Uttered silently in my mind, or sometimes muttered aloud through clenched teeth, this has become one of my most common prayers in the past eight months. Usually it feels more like a complaint than a prayer, but most of the time it is quickly followed by a plea for help and a request for grace and strength.

No, it usually doesn’t come before preaching a sermon or teaching a class or counseling a friend, or the majority of my pastoral duties (though probably it should). Instead, it comes as I clean up another mess or gear myself up for the daily toothbrushing adventure or say for the billionth time “Drink your milk all gone!” or get pulled (literally) in to another game of catch.

Parenting a special-needs child is teaching me to be helpless. It’s teaching me to pray.

Paul Miller is the author of a wonderful book called A Praying Life. He is also the father of a severely autistic girl named Kim. I read his book a couple years ago and it was very influential in my thinking and practice of prayer. I’ve been re-reading portions of it in the months since our return home from China with our Down Syndrome daughter, and it is hitting home in a far deeper way now than before.

In his chapter entitled “Learning To Be Helpless,” Miller writes:

…it dawned on me recently that I had never prayed for [Kim] or with her that she would stop pacing. Why? Because I already knew the solution: “Kim needs to stop pacing. I will tell her to stop pacing.” In other words, I didn’t feel helpless. I knew what to do. I call this the idiot approach to life. In other words, “You idiot, if you would just stop…”

Little children are good at helplessness. It’s what they do best. But as adults, we soon forget how important helplessness is. I, for one, am allergic to helplessness. I don’t like it. I want a plan, an idea, or maybe a friend to listen to my problem. This is how I instinctively approach everything because I am confident in my own abilities.

The gospel, God’s free gift of grace in Jesus, only works when we realize we don’t have it all together. The same is true for prayer. The very thing we are allergic to—our helplessness—is what makes prayer work. It works because we are helpless. We can’t do life on our own.

I am fairly confident in my parenting abilities. After all, I have three other children whom I have instructed and disciplined and nurtured through all the various stages of childhood. So I can do parenting OK. I don’t need to pray because I know how to make things happen.

Enter: Anah Joy Christian (whose name “Anah” incidentally means “God has answered”). Exit: all my parenting “wisdom” and “expertise”. How do you teach an 8-year-old with Down Syndrome to quickly drink her milk because everyone else has been finished with the meal 30 minutes ago? She doesn’t understand our English words. She probably doesn’t like the taste of milk (but she can’t tell us that). You can force milk into her mouth but it is impossible to force anyone to swallow. She doesn’t comprehend the concept of rewards and isn’t motivated by treats. Raising your voice and scolding and lecturing and threatening just gets a blank look in response. Cajoling and encouraging produces smiles but little action. Pray? But I don’t need to pray—I know what needs to happen. Anah needs to drink her milk!

Back to the clenched teeth complaint: “God, I can’t do this! I don’t know how to teach this girl. I am not able to love her like You do. I am so impatient. I am so unkind. Forgive me (again!) <sigh> Please help me.”

Anah is teaching me to be helpless. Anah is teaching me to pray. Thank You God for my precious daughter. Thank You God for Your persistent grace that daily confronts my sin and reminds me how much I need You.

In Him,

Pastor Dan

It’s the middle of the night. It’s dark. It’s windy. The disciples are in their boat on the wind-tossed lake. Jesus comes to them, walking on the water, and they’re rightfully terrified. Jesus tells them it is He, so they need not be afraid. Peter, being the impetuous guy that he is, says “Lord, if it’s you, command me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus replies, perhaps with a twinkle in His eye, “Come.”

Peter’s first demonstration of faith is in response to this command to come to Jesus. And it seems like this “kind” of faith is an impetuous, exciting, risk-taking faith. It’s a faith that requires you to get out of the boat and do something you thought was impossible. But Jesus is calling, so it’s an obedient faith also.

To stay in the boat would have required no faith. But Peter didn’t stay in the boat—he got out and walked on the water toward Jesus. He demonstrated this exciting, risk-taking faith by trusting Jesus enough to set aside what was comfortable and known and step into (or should I say “onto”) what was unknown and risky.

But the wind was strong and the waves were choppy, and Peter’s impetuous, bold faith quickly disintegrated into fear. And then, he began to sink.

I don’t know whether this was slow-motion sinking (like a cartoon) or whether this was immediate (as if he had jumped into a pool), and I don’t know how submerged he was before he cried out these words, but cry out he did: “Lord, save me!” All the times that I’ve read this story or heard it taught, the focus is placed on the contrast between Peter’s faith to get out of the boat and his fear and doubt that made him start to sink. But what struck me this time was that there was another “kind” of faith demonstrated in this moment too as Peter begins to sink.

This second demonstration of faith is not the glamorous, courageous, I’ll-leave-everything-to-follow-You kind of faith. No, this second demonstration of faith is a faith born out of desperation. It is the faith that comes when you are sinking and there is no other hope except to cry out “Lord, have mercy on me—save me!”

How do I know this desperate cry is a cry of faith? Well, Peter was a strong, capable fisherman, not a wobbly-kneed 6-year-old jumping into the deep end for the first time. He’d probably had his share of close calls and swallowed many a mouthful of lake water. So his natural instinct when starting to sink would likely be to start treading water or strike out swimming toward the boat. But that’s not what he does. His immediate focus is on Jesus, and he cries out to his Lord to save him. That is faith…a faith born out of desperation and need.

Before Jesus chides Peter for his doubt, He first responds to Peter’s desperate faith by reaching out His hand and with His strong carpenter’s arm draws His friend the fisherman out of the cold, deep water.

This story resonates deeply with me. Jesus gave a call to our family to adopt a precious special-needs girl, and we responded in faith—the first kind of faith, the dangerous, risk-taking faith. We stepped out of the boat, onto the water, jumped through all the hoops of adoption, and now Anah is in our family. But now we’re seeing the wind and the waves—we’re realizing what this decision actually costs us in time and energy and many changes in our family—and the doubts start to come. Not necessarily doubts of whether we should have done this or not, because God’s call was clear then and still is clear now, but rather doubts and fears of whether we’re going to be able to handle all this. It feels sometimes like we’re sinking. And our natural instincts to work harder and longer aren’t getting us back to the surface.

But in our desperation, there is a deeper faith that is being formed in us as we learn to daily cry out to Jesus for deliverance and help and strength and grace, moment by moment. And that same strong arm of the Carpenter is right there to draw us up out of the depths and give us what we need for another hour, another day, another week. Truly He is sufficient. Truly He is good.

Trusting desperately,

Pastor Dan

These are some little moments of God’s mercy:

• Receiving an unexpected phone call from my sister (who also has a child with Down Syndrome)—being encouraged by someone who I know truly understands what we’re going through.

• Having two primary care doctors who love Jesus and are very generous with their time, and who were even willing to make house calls to do some of Anah’s initial assessments.

• During our homeschool group PE class, having another dad hang out with Anah so that I could play Capture the Flag with the older kids.

• Walking this road of adoption and special-needs with 3 other families, and sharing warm hugs, many tears, and encouraging words together.

• Experiencing strangers who engage with Anah and tell her how beautiful she is (rather than shying away in uncomfortableness).

• Communing deeply with God on a Sunday morning through the worship songs “Jesus, Thank You” and “All I Have is Christ”.

• Enjoying a couple hours of “respite” at home while another family took all four of our kids to the park.

• A 20-minute bath for Anah, in which she played happily without making the usual flood of water on the bathroom floor.

• Meeting a kind lady in the line at the Costco optometry department, who let us go in front of her to order glasses for Anah.

• Having a gracious receptionist at our primary care doctor’s office, who knows our family by name and goes out of her way to deal with insurance complications and make all the needed arrangements for the many referrals for Anah’s care.

To be continued…because God’s little (and big) mercies are new every morning…

In Him,

Pastor Dan

Our homeschool group met today and in between chasing our kids around I got a few minutes to talk with Pastor Jon Hori (who has also recently adopted), and I was encouraged to hear that I’m not alone in this experience. He mentioned that he had blogged about this, so I read his blog tonight (http://nearhisheart.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/adoption-is-easy/) and would encourage you to read it as well.

The solution to this is NOT to avoid adopting an older special needs child. The solution is NOT to not have any children at all. No, the solution is to look again at the Gospel and to see the depths of what God gave up in order to adopt us into His family, to realize how stubborn and sinful and dependent we are, and how sacrificial and strong and gracious His love toward us is. Parenting is hard. But it pales in comparison to the Cross. I struggle to let go of my self-centered desires. Christ’s desires were not self-centered, yet even He had to let go of those desires in order to obey the design of His Father (Matthew 26:39).

Parenting is hard. But God uses the crucible of parenting to purify our hearts and to give us more and more of His heart. May we learn to trust Him deeply in that process…

Pastor Dan

So how do we reconcile work and rest? We probably more naturally gravitate toward one or the other, in which case we probably tend to notice and emphasize the corresponding Scripture passages, but God emphasizes both in His Word, so how are we to understand that tension between work and rest? And more importantly, how do we live that out in the midst of a culture that rewards overwork and idolizes empty leisure?

In Matthew 11:28 and Mark 6:31, Jesus says to come to Him and receive rest in Him. Hebrews 4:10 speaks of entering God’s rest. So one thing that is clear is that the rest God calls us to in rest in Him and with Him, not apart from Him or on our own. In a similar way, Paul says in Colossians 1:29 “For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.” So the work that God calls us to is also in Him and with His energy.

So when work is called for—and not just a work that benefits myself, but work that cares for and provides for others—then I need to work hard. But that hard work is with Christ (i.e. “in His yoke”), it is by His grace (I Cor 15:10), and with His energy. Then in that work I need to know when to stop laboring and trust Him enough to rest. So both work and rest need to be in Him, dependent on His energy and His grace and His provision.

What does that look like then in everyday life? I don’t know exactly because I’m still trying to learn how to live with this tension, but lately in my life, this has been expressed in lots of little decisions, such as laying down to rest on Sunday afternoon instead of immediately starting into the next task on my to-do list. Or the many times my heart has cried out “God, I can’t do this. I don’t have the strength to give this person what they need right now” and then doing it and trusting Him to provide. Or sticking with my commitment to “date night” with my wife rather than brushing it off in order to get a few more jobs done.

So work hard—Scripture commands it! And rest deeply—Scripture commands that too! But whether you’re working or resting, do it with Christ, depending on His energy and trusting His provision.

In Him,

Pastor Dan

“To live on purpose…requires paying attention, and paying attention means—almost by definition—that we make room for surprise. We become hospitable to interruption. I doubt we can notice for long without this hospitality. And to sustain it we need theological touchstones for it—a conviction in our bones that God is Lord of our days and years, and that his purposes and his presence often come disguised as detours, messes, defeats.

I came to you naked, Jesus says. I came to you thirsty.

“When, Lord?” we ask, startled.

When he wore the disguise of an interruption.

Think for a moment of all the events and encounters that have shaped you most deeply and lastingly. How many did you see coming? How many did you engineer, manufacture, chase down?

And how many were interruptions?

Children? You might have planned as meticulously as a NASA rocket launch, but did you have any idea, really, what it would be like, who this child in your arms really was, who you would become because of him or her? The span between life as we intend it and life as we receive it is vast. Our true purpose is worked out in that gap. It is fashioned in the crucible of interruptions.”

Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, ©2006, Thomas Nelson, pp 80-81.

I love that: our Life is formed in the crucible of interruptions. Well, let me rephrase that—I love that as a concept, but I don’t usually love it when it’s actually happening. Like I said before, this is crunch time, and I get really focused (ahem, read that as “tunnel vision, block everyone else out”) on the tasks in front of me, and then don’t respond very well when the interruptions come (usually in the form of certain family members seeking my attention).

But it’s in those 1001 little decisions, to be present and engaged or to brush off and be annoyed, where our character is being formed. Yes, the “big interruptions”—like my family’s decision to adopt—do bring significant change in us, but more often it’s the little everyday interruptions that over time begin to shape our heart and character.

So the next time you get interrupted—maybe right now as you are trying to finish reading this post—pay attention. Before immediately brushing it off, pay attention to what God might be bringing to you in this interruption. Who knows, it may turn out to be a wonderful, gracious gift from your loving Father.

In Him,

Pastor Dan

It’s crunch time. Our adoption process is almost complete, which is very exciting but also means that there’s a long list of things we need to do to be ready to travel to China and bring our daughter home and then adjust to life with a new member of the family.

It’s crunch time. And I’m tired.

Whenever crunch time hits, sleep is the first thing to go. Therefore the book I’ve been reading lately, called The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath, has been just a bit convicting. Or, actually…very convicting.

As I was reading it (while waiting in a long line at the Chinese Consulate, to submit our applications for travel visas to China), in between nodding off and then making sure my number hadn’t been called yet (because it’s crunch time, and I’m tired), here’s a quote that grabbed my sleepy attention:

The tricky thing about Sabbath, though, is it’s a form of rest unlike sleep. Sleep is so needed that, defied too long, our bodies inevitably, even violently, force the issue. Sleep eventually waylays all fugitives. It catches you and has its way with you.

Sabbath won’t do that. Resisted, it backs off. Spurned, it flees. It’s easy to skirt or defy Sabbath, to manufacture cheap substitutes in its place—and to do all that, initially, without noticeable damage, and sometimes, briefly, with admirable results. It’s easy, in other words, to spend most of your life breaking Sabbath and never figure out that this is part of the reason your work’s unsatisfying, your friendships patchy, your leisure threadbare, your vacations exhausting.

We simply haven’t taken time. We’ve not been still long enough, often enough, to know ourselves, our friends, our family. Our God. Indeed, the worst hallucination busyness conjures is the conviction that I am God. All depends on me. How will the right things happen at the right time if I’m not pushing and pulling and watching and worrying?

Sabbath-keeping requires two orientations. One is Godward. The other is timeward. To keep Sabbath well—as both a day and an attitude—we have to think clearly about God and freshly about time. We likely, at some level, need to change our minds about both. Unless we trust God’s sovereignty, we won’t dare risk Sabbath. And unless we receive time as abundance and gift, not as ration and burden, we’ll never develop a capacity to savor Sabbath.

Mark Buchanan, The Rest of God, © 2006 Thomas Nelson, pages 61-62.

Ouch! Is that how big I see myself? Is that how small my view of God is? Yes, there’s a place for pouring myself out in sacrifice and service for God or others (more on that in another blog entry), but even in those circumstances I have to stop at some point, and stopping at any time forces me to trust that God is the Sovereign Orchestrator of all (and I am not).

How much better it would be to build into my life a regular rhythm of stopping—not only at the point of sheer exhaustion or a collapse of health—but regularly (maybe even once a week…wouldn’t that be a novel idea!). And how much better that stopping and resting would be if it was not merely a legalistic Christian duty I must perform but instead was a joyful, restful acknowledgement of God’s bigness and goodness and graciousness.

Enough said. I’m going to take a nap… =)

In Him,

Pastor Dan

One thing I’ve been thinking about in response to the story is what a difference an eternal perspective makes for us as Christians. The worldview of the story does not include God or eternity, therefore death is greatly feared. When you have a government that maintains control and order by exerting their power with brutality, then their biggest weapon is fear. If you don’t want to die, you better stay in line with their orders and rules. And when God is not in the picture and this life is all you have, then that fear of death is indeed a powerful weapon (which is what we see in the Hunger Games stories).

But when God IS in the picture, and when we see death not as the end of our best life, but as the beginning of Real Life that is unhindered by sin and sickness and time and separation from God, then that immobilizing weapon of fear is totally diffused. The worst that man can do to me (kill me) is the best thing that could happen to me (enter the presence of God for eternity). If that is how I see life, then no government—no matter how brutal—can control me by fear.

There are glimpses of that freedom in the Hunger Games stories, where characters rise above the fear out of love for one another and sacrifice even their lives. But in the stories those acts of sacrificial love are tragic—it’s the end. But in the Great Story above all other stories, the Main Character sacrifices Himself for those He loves, even unto death, but it is not tragic but glorious, because death is not the end but rather death is defeated and He lives again. And because of that Great Story, we who trust in Him have great hope as well, that death is not the end of our story, and therefore we need not be bound by fear.

The Hunger Games trilogy is disturbing because it presents a picture of what could happen—or perhaps what is already beginning to happen—in this country. And that is disturbing to us because we greatly value our freedoms and our comforts here. Yet many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are daily facing the very things depicted in these stories, and though we don’t seek that kind of persecution and suffering, we must be prepared for it with a right perspective—an eternal perspective, with God at the center.

There is a famous quote from Tertullian which says “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” If you know anything of the history of Christianity in places like China or the jungles of Ecuador, you know that is certainly the truth—the Church spread rapidly because of those who were martyred (not in spite of their martyrdom). And it makes me wonder whether the comfortableness and lack of persecution that we face here in America is why our Christian lives and our churches are so stagnant and lacking in vitality. We pray for revival. We pray for growth. But could it be that the growth we long for will only come when we are in desperate straits like the people in the Districts of Panem (or like our brothers and sisters in North Korea or Iran)? Like Pastor Daniel Eng preached from Revelation 3:17 a few weeks ago, when we in our comfort and wealth think we have all we need, then we do not depend on the One we most deeply need. So what will it take to bring us to a place of desperate dependence on Christ alone?

We may not yet be faced with persecution that forces us to choose between death and obedience to Christ, but we are faced with daily decisions to die to ourselves (by playing with our toddler on the floor rather than relaxing on the couch in front of the TV, or by genuinely listening to our coworker’s difficulties rather than brushing her off so we can finish our work), with daily decisions to crucify our flesh (by choosing to forgive a friend rather than hold a grudge, or by engaging in solitude rather than constant activity, or by intentionally not purchasing the latest electronic gadget), and with daily decisions to love and serve sacrificially (by doing the dishes so your wife can rest, by inviting a lonely neighbor over to your home, or by using vacation days to go on a mission trip). And we are also faced with larger decisions of whether our income is merely going toward comfort and pleasure for ourselves or toward providing a home for an orphan or caring for a widow or sending a missionary to Japan. Or decisions of whether to let go of our own dreams in order to adopt a little autistic boy into our family or to release our young adult to live among HIV children in Africa or to sell our home and go live out Christ’s love in the inner city. Those are the decisions that force us to depend on Christ and to look with joyful anticipation toward eternity and Life with Him, so that we are not too easily enthralled by the “mud pies” of our comfortable existence here.

How is your view of eternity shaping your response to all that goes on around you?

In Him,

Pastor Dan

But time is something we don’t have. So we settle for yelling or lecturing or shame simply because it produces some immediate response. We know that it’s not best, but we honestly can’t imagine how in the world we would ever come up with the time needed to parent in a different way.

So if anything you learn about parenting (whether from the Parenting Conference in April 2012 or from a book you read or a friend you talk to) is going to take root in your life and family, the first thing that is required is that youcreate space for it. If you try to simply add one more thing on top of everything else you’re doing, it will not work. You must create space. Multi-tasking may work for tasks, but not for relationships. You must carve out unhurried time in order to parent well.

This is a simple enough concept, but the difficulty lies in carrying it out. There is no easy formula for creating space. And it certainly won’t happen by default. You must be intentional…and ruthless. Intentional in setting goals and breaking them up into increments and then keeping them as a priority. And ruthless in eliminating not only the meaningless time-wasters, but also the good-but-not-as-important responsibilities and commitments. This means being ruthless in saying “no” to many good opportunities that arise also, even ministry opportunities.

Discipling the hearts of our children is a tremendous responsibility and privilege that God has given us. There are many other voices and influences clamoring for the attention of our children. There are many other factors that are shaping their lives. Will we rise to the challenge to be their primary teacher? Will we take up the calling to train the hearts of our children in the truths and ways of Scripture? Will we make the Gospel the central component in our parenting? Or, will we settle for merely keeping their behavior in line and making sure they get into a good school—and let the godless culture around us squeeze them into its mold?

Take a moment right now, before you rush off to the next thing on your schedule or list, and ask God what He is calling you to do in response to this. Is there something in your regular schedule that you could let go of in order to create space for training your children in the truths of the Gospel? Is there something in the kid’s schedule that could be eliminated in order to open up time for them to relate with God? What do you need to communicate to your spouse in order to begin planning intentionally how to teach your children? Take a minute or two to think about that and ask God what He wants for you to do.

In Him,

Pastor Dan

Our job as Christian parents is NOT primarily to ensure that we have good, well-behaved kids who grow up to get good, well-paying jobs so that they can have good, well-stocked homes and enjoy a happy life. That is NOT our primary job (nor is it even our secondary job). Rather, our primary job as Christian parents is to proclaim and live out the Gospel to our children, and to help them connect every area of life to God’s sovereign work of grace seen in the Gospel. That is not only our biggest task, but in that we also have the greatest hope for the well-being of our children.

In order to keep the Gospel central in the lives of our children, though, we must be allowing the Gospel to become more and more central in our own hearts and lives. Which means that we must know and believe the Gospel, not just as a set of propositions that we intellectually acknowledged at some point in the past when we became a Christian, but as the foundational source of change in our lives which brings us deeper into joyful relationship with God.

When we begin to see our total inability to know God or please God on our own, because of our rebellious sinful hearts that naturally turn away from God, then we begin to realize what a tremendously gracious thing God has done in sending Jesus to die in our place and bear the wrath of God that we deserved! Likewise, when we begin to see that our children’s basic problem is notlow self-esteem or attention-deficit or peer pressure, but rather is rooted in their sinful heart that tries to make life work apart from God, then we realize that what they primarily need is a Savior who can change that sinful self-absorbed heart into a righteous God-focused heart.

We cannot cause our children to believe or receive the Gospel, but what we can do is faithfully teach them the Gospel and constantly pray for God’s mercy to transform their hearts. So how do we do that? What does that look like? Here’s a few concrete examples of what that might look like in parenting…and of course these are all “hypothetical”—it just so happens that I have a toddler and a teen and a pre-teen in my home right now. =)

You call your toddler to come to the dinner table. He says OK but continues playing with his toys. You feel angry that he isn’t obeying right away. You could just shame him or punish him in a way that ensures that next time his behavior will be different. OR, if you want to make the Gospel central in his heart, you take the time to explain to him that his disobedience is sin and that because of his sin Jesus had to die. Then you help him confess his sin, you remind him of God’s forgiveness, and you instruct him in the importance—and joy—of obedience. This is not a long, angry lecture aimed at conforming his behavior to your will; it is a short, gracious reminder aimed at conforming his heart to God’s will.

Another example: It’s Sunday morning—your teenage daughter is still in the bathroom and you should have been in the car leaving for church 5 minutes ago. You can feel your temperature rising as you pace back and forth with clenched teeth and begin composing in your mind a guilt-inducing lecture on the importance of timeliness. If the Gospel is going to be central in this situation, then first you have to allow the Gospel to penetrate your own heart and remind you that there is something larger here than just being late to church. Then let the desperation that you feel turn into a prayer for God’s grace to hold your tongue and wait for a time that is more conducive to a heart-to-heart talk. Make space to talk with her that afternoon, then, listening first, then gently helping her to see the implications of her actions on others around her. Point to Jesus as her example—and her strength—to sacrifice self-interest for the sake of others (whether that means getting up earlier so that she can be ready to go on time, or choosing to spend less time on her outward appearance so that her heart can worship God more deeply).

One more example: Your pre-teen son is typically very compliant and well-behaved, and as a middle child is very good at “flying under the radar” and avoiding trouble. There may not be an obvious situation that needs to be addressed, but if the Gospel is going to be central in your parenting of him, then you need to pray that his heart isn’t led astray into a self-righteous independence from God. And you need to watch for opportunities to draw out his heart, so that he can see that even well-behaved boys have to fight against the sin in their hearts, and even “good little boys” have to trust God to change their hearts. Help him to see that it’s not his obedience that makes him a child of God, but it is Jesus’ obedience to His Father that made him a child of God.

So the Gospel must be central in all our parenting, because our primary task as Christian parents is to help our children see Christ in all of life, so that they would love Him and trust Him and follow Him all the days of their lives.

(The 2nd part of this entry will be posted later.  In Him, Pastor Dan)