News Flash: Read Carol At The IAHE Blog, Too

The Indiana Association of Home Educators (IAHE) has their new blog up and running, designed to equip and to serve.  I have been invited to be a contributor, and I hope you will be inspired when you read what I'm writing there, too.  I'll still be writing here at Unsmotherable Delight, but I thought you might like to know where else I'm writing.

As always, my aim is to uplift and encourage you to trust in our mighty God in whatever endeavor He has called you to, whether homeschooling or another passion of His heart.  So even if you're not homeschooling, I believe you'll be blessed by what you read at the IAHE's new blog, too.

I called today's post Jehovah's Morning Manna.

Here's a sampling. . .

O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! Psalm 34:8

“Daddy, what is it?”  That’s what the Israelites’ children must have been asking when they first saw manna—the tiny flake-like bread that appeared with the dew. They named it manna, meaning literally, “What is it?”  (See Exodus 16)

Can you just imagine the other questions they must have been asking?  How does God know where we are?  How does He know how much we need?  Why is it always just the right amount?  Why must we gather it every morning?

God’s people were in the wilderness, and they were hungry.  The Lord saw their need, and sent this mystery bread from heaven to feed each one of them.  They discovered it tasted like wafers with honey, and they found it there for them every single morning until the day after they first ate the produce of the Promised Land.  (See Joshua 5:12)  The only exception was Sabbaths, when they had tasty leftovers—which, too, was a miracle in itself.

Think of such a provision!  Wouldn’t it be great—to know the Lord would provide each day exactly what you need?!

Actually, He can, He will, and He does.  Okay, it’s not necessarily outside on your front lawn, and you can’t usually cook it in a pot, but He does.

To read the rest, you can follow this link.

So What? Part Three: Spent and Expended

I've noticed something.  When I'm struggling hard to accomplish something, there's a part of me that really longs for the job to be easier.  I tend to push back and fight against something that seems so very hard--that is, until someone tells me it's normal for it to be that exhausting, to have to work so hard at it.  And then, it's as if a great deal of the weight is somehow lifted, though it really is just as heavy as it ever was.  Somehow, just knowing it's okay to pour everything I have into something makes it easier to do.

Our culture tends to encourage us to look for the easiest way around, or out of, any challenge.  You know, "You deserve a break."  Yet we know in our hearts that anything truly worth doing will take a tremendous investment.

Why is mothering so exhausting?  Why does discipling our children require so much effort?  Why does compassion have to require so much of us?

There's something about being spent for somebody else's welfare that brings a satisfaction unequal to any other.  And it's not just somebody off the street saying so.  Our dear Savior was willing to take the most costly route to our rescue.  "You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold. . . but with precious blood, . . .the blood of Christ."  (I Peter 1:18-19)

Yes, my heart says, but He was God; He had the strength to do it. . .

But then I look further into the testimonies of the saints, and I see what God did through an ordinary man who visited Thessalonica.  "We proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.  Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives because you had become very dear to us."  (I Thessalonians 2:7-8)

And when he was worried that they might have fallen prey to temptation, the good news of their faith and love was his comfort, as he says, "Now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord."  (I Thessalonians 3:8)  He didn't have adequate words to thank God enough for the joy he experienced on their account, they whom he described as his glory, hope, joy and crown of exultation.  Really living, for him, was all about their success.

This life poured out on behalf of others was no drudgery, but he rejoiced to do it.  "Even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all."   And he called others to join in this life of being spent for others.  "And you, too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me."  (Philippians 2:17-18)

This man, who sang in prison and who called others to rejoice, in letters he wrote from prison, found his joy in being poured out for others.  "I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. . ." (II Corinthians 12:15)  Wow!

As did his Lord before him.

". . . Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart."  (Hebrews 12:2-3)

We start with opening our eyes, and then our hearts, to the needs around us.  Then, and only then, is the overwhelming and paradoxical joy of being spent and expended for someone else even a possibility.

If we never knew hunger or thirst, we'd never know the joy of having it satisfied.  If we were never cold, we'd never know the comfort of warmth.  If we never were sad, we'd never understand the soaring heights of joy.  And if we never let ourselves be expended for someone else's need, we'd never know the incomparable joy of being a part of meeting that need as the hands and feet of Jesus.

So I've stopped asking why it has to be hard.  I've stopped fighting against being poured out.  I'm resting in the truths I've found in His Word.  It's okay, even right, to spend and be expended for somebody else's soul.  It's what we were made for.

But that's not all.  It gets way better than that!

Even more refreshing to my soul is this:  No matter how much we are poured out, we can't ever be run dry.  Why?  Because it isn't our strength, our love, or our anything, after all.  It's His.

His life is indestructible.  (Hebrews 7:16)

His compassions are new every morning.  (Lamentations 3:23)

His lovingkindness is everlasting.  (Psalm 118:1)

He never becomes weary or tired.  (Isaiah 40:28)

As we are spent, He fills us up.  When we are weak, His power is strong in us.  (See II Corinthians 12:7-10)  There's no exhausting our supply, because His inexhaustible supply is what He pours right through us!  "Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap.  For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return."  (Luke 6:38)

It's not up to us to drum all this up.  It is the Lord who will cause us to increase and abound--as in "to be alive with, abundant, and overflow"--in love.  (See I Thessalonians 3:12)

Oh, let's not hold back from seeing, feeling or giving! And then--let's look forward to not being able to hold back the joy!

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know. . . what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. . . . Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen."  (Ephesians 1:18-19; 3:20-21)

So What? Part Two: Emotionally Entangled

I've tried to wrap my mind around it every which way, but I can't come up with a way to have compassion without emotional entanglement.  Compassion literally means to 'suffer with' someone.  If you take emotion out of it, you can't feel anything with anyone at all.  It just can't be done.

Things would be so much easier if compassion were only an option, just a preference for those naturally bent that way--but it's not.  "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion. . ." (Colossians 3:12)  Compassion is to be our way of life, not optional equipment.

The second half of compassion is the desire to do something to alleviate the suffering you first feel with someone, but most of us rarely go that far.  It only stands to reason that the second half should follow naturally if we truly suffered with someone, so I'm beginning to wonder if the reason we often don't express the second part of compassion is that we haven't let ourselves do the first half.  We don't want to know, and we don't allow ourselves to be informed, so we won't make that emotional connection.  Maybe we're afraid to cry.  Maybe we're afraid of what it will cost us.

But the question really is, "What will my lack of emotional entanglement cost someone else?"

If, like Galatians 2:20 says, we no longer live, but Christ lives in us, then the compassionate heart of Jesus should be clearly evident in us.  Jesus wept with Lazarus' sisters and wept over Jerusalem, and He was moved with compassion to heal sick people (Matthew 14:14), to give sight to blind men (Matthew 20:34), to touch and cleanse a leper (Mark 1:41), to teach distressed and dispirited people (Matthew 9:36, Mark 6:34), to feed hungry people so they wouldn't faint on the way home (Matthew 15:32), and to resurrect a widow's son and give him back to his mama (Luke 7:12-15).  He let Himself feel with the people and be moved to act on their behalf.

I see in the example of Jesus that He means for us to get emotionally entangled; it's right to feel things so deeply that it moves us to tears and to action.  When questioned by the religious elite over His time spent with the needy and despised, He said, ". . . Go and learn what this means:  'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' .  . ." (Matthew 9:13)

Breaking the cycle of apathy begins with opening our eyes, and it continues with opening our hearts.

Oh, Lord, let our hearts be broken over the things that break Your heart.

Please, Lord, make us feel what You feel, weep over what makes You weep, and move us to make a difference in Your name.