the Holy Spirit, we are by that painful experience brought to the place where we can hear the marvelous message - propfounder than the profoundest philosophies earth ever wove, "Come to Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Until this experience comes, men may patronize Jesus Christ, but they do not come to Him for salvation.

Our heavenly Father has an amazing sense of humor; He will bring across your path the kind of people who manifest to you what you have been to Him. If you have been obstinate, that is why you have got that fellow around you just now, and Jesus says, "Show him the attitude I showed you." It means showing the disposition of Jesus Christ to the man who deliberately wrongs you, and it takes some doing.

testimony (warning, this is very long and personal)

Back to wintry Wyoming after a week in South Carolina on the beach and watching for alligators in the lagoons of Hilton Head Island. The babies could fly for free on the airlines because they are still under 2 years... I wonder if we will ever be able to afford to go to Hilton Head again with 6 or 7 of us (depending on whether my stepdaughter is with us) flying? The drive is over 2000 miles. My husband and I did it once, back in 2000 BC (Before Children). It was a killer drive back then, can’t imagine doing it now with a vanful of children.

I actually did write some while in Hilton Head, almost 2000 words on yet another new first chapter for the Valley (this has to be at least my 12th or 13th version of that first chapter!). Added another 1000 this past week (thanks to a word war with N.L. Btw, I have yet to WIN a word war. She always beats me by at least a 100 words).

But, my spiritual life has taken a real slump. My prayer journal was completely devoid of anything until last night. The only time I’ve opened a Bible is to read the children’s church lesson to the kids on Sunday. At this point, I’m just praying that I would WANT to pray and study more.

But even during a dry spell like this, God still provides such blessings. Yesterday I drove my stepdaughter over to Cheyenne so she could spend some time with her aunt’s family, and during the 50 minute drive we had another great conversation about spiritual matters. One of my goals was to share my testimony with her this winter/spring before she goes back home. She was telling me stories her granny had shared with her about her family (Mormon family), and then I shared a little bit about my parents and their religious beliefs (or lack of, in my Dad’s case), and I said I wondered how people could make it through life without the comfort of knowing God’s love.

Then I shared my testimony with her, of how I got saved when I was 23 years old.

I always attended Lutheran Church as a child, but there came a point in high school when I didn’t believe in God anymore, for several reasons. First of all, there is no scientific proof of God, and that bugged me (I was planning a career in marine biology, at this point, and a scientist needs proof). Also, I think I had been a little disillusioned by the Catholic elementary school my parents sent me to (religion force-fed). Finally, though my parents always encouraged me to go to church with a close family friend, they never went to church themselves.

But in college, I met some great friends who were Christians, and active in sharing their faith. I went to a couple Bible studies with them, and over time I discovered that they were truer friends than my partying buddies. But I was still very skeptical. I didn’t like the fact that their God had complete control over our destinies.

Later, during graduate school, I found myself in a terrible depression for about three months after breaking up with my first real romantic interest (I’d dated some before him, but not seriously). From February through April, I remember feeling like time had stopped for me. Like everyone else was on a moving train, going forward through life, but I had stepped off, and stood by the tracks watching the train go by without any strength or desire to climb back on. I felt as if it would be winter forever, that spring would never come.

Spring did come, though, and my spirits started to lift, partly because of the encouragement of two Christian friends (D.W. and S.D.). I remember memorizing all the stanzas of Amazing Grace that spring, and singing it while I was out riding my horse Rebel in the fields and forests that were finally turning green. But I was afraid - what if that depression came back? What could I do to keep it from coming back? I had always thought I was a good and basically happy person before the depression, but now I knew I was weak, I could easily be broken. I needed something. I spent that whole summer and fall searching... reading books about different religions, talking with my friends.

It was D.W. who finally challenged me that if I was going to truly and fairly compare religions, I needed to study the Bible itself, not just what other had written about what they the Bible was about. At the same time another friend, T.G., shared an article with me called "Can you be good without God?" No, you can’t, the article said, and it had some really good points that for the first time made sense to me.

One night I opened my old Good News Bible that I received as a present from my pastor when I was 12 years old, after finishing my confirmation classes at Parkside Lutheran Church. I read through Matthew, and felt confused that the Jesus I was reading about was the not the gentle, fluffy sort of Jesus I remembered from my Sunday School lessons as a child. This was a stern Jesus who told Jews they were vipers and gave harsh commandments that said if one of you hates his brother it is considered the same thing as murder. I was confused by this Jesus... disturbed by Him. I was frustrated that here I was with a degree from an Ivy League College but I couldn’t understand what this darn book was talking about. I believe I actually said out loud, "God, if you are the real God, the God of this Bible, you have to prove yourself to me."

Then I started reading the book of Job. I don’t know how late I stayed up that night, but I read the entire book of Job, becoming even more confused as I read chapter after chapter of Job crying out for God to hear him, to clear his name, while his friends hammered at him, trying to get him to admit he was guilty of some secret sin and that was why God was punishing him so cruelly. And then finally, in chapter 38, God answers Job. Except it was not the answer I expected. It was not the kind pat on the shoulder, the "it’ll all be okay, Job, I’m sorry for what you’ve had to go through" that I expected. No, it was these words that I will never forget, these words that marked the changing point in my life:

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?
3 Prepare to defend yourself; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

I don’t know exactly why these words sprang out at me (singing stars was a beautiful poetic image, but God speaking so sternly was also very humbling). I knew God had meant these specific words for me. He had answered me.

The next day I told S.D. about what I’d read, how I believed in God now. And she asked me, "yes, but do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" And suddenly I remembered John 3:16 that D.W. had shared with me a couple years ago, and I knew God didn’t just want me to believe in Him, He wanted me to believe that His Son had died for me, for my sins, so that I could be free. I said my first prayer to Him that night, asking Him for that personal relationship.

I haven’t always been free of depression, of course. But it’s never had the stranglehold on me like it did before I was saved, over 14 years ago. I have always trusted that God would bring me out of it, and He always does. And He’s given me a church family to teach me and encourage me, a wonderful husband, my husband’s big, loving family, a sweet stepdaughter and my own 4 beloved girls. And, He’s also given me a few stressful trials (financial disasters, painful church splits, dear friends moving away, news of twins, then fears associated with very premature twins, more financial stresses, worry about my parents...) But He’s been with me through all of it, and even though trials are hard, I’m not afraid of them. They grow you into a better person. A more Christlike person. If you don’t have the dark in your life, you can’t truly appreciate the light.

Now the version of my testimony I shared with my stepdaughter was a bit shorter and simpler than this. But there is nothing greater than sharing how God has saved you and worked in your life. I can’t wait to share it again, and again.

Spring break '08 family slideshow

Spring Break in Hilton Head, SC

teenage trauma

It's been over a week since I've written anything. The winter blues have set in - they always seem to get me in February. Life becomes dull and uninteresting and I spend too much time watching TV because it's hard to get motivated to do anything else. Fortunately this year we get an early spring break - March 1-8 in Hilton Head, South Carolina, at my parent's timeshare. February can't end soon enough.

The past week has been kind of blue for my stepdaughter, too. She is starting to miss home. Her best friend back home informed her that she thinks they should find "other best friends" in the meantime - that really hurt her. She comes to me and pours out all her frustrations. "How come you're so happy all the time?" she asks me. Come again? Me, happy all the time? Hello, I'm blue all over (my husband can certainly tell!)

I explain to her that I struggle with depression and frustration over lots of things but I try to take them all to God and when I do He gives me peace. This started an incredible conversation with her on how you know you're a Christian... I asked her what she thought about sin. She said she thinks everyone is a sinner, she said she herself sins everyday, but that's what Jesus is for, that we can go to Him and ask forgiveness for our sins. I just about wanted to leap up for joy! She gets it! Yes, she really does understand.

Then she asked, but is it bad that I don't read the Bible much, and when I do, I don't really understand it? Sometimes you can't just read it, I told her, you actually have to study it, and ask God to help you understand it. Studying the Bible helps us grow as a Christian, but not reading it doesn't mean you're not a Christian. It's what you believe that makes you a Christian.
Then she asked, what about those people who say they are Christians but they say nasty things about other people or do bad things? Well, we are all hypocrites sometimes, I said, but it's also possible that they think they are Christians, but they really aren't. After all, Jesus said that at the last day many will come to Him and say, "Lord! Lord! I did all these things in Your name!" But Jesus will tell them, "I never knew you."

I could tell she didn't get it. So I asked her, who is a famous person you know? She named a famous model. So, you know her... but does she know you? Oh! I could see the lights coming on for her. It's a two-way relationship. And she started smiling. I know God knows me, she said. I pray to Him, and He answers me... and she gave several examples of answered prayers.

Since that talk, I haven't felt blue at all. I hate how Satan can trick you into thinking life is pointless... and I love the different ways God reminds us how awesome life is. Getting to see my stepdaughter's face light up with understanding lit up my heart at the same time.