As some of you might have noticed, I did not manage a blog post last week. Life has been a bit challenging, one might even say chaotic. Our younger son moved in with us for a short period while his wife and almost 2-year-old son moved in with her mother. None of this is due to their relationship, but it’s obviously putting a strain on everyone, as they work to reach a place where they are back living together in their own home and we seek wisdom on how to best help them. And then there are the work challenges and a variety of other questions.

And I want so much to know what’s going to happen and how it’s all going to come out right, but that’s not the life God gives us. I just started reading Dallas Willard’s Hearing God, and he makes a point that I kind of knew but hadn’t thought about so clearly. Too often when we “seek God’s will,” what we’re really doing is seeking certainty about the future. God doesn’t work that way. He is not interested in having a bunch of automata following his instructions blindly; he is interested in relationship with people he created with this amazing ability to actually be like and relate to our creator. He is also not interested in providing us a roadmap to follow from here to the end; he wants us to have to trust him and to walk closely beside him.

I’ve learned this before. I spent close two years literally not knowing what my job was going to be next week. You see, I was alternating between acting chair of my department and associate chair of my department. Those may not sound that different, but they are quite different in many ways. Which one I had depended on whether or not the actual chair was in town. When he was gone, he told us that he was coming “next week” pretty much every week. He did eventually come back, but mostly he didn’t. When he was here, there was always the possibility that he could get a phone call that would take him out of town immediately. And that phone call did happen a couple of times. I remember one Sunday evening when we were out of town and he called and told me that he was getting on a plane to leave and would let me know when he was coming back.

That was a rough two years. The uncertainty was hard, especially at first. But God taught me a couple of things. First, he reminded that he was in control and that it really didn’t matter which job I had. I could handle either job with his help. Second, he reminded me that we all actually live in uncertainty. Lots of different things could happen tomorrow and completely change my life. I was just given the “privilege” of knowing one of the things that could change.

So, you may ask, if I really learned those two things, what is my problem now? I guess I can be a slow learner at times for all my supposed intelligence. I think, in fact, that I did learn much and that I’m coping with today’s chaos better because of having learned to deal with the chaos that surrounded me six years ago. But God brings the lessons back so that we can learn them ever more deeply, so that our trust and dependence on him become all the greater.

So I look around and teach myself to say, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” Psalm 46:1-3. My chaos is not so literal as that described in the Psalm, but God is a refuge in all forms of chaos, the only refuge who is certain for all of our tomorrows.

I’ve been richly blessed for much of my working life, since I’ve usually loved my job. By that I mean, of course, that I loved 50-60% and liked 20-30%. As for the rest, well, grading does get kind of old; some committees are . . . maybe less than truly meaningful; and while I’ve never truly disliked a student, there have been a few occasions where I really wanted to throw one out of my office for a bit. But every job has downsides, and I truly loved teaching when I wasn’t also doing administration. Besides, I knew as a teacher that I was making a significant difference in students’ lives, and sometimes they actually come back or write back and tell me that, even the students who weren’t so fond of me and my demanding standards when they were in my classes.

For the last several years, I have felt less blessed by my work situation. I don’t love what I do. I love the people I do it for, and I believe it’s important. I’m reasonably good at it. I do experience satisfaction when I accomplish something that will positively impact my department or my campus as a whole. However, for me, that satisfaction doesn’t begin to compare to what I feel when I’m in front of classroom that is with me and is getting it or when I’ve been sitting and working with a student and suddenly the light comes on.

You might ask why I’m doing a job I’m not so fond of in place of the one I loved. There are answers having to do with duty and concern for my department, but ultimately I believe that God has placed me in this position for this time.

So what do I do with that? I can tell you I’ve done a lot of less than helpful things. I complain. My husband and sons could certainly tell you that. I ask God when it’s going to end. I look for ways to eliminate stress, so I find that my fiction is mostly of a much lighter variety these days, less philosophical fantasy and science fiction, more mind candy romance. All of these things feel like they help temporarily, but they don’t really address the problem.

Lately, I’ve been reminded of Colossians 3:23-24:  Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (ESV).

Too often, I’m working for the dean (my boss), or my faculty, or my students, or to impress people with what I’ve accomplished. Even as a teacher, I probably worked more often for my students and my own satisfaction than for God. I’ve even wondered if a piece of the reason God has put me where I am now is to encourage me to look more to him and focus my efforts for his pleasure because I’m not as happy with my work inherently.

So what does it look like when I work “as for the Lord and not for men”? I think that involves prayer before every decision (and not just the obviously hard decisions). I think it includes concern for what’s best for every person involved in every decision. I think it includes constant reminders to myself that it doesn’t actually matter what anyone thinks of my work except God. However, it does matter what God thinks, so I must do my best at all times. And the result should be (and is, when I really do it), less complaining, more patience, less stress, and greater satisfaction.

I believe that one thing that sometimes hinders prayer is a fear that what we want to ask for is either too little or too big. I believe that such a fear is always mistaken.

The question I would ask is what could possibly be too big for God? He made the universe (Genesis 1). He stopped time (Joshua 10: 12-14). Paul describes God as “him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20 ESV). How, then, can anything that we ask be too big?

There are many examples of God doing things that we would see as big, but one of my favorites, partly because it is often overlooked, in the raising of the widow’s son in Nain (Luke 7:11-17). Jesus is walking into town and passes a funeral procession on its way out of town. He sees the mourning mother and walks up and raises her son. She didn’t even ask. It never even crossed her mind to ask. Of course, Mary and Martha made the same mistake before Jesus raised Lazarus, and they knew Jesus relatively well. They knew he could have healed Lazarus before he died, but it never occurred to them that he could raise him from the dead. Isn’t it wonderful that God is willing to do things that we desperately want but do not dare to ask? However, we have been encouraged to ask, so we should be more willing to dare to ask even when the request seems big to us.

However, there’s another side to this. If nothing we ask is actually big to God, then how can anything be considered small to God? I think that believing our problems are too small to bother God with is actually a bigger problem for many of us than thinking our requests are too big. However, Jesus said God numbers the hairs of our heads (Matthew 10:30). And if nothing’s big to God, then everything is small, so what leads us to think anything is too small if it matters to a person God loves?

I have built in myself a habit of praying about everything that concerns me, no matter how small it is. For example, if I’m concerned about getting an opening in the traffic as I merge on to a highway, I pray about it. For most of the “little” things I pray about, I can’t really demonstrate that God has acted on my behalf. Would traffic have opened up if I hadn’t prayed? Maybe. However, I want to tell you a story about one “little” thing that I and my whole Sunday School class prayed about a number of years ago.

First, let me set the stage. This happened back when I was working on my doctorate with two preschoolers. I was taking three classes and doing some teaching, so had to be on campus most of Monday through Wednesday as well as some time on Thursdays and Fridays. I had about a 25 minute commute to campus. My husband commuted 90 miles the other direction on Mondays and Tuesdays, though he did work from home the rest of the week. I need glasses for distances including for driving. At the time, I had exactly one pair of glasses and had not seen an optometrist since we moved to the area. And I didn’t wear contacts.

One weekend, my glasses broke: snapped in two at the nose. I’d been through this before, more than once. I was aware that we could glue them and they would hold for a day or so. We had not, at that time, found a glue that would hold for longer. And usually subsequence gluings lasted for less time. I was able to get an optometrist’s appointment for late Thursday morning, and I really couldn’t have fit anything sooner into my crazy schedule. I needed those glasses to somehow stay glued so that I could get to classes and drive safely.

So on Sunday morning I asked my Sunday School class to pray. I’m pretty sure that some of them thought I was a little crazy. We were pretty new to the class at the time, but they were the support group that I had, and they prayed. And my husband and I prayed.

The glasses did not come apart again until I was sitting in the optometrist’s office on Thursday morning, and I walked out of that office with new glasses. You think what you want, but I will always believe that God cared enough to keep my glasses together for four days because that’s what I needed and I asked.

So if you need it, however big or small it is, try asking?

My grandson came to visit this past weekend (along with his parents). He’s 23 months old today. We have been fortunate to see him fairly frequently over his short life, and watching him develop had become one of my joys. He happens to be a very large child with advanced motor skills, so that has been fun. He can play catch with some success, and he spent a while this visit running around chasing balls and yelling “Kick” with each kick. However, as someone who has studied human language development and worked on making machines try to “understand” human languages, what intrigues me the most is his developing language skills.

His language has been particularly interesting to observe because it hasn’t followed the expected pattern very clearly. He has had a great tendency to come up with surprising vocabulary that he’ll use very infrequently. And he’s been coming up with the occasional full sentence for a few months. However, most of his speech is still repetition of fairly typical favorite words like ball, Mama, Daddy, kitty, shoe, side (outside), etc. On this visit, he had a new word: James. That happens to be his father’s name, so every use was immediately followed by his mother saying, “That’s Daddy to you.” Note that he was still using Daddy, but was using James when he was upset with his father or was calling him from a distance. As you might guess, those are the times when he hears his mother calling James: when she’s calling James to come or when she’s irritated with him for some reason.

Watching this scenario play out, I was grateful for the perspective that said it’s going to be okay because the child is not going to keep this up forever, and, of course, I felt sorry for my daughter-in-law, who was clearly frustrated and perhaps a little embarrassed. I also found myself reminded of a time when James was a few months older than my grandson is now. I was taking a human language development class for my Ph.D. and had to do a project where I analyzed the language of a child who was between 18 months and 3 years old. Since I had a handy 2-year-old in my house, I did the project with him. As I was transcribing a session, I noticed that James had used the phrase “I don’t think so” in a really weird way in a situation where he clearly just meant “No.” That led me to realize that I used “I don’t think so” a lot with my sons in order to avoid just telling them “No.” Of course, James had figured out that I meant no whether I actually said it or not, so he had decided that the phrase just meant no and used it that way.

While adults tend not to be so humorous in their imitation, we all do have traits that echo others we are close to, be it parents, siblings, mentors, or friends. I find myself occasionally recognizing a turn of phrase or a gesture as being clearly learned from a parent or a close friend. Some of those I’m glad of; some I’m less enamored with. There are times when my imitation is deliberate, as when I adopt teaching practices of other teachers I admire. There are other times when my imitation is unconscious and comes as a complete surprise when I notice it. The key point is that imitation is a thing. We are all imitated, and we all imitate.

If we are imitated, what a responsibility that is. I’ve always be amazed at Paul’s bravery when he twice tells the Corinthians “Be imitators of me” (I Cor 4:16b; 11:1a ESV). What danger to put yourself out there as a model for other Christians. And yet, Paul is not alone in that role. We all walk in a world with eyes on us, both of fellow believers and of non-believers. How do we live with that reality?

The key is in the remainder of I Corinthians 11:1, where Paul says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” Elsewhere, Paul commands us to “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Eph 5:1 ESV). So how do we do that? I think the key is in that phrase “as beloved children.” My son imitated me because he spent time with me and listened to me. My grandson is imitating his mother because of the time spent with her and the close relationship there. We can, and should, consciously imitate God, but we will become most like him when we spend the time and energy on that relationship that allows us to begin to imitate unconsciously, simply because we hear and see and God is doing and we automatically do the same.

Despite the increased acceptance of “choruses” and “contemporary Christian music” in a variety of evangelical churches, I still see and hear laments about the loss of hymnals, complaints about the volume of that new-fangled music, and concerns about all these young people who grow up without knowing the traditional hymns and songs of their denomination. Now, as someone who loves to belt the alto in a 4-part rendition of “I’ll Fly Away” and had at least the first verse and usually more of a significant percentage of the Baptist Hymnal memorized by the time I was an adult, I’m certainly not going to argue that there is no value in those music traditions. However, I think that we older Christians too often dismiss the value of learning and singing new songs of worship.

The Bible tells us to sing to the Lord a “new song” 5 times: Psalm 33:3, Psalm 96: 1, Psalm 98:1, Psalm 149:1, and Isaiah 42:10. Besides these injunctions, there are other references in both the Psalms and Revelation to worshipers singing a new song of praise. So that leads me to two responses. One is to seek to be open to new songs of praise, even if they’re not my style of music. The other is to seek to understand why. Why would God want us to sing new songs to Him, and not just the old familiar songs we have?

The first reason, I think, is for the creators. Those who have been inspired to create still often benefit from encouragement, so these verses serve as that encouragement. They affirm that need to compose and point out that there is value in new worship music.

However, I believe that these verses are not just for composers, but also have meaning for all of us. When I sing songs that are extremely familiar, I sometimes (maybe often) discover that I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing. My mouth and lungs are engaged along with a subconscious portion of my brain, but the primary part of me is not there. When the music or the words are not so familiar, I have no choice but to think about what I’m singing, and thinking about what I’m singing is what makes it worship.

Another factor, I believe, is that God is very aware that language and culture change over time. Music that means a lot to one generation may not mean so much to another. Even though I realized recently that I can still sing every word of “The Solid Rock” from memory, I’ve discovered that singing “On Christ the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand” means more to me when it is part of the driving bridge of “The Rock Won’t Move” than it ever has in the old hymn I’ve sung for 45 or so years. I believe that’s because I am a child of the 70’s and 80’s when it comes to music and that driving beat reaches my heart in a way that the melody and rhythms of that old hymn fail to do. In recent years, I’ve found myself crying during worship, largely due to some major family issues, but in a way that is responding to the assurances of the words of songs like “God Is Able” or “I Will Look Up.” I can’t imagine having the same reaction to any but one or two of the traditional hymns.

To anyone not convinced that new music is valuable as culture and language change, I’m inclined to ask when they last sang a motet at church.

The value of new music that is culturally relevant and uses current language is greater for new Christians or those who are not Christians  yet, but are willing to visit a church. English has changed in the past 200 or so years, and some of those traditional hymns use words or phraseology that are meaningless to those who didn’t grow up in church (and even to some who did). Accessible, authentic worship is attractive and helps new Christians learn to worship.

As a missionary kid, it occurs to me as I think about these issues that it is incumbent upon anyone who is ministering cross culturally to encourage the creation of new worship music by the new Christians rather than just translating their own songs to the new language. Even as we seek to communicate in someone’s heart language, we should encourage people to worship using music that touches their hearts, even if it’s not the music that touches ours.

A final piece of advice to any worship leaders who might read this: if the song has been done at least three times in recent months and people aren’t really singing, either the music is too loud or the song is a poor choice for congregational singing or both. These things can be fixed.