So I Won't Forget...April 2024

3 things I want to remember from the past month

When we start something, it’s often easy to lose sight of why we started it in the first place. Or perhaps more accurately, we slowly slip away from the original vision of what we set out to do. Mission creep, I’ve heard it called in an organizational context. But most of us aren’t organizations. We’re simply people trying to be healthy, wondering why after a week of consistently flossing, we’ve lost the umph we had right after our latest cleaning. I’m too tired to floss tonight. Do we actually need to do it every day? Does anyone ever use all of the individual flossers in the 5000 pack? Why do they only sell them in packs of 5000?

This is not an article about intrinsic motivation or strategic planning. It’s simply me expressing what is likely true for most of you reading this: you’ve started something & had to remind yourself why you’re doing it. When I set out to write this month’s So I Won’t Forget, I found myself daydreaming about stories to share, what would be funny, what would be interesting, how could I most efficiently get this article written. But I didn’t set out to do any of this (We Have This Hope) to be funny, interesting, or efficient. I’m barely any of those things. I started this because I couldn’t stop thinking about the call of God in scripture for his people to remember his promises and how that call transcends the lives of the Israelites and lands squarely in the lap of the disciples who passed it along to the Church and to us. Remember what God has done and talk about it all the time. Or as my friend Nina put it in her sermon this week, remember and rehearse God’s story. For those of us who claim to follow Jesus, this is the practice that keeps us from setting ourselves up as religious experts who have actually strayed to meaningless talk. Here’s how Paul talks about it to Timothy in the first chapter of his letter:

^4-7 Apparently some people have been introducing fantasy stories and fanciful family trees that digress into silliness instead of pulling the people back into the center, deepening faith and obedience. The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love—love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God. Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into dead ends of gossip. They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven’t the remotest idea of what they’re holding forth with such imposing eloquence.

Paul is talking about things happening in the church at Ephesus here and I think it’s fairly clear that some were experiencing potentially dangerous mission creep. Paul’s asking Timothy to stay and to challenge the leaders to stop jockeying for authority, influence, and eloquence, and to return to the simplicity of loving God and loving others.

After reading this, I spent the remainder of the week evaluating why I started writing and podcasting in the first place and asking questions like “have I digressed into silliness instead of pulling people back into the center…?” A pointed question that helped me reframe my outline from amusing squirrel stories (yes, you read that correctly) to thinking about what I’ve experienced in the last month that pointed me toward the gospel. What things this month drew me toward God and his kingdom?

So today’s version of So I Won’t Forget likely won’t be as cute as the previous ones and I’m sorry. It’s hard to read anything by Paul and then write something cute. I’m still going to share stories that help frame what God-thoughts I’m having and what I think about the Scripture I’m digesting, but I’ll be saving my squirrel stories for when we’re having coffee and just hanging out.

Photo by Shane Young on Unsplash

So I Won’t Forget #1…Remember and tell. The original mission of We Have This Hope.

I snuggled with Cece on the couch last Sunday morning while we scrolled through photos from the first weeks and year of her life. She and her twin brother turned six this week, a very coveted age for those with Spring birthdays in Kindergarten. We reveled together, drawing the rest of the family to us, commenting on how little she was, how she stole her brother’s pacifier from day one, and how our home was basically a gated daycare center for a year.

Kids’ birthdays are built for remembering. These little days become major plot points on the timeline of our lives because when they burst on the scene everything changes. Things get harder, oh boy much harder sometimes, but things also get richer in a way that allows us to adapt to the hard. We find ourselves in that strange place of being pressed on every side, yet feeling that our hearts might burst for love of these tiny things we’ve been given to steward.

Photo by Storiès on Unsplash

When our church was launching in 2017, I was helping to frame out some of the mission for the children’s ministry and in an act of needing to start somewhere, I went through my Bible and wrote out every scripture I could find that talked about children. I knew the adages about children being a blessing, plus our oldest was already here so I knew them to be true in all the motherly ways, but this exercise blew my mind open in terms of how God cares for and builds his kingdom around children. While I’ve been basking in the memory of my own children’s birthdays, I went back to my church-launching Google drive folder and re-read my list of Scripture about these little blessings that took up residence in my home and heart forever in April of 2018. Here is a bit of what I had written with the reference attached:

• Children and even infants are capable of praising God and their praise has powerful influence. (Psalm 8:2)

• Children are an asset to their families, their presence can empower their families. (Psalm 127:4)

• God reveals himself to little children. Children can often understand the things of God even more than those who are older. (Matthew 11:25)

• The Kingdom of God is for children. Jesus loves children. Jesus wants children to be with Him and their access to Him to be open and easy. (Matthew 19:14)

• How we treat children is a reflection of our posture toward Him. (Mark 9:37)

• God uses the parent/child relationship to help us reach maturity.  This dynamic is important in our understanding of God and us. (Romans 8:14)

• Christ shared in the humanity of children. His death is for them, too. (Hebrews 2:14)

• God’s lavish love is reflected in calling us His children. This title is a sign of God’s love for us. (1 John 3:1)

To turn the blessing of children into a cute saying that we pass along in a greeting card at baby showers is to totally fall short of what God is doing in and through children. And for those of us celebrating their births this month, we’d be wise to slow down long enough to remember the intentionality, clarity, and utter care with which God speaks about them. May we never forget, even on the hard days and the long years, that their lives are remarkably wild and wonderful…a total gift.

So I Won’t Forget #2…Kids’ birthdays, the built-in reminder of God’s lavish love for us.

While we’re on the topic of children, let’s talk about what an old fashioned Oklahoma storm does to our family.

“Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom, but I’m too scared to go by myself.”

This precious sentence was whispered into my face in the pitch black dark of our bedroom by the kid who was curled up so close to my body I might suffocate. Our girls do not thrive during a storm and by now they have us well-trained in the procedure: thunder rumbles slightly, rushing footfall down the hallway, throw the covers back and make room for daughter #1, lightening flashes, “Daaaaaaaaaad,” he goes to comfort daughter #2, everyone sleeps snuggled and scattered in various rooms until around 4AM when we delicately shuttle everyone back to their respective spots. Meanwhile our son gets the best sleep of his life and wakes up singing.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

We’ve always been sticklers about kid-sleep. Babies were on sleep schedules and for the most part we never shared our bed, but for whatever reason all rules are off during storms. And this posture had me thinking this week about other storms in my life, about being scared of the dark both literal and spiritual. It struck me again how the life of children reflects back to us the simple ways we can engage with the deeper truths of the world. There is darkness. It’s scary. I don’t want to go alone.

“God, could you walk me all the way through it because I’m too afraid to go by myself?”

After sharing so much about how the kingdom of God is for children, I want to remember this means I can approach him with the same childlike need. I think his posture toward us in those moments is to roll back the covers, to make space for our fears, and to enter into them with us.

“For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.” Psalm 27:5

So I Won’t Forget #3…Oklahoma storms and my childlike need.

If you’re still with me, hooray! I love it when people read all the way to the end. I also love it when people respond in some way to this work. I wonder what you feel prompted to remember this month or where you have felt more aware of God’s movement in your life? Writing, recording, or telling someone else will help solidify that neuro-pathway in your brain. And that’s my fancy way of saying it will help you remember.

Next week I’m rolling out the first of a few episodes from my conversation with Lael Crabtree, a linguist and missionary living in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. And yes, she did have internet access to record and yes, it was Cox internet in Tulsa that caused the only disruption…all my Tulsa people are rolling their eyes in solidarity right now. You will not want to miss Lael’s wisdom and wild stories!

Thanks for reading, sharing, & remembering with me!