Ever since AG was born and I became a full time mom, I have thought much about how to really “be at home” with my kids, not just keep them out of daycare. I have a good friend who does daycare in her home – and I have to say, she does a bang-up job. If I was going to send my kids somewhere, they would be at Amanda’s. Back when we had two cars :), I would go hang out with her every other week or so. Those kids are blessed to have Amanda caring for them; she fills their days with crafts, songs, dancing, active play, stories, and educational activities galore. I get tired watching her!

It gets me thinking: why am I at home?

My answer to that is more than “I can’t imagine sending them to daycare.” It’s more than “I don’t want them to get sick all the time.” It certainly isn’t that we have so much money that I don’t need to work! It’s not that I am not passionate about anything else and so have found my identity as a stay-at-home mom.

So, why? My husband and I feel strongly that our children are not ours alone. They belong to God, and He has entrusted them to us. Why? To nurture them, train them, teach them Truth, to disciple them: to teach them to follow closely after Jesus Christ, and know Him and His Word so well that they think and act like Him. That really is the meaning of discipleship! And we believe it is impossible to do this in 2-3 hours a day. Enter the role of: mother!

Most of the time my job is very unglamorous. I wipe noses. I change diapers and assist the one who doesn’t wear diapers with the potty process! I cut food into tiny, non-chokable bites. I think about nutritional value of Gerber Puffs and if I can trick my 3 year old into eating vegetable soup with the promise of fruit for dessert when she finishes! I disinfect doorknobs, clean the kitchen and bathroom, vacuum and dust, and organize closets and endless bins of children’s clothing (for which I am too thankful to complain about!) I read Sandra Boynton board books and can chant Dr. Suess in my sleep. This morning I helped paint black spots on a herd of cows, laid on my back and magically turned into a car (my hands were the pedals), and delighted in the scientific marvel of stacking cups with my son: they stack into a big tower, yet fit together inside of each other!

And in between these every day, nonglamorous tasks and joys, we have little windows of time to teach Truth. This morning as we got dressed we sang “This is the Day” and talked about God’s goodness and the beauty of the sunshine. We watched birds at the birdfeeder and discussed that Jesus said He knows all about the sparrows and if one of them falls to the ground – and He says we are even more important than sparrows! We reviewed our Bible verse of the week (“Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Philippians 2:14) before naptime and I had a chance to praise AG for a morning with no complaining! A feat for a 3 year old!

These are all tiny little events within the span of a long day… but those tiny windows add up. And I pray that when my children are grown they can be described as Timothy was by the apostle Paul, that they knew the Scriptures from infancy.

There are obviously lots of other benefits to being home with them, as well. My kids are, as a general rule, unhurried and unbound by time demands. I don’t have to rouse them out of bed before they’re ready, hurry out the door, and drop them off somewhere else. We leisurely rise and dress and breakfast, with our only scheduled morning event being Word World starting at 9am. They have very consistent discipline. They feel safe and secure emotionally and physically. They’re not picking up language I wish they didn’t know from someone else’s kid. We are recognizable to all of the children’s librarians at our local library as well as to the employees at the post office (Particularly “Postman Dave” who knows that AG likes stickers and hands them out freely). AG can confidently lead you to any animal you wish to see at the zoo, tell you the step-by-step process of a tadpole turning into a frog, or interesting facts like, “Did you know tomatoes are fruit? They have seeds!”

And yet, despite all of these obvious benefits, I occasionally feel the tension of disdain from other women. Small comments like, “What do you do all day?” Or inferences that they have to do everything I do in less time. Or statements about how their vocation is so “important” or such a “calling.” (doesn’t that imply that my life lacks importance and that I am home because I wasn’t called elsewhere?) I get tired of hearing women complain about “having to work” because they can’t afford to stay home – implying that we are so well off that it was easy to live on one income.

Even as I battle the frustration that wells up inside me I find myself getting pulled away from the very things that compelled me to be home in the first place. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, trivial things clamor to take my time and attention away from where they should be. I feel like I am constantly battling to try to find a consistent daily routine, a proper way to balance outside ministry with my work at home, and ways to effectively teach the minds and train the hearts of my little ones.

Do you feel the tension? I would love to have some discussion with other full-time moms. To further the discussion, I encourage you to read this article at CPYU (Center for Parent and Youth Understanding) that a friend sent to me. It’s excellent, and I identified well with the author! Please share your thoughts – it’s always nice to know that you’re not alone!

And you might want to check out this excellent post from Joy at The Stay-at-home Missionary on mothering and ministry!!

“How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the rule of three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.” -G.K. Chesterton

For the last couple of weeks we have been working through some aspects of David’s great sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. In part one, we looked at the idea that David’s failure to do what he was supposed to be doing set him up for failure. In part two, we looked at the subtlety of sin and the safeguards we need to put into our lives and hearts to help keep us from falling. In part three, our discussion centered on the human tendency to blame-shift and sidestep responsibility for our sin, constantly looking for a way to cover our tracks. Finally, we looked at Nathan’s confrontation of David and the difference between David’s heart of humility and Saul’s lack of repentence.  Today I want to spend some time in Psalm 51.

(If you open your Bible to Psalm 51, you’ll notice that a note is included in a smaller font before the Psalm begins, documenting that this Psalm was written when Nathan confronted David about Bathsheba.) Please read Psalm 51 on your own and then I just have a few things for us to ponder.

Spiros Zodhiates summarizes this Psalm in the footnotes of The Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible (my personal favorite!) this way:

“This is one of the greatest passages in the entire Bible concerning confession and forgiveness… David’s repentance included:

1. a godly sorrow for his sin
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me. (vs. 2-3)

2. verbal confession
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge. (vs. 4)

3. a turning away from sin
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. (vs. 6-7)

4. forgiveness
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (vs. 9-10)

5. restoration to God’s favor
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me. (vs. 11)

6. rejoicing in salvation
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (vs. 12)

7. a willingness to testify to others about the grace of God.”
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise. (vs. 13,15)

Remember back to Saul’s sin of wrongly offering the sacrifice before Samuel arrived? Saul appeared to think that God would accept the sacrifice, even though it was offered in sin. When Samuel confronts him, Saul gives excuses about Samuel being late and the army scattering. Notice what David says at the end of this Psalm:

You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise. (vs. 16-17)

David understands: it’s not about the physical sacrifice. It’s about the heart.

So, what does this have to do with us? Most of us probably aren’t dealing with sin as “bad” as adultery and murder. What about those daily sins that creep up on us? God doesn’t want your outward show – He wants true repentance, a broken heart, a true desire for restoration, a true turning away from our sin.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have been struggling to get myself and the kids on a consistent daily schedule. Between that post, today’s look at repentance, part one of this series, and another study I’ve been doing in my quiet time, God has pointed out a very obvious need for confession in my own life. I might not be as “bad” as David in this instance, but I am not in line with the heart of God.

I know that I have spent far too much time lately on frivolous things on the computer, which means that I have been neglecting my children and husband. I have been failing to invest the time I should in teaching my children and even just playing with them and being available to them. The giant ironing pile still looms, the playdough and paints sit untouched in the basement, and right now there is a huge bolt of fabric calling my name that I need to sew into curtains for our room. These aren’t earth shattering things, but they are things that I have been given the privilege and responsibility to do for my family. My kids notice when I am engrossed with something other than them. My husband notices when I don’t delight in caring for him as much as doing something meaningless. My heart has been divided, and I’m not doing what I need to do! Lesson learned from David: I have been tolerating compromise, and if I continue I’m setting myself up for failure.

I don’t know what your area of struggle is right now. Guaranteed, we all have one! I pray that you will join me in praying Psalm 51 along with David, and committing to give the Lord our hearts and not just an outward show. He wants it all. He is worthy of it all.

Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
Psalm 86:11

In parts one and two of my reflections on The Shack, I shared my concern about two of the heretical issues I saw in this book. There are many other things that other godly thinking Christians have pointed out, so today I simply want to provide some links for further reading.

Audio download from Albert Mohler’s (president of Southern Theological Seminary) radio program: A Look at the Shack

Very in-depth review by Tim Challies

Article at Insight for Living written by a Dallas Theological Seminary professor Glen Kreider.

Excerpt from Mark Driscoll on YouTube. (if you read the comments, wow – people are mad at him! But, I think he’s right!)

Keep your Bible open and your mind engaged! :)

Wow! Great discussion on that first post! Let’s see if we can stir up a little more! ;)

Alistair Begg recently finished a fantastic series on the 10 commandments. He noted that the first commandment tells us that we must worship the correct God. With the second command he stated, “It is not enough to worship the correct God, but the correct God must be worshipped correctly.” He goes on to say:

“We content ourselves with the fact that since we don’t have any graven images in our homes, or haven’t been dancing around any religious totem poles lately, that presumably we aren’t in violation of this command. But what we’re going to discover, is that the essence of idolatry… is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of God. That is, the coming to God with imaginations which are more the product of our fertile minds than they are of any Biblical revelation…” He later states, “Idolatry exists not only in the worship of false gods, but also of the worship of the True God in false ways!”

Any time we attempt to create an image of God it is sinful. Why? Because we will always, always mess it up! We cannot even conceive of God in His fullness, let alone capture that fullness in some way that is tangible. Even our best guess of who and what He is will miss the mark and pervert the understanding of Who He is in some way.

Begg points out that in the construction of the tabernacle, God gives extremely detailed instructions about the construction and decoration of the tabernacle. There is absolutely no representation of God anywhere in the tabernacle! God does not reveal or describe Himself in an image – the only authorized “image of God” is mankind! We are created in His image – the reality of who He is is pictured on a small scale in His creation of humanity. As I mentioned in a reply to one of the comments from the last post:
God is righteous and just, and we have a conscience and that reflects this.
God is sovereign, and we have will and responsibility.
God is loving, and we have the capacity to love and be loved.
God is omniscient, and we have minds, imaginations, and the ability to use reason and logic.
God is omnipotent, and we have power over our domains and the ability to influence our world.
God is eternal, we are immortal.
Even humanity’s “image-bearing” deals with attributes, not visible images.

I recently threw away a perfectly good Bible story book that we had been given for my daughter. Why? On the very first page there was a representation of God the Father at creation, wearing this strange white flowing robe, sporting a long white beard, and holding birds in His hands. Why did I throw it out? My daughter would grow up with a reduced, soft view of God the Father that reduces his glory and transcendence down to a grandpa in a white bathrobe. I’m sure this was done with good intentions- trying to make God understandable and friendly-seeming to children. There is just no way to accurately capture God’s nature in fullness in an image, either a literal image like a sculpture or painting, or an imagined one!

So, this is my beef. Even if you overlook what I discussed in the last post about the slaughter of a Biblical philosophy of genders in this book, even the fact that Young attempts to represent the members of the Trinity with physical descriptors just is not acceptable! Yes, yes, yes… I understand that he wasn’t actually saying that God the Father actually looks like Elousia and that he was merely trying to represent the character of God as he saw it, but that’s the problem – he was trying to represent the character of God as he saw it in a way completely not supported by Scripture!

So, what way is supported by Scripture? There isn’t one! We just are never given a physical representation of God outside of the coming of Christ! Ever! We are given descriptions of God’s nature and relationship to us, ie: shepherd, father, etc. We are given personifications to describe God’s involvement in humanity (he is described as having eyes, arms, etc as descriptive personifications), but that is it.

Why? Again – we will always, always mess up trying to describe God in an image of some kind! Even in our minds! I realize that this probably sounds extreme to some, but I think that the very premise of The Shack is unbiblical. He is describing God in a way God does not describe Himself. He is putting words in the mouth of God that God has not said. And no matter how pure your motives are, we will always mess this up.

If you haven’t read the book, I would say the majority of the text is dialogue between Mack, the main human character, and various members of the Trinity. Which means, Young has written about 250 pages full of the “words of God” and descriptions of Him that are extra-biblical. Not to mention that I think they were often completely wrong to begin with.

Young has created an inaccurate picture of God in the minds of millions of readers. Like I said earlier, even if I agreed with him on everything else, it’s still inaccurate – we simply cannot capture the fullness of God accurately. Just like the Bible story book with the grandpa’s bathrobe picture, I’m sure that Young was well intentioned. He’s trying to make God understandable, friendly-seeming, knowable to people. And by doing so, he misrepresented the nature of God Himself.

God is only understandable to us to a very finite point – and what He wants us to know He has written in His Word. I believe that, in our quest to understand God, we frequently reduce Him down to something we can grasp and rob Him of glory. I have heard so many people say that reading The Shack has completely changed the way they view God. Do we understand how scary this is? We have been given one, and only one, book that fully encapsulates what God wants us to know about Himself.

Not only do we need to understand this inherent flaw in The Shack, not only should we be quick to discard anything which seeks to image our God in an unauthorized way, we need to guard our minds. If you ever catch yourself saying or thinking, “I just like to picture God as _____” it’s idolatry. Ouch!

If you are new to this blog, I encourage you to read through at least some of the posts on our journey through the Old Testament. God has given us a story much more full and gripping than The Shack, He has revealed Himself much more clearly than in Young’s Elousia, His plan is amazing – and it’s all in Scripture. If we would put down our Christian fiction and pick up the Bible, that’s what would truly change our understanding of God in all the fullness and richness of Who He is.

You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below.
Deuteronomy 4:15-18