mission

Let us stake the flag of Christ's kingdom into the soil of our first waking moment. Drink your coffee when you get up, of course, but drink it to the glory of God. Then carry on in this way all day, no matter the task, be it menial or notable, so that each day may be a living prayer that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what it means to live a gospel-saturated life: it means being so conscious of the greatness of the gospel that changing diapers or cutting the grass is as much an act of worship as singing a praise chorus in a church service….Jesus Christ is Lord over my heart, and he is Lord over my hands, and he is Lord over what I do with these hands, and he is Lord over what I say in my heart while I'm doing it. In submitting to the lordship of Christ, then, I do not treat washing dishes as wasting time I could be spending doing something "meaningful," but rather as a service to those who eat in my home, as a service to those who would have to wash the dishes if I did not, and as an offering of thanksgiving to God that I have food to eat, dishes to eat it on, and running water inside my home to clean with.To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, there is not a square inch of our lives that is not claimed by God and counterclaimed by ourselves. If we believe God is sovereign, however, we will see all of life as mission and be led to submit the square inches we otherwise hold so tightly to the Maker of inches and hands.

These words are from this post by David Mathis, quoting Jared Wilson from his book Gospel Wakefulness.

stewardship and thanksgiving

Too often our advice to unmarried adults stems from worldly thinking that infects us all. We give advice to improve and equip the unmarried adult to attract better relationships, rather than reminding them they are stewards of whatever relationships they have been given.


This post on singleness from Carolyn McCulley at the Radical Womanhood blog is great. The whole thing is helpful, but this line especially hit me over the head. And because today is Thanksgiving Day, i'm thankful for all of the Godly counsel i get from blogs like hers, and his, and his, and hers, and hers, and hers, and from here, and here. And more too, probably. 


'Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, for His love endures forever.' Psalm 136:1

love and respect

' God does not want a bunch of women at home with discontent and fussy spirits, and He does not want us at home burying our talent in the ground. The Lord wants us here to do His work, to do what we are able to do. He wants our children to grow up in a place of joyful and loving faithfulness.  If we struggle with joy,  it is not as though there is no hope. We simply need to look for some tangible ways to love our homes, and our calling in them. And if we struggle with fulfillment, we need to look for some tangible ways to respect the work we are doing. Honor your calling by working hard, by pushing yourself to grow, to learn, to give. When you love, the object of that love grows more lovely. When you respect, the object of that respect becomes more worthy of it.'

this post is interesting and timely as i identify some of these things (lack of respect for what i have/get to do, mostly) in my own heart. i'd really never thought about it like this.

caught and convicted

So i just read this article entitled 'Are You an Internet Busy-Body?' and i knew before i even read it that it was written just for me. And i'm glad it was. i've been thinking about this for a while now but didn't think it out like the author did, or find scripture to get to the heart of the problem. And Lord willing, this will be a tool in my belt to get to the bottom of my heart and topple the idols there. 

'teaching our girls to cry'

This post by A. Dunagan at Passionate Homemaking resonates with me. 

waste your life?

from jon bloom's article Jesus wants you to waste your life on the desiring God blog:


Jesus wants you to waste your life like Mary wasted her perfume. For it is no true waste. It is true worship. A poured out life of love for Jesus that counts worldly gain as loss displays how precious he really is. It preaches to a bewildered, disdainful world that Christ is gain and the real waste is gaining the world’s perfumes and losing one’s soul in the process (Matthew 16:26).

halloween

basically i just re-post justin taylor all the time. here's another good one: a quote from david mathis' article on the subject of october 31. 

What if we saw October 31 not merely as an occasion for asking self-oriented questions about our participation (whether we should or shouldn’t dress the kids up or carve pumpkins), but for pursuing others-oriented acts of love? What if we capitalized on the opportunity to take a step forward in an ongoing process of witnessing to our neighbors, co-workers, and extended families about who Jesus is and what he accomplished at Calvary for the wicked like us?

What if we resolved not to join the darkness by keeping our porch lights off? What if we didn’t deadbolt our doors, but handed out the best treats in the neighborhood as a faint echo of the kind of grace our Father extends to us sinners?

also, just to clarify what is me and what is another person's words, i'm going to put quotes in italics from here out.