God Grant Me Wisdom

"Science is organized knowledge.  Wisdom is organized life." 
 Immanuel Kant

At our church, Convergence, we have embarked on a Sunday study of the book of James.  I love this little book.  It is a  treasure tucked near the end of the Bible and is one of my favorites.  It's jam-packed with kernels of truth and every time I read it I discover something new.

Along with the Sunday messages, our mid-week small groups are discussing this great book.  Last night we discussed this passage from the first chapter of James.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.  But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts it like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind."

I can think of few things more precious than wisdom.

Solomon, the great king of the Israelites, had pleased the Lord so greatly that the Lord appeared to him in a dream and offered him whatever he desired.  Solomon knew the value of wisdom.  It was the one thing he asked for.  To this day we speak of the "wisdom of Solomon."

Wisdom should not be confused with knowledge.  Many intelligent and brilliant people are greatly lacking in wisdom and their lives reflect that.  I don't think wisdom is as simple as common sense.  I beg to differ with Immanuel Kant.  It's more than organized life.  It's deeper than that.  I like these definitions, from YourDictionary.com

- the quality of being wise; power of judging rightly and following the soundest course of action, based on knowledge, experience, understanding, etc.; good judgment; sagacity

- the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.

I especially like the second definition.  I think this is closest to what James is talking about.  

God's promise in this verse is so beautiful.  He has promised that when we ask for wisdom, he will

-"give generously" not in little miserly portions, but abundantly
- "to all"  that includes me and you  
- "without finding fault" he doesn't look at my past record - wow! 

There is just one caveat to this promise.  I like the way The Message words this.

"Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought.  People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves.  Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open."
James 1: 6-8 (MSG)

At first blush that seems simple, but upon closer examination I realize I pray that way all the time.  I "worry my prayers."  I am a "wind-whipped wave."  Yikes!

I need God's wisdom.  Without it life is just too much.  Marriage, children, work, finances, relationships, etc.   It is all too much for me to figure out.

I need to make a change from a "wind-whipped wave" to a bold believer, asking for wisdom and believing I will receive it.  My heavenly Father has promised he will grant it.  He is Someone on whom I can depend.


Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

Rise and Shine

Do you remember the little ditty, "It's nice to get up in the morning!  But it's nicer to stay in bed"?

I wholeheartedly agree...with the second part.

I am not a morning person.  Any family member or former roommate or friend who has ever had the pleasure of being around me in the morning will attest to this fact.

I've come a long way in this department.  When I was a teenager and a young adult I was downright mean in the morning, like a rabid dog.  You didn't want to get too close or I was liable to bite off your hand.  I have learned to cope since having children and I can fake it (sort of) most mornings and occasionally paste a smile on my face.  I have to.  I'm the mom.

Part of my maternal duties involves morning.  The advent of cel phones has made the wake-up routine more annoying than ever.  Everyone in the house has set alarms on their phones to go off at varying times, sometimes two or three times.  Cel phones, by their very nature, are not attached to anything, and get left in various rooms, pockets and purses throughout the house.

I am the only member of my family that does not sleep like I'm in a coma.  So, I hear every alarm that is set, from the first through the last and have to go on a scavenger hunt through the house to track them down.  Then I have to awaken the sleeping soul for whom it was intended.

Mornings suck.  It's scriptural.

"If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning,
       it will be taken as a curse."
Proverbs 27:14

I'm not an afternoon person.

Is is just me that feels that slump every afternoon?  I'm working away and I can hear it from the other end of the house.  It's my bed calling, beckoning me to come, lie down and take a wee nap.

Every day it's the same thing.  I have to resist and continue to plod through because most days this slump hits just as I'm expecting the kids to come barreling through the door.  I try not to caffeine my way through the afternoon because, at my age, it affects my ability to sleep at night.  Oh, the dilemma!

Good moms have organized afternoons.  Snacks, homework, what to make for dinner (arrrgh, I hate that one!), homework, housework.  Some days it's all I can do to put one foot in front of the other and make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.  I feel like I'm shortchanging my family but I can't find any more to give.  Besides, they like cheese.

Afternoons are hard.

I'm not a night person.

I used to be.  I used to love nighttime.  That was when I really started to get going.  Something happened over the past few years.  I got older and nighttime got earlier, or later.  Anyway, it's just not the fun it used to be.  My energy level has disappeared and the sofa looks more and more enticing.

My oldest heads out for the evening at 9 or 10 and I'm not jealous, I'm just thinking, isn't it bedtime?  After my youngest two kids are tucked in for the night I think about settling in to watch a movie or catch up on some work on the computer but all I can really do is drag my butt to bed.  Everything else, even reading a book, seems like too much work.

So, mornings are out, afternoons are shot and nights are kaput.  That leaves me with approximately two really solid hours of time in my day when I am at maximum productivity level.  It appears as though I've shot most of that writing this post today. 

It's definitely time to take a nap.

It's Too Darn Hot!

Summer came late to Orange County.  Yesterday's temperature peaked at 111 degrees.  My brother posted this lovely picture from the back patio at his house in Fountain Valley, where the cool ocean breezes blow.

Granted, this was taken in direct sun, but you get the point.  I don't care what they say about dry heat or humid heat.  111 degrees is stupid hot!  It's hellfire and brimstone hot. 

The day started out fine.  The A/C was pumping and I was cool as a cucumber at home.  Then it came time to pick up the kids from school.  I opened the front door and it was like opening the door to a blast furnace.  Making two trips back and forth from school in a car with the A/C on the fritz was when things started to roll downhill.  I came back in the house and collapsed on the sofa with a glass of ice tea, desperately trying to cool down.

I always try to make the best of every situation, so I thought it would be fun to conduct a little experiment.  I've always heard the phrase "hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk," and figured this would be the perfect day to see if it could be done.

I wasn't kidding when I said it was hot.  The poor little egg was sweating before we even started. 

We decided to try our experiment on two surfaces, the lighter colored sidewalk and the darker blacktop of the road.   In case you're wondering at this point, yes, my kids do think I'm nuts and I have absolutely no idea what my neighbors think when they see me cracking eggs out on the street.




Well, my kids might think I have a few screws loose but they still joined in on the fun. 

We cracked our two eggs and there was no immediate sizzle, so we set our timers for half an hour and went inside to escape the scorching sun.


By this time, I think the heat was starting to get to me, and I started hatching a plan for another experiment. 




Half an hour later and our sidewalk egg looked the same as it did when we first cracked it.  Our road egg was beginning to look a bit more promising however, so we left it out there to simmer for a bit longer and went back inside.

After about an hour and a half, the yolk of the egg was cooked.  This picture may not show it, but it is firm.  The white of the egg didn't change color much but that egg was definitely cooked.

While all this egg cooking was going on I started wondering about crayons, so we set up a little experiment in the backyard to see which color of crayon would melt the fastest.

Now, yesterday, as I was doing this, it all seemed perfectly normal to me.  Today, as I sit at my computer and write it all down and look at the pictures I realize how strange the whole thing really is.  Sometimes something sounds so good in my head but then when I say it out loud or tell somebody else...

Anyway, this is what I really and truly did yesterday.  I'm blaming the heat, because things didn't get any better.  After an hour of cooking in the sun our little black crayon was starting to look like a little black puddle.  The red crayon and orange crayons were beginning to sweat and the white crayon was as cool as a cucumber. 

This is when the A/C quit.

The rest of the evening is a blur.  We sat in the house for a while praying it would come back on.

Because of the high energy use all over southern California, there were rolling blackouts.  When the temperature inside our house hit 90 degrees we abandoned ship and headed for cooler pastures (our local Mimi's restaurant,) where we tried to cool off with gallons of ice water.  But even in the restaurant the air conditioner was having a hard time keeping up with the heat.  Our poor waiter was looking very wilted and when we were done we headed back home praying that the air was back on.

By this time however, the heat had done it's damage.  My fun little experiments with eggs and crayons were nothing compared to what the heat had done to my family. 

The rest of the night literally melted down.  Homework and life just became more than anyone in our household could manage.  I wanted to curl up under a fan and sleep for a year.  But that wasn't possible.  The heat had short-circuited our brains and our emotions and we all wound up in a blubbering overheated mess. 

Last night we turned that A/C up high.  There was an Arctic breeze blowing through the house and it felt good.  We woke up with our parkas on and I'm praying that this hot spell is over and that sanity returns to our home. 

(I wonder if you could make s'mores by melting marshmallows in the sun?)