A house we passed on the way home from church last Sunday. (Sometimes you just have to circle back around and take a photo.)
Last month, I shared my hope that there might still be a few good snowstorms left in the forecast for this winter season.
It would be an understatement to say that those hopes were realized. The snow came to Kansas in mid February and brought with it frigid temperatures the likes of which I’ve only ever seen in North Dakota a few years ago.
The thought often crosses my mind when I hear about someone who is fighting a devastating disease, navigating an arduous season of care-giving or reeling from a sudden tragic loss.
I can’t imagine facing something like that. I don’t think I could do it.
Maybe you have had similar thoughts. We look at others, admire their tenacity and faith in the midst of trials, and think if that happened to us, we’d be toast.
There are years that go by in a blink and you don’t remember much of them, just that they happened and that you’re ready to move on to the next grade, the next age, the next thing that might be interesting or exciting.
Then there are years that are significant, momentous, full—in every sense of the word. You may not realize it as the months tick by, you might only see it in retrospect. But when you finally see it, you know it.
I wonder—could 2020 be one of those years? Even with all the loss and disappointment, all the unprecedented and unexpected events, all the ways in which people have been wrung out and laid bare?
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
So the old Christmas hymn goes, and what a timely thought during these troubled and tumultuous days.
In recent months, I’ve read, heard and found myself thinking phrases like, “We all need to …” or, “If only people who call themselves Christians would …” or, “It’s time for both sides to …”
I’m guessing most of these pleas for civility are well-intentioned, and probably borne out of frustration. But they remind me of a principle I’ve often told my girls over the years: “You can’t do anything about anyone else; all you can do is make sure you do what’s right.”
It applies here, I think. It starts with each individual person.
We can’t make anyone else feel or think differently, no matter how hard we try. But we can take care of our own selves. We can mind our own hearts.
How, though? What can we do?
Our country is facing complex problems, with solutions that are often difficult to discern and implement. How can one person—a homemaker from Kansas, a retiree from Arizona, a teacher from Oregon or an entrepreneur from South Carolina, for example—make any kind of material difference?
When I ponder this question, I keep coming back to a practice I began several years ago. My word of the year for 2015 was fruit, and as part of that focus, I began praying for the fruit of the Spirit—as individual attributes—every day. (You can read more about this here and here.)
This is not a quick fix—there are none of those. Growth takes time, and that includes spiritual growth. But if you are searching for something concrete and tangible that you can do, for your own self, that might help improve the world eventually, perhaps you could start here.
I don’t know how it works exactly, but there’s something about praying for yourself to be more loving, more patient and more kind that—over time—makes you think about it before you respond in ways that are the opposite.
You may not catch yourself before you snap at your kids, but once you do, you recognize what you’ve done and apologize. Your first inclination might be to fire off a passionate retort to someone on social media, but you think twice about it when you remember you just prayed for self-control and gentleness a couple of hours ago.
In some ways, I think it’s similar to praying for people with whom you’re angry. If you are truly bringing them before the heavenly Father on a daily basis and asking Him to bless them, it’s much more difficult to stay mad at them.
So it goes with praying for the fruit of the Spirit. As the Holy Spirit works behind the scenes in your heart to nurture these godly traits, it’s as if you somehow develop a vested interest in each one of them.
I’ve been doing this for more than five years, and I still have vast room for improvement. Some days, it’s as though I had never done it at all. Even so, deep down inside, I believe it’s made a difference.
I’m not trying to tell anyone else what to do. (There’s enough of that going around already, I think.) But I will throw out a gentle challenge. If you want to “be the change” in the world, perhaps you could try this for a month, three months, maybe even a whole year.
Every day, pray that God would grow the fruit of the Spirit in your heart. List them off, one by one. (See here for sample prayer.) You might not see progress for awhile, but eventually, I think you will.
You may even find, as I did, that when the month or year ends, you don’t want to give it up. You may discover it’s become a necessary spiritual discipline, one that keeps you pointed in the right track in your relationships and in your heart.
♥ Lois
We can’t make anyone else feel or think differently, no matter how hard we try. But we can take care of our own selves. We can mind our own hearts. Share on X As the Holy Spirit works behind the scenes in your heart to nurture the fruit of the Spirit, it’s as if you somehow develop a vested interest in each one of them. Share on XP.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday, #HeartEncouragement and Grace & Truth.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Once the Christmas decorations are put away and the last pine needles swept out the front door, Randy starts talking about spring. He’s done with winter; he’s ready for sunny skies, gentle breezes and warmer temperatures.
Not me. Especially this winter, when we didn’t get our first real snowfall until a few weeks into January. I love my cozy winter home. I love my winter wardrobe. I love winter, period.
Now, though—not long after all the snow has melted—I feel the stirrings in my heart too. Not a longing for spring, exactly. But I gaze out at the gray landscape, even take a stroll around my backyard, and start looking forward to gardening season.
The what-ifs have loomed large and scary for a long while, haven’t they?
I wrote about this several months ago, about how 2020 was the year when I finally decided to get serious about trying to let tomorrow worry about itself. (Better late than never, right? See here and here for more on that story.)
I’m still serious about it, but I don’t want to sugarcoat my efforts. It’s often a tough mental battle, one that wears me out and keeps me up at night.
There’s so much to be concerned about these days, isn’t there? What tops my list might not even be on yours, but I think we can all agree that we are living in anxious times, and that it’s very easy to let our imaginations and fears about what might happen in the short- or long-term future get the best of us.
Here’s a quick example. Let’s say I have a slight headache some evening. I could just go to bed and hope it’s gone in the morning. Or I could start fretting. What if it’s Covid? What if we all have to quarantine? What if we run out of food or (worse yet) toilet paper or essential medications? What if one of us has to be hospitalized?
What if …
What if …
WHAT IF …
I can’t think of anything less productive than this little exercise, but once the ball starts rolling, it’s hard to stop it. I’ve been there a time or seven in recent weeks and months; perhaps you have too.
There’s another kind of what-if, though, one that Pastor Colin Smith calls the “what-ifs of faith.” A good example is found in Psalm 124:1: “What if the Lord had not been on our side? Answer, O Israel!” (Good News Translation)
Do you see it there? What if the Lord had not been on our side?
The point, of course, is that if we have accepted God’s gift of salvation and been adopted into His eternal family, God is on our side. Psalm 118:6 affirms this truth:
“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” (ESV)
Everything would look very different if God were not on our side, wouldn’t it? Not that everything would turn out how we want, every time or even some of the time. But if we think our situations or circumstances are difficult now, imagine what would they be like without His comfort, His direction, His grace, His peace?
Many of us have plenty to be concerned about right now—there’s no getting around that. But if you find yourself craving an antidote for the anxious what-ifs, I’d encourage you to try something that has really helped me lately.
The next time you find yourself getting caught up in an escalating cycle of what-ifs, stop and ask yourself this simple question:
“What if God were not on my side?”
It probably won’t alter your situation, but there’s a very good chance that those eight words will calm your heart and reorient your perspective, right then and there. In these uncertain times, that can make all the difference in the world.
♥ Lois
Everything would look very different if God were not on our side, wouldn’t it? Share on X If we think our situations or circumstances are difficult now, imagine what would they be like without God's comfort, His direction, His grace, His peace? Share on XP.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday, #HeartEncouragement and Grace & Truth.