Summer of 7

Sweaty hands type hesitant words. My desire in writing this is not to glorify me. For some, I know you’re going to feel that way no matter what I say, but just in case there is doubt for those that will believe me, I want to clear up I don’t really want to write this post.

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When I woke up last Saturday morning to start my media week for Summer of 7 and wasn’t sure what to do with myself and I spent time with the Lord, He immediately knocked the wind out of me and told me I needed to quit my job. I have always wanted to stay home with my girls but have never felt released to do so. You’d think I’d feel some elation but all I felt was panic.  How would we survive? As much as I respect my husband’s job, it would be very difficult to make all our current bills on its pay.

For the whole day I started running numbers in my head. I even made lists in my journal of bills that would need to go. After several hours, I handed my journal to Scott and he read where I thought God was leading me to quit. Scott has always said he’d support me if I were to quit but was never been keen on having to live extremely frugal. He didn’t have much of an initial reaction. We both spent the rest of the evening and night in deep thought about how we’d make it work. Saturday evening he talked about the extra jobs he could take. I felt horrible about giving up a well-paying job and then making him work even harder than he does.

On Sunday morning, Scott even told the kids. “Mommy might be quitting.” Surprisingly, the girls were not fans. Scott said later, “Maybe he wants to just see if we’re willing.” I agreed, but I was pretty clear on what he told me Saturday morning. It was clear-cut that I needed to quit. I continued to pray about it.

Sunday afternoon during my quiet time, God then clearly said “Amy, don’t do it.” After Scott’s comment, the story of Abraham and Isaac came to mind. God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as a test. Genesis 22:1 “Some time later God tested Abraham.” Just before Abraham took a knife to his son, God cried out, “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” So Abraham was tested to see if he truly feared God. When Abraham looked up, he saw a ram in the thicket and sacrificed it in Isaac’s place. Genesis 22:25 says Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide.

I’m not trying to say my story is like Abraham’s. Quitting my job is a far cry from sacrificing my children. However, the principle of that story was relatable. When I looked back in my journal, I saw the list of expenditures I identified as excess, things that we have just because we can. If forced, they are not necessary. I felt it was clear looking at those, that they were my ram. God had asked me to sacrifice my job, but only to test me and then point me to another sacrifice, one that would be an offering to say that the Lord provides.

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So perhaps this sounds silly and not worth all this dramatic intro but today I called and suspended DirecTV. Yesterday we bought a HD antennae and Roku box so we would have basic channels, Netflix and HuluPlus. The hardware will be paid off within 3 months of what it would have taken to pay DirecTV. We’re paying $7.99 for HuluPlus monthly and then after that, we have a total monthly savings of about $55 a month.

We will be using that money to intentionally and automatically fund something for good.

Please hear that I’m not throwing that in anyone’s face. Hey, look what we’re doing! Look how bad all you cable subscribers are! It’s not my intent.

What I think God wants people to hear is there’s a different way.

Those things culture says you deserve, you must have, are required, are, in fact, not.

I asked God to please confirm our decision.  Yesterday at church, the sermon was about how God’s blessing is not for us, but for us to be conduits of his blessings to reach the nations.  How much more confirmation could I get?

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Katrina and I met the first week in July and one of the things we talked about is believing we should find our “required operating expenses” and then be able to give generously above that. The linchpin is finding your required operating expenses. Is DirecTV required? Are weekly lattes required? Are two cars required? Is 2500 square feet required? The more we can reduce these operating expenses, the more we can give.

We’re still on that journey. I don’t claim to live this out perfectly by any means.  In fact, I hate putting this out there because then I feel like I have an expectation out there to live a certain way.  However, I believe through my week of media fast, God showed us this one operating expense that wasn’t required. There was a different way. A sacrificial way.

There’s a part of me that still screams that we work hard enough to deserve it. There’s a part of me that’s screaming that $50 a month isn’t going to make a difference.

Don’t let culture tell you differently, being a giving tree is painful. I am loving Jeff Goins’ brand new book Wrecked. He said if your giving feels good, you’re doing it wrong. I’m not elated about this sacrifice. I’m going to miss the DVR, Scott’s going to miss Megan Kelly on Fox News and the girls are already missing the Disney channel.

But it’s in these small decisions that change is made. The Lord is providing for someone or something and God is using us to be the giving tree. And for me, He provides life and purpose and thankfulness. Guess how much more thankful I feel for my job? Guess how much more I want to use what He gives for good? Guess how much more purpose my job has? Guess how much more we get to teach our kids about sacrifice and giving? Guess how much more time we’ve reclaimed from excess media?

 The Lord provides. Indeed.

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Summer of 7 Media week has been my best week in years.  Years.  Last Friday night when I shut the TV off, walked away from my computer and deleted all my iPhone apps I was sure, I mean SURE, I would be counting down the hours last night until I could get back on the Internet.  

I was wrong.

I was counting how many more hours of the quiet I could savor. 

Media week was so good.  Like, so good.  I felt as if a weighty fog had been lifted from around me and I was left with life.  Just simple life.  I could do what I want and think what I wanted without filtering it through 1,000s of other people. 

Social Media

Now, don’t get me wrong, when I woke up on Saturday I had no clue what to do with myself.  Like, literally, I did not know what to do after getting out of bed. 

What do I do next when I can’t tell someone what I’m going to do? 

What do I do when the view doesn’t have to be just-so so it makes a good Instagram picture? 

Where is Facebook to tell me all the cool things going on today?

I did not realize until that moment just how influenced my day to day activities were by YOU.  And even more than that, by COMPANIES trying to tell me what to do with my time.

By day two or three it felt like 1994 again.  And I don’t mean I was wearing Birkenstocks.  I mean, I just did life and it didn’t matter what people thought.  It didn’t matter what it was going to look like.  It didn’t matter what I was wearing.  It didn’t matter when I left or when I got back.  I just did my thing and enjoyed it. 

And more than that, I felt like a super secret spy doing fun! things! that no one knew about.  I went to a picnic and a baseball game and an outing with my daughters and a bloggy meetup out of town! Someone had to buy Facebook event attendees at Social Media Daily so that the place would get full.  And I know it sounds weird but I got to hold them all close to my heart and they were all mine.  You have to understand I’ve been on Twitter answering “what are you doing?” for 5 years.  I’ve been blogging now for 11 years.  For eleven years I’ve been airing nearly my every move.  I had forgotten what it was like to just BE.

I felt free as a bird.

And don’t even get me started on how much I enjoyed not seeing the phrase Chick-fil-A all up in my face.

But I did miss the people.  I love to hear when you’re happy and mad and frustrated and I just love sharing life with people online.  But you pay for it.  You really do.

 

The Internet

I also restricted myself from the Internet as a whole.

Can I just say you don’t really need the Internet as much as you think you do?  OK, *I* don’t need it as much as *I* think I do.

I mean, it’s nice to look up recipes and the weather and what movie that guy was in 1996 but really?  You don’t NEED it as much as you assume. 

I didn’t look on the Internet for one single thing.

I looked up recipes in cookbooks and talked to people when I had questions about my garden.  I looked at the sky for the weather report and called a phone number for my bank account balance.  The rest just fell away.

I did miss reading blogs and dearly missed writing here but ya’ll, the break from it was just so good.

 

TV

And TV? 

I didn’t miss it at all. 

I mean, I sort of hate I missed seeing the great Olympic moments this week.  I did.  But I enjoyed my time so much in the quiet that I would not trade it for a single second of a high dive.

 

What’s Next?

So am I writing it all off? 

Nope.  I still believe there’s value in connecting with folks online.  I really, really do.  But there are some things that have to change for me. 

You know what I did Saturday morning when I had no clue what to do?  I stayed in bed and opened my Bible and cracked open a notebook and I read and I prayed and I listened and I wrote.  And I did that over and over all week.  I realized that I need more of that and less of media. 

I’ve been batting around ideas on how to do that.  Do I fast the first 3 days of the month?  Do I only allow certain hours of the day?  The last thing I want to do is be legalistic about it but I do know I want something different now.  I need margin.

These details are just the tip of the iceberg.  I have pages and pages of things I could share of what happened in the quiet.  I’m leaning on the Spirit to lead me on what to share but initially I just want to say God is good and faithful in our sacrifices.  He’s there just waiting on you to give Him some of your time.  I’m here to say it’s worth it, so worth it, to click that little “X” and listen to the quiet.

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”

What does that command conjure up in your head?

For me, I imagined a slow, painful process of emptying my house, suffering through innumerable yard sales and Craigslist transactions until we were sitting on milk crates in the living room, with no pictures on the wall and only enough clothes in our closets for a week.

Seriously.

I thought that was the end goal.

While I’ve been doing Spending week(s) for Summer of 7, I think God gave me a little insight into this idea.  Perhaps I’m behind the ball on this idea but he showed me that selling our possessions and giving to the poor does not mean that we are left with nothing.

In fact, what I find in God’s economy is when he takes away, he always gives back in abundance.

He Replenishes

I have always been enamored with trees.  I can remember learning to draw trees in fifth grade art and just loving that I could do that.  I would go years.  I mean, years trying to draw trees.  I still to this day try to draw a great tree when me and the girls are drawing.  I have many pictures and art pieces of trees in my house.  I always choose the tree if I have to pick out an image somewhere.

I love trees. 

Weeping willow is my favorite, if you’re wondering.

While thinking about selling what I had in order to give, I thought about Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.  Have you read that because it’s just the most beautiful story of giving.  In sort of the same vein, I thought about how fruit trees are made to give.  They bloom their flowers and give forth fruit.  The fruit is taken but the tree doesn’t die.  It’s not left with nothing.

God created the tree to bear even more fruit.  In fact, if you take some branches at the end of the season too and not just the fruit, it is quite healthy for the tree and will produce even more fruit.

You see this concept of taking and replenishing everywhere in nature.

I thought about Job and how God took every single thing he had and then when he stood strong, in the end it says “the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before”.  God took but he still provided in abundance.

Be a Conduit

I went back to the verse in Luke where it talks about selling your possessions and the whole section is that part about not worrying.  About how the wildflowers grow and the birds eat.  They don’t worry and God takes care of them. 

Towards the end, it says he is pleased to give us the kingdom.  And in conclusion of all that he says, and yeah, so since I’m going to take care of you, sell your possessions and give to the poor.

I think God was just showing me I’m supposed to be a tree. 

He’s going to give me what I need.  At some point, these things I own are no longer meant to be mine and I’m supposed to sell them and give the money to the poor.  I ought not hoard the money and chase after more things.  He’s going to provide.  My job is to be conduit of the fruit.

He gives me things, beautiful things, like he gives a cherry tree its beautiful blossoms every year.  The branches stretch and say look at these beautiful flowers God gave me.  They produce delicious, beautiful, ripe fruit.  But then the fruit is taken for others.

But God always starts the cycle again.

I want to be a tree.  A beautiful conduit of his fruit.  Whether that fruit be spiritual fruit of mercy and grace and forgiveness or whether it physically be these things he gives me or the money I earn from them, I want to pass it on. 

Have Less

If you take it a step further, then, and you begin viewing yourself as a conduit, the buying of “all the things” in the first place begins to make a lot less sense. 

Dani and I held our Garage Sale for Orphans on Saturday and we would have these moments where we’d stop and just look at all the stuff and say why did we buy all this in the first place?  Do you know how many people could have been helped while this stuff sat in our attics?

The ultimate idea, then, is not to buy, sell, give cyclically, but to simply give.

I keep waiting for God to tell me my spending fast is over but you know, I think I’m permanently done.  I’m done with it being all about me.  I’m fine with buying nice things and enjoying them and displaying and being grateful for God’s beautiful gifts but my perspective is changed.

I’m done with all the Target end caps and Wal-Mart plastics. 

I’m just done.

Give More

I started this post talking about how God replenishes and never leaves you with nothing.  I think that’s sort of set up for failure because one might think the idea is to give so God will bless you.  I think what we miss though is if we get this mindset of being a conduit, when he begins replenishing, he’s then not replenishing you in abundance but replenishing others in abundance but in an awesome way using you to do it.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to be a Giving Tree.

And just guessing, but this could be fun.

I know we’ve probably all read this passage a zillion times, but just read it again with this perspective and see how much more it makes sense.

 

2 Corinthians 9:6-11

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:

“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
    their righteousness endures forever.”

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

 

Awesome, right?

 

You know what’s awesomer?  Today’s my birthday and I’d really love it if my birthday could be a conduit for something GOOD. 

Real Hope for Haiti is a medical clinic in Haiti. They’re trying to raise money to get another container shipped from the States with much needed supplies.  Hop over and donate to help them out?  You are awesome!  Thanks!