Our Part

My daughter wants to improve her lacrosse skills this summer. With the blistering heat during the daytime, this has meant that we’ve begun spending our early evenings in front of brick walls as she practices her drills. As the sun is setting, our eyes automatically adjust to the increasing darkness. At some point, however, we realize it’s just too dark. It’s no longer safe to have hard plastic balls ricocheting back toward you. Lacrosse balls can leave some mean bruises.In our culture, this past week has become that point at which we suddenly looked up and realized it was too dark. With the Supreme Court ruling, the tragedy in South Carolina, and the constant news of terrorism, it seems like darkness is here. But let’s be honest: We’ve all sensed it before now. The slippery slope of moral decay in our culture didn’t start this past week. Every generation proclaims it’s the hardest generation in which to parent. And every generation is right. Times are getting darker.My first thought when Mark looked up from his cell phone and delivered the Supreme Court decision was, “Oh Lord, I didn’t pray enough.” Isn’t that true for each of us? It gets incrementally darker with each passing day… but as long as we can still squint in order to do what’s important to us, why stop and pray? Why do anything to combat the darkness? Surely, someone else will. Yet God’s often quoted (but rarely obeyed) truth from 2 Chronicles 7:14 rings in my ears:

… if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

I want to challenge our thought process. The problem in this country isn’t ungodly people. The problem isn’t the desires of the lost. The problem is that those of us who call ourselves children of God are too busy pursuing our own idols to do our part. God didn’t tell the Gentiles to humble themselves and pray. He told His children to seek Him and turn from their wicked ways.In this same passage (verses 19-22), the Lord warns Solomon:

But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you… [E]veryone passing by will be astonished and say, “Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?” Then they will say, “Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers… and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.”

Apart from the Holy Spirit, you’ll read this and either agree or disagree and move on. But I’m asking the Lord to pierce the hearts of the women of my generation to be shaken out of our comfort zones and decide to change some things in our daily lives.To be difference makers, we need to know God’s Word and we need to have His heart. Neither of those happen overnight, but we must become intentional about working on these two areas each and every day. Choosing to do nothing is definitely not the answer. Choosing to commit time each day to be in God’s Word and begin to grasp His heart for His children will make a difference.

• It will help you know how to pray.
• It will help you know how to love someone whom you disagree with.
• It will help you know how to love those who struggle with homosexuality.
• It will help you know how to respond to changes in our culture.
• It will help you know how to be light to your family and friends.

Need help knowing how to get something out of the time you spend in God’s Word? Please let me know. I would be honored to help you in any way I can.