Working on my "A+"

The house is still and quiet. Out the window and across our neighborhood, pink, blues, and purples hoover over the houses and streak the sky. Waking with the sun is something that I wished I would do more. There is calm. When it is time to go into my son's room, I remember all those times I would walk quietly into the nursery and peer over the crib just to watch him sleep in the twilight. The rise and fall of his chest and alabaster cheeks was the perfect picture of peace. Now, this morning, I hold my breath and whisper his name, "Little One," I say. First, there is a crinkle in his cheek and smile, but his eyes don't open.

"Time to wake up."




"But I don't want to go to school." Eyes clinched shut.






The bright sun peers through the room like his words do to my ears. Oh Lord, please help us have a good morning, I pray. Thousands of beams of thoughts rush in my mind and are on the tip of my tongue like:




You are well in mind and body! You live in a land with enormous opportunity. There are children all over the world who are not well enough to go to school or don't have a school to go to. Do you know that? You are blessed! Other children might go to school but don't have the care that their teeth are brushed or that their breakfast is filling to start their day. What a blessing to sleep later than most and be driven to school. You have a wealth of resources! You have been given so much to grumble EVERY morning! Open your eyes!



Tell me, did Joshua understand a mother's morning getting kids up for school in Chapter 24 of his book? Over and over, Joshua points out all that the Lord God had done. Now, in the wealth of the new land that had just simply been given to them by God's hand, they had a choice. Joshua challenges the Israelites by recounting all that God had brought them through and then says go ahead and worship another god if you want, but I am not and neither is my household.

Our "A" verse in the 2012 Scripture Memory Challenge is Joshua 24:15b "As for me and my household we will serve the Lord."

When asked what that verse means to me, the word "serve" stuck out. How am I serving him? Not just doing, but serving? When do we serve him? Is it so for my whole household?


So you know me, right?! I looked it up! :)

The word serve is "abad" in Hebrew, pronounced (aw-bad) a verb meaning to work. Remember when Jacob served Laban (Gen. 29:15) and the Israelites served the Egyptians (Ex. 1:4)? I read on. To quote, "When the focus of the labour is the Lord, it is a religious service to worship Him. Moreover, in these cases, the word does not have a connotation of toilsome, but instead a joyful experience of liberation."



Liberation.



Joshua was telling the people who didn't attack the walls (they fell down), who didn't work for the land (it was given), who didn't cultivate the land (it was flowing with milk and honey), and who who didn't build the cities (they were already constructed), that if you think you'd rather SERVE someone else, other than the one who did all that for you, go ahead.


What?! Joshua told his people to worship someone else?


Well, if they didn't serve the On True Living God, weren't they doing that anyway? The god of ease? The god of comfort? The god of wealth? Or worse, the god of "me."


The "the joyful toil of liberation" that the definition spoke of is the beauty of worship. Putting forth effort acknowledging that God is greater than me or anything else; liberates me.



It is a freeing experience to serve
the God who provides .
the God who comforts.
the God who is faithful.
the God who rescues.
the God who saves.

Know what that means? He does, so we don't have to.



I serve the God who is, so I don't have to be.


I don't have to provide everything.
I don't have to solve everything.
I don't have to be everything.
I don't have to do everything.



Like Joshua's Israelites, I have a choice to SERVE, WORSHIP, LABOUR, TOIL for the One who does.



I don't have to rely on me. God doesn't even need me, He WANTS me! Do I want him? Did the Israelites after Joshua challenged them? You don't have to go too far, just pages over from the book of Joshua, and you will find that although they claimed they would never want another god, they lied.



The true test of memorizing Truth and hiding His Word in my heart, is when the situation becomes most difficult, I make the right choice to forget myself and SERVE the Lord.


Stroking his hair, I don't depend on my super mommy skills, I speak to him about the Lord and we start ANOTHER morning. "This is the day that the Lord has made, right? Let's rejoice in this day, Jeremiah."