WELCOME TO VERITAS CHURCH

Veritas Church began on July 13th of 2008 – this was our first worship service, held in the home of Erik Meyers and his family. Since that time, we have continued our journey as a people gathered together for the King (Jesus), His gospel (good news), and the city to which he has called us (Roseville, California).

Our hope and prayer is that God may choose to honor himself by declaring and demonstrating his gospel in us and through us to the Sacramento Metropolitan area; bringing change, healing, and cultural renewal, – all to the Glory of God.

This website is for you.  Get to know Veritas.  More importantly, get to know Jesus.

Don’t Be Swine Bling

So, the other night I met a dear friend for dinner.  We enjoyed a meal at a local eatery featuring cuisine (supposedly) patterned after the Napa Valley.  We had good food and conversation, but the atmosphere was curious, and subsequently got me thinking.  On their website, the dining establishment had forgotten to post the following {fyi} for their customers, “We have decided to become an {ultra} lounge for loud middle aged women and creepy looking “I borrowed this shirt from a Trader Joes employee” men.”

What nagged at me as the hostess guided us to our table was how loud the women were.  The men didn’t seem loud, they just seemed quietly creepy, which then got me thinking of the garden…the whole scene was very Genesis 3, Eden-esque…women running their mouths and men sitting there without a word.  However, I digress.  Back to women and loudness.  In an unregenerate state, a woman’s loudness or quietness is of little consequence- there are bigger problems in relation to her eternal well-being.

However, for the Christian woman, ones mouth and demeanor matters a great deal.  The occasion served to remind me of how many times I have lacked discretion, and my own propensity toward loud, ungodly behavior & speech.  Honestly, the scene at the restaurant wasn’t all that different than that on a typical evening from my college days in my Christian {shudder} dorm,  {just trade the martini’s for cokes and the middle aged creepy dudes in Hawaiian shirts for 20-something creepy dudes in “His pain…my gain” t- shirts…not sure which is worse- once I again, I digress.)

To my point, Proverbs 11:22 says,  “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.”  While a lack of discretion is not only reflected in a woman’s speech, our mouths are a good indicator of discretion or lack there of.  There is something particularly unappealing and off-putting about a loud woman.  When I have found myself being loud, usually what is coming out of my mouth is pure, unadulterated foolishness.  It is not often the case that is what is pouring forth from my loudness is “full of grace” (Col 4:6), or, “a word aptly spoken” (Pr. 25:11).  It is just folly.  Proverbs 9:13 sharply states,  “The woman Folly is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge.”   As I enjoyed my lamb, I couldn’t help but observe the folly that I, but for the grace of God , would be participating in.

I remembered a conversation I had with a Christian woman some years back.  I was very seriously sharing that, while reading Proverbs, I was convicted about my loud mouth.  She quickly retorted, “Well, it isn’t a sin to be loud as long as you aren’t saying really bad things!  You never say bad things! For some people, it is just their personality!”  I say, if I allowed everything in my character to remain that was naturally a part of my “personality”…. I would have to ignore upwards of 50 percent of the scriptures.  I quickly realized that conversation was going nowhere.  A little depressed about the “counsel” I had just received from an older Christian woman, I headed to Starbucks for a pick-me-up and some reflection.  One iced mocha later, I resolved to continue my study in Proverbs, and not ask that lady for advice.

• Back to my dinner experience… it got me thinking as I reflected on the scriptures about just how important it is for the Christ honoring woman to have a tight reign on her tongue. The Christian woman who is careful with her words is tremendous blessing to her church, and those she is close to.    The wayward wife of Proverbs 2 & 7 is said to have seductive words.  I had to wonder (sadly) how many Way ward wives I walked past on the way to my table.
• As our salads came out, another piece of proverbial wisdom came to mind,  “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise…” I wondered how many husbands there are out there who only wish that their wife would restrain her tongue.  The poor guy from Proverbs 21 & 25 who was camped on the corner of his roof would have probably given anything for his wife to get control of her tongue, “Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”  While it may not be common for contemporary husbands to be camped out on the roof, I do think that it is wise for those of us who are married or someday desire to marry, to consider how our words are impacting our husbands desire to spend time with us.  Modern examples of “roof corners” may be a husband who is constantly at work, or out constantly washing the car (that is already clean), or mowing the lawn (that is already well manicured), or out pursuing one hobby or another.  It may be that the lack of restraint in our speech or quarrelsome, discretion-less demeanor has pushed him to “the corner of a roof”.  It may be time to stop nagging him to spend more time with you and instead cultivate the type of demeanor where he actually wants to.

All that said, the scriptures teach us that a beautiful woman without discretion is just as out of place as a piece of fine jewelry in the nose of a pig.  While the jewelry on its own may be quite beautiful, if you stick it in a dirty, snorty piggy nose, it loses its desirability and loveliness.  It would be wise of all of us who want to obey the admonition, “Whatever you do whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ…” Col. 3:17 to give great pause before we speak.

The Grace to Hold It

I never answer my cell phone. And on the rare occasion that I do I have to laugh at the sarcastic response from the well-intended person on the other end of the phone. ”Wow, you actally answered your phone for once!” or, “ I must be special, you picked up!” bettery yet, “ I can’t believe I am talking to a live person!, I was ready to leave you a message!”…. They are all right, I almost never answer it. And I can’t help but think, if they lived in my home, drove in my car, and cared for my kiddos, they may know why.

Nancy Wilson in her blog, “Femina” encourages mothers of young children to ask for grace as often as their newborn cries for milk or their toddler asks for a drink or snack. This is very good advice, indeed. It occurred to me today that it is interesting the kinds of graces that mothers of young ones ask for.

When I was single I prayed for big things. That I would be able to graduate college with honors, that I would someday marry, that God would use me in some good way for His glory during my life, etc… Not that one is better than the other, but now, when I am asking God for help it looks very different. I have on multiple occasions of late asked God to help me hold it. Yes, as in “hold it”. Things I used to take for granted, like using the restroom in private, I now see in a very different light. Being a mom of four children under six brings with it tremendous joy and blessing. But, because as 1 Tim 2:15 says, I am “being saved through childbearing”, it also brings with it a unique set of challenges. Leaving the 4 children unsupervised even for the 120 seconds it takes to visit the restroom is sometimes an unwise move. 2 minutes is just enough time for one of the children to climb onto the counter to reach a knife in a cupboard, so that they can more accurately reinact a scene from “Man vs. Wild”. It is just enough time for one child to lock another one outside, and for the child outside to grab a bat and proceed to beat the window in an attempt to create for himself another way into the house. It is enough time for one child to run out the front door, take his toddler friend with him, leave him in the neighbors driveway, and return, looking innocent. Hence the need to pray for the grace to “hold it’ for up to 12 hours if necessary, until my husband comes home, or friend stops by and there is adequate adult presence to provide the necessary crisis intervention, if necessary, while mom uses the restroom. Alone.

On a more serious note, mothers of young children need to “hold it” in other ways. I often need to hold back my desire to do compulsively complete “tasks” or clean or answer emails. There are times where at the moment, the most important thing I need to be doing is listening to one of my precious boys as he looks at me with his big blue eyes, explaining in great length and thorough detail why he believes that the Incredible Hulk could indeed be a Christian. Even though I desperately want to go and do more laundry, what is more important is learning about what is going on in my 6 year olds heart. Listening to that same child talk about why he thinks they use the word “Jesus” so often in Transformers is usually a lot more important than all my beckoning “to do’s”. To be sure my boys, and not their grass stained jeans, are the focus of my attention, takes the mercy and grace of God. It is another occasion to ask for the grace to “hold it!”

Often times I need to “hold it” Psalm 4:4 style. I am a little bit of a perfectionist. I like things to be neat, orderly, tidy and quiet. I have four boys ages 6, 5, 2.5, and 8 weeks. There is very little neat, tidy, quietness to be found in my life. Because having “a place for everything and everything in its place” quickly becomes an idol for me, my temper can start to flare when kid chaos of one kind or another ensues. Then it is time, to apply the psalmists wisdom of going to my bed, meditating and being silent. Those are the times I need God’s grace to hold back my tongue, tone and countenance and get my heart right and perspective corrected.

Being in the phase of newborn care, I am a little bit short on sleep. I find that being short on sleep also adds to my temptation to be short on patience. I had a well meaning woman recently say, “Wow you have your hands full. Well, at least you are home all day so that you can sit down and rest or take a nap whenever you need to.” I fumed silently about the naivete of her comment for a good while. I was very tempted to pull out my palm, show her my ‘to do’ list, which spans multiple screens, and snap back a sarcastic remark at her. By God’s grace, we were interrupted. 

Certainly, if there are rarely 2 minutes available in my day to use the restroom, there are not 20 minutes to nap… I could go on for pages about what my little ones would do with 20 unsupervised minutes…

Discontentment

Discontentment in one way or another seems to be a common struggle among women. Single women are discontent with singleness, married women are discontent with their spouses, women with children are discontent with their childrens behavior, and so on and so forth.

In the case, I am writing specifically to the situation of a Christian wife with a respectable Christian husband. If it is the case that a wife is having trouble respecting her husband, and there is not habitual, unrepentant sin on his part, then I would propose that the root sin issue is a discontented heart. A heart that is discontented is insatiable. If you are frustrated with your husband for (pick any generic example)- and he starts doing whatever it is differently, then your heart will soon enough find something else in him to be discontented with. And, all too often, it is not sin that we are discontented with ( it is ok to be discontent with sin in our spouses, to lovingly confront it, etc…) Instead, the things we are discontented with are either matters of immaturity (which require patience and prayer), or opinion and preference, which usually means we should drop it (before a quarrel breaks out Proverbs 17:14), all the while praying for more thankfulness and less critical-ness. We also ought to pray, as 1 Peter 4:8 teaches us, that love for our spouse would cover over a multitude of sins.

To further exacerbate the problem of sinful discontenetment, most of the time, out of our discontentment comes disrespect. Esphesians 5 tells women to “see to it” that they respect their husbands… one way to be sure you are “seeing to it” is to guard your heart against, and quickly repent of discontentment.

In the midst of this struggle against sinful discontentment in marriage, there are a number of things that are helpful to remember:

- See your self in light of the gospel: We are all deserving of hell, now. A husband that loves you, and is also a beleiver, is a rich grace from God.

- See your spouse in light of the gospel: Jesus has already died to pay the penalty for all of his sin, you needn’t punish him for it in your marriage- that is double jeopardy!

- Respect for your husband is about showing honor to Jesus by obeying his directive to respect him (it has a lot to do with God and little to do with your spouse).

- You have to be careful to view your own spouse as your “head” and not let other “heads” creep in. ( Ephesians 5:23) You will know that this is becoming a problem if you find yourself mentally comparing your husband to other men Sometimes it is easy to become discontent if you have a perfect, ideal, totally sanctified image of what you think your husband should be in your head. If you find yourself wishing he was more like this person or that pastor on the podcast, then it is important to take a hiatus from listening to/ reading them. 
It is different, however for the wife and the husband to together to sit under the teaching of a pastor (because presumably he has helped to select the particular church you are in)- but when it comes to listening to other teachers- even if they are excellent, biblical teachers, sometimes you have to be careful because our hearts can deceive us. We can easily begin to covet someone elses spouse!

-I also give counsel to women, if they are struggling to respect their husbands, not to listen to sermons that are specifically aimed at the husband, or to read chapters in books that are specifcally written to husbands…sometimes those can become just a laundry list of things that the wife can then be frustrated with her husband for not doing, or not doing in the way she thinks they should be done…

-Remember, God is going to lead you, cover you and protect you, and if you are married, his chosen means will often be through your husband- so graciously giving him headship in your life is you allowing Christ to lead you and love you.

In closing, I want to mention that Nancy Wilson counsels women to cultivate a high view of their husbands, and I would agree…but I do not think the way to go about it is to focus on all of your mates excellent qualities. Rather, I would work to focus your heart on Jesus, and as you become increasingly enraptured with His perfection and goodness, then the kind providences that He grants to you will also become more beautiful. You will begin to see them more and more as gifts from His hand.

May we all allow God to sanctify us through our marriages, whether in a season of joy or struggle- peace or adversity.

Kristen