Spiritual Amnesia: A Silent Killer

I would probably be hiding flame-colored cheeks could I remember how many things I have actually forgotten over the past 24-hours, much less over the course of my entire life.  There has never been a time that I was good at remembering numbers or (since I teach so many students) people's names.  But almost seven years ago when squawling babes #2 and #3 took up residence down the hall, my ability to remember even the largest of things became next to impossible.

Ever since then, the art of forgetting is something I have worked hard to master, as is evidenced by the dozens of lists that litter my desk, walls, fridge, doors, and most every other horizontal surface in the house. 

To not forget, I must actively choose to remember.

Before Moses' death, he examined this problem of forgetting; yet, whereas we may think of forgetting as typically being a mere nuisance, Moses warned Israel that forgetting was deadly.

As Israel listened to Moses' final words, the nation was placed at a major turning point between its past and its future.  Literally, only a few steps and a stream of water lay between "what was" and "what would be."

Behind their backs was the sandy boneyard of the Wilderness where their forefathers had lived and died in their unbelief.  In front of them lay the Jordan River, just waiting for thousands of sandalled feet to cross and claim life in the Promised Land.

Before they could move into this land of promise, however, Moses reminded Israel "The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers" (Deut. 8:1). 

Israel's success or failure in this land depended wholly on whether or not they obeyed God's commandments.  It was all about loving the Lord with their entire heart, soul, and mind.

Yet, Moses knew God's people well enough to understand how fickle they were, how fast friends became enemies, how quickly joy became grumbling .  And so, he warned them: "And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him" (Deut. 8:2-6).

Remember.

Remember how God showed you the hard times to teach you that He alone provides all your needs.  Remember that He, alone, feeds, clothes, and sustains your very days.  Remember that apart from Him, you are nothing.  Because God...is...all, you must follow His commands.

A few verses later, Moses reminds the Israelites again,  "Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (v. 11-14).

Twice....don't forget.

Moses warns in the verses above that the forgetting will be caused by one simple thing--pride in their self sufficiency.  With full bellies, comfortable houses, and wealth untold, Moses knew the Israelites would begin to rely on themselves...would begin to believe that they, not God, had provided this wealth by the hard work of their hands.   

In their proud minds, they tended the flocks.  They tended the soil.  They built the houses. They multiplied their silver and gold by the sweat of their brow....all the while forgetting Who provided the increase. 

Moses sums this knowledge up with another request to remember: "Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day" (v. 17-18).

You shall remember....forget....remember...forget--Moses foresaw this cycle of Israel forgetting to love the Lord thy God in their prideful self-sufficiency.  Then, when God would judge them by withdrawing His hand of protection and productivity from the land of promise, Israel would once again remember...only to forget again once they grew comfortable in their success.

Sadly, the end of the passage concludes not with a joyous remembering and unity, but with a forgetting unto separation and death.  Moses warns, "And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God" (v. 19-20).

For Israel, the end game of forgetting to obey the first commandment of God was certain, eternal death.  There was no middle ground where Israel could remember and forget at the same time.  It was either one or the other.

This side of the cross, there is still no middle ground.  We either remember to love the Lord with our everything or we forget to obey the first and greatest commandment. 

This side of the cross, the consequence for spiritual amnesia is still death.  While it may not be physical death that results from not obeying the commands of Scripture, there are equally damaging ways forgetting can kill.  

Forgetting the commandments to not commit adultery, to not lie, to not steal, to not murder (even if only in anger) can kill marriages, friendships, families, churches, teaching opportunities with our children, and one's witness.  Even something that may seem more innocent like forgetting the commandment to not covet can kill a person's joy, peace, and, ultimately, entire relationships when one is not content with what he has.

To be an effective light for Jesus in this world, we simply cannot afford to forget His commands, and yes, the forgetting and the remembering are something we especially must struggle with in our American (and, increasingly, world-wide) culture of self-sufficiency!  But, in the end, we can't blame our forgetting on our wealth, comfort, and prosperity. 

Remembering to obey God's Word as He spoke ever so clearly through The Holy Bible is a choice.

Remembering is a choice.

You Can't Teach What You Don't Love

Living with an eight-year-old and twin six-year olds, rarely a day goes by that I'm not caught saying, "Did you hear me!? What did I just say?"

Sometimes, the children honestly didn't hear me over the noise of a very alive household.  Other times, they can't hear because that would require their mouths to close.  And then there are those times when I'm convinced they have simply tuned me out completely.

In this information overload culture of ours, I know the feeling.  I needn't leave my bed to be hit with a barrage of content that I must choose whether to sift through or simply ignore.  Often, good messages get lost in the steady stream of data bombarding me because it's easier to scan the long page or, more often, flick my index finger to delete them. 

How, then, are we as parents to communicate the gospel effectively to our children? With my children, I've already learned that even the medium-length lesson isn't worth the effort.  When their eyes glaze over, Twitter's 140 characters don't look so bad--maybe soundbites would reach their small, overloaded minds.  But while lengthy lessons don't work well for imparting a love of God and Scripture to our children, mere soundbites seem insufficient as well.  

Still, the Shema communicates the importance of teaching our children to follow God's commands.  It reads,

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates" (Deut. 6:4-9).

As a parent, I am to "teach...diligently" the words of God to my children.  In the context of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses was basically telling the people to explain the law to their children just as he was explaining it to them before his death.  

In this passage, parents are commanded to make every moment a "teaching" moment.  Whether we are sitting (ha!), walking, lying down, or rising, we are to be teaching about God's law. 

There are easy ways to intentionally fulfill the literalness of this command.  Scriptures we have hidden in our hearts should readily flow from our lips.  We must stop being bashful about speaking the name of God to our children.  Instead, His name should be as common in our conversations as any other named member in our household.  

I understand this type of teaching and have worked diligently over the past few years to put it into practice, learning to routinely speak aloud my praises/requests/thoughts about God and the Bible rather than merely to keep private my relationship with Him.  As a result, conversations about God have become as common as conversations about what's wrong with mom's choice of dinner fare.   

But frankly, I sometimes wonder if I'm saying enough....if my words are getting through to my children, or if it's just more information overload that won't penetrate their hearts.  

The problem with this vein of thinking stems from me missing part of Moses' lesson.  I somehow skipped over a verse, separating this command to teach from the other command that precedes it.  

After proclaiming God's one-ness, Moses starts the passage with, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might" (v. 5).

Before we can properly teach our children, we must properly love the Lord with our everything.

It doesn't matter what we say about God to our children.  It matters how we love Him! Even Moses knew the old adage, "Actions speak louder than words."

If God's Word doesn't impact our hearts, how can we expect it to impact theirs?  The answer is that it won't.  Our teaching will necessarily fail if we do not love God with every atom of our beings because we will be guilty of saying one thing and doing another.

Yet, for those who do love the Lord and who seek to love Him all the more, this should be a comfort--even though we may not feel that our intentional teaching moments are reaching our children, we can rest a little easier knowing that our words aren't the only ways we're teaching them about following Jesus.

Every moment we breathe is a teaching moment because our very attitude teaches our children about the Lord.  

• When we are excited about a passage of Scripture and share what we learned, we have just taught our children that the Bible can be exciting.  
• When they see us intently studying Scripture on the sofa or see our Bible Study classes penciled in on the wall calendar, we have just taught them that making time for God is important.  
• When we give money to the poor or take a meal to a sick friend, we have taught them to love their neighbor as themselves.  
• When we choose to play praise music in our cars and enthusiastically sing aloud, we have just taught them the importance of singing praises to God in our routine, daily life outside the church walls.

The list of our daily actions could go on and on.  We are teaching our children to love God with the very lives we live, both before Him and before them. 

This week, we must continually ask ourselves if we are loving Jesus with all we've got. 

We will teach best what we love most.

Why the Elf of the Shelf Isn't a Good Quick Fix

Growing up, we had a pair of olive green clad elves that sat on the ledge of our staircase.  On the other treads sat a hodgepodge of fond memories mother disinterred from her blue metal steamer trunk each December--the 3D gingerbread house candle from Avon, the singing red plastic bell, and the twirling, musical white-robed angel with her fifties' hairdo and halo of tiny plastic candles. 

To my brother and me, the elves were pretty cool, if for no other reason than that in a sea of our mother's "don't touch" precious memories, we were allowed free reign to gently hold these cloth objects with their molded plastic faces.  Few trips up and down the stairs didn't find me untucking their folded knees from their encircled arms and letting their twiggy legs dangle long.

Never did I ever consider that these stuffed objects might be real elves sent by Santa Claus to be sure I was behaving. 

This past year, my son came home from kindergarten with news that an elf had arrived in his room.  He had fun telling me if and when the elf magically moved around the room each day.  And much like my childhood, the elf was just a fun stuffed decoration.

But as the season progressed, I started hearing some parents using the elf as a discipline tool.  As the weeks passed, my Facebook home page literally exploded with pictures of the elf along with comments like, "You'd better be careful, Mikey.  That elf might is watching you" or "Susan was on a tear tonight.  Time for the elf to make an appearance!"

While some parents only used the cute guy as fun, for all too many, the elf became the embodiment of parental discipline, Santa's watchdog, a confidential informant so the big guy in red would know if you'd been bad or good.


Right before Christmas, a lady sweetly asked my son if he had an "Elf on the Shelf" watching to see if he was being bad lately.

Wyatt stood silent, not understanding or knowing how to respond.  Before I could bite my tongue, I blurted out,  "No.  Our house has a Father God who writes down our every action in heaven." 

This is the heart of the problem with the elf fad--teaching children behave in order to please a stuffed creature so they'll be worthy of Christmas gifts.

And now that Christmas is over? What happens now? Who should children strive to please until next December?

In Galatians, Paul speaks of grace and the law, explaining how God's grace that covers sin is not a writ of permissiveness so we can do whatever our flesh desires.  Instead, God's grace at salvation gives us the ability to fulfill the law, something we could never do within ourselves.

He then says,  "But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith" (Gal. 3:23-24).

You know the law of Moses he speaks of--do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, do not covet, do not commit adultery, keep the Sabbath holy, honor your father and mother, don't worship other gods....... Then, there is Jesus' clarification of those laws in Matthew 5 where He teaches that anger in one's heart is the equivalent of murder, where lust in one's heart is the equivalent of adultery.  This is the fullest extent of obeying the law given in the Old Testament.

According to this above passage, before we became followers of Christ, the law of Moses "tutored" us, teaching us to choose right actions and, ultimately, leading us to salvation when we learned we could never keep the law on our own and needed the blood of Calvary to redeem us from our sin.

The point is that this is how we must raise our children--under the law.  Not under fear of an elf but under fear of displeasing a holy God.  We must choose to raise our children under the law until they come to faith in Him, allowing the law to be their "tutor" to lead them to faith in Christ.

Our children must be taught that daily (not just in December), God knows their comings and goings, everything done in secret, every thought they has ever entered their minds.

In our household, I constantly remind my children that God not only knows and sees all, but that He writes all their actions--good and bad--down in His book: "and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds" (Rev. 20:12).

In other words, discipline isn't about an elf.  It isn't about what mommy and daddy want.  

Choosing right actions is about what God wants and expects from them.

In our household, husband and I strive (and fail miserably and strive again) to discipline our children based around the Ten Commandments.  At this age, they're usually guilty of not honoring their parents, lying, coveting as is expressed through ingratitude, murder through anger, etc.   I also routinely walk around the house yelling out the fruit of the spirit at my children when I see them doing something wrong.  "Kindness!!!" or "Gentleness!!!" (Gal. 5).  The result is that just last week, my oldest looked at me before I could say a word and said, "I know, I know.  Patience."

This post isn't an elf bashing.  One day, I'm sure my mother will pass down to me one of her antique elves to sit on my shelf.   But when she does, it will be simply a sweet memory, not a tool for discipline.

Instead, this is about parenting the next generation. 

We parents must choose to instill in our children a healthy fear and respect for God alone.  Respect for a holy God and fear of disappointing a heavenly Father should direct our parenting.  It should propel our children through every season of the year, not just at Christmas time. 

When You Feel Like You're Spinning Your Wheels

It's one of those evenings when I take stock of life and envision my feet stuck fast in rubber cement. Dust bunnies outnumber humans inside our home.  Husband's magnificent pipe-laying project takes my beginning-to-look-nice-yard back to square one again, only this time, it looks like an overzealous, mean-spirited gopher took the concept of revenge to a whole new level.

Then there are the children.  My oldest still can't stop talking back even after we've focused on this issue for two solid weeks.  My youngest is starting week four of throwing half hour screaming tantrums when he gets sent to the naughty bench.  And all three have suddenly forgotten how to pick up their toys, put shoes in their cubbies, and stack up books on the shelves when they're finished.

Add to that a month where I have spent more time laboring for the kingdom in the back of the church with preschoolers who may or may not remember my name than I have spent at the feet of my pastor or lifting my voice in praise with other Christians in a corporate worship service...

 The result is a feeling that I've just been spinning my wheels without moving forward an inch--both in my personal and spiritual life.

In the midst of my pity party, I open my Bible study, just flipping through pages I've already studied, and lo and behold, God directs me to a Scripture that makes me slack jawed.

 The second time Moses climbed down from a forty-day stay on Mount Sinai, the Israelites weren't dancing around a calf.  This time, they were waiting: "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.  When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him" (Ex. 34:29-30).

Moses had spent forty days in God's presence, and he was physically changed by it.  His face glowed with the reflected glory of God the Father.  But he didn't know it!

Not until the Israelites kept their distance from him out of fear, not until someone (Aaron, maybe?) had the courage to stop the whispers and speak up about his holy glow did Moses realize the impact being in God's presence had on his physical body. Had Moses known the magnitude of the change that had been wrought on him, he could have become prideful.  Yet, his ignorance was God's way of protecting him against being prideful in his new-found closeness with God.

Consider how this may apply to us Christians today.  As we continue to study God's Word, let it take root in our hearts, apply His Word to our lives, actively serve him (yes, even if it's in a nearly invisible role like teaching preschoolers a Bible verse)--I believe our faces become radiant just as Moses' did.    

Yet, God may not show us the full extent of our progress.  Indeed, He may intentionally hide our progress from us, keep us in ignorance so we will not become prideful in our relationship with Him, in our becoming more like Christ.

Paul said, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14).

May we repeat Paul's words and say, yes, Father.  May the same be said of us.  Even if it means difficult days when we can't see how far we have come and how far we have to go--keep us humble so we may never boast in ourselves and our progress in being sanctified in the righteousness of Christ.

May we boast alone in Christ Jesus and in Him crucified.  

“'Let not the wise boast of their wisdom
    or the strong boast of their strength
    or the rich boast of their riches,
     but let the one who boasts boast about this:
    that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
    justice and righteousness on earth,
    for in these I delight,'declares the Lord" (Jer. 9:23-24).


Image: Optical Illusion--"Spinning Wheels" from CultivatorX on Flickr.