Lisa notes

On the Blog – April 2018

By LisaNotes April 30, 2018 Archives 1 Comment

Summaries and links to blog posts for April 2018

12 Ways to Be Content (4/30)
If you want to be more content in your circumstances, here are 12 ways, revised from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs.
Free Bible Study Bundle Giveaway (4/24)
Enter to win one of these bundles of Bible study resources and get some new things for seeking God through studying
5 Books I Recommend – April 2018 (4/23)
Recommended reading from books I finished in April 2018
Do You Call Yourself Still Evangelical? (4/20)
Are you still evangelical? Listen to ten different voices from the Christian community answer this question.
What Dates You? Let People Define the Times (4/17)
We don’t have to forget the people in our past. They become embedded in who we are now.
Does Your Mourning Feel Blessed? (4/12)
When we’re sad and in pain, we want it removed. What did Jesus mean, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”?
Your Enneagram Type and Mine – Book Review of The Path Between Us (4/9)
Want to use the Enneagram personality system to improve your relationships? Suzanne Stabile’s new book, The Path Between Us, shows you how.
I Can Do It Myself—But Should I? (4/4)
Just because you CAN do it by yourself, does that mean you SHOULD? Sometimes letting others help us—even if we don’t think we need it—is a gift to all.
5 Links, Books, and Things I Love – April 2018 (4/2)
Links and pictures of articles, books, and things I love for April 2018

12 Ways to Be Content

By LisaNotes April 30, 2018 Encouragement 14 Comments

If you struggle with being content in your circumstances, or just want to increase the level of contentment that you already have, here are twelve suggestions.

They are taken from the classic book by Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. I read it every few years and gain something new each time.

1. Fill your soul with grace

All the tricks and tools won’t do you any good if you don’t get a grip on your heart. Let grace be the ballast in your boat. Think about grace, notice grace, receive grace.

2. Keep a loose grip on the world

Eventually, whatever you’re involved with will bring trouble and thorns. Choose carefully where you set your ego. Don’t connect your identity with circumstances.

3. Be sure this is where you’re supposed to be

Occasionally double-check your physical and spiritual GPS. When you are where God has called you, you can be quiet and content even when you meet with trouble.

4. Play fair

Whatever your work is, go by the rules. Be ethical. Seek to serve, not to be served. Stay within God’s boundaries for his protection. You’ll sleep better at night when your conscience is clear.

5. Live by faith

Never forget God’s promise that all things work for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Exercise your faith by believing his truths.

6. Think spiritually

Meditate on things above (Colossians 3:1). Go higher. Talk more with God. Rise above the snakes that crawl below.

7. Be realistic

Don’t expect the world’s material blessings to fall at your doorstep. Don’t promise yourself different things than God promises you.

8. Die to the world daily

If your heart is dead to the world, you won’t be tossed about by its upheavals. Let your happiness come from outside the world.

9. Don’t dwell on heartaches

Dwell instead on things that comfort you. Thank God often for his mercies.

10. Reframe the past in God’s favor

“Make a good interpretation of God’s ways toward you.”

There are many interpretations you can put on an event. Choose the truthful one, the one that shows God’s glory. Love thinks no evil.

11. Don’t depend on others’ interpretations

Comparison kills. Do you think your wealth is small because you measure it by America’s yardstick?

“Oh, do not let your happiness depend on the fancies of other men.”

12. Don’t get too comfortable with comforts.

When you have comforts, enjoy them, but don’t become dependent upon them. That way you won’t fall apart if one day they are removed.

* * *

Do you struggle with being content? Which of these 12 ways do you want to try? Please share in the comments.

revised from the archives

Free Bible Study Bundle Giveaway

By LisaNotes April 24, 2018 Miscellaneous 3 Comments

More free Bible study resources!

This giveaway is open through midnight, Thursday, April 26.

Enter here to win.

If you could use some new resources as you seek God through studying, here’s an easy giveaway. Enter to win one of these bundles of Bible study resources.

Check out the list of resources in the digital bundle package as well as the bundle that will ship to your home.

If you refer a friend and your friend wins, both of you will get prizes.

This giveaway is in celebration of the new 2018 Enjoy the Word Online Bible Conference hosted by Jami Balmet & Katie Orr.

* * *

5 Books I Recommend – April 2018

By LisaNotes April 23, 2018 Books I Recommend 46 Comments

Here are five books I recommend from what I read in April. Once a month we share our current reading lists at Jennifer’s.

Books I Recommend

1. Still Evangelical?
Ten Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning
edited by Mark Labberton

My review here of Still Evangelical?

How do you define “evangelical”? Do you consider yourself one? Listen to ten varying voices in this new book. Some I agree with; some I don’t. But they are all good for thought and discussion.

2. Tears We Cannot Stop
A Sermon to White America
by Michael Eric Dyson

I don’t know where to begin with this book. Just read it. It’s hard, it’s meaningful, it’s important. Michael Eric Dyson has words of wisdom to white America that we need to hear. It is one of my favorite books of the year so far.

“And without white America wrestling with these truths and confronting these realities, we may not survive. To paraphrase the Bible, to whom much is given, much is required. And you, my friends, have been given so much.”

3. Why Evangelicals Need the Wilderness
(Evangelicals After the Shipwreck Book 2)
by Ed Cyzewski

In Book 1 of this series, The Great Evangelical Retreat, Ed Cyzewski suggested evangelicals need to take a retreat and get it together. In this Book 2, he suggests where to go: the “wilderness.” The wilderness can mean different things to different people, but being a people of faith requires us to occasionally step aside from our routines and find our roots again of trusting in God.

“The wilderness could be a place of daily solitude, a resolution to avoid public recognition for a season, or a more extreme desire to make solitude and time away from the daily challenges of life a priority.”

4. The Life You Can Save
Acting Now to End World Poverty
by Peter Singer

I’m not a Peter Singer fan on everything; we differ wildly on what constitutes a life. But I do appreciate his approach in this book. Can we do better at taking care of the poor in our world? Most definitely. He touches on why we do, why we don’t, and how to make a more positive difference. I learned a lot here.

5. Thanks, Obama
My Hopey, Changey White House Years
by David Litt

I enjoy reading insider books. Regardless of whose administration it is, it’s fun to get the backstories from the White House. And especially when they’re told by a speechwriter who knows how to write. David Litt’s memoir about his years as one of the youngest speechwriters is funny and insightful.

“I don’t blame those who came to believe their jobs made them more than human. A demigod complex is the malaria of the D.C. swamp.”

Reading Now

Natural Causes
An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Excellence Dividend
Meeting the Tech Tide with Work that wows and Jobs that Last
by Tom Peters
Leaving Time
by Jodi Picoult
The Way of Abundance
A 60-Day Journey into a Deeply Meaningful Life
by Ann Voskamp
Girl, Wash Your Face
Stop Believing the Lies about Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be
by Rachel Hollis
42 Seconds
The Jesus Model for Everyday Interactions
by Carl Medearis

* * *

What good book have you read this month? Please share in the comments.

My books on Goodreads
Previous reading lists

Do You Call Yourself “Still Evangelical”?

By LisaNotes April 20, 2018 Book reviews 1 Comment

“We seem to have forgotten who we are and why we are who we are.”
– Mark Young

Still Evangelical?

If you once considered yourself an evangelical, do you now?

It’s a question many of us wrestle with. Within ourselves. With the outside world. Even at times with God.

This is also the question asked over and again in this new book, Still Evangelical?: Ten Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning.

The question “Still evangelical?” is answered by ten different voices from the Christian community, and edited by Mark Labberton, including these:

Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Christians
Jim Daly, Focus on the Family
Mark Galli, Christianity Today
Lisa Sharon Harper, FreedomRoad.us
Tom Lin, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Karen Swallow Prior, Liberty University
Soong-Chan Rah, North Park University
Allen Yeh, Biola University
Mark Young, Denver Seminary

Nobody gives a perfect answer. There are none. We want to get this right. But we can’t, not exactly. We’re flawed. We’re limited. We’re human.

In the book, some ask more questions. Some propose suggestions. Some agree; some disagree.

But nobody is just lying down and giving up.

Excerpts

These voices are interesting to listen to. Here are a few snippets I heard in this book.

~ * ~

The efforts spent on defending our turf in the culture wars could be better served in loving our neighbor as ourselves.

~ * ~

Christians in America in general have an image problem. When the Barna Group polled the country and asked young non-Christians what their perceptions of Christians were, the top responses were (1) anti-gay, (2) judgmental, and (3) hypocritical.

~ * ~

The very thing that Jesus said the world would know we are Christians by—love—didn’t even register on the chart.

~ * ~

So how much do you have to “know” to be a Christian? And how “right” does it have to be? I’m wondering if, several centuries from now, people will look back at American Protestant evangelicalism and say, “Wow, they sure got such-and-such wrong.” How do we know that we have everything 100 percent correct? Don’t you think that God will give us some grace for the things we believed wrongly but sincerely? I sure hope so.

~ * ~

I realize Christians don’t always have the best reputation in the world, but I see that as a challenge to sing a better harmony rather than give up on the choir.

~ * ~

Every human being is made in the image of God, and any time a life is lost, we lose a little glimpse of God in the world.

~ * ~

I believe we should have two questions on the tip of our tongue as we engage with those around us: 1. Help me understand what you believe. 2. What brought you to those conclusions?

* * *

My thanks to NetGalley
for the review copy of this book

What Dates You? Let People Define the Times

By LisaNotes April 17, 2018 Community, One Word 2018: Mystery 19 Comments

So much has changed.

I was looking through old photos for a #ThrowbackThursday Instagram post. (Check out this #SpringPhotoADayChallenge; it’s not too late to join in. My posts are here.)

I came across this picture from 2010.

I do still wear the shirt.

But the laptop has since died and been replaced.
The glasses became too weak and had to become stronger.
The Kindle beside me stopped working and got upgraded to a Paperwhite.

And the house? It was where I grew up until I got married and left home in the 1980s.

But in March 2010, we were back spending lots of time sitting on that couch across from Mama. Daddy had just died a month earlier on Valentine’s Day 2010.

Mama’s Alzheimer’s was picking up speed after Daddy’s death. We siblings and spouses and grandkids were taking turns staying with her.

It was a hard season. But one I don’t want to forget.

Some seasons seem to move so slowly. Yet looking back, they rushed by.

While we don’t want to get stuck in time, sometimes we also don’t want to move forward.

We don’t want to forget the people we once lived with.
The experiences we shared.
The graces God brought us.

But it is safe to release the past. Because the past has done its work. We won’t forget it.

Who we once were has become part of who we are now.

Maybe our hairstyles change and our clothing modernizes and our technologies update. But the people we once knew? They stick.

Who we were with then? They’re also part of who we are now. They’re embedded in us.

We can’t explain how. But we don’t have to. It’s a mystery for God to understand.

Today is my dad’s birthday. If cancer hadn’t overtaken his body (or something else by now), he would have been 81 years old. We likely would have sat across from him today on that same couch in the same living room. I miss him and my mom.

But because I’m still here, a piece of them is still here, too.

God wove our paths together when I was conceived. And our paths stay forever braided together, whether here or there, even while I live attentive in the present, and grow forward into the future.

Our dates and times remain preserved in God’s hands.

* * *

Who are you missing? Do you still feel their presence with you? It’s a mystery. Please share in the comments.