What My Daughter Taught Me About Joy

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

There was a fight in my house on Sunday morning. A big one.

We separated the combatants, and no one was badly hurt. I’m not sure what started the conflict, but I was relieved to hear the elephant was not involved.

Making the Bed

One morning a few months ago, my youngest daughter (4) was taking longer than usual to make her bed. It was Sunday and I was trying to herd my children toward the car.

I entered her room and saw her deep in thought and narration. After straightening her pillow, sheet, and comforter, she was arranging some stuffed animal friends on top of the bed. This was serious business.

The animals were going to church. The sanctuary (the bed) was all prepared and the preacher (a penguin) was ready to give his address from the pulpit (the pillow).

We’ve seen a similar drama unfold every Sunday since. There isn’t often conflict, but there is always a story.

Story and Joy

My children are constantly in the midst of a story. Their creativity bubbles and overflows, and I love it. (I blame and thank their mother.)

To me, making the bed is an easy, necessary task to complete as quickly as possible. I grumble throughout and take no pleasure in the chore.

But where I complain, my youngest delights. And she teaches me about her Creator.

Reflecting Our Creator

My daughter approaches work much more like God than I do.

He created and proclaimed it good. In every blue sky scattered with cottonball clouds, in every mud puddle begging for boots, in every colorful October leaf shower, can you see God’s playfulness? His delight? His pleasure in creating, sustaining, and spinning our earth on his finger?

Since joy is a fruit of the Spirit, God must be the most joyous. This, despite so many efforts to paint him as severe, brooding, and dour. He is no British matriarch on PBS.

Yes, God is holy and his holiness demands obedience. But holiness is not drudgery. Obedience is not grim. For the Christian, growth in obedience parallels growth in joy.

Our Source of Joy

I don’t mean our lives are all balloons and confetti. But the joy of the Lord is deep, warm, and abiding. This joy remains precisely because it doesn’t depend on circumstances.

Our joy is rooted in a restored, permanent relationship with God. We have the promise of a future with him and a foretaste of it now. That God makes this joy available and free to his enemies is unimaginable.

And yet, there was a great cost to providing this joy. Though it was for “the joy set before him,” Jesus endured the cross. Because of our sin, Jesus’s joyous fellowship with God was broken for a time so we might know the unending joy of reconciliation with the Father.

Imagine not just the confusion and wonder at the discovery of the empty tomb, but picture the joy that first Easter morning. Jesus is alive! Death is not the champion—Jesus is!

Pursue Joy in the Lord

While stunning and earth-shattering, this truth has practical implications: more smiling, more singing, less complaining. This godly joy should trickle and seep into every second of every day.

Because God is king and Jesus is alive, we can find joy in even the most mundane tasks. Just ask my daughter—she’d be glad to show you.

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Links for the Weekend (2023-04-14)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

3 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection

Believing in the Resurrection might not be as absurd as some would want you to think!

Here are three features of our world that are already Easter-like. They already have a life-from-the-dead shape to them. I don’t offer these as watertight proofs of God. But I do raise them as suggestive pointers.

Humility and Overcommitted Busyness

I’m not sure I’ve connected busyness with a lack of humility before. This article might spark some good questions to ask yourself!

At first glance, the pathological busyness of our day seems disconnected from questions of humility, but it is precisely in caving to the pressure to be endlessly doing that our humility is most frequently vanquished. This often happens without a fight or even an awareness that we ought to be battling the temptation to arrogate to ourselves more activity than the Lord has handed us. Whether working on a job or a home, spending an evening with friends, or even attending to our spiritual growth, we so often live as if we could and should do more than we can and are called to.

What do you do when you are spiritually dry?

There’s some bracing common sense in this article. We need to hear it because we often do the opposite!

There are so many things that can be done, but I want to give one piece of advice with two practical applications for those who feel spiritually dry: Don’t stop going to the fountain. Often when we feel dry, we are tempted to neglect the one thing that will satisfy our souls. Think about it: When you feel dry, what things do you want to toss out? Bible reading, prayer, fellowship. But this is the problem. If you are dry, spiritually thirsty, the worst thing you can do is go to the desert! You need to go to the fountain!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2023-04-07)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? Three Historical Facts (+ Four Explanations That Don’t Work)

Justin Taylor has compiled some summaries and videos that provide a good account of why the resurrection of Jesus is a historical reality.

Tim & Kathy Keller: The Resurrection is Historically Verifiable or Our Faith is Nothing

Here’s another link about the resurrection of Jesus. (‘Tis the season!) Tim and Kathy Keller discuss the necessity of a historically reliable resurrection in this video.

Follow Without Seeing, Die Without Receiving

What does it mean to follow God by faith? What does a life lived by faith look like? Tim Challies has some moving thoughts.

But as Christians, we live for a reward we cannot yet have and do not yet hold. We deny ourselves what would seem desirable and pleasurable in this life in favor of promised rewards that are much greater and much better—but that are withheld until the life to come. We set out by faith, not knowing where God will lead us and uncertain of all that he will require of us along the way. And when it comes time for us to die, we die trusting in God’s promises and seeing the promised reward with the eyes of faith. And then, we are certain, we receive from God blessings far greater than any we could know here.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Children: A Blessed Interruption. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Children: A Blessed Interruption

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

I started a recent Saturday morning with a sigh. It was time for one of my least favorite tasks: grading.

Grading for a professor is like sweeping the floor for a barber. It’s necessary, tedious, and often a hairy mess.

I was hoping to finish in an hour. I sat down with a red pen and braced myself. Then, the barrage began.

Daddy, can you watch me dance?
Daddy, can you make me breakfast?
Daddy, will you help me with this puzzle?
Daddy, my sister is bothering me!

Abundant tears. Disappointment galore. (My children had a rough time, too.)

One hour stretched into two. As with so much of parenting, this was not what I planned.

Children Are Interrupters

Interruptions and parenting go hand in hand. Every parent-to-be hears this, but it’s hard to grasp the new reality until it arrives.

For mothers, disruptions begin early as the child takes over her body during pregnancy. Unplanned clothing, cravings, emotions, pains, and trips to the bathroom mark those nine months.

During their first years of life, children survive through interruptions. They broadcast their needs at all hours and volumes.

While those early-year disturbances don’t disappear, they gradually change. Feedings, diaper changes, and 3am lullabyes give way to snack requests, scraped knees, and 3am counseling.

This isn’t unusual; this is parenting.

God is an Interrupter

I often brush aside these intrusions as meaningless accidents. Surely (I say to myself) the important parts of life lie elsewhere: adult conversations, work, community service, prayer, reading, church.

But God is an interrupter. Just ask Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, or anyone that encountered Jesus.

Because he is sovereign, none of our interruptions come by chance. Some people use the term “divine appointment,” but that’s too tame. God disrupts our lives more like a rock through the window than a polite meeting request.

Learning Through Interruptions

God’s interruptions are more than a detour. His diversions don’t just lead to the correct path, they are the path. God teaches through disruption.

Consider Moses. God used Moses’ curiosity about the burning bush (Exodus 3:3) to reveal his name (Exodus 3:6,14–15), give Moses his mission (Exodus 3:10), and pledge his presence (Exodus 3:12). God didn’t just end Moses’ shepherding career, he gave Moses spiritual supplies for his new, enormous task.

We must embrace not only the result of God’s interventions but the interventions themselves. We need to see the opportunity, not the annoyance.

Which brings me back to my children.

Learning With My Children

I need these parenting interruptions. I need to be shaken from self-centeredness and reminded of how important my children are. I have only a finite number of dances to watch, breakfasts to prepare, and puzzles to build.

Yes, life with children is hard. But it is good, too.

God teaches me though my children’s requests, their needs, their disagreements, and even their disobedience. He shines a light on my heart, my requests, and my disobedience. He graciously shapes my character as I learn how to respond and how to love.

I’m grateful for God’s instructions. The question is: Will I listen?

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Links for the Weekend (2023-03-31)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Knowing the Future Doesn’t Cure Anxiety

Jen Wilkin looks at what our anxious prayer requests reveal about our understanding of God.

We are, indeed, anxious about what the future holds, wondering about what to do when difficulties arise in our friendships, our finances, and our families. If we could just know a bit more about what is coming next, surely we could lay to rest our anxieties and take a proactive stance. And certainly, we could relax and trust God!

Wrath Is Not an Attribute of God

This article offers a helpful explanation about God’s love, his wrath, and his attributes.

In our society, love is often reduced to affection or affirmation. To love someone is either to have warm feelings toward her or to affirm her without conditions. And when people in our society think of the wrath of God, they imagine a red-faced deity with a bad temper and short fuse. This irritable God lashes out with uncontrollable rage and finds pleasure in punishing the wicked.

The Joy of Reading Revelation

Nancy Guthrie provides seven reasons for reading and studying this often-avoided book.

The truth is, while the apocalyptic prophecy of Revelation presents some challenges to us as modern readers, it also provides gifts of insight and understanding to those who are willing to engage with it. Revelation is a letter written to gird us for faithful allegiance to Christ as we wait for his return. And that is encouragement we all need!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2023-03-24)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

If God Would Outsource His Sovereignty

Tim Challies imagines a scene in which we get to pick our life circumstances. Though we might shy away from difficult providences of God, this article reminds us how God uses them all.

And as we receive these from his hand we can rest assured that in the life of the Christian there are not two classes of providence, one good and one bad. No, though some may be easy and some hard, all are good because all in some way flow from his good, Fatherly hand and all in some way can be consecrated to his service. For we are not our own, but belong to him in body and in soul, in life and in death, in joy and in sorrow, in the circumstances we would have chosen anyway and the ones we would have avoided at all costs.

Helping Children with Anxiety

This article discusses how parents can help their children deal with anxiety. It also includes some resource recommendations at the end.

While children deal with their own fears and worries, they’re also watching you, taking cues on how they should respond. As parents, we tend to think it’s best to shield our children from our anxiety, and there are times when that’s appropriate. But shielding them and denying the presence of anxiety teaches them to do the same. That’s unhealthy, and it’s unbiblical. The psalmists didn’t bottle things up; they poured everything out. That doesn’t mean you should pour out your soul before your kids each day. But it does mean they should see it’s okay that you deal with fear and anxiety, too, and you do something about it: you turn to your heavenly Father in prayer. You read his word. You walk by faith. You believe. Showing them what to do with anxiety is much healthier than modeling denial.

One Man’s Walk in the Snow Creates a Giant Masterpiece

This last link is not specifically Christian, but this video displays God’s glory and man’s creativity in nature. This short film is only 6 minutes long.

    On the WPCA Blog This Week

    This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Lord, Teach Me to Hunger. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

    Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

    Lord, Teach Me to Hunger

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

    I can’t remember the last time I was hungry.

    Not another-Oreo-would-hit-the-spot hungry. Not grab-a-granola-bar-mid-afternoon hungry. I mean honest, echoes-in-the-stomach hungry. I suspect I’m not alone.

    I thank God for this. Many people around the world—and plenty in my own town—ache for food. God has (to this point) spared me this distress, and I’m grateful.

    But I have often been a poor steward of God’s provision. I have used food to push hunger away, rejecting my body’s built-in notification system. In eating and snacking (and snacking and snacking), I have insulated myself against feeling my need.

    The physical risks of this habit are obvious, but the danger runs deeper.

    A Spiritual Problem

    Notice the centrality of hunger and thirst in these three passages from the Bible.[1]

    Matthew 5:6

    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

    Psalm 42:1-2

    As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
    My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
    When shall I come and appear before God?

    Psalm 63:1

    O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
    my soul thirsts for you;
    my flesh faints for you,
    as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

    Hunger, thirst, pants, faints. The Bible uses the language of our bodies to describe a heart inclined toward God.

    Can you hear the desperation in these words? “To hunger” doesn’t mean to want to eat very much. Hunger is the body’s testimony to the necessity of food.

    Read those verses again. God is not a take-or-leave bedtime snack; he is our sustenance.

    More Than Hunger

    Analogies depend on a known reference. Jesus’s claim to be the Good Shepherd (John 10:11) is meaningless unless his audience was familiar with sheep. The Israelites knew about consuming fires (Deut. 4:24) because of their daily cooking and worship habits.

    So if the Bible urges us to hunger for God, physical hunger should not be so rare in our lives. Bodily hunger brings the spiritual reality into the physical realm; it points us toward proper desires. But God uses more than hunger.

    Grief, loneliness, waiting—these feelings and experiences of wanting and lacking are all a gift from God. They show us our lack of control and our need for help outside ourselves.

    When we make it our goal—always unspoken—to avoid any trace of these feelings, we lose a powerful guide. We reject pictures and lessons from God designed to draw us to him.

    Satisfied in Jesus

    In the context of asserting his oneness with the Father (see John 6:30), Jesus made this remarkable statement.

    “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” — John 6:35

    This is glorious—our spiritual hunger is temporary! God gives the longing and provides the fulfillment. Because of the work of Jesus, this ultimate satisfaction is for everyone who comes.

    Implications for Today

    In God, and because of Jesus, we will be completely satisfied. We have present-day glimpses of that satisfaction, but we await the fullness. What does that mean for today?

    I’ve realized I need these feelings. Hunger, thirst, grief, loneliness—they remind me of my dependence and God’s thorough provision, both now and in the future. God supplies everything I require, from the smallest reassurance to my greatest need—God himself.

    God brought me to this issue through food, so I’m starting with physical hunger. Over the past two months I have been snacking less and fasting more. Small steps, to be sure, but I hope God will use them to build within me a longing for him and the confidence that he will satisfy my deepest hunger pangs.

    [1] There are many more passages like this. Here’s a small sample: Psalm 119:81, Rev 22:17, Psalm 107:8-9, Psalm 143:6, Psalm 84:1-2.

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    Links for the Weekend (2023-03-17)

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

    Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

    Most To Jesus I Surrender (or Maybe Just Some)

    Tim Challies ponders what it means to come to Jesus with everything.

    As I worked my way through chapter after chapter, I noticed one recurring theme: the people are meant to bring to the Lord what is first and what is best. Where they may be tempted to wait until their barns are full and their larders stuffed before offering their sacrifice, God demands the firstfruits. Where they may be tempted to sacrifice the animals that are lame or unsightly and that can otherwise serve no good purpose, God demands what is perfect and unblemished. He makes clear that if his people are to worship him, they must worship him in ways that prove he is their first priority.

    How Can I Learn to Receive Criticism?

    This episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast (transcript also available) helps us distinguish between warranted and unwarranted criticism. I appreciated the reminder of how Paul and Jesus counseled Christians to combat the negative effects of hurt feelings.

    The deeper question in all of this — and I think this may be what she’s really getting at — is how to keep our hurt feelings (which all of us have from time to time) from dominating us, controlling us, causing us to either become melancholy or depressed. Or how to keep them from making us bitter or angry so that we are miserable to be around. Neither of those responses to criticism shows the sufficiency of Jesus.

    You Don’t Need a Degree to Read the Bible

    In this video, Matt Harmon explains how asking a few good questions can bear much fruit when reading the Bible.

    Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

    Links for the Weekend (2023-03-10)

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

    Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

    7 Things to Say to a Hurting Loved One

    When a suffering friend opens up to us, sometimes we don’t know what to say. This article offers some places to begin.

    Arguably no moment is more formative than immediately after a loved one shares her pain with you. Relationships are defined by what happens in these sacred seconds. Your words can bring healing or harm, communicate love or judgment, build or destroy trust.

    A “Good Faith” Debate: Should Christian Parents Send Their Children to Public Schools?

    The Gospel Coalition arranged a conversation between Jen Wilkin and Jonathan Pennington about the topic of public schooling. You can watch a video at the link here, and there is also a transcript available for reading. This issue can often be heated and contentious, but this conversation was insightful and full of respect.

    Special thanks to Maggie A who sent along this link and the links in the following block. Maggie mentions that these resources on the topic of schooling might be especially helpful at this time of year when many families are thinking through schooling choices for the fall.

    A Podcast Series on School Choice

    In 2018, Risen Motherhood ran a four-part series on their podcast about different schooling options that Christian parents might choose.

    On the WPCA Blog This Week

    This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Jesus, the Moka Pot, and Me. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

    Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

    Jesus, the Moka Pot, and Me

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

    My wife loves coffee. When the mood strikes, she breaks out this little classic, the Moka pot.

    It’s easy: tuck grounds and water into their assigned quarters, then draw out the good stuff on the stove. Add water or milk to taste.

    This Italian friend delivers a tasty beverage and makes my wife happy. And yet, I hate the Moka pot.

    I am aware this is not rational.

    Whose Mess?

    My main issue: the Moka pot is not dishwasher-safe. In our house, this means I scrub the bugger.

    Now the Moka pot isn’t difficult to wash by hand. Some disassembly is required, but I can clean everything without much fuss. Two or three minutes, tops.

    In my mind, however, this process takes hours of tortuous labor. So, far too often, I ignore the Moka pot. He awaits cleansing by the side of the pool, for he has no one to lower him into the waters.

    But my sin goes beyond mere neglect—there’s a dangerous storm brewing in my heart. That’s not mine, it’s hers. Why should I have to wash it when she’s the one who dirtied it? Why should I have to clean up her mess?

    This thinking is not just silly and selfish. It may just be blasphemous.

    Telling Lies

    Consider this well-known verse.

    For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. (Eph 5:23)

    Douglas Wilson has noted this is not a command but rather a statement of fact. And the comparison in this verse should drive Christian husbands to their knees.

    Every marriage, everywhere in the world, is a picture of Christ and the church. Because of sin and rebellion, many of these pictures are slanderous lies concerning Christ. But a husband can never stop talking about Christ and the church. If he is obedient to God, he is preaching the truth; if he does not love his wife, he is speaking apostasy and lies—but he is always talking. If he deserts his wife, he is saying that this is the way Christ deserts His bride—a lie. If he is harsh with his wife and strikes her, he is saying that Christ is harsh with the church—another lie. If he sleeps with another woman, he is an adulterer, and a blasphemer as well. How could Christ love someone other than His own Bride? (Reforming Marriage, p.25)

    He is always talking. Ouch. What am I saying about Christ as I leave the Moka pot dirty?

    If I am unwilling to clean up my wife’s mess, I’m lying to the world about Christ’s love for the church. I’m saying that Jesus leaves the Church to wash herself, to fix her own problems.

    What’s the Truth?

    Praise God that this life-sermon I preach about Jesus is not true! Instead of neglecting the church and leaving her responsible for her own purity, Jesus cleansed the church “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:27) Further, since God took initiative in our salvation (Rom 5:8), my laziness and neglect toward my wife are not the last word.

    In his mercy, God lifts my gaze from my lies to his truth. This is worth proclaiming and sharing far and wide!

    If you’d like to discuss it, I know a beverage we can share.

    Note: I still appreciate the Wilson quote used in this article, but I wouldn’t point people to his teaching now in the way I might have when I first wrote this.

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