obedience Archives - Marissa Henley

Christ Jesus Lived and Died for You {No Matter What Monday}

January 9, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

Last week we saw that Jesus gave up the perfection of Heaven to rescue us (Philippians 2:5-7). In the following verse, we learn He didn’t just trade Heaven for Earth. He traded glory for a gruesome execution.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:8)

Jesus “humbled Himself by becoming obedient.” He was the only sinless man who has walked this earth. His perfect obedience qualified Him to take your place on the cross. As the only one undeserving of God’s punishment, He became a substitute for you when God poured out His wrath on Him. Jesus lived the perfect life that you cannot live.

Jesus “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In the first-century Roman empire, crucifixion was regarded as the worst form of execution. The shame of hanging naked in public was nothing compared to the excruciating pain of bones breaking and slow suffocation. This painful, shameful death was reserved for the most heinous criminals.

Jesus humbled Himself for you. There was no other way to save you. You could not save yourself by good works, and you could not meet God’s standard of righteousness. Because of His great love for you, Jesus left the glory of Heaven, lived a perfect life, died an agonizing death, and experienced the wrath of the Father.

Because of His sacrifice, even though you live an imperfect life, you can one day taste the glory that Jesus left behind.

No matter what you face this week, Christ Jesus lived and died for you.

Why I Stopped Handing Out Parenting Books

February 2, 2015 by Marissa 2 Comments

When my oldest child was a toddler, I read a couple of parenting books and decided I had this parenting thing figured out. I loved the book Don’t Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman and recommended it to everyone I knew. I was wholeheartedly on board with the idea of teaching my kids to obey me, just as they need to obey God someday. If any of my friends encountered parenting struggles, rather than listening and praying with them, I told them to read the book. (Seriously. How do I still have friends??!!)

As my kids grew older, parenting got more complicated. It became less black and white (“don’t run into the street!”) and a little more confusing (“are you supposed to punish them for being irresponsible?”). And I was introduced to a couple of newer parenting books that talked less about first-time obedience and more about giving your children grace.

These books seemed just as biblically-based as the earlier books I had read and left me confused. Was I supposed to demand obedience or give grace? Or both? And how?

I saw an article posted on social media lately that talked about not giving your kids a warning before expecting them to obey. There was a lot of backlash in the comments, and people were clearly in two camps: either agreeing with the article that parents should demand immediate obedience or disagreeing and saying parents need to discipline with grace.

This brought to my mind the division I see among Christian parents today. There’s the group I will loosely term the “obedience camp” and the group I will call the “grace camp.” These are probably unfair generalizations–I know that those in the obedience camp often give grace and preach the Gospel to their children. And those in the grace camp set boundaries and require obedience. But many parents and authors I know tend to fall more on one side or another. And we silently (or sometimes not-so-silently) judge those on the other side for being too strict or too lenient.

So I wonder, which camp should I fall in? I feel a lot of pressure from both sides. One side has a curriculum called Growing Kids God’s Way. Of course I want to grow my kids God’s way! Another book I’ve read is Grace-Based Parenting. There’s nothing more important that grace, right? How do I choose between parenting God’s way and basing it on grace? It’s enough to keep a mom awake at night, and trust me, that’s really saying something!

But what if the obedience camp and the grace camp are both biblically correct? What if they are both God’s way of showing His grace to our children?

What if God, in His wisdom and sovereignty, gives parents different personalities and preferences and strengths and weaknesses that match the needs of their children?

What if God loves our children so much that He gave them the parents they would need to grow into what He wants them to be?

What if, rather than following a formula or a book or a list of ten parenting application points, we search the Scriptures to see what God says about how to relate to our children and others?

What if not having all the answers causes us to fall on our knees every morning and beg the Lord for the wisdom to deal with whatever we will face that day as parents?

I bet that would lead to some grace-based, obedience-demanding, radical Christian parenting.

Broken Cisterns

November 11, 2009 by Marissa 2 Comments

Have you ever noticed a period of time when every Bible study, every sermon, every life experience seems to revolve around the same theme? It’s as if God tosses subtlety aside and very clearly says, “I want you to learn this!” This has been happening to me lately. And the message I’m getting loud and clear is: Only God can satisfy me and provide the joy and peace that I need. When I put my trust in other things, they will fail.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a very bad week. I was sick, the kids were sick, we had a death in the family, and much, much more that I won’t go into now. Trust me, it was a bad week. The week was supposed to end with an overnight getaway for my hubby and me for my birthday. We hadn’t been away overnight in a really long time, which means I hadn’t slept past 7:30 a.m. in a very long time. So for about two months, I had my eye on October 25 as Sleeping In Day. (Have I mentioned that I love, love, love sleeping in?)

Well, thanks to a 3-year-old with a high fever, we managed to get away for a few hours but decided to come home before the overnight (and sleeping in) part of the trip. Rather than sleeping in and enjoying a day of outlet shopping with my hubby, I spent the day sitting at a doc-in-the-box clinic with a kid who had a fever of 104. Good times .

In the midst of my bad day at the end of a bad week, I sat down to do my BSF lesson. The lesson was on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:1-26). In John 4:13-14, Jesus tells her: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Then I read Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

So the obvious lesson here is: Marissa is hewing out broken cisterns of sleep that can hold no water. If Marissa were satisfied in Christ, drinking in His living water, she wouldn’t be devastated by not getting to sleep in. And you want to know how well I learned this lesson? So well that 5 days later, when the same child started running a fever a few hours before Getaway Attempt #2, I threw a very impressive adult temper tantrum about it. (We went anyway, but the sleeping in eluded me as I worried about my sick kid and the poor grandparents who were stuck taking care of him.)

The whole experience (and my awful reaction to it) has me thinking about broken cisterns in my life. Those things–some good (sleep), some bad (complaining)–that I turn to for comfort when I’m stressed, worried, tired or sad. Those things seem to make it better for awhile, but then after a few days (or hours, or minutes), I’m right back where I was before.

Here are some questions I’ve been asked by Bible study leaders and pastors in recent month–remember, God has to make a big deal of something these days to get me to notice it:

Do the people around you see that you are completely satisfied in Christ? If not, then why? (Please, please do not ask Noel or my good friends this question. Maybe you could ask someone who sees me about once a month with a happy smile on my face and well-behaved children?)

Where do you turn when things get difficult? Food, tv, complaining, gossip, shopping, time to yourself? (Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. and double Yes.)

Where are you placing your trust other than the Lord? (Sleep, money, and myself, just to name a few.)

When I put the answers to these last two questions together, my behavior really shows itself to be ridiculously silly, not to mention sinful. When things get tough, I want to grab a piece of chocolate cake and take my mind off things with some brainless television. So basically, I’m saying to the Sovereign, All-knowing, All-powerful Creator of the universe, “Thanks, God, but I think I’ll let this cake and this tv show solve my problem.” And then I wonder why I struggle with the same thing again the next day. Because it should be obvious . . . God is bigger than my problems. Chocolate cake is not. Only God can make me more and more holy, conforming me to the image of Christ so that I can love others and glorify Him.

How I’d love to leave those broken cisterns behind and drink only of the living water, finding my deepest satisfaction in my Savior. I know it will be a continuing struggle for me, but I’m thankful that God has knocked me over the head with this lesson. 🙂

Adventures in Couponing

July 11, 2009 by Marissa 2 Comments

Several months ago, my husband started expressing his desire for us to start spending less and saving more. (This may or may not have coincided with a certain Democrat being elected president and vowing to “reform” health care. But that is another story for another blog.) He has repeated this preposterous suggestion many, many times. And every time, my flesh (sinful nature) has done a good job of ignoring it. After all, his job is pretty secure, he’s not making less money than he did a year ago–why should we cut back? Shouldn’t I be doing my part to stimulate the economy and support my local retailers? (I really want Gymboree to survive this economic turmoil.) It seemed crazy for my husband to ask me to make sacrifices, and not even so I could use the saved money for something fabulous, like an iPhone or a cleaning lady. Just for the sake of spending less and saving more. He must be nuts, right?

After some conversations with my wonderful friends (if you don’t have godly, truth-speaking friends in your life, may I suggest you get some immediately?), I realized that this was a huge area of disobedience in my life. My husband is asking me to do something. He is not asking me to sin. In fact, the thing he is asking me to do is perfectly reasonable, probably a good idea, and (gulp) would be glorifying God by thinking less about my own selfish desires. I knew it was time for the S-word: submission. I couldn’t bring myself to submit right away, so I started by praying that God would convict me and enable to submit and obey. And then I turned to my local expert on honoring your husband by spending less money: my friend Lynette.

I’ve been giving Lynette my coupons out of the Sunday paper for months. I had no idea what she was doing with them, but I knew I needed to find out. I broke the sad news to her that she would no longer be getting my coupons and asked her to share her secrets with me. Thankfully, she is very supportive of my saving money AND my submitting to my husband! She taught me a few key strategies:

1. Stop being married to specific brands. I was shocked when I compared the shampoo I usually buy with some much cheaper alternatives. I’ve been having shampoo tunnel vision for months, and my hair doesn’t even look that great.

2. Track the cost of items that you buy on a regular basis. When they go on sale, stock up.

3. Keep your coupons from the Sunday paper, and then use blogs such as Common Sense With Money, Money Saving Mom and Passion for Savings to find out how to maximize your savings by combining coupons with low sale prices.

4. Don’t be afraid to shop at Aldi. (I haven’t conquered this one yet. Maybe when the kids go back to school in the fall, and I don’t have to take three kids with me everywhere I go.)

This concept of combining sales and coupons is amazing! It is definitely worth spending some time on. In my first week, check out what I got . . . serious bargain-hunting bloggers always take a photo:

Pringles for 49 cents, family-size boxes of Special K for $2.50 each, Edy’s ice cream for $1.33 each, and deodorant for 38 cents! I also got a pint of Starbucks ice cream for 50 cents, but I gave that to my sister-in-law, because seriously, how much ice cream does a girl need when she has baby weight to lose?!?

Back when I was just dipping my toe into the pool of obedience but not ready to jump in, I read on a stay-at-home mom’s blog that she thinks that her job is to save her family as much money as possible. I thought, “Poor thing. My job is much more enjoyable–spending our family’s money and having fun doing it. Oh, wait . . . hmm, maybe that isn’t supposed to be my job . . . oh bummer, this woman is right!” Now I have a new view on my job description, though sometimes I miss my old job. I can’t wait to see what my new strategies will accomplish when it comes to lowering our spending, and (more importantly) pleasing my husband and letting him know that what’s important to him is important to me. I want to honor my husband with my spending, following the example given to us as women in Proverbs 31:

An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.

Proverbs 31:10-11