909

9 years ago today, our dear Isaiah came into our lives and changed us forever.

Although we'd picked out his name way before he was born --a la Isaiah 49:1b, I would dare say--
we lovingly referred to him as 909 for the first few days after he was born because his birth date matched the number on my dad's steam train engine, the 909.

Now, in hindsight, it seems wrong to have given him a number like that. How impersonal, right? Yet, in many ways, it was fitting. Why? Well, for one...he turned out to be quite the number guy.

Okay, that was weak. True, yes, but weak. I promise I can do better than that.

I believe it was fitting to refer to him as 909 because there are probably 909 ways God has used Isaiah to sanctify us, to help us see how small we are and how big He is, to praise Him for the way He has helped us parent him, and to simply marvel at His handiwork--Psalm 139.

Yes,  I say it's fitting because there are at least 100 such lessons we've learned for every year of Isaiah's life...and now that he's 9, it's finally time for the 'reaping'.  909, the count is up, pretty much....so to speak. You've been turned on the turntable, 909. Your fire's been stoked...and you're on your own track. Let it rip!

What am I saying? Basically, here's what I'm trying to say: the past 9 years have been mostly about what God is doing in us and through us as parents. But I'd say in the last month or so, the scale has tipped in a major way. God is most evidently at work in Isaiah's life, and though it is a huge encouragement to us, it really isn't about us. It's about Isaiah and his growth in the Lord.

Sure, he prayed 'the prayer' when he was 4, but the wheels are really turning now. God has been fanning the flame so that his faith is really taking off.

His recent peek into his own heart has made him realize his need for the cross.
He's no longer a Pharisee...but the publican beating his chest.

Like the psalmist, Isaiah now knows how it is to feel the weight of sin and to no longer want to hide it.
He now knows how freeing it is to confess and be cleansed --and so he does it regularly.
He now knows that the Lord looks at the heart more than the outward appearance.
He now knows he needs to set boundaries to avoid temptations.
He now knows he needs God's help to get through the day.

He gets it! Our do-gooder really gets it! As a parent, it's both painful and beautiful to watch. It's...a miracle, really. Like a new birth. And it's out of our hands...the real stuff that's happening. Oh, we can still influence his thinking and we can still teach him...but the real, I mean genuine heart change, that's God's territory.

909, we are overjoyed that you've entered God's territory.  We pray for at least 9 more years of entering deeper into that territory together and learning hundreds of lessons along the way.

We love you so much, it makes us ache!

Happy 9th Birthday to the most wonderful son we could ever hope for!

Seeing and Praying Like A Child

Brielle recently borrowed my camera while we were babysitting her cousins at their house. The following are some of the pictures she took. They remind me of one of Ann Voskamp's chapters in One Thousand Gifts where her daughter goes around the house and takes snapshots of this and that. Like Voskamp, I was struck by the angles of the camera and by how things look different from 3 ft high. It reminded me of Voskamp's point...that is, that we should see life through a child's eyes...so that God and the gifts He so freely gives can be magnified in our sight.

I also just read Andree Seu's essay Daddy's Girl from this month's issue of World...and again felt admonished to be like a child before Him, not only in the matter of perception...but also in the way I approach Him. To be childlike as I bring my requests to Him. Not to worry about appearances or eloquence...but to be true and honest with what's in my heart. All of it! The silly desires, the shameful passions, the heartaches, the bothers. He knows them all, anyway...and He cares.

Seu also pointed out that children are often in tune with what their parent is doing... and can usually respond quickly to his or her bidding. I immediately thought of my 2-year-old nephew Adam and his constant desire to know what the closest grown-up in his life is doing, "What you're doing, Auntie?" came out of his mouth many times throughout the day this last week when we had him for a couple of days...and I know his mom's days are peppered with that inquiry.  Am I like that with my Father? Am I on the lookout for what the Holy Spirit is doing around me?  Do I strive to be 'in tune' with Him?

This summer, with my kids up close and personal, I want to watch them carefully so I can learn to see from a child's pespective, pray with a child's honesty, and look for what God is doing the way Adam does.



Brielle and Renee. Oh, to have such bright eyes to see God's world!



More Than Conqueror

Saw this on Justin Taylor's blog and had to post it here because it's so good!!

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

(Romans 8:37)

John Piper asks:

What does “more than conquerors” mean?

How can you be more than a conqueror when you risk for the cause of God and get hurt for it?

Answer:

If you venture some act of obedience that magnifies the supreme value of Jesus Christ and get attacked by one of the enemies mentioned in verse 35, say, famine or sword, what must happen for you to be called simply “a conqueror”? Answer: You must not be separated from the love of Jesus Christ. The aim of the attacker is to destroy you, and cut you off from Christ, and bring you to final ruin without God. You are a conqueror if you defeat this aim and remain in the love of Christ. God has promised that this will happen. Trusting this, we risk.
But what must happen in this conflict with famine and sword if you are to be called more than a conqueror? One biblical answer is that a conqueror defeats his enemy, but one who is more than a conqueror subjugates his enemy. A conqueror nullifies the purpose of his enemy; one who is more than a conqueror makes the enemy serve his own purposes. A conqueror strikes down his foe; one who is more than a conqueror makes his foe his slave.
Practically what does this mean? Let’s use Paul’s own words in 2 Corinthians 4:17: “This slight momentary affliction is preparing [effecting, or working, or bringing about] for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” Here we could say that “affliction” is one of the attacking enemies. What has happened in Paul’s conflict with it? It has certainly not separated him from the love of Christ. But even more, it has been taken captive, so to speak. It has been enslaved and made to serve Paul’s everlasting joy. “Affliction,” the former enemy, is now working for Paul. It is preparing for Paul “an eternal weight of glory.” His enemy is now his slave. He has not only conquered his enemy. He has more than conquered him.
Affliction raised his sword to cut off the head of Paul’s faith. But instead the hand of faith snatched the arm of affliction and forced it to cut off part of Paul’s worldliness. Affliction is made the servant of godliness and humility and love. Satan meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. The enemy became Paul’s slave and worked for him an even greater weight of glory than he would have ever had without the fight. In that way Paul—and every follower of Christ—is more than a conqueror.

—John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), pp. 96-97.