Definition of an idol

You may want to read this before you move to the next post on Broken Glass so that you can better understand what I mean by idols.

We're coming to the end of a Bible study called No Other Gods by Kelly Minter and she defines idols this way.
"It is something other than God that we set our hearts on, that motivates us, that masters and rules us, or that we trust, fear or serve. An idol can also be referred to as a 'false god' or a 'functional god'." The things that become our idols start out, sometimes, as things that are not necessarily good or bad but have become "detrimental simply because you desire it too much."

Mark Driscoll defines idols this way...
"Take everything that you hold dear and let it go. What would bring you the most pain if it was taken away from you? That is your idol!"

Pick which ever explanation makes that most sense to you and remember that as you read the references to idols in the next post.

Broken Glass

We have one week left of Bible study and I have to say that I'm going to miss these girls when it's over!  I have had such a great time and have learned so much during these times together.  We started a project last week that we finished up today as it pertains to the idols in our lives.  

Each person chose something to bring in last week to break.  Now I would love to say that I came up with all of this idea on my own but I didn't.  I got the breaking idea from another blog that I follow called Bring the Rain the Story of Audrey Caroline but the application I did come up with myself (technically it was God but that's a whole other story for another time!).  Anyway, the idea was to break something as an act of walking away from your idol.  Think about this, women + breakable object + hammer= really cheap therapy!!!!!  It was actually quite fun...

Anyway, so last Tuesday and Thursday that's what we did.  We spent time pounding on breakable items as we committed to give those areas of our lives over to God.  The broken pieces that resulted from our hammering served to represent what our idols can do to us if we allow ourselves to continue to live for and worship them.  We end up in pieces not quite sure of how to put everything back where it needs to go.  Essentially, our idols will break us if we're left in their hold long enough.

So this week, we took our pieces and began to glue them together.  We pieced them together not to put our idols back together because the pieces aren't the idol.  The pieces are us and the glue that begins to fix the mess of pieces is God.

So to help you get the full picture of what we did, I thought I would share my object with you along with a story that I put together in hopes of bringing this whole project full circle.  So here goes.....

Psalm 130:

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;

O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.”

So the process begins, He sorts through the pieces and decides just where to begin. 

“But with you there is forgiveness….and in

his word I put my hope.”

He finds two pieces and glues them together.

“with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.”

Another pieces is added.

We begin to slowly see what is happening and we want so badly to turn from our idols and never turn back.  God has different plans; to turn away would be too easy.  Why?

As women, we’re usually pretty good at masking what’s going on inside by making the outside look pleasing for a time.  After a time though, you begin to implode, sending pieces of yourself crashing to the floor.  What looked perfect on the outside is now in complete shambles leaving us with little idea of how it got that way.  So God gently guides us to face our idols with a change of heart.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean:

I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all of your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

A few more pieces are picked up and glued back into place.

The journey is long and we’ve become weak and would like nothing more than to throw in the towel.  This is painful, this is work, this takes perseverance  and some patience on top of that.  I can’t do this anymore and for sure if I knew it would be like this I wouldn’t have signed up for it! 

It’s OK! He says. 

Jesus says:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

1 Corinthians 12:9

Again, more pieces get added.

Just trust in Me I will help you in this.  Let’s start with baby steps because I can see that trusting is not easy.  Trust me in the small things and you’ll soon see that you can trust me for the big things too.

“I lift my eyes up to the hills-

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip-

he who watches over you will not slumber;

indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you-

the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm-

he will watch over your life;

the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.”

Psalm 121

So piece by piece it goes, the One that created you in your mother’s womb to begin with does it again.  With a mighty but gentle hand He puts you back together again, according to the plan that He has for your life.  He continues carefully and diligently piece after piece until “you are His new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.”  Yes, there are cracks and divots but in His eyes you’re perfect just the way you are.  He made you and He doesn’t make mistakes.  Yes, we make mistakes and we screw up but He loves us with an everlasting love. 

It’s at times like this, Satan would want us to believe there’s no possible way that God would put us back together and then use us for his glory.  After all, we’re cracked and broken.  Brittle to the touch!  Who would want to use a girl and her ugly story for God’s glory?  So in those times (and they’ll come!), pray in the same way that the man in Mark 9:24 did:

“Everything is possible for him who believes.  Immediately

the boy’s father exclaimed,

“I do believe!  Help me in my unbelief!”

 

It IS the little things....

I LOVE my couples small group, if you're not in one I HIGHLY suggest that you join one!! (Go to cumberlandonline.org click on small groups and go from there!)   Bruce and I are truly blessed to be surrounded by 4 other couples that we get together with on a weekly basis to talk about God and do life together.  We have such unique personalities that make up our group as well and it makes for a fun and eventful time when we get together.  Right now, we're going through The Story of God by Tommy Nelson, which sparks some seriously interesting conversations at times.  Last night was one of those nights.

We approached the end of our discussion time when I brought up this interesting line from The Story of God: "Living for God means that little things count: stopping at stop signs, being completely honest on your income tax, and voluntarily limiting your legitimate freedoms to avoid conflict with someone who might be offended by such behavior."

In my opinion, we live in a society where we're encouraged to take short-cuts and cut corners when we feel pressed for time or because of a lack of convenience for ourselves.  How many times do you catch yourself cruising through the stop sign (since it was one of the examples listed) instead of coming to a complete stop like you're supposed to?  I do it daily depending on how late I am for an appointment or for picking up carpool.  Or what about obeying the speed limits either on the regular streets or the highway?  Again, I'm totally guilty depending on the situation but none-the-less, guilty.  Yet, I don't exactly feel guilty about doing these things as I'm sure many other people don't either.  But clearly I should feel convicted and as a result want to change my ways.  Why?  Because, as a Christian, I am called to obey those that are in authority over me and those are the ones that put these laws into place.  Do I have to like it? No, but I do have a responsibility to obey them.

How Did Sarah feel about it?

So, I'm at my Tuesday evening Bible study last night.  We were continuing in No Other Gods by Kelly Minter when we came across an interesting topic of conversation.  In fact it was so interesting it left some of us speechless!  We were discussing the chapter on saying good-bye to our idols and had reached the last day of that week's study.  This particular day focused on Abraham and his son, Isaac, as they went on their three day journey to offer God a sacrifice (to put it ever so lightly!).  Abraham knew that Isaac was going to be offered as the sacrifice even though God had promised Abraham he would be the father of many nations and this was his only son born from he and Sarah in their old age.  (Read their story in Genesis chapters 12 through 23.  You can also learn more about Sarah and Abraham in Beth Moore's study The Patriarchs.) 

Anyway, the discussion was this: Did Sarah know what the plan was or did Abraham keep it from her?  If Sarah did know the plan, as a mother, how do you let your only son walk out the door to that fate?  Then, if you're Isaac what are you feeling when you realize that you're the sacrifice?

Some of us wanted to believe that Sarah was left in the dark so to speak because no woman is going to allow her only child to walk out the door to that kind of fate.  Which I guess is a great reason that I, nor other women in that room, was not chosen by God to be Sarah or even Mary, the mother of Jesus, for that matter!  If so, things would have been all screwed up for sure!  There would be NO WAY I would be sending my child out to be the sacrifice, I would have told my husband that he had lost his ever loving mind!!!!!  " Do you know how long it took us to get this precious boy and you want to do what with him?!  You have got to be kidding!!!!!  NO WAY!!"

And so it goes with us.....everyday that's what we say to God.  "No way can I do that!"  "You have got to be out of your mind if you think I can change my ways now..."  So on and so on.  Think about those questions that were sparked from those events in Genesis between Isaac and Abraham that came up in our discussion.  Fast forward through a couple of lineage lines and hundreds of years and we see the same story.

The part of Abraham will now be played by God, the part of Isaac will now be played by none other than Jesus and the part of Sarah is now Mary.  The difference, a ram caught in a thicket took Isaac's place so that he was spared death.  Jesus had no one or animal to take his place, He was the sacrifice.

Mary knew the fate of the child she would bear.....what if she had said no?  What if God, after writing Jesus' life story changed it because it was to much for him, as a father, to bear?  Jesus knew from the beginning what would transpire, what if he said it was just not convenient for him to do that, it just  wouldn't fit into his schedule?

What would it take for us to change our point of view and say "yes" to God instead of "that's really not what I was thinking, what if we do things my way instead?"  Or instead of saying "that's not convenient for me" we said, "God, I'll schedule a time for you daily."

Thinking back over our discussion, I have to believe that Sarah was a yes woman.  I think that she said yes to Abraham's plan to take Isaac with him as a sacrifice because she trusted God no matter what.  She knew that God had plans for her family that were from a God that loved them with an everlasting love.  For her, that made all the difference.  I believe when "her boys" returned that she hugged them harder than she ever had and loved them more than she ever had and her faith in her God was stronger than it had ever been.   She was the woman of God, the wife and mother that each of us has the chance to be in our own lifetimes and in our own families.

What's Worship?

We had a great Sunday morning at Cumberland today!  Michael Olson talked to us about worship and what that really is as we finished out the series Soundtrack.  He raised some very interesting points as he taught from Luke 7:36-50. If you're not familiar with this passage it's about the sinful woman that washed Jesus' feet with her tears and then wiped them with her hair.  I know, not what comes to mind when you think of worship.  For many of us I think we connect worship with the music and songs that we sing at church.  I think that's correct to a point.  Worship, I have learned, is much more than that which is the point that Michael laid out for us.

In a recent Bible study that I did by Denise Glenn called Keeping the Secrets of Jesus for Women, she along with Betsy Brown discuss this topic of worship.  In both the study by Denise Glenn and Michael's sermon this morning they both delve into the real meaning of the word worship.  The Greek word that worship comes from is proskuneo, which means to show reverence to; to kiss ( and Michael expanded on this to mean the way a dog would kiss the hand of his master).  No where in this definition does it say anything about music.  Which is so interesting since we call our time of singing praise and worship!  So is worship not about singing? Is worship actions or things that you do?

I think it's an "and both" situation.  Meaning, it's a time of singing but it's not a time of singing for singing sake.  It's a time for singing to the one who is our Creator as we show reverence to our King.  The King who sent his son to die for us, not  because we deserved it but because of his love for us.  His Son that shed blood for us who are not even worthy of carrying his dusty sandals.  It is something that you do in response to what Jesus did for you and for me.  That is why we sing.  That is why some raise their hands or even dance.  It's even why some people fall to their knees in earnest prayer. 

Now, have I always felt this way about worship?  Uh, no.  I did not even know the true meaning of worship until I did this study by Denise Glenn and I've been a Christian for most of my life!!!!  I thought worship was just something we did before the preacher stood up to give the sermon.  You know, a time to stretch your legs before you had to sit for 45+ minutes or so. 

So, do I feel differently about it now that I have learned the true meaning and heard the sermon this morning?  Absolutely!!!!  Now I know that there's a true purpose for this part of my Sunday morning, not just something that's a part of a routine.  I also learned that there's a time for individual worship and a time for corporate worship (Sunday morning/church body).  It really makes a lot of sense once you begin to take the time to learn and understand it piece by piece.  I, by know means, am finished with learning about this great topic because I'm so sure that I have so much more to uncover and learn about this.  So don't take this as your education on worship.  This is just simply where I am and what I've learned this far on my own journey.

If you want to learn more about worship, I HIGHLY recommend Denise's study.  You can order Keeping the Secrets of Jesus for Women  from her websitewww.motherwise.org.

As I said, I'm still learning so if you have recommendations for me please shoot them my way!

Food and Friends

So we're about half way through the study No Other Gods by Kelly Minter and have had an amazing time so far in both of our evening and morning groups. It's funny how different the groups are from one another, they are literally as different as night and day (pardon the pun!).

The evening girls are working women some with families and some that are single. They are a get to the point bunch that grab some coffee and a little dessert and they are ready to get started! The daytime group are all stay-at-home moms who like to come in and get their coffee and chat for a while before they get down to wanting to start the week's discussion. The daytime girls are also not afraid to get up and get something to eat in the midst of our discussions, something rarely done in the evening group! Two different groups of women that foster two different atmospheres.....I love them both!!!!!

So with all this talk about food, I wanted to share with you two recipes that we have enjoyed together so far during this study. They are fabulous!!!!!!

Butterfinger Cake (from the evening group)

1 box Devil's food cake mix
10 oz. cola or diet cola
1 egg white
7 oz. sweetened condensed milk
2 T. peanut butter
8 oz. frozen whipped topping, thawed
7 Nestle fun-size Butterfinger candy bars

Combine cake mix, cola and egg white. Bake accordingly to cake mix instructions in a greased 9x13 pan. A few minutes before the cake is to be done, combine sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter in a saucepan. Cook and stir on low to make creamy and warm.

When cake is done and still hot, poke holes in top of cake with a knife and pour peanut butter mixture over top of cake. You may have to spread the mixture a little to help it go down into the holes. Sprinkle top with half of the chopped candy bars. Cool cake completely.

Cover with Cool Whip and sprinkle remaining candy bars over top. Keep in fridge until ready to serve.

Becker's Pasta
(from the daytime group)

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 lb. bowtie pasta
2 pkg. sun-dried tomatoes,
softened according to package instructions and cut into strips

1 garlic head

1 can pitted black olives, chopped
16 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 c pine nuts, toasted

Slice chicken in bite-sized pieces and saute with sun-dried tomatoes and minced garlic until the chicken is cooked through. Cook pasta according to package directions. In a large bowl, mix crumbled feta, pine nuts, and chopped olives. After the chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, and garlic have been sauteed, add them into the bowl of dry ingredients and toss thoroughly. When pasta is cooked, add it to the mixing bowl and toss again. The pasta is then ready to serve.

*These recipes are from the Bible study No Other Gods by Kelly Minter. These and other recipes are available on her website www.livingroomseries.com.

These are FABULOUS recipes and are perfect if you need something to make for your small group or of course, your family. They are easy to make and feed a ton of people! Grab the book for the great food and a great study!

The closet....

So I took all 4 of my kids on a quick errand with me after church today and let me just go ahead and tell you that I was alone. So we go into one of my favorite shops in downtown Franklin in search of a certain pair of shoes that Claire wanted to buy with some birthday money that she got from her Gramma. Claire and I are in the front of the store while Jack, Tucker and Ellie had ventured to the back of the store because they like this stool that is shaped like a rock climbing wall in the shoe section.

As luck would have it, boys will be boys and that's exactly how they were acting towards their little sister. Jack decided to push Ellie into the store room (so I'm told) and when he did he closed the door to keep her from coming out which then caused the boxes and shelving that were being held up behind the door to fall and basically trap her inside. I discovered all of this when I went back to round up the troops to end what I thought was an uneventful trip for once! So I manage to get her out of the store room and put everything back the way it was before the Brady kids showed up and everything was calm and well with the world. I picked up Ellie, wiped away her tears, gave Jack "the look" and then quickly apologized to the guy running the store and we were on our way.

As irritated/angry as I was at Jack, God used this situation to remind me of the study that we began this week. I think for a lot of us, myself included, when we figure out what our idols are we begin to feel a lot like Ellie did.....trapped! She felt totally helpless and afraid that she wasn't going to get out of the store room, a place that she shouldn't have been in the first place but found herself none-the-less. She was helpless to clear out all of the junk that had fallen and boxed her in, it was truly to much for her to move on her own. Idols will do that to you and sometimes it's when you least expect it. We find ourselves trapped in the middle of the junk that our idols bring totally overwhelmed at what we have to do to get ourselves out. It seems easier to stand there and cry than to muster all of the strength that we have to move the junk out of the way.

It took a few minutes but I managed to get the door open and wiggle my arm in and maneuver some of the stuff and eventually get her out. I think that's what God does for us when we begin to realize that breaking away from our idols is way more than we can do ourselves. Yes, we got ourselves into the mess but he cares for and loves us so much that He comes in and carefully and methodically frees us from our messes. All we have to do is stand there and cry out for help.