The Dandelion Rejection

To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. - James 4:17

I have recently been going through a book called Freedom Class Manual (Revalesio Ministries). The book covers topics such as The Power of Salvation, Our Original Design, Strongholds, The Authority of the Believer, Effect of Injustice, Blessings and Curses, and Intercession & Breaking Generational Patterns. I have been especially intrigued by the Strongholds chapter and its accompanying worksheets. Generally when I think of strongholds, I think of specific sins such as drug or alcohol addition, pornography or other sexual sins, bitterness, food addition, etc. This particular book takes the roots of those sins to the true strongholds and categorizes them as anger, fear, passivity, rejection, shame and unforgiveness.

As I was making my way through the worksheet on passivity - simply the opposite of initiation -- I began to see myself on the pages. I realized that I have for years lived in fear of doing good deeds. It's not only a fear of sharing the gospel, but an actual fear of doing something as simple as shoveling a neighbor's driveway. My fear has not stemmed from a desire for the good deed to remain anonymous, but it has been a fear of angering someone through an act of kindness. I have often thought to myself, "What if they don't want me to ....?" As much as I hate to admit it, this truth about myself is unavoidable. I can look back on my life and see that I have often found convenient excuses for passivity. It's not that the desire to do good was absent, but frequently I have been paralyzed by fear and have thus passed over countless opportunities to do good deeds. Now that I see this about myself, I can also see what an irrational and ungodly fear this is! As I have pondered the root of this fear, I have realized it does not stem from my family life. I had a happy, loving, stable family -- not perfect, but happy and secure. So, then, what? Why this fear? Slowly, another childhood memory began to surface. It was an event that seemed rather harmless. It was not one of those horrific things one often hears of that many children have to endure. It was probably no more than an adult having a bad day. But, over the years, I have recalled this event from time to time. It is a memory that has stuck with me and apparently effected me in a profound way. The event and its ensuring affect was undetected by anyone until now.

As a young child I would go out of my way to do kind things for anybody or anything. I was particularly fond of older people and animals and really enjoyed showing them affection. I was happy and friendly and uninhibited in my expression of those traits. I remember one warm summer day, I picked a lovely bouquet of dandelions. I excitedly ran to my elderly neighbor's back door and knocked on the door, smiling in anticipation of her joy at receiving my dandelion gift. Much to my dismay, she frowned down at me and told me she didn't want those weeds. I was really surprised and rather crushed, but I tried not to let it show. I really didn't understand why someone would reject my lovely gift.

Several years later, I recall my mother asking me a question. "What happened to you?" she asked, "You used to be so happy and so caring." I really didn't have any idea what had happened to me, but now I can see that I had become fearful of expressing joy and concern because of this one small grumpy-grown-up dandelion rejection.

I think there are several lessons to learn from the dandelion rejection. First, I think we as adults need to be extremely careful when interacting with children. The Bible says, "whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matthew 18:6). That is some serious talk by our Savior. If you want to see me get my dander up, just talk about an injustice inflicted upon a child by an adult. Nothing makes me angrier than child molestation and abuse! I have personally known several people who have been abused and have had to overcome many difficult things in their adulthood because of the horrific wrongs committed against them as a child. The satanic influence behind those wrongs and the strongholds created by those wrongs are very easy to identify. However, I have never stopped to think of the "small" wounds that occur in childhood that Satan can take advantage of. It took me 30 to 40 years to identify and question the irrationality of my fear that lead to passivity. Do you know how many good deeds were overlooked, how many missed opportunities were created by that one seemingly insignificant event in my life? Oh, how Satan used that and probably other events that followed to build as huge lie in my mind. The result? I have not become the person God created me to be. I have neglected the gifts He gave me. And I didn't even realize it! If I am so affected by this one small rejection, is it any wonder that so many kids, teens and adults struggle as a result of the huge injustices they faced as children? Adults, we MUST take heed to Jesus' warning. Our offenses to children are indeed serious!

Parents, another lesson we can learn from the dandelion rejection is to equip our children to recognize who they were created to be and to identify lies that would keep them from realizing that potential. I have no delusions about being a perfect mother. I have made mistakes in words and in deeds with my children. I will make more mistakes with them. I am saved and growing in grace daily, but I still mess up! I want my kids to be equipped to deal with any opportunities I or another individual may give the enemy to mess with them. I want their confidence to be in God and what He says about them. Not in any person or any person's actions toward them.

Finally, I think it is important for each of us to recognize our potential in Christ. Some of us grew up in circumstances that were horrible beyond description. Others grew up in good, loving, strong families. What I am learning is that regardless of circumstances, Satan's goal is to target those areas in which God has gifted us and make sure those gifts never come under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Satan's tactics for neutralizing us are many! On the other hand, regardless of our childhood experiences, God has gifted each of us and wants to fully empower those gifts to be used for His Kingdom and His glory. That means ALL of us! He loves us each dearly. He is so passionate about each of us that he willingly gave his life for us. He loves us so much, that he spoke harsh words to any who will harm us as children. So, we each have a choice. Admittedly, the choices may be painful and seem impossible for some, but they are still a reality. We have a choice to remain the person we have become in order to cope with injustices in our lives, or we can choose to allow God to heal the wounds inflicted by those injustices and transform us into our original design.

Christmas Cheer

I love Christmas! I have thoroughly enjoyed this day with my family. I love the laziness of the day and the joy of watching the kids open presents. I found great joy in listening to my husband read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke with tears in his eyes and his voice cracking with emotion in response to the love of our God. I love the fact that there are several inches of snow outside today -- no official reading because of the blowing snow, but enough to keep us from traveling down south to spend an evening with my family. I love the fact that this year we are missing Christmas with my extended family because of a beautiful snow rather than Josh's debilitating illness. I have so much to be thankful for!

One thing I have to be thankful for this year is a movement of the Holy Spirit we have been witnessing among the youth in Raytown. In September, Josh felt led to start a Bible study for Raytown High School boys. It started on a Monday night with about five boys in our basement. The group has expanded to about 27 to 30 guys every Monday night. They have graduated from our basement to our detached two-car garage, fixed up to accommodate a group of teens complete with donated carpet, furniture, TV's, game systems and an air-hockey table. This group is known as the Band of Brothers, or BOB, and their meeting place affectionately called "The BOB". We are seeing lives transformed, and our lives are being transformed in the process.

Monday night, December 22, 2009, we held our first annual BOB Christmas party at Ridgeview Christian Church in Raytown. The kids invited teenage boys and girls to come and eat, play games and hear two bands, "Me Personally" and "This My Father". There were about 50 to 60 kids there, and it was an amazing night. I saw teens sharing their faith with a boldness I desire to have! In the end, 11 kids came to the altar to express their desire to follow Jesus. It looks as though we will be starting a Band of Sisters (BOS?!) as well. God is moving, and it is such an honor to be permitted a small part in that movement.

As I've seen probably twenty-some kids come to Christ this year, I've been thinking much about salvation and repentance. Today the following article by Catherine Booth. Repentance is the missing element in Christianity today -- at least "Christianity" in America. This article bears repeating. I came away asking God, what is my Isaac? Read the following, and you will see what I mean.

THE HIGHWAY OF OUR GOD

By CATHERINE BOOTH
PART I: ENTERING THE HIGHWAY
CHAPTER ONE What is Repentance?

IN the mouths of three witnesses--John the Baptist, Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul--this word shall be established, that repentance is an indispensable condition of entering the Kingdom of God.

People generally are all at sea on this subject, as though insisting that repentance were an arbitrary arrangement on the part of God. I believe God has made human salvation as easy as His almighty, infinite mind could make it. But there is a necessity in the case that we should 'repent and turn to God.' It is just as necessary that my feelings be changed and brought to repentance toward God as it is that the wicked, disobedient boy should have his feelings brought back into harmony with his father before he can be forgiven. Precisely the same laws of mind are brought into action in both cases, and there is the same necessity in both.

If any father has a prodigal son, I ask, How is it that you are not reconciled to your son? You love him intensely. Probably you are more conscious of your love for him than for any other of your children. Your heart yearns over him, you pray for him, you dream of him, your bowels yearn over him. Why are you not reconciled? Why are you obliged to hold him at arm's length and not have him come in and out, and live with you on the same terms as the affectionate, obedient daughter? 'Oh!' you say, 'the case is different. I cannot. It is not "I would not", but "I cannot". Before that can possibly be the boy's feelings must be changed toward me. He has mistaken notions and thinks I am hard and exacting. I have done all a father could do, but he will go on in defiance of my will. You say, 'As a wise and righteous father I must insist on a change in him. He must confess his sin and ask me to forgive him. Then I should run to meet him and put my arms around his neck!' But there is a 'cannot' in the case.

Just so. It is not that God does not love you, sinner, or that the great benevolent heart of God has not, as it were, wept tears of blood over you. It is not that He would not put His loving arms around you this moment if you would only come to His feet, and confess your wrong, and seek His pardon. He cannot. The laws of His universe are against His doing so. The good of, it may be, millions of immortal beings is involved. He dare not and cannot until there is a change of mind in you. You must repent. 'Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.'

Well, if repentance be an indispensable condition of salvation, let us try to find out what repentance really is. How full of confusion the world and the Church are upon this subject!
Repentance is not merely conviction of sin. If it were, what a different world we should have, for there are tens of thousands on whose hearts God's Spirit has done His office by convincing them of sin. We should be perfectly astounded if we had any conception of the multitudes whom God has convinced of sin, as he did Agrippa and Festus. They are convinced of sin, but they go no further. That is not repentance. They live this week as they did last.

Neither is repentance mere sorrow for sin. I have seen people weep bitterly and writhe and struggle, yet hug their idols, and vain has it been to try to shake them from them. If Jesus Christ would have saved them with those idols they would have had no objection at all. If they could have got through the strait gate with one particular idol they would have gone through long since, but to part with it is another thing. Some people will weep like your stubborn child when you want him to do something which he does not want to do. He will cry, and when you apply the rod he will cry harder, but he will not yield. When he yields he becomes a penitent, but until he does he is merely a convicted sinner.

When God applies the rod of His Spirit, of His providence, of His word, sinners will cry, and wince, and whine, and make you believe they are praying and want to be saved, but all the while they are holding their necks as stiff as iron. They will not submit. The moment they submit they become true penitents and are saved. There is no mistake more common than for people to suppose they are penitents when they are not.

Repentance, therefore, is not mere sorrow for sin. A man may be ever so sorry and all the way down to death be hugging some forbidden thing, as the young ruler hugged his possessions. But that is not repentance. Neither is repentance a promise that you will forsake sin in the future. If it were there would be many more penitents. There is scarcely a poor drunkard that does not promise, in his own mind, or to his poor wife, or somebody, that he will forsake his cups. There is scarcely any kind of a sinner who does not continually promise that he will one day give up his sin and turn to God, but he does not do it.

What then is repentance? Repentance is simply renouncing sin--turning round from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. This is giving up sin in your heart, in purpose, in desire, resolving that you will give up every evil thing, and that you will do it now. Of course this involves sorrow; for how will any sane man turn himself round from a given course into another if he does not repent having taken that forbidden course? It implies, also, hatred of the course he formerly took, and from which he turns.

He is like the prodigal who, when he sat in the swine-yard amongst the husks and the filth, fully resolved, and at last acted. He went, and that was the test of his penitence. He might have sat resolving and promising till now, if he had lived as long, and he would never have got the father's kiss, the father's welcome, if he had not started; but he went, and went to his father honestly and said 'I have sinned'--which implied a great deal more in his language then than it does in ours now. Then comes the proof of his submission, 'and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants'--put me in a stable, or set me to clean the boots, so that I can be in thy family and have thy smile. That is Jesus Christ's own beautiful illustration of true penitence.

Submission is the test of penitence. My child may be willing to do a hundred and fifty other things, but if he is not willing to submit on the one point of controversy he is a rebel, and remains one until he yields.

Here is just the difference between a spurious and a real repentance. I am afraid we have had in our churches thousands who had a spurious repentance: they were convinced of sin--they were sorry for it; they wanted to live a better life, to love God in a sort of general way; but they skipped over the real point of controversy with God; they hid it from their pastor, perhaps, and from the deacons, and from the people who talked with them.

Abraham might have been willing to give up every other thing he possessed, but if he had not been willing to give up Isaac, all else would have been useless. It is your Isaac that God wants. You have got an Isaac, just as the young ruler had his possessions. You have got something that you are holding on to, that the Holy Spirit says you must let go, and you say, 'I can't.' Very well; then you must stop outside the Kingdom.

Then another difficulty comes in, and people say, 'I have not the power to repent.' There is a grand mistake. You have the power, or God would not command it. You can repent. You can this moment lift up your eyes to Heaven and say, with the prodigal, 'Father, I have sinned, and I renounce my sin.' You may not be able to weep. God nowhere requires or commands that.
But you are able, this very moment, to renounce sin in purpose, in resolution. Mind you do not confound the renouncing of the sin with the power of saving yourself from it. If you renounce it, Jesus will come and save you from it, like the man with the withered hand whom Jesus intended to heal. Where was the power to come from to heal him? From Jesus. The benevolence, the love, that prompted that healing all came from Jesus; but Jesus wanted a condition, and that was the response of the man's will. So He said, 'Stretch forth thine hand.' If the man had been like some of you he would have said, 'What an unreasonable command. You know I cannot do it.' Jesus wanted that 'I will, Lord' to be inside the man, the response of his will. The moment he said that, Jesus supplied strength. He stretched forth his hand and you know what happened.
Stretch out your withered hand, whatever it may be, and say, 'I will, Lord.' You have the power and mind, you have the obligation, which is universal and immediate. God 'now commandeth all men everywhere to repent' and to believe the gospel. What a tyrant He must be if He commands that and yet knows you have not the power!

Now, do not say, 'I do not feel enough.' Do you feel enough to be willing to forsake your sin? That is the point. Any man who does not repent enough to forsake his sin is not a penitent at all. When you repent enough to forsake your sin, that moment your repentance is sincere and you may take hold of Jesus with a firm grasp. Then 'believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'

So, what is your Isaac? What is your "withered hand" you fear you cannot bear to stretch out to our Lord and Savior? Do it, my friend, and meet the living Jesus Christ whose birth we celebrate on this day. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!