Laundry, The Teacher Voice and Some Humble Pie

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 8:12-13

I am a book lover. My current stage of life requires me to attend to a crying tiny human most of my day and I only tend to last about 30 minutes longer than she does after putting her down for the night. So audiobooks have been amazing!

I’m currently listening to the book Feelings and Faith by Brian Borgman. Highly recommend as it’s been doing some serious work to open my eyes to a key part of my personality that I’ve never thought to hand over to the Lord.

I have always been an emotional person. If you’re looking for someone to share super exciting news, call me up and you’ll get a series of squeals and exclamations. If you need someone to cry with, I’ll be there in a heartbeat, ready to turn on the tears. Now, throw in the past year of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum and I’m essentially a constant rollercoaster. As my husband has said to our daughter, “Mama was always on the edge with her emotions, but baby you pushed her over!”

Based on the recommendation of a friend, I started listening to this book and, woah, it’s rocked my world. The overarching premise is that our emotions are not something we can put into a box and keep safe from the sanctification process. We do not get the luxury of striving to become more like Christ while letting our emotions reign unchecked. Our emotions were given to us by God, they have the potential to be God-glorifying, but due to the Fall and the sinful, broken world we live in, they too are tainted by sin.

I’m currently in the section of the book entitled “Mortifying Sinful Emotions”. Essentially, Borgman takes one sinful emotion per chapter and shows us how Scripture provides everything we need to put them to death and glorify God in those moments.

The chapter I listened to on my way home yesterday was about Anger. As the chapter began, I thought to myself “I don’t really deal with anger too much.” I was even tempted to skip it, to get to the chapters that would really apply to my life. I listened to Borgman describe how rich he would be if he had a dollar every time he heard someone say they didn’t have an anger issue and laughed along with him. I heard him describe how so many times we blame our circumstances as the root of our anger, but in reality, circumstances only bring to light the darkness that resides in our heart. We blame things like traffic and the mistakes of others as the reason we became angry, never stopping to actually deal with the root sin that is growing in our souls.

And then I pulled up in our driveway and put the book away for the moment.

I took Selah and her car seat out of the car and hobbled through the garage into our mud room. The lights were off and as I tried to find the light switch, the car seat knocked into the unfolded laundry on top of the washing machine, causing a pile of my clothes to land on top of the litter box.

Frustration #1.

I walked into our home, after having worked an 8 hour day with Selah by my side, looking for a few moments of peace. I passed her off to my husband and the crying began. We’re in the super clingy, ‘I want mom and nothing else’, stage of life, which is just super fun. I tried to check out for a moment but the crying persisted, getting louder and louder by the moment.

Frustration #2.

My husband continued to try and soothe her and was determined to help her calm down without me. A valiant effort. A noble cause. But everything within me was screaming with her to just take her and get her to stop crying. I asked him several times if he wanted me to take her. After the fourth or fifth time of me asking this, it happened.

The teacher voice.

Anyone else have a spouse or close friend that’s a teacher? Have you ever had the teacher voice used on you? This has only happened a few times before, but man let me tell you, that’s all it took. Scott was only trying to communicate that he wanted her to learn how to calm down without me, but he sounded just like he was reprimanding one of his eighth graders for speaking out of turn.

Frustration #3.

My emotions welled up, I changed into my gym clothes and I went to our neighborhood gym to try and run out all of this frustration before I directed the explosion at Scott.

I hopped on the treadmill and ran. My mind was thinking through all of the snarky responses I could throw back at him. My pride was egging me on to believe that I deserved a break after watching her all day. My sin bore its ugly head and blossomed from the roots that had been growing in my heart.

Praise God that’s when His Spirit began speaking to me.

I stopped mid-run as the scales on my eyes began to fall off. Oh my gosh. I DO struggle with anger. No, I don’t go around punching walls or yelling at innocent bystanders, but each of those minor frustrations exposed the sin in my heart I was too prideful to acknowledge.

One of my favorite Christian songwriters, Matt Papa, has a beautiful quote that I think of almost daily.

“I don’t wake up in the morning just naturally reading my Bible and singing worship songs. I must, with a warlike aggression, place the glory of God in front of my face, or I will not change . . . I will not worship Him. We must be like David in Psalm 16:8 who said, “I have set the Lord continually before me.”

War-like aggression. That is how we face each day as a believer. Sin is sneaky and if we are not on our guard to combat it, it cozies up in our hearts. It’s easy to accept this unwanted houseguest. It is easy to let things coast. It is easy to sweep things under the rug. But even though we are fallen, sinful creatures we are called to lives of holiness and righteousness.

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3

Borgman ends the chapter with this statement:

“God has not left us to be controlled by emotions and outbursts. Rather he has equipped us to handle both feeling and action. Through thinking biblically and absorbing what God says and then prayerfully depending on his grace and Holy Spirit, we can mortify the emotions and exhibitions of sinful anger.”

Praise God for His grace and mercy. Praise God that His Spirit used laundry and teacher voices to expose the sin in my heart. The sanctification process is unpleasant and humbling, but oh the results are beautiful. May God be glorified in the process by which He calls His image-bearers to reflect Him more and more.