How to Give Glory to God

Beautiful

Megan Breedlove July 19, 2010 0Comment

When Ellie was born, she weighed just over six pounds. She was tiny and perfect. I thought she was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen.

I still think she’s beautiful. At seven years old, her hair’s a lot longer now, and she likes to wear it down. Her eyes are a clear blue. She has a porcelain complexion and a slender build. But though I think Ellie is beautiful, her physical attributes are not the primary reason I think so.

Even more beautiful to me than Ellie’s outward appearance is her heart. From very early on, I could see that Ellie had (and still has) a heart of gold, filled with a level of compassion and tenderness found in few people. When other toddlers cried, Ellie gently patted them and tried to make them feel better. When other children fell down, Ellie tried to help them up. If Ellie could tell I was having a bad day, she drew me a picture to bring a smile to my face. As she grew older, when she could tell someone was sick or just needed encouragement, she suggested that they lie in bed and let her take care of him or her. When other people hurt her, she forgave them and remained loyal.

I truly believe that Ellie is one of the most tender, beautiful souls God ever put on this earth. Not because she’s physically beautiful…but because she loves beautifully.

Ellie loves others the way God means for us to love. No, she’s not perfect. She sins, just like the rest of us, even when it comes to people. But when the chips are down, you want Ellie in your corner. And you’ll have her, because she wants to be there and help you through it.

As a matter of fact, she’s a lot like another Person I know. She looks like Him and acts like Him. It’s no wonder there’s a family resemblance, because He’s her Father. And just like the moon reflects the light of the sun, her spirit reflects the beauty of His. She loves, because He loves.

We’re often amazed when others love us well. We marvel at the depth of their love. But do we ever wonder at the immensity of God’s love for us? The most compassionate person we’ve known on earth demonstrates but a fraction of God’s compassion. The most tenderhearted is only a dim reflection of the Son. The most loving person on earth gives us a mere glimpse of the amazing, overflowing reality of God’s love.

Yet we don’t often stop to contemplate the beauty of Someone Who’s the very fullness of beauty. We know God has all these great qualities, but we don’t spend much time contemplating His beauty. Why not? Think how much pleasure you and I receive from observing and adoring our beautiful, wonderful children. How much more delight would there be in adoring our beautiful, wonderful God?

So will you try something with me this week? The next time we find ourselves thinking about how amazing our child is, or how beautiful and compassionate, let’s let that be a reminder to us to think about God’s infinitely greater beauty. And then, let’s not forget to tell Him how beautiful He is. He longs to hear our response.

Psalm 27:4—One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.

Zzzzzzzz…

Megan Breedlove June 14, 2010 0Comment

Originally published on June 14, 2010.

No one ever told me that the biggest change in my life after I had a baby would be in the quality and quantity of my sleep. Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite the biggest change, but if not, it at least rates a close second.

Post-baby sleep is never quite the same as pre-baby sleep for a number of reasons. First, it’s often interrupted by the aforementioned baby. When she’s little, she wakes up during the night to be fed. When she grows a little older, she wakes up during the night to be entertained. When she moves to a toddler bed or big-kid bed, she doesn’t have to resort to crying and waiting for you to come to her. Instead, she comes to you, for any and every reason—another drink, another story, another nightmare—including the old stand-by, that she just plain needs mama.

You don’t get to go to bed on time anymore, either, because you have to stay up late doing all the things you didn’t have time to do while your child was awake. Nor do you get to sleep in ever again, because many kids don’t understand that just because the sun’s up doesn’t mean they have to be up.

Then there are the times you can’t get to sleep because you’re lying there tossing and turning over some issue you’re having to help your child get through. Or you wake up in the middle of the night, and your brain clicks on, trying to resolve the problem.

Most moms I know seem to be walking around with a sleep debt of several years’ worth, at least. I’m certainly no exception.

We moms are made to need sleep. We don’t function at our best without it, though somehow, we do still function.

Fortunately, God doesn’t have to sleep. Ever. Though you and I feel like we’ve been awake for thousands of years, He really has. He is constantly alert and watchful, continually guarding, preserving, and guiding us, and He always has been. He can run the entire universe without a single minute of sleep because He is that powerful. Lack of sleep never causes Him to get confused or cranky, like it does us. He never needs to take a break and get some rest so that He’ll be able to get back to work. No, He is infinitely far above our mortal, limited bodies.

How often we take His constant, unfailing care for granted. We fall into bed, exhausted, without so much as a thought for the One Who’s going to stay up all night taking care of us while we sleep. In fact, He performs the same ministry to us during the night as we do for our own children: He makes Himself available any time we need Him.

So tonight, when you go to bed, take a minute before you fall asleep and thank God for still being on duty taking care of you. You may want to praise Him for His inexhaustible strength and sufficiency, too. After all, when you think about it, He is truly amazing.

Psalm 121:4—Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

Loving Mommy

Megan Breedlove November 2, 2009 0Comment

I don’t remember whether I hadn’t slept well that night, or whether I’d gotten to bed too late the night before, or both. But I do remember hearing the sounds of my son’s bedroom door opening and his footsteps coming towards our room, and having to force my eyes open. I was trying to become coherent enough to beg Kenny to “please go back to bed” when he pushed my door open and plopped down on the floor.

“Mommy,” he said, smiling up at me, “I had a great dream about loving you.”

Suddenly, I didn’t resent having been awakened anymore.

I was still tired. But I couldn’t have wished for any better or sweeter way to wake up.

I thought about his words many times that day, and I’ve thought about them often since. In fact, Kenny has told me almost the same thing several other times. Sometimes, he tells me he’s had a dream about loving me. Sometimes, as I tuck him into bed, he tells me that he is going to have a dream about loving me, and I know that as he slips into Dreamland, he expects it to be sweet with thoughts of me.

I love Kenny all the time. I love him every second of every day, even when I don’t much like what he’s doing or how he’s behaving. But when Kenny declares his love for me in such a precious, beautiful way? My heart can’t contain all the love I have for him, and it overflows.

I want to thrill God’s heart in the same way my son thrills mine. I want Him to rejoice in my frequent, heartfelt expressions of love. I know that’s what you want, too. So why don’t we do it?

Maybe we think we don’t have enough time to cultivate a love relationship with God. Some days, it seems we don’t even have time to locate our Bible, much less read it and spend in-depth time in prayer. Maybe it feels hypocritical to tell God we love him when we’re well aware of our inconstancy and sin. Maybe we’ve just never thought much about how God would feel if we were to tell Him we love Him as often and as meaningfully as we tell our children—maybe even more.

But whether we don’t make time for God, or we think we have to wait until we’re perfect to start expressing our love for Him, or we simply never think about it, we’re depriving God of the expressions of love that He deserves to receive from His beloved child and longs to hear.

If Kenny never told me He loved me, I’d begin to wonder if he really did. If he only expressed his love because he thought he should, I’d wonder if he really meant it.

Yet we sometimes limit our expressions of love for God to reciting the words of a song we aren’t really thinking about singing, or to intellectual assents to the fact that yes, we love Him.

Both singing and declaring the truth are important. But where are the spontaneous expressions of love, motivated not by what everyone else is doing or by what we think we should do, but by love?

Why do we not constantly pour out our love upon God, Who alone is worthy of it?

Oh, Father, forgive us for failing to express our love to You as we should. We want to love You with the passion with which You loved us, or at least come as close as a human being can. Father, we declare right now that we do love You, with all of our being. We’re grateful that You accept our imperfect love. Convict our hearts whenever we don’t love You wholeheartedly, and teach us that our greatest delight comes not in the earthly expressions of love that we receive, but in the love relationship between us and You. We want to spend the rest of our lives and then eternity loving You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

2 Samuel 6:14—And David danced before the LORD with all his might.

Mark 12:30—And you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

Winning

Megan Breedlove August 31, 2009 0Comment

At three and a half, my son, Kenny, loved learning to do the things Daddy did. Once, while my husband was shaving, Kenny climbed up on the closed toilet seat, which was next to the vanity, and began trying to “shave” his own face with a spoon he’d brought for the purpose.

Oh, he still loved to cuddle with me and to do some of the things I did, but he was old enough to know that he was a boy like Daddy was, and his God-given instincts told him that he should learn to be like Daddy.

He was also convinced (and probably still is) that Daddy could do anything. Daddy was the best, the fastest, and the tallest. And Kenny knew in his heart that if he tried hard enough, he could be just like Daddy.

I don’t remember the exact circumstances on this particular day. All I remember was that Kenny wanted to race. The girls and I were there, too, and Kenny wanted to beat us to the van, or wherever we were going.

He even had a strategy. He was going to hold Daddy’s hand. “I’ll hold Daddy’s hand so I can run as fast as him, and maybe we can win,” Kenny said.

What a beautiful strategy, for three reasons.

First, if there was going to be a race, Kenny wanted to race with his daddy. “I’ll hold Daddy’s hand,” he said. He intended to link himself to his daddy so that they could run the race together. He knew that being on Daddy’s team was his best chance of winning.

Second, Kenny believed that if he held daddy’s hand, he would be able to run like Daddy. Kenny knew that by himself, he wouldn’t win the race. But linked with Daddy, he would be able to run like Daddy could because Daddy would make it so.

Third, with Daddy, he believed he could win. He trusted his father’s ability to lead both of them across the finish line first.

Friend, do we relate to our heavenly Father as beautifully as Kenny related to his earthly one? Do we want to be with Him in this race called life? Is He our first choice for a teammate, knowing that we have to run? If we are honest, most of us would say that there have been times we have chosen a friend or family member to be on our team, with God in the background to be a consultant if we get stuck. But as Kenny joyfully chose his daddy and joined his team, so should we choose to be on our heavenly Father’s team. This means more than just accepting His invitation to become a Christian. It means staying on His team, choosing Him repeatedly, as many times as things come up, to be the One to run with us toward the finish line.

Kenny also believed that his daddy could make him enough like himself so that Kenny could win. I can’t think of a better statement of God’s purpose for us. His goal is to make us like Himself by conforming us to the image of His beloved Son, so that we can win, thereby showing forth His glory. And that, precious mommy, is winning—being like Him. If we’re like Him, we have won.

What race are you running today?

Whether you’re racing against loneliness, grief, temptation, disappointment, physical illness, stress, or lack of sleep, do what Kenny did.

First, choose to run with your Father. Don’t choose someone else to run with, and leave God to stand on the sidelines, cheering you on. Run with Him.

Second, believe and trust that God can do more than anything you ask or imagine in making you like Him.

Finally, remember that when you are like Him, you win. Your circumstances may not change. In fact, they may be very bad, or even tragic. But if you define winning as being conformed to the likeness of Jesus, then you can win in the midst of loss.

And running with the Father, you will.

Ephesians 3:20-21—Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Counting

Megan Breedlove August 3, 2009 0Comment

love the age my children are now for many reasons. Not the least of these is the fact that my children think I know everything, or pretty close to it. They’re also pretty sure I can do everything. I love it when they come to me and ask me to do something that’s too hard for them, with total confidence that I can do what they can’t. It never even seems to enter their minds that I might not be able to do something. When, on occasion, I have to admit that I can’t do what they’re asking (carry a child or two as well as my purse, a diaper bag, and fourteen bags of groceries) or don’t know the answer to their question (“Mommy? How big is Jupiter?”), they are surprised.

They are also easily impressed. Feats of strength and creativity that seem average to me are incredible to my children. For example, one day shortly after turning five, Ellie was practicing counting. She would think of huge numbers (some of which were real) and try to count to them. Sometimes, however, she would get stuck on which number came next. So she turned to me.

“Mommy, are you a good counter?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m a very good counter,” I said.

“Can you count to 800?”

“Yes.”

“Can you count to twenty-hundred?”

“Yes. That would be two thousand.”

“Can you count to the last number hundred?”

“There’s not really a last number, but I could keep counting forever,” I said.

“Wow!” Ellie exclaimed, amazed.

As far as Ellie knew, I was a math genius, and she was impressed.

Friend, you and I live every day in the presence of One Who is truly a genius. Actually, “genius” doesn’t even begin to encompass the magnitude of His abilities in every area we can imagine. So why aren’t we more impressed with Him?

God is capable of far more than we can imagine. He can do vastly more than we, being limited and finite, can do or ever will be able to do no matter how hard we might try. Yet we fail to be half as impressed with His extraordinary abilities as Ellie was with my average ones.

When was the last time you stood in awe of God’s magnificence? When was the last time you were truly impressed, so much so that your heart was moved to praise, or maybe to silence?

Oh, sure, we know that God can do incredible things. We know about all the miracles described in the Bible. Yep, pretty neat, we think to ourselves, and we never really stop to contemplate the greatness of the One who commands the elemental forces of nature and the hearts of kings with only a word.

You and I can’t even sustain a single breath on our own. We are dependent on Him for the very movement of air in and out of our lungs. He is the One Who provides us the air to breathe and properly functioning lungs with which to breathe it.

You and I can’t create anything if we start with nothing.

We can’t speak a word and cause something to come into being.

We can’t orchestrate the entire universe so that our master plan comes to fruition.

You and I should be in serious awe of our majestic God.

Spend some time just being in awe today. Go before God. Ask Him to forgive you for taking Him for granted, if you need to do that. Ask that He grant you a fresh appreciation of His incredible power and skill in superintending the universe in general and your life in particular.

Then praise Him for all He is, and all He has done, is doing, and will do.

It’ll be a taste of the worship we’ll be privileged to render unto Him for all eternity.

Psalm 113:5—Who is like the Lord our God, the one who sits enthroned on high?

Psalm 145:3—Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.

It’s All About Me

Megan Breedlove March 2, 2009 0Comment

Children are born focused entirely on themselves and their needs, and they remain this way for quite awhile.

If you don’t believe me, consider this: when was the last time a two-month-old thought to herself, “You know, I bet Mom could really use some sleep. I’ve gotten her up three times a night for the past two months, so I’ll bet she’s really tired by now. Tonight, I’m not going to bother her when I wake up. I’ll just go back to sleep.” (Sure, some two-month-olds sleep through the night, but it’s not because they feel sorry for Mom.)

Or try taking a fork away from an older infant who has it clutched tightly in his fist. Chances are, he’s not going to think to himself, Hey, I could have poked my eye out with that. Good thing Mom took it away. Thanks, Mom! No, he’ll cry.

You see? You don’t have to teach your children to be selfish. It comes naturally.

Generally, selfishness in an infant isn’t a problem. It’s normal and natural. I’m quite certain that even Jesus cried as an infant when He was hungry and needed to be fed.

The problem comes when we don’t grow out of our selfishness.

Little babies are born believing that life is all about them, and for quite awhile, they see very little evidence to make them change their view. After all, someone else meets all their needs. All they have to do is express a need, and someone makes sure to meet it. Seems like a good indication that you’re the center of the universe, right?

The only problem is…it’s not true. You’re not the center of the universe.

If a selfish infant persists too long in thinking the world exists to meet her needs, she becomes a selfish child…then a selfish teenager…and, finally, a selfish adult.

We spend a lot of time and effort in our parenting to teach our children how to think of others. We teach them to share. We teach them to honor others. We even teach them that JOY stands for Jesus, Others, You. We teach love and compassion and outreach.

What is hardly objectionable in an infant—the belief that “it’s all about me”—becomes quite objectionable in an adult.

And as adults, who are supposed to know much better by now, we’re often guilty of being selfish ourselves.

Sometimes, we never lose that “me first” focus, or even a “me only” focus. Oh, we learn to cover it up better. We learn to ask polite questions of others instead of to talk exclusively about ourselves. We get accustomed to doing lots of little things designed to hide the fact that we’d rather the other person focus on us, instead of us focusing on them.

But are our hearts really in it? Do we do these things because we truly value others, or because we’ve learned how to be socially acceptable?

I’m afraid that, all too often, it’s the latter.

It’s bad enough when we treat others, even subconsciously, as if they are the means to make us feel good, or the means to fill us up, rather than unique, precious creations in God’s sight.

It’s worse when we act as if God is there merely to serve us, rather than the other way around.

We’ve all been guilty of it. We’ve all, on occasion, sought God for what He could do for us instead of for Himself. We’ve been guilty of going blithely on our merry way when things are fine, but then, when we need something, running to God…until He fixes things, at which point He fades to the back of our thoughts again.

Dear Mommy friend, do the same traits you are trying valiantly to train out of your children show themselves in your attitude toward others? Toward God?

We are all selfish at times. It’s part of being human. But that doesn’t make it excusable or acceptable.

Of all people Who ever walked this earth, Jesus would have had the right to focus on Himself and demand that others focus all their attention on Him, too. But He didn’t. Everything He did on this earth was designed to fulfill His mission and thereby bring glory to His Father. God the Father was the center of Jesus’ universe, not He Himself.

Friend, is God the center of your universe? Or are you?

Ask God to reveal the answer to you. You may be more selfish than you think.

I pray that you’re not. I pray that you are far less selfish than I am at times. But I suspect that even as mommies, who give and give and give, all day long, we all fail in this area at times. We all think of ourselves first, when we should be thinking of others, or of Another.

Lay your heart before God. Ask Him to show you whether there is any selfishness in it, and if so, where it lies. Tell Him you want Him to be the center of your world and of all your attention.

That’s what He wants, too.

Revelation 4:11—You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

John 15:5—I am the vine; you are the branches…apart from me, you can do nothing.