Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

faith

Have it your way

I’ve been reading a book that tells, in fiction style, stories of biblical men who led the Israelites out of Egypt and while wandering in the desert. They followed the Lord’s leading — a cloud by day; a pillar by night. When God moved, they moved. They didn’t know where they were going or how long they would stay once they got there, wherever “there” was, or whether they’d have water or food or shade. The Lord led them and they followed, totally dependent on His faithfulness and goodness.

And if your familiar with this story at all, you know that the people didn’t follow without complaint. They whined and complained and wished for slavery again even though they were free. And God answered even their whining.

He gave them what they asked, but sent leanness into their soul. — Psalm 106:15

A certain fast food burger joint made a name for themselves by telling customers: “have it your way.” Meaning, of course, that a customer could personalize and customize his burger to suit his tastes.

I wonder what this says about our mentality as a culture. Has having things “our way” made us lean in soul?

I often tell my kids, maybe not in the same words but with the same meaning, “Okay, have it your way.” As in, you don’t want to nap today? Okay, have it your way, but you’ll be in bed after dinner. Or, you don’t want to pick up your toys right now? Okay, have it your way, you’ll miss out on stories because you’ll be cleaning up?

This use of “have it your way” is completely different than what the burger chain intended. And I wonder if it’s what God meant when he gave the complaining Israelites what they asked for.

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say a version of this back to God: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Some days, I feel like I’m fighting to have my way with the day and when I come to the end of myself, I throw up my hands and say, “Fine, God, have it Your way.” Where I want to be is in a place where I start the day saying, “Your will be done,” even if it means I deny myself what I want to do and instead do what the Lord leads.

Today, I have fought to get a few minutes on the computer — to blog, to read a few articles, to answer some e-mail. Instead, I’ve bought groceries, washed dishes, played games with the kids and now I’m in an epic battle with our son for a nap while fielding unending requests from our daughter about a snack. I only have so many hours before I have to start dinner and my husband gets home and then it’s bedtime routine and then I’m exhausted and there goes my day.

I was called to be a writer before I was called to be a parent, and both things are important to me. I will fight for both of them with everything I have but one will inevitably be the loser. (Honestly, all you author moms out there, I don’t know how you do it and I wonder if I’m doing this whole thing wrong.) And when I choose my kids and their urgent needs, a part of my writing life dies.

Saying to God, “Your will be done” is no easy or painless thing.

In another book I’m reading, the author describes this petition of the Lord’s prayer this way:

How different from the prayers of “help me get my way,” “make everything turn out the way I want it to” and “bless my projects” that we are so often disposed to offer! The more we are able to internalize this petition–“Thy will be done”–the more complete our journey to maturity in Christ.

So if asking God to give us what we want produces a leanness of soul, then asking for His will to be done must produce the opposite: a meaty, muscular faith and trust that can withstand the toughest of challenges.

Oh, how I’d much rather be a couch potato Christian. Instead God calls His followers to walk in faith, to exercise trust and to submit to His leadership.

Every day, we are faced with the same choice: to have it our way or to say to God, have it Your way.

So, which will it be?

Grace changes everything

I am a judgment junkie.

Maybe that just means I’m human. Sometimes, I can’t help myself. I see someone dressed a certain way, or behaving a certain way, and I come to a conclusion based on almost no information.

That sort of thing would have gotten me fired in the newspaper business. Snap judgments, incomplete stories, speculations … that’s the stuff of tabloids and, too often, television. Facts and truth — these are the things on which I built my journalism career.

I read this quote recently, from a book I’ll review later on this blog. The author wrote it in the context of suffering and the meaning of suffering, but I think it applies in daily life as well.

Given our extremely limited perspective, it is premature to leap from “I can’t see the reason” to “There is no reason.” We cannot condemn what we don’t fully understand. (Godforsaken by Dinesh D’Souza)

How did it come to this? How can I so easily dismiss people as less worthy or less talented or less intelligent or less anything than me? What, after all, makes me so special?

The answer is:  nothing.

This occurred to me as the kids and I were walking home from church last week. We’d had a potluck, so in addition to our usual baggage, we were toting the food leftovers. Actually, the kids, who had just eaten a FULL lunch, were eating tortilla chips straight from the bag as we moseyed the three blocks home. I think our son ate half a bag. I was half-horrified at what people passing by would think and half-uncaring because I’d been sick for a week and didn’t have the energy for a fight.

Weeks earlier, I had mentally shamed a mother who allowed her son to eat lunch meat straight from the bag while in line at the grocery store deli counter.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to walk in her shoes while my son left a trail of tortilla crumbs on our street.

Grace changes everything.

Before I was a mom, I thought if your kid left the house with a dirty face, then you must be a poor mother. Or if you let your kid eat candy more than once a day, you weren’t trying hard enough. Or if you yelled at your kids in public, you were probably abusive. Or if you were on food stamps or WIC, you were irresponsible, lazy and/or uneducated.

Grace changes everything.

God has graciously given me the opportunity to walk paths I never would have chosen for myself. As a result, I’ve received more grace than I knew was available. And I’ve given more grace than I knew I could give.

Grace is a work in progress in my life, both in the giving and the receiving.

I have much to learn.

I don’t think it’s enough to look at someone in circumstances different from ours and say “But for the grace of God go I.” Because God’s grace is available to them as well. I need it daily. They need it, too.

Grace changes everything.

Most importantly, it changes me.

How has grace changed you?