So when my best buddy in the States sent me photos of her glorious peonies in full bloom, it was a sign of things to come. Hers look like this:

And ours currently look like this:

Do you SEE how gorgeous ours are?

Of course not. You can’t even tell what color they’ll be. (Light pink. Here.)

But it’s not time for them yet, because this is Alaska. Spring lasts for about two weeks, summer gets a late start, and peonies don’t bloom here until July. If you have anything impressive in your garden this early, you probably bought starts from a nursery.

I shared this photo online last week with a scripture verse, and if you’ve read about some odd reactions I’ve gotten to those, let me assure you that at least the comment I got on this one was probably well meaning and wasn’t from a religious weirdo (I don’t think so, at least):

The comment was, “I feel sorry for your houseplant.”

My initial thought was, What houseplant? This is a photo of my desk. But then I looked again, and oh yes, there’s that little snake plant on the floor that has taken forever to grow from cuttings I got from a friend.

It does look sort of pathetic in the photo, but it wasn’t the focus of the post. In reality it looks almost as pathetic has five shoots that have grown up from the dirt, and only two of them show in the picture.

This plant is a slow grower and doesn’t like full sun. So it sits in the corner by my desk and quietly endures judgement and pity from strangers online, listening to Einaudi with me while I write.

But it’s doing its thing; it doesn’t need anyone’s pity.

It doesn’t edit, doesn’t create graphics, doesn’t check email or answer phone calls for me. But it’s not meant to do any of those things. It’s meant to sit there and grow, and there’s no deadline or competition.

It is doing what it’s meant to do, and minding its own business.

Or, can we rephrase that, and say it’s obeying its calling? Because it is.

Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.
With the Lord on my side I do not fear.
What can mortals do to me?
The Lord is on my side to help me;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to put confidence in mortals.

— Psalm 118:5-8

Lots of things (and people) look funny while they’re growing, and deal with the ignorant judgment from others who only take a quick look and have no idea what the full story is.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

— Titus 2:11-13

It reminded me of a conversation I had at church last weekend, when someone asked me if I ever wondered about what other people thought of my special needs kids, and why they’re not healed.

And yeah, I have thought that. Vince and I have been in and led prayer ministry for years, and I have no doubt people have looked at us and wondered if we were really qualified to lead or minister or pray for healing because some of our kids’ issues have been super obvious.

But what’s not obvious is where our kids came from, or what they’ve been through, or how far they’ve come. In our local church, only two other people have seen our journey from the beginning.

How many times have we judged others when we had no idea how many hurdles they’ve already overcome?

How many times have we judged ourselves or others for not doing things that we’re not even meant to do? For not looking like everyone else? For not having the same timeline? For having a different starting line and growing season?

He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

— Titus 2:14

We are not all organic heirloom seeds, planted in perfect loamy soil with a long head start in spring, watered on a scheduled timer.

Some of us are just doing the best we can in the clay and the climate we were planted in. We don’t have as much time, and halfway through the year it still looks like we just started.

But if you are obeying in that, it is enough.

We have this horrible habit of setting expectations and rushing timelines that have nothing to do with what God calls us to.

There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”

— Psalm 118:15

So here, a word for the one who is looking at their progress and wondering why there’s still so little to show for it:

Your early growth doesn’t define your success. Don’t let someone else’s greenhouse beginning diminish your efforts from seed.

It’s not a competition until we try to make it one, and when we do, everyone loses. It’s better to just refuse that game, mind our own business, and obey in our own calling.

Your friend’s Pacific Northwest climate doesn’t diminish your Alaskan rate of growth. So don’t judge your June growth by your August expectations; you’ll know what color you are soon enough.

You are allowed to be the late bloomer. The dark horse. The sleeper whom no one expects, and then wakes with a roar.

The post late bloomer: obedience, not comparison, defines success appeared first on Copperlight Wood.

Handy things they are, except for when it comes to highway mileage. A pickup has a tailgate and a bed, and unless you have a canopy or cover on it – we didn’t – you get drag.

Resistance. Opposition to forward motion. You spend more gas trying to get where you’re going just because that truck bed and tailgate are cupping the wind at highway speed.

For years, people told us we should get a commuter car. We knew we should, too, but buying a new vehicle and selling an old one is a pain. Those were desperate days, too much going on, who needs one more thing to do?

So we avoided the change and stuck with the little pickup until January of 2014, when Vin rolled it on the highway during a snowstorm, totaling it.

Then we had no choice: A commuter car it was. And you know what we started saving in gas?

Five hundred dollars a month.

We knew it would make a difference, but we had no idea it was costing us that much. What could we have done with an extra $6000 a year, for those six years?

What else is our avoidance (stubbornness, laziness, resistance, denial, or any other drag) costing us?

Here’s the big question that might save you a ton of time, money, emotional investment, and other resources:

What am I ignoring or putting off that will actually be for my overwhelming good?

Sometimes lost things are found when we let go.

Our days are no longer desperate like they were then. Or, maybe they are, but in different ways: The kids are calmer, but our scope is broader, there’s no steady paycheck, and our schedule is often out the window because our work is way different and almost always changing.

I’m still a writer, but I’m only at the desk one or two days a week lately. It feels weird. And what’s weirder is even with such limited time, I have days when I don’t want to write.

Those days make me wonder if I still am who I was, or if I lost something. Did I drop my calling? Why is it so hard to shift back and forth sometimes? Am I walking in neglect or disobedience? Or am I just tired? (Stupid question. Don’t answer that.)

A single day of feeling supremely off kilter can make me wonder all those things, because I am fragile and human.

That’s the wrong kind of wonder to have. It’s drag, and it’s far more expensive than commuting to Anchorage in a little pickup, because if not caught it leads to brooding, which in turn often leads to all sorts of leading questions and bad conclusions.

The cost is high because it’s our identity and vision at stake.

So here, too, is where we ask: What am I ignoring or putting off that will actually be for my overwhelming good?

And in this case, the answer (for me, at least) is pretty much the same every time: Abiding. ¹

If I were abiding in this situation, I wouldn’t be doing the wrong kind of wondering. I wouldn’t be questioning my calling or ability, wondering if I lost it or if it was just a long season that’s over.

I’d have real answers, instead. I’d have peace and grace for the day, instead of anxiety and discouragement.

When I finally confront the issue head on, rather than avoiding it for days on end, striving and struggling needlessly in angst, it takes a whopping five seconds of concentrated abiding to realize what’s going on.

Be honest, Shannon. Ask the question. Put it into words and confess it.

So I do, and it’s another finally-suddenly moment, because that’s when I hear the answer.

You haven’t dropped or lost or neglected anything, Love. But you are not always meant to tell and translate. You also need to soak and receive.

Oh. Duh. Well, that sounds so obvious.

But I’ve gotten so used to the feeling of pressure that I didn’t even recognize it. This happens with all sorts of mindsets, and they become like refrigerator noise in the background of our lives that we don’t even hear anymore.

So listen: What is the noise you’ve been ignoring, or that you’ve gotten used to? We can’t deal with it until we identify it.

When I let go of the pressure to write, that’s often when a torrent of words rush out. Onto the screen, in my phone memo, on any scrap of paper I can find.

Like I said earlier, sometimes lost things are found when we let go.

Oh, that’s where I am. That’s the me that thrives the way You made me to – because I finally looked for where You are in this. I missed the forest for the trees, but You were here all along.

To be fair to myself and honest with you, I can abide in all sorts of things while avoiding the main issue I really need to talk to the Lord about.

I think it’s a common ploy of intercessors; we can procrastinate and distract ourselves by praying for a million other things, and still feel pretty good about our abiding. A friend of ours who led worship for years said it’s the same on that side of the coin, too: If he didn’t want to deal with something, he would worship, instead.

Isn’t it funny how we can use righteous things to avoid becoming more righteous?

And isn’t God gracious to still meet us in our avoidance, and wait for our honesty? Even our ability to face things is grace from Him.

It would be nice to have more grace and peace, though, and get back on track faster.

May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

– 2 Peter 1:2

We tend to overuse and gloss over those terms. What do they really mean in the messy situations we’re dealing with?

Grace and peace look like solutions, resolution, revelation, and certainty. They look like security in our identity, steadiness in our calling, and boldness in our obedience.

May those things be yours and mine in abundance. And may we cooperate with receiving them, because God’s generally not going to force them on us while we’re ignoring the issue He wants to address.

To defeat the drag and make forward progress, we’ll need to sell the truck, make the move, call the person, spend the money, ask the question, admit our weakness, acknowledge the problem, confess the sin, set the boundary, etcetera, etcetera. It could be anything. It’s probably on your mind as you’re reading this.

Anyway, whatever it is, if we’re not willing to do it because we’d rather feel the drag against our tailgate (ahem), then He’s generally not going to force that particular answer upon us.

Good news, though: He’s made us for the answer. He knows how weak, exhausted, angry, wounded, confused, overwhelmed, or whatever we are that seems like it’s holding us back.

Seriously, He knows how whatever you are. And He did all the heavy lifting to make us like Him:

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.

Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.

– 2 Peter 1:3-4

You and I cannot participate in the divine nature if we neglect to abide. Abiding is the participation: This is how we know, hear, act, and become more like Him.

It’s how Peter, who wrote those words, went from being an impulsive loudmouth you probably wouldn’t want speaking at your funeral to becoming an older and wiser heavyweight who could handle the spotlight. Both versions were forces to be reckoned with, but only one was fully surrendered and thus able to lead others in that same transformation.

So we don’t want to waste gas, too focused on the problem to do anything to actually solve it.

If we’re putting off abiding – or any other prompting of the Holy Spirit – we’re not changing anything for the better.

Such a bummer. I’m so sorry.

What can we do, then?

First, if this rings a bell, we need to acknowledge our avoidance and confess it. It’s not a huge, drawn out thing. It’s a reality check, and it’s instant: “Yep, I’ve been doing that.”

Then there are several things we can do. But to work smarter and not harder, the best first thing is to ask God: What do I need to do now? And then do it.

I know, the best time to do it would’ve been a long time ago. But the next best time is now.

And one more question to ask Him: How do You want me to see this situation? Because we want to see it the way He does. He’s not discouraged or dismayed over this. He’s not overwhelmed, overwrought, or doing the wrong kind of wondering.

When we’re looking at Him and seeing things the way He does, we see possibilities instead of limits. We stop partnering with fear, agreeing with the enemy, making blanket statements and accusations and assumptions. We stop doing the things that make it worse, and start doing the things that make it better.

Bemoaning that the enemy is winning in different areas or how we feel like we are losing in other areas is a poor strategy for defeating him. It’s a total drag, wasting our resources.

But quick cooperation with His promptings brings momentum. Obedience to God is spiritual warfare. And this is how we win.

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P.S. We’ve had a big change at our house, and we’ve also got a big prayer and provision need. Here’s our monthly update.

P.P.S. Our pastor gave a great message here that relates to this topic (starts at 1:09). Bonus: Vin is in a couple of dangerous aggressive super awkward sermon illustrations.

1. Often for me, writing IS abiding. Journaling, praying, all the thoughts going on paper or screen…I’m talking to and with Him more than anyone else. But after years of writing as vocation and ministry, writing is also work, and there’s the struggle. Maybe there’s a post on that coming soon. ︎

The post avoidance: the cost of drag, & how we defeat it appeared first on Copperlight Wood.

For years now I’ve shared a small section of my personal Bible reading with a photo, because God’s word is for every day, all parts of our days and lives.

Everyday photos: dishes, mountains, cats, crochet. Sometimes blurry, imperfect photos. Because our days are sometimes blurry and imperfect, and the Word still applies to them.

Due to space restraints and the fleeting attention span of the average scroller, I usually only post a few verses that can be basically understood without a ton of other context.

Here’s what I said about it a while back:

These verses are only a small drop in the bucket. If we profess to know Jesus, the Living Word, we need to know the written word…the whole thing.

And if we don’t know the written word in context, we don’t know it at all.

I heard this from a conference a few months ago and it astounded me:

We did a show of hands a few years back at a pastor’s conference – not one of ours, but another ministry – and we asked the pastors, “How many of you have read the whole Bible?”

Only 40% of the crowd had read the whole Bible. This was in America, in Southern Cal, Orange County.

One of the pastors said, “Well, I’m not dealing with theology, I’m dealing with people’s issues.”

And I’m like, “Well, that’s why your people have so many issues.”

– Michael Kulianos

At a pastor’s conference, only 40% of the crowd of pastors had actually read the entire Bible.

WHAT.

The other 60% are those who presume to teach the Bible without actually having fully read it themselves.

This explains a lot of our modern church culture, hmm?

Even regarding the 40% of pastors who had read the whole Bible, we have to ask…have they only read it once, and then checked it off the list? I mean, if 60% hadn’t even read it all the way through, how many of those who had read the Bible…actually read it daily? You know, reeeead it, as in, they study and examine it, and keep pursuing truth?

Instead of growing deep and wide, diving in and exploring broadly, many of us are standing at the shoreline just skipping rocks while thinking we know what’s in the water.

We have a Christian culture disastrously low in Biblical literacy and woefully high in presumption.¹ Or, to put it another way, we have churches full of armchair quarterbacks who’ve hardly read the playbook while claiming to be expert enough to teach others about it from the pulpit and elsewhere.

Who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.

But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie about the truth.

This is not wisdom that comes down from above but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.

– James 3:13-15

Let’s talk about Biblical literacy.

Biblical literacy is not just reading and checking off chapters and getting all the way through, cover to cover.

Biblical literacy means understanding context and language, which includes history and grammar. If you didn’t like those in school, sorry, but they’re necessary if you want to understand scripture rather than making a quick surface application of some random verse in Bible Roulette.

In full disclosure, I grew up on Bible Roulette as a kid, and I don’t know that any church leader was necessarily to blame for this. And later when I started reading the Bible on a daily basis, I definitely read it to check it off more than anything else. It was better than nothing in the begging. Not great, of course, but at least it helped me start to gain a familiarity with the overall picture and timeline of the Old and New Testaments.

But I wasted years just checking off readings. Probably the first ten(ish) times I read it all the way through were more about checking off than digging in (also yes, I can be a slow learner).²

So even in reading it over and over and over, we can easily miss the point. I sure did.

Reading only a few verses a day that are taken out of context (whether they are my social media posts, or some influencer’s Instagram post, or two minutes of Bible Roulette, or whatever) is probably worse than reading nothing at all.

Is that shocking? It’s counter to what we’ve been told all along: “If all you can read is a few verses a day, just do that.”

But no, don’t do that. I mean, do that if you have to on certain days, but don’t make it your daily practice and then call it “Bible reading” or “Bible study.”

I have been the mom with seven or eight kids and zero time to go to the bathroom, much less ten minutes to sit on the couch and have quiet time that looks like something you’d see on Pinterest. I’m not arguing against the bits and pieces, here and there, whenever you finally get a free few minutes to breathe.

I’m arguing against the false sense of security and accomplishment achieved by the routine reading of a random few verses here and there, not digging any deeper into their actual application or context, and then moving about our business as though we’ve actually attained some mystical experience and understanding that we don’t actually possess.

That’s what’s not okay.

As a result of this, we have leaders, teachers, pastors, everyday people spouting things that don’t even exist in the Bible but claiming it does because they saw something like it in there somewhere but failed to actually delve into the context to understand the full truth of it.

Or, what’s more common, they assume a thing — “headship” is a good example — and then read it into the Bible because it fits their worldview or what they’ve always been taught, and then create doctrine out of it rather than understanding what those passages actually refer to and investigating whether their concept of it is even in the Scriptures. (Spoiler alert: It’s not.³)

This leads to divisions, arguments, pomposity, stubborn digging in of heels, the diminishing of the gospel, and all kinds of nonsense.

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but that you be knit together in the same mind and the same purpose.

– 1 Corinthians 1:10

Why does the New Testament talk so much about false teachers? Because they were dealing with them at the time of the writing. And also, because God knew we would be dealing with them, too.

So many have not learned, and then in their lack of learning they have taught others.

But here’s the thing: False teachers aren’t those who teach things you don’t personally like or approve of. False teachers are those who teach something opposed to what God says.

Jesus’ words about this:

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in you stop them.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

– Matthew 23:14-15

None of us want this kind of rebuke from the Lord.

So can we set aside what we’ve “always been taught” and always believed and always held onto, and just go back to what the Bible – in fullness, wholeness, and complete context – actually says? Can we go back to what Jesus lived out? Because this is what He is calling us to do.

If we see a section in the Bible that makes us ask questions, we should ask them. We should not brush them off and just say, “Well, it’s in the Word so it must be true.” God gave us a brain to use and the whole Word to examine, and this is not critical thinking. This is cult-like ignorance.⁴

Here are some verses also in the Word that should not be taken out of context and put into universal application:

Your meetings do more harm than good.
— 1 Corinthians 11:17

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”
— 1 Corinthians 7:1

So I made up my mind that I would not make another painful visit to you.
— 2 Corinthians 2:1

I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!
— Galatians 5:1

And of course, the most abused and mistranslated:

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.
— 1 Timothy 2:12

I mean, we wouldn’t want to fuss with footnotes, original language, cultural context, or any of that other inconvenient stuff…it’s just so much easier to avoid meetings, not touch women, not visit people, castrate offenders, and forbid half of humanity from teaching or talking.

Sigh, snicker.

Here’s the good news (lowercase, not uppercase): We can all do better, and we can do it today.

We can all dive deeper, read wider, pursue more. We can all repent and admit we don’t know as much as we need to or want to.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Watch out that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ.

— Colossians 2:6-8

We can all honor each other and listen, and set boundaries with those who won’t reciprocate.

For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

– James 3:16-18

There are human traditions to be found all throughout Christianity that are only loosely based in the Bible and not at all what it intended.

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who create dissensions and hindrances, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.

For such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.

– Romans 16:17-18

Education is not expensive.⁵ But ignorance is, and it’s costing the Kingdom.

It’s a good time to examine those things we always thought were true, and ask ourselves: Is this actually in the Bible, in context? Or is this just something that some in the Church have taught forever, and never course-corrected?

Because those are not always the same thing.

Wisdom is preserved for those who don’t get caught up in offense, pride, and stubbornness, but are instead caught up in wonder of His goodness.

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footnotes

1. We also have a mainstream culture disastrously low in any literacy, and still woefully high in presumption. But that’s a discussion for another blog. ︎
2. The closest I’ve come to reading other books multiple times is probably…I’m guessing, but I think 5 times or so each of Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Wind in the Willows, and that great classic, The House at Pooh Corner. None of which I grew up reading as a child, except for one I tried (but not really) and hated. Ironically, as I type this, we’re reading that one again to all the kids, and it is my hands-down favorite read aloud ever. ︎
3. If you’d like a video resource on this (under 30 minutes) this is a thorough one. Or if you prefer to read, this excellent short article confronts the modern erroneous use of the term “headship” which is not even in the Bible. The author makes the point that “loveship” would be a more accurate term and make more sense Biblically, because although it, too, is not found in the Bible, husbands are told to love their wives far more (6 times) than they are mentioned as the head (twice) or leader (zero times), or than wives are told to submit or “be subject” (3-4 times, depending on how you count).
   Further, it is important to note that “be subject” or “submit” does not equate to “follow.” See Ephesians 5:21, which prefaces two of the instances for women: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This does not mean “Follow each other.” Here is a great article from Marg Mowczko on that, and here is another brief one. ︎
4. For example, David was “a man after God’s own heart.” Does this mean he was above reproach and we can’t be honest about his violent, lecherous behavior? Must we therefore assume that whatever he did was justified, or that it should at least be minimized?
   Some people think so, but I’m not one of them. God’s use of imperfect people doesn’t equal His categorical endorsement of their actions. (See also this video on Judges.) ︎
5. My favorite free Bible study resources are BibleProject and AWKNG. ︎

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