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**Vulnerabili*tea**

Community, Faith, forbearance, Knowing God, Teatime Qualities / By teri / August 8, 2023 July 25, 2023 / be gentle, fragile, vunerable

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vuln*er*a*bili*tea /ˌvəl-n(ə-)rə-ˈbi-lə-tē / noun 1. the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally while self-medicating with a cup of chamomile.

People with life-threatening injuries and illnesses are acutely aware of something that most of us forget—human frailty. Our bodies and minds are resilient and fragile, strong and weak, shielded and vulnerable—what a fantastic paradox we are—like ceramic pots.

My daughter Anna brought back gifts from Costa Rica, including some “indestructible” pots. The street merchant banged them against his table to demonstrate the strength of his merchandise. An excited Anna explained his sales pitch and struck one on a table; it cracked.

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Patsy Clairemont describes herself as a cracked pot and invites us to be honest and acknowledge that we’re broken too. Sin makes cracked pots of us all. In Scripture, we read, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7). God gets more glory working through our weaknesses than through our strengths. He wants us to hide in Him because we are so vulnerable. And our ancient foe likes knocking cracked pots off the shelf because he wants to break us and extinguish the Light.

I recently attended a large writers’ conference and found myself battling insomnia. Each night of the meeting, I slept 3 hours or less; by day three, I was well aware of my frailty.

I’m a thick-skinned, transparent extrovert, and without any filter, I can be flat-out obnoxious. My unbridled tongue kept sparking wildfires because I am not a perfect woman (James 3:2, 5 – 6). I didn’t mean to be unkind with my words. I don’t intentionally hurt people, but without enough sleep to be fully alert, Satan had a heyday with me and offend people I did.

I praise God that He knows my frame. He gets that I’m a dirt clod, and He faithfully picks me up and cleanses me off again and again. I love Psalm 103:10 – 14.

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“He has not treated us as our sins deserve or paid us back for our offenses,
His mercy toward those who fear him is as far above earth as heaven.
He has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

Just as a father has compassion on his children,
Adonai has compassion on those who fear him.
For he understands how we are made, he remembers that we are dust.” (CJB)

I’m glad He remembers I’m broken and doesn’t give up on repairing me. We must be mindful—whether we feel fragile or not—we are. Our first parents were vulnerable to Satan’s attacks in a perfect paradise even though God was a breath away. He’s still a breath away. Let’s learn to call on Him; depend on Him.

Most of all, remember that the annoying person in the room is just as vulnerable as us. Let’s be gracious to each other. In the Gospels, we learn Jesus instructed the disciples to buy swords. They told Jesus they had two, and He said that would do. Peter brought one along to the garden of Gethsemane and hacked the ear off the High Priest’s servant defending Jesus. Like Peter, we often confuse when to act and speak with when to restrain ourselves. Just like Jesus healed the soldier’s ear and told Peter to put the sword away, I trust Him to heal the ears and hearts of those I hurt.

Jesus can fix all the problems cracked pots and ailing people make. In our vulnerability, He still loves us and continues to grow and use us. I love this acronym P.B.P.G.I.F.W.M.Y. on a button I received at a Bill Gothard seminar in the 1980s. It stands for please, be patient; God isn’t finished with me yet. So, I’m drinking chamomile to be calm because Jesus will carry on!

National All or Nothing Day—July 26, 2023

Faith, forgiveness, Knowing God, the Bible God's Word / By teri / July 25, 2023 July 12, 2023 / all or nothing, forgiven, sinner or saint?

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Will you give God everything?

“Do or do not. There is no try.” ~ Yoda. The little green guy with long ears may have had a false impression of the true Force, but he was definitely on to something. When it comes to seeking God or following Jesus, it really is all or nothing. “Take up your cross (a Roman execution instrument),” “Lay down your life,” and “Give away all that you have and follow Me.” These are startling invitations, but this is the Gospel. Jesus isn’t asking us to do what He hasn’t already done.

Jesus gave up a perfect home to be born in a barn and rub shoulders with sinners. He often rubbed them the wrong way. Before He ever paid the horrific death penalty we owed to God, He called sinners to repent. I’ll paraphrase it like this, Jesus said, “Turn away from life as you know it because you’re dead men walking. You’re like zombies traipsing off a cliff. Turn around; I am the way, the truth, and the life. Everything else in this world, except the whispers from my defiled creation, are lies.”

We all come into God’s family by new birth. I’ve never seen a partial person or half a baby. People may have physical defects, but sin defiles us all. Yup, sin is another all-or-nothing concept.

All have sinned. All have come short of God’s glory; there are none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10, 23). Yet a miraculous change happens at the new birth, we get a complete blood transfusion, and the infection of spiritual death is no more. Completely G-O-N-E! And while we struggle with sin in our skin (the flesh), the penalty is paid in full. So where are you at today with Jesus?

Do you have all of His forgiveness or none of it? Personally, I’d rather die and live forever than live a drop-in-bucket life and die for all eternity paying for my sins. Born once, die twice. Born twice, die once. 1+1+1= 1 in the Kingdom of our God of the impossible. You are one dead sinner or one living saint. It really is all or nothing!

Expensive Reminders

1 Comment / Community, Family Life, forbearance, forgiveness, friendship, humility, Marriage, Motherhood, patience, repentance / By teri / July 11, 2023 July 11, 2023 / communication, human-frailty, people are fragile, unreasonable expectations

Don’t Force It!

I yanked the hose hard. I heard a thud mixed with the tinkling sound of shattered porcelain. I went and looked; sure enough, I had knocked down the side table my Bible, journal, glasses, and tea mug sat on. My heart sank as I picked up the pieces of the broken masterpiece. This mug was part of a set of four Claude Monet cups my daughter had given me for Christmas—a treasured gift. This one had been my favorite, Woman with Parasol. It reminded me of my great-grandmother Burton.

How many times did I hear my mom and dad caution me, “Don’t force it, Teri; you’ll break it?” How often have I given that same advice to my children and husband? If I had a penny for each time, I bet I could buy a replacement mug or a whole new set. Holding the fractured portrait in my hand reminded me people are fragile too. We can’t force them to be who they aren’t. We can’t force them to understand us or meet our expectations. When we do, the results hurt more than losing a mug.

Just yesterday, I yanked my husband too hard. I felt fragile and in need of empathy. I thought I had made myself clear. I’d been feeling this way on and off for two weeks, but yesterday—his day off—I expected some undivided attention. I waited until we went for lunch. He commented he was stuffy. I knew that. I even suspected he had a cold, not just allergies like he thought. Yet, I persisted to let him know how I felt. He didn’t get it. Most of us have trouble understanding when our heads are stuffy. He kept missing ques, and I got angry. At one point, I called him a bonehead. There’s no excuse for name-calling, even if it is descriptive. We worked through the tension. I confessed my unrighteous anger; he confessed his insensitivity. This conflict isn’t our first rodeo in forty years; we’ll keep working through our boneheaded moments because that’s what love does.

With patience and persistence, we can grow in understanding others, and they grow in understanding us. Faithful friends don’t dash our expectations on purpose. My dad used to tell my mom when he failed her expectations, “I fail telepathy.” Few are telepaths that can read minds. Most of us need clear articulation and repeated patient instruction.

If I had only gone back and checked to see what the hang-up with the hose was, I would not have shattered a mug. Today if we’re struggling in a relationship, let’s quit yanking others around to get us. Let’s treat them like Bone China not boneheads. Let’s go back to trying to understand them and gently explaining what we want from them. Let’s take these reminders from Scripture to heart today:

“A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart.” Proverbs 18:2

“He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.” Proverbs 18:13

^“So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man (and woman) does not produce the righteousness of God.” James 1:19-20

The Necessity of Delight

Faith, Family Life, Knowing God, Marriage, the Bible God's Word, wonder of creation / By teri / June 27, 2023 June 5, 2023

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The most delightful people delight!

Delight—what a delicious word; it twirls on my tongue! It lights my imagination. It radiates warmth in my soul. The Lord flecked His canvas of creation with a brush full of delights. The earth sings witness to how delightful her Creator is; if we fail to join in her chorus, we miss the point of all these pleasantries. Do we let the wonder of creation usher us into the presence of Him, Who is most delightful?

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 ESV

Recently, I visited a younger friend struggling in her marriage. As she lamented her present relationship, the Holy Spirit impressed this verse in my mind and made it clear I should speak this truth. It seemed so trite to me, like rattling off Romans 8:28. Yet, that was God’s counsel. The following morning, my insight still felt dismissive; I needed to reflect on the verse I shared with her. As I reread Psalm 37, I marveled at God’s wisdom. Most of my friend’s desires have been God-honoring. She desires to be a faithful, loving wife and mother—a delightful spouse and parent. But I fear she covets a better marriage more than she is presently delighting in her First Love.

Covetousness is a sneaky sin that perverts blessings into idols. And when we focus and bow down to what we don’t have, we fail to delight in what we do have: an eternal relationship with the Perfect Lover of our soul. When we delight in Jesus, He releases us from the fretting fearfulness our idols inflict on us. Does it really matter if our husbands fail to love us well when we’re consumed with the perfect love of God? No.

All people love imperfectly, including you and me. All people sin. We’re all selfish failures sometimes, and yet God delights in each of us, including others who let us down.

“But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.“He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.” Deuteronomy 32:9-10 ESV.

The phrase “apple of my eye” comes from these verses, and it’s long been the expression of a deep, delightful love. Today I redeemed an old Stevie Wonder song for my worship to the Lord, singing to Him, “You are the sunshine of my life,” He replied, “You are the apple of my eye. That’s why I always stay around.” And He’s singing that to you today.

Maybe like my dear friend, you’re experiencing a difficult passage in your walk with God. Know He still delights in you. Reflect on this reality, “He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19 ESV, italics added). If you trusted Him for salvation from sin, how can you not trust Him again to deliver you out of this present trial? Keep trusting. Keep doing the right thing. Keep your integrity. He promises good results. This excerpt from The NET Bible refreshed my perspective on delight.

³Trust in the Lord and do what is right.
Settle in the land and maintain your integrity.^[^e^]
⁴Then you will take delight in the Lord,^[^f^]
and he will answer your prayers.^[^g^]
⁵Commit your future to the Lord.^[^h^]
Trust in him, and he will act on your behalf.” The NET Bible

Keep praying! He will answer. Our delight begins with obedience and ends with praise. Delighting in the Lord changes us. It transforms our prayers and desires.

Delighting in God opens our eyes to what He finds delightful in others. As we delight in Him, He transforms us into more delightful women.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV).

Be? Still?! A Meditation of Psalm 46:10

4 Comments / Faith, Knowing God, Spiritual warfare, the Bible God's Word / By teri / June 13, 2023 May 11, 2023 / peace, slow the pace

Are you running ragged?

Trampled under the feet of worry and hurry, the art of being died. Alga rhythms and screaming screens drive this false, frenetic pace. We no longer feel compelled to keep up with just the Jones. The picture-perfect Smiths and Wessins plague us too, and they’re killing us. Yet God calls us to be.

Psalm 46:10 begins with, “Be.” We are human beings. Being like, who? Ms. Smith or Jones? Or are we content to be God’s child created in His image? We exist as beings formed to shine the Light of the World into the darkness; have we been eclipsed?

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The moon reflects the sun unless the world gets in the way. Has it? The world’s gravitational pull tends to drag us down and spin us around, setting us off balance; we feel we must do things to be of any use.

A demanding, dark deceiver shouts, “Hurry up! You have stuff to do, places to go!! Read that old story later.” But later, we’re tired from the treadmill he pushed us onto.

“Be still,” our Abba encourages us. Still reveals His invitation; S.T.I.L.L.

Stop what you are doing and be His child.

To discover the secret of living is to know the Lord of Life well.

Inquire of the One who loves you more than anyone else and knows the answers to all questions.

Look outside at the wonders He wrought: all creation declares His glory. Keep looking into His perfect law of liberty that sets us free from the world’s folly. And . . .

Listen for His still, small voice from His holy Word, the Bible. Wait for it . . . wait for it . . . wait patiently upon the Lord, and He will grant us the answers our hearts desire if—only if—we will settle down and know Him. Intimately. Let His gentle whisper fall on our soul’s ears. Know the great I AM is God. But first, we must be. Then be still.

Stop

Inquire

Look &

Listen

Flexpectations: Managing Expectations

1 Comment / contentment, Faith, Maturity, patience / By teri / May 30, 2023 March 23, 2023

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Summertime & Loads of Fun!

School’s out. The weather’s warm. The long days of summer commence, and so do our high hopes for this time of year. Summertime expectations remind me of laundry. They pile up, and there’s lots of water play involved. We all look forward to loads of fun in the summer.

Summer was ending when I first moved to Kansas. I bought a sign from Hobby Lobby that reads, “Laundry Room; Loads & loads of fun.” I hung it in our new home next to four matching frames of my kids and silly laundry pictures, including one with a two-year-old who pulled a clean pair of panties over her head like a face mask. The sign provided the perfect finishing touch; my laundry room looked sweet and complete. However, I did not look as complete to God as my laundry room looked to me. So He began to wash the dirty load in my heart.

That night while my husband, Bill, and I watched T.V., Bill said, “Your washer has been filling a long time. Do you think everything’s OK out there?” So I got up to check.
Bill’s superpowers include being a super handyman. He hears the odd noises I often tune out. He was right! my machine was filling and hadn’t stopped because the drain hose had come off. Water from the washer flooded into my kitchen. Yup, we had “loads of fun” mopping that night. We laughed at the irony of the timing coinciding with the hanging of my new home décor. We resumed our relaxing evening, assuming we were finished with clean-up.

The next day I went to get something out of the basement only to find more of a mess than I expected. More water had come through the heating duct. The duct sprayed water like a showerhead. Boxes on the shelves were as wet as those on the floor. We had to haul out wet boxes and repack a number of them. I was not laughing. My grins and giggles from the night before turned into moans and groans. Two days into the clean-up, I was downright discouraged. I had empty boxes drying and the things that belonged in them waiting to get packed up again. It felt like I’d never get settled into the house, but I did.

Summertime, like laundry, doesn’t always match our expectations. Sometimes it’s better than we hoped it would be. Surprises come our way: discounts on vacations, friends and family coming for unexpected visits. Other times our plans fail to turn out as we thought: someone gets sick on vacation, or the weather rains on our parade, picnic, or hike; in Kansas, spring and summer bring tornado warnings. God sends trial because He sees our need to grow in patience (James 1:2 – 4).

We often experience a gap between what we want and what is. Patience serves as the foundation for flexpectations. We must learn to bend so we don’t break. As God’s children, our pain is never in vain. His purpose is to perfect us.

So don’t be surprised if God sends you to summer school. Hold your expectations of summer—and all things—loosely. Expect God to exercise His sovereignty in your life and complete the good work He began in you (Philippians 1:6). The Lord will always exceed our expectations. God does exceedingly, abundantly above all we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Trials are God’s laundry room to clean us up and prepare us for eternity.

Bill bought a t-shirt the year we moved to Kansas. Printed on the front is this saying, “Kansas: exceeding your already low expectations.” That’s been an accurate assessment of this hidden treasure in the Heartland of the U.S. I think it also applies to the Kingdom of Heaven. I’m sure our finite minds can’t know how wonderful it will be. We can only imagine. But unlike imagining how wonderful our summers will be, heaven will not disappoint! In heaven, we will have “loads & loads of fun!”

Let’s manage our expectations this summer and make room for what God will do.

“Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that” James 4:14 – 15.

Let’s greet the summer with flexpectations.

**Par*Tea!**

celebrations, Community, Faith, Family Life, Knowing God, Teatime Qualities / By teri / May 16, 2023 February 21, 2023 / celebrattion, drunkeness, Love, party, Tea Party

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Celebrate God’s Love!

[ˈpärdē] n. 1. a social gathering of invited guests, typically involving eating, drinking, and entertainment; 2. an event of celebration such as in retirement party or birthday party.

v. 1. to enjoy oneself at a celebration or other lively gathering, typically with drinking and music:“put on your glad rags and party!” 2. celebrating while drinking tea in the company of friends.

Are you a party animal? I am! Today is my oldest daughter’s birthday. Happy Labor day to me!

Unfortunately, when I was stupidly young, my idea of a party devolved into drunken debauchery. My love of merriment kept me from following Christ for a long time. “How do Christians have fun?” I wondered. I knew if I asked Jesus to forgive me for drug and alcohol abuse, I would have to honor that confession and stop getting stoned.

Finally, halfway through my twentieth year, I knew I deserved to go to hell for my sin. Giving up my party life seemed a small price to pay to avoid unending condemnation in hell. What amazed me as a babe in Christ is how much more fun Christians experience—without hangovers. We remember our good times without regret. I gave up nothing and gained access to the best party ever, the Kingdom celebration.

God designed people to celebrate together. I feel sorry for those trapped in a false doctrine that prohibits celebrations. From the seventh day of creation until the present, God set the example of celebration. Why else would He have taken a Sabbath? Rest and worship equal a party! God didn’t need rest. However, people do, so He celebrated by spending a relaxing day with Adam and Eve.

Taking the Lord’s day for Sabbath rest allows us to celebrate catching our breath, a change of pace. We celebrate our Creator, the Lord of Heaven and earth. We take time to enjoy His company and the company of His children. We sing and sometimes eat together. Music and laughter fill Sunday services with joy.

Later in the Law, God showed Moses the feasts He designed for Israel to celebrate together. Some of these feasts were parties. Like observing a birthday on a calendar each year, the Feasts of Israel set God’s calendar in motion; and when the last Feast, the Feast of Trumpets, is fulfilled, the Day of the Lord will come, and a forever party will commence with the Marriage Super of the Lamb. God likes parties! Music, laughter, and His children in merry fellowship bless Him as much as our quiet contemplation and worship. Revelation reveals both times of silence (Revelation 8:1 – 3) and celebration in Heaven (Revelation 19:6 – 8). We even get a sparkling new party dress for this occasion!

I love celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and my new life in Christ every Sunday. My birthday falls on Sunday this year. I intend to party hardy! For sixty-two years, God has given me breath, strength, and every good thing I have. A party is in order; I’ll bring the cupcakes!

It’s a BYOB (bring your own beverage). I’m bringing tea! What’s your non-intoxicating beverage of choice?

We Need Gracious Reminders

Faith, Knowing God, the Bible God's Word / By teri / May 2, 2023 March 23, 2023 / anxious, fretting, Patience

“Again! again! Pleeease, read it again.”

“Read that story again, Mama!” If you have children and read to them, you’ve often heard this. I bet—once upon a time—you even said it. I know I drove my mom crazy, pleading for my favorite stories when I was little.

It seems we never tire of stories that bring us joy and comfort. It’s not that we don’t know the story; we just want to be reminded of it again. Author Samuel Johnson wrote, “People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”I woke today with a deep need for reminding of some specific verses from Psalms 37.

“Do not fret,” the Psalm begins. That’s the feeling I woke with today. At first, I thought I felt angry, but I could think of no object for my anger. It was a nebulous fretfulness, evidence that my heart needed to be unburdened.

Are you fretting? What about? Speak it. Breathe it into the ears of God and let Him bear the burden. It’s His joy to help us obey His commands.

“Trust in the Lord, and do good;dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.” (Psaml 37:3). Trust that God cares. Trust that He wants to help you. Trust that He is good, powerful, and full of loving-kindness and tender mercies. These reflections will help us move on to the good works He’s prepared for us.

In my unsettled state of mind, I thought I had failed to pay some bills that were now past due. I have to feed on His faithfulness because I am not always faithful. After confessing my neglect, I went to pay the bills. I discovered I had paid the bills after all. I was less of an airhead than I thought I was. How silly I was to fret!

“Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Part of delighting in Him is appreciating His will. As we do, His will becomes ours, and He faithfully does His will in and through us. This is why when we “commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:4).

One of the things I’ve fretted over is getting a Bible study I wrote published. I feel like it’s do-or-die. I’ve put it off too long. But my anxiety hints that I’m believing a lie and not trusting God’s timing and His power to bring it to pass or, in this case, press.

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way” (Psalm 37:7).

Ahh—rest—that’s what I need. Rest and patience. I used to think impatience was the opposite of patience until I read Ecclesiastes 7:8, “The end of a thing is better than its beginning; the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” I’m struggling because I’m proud and want things done on my timetable. Repentance requires me to wait humbly, to wait with a quiet spirit. The truth from this verse I memorized with my granddaughter sums it up best, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret—it only causes harm.”

Yes, I needed reminding. Thank You, Abba, for reading me these verses from Psalm 37 again!

Exposing the Lies of Comparison

contentment, Faith, Maturity / By teri / April 18, 2023 March 16, 2023 / comparison, humility, lies, sanctification, truth

Don’t compare apples to oranges

“I wish I were as strong as you,” my friend Jan lamented. How many times had she said this to me? Probably as often as I’ve complained to her, “I wish I were as gentle as you are, Jan.” God possesses both gentleness and strength; therefore, both are godly character traits. It’s true that I have more willful resolve than Jan, and equally true that she’s far more tender with people than I am. Though this is an honest comparison, it leaves us with only half-truths; and a half-truth is a lie.

When we compare ourselves to others, we tend to absolve ourselves of responsibility. “I can’t be as gentle as Jan because we’re different, and that’s how God made us.” Or we become envious. We wish we had a particular characteristic too. Envy ruins relationships. We no longer feel equal but less than or more than. Comparison is a tool our enemy uses to distort the truth.

Satan wants to destroy us with feelings of inferiority and pride. He loves it when we give up and surrender to sin. He doesn’t want us to be better. And that cunning serpent certainly doesn’t want others to see Jesus in us!

On the other hand, God knows we all have different strengths and weaknesses. He expects us to compare ourselves to no one. No one except Jesus. I should never settle for Jan’s imperfect gentleness, just as Jan should not aspire to my inferior strength. The Lord wants us both to grow up and display the gentleness and tenacity of Jesus, the perfect person. But isn’t perfection too much to require of frail sinners like us?

It would be if He didn’t give us His Holy Spirit and the benefit of His written Word, the Bible. Even with those great powerful helps, it’s unlikely that anyone will perfectly display a godly character on this side of glory. However, God promises on that day—His judgment day—He will complete the good work He’s started in us.

So, let’s quit buying into the lies of trying to be someone we were never meant to be. And let’s start pursuing the perfection God intends for us. Let’s strive to be conformed to the image of His dear Son. Enjoy meditating on this song from Zach Williams as you compare yourself to the righteous One.

How Improving Our Cultural Intelligence Quotient Makes Us Better Disciple-Makers

Community, Diversity, Faith, Family Life, humility, Maturity, outreach, the Bible God's Word / By teri / April 4, 2023 March 17, 2023 / CQ, cross-cultural interactions, discipleship, Diversity, Family of God

Sisters in God’s Family

Culture matters. We interpret life through a cultural lens. As a result, we can misinterpret essential things. For years my husband told me I was rude because when I’d call him or he’d call me and I failed to live up to his cultural expectation of a personal greeting. Having grown up in a farming community, he’s a warm culture guy. Relationship is king!

But I’m a cold culture woman, raised by a Mainiac (my mom was born and raised in Maine) who gets straight to business. Not wasting people’s time is a sign of respect. So while I tried to respect my husband, he felt disrespected. He’d call. I’d answer, “What do you need?” (quick, short, to the point) Instead of, “How are you? (pause) How may I help you?” Neither of these approaches is right or wrong; they’re just different. Reading the book From Foreign to Familiar helped me not feel beaten up by my husband’s accusations of rudeness. So I love him by inquiring about his well-being, and he honors me by quickly addressing my need.

We honor God’s diverse creation when we learn and honor different cultures. We respect God’s word when we gain an understanding of the ancient cultures that provide the context in Scripture. For example, I never understood why Herodias’s daughter would ask for John the Baptist’s head (Mark 6:21 – 29).

Yuck! As a twelve-year-old girl, if a powerful king made me that offer, I would not ask for such a gruesome thing; and I probably wouldn’t have consulted with my mom. Why? Because I grew up in the individualistic, justice/ punishment culture of the United States. Herodias’s daughter grew up in the ancient culture of Roman-occupied Israel. In that culture, as in many worldwide today, family is valued more than individuality, and shame and honor determine your destiny. It would have been shameful for this young girl not to consult her family. And because John the Baptist shamed her family, asking for his head honored them all. I did not figure this out until a friend from India explained the differences between our American culture and his Asian culture. Then the lights went on, and I finally understood this story.

Learn to Discern

Discerning the difference between what’s cultural and Biblical challenges cross-cultural Bible teachers more than you may think. For instance, the story of the beheading of John the Baptist, is it about a gruesome unjust execution by a people-pleasing king, or is it about a bold prophet who didn’t shirk his responsibility to shame a wicked king? If you answer both, you are correct. Can you see how different cultural lenses will see other principles from the same story? Or how about Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, is that primarily about crossing lines of ethnic prejudice, or is it about the restoration of the value of women in society, or could it be about the forgiveness of an adulteress? Again your answer will depend on your cultural values; the answer is all of the above.

I’m currently reading Serving with Eyes Wide Open by David Livermore. He shares the western perspective of the story of Joeseph in the last thirteen chapters of Genesis, focusing on Joseph’s faithfulness to God and staying pure when faced with temptations. Then David explains in an eastern honor/ shame culture that they would focus on how Joseph forgave brothers that caused him great harm him. Can you see how both are valid applications? Be careful to call something a Biblical principle that may simply be a principle that speaks to your cultural understanding. Is sin always shameful? Yes. Does God forgive sinners? Yes. These are two Biblical principles unaltered by cultural bias.

Practicing Patience Increases Your CQ

I’m leading a book club of four twenty-something girls. I call us the crazy quilt ladies because we all have different cultural upbringings. One woman is from east Africa, and another comes from west Africa. Two out of five of us operate on African time. The other three of us needed to exercise patience when our African sisters showed up an hour or later to the first meeting. Our two warm culture friends ignore a ticking timepiece if it feels rude to them to leave one gathering to go to the next. The rest of us loved them by reviewing our discussion when they finally showed up. When they did arrive, they were all about being with us; I love that about warm-culture people on African time.

Remember my warm-cultured husband? African time kills his Greman soul. Punctuality is essential to some people groups. Is it to you? More importantly, are you willing to lay down your time consciousness to love someone else who is less trapped in time?

Whether studying the Bible, globe-trotting or making friends in our neighborhoods who come from other places, let’s know there are different ways to live, not right and wrong, just diverse ways. Let’s grow our cultural quotient (CQ) and adapt to the Kingdom Jesus is building from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

“Be still and know that I AM God.”