Tag Archives: Christian

Challenge Day 29

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Today’s Inspiration. In your day-to-day life, are you more often a construction worker, or a demolitionist? Someone who builds, or someone who destroys?

I’m not talking buildings—physical structures—I’m talking people.

I am ashamed to admit that I find myself tearing other people down too often. Usually—and sadly—it’s those I profess to love the most that feel the brunt of this, because they’re the ones who see me at my worst. It’s like Paul said: “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). Those are often the worst times. The best times are those when I am able to follow Paul’s instruction in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, which we’re going back to for today’s inspirational verse:

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (NIV)

Today’s challenge comes from the phrase build each other up.

Challenge Day 29 build up #writinglifeaugustchallenge

Today’s Challenge. Earlier, I compared someone who builds people up to a construction worker. The idea is not far off—the Greek this word is translated from gives the sense of “to be a house-builder, i.e. Construct or confirm.” Your challenge today is to think about what it takes to construct something like a house and what the implications are when you apply that to a person or people. What does, or would, it take to build up another person? Pray for understanding as you begin. You may also want to look at cross-references for this verse to help you gain a better understanding of Paul’s meaning (he used the same type of language in 2 Corinthians 12:19 and Ephesians 4:29).

The next part is the harder one—pray about who, in your own life, you should work to build up. Then pray for the Holy Spirit’s help in doing just that—it’s something that is difficult to do in our own power, but possible with God.

Today’s Participation. Try your hand at some art today! Sketch a home or another structure to help you think through what it takes to build something similar, but label parts not as physical building materials, but spiritual ones. Share your sketch online or with a friend. (For Instagram, use #writinglifeaugustchallenge and follow me so I can see it!)

Challenge Day 26

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Today’s Inspiration. Over the weekend I attended my cousin’s wedding and Bia Malu Uno. This is the last of a series of ceremonies that are part of Igbo wedding rites in the bride’s Nigerian culture. People from all over the world—literally—came to witness this traditional joining of the bride’s family with the groom’s, and the day was filled with such joy and love. At one point as we were watching the people mingling, dancing, and laughing, the groom’s father (also my cousin—my mom’s first cousin) said to me, “This is beautiful. This is how it should be.”

The bride, a beautiful Nigerian woman in a cream-colored wedding dressed and orange necklace holding a bouquet of soft, wheat-colored grasses tied to look like a hand-held broom.

This is how it should be.

People of all nations and cultures, getting along. Filled with genuine love and acceptance for each other. Yes, even—gasp!—people of different religions. Jesus’ name was highly honored in both the ceremony and the hearts of the majority of people there, but there were also representatives of Islam in attendance since the groom himself converted several years ago. I’m sure, given the diversity, there were people of other religions or no religion at all in attendance as well. What I did not see or hear at any time during the weekend was a disrespectful gesture or word from one guest to another, or about another.

A group of women from several different cultures and a child dancing a traditional Nigerian dance.

What I saw, what I witnessed, was a diverse group of people treating each other, at the least, as neighbors—and more often as family.

We’ve been spending time thinking about Matthew 22:37-39, in which Jesus, speaking to a Pharisee, named the two greatest commandments. The second is to

Love your neighbor as yourself. (NIV)

A red-headed, ten-year-old girl’s face is close-up in the left-hand corner. In the blurred background, across the aisle seated in chairs for a wedding are women in traditional Igbo dress, bright green and bright pink.

In the account of the interaction between Jesus and the Pharisee in Luke, the Pharisee wanted to qualify this. Actually, he wanted to justify himself—probably his past actions and present attitudes toward certain groups of people—so he asked, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29, NIV). Rather than give a straight answer, Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan, who turned out to be the one person in the story who acted like a true neighbor to a man who had been beaten and left for dead—a man who may not have stopped for him, if the situation were reversed (Luke 10:30-37).

Then Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

The white groom in an Igbo hat and outfit. The outfit is made from non-traditional material—red with a Wisconsin Badgers logo repeated in a pattern. He is bending over hugging his aunt.

Do likewise. You be the one who acts like a neighbor. Whether it’s a friend or a stranger. Someone who looks like you or someone who doesn’t. Someone who thinks, believes, and acts like you or someone who doesn’t. Someone you’d normally consider your sworn enemy.

Look around you. See those people? Those are your neighbors. All of them.

Taken from the back of an outdoor tent, there is a group of women in Igbo dress dancing outside the tent. They are doing a dance to indicate their acceptance of the groom’s family for their daughter/cousin—this shows they will not take her away and nullify the wedding. In the foreground are spectators, other wedding guests witnessing the transaction.

And how are you to treat these people, these neighbors of yours? You are to love them like you love yourself. Like you love yourself.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a tall order. Because I know myself, and know that my first natural reaction to most things in life is to protect myself, to care for myself, to guard my own interests, often to the detriment of others. But that’s not what Jesus wants. Loving myself? Yes, I am to love myself. But then extend that same love to everyone around me. The way I protect myself? I need to protect others that way. Care for myself? Care for others just as much. Guard my interests? Guard their interests too, if they are worth guarding.

Which brings us to today’s challenge.

The bride’s father, a Nigerian in traditional Igbo garb, walking in a meadow with the groom’s aunt, a white woman in a black and white dress.

Today’s Challenge. Your challenge today is to take yesterday’s list of the ways you love yourself and turn it into statements about how to love your neighbor. In the paragraph beginning “I don’t know about you” above, I did a bit of this. Your bigger challenge, though (one that doesn’t stop at sundown), is to try to practice this kind of love toward the people around you.

A red ceramic candle holder with star cut-outs sitting on a wooden wall shelf. Photo text: Challenge Day 26, neighborly love. #writinglifeaugustchallenge

This challenge, especially the second part, won’t be easy. You will fail. But that’s the beauty of God’s forgiveness through Jesus, and of the promise of the Holy Spirit to those who believe in Jesus; God forgives when we fail and the Spirit helps us show love in ways we wouldn’t be able to on our own. That means that throughout this challenge, you’ll want to—need to—pray for God’s help. Help showing you what it means to love someone as you love yourself. Help living it out. And forgiveness for those times you are unable to do as he commands.

Today’s Participation. Tell or show us about one of your neighbors and one small way you are able to show them neighborly love—or want to begin to try to show that kind of love. Write about it in the comments or post about it on social media using #writinglifeaugustchallenge.

Challenge Day 25

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As I write this, I’m a passenger in my own car on a family road-trip to my cousin’s out-of-state wedding. By the time this posts, the wedding will be over and we will be getting ready to head back home again. I’m not accustomed to writing in a car in such close proximity to the rest of my family; I’m more of a need-it-quiet, need-it-need, want-to-be-alone type of writer. In fact, I think the writer in me is one reason I put a high value on solitude. I like it quiet, and I like to be alone.

I also value safety and prefer my own driving over my husband’s. He’s one of those drivers I hate to have around me—always riding the tail of the person in front of him (“I’m not tailing them”), always speeding up even when brake lights are flashing on in front of us, always driving the automatic transition with both feet. Honestly, it scares me to sit in the passenger seat when he drives. Because I’m not in control. Because, I suppose, I trust myself more than I trust him (or pretty much anyone else).

I also just want to protect myself (and my kids). Despite the fact that he hasn’t been in an accident in the almost twenty years I’ve known him, I still tend to have the I-value-my-own-life, grabbing the handle on the ceiling next to my door reaction all too often when he is driving—accompanied, of course, with instructions for how he should be driving my car.

One thing that’s popping up here, again and again? I. Me. My. Did you catch that?

I value solitude.
I like it quiet.
i like to be alone.
I value safety.
I prefer my own driving.
I like to be in control.
I trust myself.
I want to protect myself.
I value my life.

All evidence that I love myself. I also know that I tend to be incredibly selfish and my self-love tends to come out in horrible ways sometimes—like the way I’m quick to defend myself when I feel attacked or insecure, the way I’m quick to complain when something makes my life a little harder, the way I’m quick to criticize when something isn’t done the way I like it (again, the control issue—it’s a known problem I’m working on). But again, although I don’t think of it consciously very often, I do love myself. My actions prove it.

Let me pause here to say that, in my selfishness, I don’t always make wise choices in my self-love—a lot of those choices have to do with how they affect those around me, my neighbors. But that’s a topic for tomorrow.

I think most people, upon examining their own actions and motives closely, would have to say the same thing: I love myself. I know some people are convinced of just the opposite, but at the same time those people usually long to love themselves, and long to have others love them.

Self-love—that’s what this challenge post is about.

Small decorative wooden crate on a table in foreground, with blurry, colorful books laying behind the crate in the background. Photo text: Challenge Day 25, self-love. #writinglifeaugustchallenge

Today’s Inspiration. I find it interesting that when Jesus told us the second greatest commandment, to love our neighbors, he simply told us to love them like we love ourselves:

Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39, NIV)

Those two little words—as yourself—are today’s challenge inspiration.

Today’s Challenge. How do you love yourself? Your challenge today is to explore the answers to this question through journaling and prayer. Ask God to reveal your own heart to you, and show you the ways in which you love yourself. Write them down. If you struggle with self-love, ask God to show you how you should love yourself.

Today’s Participation. Today’s topic is highly personal, so find someone you trust to talk about this with. If you’re comfortable, go ahead and share something you learned about how you love yourself online. It could help someone who is struggling and is not comfortable enough to share.