The Problem is...Laziness

I am teaching my 4th grader long division.  Every time I say it's time for math, he stalls.  "What time is it?"  "Do you need me to watch the younger kids?"  "Aren't we supposed to be reading now?" 

When he does sit down to work, he usually does handwriting instead...on his math page.  He covers his paper with, "I don't get it.  I need help.  I don't know."  I remember learning long division.  It's the most challenging of the math operations to learn for sure!  But my 4th grader is extremely bright and knows what is required to divide. 

When I went over his work with him, explaining again and again what he needed to know, it suddenly occurred to me what the problem was.  I told him that there was a technical term for the struggles he was having.  I wrote it on his paper.  L-a-z-i-n-e-s-s.

He smiled.  He knew I was right.  In order to do long division, you have to guess at the correct answer.  Then you have to check to see if you are right.  If you are not, you have to erase and try again.  And you repeat this process over and over.

How many times in my life have I been like my son?  I've said, "I don't know how to lose weight.  I don't get how to exercise regularly.  I need help to get organized."  Yet, like my son, I really didn't need someone to tell me over and over and over how these things were done.  I knew what needed to be done.  I just didn't want to try, make a mistake, and start over.  The problem was l-a-z-i-n-e-s-s.  I can smile at that. 

Is it time to work on your problems?

Help for a Headache

I was having a new dishwasher delivered in two hours and I needed to make sure my basement storage room was picked up so there was easy access to the water.  I had no idea where the water access WAS in the basement, but I knew I needed to get busy.

I was furiously moving the piles of clothes that are a part of life with six kids when I stood up and rammed my head into a pair of faucets.  OUCH.  I went upstairs in pain and retrieved a phone message from the day before telling me that I had to have my old dishwasher uninstalled or they would not take it away.  I panicked a bit at first, but then I determined that I COULD uninstall my old dishwasher. 

I unplugged the dishwasher and headed downstairs to find where the water line led to.  I moved ceiling tiles getting tons of dust in my eyes each time.  I couldn't figure it out.  Back upstairs I went where it looked like the water line just needed to be undone with a wrench.  I disconnected the hose and turned off the water.  Wow!  I was quite proud of myself.

Then I set about to try to get the dishwasher out of the cabinet.  I could only get half of it out no matter how hard I lifted, pulled or twisted the machine.  In the process I smashed my hand.  I started running the water only to discover that I no longer had hot water.  What I DID have was a flooded cabinet and kitchen floor.  So much for my plumbing skills.  I put everything back the way it was.

All this time I was trying to solve this problem alone and I was not doing well.  It hadn't occurred to me to pray.  I'd love to say that the moment I prayed the diswasher just slipped out of the cabinet.  But God had a better idea.  I called the delivery people, planning to tell them that I just could NOT uninstall this dishwasher and they needed to keep the new one until I got some help.  Instead, the delivery people explained that as long as I had an installation appointment (I did), the installation people would uninstall the old one. 

Oh. 

When the installer came, he never set foot in my newly picked up basement.  Pride goeth before a fall...and a headache, too. 

 

No Show

I celebrated Christmas with my side of the family this weekend and my brother and his family no showed.  No call, no explanation, no apology. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time.  You'd think I wouldn't have been upset because I half expected it.  But it hurt so much it was a physical pain. 

Perhaps you join me in thinking my brother is any number of not nice things.  I cannot justify or excuse his behavior.  But as I cried out to God for comfort, He reminded me that although I have never no showed for my family Christmas, I have no showed Him just the same.

There were the years that I no showed God at church.  He was there and I wasn't.  There were the decades that I never read His letters to me (the Bible). Then there are the countless times that I've promised to have special time with Him, but I don't show up.  How much my failure to show up must hurt Him.  How gracious is our God that He welcomes me back with open arms no matter how many times I no show.

I Hate Painting

Today I did one of my least favorite things; I painted with my children.  We made pottery as part of our study of the Indians of the Southwest.  I have been putting off painting these pottery pieces, but since the Lord gave us a beautiful summer-like day, I figured we could do it outside.  So I brought out the acrylic (no, not the washable) paints, brushes, water, and pottery pieces and we got to work. 

I thought maybe this time the process wouldn't make me crazy, but I was wrong.  Painting, no matter how you do it, is messy.  I had made a little piece of pottery myself and of course that was the piece the three-year-old insisted on painting.  Before long, no matter what I said or did, he had a pool of black paint in the bottom of his bowl.  And he had it on himself and the table and the deck.  And when I told him to be sure not to wipe his shirt that was the first thing he did.

In the midst of my extreme discomfort, though, I was reminded how thankful I am that we have a God Who lets us paint.  We make an absolute mess of what He's created, but He still lets us paint.  We disobey the simplest of commands, but He lets us keep the brush in our hands.  We never seem to "do it right," but He lets us keep practicing.  And He's willing to get a little messy Himself just so we have the opportunity. 

Just Obey

Lately I have been struggling to keep my home as clean and organized as I'd like it to be.  I have some great excuses in that I no longer have a housekeeper and I'm 9 months pregnant with my 6th child.  But I could tell that there was something more going on.  My homeschooling has never been more organized, praise the Lord!  So why was I having such a hard time with the house?

The Lord gave me an insight the other morning.  I have taught my children what I have learned about obedience from wonderful Christian teachers -- that it means to obey all the way, right away, with the right attitude.  I know that God has asked me to be a keeper at home, but night after night I was not obeying all the way, right away, or with the right attitude.  Instead, I was doing as little housekeeping as I could get away with each evening.  I was tired and pregnant, so why should I do more than the minimum?  I was definitely not obeying right away.  Instead, I was slipping back into my old procrastinating ways.  "I'll do that tomorrow," I thought.  Well, tomorrow always has enough trouble of its own, so I would either NOT get the work done or I would be stressed and crabby trying to get caught up.  Then there was my attitude.  "Why on earth should I have to do this work each evening?  I do everything for the family all day long.  I should be able to kick my feet up and enjoy some time for me!"  As I reflected on my attitude (which quite honestly had seemed legitimate to me until that point), I wondered how I would feel if my children responded this way when I asked them to do chores.  I certainly would not want to bless them for their lack of obedience!  I realized that God may have been withholding His blessings of a fully ordered home from me as I had been withholding my full obedience.

That very day I vowed to do what I knew the Lord wanted me to do to keep my home in order.  As I worked, I imagined what life had been like for my grandmother who fed a huge group of men who worked their farm for them.  She cooked and cleaned during the day and then baked in the early hours to have goods to sell at the local bakery.  I could not imagine her whining that she had no time for herself.  I was determined to work as for the Lord.  I was amazed that once I chose to obey, I had more joy and my house seemed to be ordered and clean in no time at all.  In fact, I DID have time to enjoy chatting on the phone and scrapbooking because everything was done. 

Now when things aren't going my way, I will ask for forgiveness and just obey. 

You Can't Hide Your Pride

I am in the middle of reading Nancy Leigh DeMoss's excellent book, Holiness.  It's part of a series of excellent books that also includes Brokenness and Surrender.  I am also doing a Bible study on humility by Reb Bradley. 

In the last year, the Lord has made my problem with pride clear to me.  Pride is much more difficult a foe than I first thought.  I was at the gym the other day when I had the following series of thoughts:

You look pretty good.  You have kept yourself in pretty good shape for a mother of five.

Ooh!  That's not right--that's pride!  Really, you don't look good at all.  Everything on your body has gone south since you've had kids.  Every other woman here looks better than you.  

Doh!  That's pride, too.  Bashing myself means I'm still thinking about my favorite subject -- ME.  Okay, okay, I won't think about myself at all.

Hey, I'm doing pretty good!  I'm really being humble now.  OH NO!!  That's STILL pride!

After this psychotic conversation with myself I realized I could not escape pride.  It's like a cancer that has permeated every sinew in me.  Once again, I realized my need for a Master Surgeon to come and cut this killer out of me. I simply do not have the heart to kill it myself.  Oh I love others' admiration.  How I love to join people in thinking well of me.  And yet when I do, I rob the only One Who deserves glory.

My sweet brother-in-law tells an amusing story about humility.  He said he elicited great teasing by telling someone once that he didn't struggle with humility.  Humility, he said, came pretty easy to him.  My brother-in-law IS a humble man, but true humility never acknowledges itself.  If you and I think to ourselves, "Yep, I'm pretty humble,"  we probably aren't.  Praise be to God that He is patient and merciful with us prideful people.     

Time for Me?

Recently I shared with a group of fine women the title of what used to be one of my favorite books: How to Have More Time for Yourself Every Day.  I loved it.  The book gave me permission to get rid of things and relationships that just didn't "work," so I could have more time for all the things I wanted to do.  That was my goal.  I wanted more time to play piano and do crafts and call friends and exercise and watch TV.  If I could just learn effective time management skills, I could have a lot more time for these things and more! 

But alas, I continued to struggle to efficiently handle my "have to's" so I could devote myself to "want to's."  The reason it wasn't working was because I felt too tired to do laundry every day.  Frankly, gabbing on the phone and reading a favorite book were a lot more appealing.  I almost never had a nice meal planned because I enjoyed watching my soaps and surfing the Web instead.  My room was never tidy and organized because I was working and hey, I wasn't the only one living in there!  Besides, I was called to do more important things than housework.

As I continued to flounder in a sea of disorganization, people would often tell me, "You need more time for yourself!  You do too much.  Slow down and just enjoy."  Yes, that was the problem, I thought.  I am just working so hard for others that I have no time for myself.  If I had more time for me, I would have the energy to control everything else.  So I spent more time on things that made me happy and in the process tore down my house with my own hands.

As a psychologist, I have seen too many families destroyed with these words, "It's time for me now."  Mothers who decide that they are fed up with picking up after everyone and that a divorce with weekends free sounds mighty good.  Dads who get tired of the obligations of family and would rather engage in a more exciting career whether it provides any income or not.  Despite the destructiveness of these words, even those in the Christian leadership often encourage us to make time for ourselves.  I know I've given the same advice.

In discussing my big family, someone suggested that people may be thinking, "Isn't it time for YOU now?"  Oh, I've had plenty of time for me.  It's safe to say my life has been about almost nothing else.  I've done just about everything that people say makes for a good life.  I've been to Europe (as a single woman), I've been to Hawaii, on a cruise, I've been published in a major magazine, I've been on the radio, in the newspaper, on television.  I've even met the First Lady!  And oh wasn't it grand.  In so many ways, I have it all.  In an interview on her generosity to the children of Africa, Oprah related that the joy she experienced in this nearly overwhelmed her.  There is no joy in time for "me" that can compare to the joy in giving time for Him. 

The greatest joy I have ever known is being in God's will for me.  Much of the time the Lord chooses to strengthen me so that I can give to others.   And there is great joy in giving to others!  Whereas I used to seek to do the things I wanted to do, now I seek to want the things I've been called to do.  Even as I am serving, sometimes the Lord, in His love and mercy, gives me time for things that I enjoy.  I just want to praise Him for that!  I am so unworthy and so self-centered.  Yet, He still gives me time for myself.  But if time for me is what I'm seeking first, I will never find it.