If you’d like a free copy of Eve in Exile for someone on your Christmas list, leave a comment, and we’ll have a drawing on November 21 to see who wins!
Revving Up for Christmas
To register visit Canon Press!
webinar schedule:
November 29 and December 1, 10:00 – 11:00 AM Pacific Time (1:00 PM Eastern)
Session recordings will be available through December 20th.
In these sessions, Rachel will give practical encouragement for mothers preparing to celebrate. A realistic look at a glorious holiday – we will discuss traditions, joy, stress, laughter, giving, receiving, and worshiping.
Hey! Guess What!
So anyways, I wrote a book! What?!
(Is it unseemly to mention it? Possibly, possibly.) On the other hand, if I don’t mention it, how would you know that you could pre-order it and get the sale price? In fact, if you pre-order now I hear that it’s possible you may even receive your copy before the official release date of September 27. So there you go!
Oh. Did you want to know what it’s about? It’s about the whole, “What does it mean to be a faithful Christian woman” question. Does it mean we have to look and act like 1950s housewives? (Please no.) Does it mean we should fling ourselves into the corporate world and hope we get to witness to someone along the way? (That’s a pretty limp aspiration.) Should we care about the feminists? Should we agree with the feminists? Should we look at whatever the feminists are doing and then do the opposite? What is the chief end of woman? Do denim skirts turn out to be the key to all godliness and holiness? (You don’t have to buy the book – I’ll just tell you the answer to that one. The answer is no.) I tried to work through those kinds of questions in the book – in an attempt to offer a vision of what feminine faithfulness could look like right now, in the twenty-first century, as we look at the ever-quickening swirl of cultural chaos around us. How can we not merely stand against the crazy but actually use our uniquely feminine strengths to push back against the tide?
Mothering Flashback
Now that I am a Nana of seventeen wonderful grandkids, I have the leisure to look back at the “glory days” from a different perspective than I had when I was home in the trenches. If I could speak to that self of mine home with the littles, here are a few things I would say.
1. Repetition is a glorious thing! Enjoy the repeat performance every day.
2. Steward the events (the planned and especially the unplanned) of each day with contentment.
3. Pray more! Worry less. Much less.
4. Express thanks and praise every chance.
5. At the end of the day, never say, “I didn’t get anything done.”
And just to be fair, here are a few things I look back on with gratitude. Gratitude that God inspired us to do these things. They were far more potent than we realized at the time.
1. After-dinner reading that sometimes stretched on for hours.
2. Hot towels from the dryer after baths.
3. Jammy rides for ice cream and a visit to grandparents.
4. Open tap on the milk in the fridge.
5. Bedtime songs and stories.
Where is Wisdom?
Wisdom is intensely practical once you find it, and finding it is what we are to be doing. We are to “seek her as for silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures” (Proverbs 2:4).
But, ah, where do we find wisdom? This is Job’s question: “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?” (Job 28:12). If we are supposed to seek and search, where do we start digging?
Before the question is answered, Job points out two things: You can’t find wisdom anywhere on earth; and even if you could, there is not enough wealth on earth to buy it. Think of trying to put a price tag on the Pacific Ocean. And if the value could be ascertained, no one could afford it. That is like wisdom.
Job asks the question again in verse 20: “From where then does wisdom come? And where is the place of understanding?”
Answer: It is hidden from both the living and the dead (verses 21-22).
However, “God understands its way, and He knows its place” (vs. 23).
And then God provides us with the full answer: “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding'” (vs. 28).
So we have a two-fold answer to the question. We find wisdom by (1) fearing God, and we find understanding by (2) departing from evil.
We see this pairing of wisdom and understanding together elsewhere in Scripture, and we find the pairing of fearing God and departing from evil together as well.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments” (Psalm 111:10).
The more distance we put between ourselves and sin, the more we grow in wisdom. The more we obey God, the wiser we become. “There is no wisdom or understanding or counsel against the Lord” (Prov. 21:30). If you are getting advice or ideas that are contrary to the Lord and His Word, whatever it is, it is not wisdom. There is absolutely no wisdom that is against the Lord. Period.
“For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly” (Prov. 2:6-7).
Wisdom is for the upright. God has plenty stored up for those who want to do what He says. But for those who disobey God, those who interpret His commands loosely or disregard them all together, they are shut out from wisdom. They are wise in their own eyes, and that is the extent of their wisdom.
“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil” (Prov. 3:7). There it is again. Fear God. Obey His commands. Rather, be wise in God’s estimation, not your own. Fear God and do what He says.
Trials and Temptations
I’ve been thinking about different kinds of temptation lately – and something just struck me about the whole category of “mental” sins. When I say mental sins I am distinguishing them from those obvious and tangible sins like murder, rape, theft, adultery . . . although of course we do know that those things launched their careers as the purely mental sins of hatred, lust, or greed. Right now I’m talking about the sins that come to roost in your head like discontent, moping, anger, self-pity, or the inability to forgive – basically those sins that, one way or another, interfere with joy. You can look into Virtualtreatmentcenter.com and get virtual counseling with a therapist who can help you solve your problem.
They seem to always be provoked by an external trial of some sort – and that trial can be big or small, real or imagined. Maybe your house is too small, or your husband isn’t a spiritual leader, you don’t have a husband and wish you did, your best friend turned sour on you, your kids colored on the couch, you don’t have money to pay the bills, you were abused, or you are struggling with a crippling illness. Whatever it is, whether it is a genuine trial or just an imagined trial that could be filed under the category of first world problems (you don’t have very many followers on Instagram but you can see how the experts uses Instagram Likes kaufen to make this possible), the point is that this is the moment at which the temptation sprouts.
But here’s what I’ve noticed – there are always two things in play. The objective trial is one thing – the temptation to sin about it is another. But temptation is a master of disguise, and what it usually does is pretend to be the trial itself. I think that falling for this little ruse can often be why we struggle with something that just seems unconquerable – we’re looking at and fighting against the wrong thing and that’s why we don’t get the victory. Read More