Elyse Fitzpatrick

No Fluff, No Bricks, Just Good News

elyse

Trusting in God’s Providence in a Time of Turmoil

It doesn’t take a genius to see that our country is in a time of great turmoil. I’m nearly 70 years old and although I’ve walked through stormy times, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like the last 6 months and especially the last couple weeks.

In any case, I thought it would be a good time to remind myself (and you?) about God’s providence…a comforting doctrine in times of great uncertainty and fear.

My favorite definition of “providence” is from the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), questions 27-28. Let me encourage you to read them over and let their truths seep deeply into your souls and bring you comfort.

Q 27: What do you understand by the providence of God?

God’s providence is his almighty and ever present power whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.

Did you get that? The men who crafted this confession weren’t living in cushie-ville, untouched by deep adversity. The political climate of their day was anything but stable and they knew they could find themselves alternately welcomed or banished at any time. But this is what they believed: Everything comes to us by God’s fatherly hand. No matter what comes, or where it seems like it comes from, it’s ultimately from His hand. Considering how powerful that hand is, we might be terrified.

But that’s where the truth that his hand is also a loving fatherly hand comforts us.

How do we know? We know because His fatherly hand is a hand that has known suffering. Remember, “for God so loved that He gave…?” He knows what it is to suffer. And he’s right there with his children in our times of trial.

Here’s their next question and answer:

Q 28: What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by his providence?

We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future, we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from his love and that all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they cannot so much as move.

Notice the verbs in their answer: patient, thankful, confident. How can that happen? It can only happen when we believe that “all creatures” are in his hand and that He’s a faithful God who is also our loving Father.

Patient. Thankful. Confident.
All creatures.
In His hand.
We can be patient, thankful, and confident because all creatures, including each of us, are in His hand. And nothing can separate us from His love or move us outside of His will. And what is His will? His will is to love us as a Good Father and to give us only what is best for our soul.
Sisters and brothers, find comfort in His providence today. No matter what the day may bring you are ultimately in the hands of a loving Father and nothing can separate you from Him.
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“Argh…I Hate School!”


Right about now most kids across the country are grumbling (or screaming), “I hate school!” I get that. I felt that way when I was their age. School is rude. It intrudes into summer fun and ruins everything exciting. And, worst of all, it’s BORING (the new cardinal offense)!

I do understand kids’ angst and I agree that sitting in a regimented classroom with a teacher droning on and on about something I couldn’t care less about (no disrespect meant to teachers) is a cruel punishment. So, in one sense, I’m there grumbling right along with them. But in another sense, I’m eagerly anticipating school.

In fact, I think we’re going to spend eternity there.

Here’s what I mean: I think part of what we’ll be doing on the New Earth in our resurrected bodies is learning…and we’ll be doing that forever. Is that your expectation? Most believers think we’ll spend eternity worshiping God (and we will), but rather than thinking of eternity like one long worship service, why not think of it as an endless time of discovery and understanding? For instance, can you picture yourself saying to your friends, “I heard that Tolkien is offering a class on imagination up in the New Jerusalem…Wanna go?” And unlike other classes, you’ll not only be welcomed there, you’ll also have the necessary brain power to understand. After all, even if you don’t understand right away, you’ll have zillions of years to work through it. And then, when you finally do get it, think of what praises will fill your heart and mouth!

Some of the deepest joys I’ve known I’ve found in learning and heaven is filled with joy.

Think of what it will be like to talk with women and men who have deep insights. Imagine chatting with Dorothy Sayers or Mary Magdalene or Perpetua. Envision what it will be like to explore this planet in it’s reborn state, to swim or hike or look intensely at a leaf and actually see how it grows–to watch it turn light into life. Now…that’ll be anything but boring. It will be pure, unadulterated joy.

Have you ever thought about eternity in that way? Does it change your level of desire to be there? It does me.

So now…when our kids gripe about having to go to school you can agree. But you can also tell them that this kind of learning isn’t all there will ever be. This kind of learning is part of a fallen system in a fallen world where things that were meant to be joyful  have taken on the shroud of death. But a new day is coming.

Read more about my perspective on eternity.  “Home: How Heaven and the New Earth Satisfy Your Deepest Longings.”

And, as always, please leave your email address if you’d like to be on my mailing list. 

It’s All Her Fault….

Last week a pastor friend of mine tweeted a photo displaying a painting he had done of Bathsheba. It set something off in my heart so I posted a thought or two about Bathsheba’s plight and since thousands of you read it and some posted back with questions and comments, I thought I’d share my thought a little more carefully/deeply with you.

I’ve been a Christian for over 4 decades. That means that I’ve heard plenty of sermons about David’s “adultery” with Bathsheba. I’ve listened to pastors do everything from blame Bathsheba for David’s fall to insinuating that, at the very least, she was somehow complicit with him.

I completely disagree.

I disagree first of all because I’ve read the Bible a lot and if there’s one thing I know it’s that the Bible’s writers (ultimately the Holy Spirit) aren’t queazy at all about uncovering sin. Hence, if Bathsheba had been culpable at all, we would have heard about it. But we haven’t.

What we do hear is that David decided to grab a little “me” time and one afternoon, after he got up from napping, he went up on his roof to check out the doings in his kingdom. It was from there that he saw Bathsheba bathing herself. BTW, she wasn’t on a roof. He was. She was probably in a private courtyard. The Bible clearly states that she was being godly, “She had been purifying herself from her uncleanness” (2 Sam 11:4). She was performing what the Lord required of her after having her period.

So, David said to his servants, “Oh, I like the looks of that…get me one.” So his servants went to her house and “took” her. That Hebrew word means, “to get, lay hold of, seize, snatch, take away, acquire, or buy.” What the Bible doesn’t  say is that she cunningly arranged a peep show so she could entrap the king, kill off her husband, and set herself up in cushiness for life. If that had been the case, the Bible would have said that. But it doesn’t. Don’t misunderstand,

When the king’s servants come to take you, you go or you die.

The next time we hear about her, she’s telling David she’s pregnant. The Bible doesn’t tell us her state of mind but it tells us David’s: He’s going to scheme and eventually murder to cover up his sin. When the prophet Nathan confronts him, he doesn’t say, “Well, you know if Bathsheba hadn’t been porning it up, I know you wouldn’t have sinned. Your sin is understandable.” Instead he said, “You are the man!”(2 Sam 12:7)  It was David’s sin. Not Bathsheba’s.

At the death of her righteous husband (notice both of them were more righteous than David), she lamented and grieved for him (2 Sam 11:26). Later, she grieved for her dead firstborn son. David brought nothing but death and grief into the house of a righteous woman.

Afterward, David married her and she bore him other children. Again, we don’t know how much say she had in that, but one thing we do know, is that as a disgraced woman in the ancient near east, she really didn’t have much of a choice.

Finally, we get one more glimpse into her relationship with David. When it was time for him to name his successor, Bathsheba reminded him about a promise he had made to her that her son, Solomon, would be king (1 Ki 1:13). We don’t have any record of him making this promise but he honored her request. My guess (and it’s only a guess) is that at some point he tried to make amends for ruining her life by promising her that her son would be king. And she held him to it.

Here’s my concern: that we not assume that women are to blame for the lust and sin in men’s hearts. Rules about how women dress (see my post about modesty) are of absolutely “no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col 2:23).

Case in point? The Burka.

If covering ourselves from head to toe stopped men from lusting, then Iraq wouldn’t be the leading consumer of pornography in the world.  But it is.

Okay, now to my point: It’s time that we stop blaming women for the sin that men commit. It’s also time that we stop blaming men for the sin women commit.

It’s time that we all owned our own sin and that’s not a terrible thing to do

because, if we’re in Christ that sin is forgiven and we’re completely righteous. Of course there are precipitating factors, but ultimately rules about outward behavior never transformed anyone’s heart. Only the gospel does that. David’s sin is forgiven. And Bathsheba is listed in the genealogy of Jesus as the wife of Uriah–and she, his little ewe lamb, is in paradise rejoicing with him now.

 

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Episode 95: Paddle boarding, Koozies, and Psalm 138

In this week’s episode Pop shares a story about a recent Paddle boarding excursion. Jess talks about her trip to Kansas and a great gift she brought home. Elyse closes us out with a devotional on Psalm 138.

Modesty is About Much More than What You Wear

Recently, a website that sells modest clothes for women asked me if I would write a few words about my definition of modesty. I generally don’t do that sort of thing…but since I’ve thought a lot about the topic and they only wanted around 100 words, I said okay. And since I live in SoCal and spend time on the beach, I do have a few thoughts about what’s appropriate and what I really didn’t need to see.

So, what is modesty? Is it the length of your skirt or the cut of your blouse? Modesty isn’t less than that, but it certainly is much more.

Modesty has to do with humility, with the determination not to show-off, not to seek to prove that one can “pull off” a certain look, or have the power to cause others to notice you. It’s also the humility that looks at others and refuses to self-righteously judge them.  It’s freedom from the inner fashionista who tells you that you’re alternately gorgeous and a slob or…. And it’s freedom from judging others, whether they’re as SoCal immodest or they dress like your granny.

Modesty is love of neighbor.

Sure, it is love of the brothers who will see you, but it’s also love for the women who will look at you and envy you or hate you. Modesty means that you don’t have anything to prove, one way or another, by what you wear.

You don’t have anything to prove because everything that needed to be said about you was already said by a naked man hanging on a cross.

Modesty means that you dress in such a way that it makes it easy for others around you to love the Lord and love you. You make people comfortable. It means that you’re resting in what Jesus has done for you.

Modestly is the heart that Jesus had when he refused to show off by making stones into bread.

Could he have done it? Sure. But he didn’t need to. It’s in that way that Jesus was the most modest person who ever lived. And if you’re trusting him his record of perfect modesty is yours. So, before you decide what you’re going to wear, why not take a moment or two to rest in his work, then love your neighbor for him.

Come to Me and I will give you rest...

He’ll give you rest from the nonstop merry-go-round of trying to wear just the right thing. After all, he’s the one who said, “The body is more than clothing.” Rest in his record of modesty and love your neighbor.

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This is the link to the website that sells modest clothing. Not an endorsement, but just in case you’re interested: https://www.cleomadison.com/blogs/news/define-modesty

I’m Not a Writer…But I Write

Several of you have asked me to talk about how I got into writing and anything that might be helpful for aspiring writers to know. So, here goes:

“I never set out to be a writer,” said the women who has 24 published books.

Let me explain: In the mid-1980’s I set out to get training in biblical counseling (more on what that means in a future post). As part of my coursework, I was asked to write a paper addressing a problem of my interest and choice. As a person who has always struggled with my weight, I chose to try to develop a way of helping others like me: people who didn’t do what they should with food. (Eventually, this work grew into, “Love to Eat, Hate to Eat”) http://amzn.to/2vFgbbz

“Women Helping Women,” was my first book, though, and in it I collaborated with another woman, Carol Cornish, who along with a team other other female biblical counselors, wanted to help women like us know how to address common problems women faced from a strictly biblical perspective. That book was a Gold Medallion finalist in 1998 and my writing “career” was born…much to my surprise.

You see, I never set out to have a writing career. What I set out to do was help women (and men, too) know what the Bible had to say about the difficulties they were facing. As my message and theology ripened, I began to write more broadly, and books like “Because He Loves Me,” and “Give them Grace,” defined my primary message more and more. So, I suppose that the first bit of wisdom aspiring writers should take to heart is this:

Figure out why you need to be heard.

What value will there be in your writing words and others reading them? After all, in the age of self-publishing and 250,000,000 blogs (yes, really) why add something more? I’m not telling you not to, I’m just saying that knowing why the Lord has you write is as important as actually writing. Give your readers something of value; they’re giving you their time and sometimes their cash. Why should they? Show them you’re grateful and never, never take them for granted.

The second piece of advice is simply this: Don’t expect to support yourself as a writer. Sure, there are people who make zillions of dollars writing but I’m not one of them and you probably won’t be either (sorry). I’ve got 24 books in the marketplace and couldn’t live on my royalties–well, maybe if I lived in a yurt in Montana–but not if I don’t want to milk goats.

The third thing is that the publishing industry has been gutted in recent years, so don’t expect a publisher to be interested in you unless you can prove you have a platform that will guarantee sales. There are far too many books on the market and unless you’ve already built a name for yourself, no matter how magical your writing is, you won’t get noticed. Writers hate the idea of blogging and social media, etc., but this is the reality today. You’ll be your own publicity department. Find good books about platform building. http://amzn.to/2wMTYbR Read them and follow their advice. It’s hard work, but if you’ve got an important message, then it’s worth it.

And finally, hone your craft. There are people who have writing gifts (I’m not one of them)…But no matter what your giftedness, you need to practice. Reading good books helps. Writing consistently helps, too. Journal, blog, tweet, write articles, books. Be a writer. Practice.

So…what do you have to say? Why are your words important?