Lisa notes

Share Four Somethings—March 2021

By LisaNotes March 28, 2021 Life updates 42 Comments

Here are my “four somethings” from March that I’m sharing at Heather’s.

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Something Loved

ALI ABDAAL ON YOUTUBE

I subscribe to only a handful of YouTube channels, mainly churches that we watch until we can go back in person. But I found a new (to me) channel recently that I really connect with.

It’s the YouTube channel by Ali Abdaal. He is a junior doctor in the UK, but he’s also an all-around interesting guy that makes very informative videos on the best books to read, how to be more productive, tools and tech, time management, etc.

He’s very practical and puts on no pretenses. I don’t feel guilty spending time on YouTube when I’m watching his videos. And obviously I’m not alone; he has over a million followers.

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Something Read

IRRESISTIBLE

My reading order of books in my stack is typically:

Library books
Books to review
Books borrowed from friends
Book club books
Then last, books I’ve bought

So when I finish a book that I actually bought from the bottom of the pile, it’s a big deal.

And I finished two of my bought books this month!

The best of the two is Andy Stanley’s Irresistible: Reclaiming the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World. I bookmarked so many pages and copied so many quotes that it’ll take me awhile just to review my own notes.

One of his many points I resonate with strongly is that we too often idolize our Bibles at the expense of God. I can’t explain it as well as he can, so read the book to hear more.

“Christianity predated the Bible by hundreds of years. There were thousands of Christians long before there was a Bible. The Bible did not create Christianity. It’s the other way around.”
– Andy Stanley

(The other book of my own that I finished is Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death by Irvin D. Yalom. It was very interesting in a different way.)

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Something Treasured

DRIVE-THRU BABY SHOWER

We had a drive-thru shower this past weekend for our grandson-on-the-way! It was a huge success (although the second half of the shower was less of a drive-thru and more of a block party in the cul-de-sac).

Rain had been predicted for the whole day, but in the end, it never rained a drop. It was wonderful seeing friends and family we hadn’t seen in months due to covid. The weather was perfect for outdoor social-distancing to catch up.

Then the family went inside and and we filmed Jenna and Trey opening the gifts on Facebook Live. It was the next-best thing to having everyone with us, yet keeping everyone safe (including Jenna and the baby).

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Something Ahead

MORE SHOTS!

A year ago I couldn’t have imagined how eager we would be to get a shot.

I got my first shot of the covid vaccine on March 22, the first day it opened for my age group (quite the miracle!). I had no side effects with this one (except a sore arm).

I’m excited to get my second shot on April 12. Jeff gets his second shot April 6.

By the end of April, we look forward to having a little more freedom than we’ve had in a year. Yippee!

previous Share Somethings

What’s a favorite from your month in March? What are you looking forward to in April? Share in the comments.

Lose the Unforgiveness. Take the Grace
—Grace & Truth Linkup

By LisaNotes March 26, 2021 Grace & Truth Link-Up 6 Comments

Theresa felt happy arriving early with her teenage son to his doctor’s appointment. Until she realized she was a whole month early!

Her son forgave her. But she had trouble forgiving herself.

I do this, too. I too often beat myself up for the small things instead of rapidly accepting God’s grace and forgiveness and moving forward.

But we don’t have to keep believing lies about ourselves, God, and others.

As Theresa writes,

“Beating yourself up does not change the reality that you are forgiven and clothed with grace. God has enough for everything big and small. All we have to do is set down our pride and accept it.”

Read all of Theresa’s post here about how to quit punishing yourself over the small things, then link up your own blog posts below.

“Quit Beating Yourself Up Over the Small Things”

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

Now Let’s Link Up!

Do you find it hard or easy to forgive yourself? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Book Review: Faith After Doubt

By LisaNotes March 24, 2021 Book reviews 5 Comments

When You Doubt

When’s the last time you did a turnaround on one of your opinions or beliefs?

Was it painful?

Often it is painful when we’re in the middle phase between an old belief and a new belief.

It’s a season of doubt.

And we don’t like to feel doubt. My One Word for 2021 is Uncertainty; I don’t particularly like uncertainty. It’s more comfortable to be confident.

But we can’t always be right. Often our beliefs are just wrong. And that realization can hurt.

We shouldn’t take it personally when we discover we’re wrong. That’s part of growing up. We discard things we learn are inaccurate, and pick up things that are more true. It’s growth.

So when it comes to our faith, why are we so reluctant to acknowledge this process? As my own beliefs shift and grow through the years, I’d rather skip the in-between phase and just be transported to the opposite shore fully intact again.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Faith After Doubt

Brian McLaren wrote a book about it. It’s called Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It.

In it, he addresses the doubt that millions of people in the U.S. and around the world experience when their faith is shifting.

McLaren starts by saying this:

“You and I don’t have to keep our doubts a secret any longer.”

He frames doubt not as a fault or failure to be ashamed of, but as an expression of our humanity, and as an opportunity for growth in faith itself.

The book is organized in three movements:

Your Descent into Doubt
All in Doubt
Life After (and with) Doubt

Throughout the book, McLaren shows us that doubt isn’t a death knell to faith. Quite the opposite, it can actually be our saving grace as it shifts us more toward God and less away from shaky religion.

“The greatest threat to our moral and spiritual health wasn’t questions or doubts but rather dishonesty or pretense about our questions or doubts.”

Four Stages of Faith

It isn’t an easy journey. And it isn’t always linear. McLaren describes our faith growth not as climbing a ladder or a stairway, but as climbing a tree with branches. He gives many other helpful analogies as well, including this one:

“Think of your current stage of faith as a base camp. On any given day, you might venture back a stage or forward a stage to cope with what life throws at you.”

The four stages of faith that McLaren posits are these:

Simplicity
Complexity
Perplexity
Harmony

They don’t come to us in a straight line. We may be in stage one in one area while in stage four in another area.

“Love isn’t like calculus, which can’t be taught until after one learns geometry and advanced algebra. No, love is more like music. We expose the youngest musicians to the most sublime music so that, as they learn the basics of scales, keys, tone, tempo, and timing, they know why the basics matter and what they can produce.”

And the end result we all want is love.

Here are simple prayers from the appendix that McLaren offers for each stage, but each prayer is good for all stages.

Simplicity
Here. Thanks. O.
Complexity
Sorry. Help! Please!
Perplexity
When? No! Why?
Harmony
Behold. Yes. (Silence.)

Note:
Maybe you’ll agree with McLaren’s personal beliefs in this book; maybe you won’t. Either way, the gist of the book holds true, which is to grow in your own faith, practicing what Paul wrote: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).

P.S.
My thanks to David for working through the end-of-the-chapter questions with me. I learn more when I read with others.

When has your faith made a shift? Was it uncomfortable? Share in the comments.

My thanks to NetGalley
for the review copy of this book

What Does It Mean to Know God? Is Knowing About God the Same Thing as Knowing God?

By LisaNotes March 21, 2021 Knowing God, Knowing God_J.I.Packer 31 Comments

Does God Want Us to Know Him?

What does it mean to know God?

It’s complex. Because God is complex.

All we can really know about God is what he chooses to reveal. It’s not as if we can sneak up on God and say, “Caught you!” He sees us peeking around the corner first.

But we don’t have to sneak.

God reveals himself to us because he created us to know him. He won’t leave us empty-headed about him.

And from what I’ve seen him reveal so far? He’s all good. He wants to be seen.

He wants to be known.

Knowing God Is Having Life

Still, what does it mean to “know God”?

Knowing God is eternal life, per J. I. Packer in Chapter 3 of his classic book, Knowing God.

Jesus said this to God:

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

But what exactly does that mean?

1. Knowing God is personal.

Just like knowing a person is, well, personal, knowing God is personal. It is you relating to God, and God relating to you.

It’s not just knowing about God. That is theology. That’s like me knowing the President. I can study him and know about him. But I don’t have a relationship with the President.

Knowing God goes beyond the study of theology. It’s knowing the being, and being known by him.

It’s a two-way connection, not just one-way.

“You can have all the right notions in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer; and a simple Bible-reader and sermon-hearer who is full of the Holy Ghost will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than more learned men who are content with being theologically correct.”
– J. I. Packer

2. Knowing God requires involvement.

Knowing God is more than holding facts in our head. Yes, knowing him requires our mind, but it goes beyond that, and also includes our will and our emotions.

Packer says, “To get to know another person, you have to commit yourself to his company and interests, and be ready to identify yourself with his concerns.”

A meal may look good, but until we sit down and eat it, we’ll never really know.

The same with God. Until we actually do life with God, it’s all theory.

Also, contrary to what some teach, knowing God is emotional. To know God is to be emotionally involved with the things he’s emotionally involved with. If we attempt to think his thoughts and to act in his ways, we should also feel what he feels. (Even though we’re terribly limited in each of these.)

“. . . we must not lose sight of the fact that knowing God is an emotional relationship, as well as an intellectual and volitional one, and could not indeed be a deep relation between persons were it not so.”
– J. I. Packer

3. Knowing God is a matter of grace.

It’s only a gift of grace that we can know God at all. Grace starts first with God, not us. He initiates everything, including knowledge.

Because God knows us first, better than we know ourselves and long before we know him, he knows what we need. And he knows what we need to know. And gives it to us.

What we need to know—and see—is that God loves us. We are seen. We are understood. We are treasured.

“We do not make friends with God; God makes friends with us, bringing us to know Him by making His love known to us.”
– J. I. Packer

While it’s important for us to know God, of first importance is that God knows us.

Being known by God makes it possible for us to know God.

Knowing God is grace.

Knowing God is life.

[These thoughts are an updated post from Chapter 3 of Knowing God, “Knowing and Being Known.” I benefited from it. But I disagree with Packer in Chapter 4, “The Only True God,” for his refusal of any imagery to remind us of God.]

How do you know when you really know someone? What does it mean to you to know God versus knowing about God? Please share in the comments.

Previous chapters of Knowing God:
Chapters 1 and 2, “The Study of God” and “The People Who Know Their God”
“Why Do You Want to Know God?”
Next chapters of Knowing God:
Chapters 5 and 6, “God Incarnate” and“He Shall Testify”
“You Know God and Jesus. But What About the Holy Spirit?”

One Word 2021 Linkup—March + A Giveaway!

By LisaNotes March 21, 2021 One Word Community 32 Comments

UPDATE, April 1:

LINDA STOLL is OUR WINNER!

She’ll receive a beautiful handmade tray from Randy Flowers with her One Word choice, Serendipity.

Thanks to all who linked up and left comments at our March linkup. Our April linkup will be live on April 21.

This is our March linkup for your One Word 2021.

Tell us how it’s going with your one word in the comments! Also add any links to posts, images, etc., then visit around.

1. Where have you seen your word this month?

2. What’s one way you have practiced your word this month?

3. Need a nudge to keep going? Sign up for the free 7-day One Word Challenge with onewordchallenge.com. They’ll send you an email for 7 days with ideas. Some won’t be applicable since you already know your word, but lots of it will be helpful.

Now for the giveaway!

Win this wood tray with YOUR One Word on it!

One random winner will receive this personalized tray, thanks to our fellow blogging friend Lois Flowers (her 2021 word is Strength). Lois’s generous and skilled husband Randy Flowers has volunteered to do this for us.

Follow Randy on Instagram @woodshopmade to see more of his amazing work.

To enter, add a link below and/or a comment. A winner will be chosen randomly on March 31. You’ll be notified so you can tell us what word you want on your tray and where you want it sent.

The linkup will be open from March 21 – March 31.

The next linkup will be April 21.

If you’d like to receive a monthly email for suggestions about your word, sign up here.

You can also join our One Word 2021 Facebook group here for more interaction.

Now let’s link up!

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Do You Have a Hiding Place?
—Grace & Truth Linkup

By LisaNotes March 19, 2021 Grace & Truth Link-Up 5 Comments

I’m having a thing done this week. I’m migrating my blog to a new host.

If you have a blog, you might know how scary this can feel. I’m putting all my writings in the hands of strangers. And hoping they’ll return alive on the other side.

It makes me want to run to my hiding place.

That’s why I was drawn to Laura Thomas’s post from last week’s linkup. She asks,

“Where do we go when we need to escape? To feel safe and comforted? To be appreciated, warts and all?”

For actual hiding places, I often go sit outside on the swing by the lake. For my people hiding places, I turn to Jeff or a family member or a friend.

But for the safest hiding place, I know to go to God. He’s the only one who truly can protect me down to my soul.

Laura says,

“What a sweet relief to know God is more powerful than anything this life can throw at us. We need not hide FROM Him, but we get to draw near and hide IN Him. For when we draw near to Him, He promises to draw near to us.”

Read all of Laura’s post here, then link up your own blog posts below.

“Where Is Your Hiding Place?”

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest