Fortified Walls Keep Us Safe

Proverbs 25:28 “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.”

I’ve always been averse to biblical passages about self-control. I used to think that walls of self-control did not allow for my whims and personal freedom. I knew there was a good reason behind not giving in to my rationalizations and to temptation, but hey, every now and again should be okay. Why does *Galatians 2:20 about the Spirit’s gifts: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness… have to end with “and self-control”? Why does Paul have to mention this trait to his apprentice Timothy, advising him that we should not have a “spirit of fear, but of love, power…and self-control”**? 

But now, I can see that God really desires this wall against temptations to protect us, to save us from our worst selves. Tim and Kathy Keller instruct in their Proverbs daily devotional on day April 25: “Without a wall the residents of ancient cities were vulnerable to attacks by bands of robbers, other nations’ armies, and even animals. A person who lacks self-control is just as defenseless. If you can’t control your appetite for food, you will ruin your body, …your tongue or temper …or sexual desires…relationships, …your impulses…you’ll make rash decisions, if you can’t say no to people, you will overpromise and either be exhausted and overextended or have a life filled with disillusioned people and broken relationships.”***

They further note that “A city doesn’t have to be completely without a wall in order to be sacked. The wall just needs to be broken through at one point to let the enemy in. So a lack of self-control - even in just one area of life - is a life-threatening problem.”*** 

Sometimes these walls of protection can protect from major consequences in our communities: keeping out drugs, STDs, murder, favoritism, purse snatchings or bank robberies. These “walls” can lead to helping the marginalized not only with the basics needed to survive, but going beyond to enable them to prosper. These barriers would be the walls keeping out the BIG stuff. 

However, we need these walls to keep out the smaller stuff as well - the inward self-focused and self-medicating thoughts that lead to selfish actions and a break in relationship with our true identity in Christ or with others who are made in God’s image (****James 3:9). There are many thoughts that I don’t always notice or catch such as coveting or envying someone for their possessions, body shape, or talents; holding onto anger and resentment; slandering, insulting, …and that menacing marauder, pride. These, too, lead to the destruction of our relationship with God and our community. 

Imagine the beauty, harmony and freedom we can experience without these enemies breaking in. I can view God’s principles as a stronghold instead of a prison. Proverbs 18:10 says, “The name of the LORD is a fortified tower; the righteous [those acting rightly, in accordance with God’s laws] run to it and are safe.” Instead of a cruel Dictator, I need to choose to see the Truth: God is a loving Father and Friend desiring our very best, desiring us to be who we were made to be, formed in His image and likeness, and acting as His beloved and valued. 

As C.S. Lewis famously reflected, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

My wise husband further expounds: “I think self-control can also be a positive impulse to DO what we OUGHT. Rejecting laziness or fear or indecision in order to pursue some aspect of goodness or generosity is also an expression of self-control.” Leave it to him to see the positive rather than the pessimistic negative like me!

My prayer: May I more easily recognize these beneficial principles and desire to please God and to be enamored with and grateful for the walled Kingdom He has provided for me.

References Cited:
*Galatians 5:22-25 NIV  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

**2 Timothy 1:7 NIV “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”

***Keller, Timothy, and Kathy Keller. God’s Wisdom for Navigating Life: A Year of Daily Devotions in Proverbs. Viking, 2017.

****James 3:9 NIV “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.”

Photo by Nathan Steinmeyer, https://images.app.goo.gl/TZCjVr8qPfJPNbtG9

Chinese Proverb: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

My weekly planner featured this Chinese Proverb. Sage advice, but I’d like to add my musings. In many ways, I’ve been a late bloomer. I didn’t become a middle school English teacher until my children were in high school; I didn’t start my EXTRAordinary Lives podcast until I was in my 50s and retired. I’m just now beginning ventures that could have, perhaps should have, been started the proverbial 20 years ago. But my tweaking of this proverb is that starting later is not starting at the beginning, with a seed. Instead, it is planting a sapling, and sometimes a weighty sapling at that.

Even though I earned my teaching credential and Master's in Education in my 40s, I had valuable past experiences to add to my new career - such as raising my own kids (and even homeschooling for several years), applying principles of my faith to my life, and having various life experiences from domestic and foreign travel to the painful death of a parent, all which deepened my understanding of literature, writing, children, parenting, and team dynamics. I was a much better teacher for the delay. True, I had much to learn and grow in as a new teacher, but I was starting not as a seed or even in a small, pint-sized pot, but in a gigantic #25 container. And now with my podcast, all the ways I’ve seen God work in my life and in the lives of others have inspired me to tell these stories and to tell them from the perspective of a sapling already growing from the seed planted many years ago in my 20’s.

I’m sure you’re similar in that none of your experiences are wasted. From my first job out of college as an intern in London at British Telecom, as a receptionist and events coordinator at a regional theater, as a student in seminary classes, as a spouse for 33 years and counting, and as a volunteer and leader in my church for over 30 years - all of these experiences and more have led to beginning new journeys, not at the start, but I’d wager, mid-way through. So yes, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but by relying on all you’ve learned and gained, from the good to difficult times, you are planting that tree not from a seed, but as one with roots, a solid trunk, and many branches scattered with new verdant growth.

To use a different metaphor, take time to discover how the many avenues you’ve taken have turned into the thoroughfare of today. You are more than you realize.

Photo: Getty Images, https://images.app.goo.gl/wZzgreqiJqPZu2FT6

How I Became My Child’s Advocate by Cynthia Zorn (Season 1, Episode 33)

What is mental wellness?

According to the World Health Organization, mental wellness is “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”

In other words, mental wellness is about practicing behaviors and habits that allow you to thrive even in stressful situations. This doesn’t mean you don’t experience mental health issues; it’s more about achieving balance and having the tools to persevere through the challenges of life. 

Enhancing mental wellness can look a lot of different ways but some characteristics of mental wellness may include resiliency, self-confidence, and the ability to maintain healthy relationships.

How I Became My Child’s Advocate

“I love my life,” were the last sweet words my daughter would whisper to me each night as she slowly fell into a restful slumber. During the nightmarish years to come, I longed to hear those words again.

As our daughter’s sleeping ritual changed from night to day, day to night. Her wakeful hours became less and less while nights were longer and longer. Our struggle to receive the answers to help our 9 year old, who could barely walk at times due to sleep deprivation, would struggle to appear normal at numerous doctor appointments and blood draws. Eventually, her symptoms becoming so sever that she was succumb to a wheelchair. The dreaded doctor appointments typically ended with the same answer…”normal”. 

• Be your child’s advocate by seeking pediatric professional advice. If you are not satisfied with the answer and the problem still persists, seek a second opinion or a different type of medical professional.

• Do your own research if necessary. (Be prepared to back up any research suggestions to the doctors with facts.)

• Keep a log or journal of your child’s behavioral changes which may include: sleeping or not, nightmares, restless leg syndrome, eating habits, psychosocial (depression, isolation, aggression, moody, weeping, negative, paranoia), changes in educational development and lack of memory recall. Physical: sleeps often during the day, especially when idle or watching TV or zoom calls, weight gain or loss, lack of hand eye coordination.

Normalcy was far from what our family had been experiencing for a year. Doctors eventually grasped at sibilance to what could be the problem, but as a mom who had homeschooled my studious, athletic, outgoing and funny child for 5 years, my heart and intellect told me otherwise. Becoming my child’s advocate,  I kept searching….and then with more research I found it….sleeping, laughing and falling…Narcolepsy with Cataplexy! This can’t be. This is a lifelong neurological disorder…please God…no! Which was worse? This answer or no answer?

Stanford Sleep Center was where we met Mackenzie’s new sleep specialist and neurologist, Dr. Mignot along with his friendly little black dog, Bear, who also had narcolepsy with cataplexy. Dr. Mignot explained to our family that Mackenzie indeed had a rare neurological sleep disorder that does not have a cure. It is suspected that narcolepsy is an autoimmune disease that is trigged by either the flu or head injury. Both had occurred within the year to our young daughter. Several sleep studies soon followed along with a blood test for the marker. A confirmation was imminent.

• Pediatric Sleep studies are key to evaluating a potential sleep disorder and sleep apnea.

• Should your child need medications, be creative in administering and be compassionate.

• Maintain a daily medication and sleep schedule.

• Maintain a school schedule with fun and patience sprinkled in.

Advocacy does not end with striving to obtain and finally receiving a proper diagnosis. This is the moment when advocacy begins for your child. 

• Advocate for school accommodations in person or virtual (504, IEP).

• Advocate with coaches, pastors, friends and family for events, outings and other activities that may require special attention for medication, activities and rest.

• Advocacy at home includes family members being cognizant in areas that they can help support the child who has received a new diagnosis.  

• Family team work is key to addressing the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and educational areas that will need to be redefined. 

• Some family members may be better suited to support in one area than another. Do not rely on one person to be and do everything for the child and the family. 

•   Pay attention to sibling needs. 

• Provide a schedule and structure for the day. 

• Set short and long term goals for the future.

• Discuss with your child what he or she would like for you to explain to the teacher, coach, family members and friends. 

• Educational support may include a 504 plan or IEP so reach out to the school counselor to discuss the protocol. 

• Virtual accommodations may be provided as well. 

• Your child's advocacy needs will follow your child to college. You are the best advocate they have. Seek support from the Disabilities or Wellness Office.

• Find the things your child can do well and focus on that while maintaining open communication with your child for other new and exciting things they might be interested in.

• Always be supportive towards your child “trying”. 

  As my daughter likes to recite, “Life begins outside your comfort zone.” 

• Maintain as normal home and outside the home environment, as possible.

• Continue or start serving (with the child) in and out of your community.

• Never lay blame or guilt on the child or other family members.

• Do not argue in front of the child or siblings.

• Ask the child what you can provide for them to help them be successful.

Prayer is the key to peace and patience. Our lives were then, and still are, filled with thanksgiving daily. The knowledge that God is with us and not against us in the effort towards raising a child that God created and intended her to be is at the forefront of our minds. And, as we have watched her grow with the strength of the Lord into an independent young Christian women, we are amazed at the lives she has touched and will touch as she strives towards her dream to serve others through the medical field. Sweet dreams Mackenzie.

•  Pray as a family. Encourage your child to pray throughout the day.

• Be together as a family for dinner, activities, games, prayer.

Believing God’s Love for Us

Knowing God’s love for us is probably the most important aspect of being a follower of Christ. It’s His death on the cross in order to bring us into a relationship with God that illustrates His sacrificial love. 

Paul prays that the Christ-followers in Ephesus may be able to grasp the love of Christ - and he even calls this ability “power.” Here’s what he says in Ephesians 3:14-21:*: For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 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.

In Colossians 3:13 and 14, Paul directs the Christ-followers in Colosse to… “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

BUT notice that Paul starts with this in the verse before this section, verse 12:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

AND notice WHY Paul says this is important: to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

We all have a hunger for love and honor - we don’t want to be unvalued or dissed. We want to be valued, recognized, appreciated. Practically - when we are not feeling this love of God, we often act out in two ways: by feeling superior to others or by feeling inferior to others. What can we do about that? Help! Timothy Keller gives us insight in his study, Galatians for You, in Chapter 12, “Gospel Relationships”:

“The gospel creates a whole new self-image which is not based on comparisons with others. Only the gospel makes us neither self-confident nor self-disdaining, but both bold and humble” (140):

1. When we’re feeling defensive, we can preach the gospel to ourselves in the middle of feeling defensive: What you think of me is not the important thing. Jesus Christ’s approval of me, not yours, is my righteousness, my identity, my worth.

2. Oppositely, when we’re looking down on someone else, we need to remind ourselves of the gospel: What I think of me is not the important thing. I am just as much a sinner, and just as undeserving of Christ’s love for me, as this person. 

In other words, we need to ROOT our sense of worth in who we are in and through Christ.

Furthermore, paraphrasing p. 144, Keller states, that we need to be on the lookout for needing others’ approval or for them to need us. And on the other hand, a lack of commitment to others - needing them only for our own satisfaction, and being self-serving in a relationship.

SO, rather than comparing ourselves with those “above” (feeling inferior to them) or “below” (feeling superior to them), we look only at our own responsibility to take what we have and are, and offer it to God as a sacrifice of gratitude for what Christ has done. 

This involves an internal daily crucifixion of our sinful over-desires/idols, and a daily heart-adoration of Christ, so that the fruit of the Spirit will be grown in our character. 

These words are both insightful and hopeful to me. I want to live knowing God’s love for me and because of that love, love others more truly, deeply, authentically, and beneficially - not for my own gain, but for God’s kingdom and what He desires to accomplish. I also want to daily confront my own sin - especially my tendency to compare myself with others, and replace that with 1 and 2 above. I definitely need the Lord’s help in this, and He is there to help, to even work through me with His Holy Spirit as I yield to Him, for His best for me and others.

I have been greatly encouraged and stretched by this Galatians for You study, and especially this chapter. I find myself needing to re-read it and re-apply it daily!

*BTW, Ephesians is a book in the New Testament of the Bible that is actually a letter from Paul to the church in Ephesus. Note that 3:14-21 refers to chapter 3, verses 14 through 21.
Photo by Matt Bennett