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Each of us has a way we identify ourselves and our role in the world: I am a teacher, I am a mom, I am an engineer and so on. Those labels are harmless for the most part and are usually what we tell another person when meeting them for the first time.

However, there are far more insidious labels we use for ourselves that for the most part we would never share with anyone. Unfortunately these can be things that were put on us by other people, usually when we were quite young or at a vulnerable place in life. And like name tags with super-glue, they have stuck with us for life.

These are labels such as fat, ugly, trouble, no good, worthless, mean, and the list goes on. Most of us have learned how to hide these words using a variety of methods. We might work really hard to live the exact opposite of a negative label or we might give in to the label as part of our identity that it is useless to try to change. Sadly, we also can self-medicate the label away with any number of vices or addictions many of them masquerading as “good things” such as work or service.

Thankfully, there is another thing we can do to remove these labels and live in real freedom. We can allow Jesus to give us a different name. Believe it or not He has all kinds of wonderful labels He attaches to you: beloved, child of God, kind, beautiful, precious, unique, clean, pure, worthy, wise, lovely, valuable and this list goes on as well.

We simply need to be willing for Jesus to remove our old names and receive His new name for us. He promises that He will renew our minds until those old thoughts and old patterns are healed. It can be scary and difficult to trust that Jesus has anything positive to say about us, but I challenge you to just ask Him. He has been waiting for you all your life with a new name that He has chosen just for you.

“You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the palm of your God.” Isaiah 62:2b-3

At one point in my past, I worked for my friends who are beekeepers. Their specialty is not honey as you might suppose, (although they do produce and sell delicious honey) but rather queen bees. If you know anything about bee hives you know that in order to have a happy, healthy, thriving hive, you need to have a healthy queen. This is where my friends come in, they specially raise queens to sell to other beekeepers.

My job was to go around and collect the newly ready queens from small hives that they hatched into. It was so interesting how each of these small hives had their own personality. I would know which one was likely to be a little cranky, which one was more mellow etc. However, they all had something in common, if the hive was missing a queen for more than a few days they would be very upset! The hive would be so agitated that I almost knew right away that looking for a queen would be futile.

After I became a mother, I began to see some similarities between my home and the beehives. If I would have to be gone for a length of time doing errands or something, my kids would not do as well as when I was home. The younger ones would become cranky and the older ones would be naughty, trying to get away with things that I didn’t allow!

I have been on this mothering journey for over 18 years now and it hasn’t changed. My little ones come to me regularly during the day for a quick hug or snuggle and even my 18 year old checks in at least once a day.

The other things my kids have in common with the bees is the “humming.” As long as things are going well in my home, you can hear this kind of low level buzz as kids hum or sing as they do their schoolwork, chores, or play. Of course, things are not perfect and frequently there will be an outburst as someone infringes on someone else’s rights, but for the most part things buzz along fine.

So I was thinking what the take away from all of this is for us as adult Christ followers. I think the question for us would be: how often are we checking in with Jesus during our day. Would we be more happy, calm and content if just like my children we were regularly going to Him with all the cares that come up in our day? Honestly, sometimes I simply go so fast through my day that the thought never enters my head to include Jesus in a decision I have to make or ask Him for help with a difficult task.

So this week as I go about my day to day life, I am going to remember the bees and try to receive peace and calm from Jesus. And just maybe, like my kids, I will find myself humming through my tasks.

“Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek out the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.” I Chronicles 16:10-11

Don’t answer too quickly, it is a deeper question than it might appear. It might seem easy to say, “Of course I want God’s best for my life, that would be great!” The problem is when we say that, most of us are envisioning that His best is synonymous with the easiest. We picture God giving us happiness, health, maybe not wealth, but definitely enough money to be comfortable, and fulfillment in whatever we do. We do not think that God’s best could include illness, a car accident, or a lost job.

And I hear your arguments: those things come because there is evil in the world; Satan is behind the bad things; we all make choices; and probably a few more. Yes, all of those can be true, but they weren’t true for Job in the Bible and sometimes they aren’t true for us either. Sometimes God actually allows things we don’t see as good at the time because He can see the end from the beginning. He knows how much we are going to grow through the hard stuff.

I actually thought of this question recently as I was contemplating something that I view as very important and have been hanging onto rather tightly. I realized that the loss of this item might really be God’s best for me and He might have things planned for my life that I can’t even imagine at this time. BUT am I willing to accept His best or am I going to stay in the safe, known, not so best?

It comes down to another “ouch” question. Do I truly believe that God is who He says He is? He says He is a good father who always keeps His promises–and even when I have been impatient–He has. He says He will never leave us or forsake us–and even though I have been through some extremely dark times in my life–He never has.

So, after much contemplation and soul-searching, I am going to answer yes to my question. As scary as it seems to me right now, I am going to say yes, I want God’s best in my life, no matter what it might look like!

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'” Jeremiah 29:11

I would love to hear some of your thoughts about this question too!

We have all seen it, little babies, wide-eyed, soaking in the world around them like cute little sponges. From the moment our eyes can focus we are looking at our surroundings, taking them all in and trying to figure them all out. One of my favorite things to do with my babies once they got to this stage was to walk around holding them, just showing them stuff. The more they were interested in something, the bigger their eyes would get!

It is wonderful for children to learn. Unfortunately, around first or second grade children are no longer as enthusiastic about their education and it takes a lot more effort to get them to learn, at least in school. It is so important though, that as we grow we fill our minds with knowledge which hopefully turns into wisdom.

At a certain point in our lives, most of us have acquired a fair amount of knowledge, life experience and wisdom, this is when we need to start “wringing out the sponge.” We need to begin sharing with people who are not as far along in their journey as we are. This doesn’t mean that we all need to become actual teachers, but I believe teaching opportunities are everywhere, beginning in our own families. The obvious teaching in a family is from parent to child, but grandparents are invaluable as teachers as well. Children love to hear stories from their grandparents’ younger days and also stories from when their own parents were young. Uncles and aunts, older cousins, even older siblings can all have a part in sharing wisdom with younger relatives.

As we do begin to share with others, there are a couple things we need to be cautious of. One is whether the person actually wants to learn the information we are trying to teach. I heard a quote recently that says unasked for advice is just criticism! The other is that we do not want to be abrasive sponges. There is a huge difference in gently shepherding someone and harshly instructing.

Obviously, just because we are to a stage where we can start teaching, it doesn’t mean we stop learning. One of my goals personally, is to stay receptive to what God wants to show me, to stay nice and fluffy like a natural sponge and soak in His truth. I don’t want my mind to stay small like one of those little artificial sponges! So how about you? Are you ready to do a little “soaking” and “wringing?”

“Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” Colossians 3:16

Just recently I was talking with a friend, sharing some tough things I am going through personally. My friend commented, “Wow, God is making you really shiny!” I had to laugh, even though the process of becoming “shiny” is not so funny most of the time.

I have no idea why God has designed us to grow so much more when circumstances are difficult, but most people I talk to agree, we grow more in the winds and storms than in the sunshine. The process that my friend was referring to, what the Bible calls the refiners fire, can be downright painful. Zechariah 13:9 says, “I will refine them like silver and test them like gold, they will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'”

God does not take us through hard things for no reason. His goal is to make us more like His son, to take the things that don’t look like Him and refine them right out of us. To bring us to a place eventually where we can say, “The Lord is my God.” I don’t know about you, but I feel like I have a lot of refining left to go!

The Bible refers to those impurities in our lives as ‘dross.’ I looked up the word dross, and some synonyms for it are: refuse, trash, impurity, dregs, scum and waste. Yes, I definitely don’t want any of that lingering around in myself. However, sometimes that fire begins to feel so hot that I begin to think that maybe just a few trash bags in the corners of my person aren’t so bad! I have found though, that God is not okay with dark corners. He is perfectly holy and wants to bring us into the freedom of the perfect holiness of His Son.

That may sound a little strange to some of you, most of the world would not equate holiness with freedom, but there is an amazing sense of freedom when we are able to let the yucky parts of ourselves be healed. When we allow Jesus to come into every part of our lives and comfort us. When we can be super-honest with Him about our struggles. Holiness is not us just trying harder to be “good,” it is about Jesus Himself coming in and doing the work in our hearts.

So while I am still not to the stage where I can do the happy dance when I enter a season of difficult refining, I am getting to a place where I can see the results more quickly, such as more patience, or more peace, and I don’t kick and scream quite as much as I used to when facing a hard time!

“Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith.” Proverbs 25:4

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” I Peter 1:6-7

I honestly think this might be the most irritating sentence in the English language. I just love when I ask my children to do something and they answer, “I know.” Because the reality is that they must NOT know, because they very rarely complete the task in the way I have asked! I think my irritation with my children comes from them not taking the time to listen and slow down and really learn how to do a job. They want to take a short-cut by saying, “I know,” and finish the task as quickly as possible.

No offense to any of my piano students who might be reading this, but it is frustrating to hear it from you too. The whole reason I am there doing lessons is that you do not know it yet. And that is okay. There are very few of us on this planet who can do anything perfectly the first time.

I think all of us need to be very cautious in how we use this sentence. If I am listening to a friend pour her heart out about a difficult circumstance and I just answer, “I know,” I can make her feel completely unheard. The reality is that I don’t know exactly how she feels about what she is going through. Even if I have experienced something similar in my life, I am a different person with a different point of view and different feelings. It is crucially important when we are listening to others that we just listen!

Being a good listener is a wonderful gift we can give others. As much as it is important that my children fully listen to me, it is equally important that I listen to them. My children all have a huge need to be heard and love telling me, (in detail) about things they are interested in.

There are a lot of people in the world that need someone to talk to. In our rushed, busy lives it can be difficult to slow down and listen. However, maybe the next time we are listening to someone and we are tempted to nod and say, “I know,” maybe we should say a quick prayer for love and patience and instead say, “tell me more.”

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” James 1:19