Island of the World

Last year I saw this book recommendation on Tis a Gift to Receive. I checked all the local libraries, but none seem to have heard of Michael O’Brien, so… I bought Island of the World for a Christmas present for myself. 🙂

I told you I have a book review that is the polar opposite of The Hunger Games, but I will also quickly tell you that this is not light reading or suitable for early teens. In fact, it is probably the heaviest book I have read in a long time, quite literally, since it has over 800 pages, but it is also heavy emotionally. I couldn’t shake the story, although I could only bear to read a few pages some days. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so I will only give a brief sketch of the events in the story that is actually set over the course of a lifetime.

The book is set in the Balkans with the main character being a boy, Josip Lasta, who is the son of a school teacher in a remote mountain village. The family, as well as the entire village, is rich in simple faith. Josip survives the horrifying purge of his village, stumbling in a grief-stricken daze to war-torn Sarajevo where his aunt lives. As he grows older, he is haunted by the cruelty and bloodshed all around him as the communists take over the country. Eventually there is the promise of a career as a mathematics professor, even though he has never joined the party. There is the love of a beautiful girl, a happy marriage, a child on the way, and then there is the awful concentration camp after he is reported to be a counter revolutionary. There is so much hatred, betrayal, and senseless destruction in Josip’s world.

As I read, my western sensibilities of fairness kept insisting that surely soon everything would get better and be happy. Surely Josip cannot live under these crushing evils. Doesn’t he deserve to be happy? As the book continues to track his lifelong journey of forgiveness and his relentless faith that “God always has the final word”, I became smaller and smaller in my own human reasoning. I marveled at the redemption that seeped out of the brokenness of his life in nearly forty years as a humble janitor, a displaced person, a refugee in the foreign land of America.

“Seldom have I encountered the few who are awake, who cast their gaze to the real foundations, which, as human beings should know, are above.” -Josip Lasta, as he approaches the end of his life.

This is not typical historical fiction. There is a thread of purity woven throughout the very human struggles of a man living through the awfullest of times. I have wanted to write this review for a long time, but found myself floundering for words. When I was reading Hunger Games, I kept thinking of this book, another tale of revolution, war, heartbreak. The contrast between a soul impoverished with vindictiveness and a soul flourishing through forgiveness was so startling that I will never forget it.

You will not regret buying this one!

No Winners Allowed

I just finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy, that pop fiction series that is being aggressively marketed to young adults, made into movies, spawning fan clubs and Facebook sites. Before I critique any further, I will say that Suzanne Collins can write. Her style is engaging and fast paced, just what is required to sell books to the young.

The story is set in some post-apocolyptic time where North America has imploded, devastated by a civil war against its Capitol. It is now comprised of 12 outlying districts and the Capitol, which is the seat of power. To discourage any further uprising, the Capitol keeps the districts in poverty and isolation with fences around each one. Every year the districts are required to have a reaping, where one boy and girl are picked to participate in the Hunger Games in an arena set up by the Capitol. There can only be one victor, therefore all participants in the games need to learn to survive by killing ruthlessly. The games are televised to all districts, with the most likely survivor being the one who can get people to like him, thus receiving gifts in the arena. The author does a masterful job of making one like the main character, Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to take her sister’s place at the reaping. She starts out nobly in the games, protecting the weaker children, forming alliances with kindly intent.

You want her to live, but you start to realize that all the other kids will have to die for that to happen. It is, quite literally, kill or be killed. She pretends to fall in love with the boy from her district as a strategic measure to arouse sympathy from viewers of the games, thus receiving pricey donations in the arena that make the difference between life and death. She does manage to survive and insists on saving the boy from her district, strong-arming the designers of the games with the threat of suicide if they do not allow him to live.

This event catapults one into the second book of the series where Katniss is touring the district as the much-pampered winner, along with her “boyfriend”. They keep meeting the families of the other slain children, some of whom Katniss herself eliminated. Guilt and confusion set in. Maybe survival of the fittest wasn’t the right way to go. Someone is responsible for these actions. There has to be someone to hate, someone higher up who needs to be eliminated. Katniss herself is blacklisted by the Capitol because of her act of defiance at the end of the games. The Capitol fears her ability to incite revolution, and decides to use only former victors of the games for the reaping of the next games. Of course, this takes her back into the arena with people she has come to know and care about. Once more she is required to kill or be killed. They all hate the Capitol, the president, the game makers. Katniss hates herself and this no-win situation. There is no way out. She has decided to try to save Peeta, the boy she pretended to love in the first games, as an act of atonement for using him. Just as she thinks she has figured out a way to do this, there is a tremendous disruption in the arena and she is airlifted by hovercraft to a district that she didn’t know existed.

Book 3 is her experiences in District 13, the underground district with nuclear weapons. It describes her coercion into being the face that inspires a raging revolution, her decision to kill the president and end this madness. She is just a shell of a person, consumed by hatred, propelled by one desire to get revenge. She sacrifices everything for this goal, with an ever growing wake of destruction behind her as her friends die defending her and her enemies fall in front of her. She emerges, victorious, alive! The Capitol is overthrown. The last scene in the book is of her children, dancing happily on the meadow that has grown over the mass graves of the victims of war.

I know my take on the books is quite different from the reviews that call them “phenomenal” or “brilliant” or “compelling”. I think the primary adjective should be “disturbing”. This is our foremost, best-selling literature for young people, this mess of absolutely no way out. It is hopeless. No matter how much the characters wish there were a way to live without killing, they feel that there is no choice. In fact, it is all for the greater good, this awful morass of death and destruction.

What would have happened if the mentors would have instructed the kids in the games to refuse to kill, to band together as brothers, to love instead of hate? What if the Capitol would have been disarmed by a people who refused to rise to the bait? What if returning evil for evil is not the best way to bring change in a society?

It disturbs me that this mindless do-whatever-it-takes to survive is being touted to our children as the only way to live. There is a constant dilemma of what is absolute (you shouldn’t kill) versus what makes sense (you should stay alive) and in nearly every case what makes sense hurts other people. Right does not seem to be relevant. The books are a sad overview of a society with a sagging framework of morality. There are no absolutes; it is each person looking out for his own interests in the end, with only a few fringe characters who care about other people. It is chaos.

The author is at least honest enough to describe the desolation in the soul of a person who steps on top of others to stay alive. She does not have any solutions to the problem of a shattered spirit and divided soul except the passing of time. Katniss and Peeta simply have to live with their gnawing regrets. There is no redemption other than having children who don’t have to face the same impossible odds. In fact, they are not really winners at all. I am terribly saddened when I reflect that this is, indeed, the way many post-modern people view life.

I am one of those annoying fundamentalists that believes what Jesus taught is to be taken literally. I know that I live it imperfectly, but I am willing to stake my life on it that His is the better way: the way of suffering love, the path of forgiveness, the eternal perspective of winning by losing. I don’t want to live my life on the premise that there is no higher way than to live for myself, that the only way to save my life is to keep it! I am not buying that load of empty nonsense and I am certainly not going to feed it to my 7th grader.

Another day I will do a review on a book that is the polar opposite of this one. 🙂

Empty Bowls, a Book List, and a Lot of Links

This winter I tried to find different ways to make my children aware of the hungry, homeless, less fortunate, even beggars. Sometimes it is hard to know how much information about the sadness and brokenness of the world I should share with my little guys. Yet I believe that they need to learn compassion and thankfulness, and one of the best way to learn this is to help them see how hard life is for many others.

We read A Single Shard, the story of a homeless orphan in 12th century Korea. The main character spends his days scrounging for scraps of food and longingly watching the master potters in the village. Eventually he persuades one of them to take him on as an apprentice, receiving for his wages a bowl of food every day.

The Family Under the Bridge is another book I highly recommend for children. It is the story of a crusty old hobo who has his own favorite spot to live under the bridge. He has chosen his lifestyle because he likes it, but one day a desperate mother with her little children invades his space. Slowly he starts to thaw and become more kindly to the people around him. Almost against his will, he learns to care about them and does his best to help the mother keep her little family intact. It is a book with humor and grace mixed into the sad bits.

Another book we really like is Star of Light, a story of little beggars shamefully misused by their stepfather. It is a beautiful tale of how they find the love of a Heavenly Father.

I also have a photojournalist’s collection of portraits of titled Precious in His Sight. It is a powerful visual aid… What if I were the little girl selling bananas in the middle of that crush of cars at the intersection? Suppose I was the little farmer boy in Malawi who spends days and days alone, herding the family’s cows so they don’t wander off or get stolen.

A percentage of the sale of this book goes to Compassion.

And there is yet one more photo journey that I suggest for little children. It is titled Where Children Sleep. It is an expensive book, but I am glad I bought it. We have discussed why it is that some of the poorest little children with only one little car to play with and a bed of filthy blankets on the floor look just as happy in their photos as the children with everything their hearts desire. You can find a lot of the images from the book here.

So, how did this post turn into a book list? I suppose it may be because they are my main tools for instructing my children. 🙂 But aside from books, how do we do something that makes a difference? That is the real question. The boys helped me cut patches out of fabric scraps and sew them into comfort tops for the ladies at church to turn into warm blankets for somebody cold.

I hoped to find a soup kitchen that needs volunteers, but the only local thing I could come up with was a fund raiser called Empty Bowls. This is a grassroots movement to help feed the hungry. Local potters hold workshops where volunteers get to make soup bowls to sell at the supper they host. That immediately caught my attention because of my pottery making dreams. We made pinch pots, starting with a ball of clay that became the base of our soup bowl, then adding coils of clay and smoothing them out to form the sides and rim. It was a lot of fun. We decided we wanted our own bowls back, so we went to the supper and claimed them.

All the food was donated by local restaurants and businesses, the proceeds benefitting our local food pantry. It was a lot of fun, an event I hope to make an annual thing for us. Here are the girls with our bowls.

So far I don’t feel like I have accomplished much except helping my crew to notice inequity and to want to help. I need more practical ideas. 🙂

Nourish Cookbook Give-Away

This morning I am having a piece of mocha cheesecake for breakfast, along with my cup of coffee. What a way to start a Monday! I recommend it. At 330 calories a slice, this is actually doable, a recipe from my friend’s cookbook. This is what I am giving away. Let me tell you a bit more about it.

Here is a link to the book, along with resource lists, some recipes, and words from the author.

A few years ago, Esther and her husband started a long, grueling journey to find solutions for their little daughter who had been diagnosed with absence seizures. During a period of trying one medication after another, they were discouraged to see no real progress and the side effects of the drugs had changed their little girl into someone they scarcely recognized.

Around that time their doctor broached the subject of trying a radical diet change to see whether it would improve her quality of life. He explained to them that some epilepsy sufferers have seen significant improvement when they eat a low glycemic index diet, which is a carbohydrate-controlled diet, using only low glycemic carbs with an emphasis on fats and proteins. The glycemic index ranks foods and beverages based on how they affect your blood sugar level. It was a huge, scary shift for the Yoders, but they were willing to do anything to help their daughter.

Esther has described to me how her life was completely overwhelmed with the need to figure out foods that her little girl could eat and actually enjoy. She worked carefully with the doctor and a dietician, spending entire days developing recipes and tweaking them until they were delicious. I can personally attest to this, as I have been using recipes from her cookbook this past week. My friend knows how to cook!

All the hard work paid off when they found that after only three months, the seizures were gone and the medications were being slowly tapered off by the doctor. They became committed to the diet for the long haul, and Andria is now seizure free, off all meds. Nutritious food became her medicine.

The cookbook is beautifully done, with serving sizes and nutrition information included in every recipe. I enjoy just paging through and looking at the gorgeous photos. This book is a labor of love and encouragement to anyone who faces the gigantic shift of a lifestyle change with their eating habits, especially the low glycemic index diet. This is typically recommended for folks with diabetes as well as a sustainable weight loss plan. For the Trim Healthy Mama crowd, these recipes are actually quite similar to THM.

I am giving this book away for the specific purpose of spreading the word. Everybody knows somebody and word of mouth is a great way to share exciting ideas and products. You can download a free preview here, which is the website for her bookseller. Maybe you know someone who would love to have this book, or maybe you are a collector of recipes. There are no requirements to qualify for the giveaway except this:

Simply leave a comment here on the blog. To give the book more publicity, I have decided to give an additional chance to anyone who shares on Facebook. A comment or “like” on Facebook does not count, because it would be much too hard for me to tally. (EDIT: I am having trouble with keeping up with the shares. I thought facebook would tally them for me, which they do, but they don’t give me a list of the names, so just mention it here in the comments that you shared. I think I got all of them from the first 24 hours. Thanks. )I am pretty green on the matter of give aways, but I plan to leave it open until March 31. You have one week. Don’t be shy. 🙂

A True Tale

Once upon a time there was a young lady called Holly. She fell in love with a young man named Douglas Hobbie, and they got married. Douglas and Holly were still in school, so money was always a little tight. They didn’t have a car or a couch or fancy China, but they did have a cat, a kitchen table and a lovely baby girl.

Holly loved to paint with watercolors at that table, especially she liked to draw little girls: happy, modest, spunky, small people with personalities that oozed out of them. When a friend suggested that she send some of her drawings to a card company, she gave it a shot. Two days later their art director called with a deal… money for paintings.

Holly was a little surprised but she decided to go for it. It seemed like a good way to make some welcome cash. Some days she could turn out two designs for the card company and some days she didn’t get anything done. It was a bit of a shock when her work became wildly popular. About that time there was another new little daughter, which required a lot of extra time and energy. A few years later, a fine baby boy was born.

Holly was a mother first. She delighted in observing the details in her children, watching their personalities develop and cultivating their gifts. She taught them “to feel reverence when face to face with something as common as a buttercup”. Always she found time to sketch them, their friends, their special toys, even their bedtime blankies. Her children were normal, but to her they were extraordinary. Home had a shining quality, the moments stacked on moments, celebrated by noticing what was really happening.

Being so absorbed in the busyness of family didn’t cramp her style, but rather enhanced it. It made her paintings iconic. Something about the way she invested herself into her real work spilled over in the energy of her paintings. Eventually someone said, “There needs to be a doll.” When nobody listened, he went home and stitched one up himself to show to the toymakers. That is how it happened that when I was a little girl, I had a beloved floppy ragdoll in blue patchwork clothes, and so did pretty much every other little girl in the early eighties. 🙂

I have been so fascinated in reading Holly Hobbie’s memoirs. As a mother, her story takes on a different aspect than it did when I was a small bonneted girl myself. 🙂

(image source)

I still really like you, Holly Hobbie. (I like your Toot and Puddle books too.)

(Book Review: The Art of Holly Hobbie, Drawing on Affection)

Compassion: desire to relieve the distress of another

We are in the deep freezer again, with quite a few days of frigid temperatures predicted. Like I mentioned before, I am grateful for every piping hot drink, for my coat with omni-heat technology in the lining, for the radiating warmth in the leather seats in our vehicle, for the down comforter on the bed instead of a sleeping bag on the concrete. After googling “how to live in your car” out of curiosity, I scrolled through the tips with rather horrified fascination.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, I just read a book by John Grisham titled The Street Lawyer. The story follows the ruthless climb of a brilliant young lawyer, Michael Brock, who has lost touch with his conscience in the pursuit of money and partnership in his firm. He is rudely jolted to reality in a violent encounter with a homeless man who had been evicted without notice by the firm’s real estate division. Mr. Brock starts to research homelessness, volunteering time at soup kitchens and shelters. In a short time he decides to ditch the high-power job to be a voice for the homeless community in Washington, D.C. His work gives him the satisfaction of seeing a shred of dignity restored to the least of the people. This book has less intrigue and more heart than any of the other legal thrillers I have read by Grisham. I can’t shake the story.

I think about my life, about the two sets of parents, the seven siblings or in-laws who would open their homes to stand between us and destitution, the whole community at church who would share with us until there was nothing left. It seems so far removed from us, like it could never happen. It seems so unfair; I can’t not care.

Without a Net is the personal story of Michelle Kennedy, raised in a middle class home, college educated, who finds herself where she never thought she would be: without a home, living in a car with three little children. When I read this a few years ago, the impossible suddenly seemed plausible. Homelessness is not just for junkies in the cities. It happens on all levels. I don’t know why these stories grip me so strongly. I wish I could just feel pity and forget about them.

What, you may ask, are you suggesting that we do? For starters, I am calling us all to gratitude. True thankfulness demands a response, a sharing with others in any way we can instead of merely pitying them. Long ago crowds of people asked John the Baptist what they should do to live rightly. The first thing he said was, “If anyone has more than one coat, he should give the extra away.” I think the point is sacrifice of stuff, time, money, effort.

Today the ladies at our church got together to make colorful comforters out of fabric scraps. I stayed home to school my crew, but I have confidence that those blankets will keep shivering people warm, and that it counts just as if they were Jesus. Pity would say, “I am sorry your teeth are chattering and your nose is running.” Compassion hands over a blanket and says, “Here, come in out of the cold. You can have my handkerchief.”

Years ago a group from our church went to Pittsburg for street ministry. One of the men met Homeless John and offered him a place to live. The rest of us thought he was a bit crazy. To our utter disbelief, John rode along home with us, out to the country where everything was strange and scary. As far as I recall, he was honest and respectful, happy for a chance to have a roof over his head. I am sure that the man who took him under his wing will have rewards in heaven the same as if he had sheltered Jesus.

Most times when we see someone with a sign asking for help, it is only change they expect. What if we put in the 20 dollars of grocery money that would have bought cheese and ice cream? What if we didn’t look away in embarrassment from the eyes that are already downcast and the lives already downtrodden, but instead asked them sincerely how they are doing and what they need? What if we actually saw them as deserving so much more than shame and condescension?

I just heard about a condition called “compassion fatigue”. Apparently it affects those who work constantly with victims of tragedy. I do believe that the vast majority of us are more likely to have compassion deficit. Maybe if we are aware, if we read their stories, if we see through the eyes of a most Compassionate Savior, then when the opportunity comes to change the space someone lives in we will do it instead of simply feeling pity and walking on.

Interior Monologue at Two AM

In the past week I lost at least three blog posts to the shadows of the night, because I ~~was too lazy to get up~~ needed to sleep. I don’t know why it is that sometimes the writing flows and other times it gets stopped up. Neither do I understand why I think up long, interesting bits about life at 2 AM and then cannot remember more than shreds of it at 7 AM. I should probably do what some bloggers do, give myself a deadline. You can expect a fresh post every Tuesday and Friday morning at seven, sharp. (That was a joke, because where would be the fun in that?)

Last night we went to bed early, and here I am, all chipper and feeling like I already slept enough.

The new family vehicle started hiccuping on us last weekend. Some stabilitrak system or other was kicking on and off without provocation. OH, NO. Service stabilitrak soon. It is a little hard to ignore when the lights flash and blink on the dash. We needed an inspection anyway, but the title transfer wasn’t done yet. So we decided to get a tune up, see what we are up against. Halfway to the garage, a distance of seven miles, I noticed that the warning light was off, the vehicle no longer hiccuping at all. Thank the Lord for large mercies!

Driving a Suburban is a little like navigating a smallish whale, although I have to say, this one is smoother than the old van was, by a long shot. And do you have any idea how much cargo room these guys have? It is amazing.

Gabe convinced me to go to our local outfitter’s store last Saturday when they were having a summer blowout sale. He brought me a helmet when he got off work Friday night and told me to go get a bike to wear with it. Something like that. Again, he was working, so I loaded up the little guys and off we went, bike shopping. I haven’t owned a bike for at least 10 years, although I occasionally took his for a spin. Did you ever ride a men’s bike with a really high bar? In a skirt? Awkward. Whoa, I really hope I don’t have to stop until I get back home to the mounting block.

He had preselected what he thought was the one I would like, so I browsed for “a bike with vine decals and a nice seat, but not a granny seat”. There were two with vine decals. Me being me, I got the cheaper one. Gabe being Gabe, he had the other one in mind, the one with the shock on the front tire. However, I can’t see myself doing extreme trails anytime soon, so this is fine. It is really fun to go buzzing around the back roads with my boys. We have no arrangement for the little girls to ride along, so Gabe and I haven’t biked together yet. All in good time.

I cleaned out my garden this week, all but the fall stuff. I feel cleansed. No more blighted tomatoes and unhappy watermelons. No more weeds on steroids. Just their babies. I can now look out my kitchen window without feeling the failure of neglected plants. And those grapes that we were fondly anticipating? It puzzled me to find that all the ripe ones kept getting neatly picked off their bunches, the green ones left behind by some fastidious critter until they were ripe, when they would also be neatly picked off. I myself ate maybe 5 grapes, total. Rita solemnly insisted that she did not touch the grapes. The thing was, there were no deer tracks. Then the children told me they kept seeing the cats in the grape vine. I suppose for the cats, those 65 dollars we spent to get them spayed is pretty good insurance. (We are now responsible pet owners.)

We took a ride up to the ski slopes last evening, looking out over the vista of mountains to the west, the glorious sunset highlighting the shapes of scores of windmills in the distance. Gabe thinks they look clean and green. I think they are just a little annoying when I am trying to see the scenery. On our way home we stopped at a local ice cream place where you can get 5 kid cones and 1 medium for $4.25. It was dark and cold and shivery for ice cream eating, but when has a child ever objected to that?

I recently read a thought that impressed me. “When it comes to child training, you decide how you want it, then you make it that way.” (Elisabeth Elliot, who else?) Maybe that is a little overly simplistic, but it is pretty true. When your children are allowed to whine, grab, belch at the table, disobey Mom when they feel like it, and other such socially unacceptable behaviors, it is because you have decided it is too much work to train them otherwise.

We are starting a new initiative this week: The Annual No Complaining About the Food Act. Every so often I notice that my children have fallen into a bad habit of grumbling about what is for dinner. Not everybody dislikes the same food, but with 5 children, there is a good chance that at least one person will not be impressed with the fare. All you need is one person turning up his/her nose for the chorus to begin. “Not beans again! Couldn’t we have spaghetti and meatballs?” Addy: “Have getti and meatballs!” Next meal: “I wish you would make rice instead of quinoa.” Addy: “I wants rice!” Random other child: “No, no, I don’t like rice!”

Mine all like broccoli, by the way, which makes it a bit puzzling when someone chokes about chicken noodle or fried potatoes. Some of them love oatmeal and others prefer eggs, while still others just wish they could have a bagel. And of all things, the kid who hates mayo loves mustard! It sounds like I really have a lot of children, doesn’t it? 😉 I don’t mind preferences. It makes birthday meals fun when you know what they love to eat. But you can’t always have what you prefer. Deal with it. I got tired of displeased sighs at meal time. It’s time to decide how we want it and make it that way.

Last year I purposely made foods they didn’t enjoy until they quit complaining. This year I amped up the stakes. We are having dessert every night this week. Gasp! If you forget and grouse just one time about the food you are served, you get halfsies on dessert. If you grouse more than once, you don’t get any. Fortunately, a jar of peaches counts as dessert for our children. Or a piece of Dove chocolate. Ask Rita how big a half piece of dove chocolate is.

Last night, sort of by accident, I made a total fail of a meal. It was edible, but it wasn’t good. We excused Addy for saying, “It’s yucky.” The rest deserved their ice cream cones.

I just read Code Name Verity, which is actually considered a young adult book, although I wouldn’t recommend it. It made me cry. While I could never be a spy, I love reading spy stories. (I don’t know if it is some housewife thing… me, in my safe little world, reading about the intrigue and unbelievable duplicity of the CIA or Mossad.) I wondered if I could be that brave if I were being interrogated concerning my faith in Jesus and my fellow believers like so many Christians are today.

All right, I will spare you more stream of consciousness and go back to bed.

Treasure Hunt

I spent a happy hour at a book sale today, a sale benefitting the local hospital. If the books donated are any indication of what the general population is reading, it appears that my taste is rather counter-culture. Or maybe folks donate their Sillouette paperbacks because they are vaguely aware that they are so much junk? At any rate, the hunt is a thrill when I find something like a pristine copy of Andrew Henry’s Meadow. I had briefly considered buying one as a gift for one of my boys a while ago, until I saw that they are all listed at upwards of 20 dollars. Today the price was one dollar for as many books as you could stuff into a plastic bag. Then they made an announcement that the books were free, it being the end of the day and all. Donations accepted. I paid 5 dollars for a big box of books and games, including Andrew Henry’s Meadow, and it makes me happy. By the way, Andrew Henry is exactly like my boys, always making things. 🙂

Just Do Something, But How?

“We should be humble in looking to the future, because we don’t control it; God does. And we should be hopeful in looking to the future, because God controls it, not us.” (pg. 47 of Just Do Something)

So… how do you make your decisions? I think honesty compels us to say it is usually how we feel that helps us decide things. This is not wrong, necessarily. (What would women be without their marvelous intuition? 🙂 ) The problem comes in when we say, “God told me…” because we feel one way or another. It isn’t really fair to blame God, now is it?

When Gabe got terribly sick during nursing school, we wondered if this was God closing a door, or whether Gabe’s resolve and determination were being tested. There are endless second guessing conundrums like this for people who make all their decisions by their feelings.

If there is one overarching theme in the book Just Do Something, it is that God wants to show us His will in His Word.

Let’s take a look at the Proverbs, specifically chapter 2.

1 My son, if thou wilt receive my words,

and hide my commandments with thee;

2 So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom,

and apply thine heart to understanding;

3 Yea, if thou criest after knowledge,

and liftest up thy voice for understanding;

4 If thou seekest her as silver,

and searchest for her as for hid treasures;

5 Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord,

and find the knowledge of God…

9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment,

and equity; yea, every good path.

Proverbs is full of cautionary statements about those who just do life all wrong and the contrast with those who live in wisdom. I quote DeYoung, “In Proverbs, a fool is not an oaf or a moron. He is a person who doesn’t live life God’s way. Wisdom is knowing God and doing as He commands. Foolishness, on the other hand, is turning from God and listening only to yourself… God doesn’t expect us to grope in the dark for some hidden will of direction. He expects us to trust Him and be wise.” (pg. 89)

If we could open the Bible and find information about what we should work, or who we should marry, or which house we should buy, things would seem so much easier. God doesn’t find it necessary to give us such specific information. His will is that we love His Word, become infused with it, and be transformed into the image of His Son.

When their are choices to make that could affect our lives drastically, DeYoung says we need to walk the way of wisdom.

Read the Scriptures.
Listen to wise counsel.
Pray for illumination.
Make a decision. (in faith)

Do you see how this approach could be more restful than worrying that you might end up living in Tallahassee when God really wanted you to be in Boston? What if you broke this down to praying about whether you should pick up a sandwich at McDonald’s or Wendy’s. (Probably neither one of those is wise. 😉 ) Of course, you don’t obsess to that extent. What God really cares about is that you are His representative wherever you go, and either place you go for your sandwich is going to have people who need to see that He is a beautiful Savior.

Is it really so much different whether you live in one geographical region or another? And what about jobs? Marriage? I laughed out loud when I read DeYoung’s recommendation for finding the will of God in marriage. He is speaking to men who are afraid that they are stepping outside of God’s will unless they have it nailed down who is the right one before they ever ask the girl out. I will tell you, I would have hated this when I was twenty, but now it amuses me with the ring of truth.

“Men, if you want to be married, find a godly girl, treat her right, talk to her parents, pop the question, tie the knot, and start making babies.” The thing is, from my lofty perch of nearly twelve years of happy marriage, I can tell you that any way you tie the knot, living with the love of your life is going to involve some hard work. There are no short cuts to great relationships, so you might as well spare yourself the angst of finding the One Soul in the Universe that completes you. Relax and trust that the God who starts a good work is able to finish it!

I will close this with one concluding quote:

“God gives His children the will to walk in His ways– not by revealing a series of next steps cloaked in shadows, but by giving us a heart to delight in His law.”

“Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecc. 12:13