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1 Samuel 16: 1-13, The Message translation

God addressed Samuel: “So, how long are you going to mope over Saul? You know I’ve rejected him as king over Israel. Fill your flask with anointing oil and get going. I’m sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I’ve spotted the very king I want among his sons.”

“I can’t do that,” said Samuel. “Saul will hear about it and kill me.”

God said, “Take a heifer with you and announce, ‘I’ve come to lead you in worship of God, with this heifer as a sacrifice.’ Make sure Jesse gets invited. I’ll let you know what to do next. I’ll point out the one you are to anoint.”

Samuel did what God told him. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the town fathers greeted him, but apprehensively. “Is there something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’ve come to sacrifice this heifer and lead you in the worship of God. Prepare yourselves, be consecrated, and join me in worship.” He made sure Jesse and his sons were also consecrated and called to worship.

When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Here he is! God’s anointed!”

But God told Samuel, “Looks aren’t everything. Don’t be impressed with his looks and stature. I’ve already eliminated him. God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks into the heart.”

Jesse then called up Abinadab and presented him to Samuel. Samuel said, “This man isn’t God’s choice either.”

Next Jesse presented Shammah. Samuel said, “No, this man isn’t either.”

Jesse presented his seven sons to Samuel. Samuel was blunt with Jesse, “God hasn’t chosen any of these.”

Then he asked Jesse, “Is this it? Are there no more sons?”

“Well, yes, there’s the runt. But he’s out tending the sheep.”

Samuel ordered Jesse, “Go get him. We’re not moving from this spot until he’s here.”

Jesse sent for him. He was brought in, the very picture of health—bright-eyed, good-looking.

God said, “Up on your feet! Anoint him! This is the one.”

Samuel took his flask of oil and anointed him, with his brothers standing around watching. The Spirit of God entered David like a rush of wind, God vitally empowering him for the rest of his life.

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Samuel knew his role. In this passage, he was to anoint a future Israelite king.

He was intimately acquainted with the Lord. He had spent the majority of his life listening to the Lord’s commands and delivering hard messages that few welcomed. But, even after a lifetime of prophesying God’s difficult to understand teachings to Israel, Samuel still initially sought logic as they way to discern the Father’s will.

Welcomed into Jesse’s home, Samuel began the process of king selection. Immediately upon meeting Jesse’s oldest son, he assumed (led astray by his own understanding) that Eliab would be the next Israelite king. And that is exactly what God had just told him not to do.

God advised him very clearly. Look, Samuel, don’t trust your eyes on this one. I’m looking for a certain kind of man. You are choose the one with a heart like none other. He will serve as my king.

Of course, we’re not privy to the entire discourse that ensued as Jesse brought the next six sons before Samuel, each of them rejected.

But we do know who God chose for Samuel to anoint – David, the youngest of eight sons, the runt, the one who wasn’t even home that day and who had to be chased down from the fields to meet the prophet.

God seemed to make an illogical choice for this next leader of nations until we remember how He reasons throughout the entire Bible.

Our Father does not reason like us. We are limited human beings, and we too often seek understanding of the wrong things.

As mothers, we strive to understand many things, especially our children. And that task is overwhelming. We long to make logical sense of why God made each child the way He did. Even more problematic, we sometimes spin our wheels trying to change our children into what we want them to be.

Homeschool moms often feel that burden amplified. After all, we spend a lot of time with our children, so shouldn’t we be that much more responsible for their personalities, their accomplishments, their characters?

Our household has just finished the hardest school year to date. We pursued the university model with four children. The Lord allowed me to feel consistently weak throughout the academic year. He permitted specific circumstances to cause pain, whipping me like a surge of stinging waves. I struggled to make sense of it, to find the logic behind school-initiated decisions that were meant to help me instruct my children well, but instead hurt.

I spent many prayer moments asking God, “Why are you allowing this _____?” I filled in the blank with many phrases. Consistently frustrated and eventually angry many days, I ended the days, emotionally exhausted and without answers to my questions. Finally, I asked the one question I should have been asking all along.

Who is this God who I attempt to understand?

Then the answers came flooding in.

He is a God who sees me. He sees you.

And He does not see things how we see them.

So although I am completely irritated at that and desperately want to understand my not understanding Him, I am disciplining myself to sit in it. I will have days when I yell and shake my fist at Him and pound my pillow like an angst-ridden, hormone-driven teenager who cannot control her mind. But I will also enjoy more tender days. And I will beg Him to do the one thing He already does and beg Him not to do the thing He promises not to do.

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Father,

I beg you to understand me, and You do. Always. Forever. Intimately. Historically. Patiently.

I beg you not to give to me too much. And you never do. You withhold the knowledge of things I cannot understand so I do not have to bear them.

You save me in the very way I am asking.

I wish I could say thank you in every language because my thanks pours out of my heart in such a way that the two words don’t seem to be enough. I don’t want the repetition of the two words to lose their meaning by virtue of being repeated.

But you’re not looking for me to express myself creatively. Or intellectually. Or to have an uncanny wit or be paradoxical or anything that might be impressive to man.

Because you do not see things ever as we see them.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

James 1:2-4, MSG

There have been many times this year that I have wanted to run hard away from this combination homeschool/at home way of doing education. I know I am not alone. I’ve compared notes with other mom friends doing this alongside me. Many days, it seems too hard.

Sometimes I think the homeschool days seem too difficult to endure because I compare them to the “at-school” days.  These are the two days my oldest 4 are in school and I look forward to getting stuff done.  These are the days I usually have time to look around and notice how the rest of the world is doing life. Allow me to recollect a real scenario on a lucky “at-school” day:

In between a day packed tight with errands, I slip in somewhere fantastic for a cup of coffee. Waiting in line, I venture to look out at the quaint tables amidst the snazzy jazzy music, and see a pair of women, probably my age. Almost always in yoga pants and yummy lip gloss. They are chatting, sitting comfortably, enjoying smooth caffeinated delight. They aren’t hurriedly running in and out. And why is that? Because their kids are probably in school 5 DAYS a week.

My jealousy brews over to the point that the whip cream I was looking forward to savoring just doesn’t taste quite as sweet because all I can think of his how I wish I could sit down and not run in and out between too many errands I chose to do today, the only day (let’s clarify…4 hours) I don’t have any children in tow. So, then, I wonder. Why? Why? Why? Concerning various topics, I question, “Why am I doing this?”

But, if I’m honest, the real question I’m usually asking is different. It’s this:

Why can’t my life be easier?

Father God in Heaven, who claims to love me more dearly than I can conceive, WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING ME TO DO HARD THINGS?

And therein lies the rub. I am asking God to make my life easy when His word, specifically the first chapter of James, tells me:

1. My sheer gift to you is My relentless love, that means something ONLY if you desperately need it.
2. Your faith life is this beautiful, colorful piece of artwork that takes time to create. It takes difficult patience to sit in the heat and pressure of the kiln, my dear.

So, I stay here. I stay teaching and loving and living like this for now because I’m not being called out of it. At least for now, I’m being called further inside. Deeper in is where I need to be, not fighting my way out prematurely.

Isaiah 58:10-12, The Message translation

“If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.  I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places – firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.  You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”

Father, because today is already full of unmet needs right in front of me and the day hasn’t even started, please remove my guilt about the hungry who I cannot help.  Let the needs in the beds that sleep next to mine be enough.

I know their hearts are hungry, and they are the foundations I am blessed to rebuild. My children are the spring that runs out of my past. Please help me take the time required to feed the hungry souls right in front of me truth.

Your truth about who You are is what they crave.

Isaiah 43:1-4The Message (MSG)

Fear penetrates most of my decisions. As a mother, I have learned how to wield fear around like a crazy woman who claims she has precise training that comes with almost twelve years of experience. But the truth is this. The more I allow fear to drive what I choose from the pantry to feed my children for dinner or use fear as my motivation to talk to my child about why he should use his manners in public, the more I dig a hole.

The darker, deeper the hole, the more impenetrable it is to the light.  I am deceived when I think that protection is the end goal of this motherhood journey.  Protection of myself and how another mom might perceive me.  Protection of my children and how the world might speak of them when they leave a room.  And, worse. I claim all this fear that drives me is really for our own good. For our own goodness sake.

As mothers, our Father invites us to release fear in exchange for love. He paid a price for us that was never fear driven. His saving us was always love motivated.  He exclaims His love for us in His presence, His Holy Spirit ,that came to the earth to dwell with us.

He hears your voice, your plea, to release this great burden. In exchange, we get to relish in is His personal love.