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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 12  Hope  Psalm 130

p. 133 "To be human is to be in trouble."
"A Christian is a person who decides to face and live through suffering.  If we do not make that decision, we are endangered on every side."
"Psalm 130 grapples mightily with suffering, sings its way through it, and provides usable experience for those who are committed to traveling the way of faith to God through Jesus Christ."

p. 134  The psalmist here sets anguish out in the open, it is voiced in prayer before God - right out there, no holding back.
**How many of us think God isn't big enough to handle our cries?  How often do I pretend to have it together before the Almighty?  How stupid is that?!  I know He knows... what is the point in pretending?
My anguish does not shock him.

"You know, there is an American myth that denies suffering and the sense of pain. It acts as if they should not be, and hence it devalues the experience of suffering.  But this myth denies our encounter with reality." ~Ivan Ilich

p. 135 "The worst thing that can happen to a man is to have no God to cry to out of the depth." ~P.T. Forsyth
The Psalm shows us how to cry out - to face our suffering by bringing it before God - not to hide from it or avoid it - but to face it with faith.

p. 136  Because we have God - who is personal - we have the means to walk on through our suffering. He is with us, involved, caring and loving and absolutely merciful.

p. 136-137 "Eight times the name of God is used in the psalm. We find, as we observe how God is addressed, that he is understood as one who forgives sin, who comes to those who wait and hope for him, who is characterized by steadfast love and plenteous redemption, and who will redeem Israel. God makes a difference." (emp. mine)

p. 137 "And this, of course, is why we are able to face, acknowledge, accept and live through suffering, for we know that it can never be ultimate, it can never constitute the bottom line. God is at the foundation and God is at the boundaries."

p. 138 At the center of the psalm is the direction for participating in our reality - especially when it comes to suffering- the directions say wait and hope. These words are connected to the image of a watchman.

p. 139 "The psalmist's and the Christian's waiting and hoping is based on the conviction that God is actively involved in his creation and vigorously involved at work in redemption. Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions."
**I think there is also needed a level of acceptance that sometimes we will not know or understand these things - but that God knows is enough for us.

p. 140 "And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion of fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let him do it his way and in his time."
** Often - for me - this is the hardest part.  Trusting in God's ways and timing instead of what I think I want and when I want it.

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 11  Perseverance   Psalm 129

"Patience is drawing on underlying forces; it is powerfully positive, though to a natural view it looks like just sitting it out.  How would I persist against positive eroding forces if I were not drawing on invisible forces? And patience has a positive tonic effect on others; because of the presence of the patient person, they revive and go on, as if he were the gyroscope of the ship providing a stable ground.  But the patient person himself does not enjoy it." ~ Paul Goodman

pg. 122  Isaiah 53 paints a picture of someone extremely - painfully - persecuted and rejected and yet overcoming and righteous.  "The person of faith outlasts all the oppressors.  Faith lasts."

pgs 123-124  "Stick-to-it-iveness. Perseverance. Patience.  The way of faith is not a fad that is taken up in one century only to be discarded in the next.  It lasts.  It is a way that works. It has been tested thoroughly."

pg 125  "The life of the world that is opposed or indifferent to God is barren and futile. The way of the world is cataloged with proud, god-defying purposes, unharnessed from eternity, and therefore worthless & futile." 

pg 126  "The person who makes excuses for the hypocrites and rationalizes the excesses of the wicked, who loses a sense of opposition to sin, who obscures the difference between faith and denial, of grace and selfishness - that is the person to be wary of.  For if there is not all that much difference between the way of faith and the way of the world, there is not much use in making any effort to stick to it.  We drift on the tides of convenience. We float on fashion."

pg 127  "Perseverance does not mean perfect. It means that we keep going."
"For perseverance is not resignation, putting up with things the way they are, staying in teh same old rut year after year after year, or being a doormat for people to wipe their feet on.  Endurance is not a desperate hanging on but a traveling from strength to strength.  There is  nothing fatigued of humdrum in Isaiah, nothing flat-footed in Jesus, nothing jejune in Paul.  Perseverance is triumphant and alive."
      **I really grasp this more fully as I get older... we do not just carry on pitifully in our faith - we are conquerors in our struggles because of Christ and it is His strength that carries us on and sustains us in the battle.

pg 128  "The central reality for Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment that God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God's faithfulness."

pg 129   In Hebrews we see a litany of people who lived by faith - people who centered their lives on the righteous God who is faithful through all things and by this they were able to persevere.  They had steadiness of purpose and admirable integrity - not that they never faltered, failed and sinned, but that by God's faithfulness they learned faithfulness.  Out of this we then read Hebrews 12: 1-2 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

pg 130  Purposes last - Christian faith allows us to build on the organizing center of life - God, in all His righteousness. "Christian discipleship is a decision to walk in His ways... It is the way of life we were created for.  There are endless challenges in it to keep us on the growing edge of faith; there is always a righteous God with us to make it possible for us to persevere."

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Continuing notes from "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction"


Chapter 10:  Happiness   Psalm 128

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
    who walk in obedience to him.
 You will eat the fruit of your labor;
    blessings and prosperity will be yours.
 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
    within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table.
 Yes, this will be the blessing
    for the man who fears the Lord.

 May the Lord bless you from Zion;
    may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
    all the days of your life.
 May you live to see your children’s children—
    peace be on Israel.

p. 112   Jesus makes clear that discipleship is not a reduction in what we already are (we are not talking - of course - about that whole sin thing *S*) - rather he will expand our capacities and fill us up with life so that we overflow with joy.

p. 114  "... blessing has inherent in it the power to increase.  It functions by the sharing and delight in life."

p. 115  "We are in a battle.  There is a fight of faith to be waged.  But the way of faith itself is in tune with what God has done and is doing.  The road we travel is the well-traveled road of discipleship.  It is not a way of boredom or despair or confusion.  It is not a miserable groping, but a way of blessing."

p. 117  "everyone wants to be happy, to be blessed.  Too many people are willfully refusing to pay attention to the One who will our happiness and ignorantly supposing that the Christian way is a harder way to get what they want than doing it on their own.  BUt they are wrong.  God's ways and God's presence are where we experience the happiness that lasts."

In re-reading these notes - I am noting the absence of a distinction between 'happiness' and 'joy'.  They are different and that is of vital importance to understand.  JOY is what we are promised in scripture, not happiness.  Though I think that happiness can be a by-product of joyfulness - the two are not always linked.  I can find great joy in doing things that bring me no happiness simply because of my Savior.  I serve a mighty God - I am HIS.  This leads me to joy in all things - regardless of the happiness involved or lack thereof.
There is little happiness in suffering or in doing yucky daily jobs like cleaning or dishes or diapers...but there is joy in these things if they are part of what God has gifted to us in this life for His glory.

Blessings on the journey~

Before & After

We've been in our new home 4 months now.  Time flies when you are having fun!
We've also been busy... perhaps that is an understatement.  We've been working hard to make the new house our home... in the sense that it reflects our style of living, our taste, our priorities, our colors, etc.  In just four months we've cleaned (a LOT!), replaced the roof on the house & garage, stripped wall-paper, fixed walls, painted walls, re-arranged, changed light fixtures, painted more, built a fire-pit, sealed the driveway, edged & mulched and put in crushed stone, added a pellet stove, replaced the kitchen stove, dealt with some plumbing issues, repaired some exterior issues, had the exterior on the house & garage painted, and on and on.
So... to share - here are some before & after shots of various rooms in the house.

Sun porch/room before

Sun porch/room after

My Sewing Room upstairs

You can also see more finished photos of this room on my sewing blog.

 The kitchen before we moved in

The kitchen after we stripped wallpaper, changed the light, fixed the wall & painted

This project also has it's own post here.

The downstairs bathroom before we moved in

After some new paint

The roof project has it's own post here.

The exterior paint project will get it's own post very shortly - Steve is still taking photos for me. 

We are so very blessed to be in our new home and are excited about our progress so far.

A Window with a View

In the back part of our 'family room' is a bay window that looks out to the back yard.  It has a nice wide shelf which tends to collect books and other things.  It gets sun most of the day and has a terrific view of the bird feeders.  Both Saffron & Grace have decided it is a nice place to spend part of the day... and who could blame them?

Saffron (aka Orange Kitten Baby)

Grace

Kitchen Project

Our new home has an abundance of wall-paper.  I sort of loathe wall-paper.  So it has been a challenge to limit myself to one room at a time to rip it down and clean & paint walls.  Ok - so I actually ripped it down in two rooms but only have finished the painting in one so far.
I simply HAD to do the kitchen first.  The wall-paper wasn't really dreadful or offensive... I just really don't like wall-paper and in the kitchen, the prior owners had taken down the battens on the walls that were wide pine boards and wall-papered OVER the wood!  I was horrified!  Who does that?

Original pantry space when we viewed the house

when we were viewing the house - looking toward the sun-room

 I knew that we needed to paint a lighter color on the walls as the kitchen is on the dark side due to the fact that the cabinets are painted a deep cranberry color.  I like it - I wouldn't have chosen it, but it's fine for now. 

So after some deliberation we opted to use the same wall paint color that we'd had in the kitchen in our old home.  We knew we liked it, knew it would match, no worries.  Except for how on earth we'd get the wall paper residue & paste off the wood wall in the pantry area.

This turned out to be a weeks-long project.  First we had to pull down the wall paper which turned out to actually be two layers plus a wall border.

This left the nasty white paste residue all over the walls.  I tried washing them, used white vinegar & water and a wire scrubby pad.  No dice.  Finally I found this Citristripper stuff and it worked!

 

Now we needed to figure out a way to replace the batten boards - small strips of wood that go over the wide cracks between the boards. Thankfully I have a very clever husband and he found the right type of wood pieces at the local lumber yard and we were in business.  We had resigned ourselves that we could not re-stain the walls and make them look right, so we opted to paint the entire pantry area to match the walls in the rest of the kitchen.

And Steve installed the new light fixture over the table - black candelabra style which I love!

The kitchen is just about finished now, I still have to finish repainting the molding (crown, chair rail & baseboards) around the rest of the room to cover the cream with fresh white, but it is close enough for now as it is summer and I really don't want to paint when it's above 80 degrees. :-)

Cross Posting

Just cross-posting from my sewing blog about my new sewing room.