Sprinklers

You know, it's the little things in life that mean a lot. Have you ever thanked God for sprinklers? Our last house did not have sprinklers. A couple of years ago, we put in a new lawn from seed. If you've ever done that, you know that you have to keep the lawn moist for the new seed to germinate. This requires a lot of moving the hose over hours every day IF you don't have sprinklers.Sandy put down some seed the other day to hopefully turn our little patch of dirt into some grass. And to our surprise, the yard has automatic sprinklers THAT WORK! Can you see it in the corner?

Just so you get the full effect, I took a little video of it. You have to HEAR the sprinklers working to really appreciate it. Can you tell we LOVE the sprinklers? Such a beautiful hissing noise.

Happy birthday grandma and grandma!

Today is both my mom's birthday and Sandy's mom's birthday. So convenient. Thank you both for making life just a little bit more convenient!

We wish you God's blessings today!

We're almost there

About 6 months ago, we put our house on the market. I blogged about it here. We had quite a few showings even over the winter. With 3 different parties, we were told that our house was down to the final 2 or the final 3. But each time, they picked the other house. Always a bridesmaid!

At first, it didn't bother me much. I had targeted the spring market, specifically March, as our likely sell date. So if we sold it earlier, it would simply be a bonus. I had enough savings to be fine with that.

But have you ever carried something fairly light for a long period of time? Maybe it was a backpack or a small child. At first, it's no big deal. But as time wears on, the load feels heavier and heavier. As I saw my bank account get smaller and smaller, as I kept seeing housing prices drop lower and lower in my neighborhood, the load kept getting heavier and heavier.

Now I know that God owns all of my money. I know that God owns everything. He has given me my wealth and can take it away whenever He wants because it's really His money. I have taught a few times about what the Bible says about wealth in the past. Passages like the following are familiar to me.

• Proverbs 22:2 The rich and the poor have a common bond, The LORD is the maker of them all.
• Psalm 50:10 "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills."

Yet despite my knowledge, I realized something about my heart this week. I really didn't want to lose "my" money. And that was the key word - my. I felt like it was truly mine. So when it left me, it bothered me.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Through this process of selling our house, God has shown me in His kindness that there is a piece of my heart that loves wealth. This piece of my heart is not loving and worshiping and rejoicing in the greatness of God. This piece of my heart was enslaved to the sin of loving wealth. God showed me that I needed to repent of it so that I could completely trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God.

So regardless of what happens to our house, this process was well worth it. The testing and purifying of my faith is well worth it as it produces patient endurance in me. Endurance to hope in God, to trust in God and to worship God regardless of any circumstances. It just so happened that tonight, we agreed on a sale price with a buyer, the first person to bid on our house.

Now, escrow begins. We could close escrow and complete the sale of our house next month. Or we could fall out of escrow and continue to wait for God to provide the right buyer. Either way, God is sovereign and good. It is His money that I am temporarily managing for His glory. He gives and takes away as He sees fit.

Psalm 19:7-11

Psalm 19 is such a great psalm. God's glory sings from the skies and in the night. God's Word is so precious and effective. I was tempted to have Andrew memorize the whole thing.

But I must admit, it's a tough one to memorize. He did a good job sorting through these 5 verses.

1 John 1:9

Isn't this one of the greatest promises in Scripture?

I can't be reminded of this enough. Praise God that He is always faithful to forgive when I confess my sins.

The humility of parenting

I think I am like most parents. I am pretty busy all week working so I try and make some time to have fun with the family on the weekend. We decided to go to Home Depot Saturday as they had a free project for kids - building race cars. The boys were excited about the race cars, and Emery got to build a heart basket with mom.What was intended to be a fun morning and a happy childhood memory turned into another opportunity for my sinful pride to rear its ugly head. Since Matt is younger, I was focusing my time on helping him with the instructions. The first step involved gluing the main parts of the body together first, then nailing them.As I was helping Matt, Andrew raced ahead. I checked on him, thinking he had carelessly glued the wrong parts together. In an ugly moment, I chewed him out for not paying attention to the instructions and for not being more careful. I thought of it as a teaching moment but really, it was a sermonizing monologue. He meekly took it and kept building the car.

A few minutes later, Andrew came back to me with a question about the car. It turned out that I was completely wrong. He had put it together exactly correct, and I am the one who made the mistake and carelessly glued the wrong sides together. What a moment.

As a parent, I think I know the answers for my children. As a pastor, I think I know true biblical parenting. But no matter what I think I know, my implementation is so wickedly sinful, it's embarrassing. I had no recourse but to completely apologize and ask for my son's forgiveness. Thankfully, he is gracious to me and has been every time I have needed to apologize to him. And even more thankfully, God is gracious too.

Though I am older and though I know more about the Bible than my children, I am just as sinful as they are. Maybe worse, because I know so much more and am held accountable to that. I was painfully reminded of the truth that I am just one sinner seeking to train and teach another sinner. Thank God that His glorious Gospel is alive and well and effective in my life daily.

Giggly

Emery has been awfully giggly lately.She just keeps cracking up at everything.

I'm glad God has blessed us with happy children.