Showing posts with label spiritual focus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual focus. Show all posts
This month’s topic: What are the ways you treasure your days with your children?
I wonder how often God asks that question about me.
Sometimes, in the middle of folding laundry or correcting a math assignment, I look across the room to find my husband deep in thought. As I watch him sitting alone, I begin to reflect, "When was the last time I made time just for him?" Going deeper I ask, "Have I had enough in-depth conversations to know what he's pondering right now? Do I even know if he's troubled or if something is bringing him joy?"
Too often I get too busy to focus on my husband. I focus instead on my half of the load and let him focus on his. With a house full of children it's so easy to say, "He's the other adult--he is on his own."
But, God says, "He's not supposed to be on his own. He gets lonely on his own. When I created him, I said that loneliness wasn't good, so I made you." I know I was created, first and foremost, to be my husband's companion. Though God has certainly added other roles, the very reason for my being is to ease the innate, created loneliness of my husband. Genesis 2. I also know how deeply God loves my husband. I'm sure there are times God looks at my husband single-handedly shouldering his burdens and asks, "Why can't she just do her job?!"
I know how to make this happen. When he gets home, I can instruct the children not to interrupt unless there is gushing blood, take him to our room, and spend the first 20 minutes of his time home focusing all my attention on catching up on his day. I can plan an evening away--or at least an evening walk--to get the two of us out of the house, together, and focused on each other. I can stop folding laundry and go sit with him. I can simply determine to do the job I was created to do--then trust God will show me how to get the rest done, too.
Everything is made for a purpose. If my frustration boils over the stopper's failure to keep water in a sink, how frustrated must God get when I fail to help and encourage the husband He gave to me. I need to remember my own plea, "Please, just do the job you were made to do."
This month’s topic: What do you think?
Why do we call our child back to wipe the crumbs from the counter after they finished cleaning the kitchen? Why do we insist they go back outside and return the lids to the trashcans? Why do we ask them to change the dog's water--not just fill the bowl to the top?
When we ask our children to do the whole job, we teach them to work with all their heart at everything. Sometimes it's tempting to settle for a half-hearted effort from our children. We can tell ourselves, "At least they put the food in the fridge and the dishes in the dish washer. I guess I should be happy with that." But, letting our children get by with the minimum builds into them a habit of doing as little as possible. That's not God's standard.
This month’s topic: What do you think?
This month’s topic: What are your thoughts?
The other night as I said to daughter, "I'm so proud of you," her face lit up, then fell. "What's the matter?" I asked.
"I'm not supposed to be proud," she answered. "I don't want God to be upset." We had read Proverbs 16:18 earlier that morning. As I used a word she had heard God didn't like, the intended encouragement fell flat.
What's the difference between pride that leads to destruction and feeling good about an accomplishment? As in most of life--the focus. Bad pride--pride that leads to destruction--is a focus on ourselves, an elevation of ourselves. When our children begin to find satisfaction within what they can do or use accomplishments to point others to themselves--that's the pride scripture warns against.
Alternatively, when our children recognize that God has done something amazing using the talents He placed within them and begin to find their satisfaction in God--that's "good" pride. More--when our children use their achievements to point others to God, that makes God smile.
Teaching our children to follow scripture can be so tricky. Words can be used so many different ways which can confuse young minds. We want to be able to tell our children when we are proud of them and what they are doing without them being afraid of disobeying God. When we help them create a right focus, we distinguish between real encouragement and a pride that causes destruction.
This month’s topic: What do you think?
This month’s topic: What do you think?
Our
family recently finished a book on the Lewis and Clark expedition. We were
amazed by the level of both hardship and beauty they encountered. I was
particularly convicted by the chapters describing the party's journey
negotiating a narrow ledge through the Rockies for several weeks--experiencing
bitter temperatures, slippery snow, and lack of food most of the way. As each
day's description unfolded, I kept
wondering, "How did they make it? Why didn't they just give
up?"
I suffer from a common malady. I too often assume that, if someone is on the right course, it should unfold before them. Obstacles should clear; blessings fall. History teaches that it so often doesn't work that way. The soldiers at Valley Forge, Christians who hid Jews in Europe, missionaries who took the gospel to foreign lands--all too often these faced overwhelming circumstances and I'm sure questioned, "Why not just give up?" But, they didn't. And their efforts achieved greatness--in spite of, or perhaps because of, the hardship.
I want my children to learn these lessons of history. Hardship doesn't mean you're on the wrong path or made the wrong choice. Sometimes hardship is a key element of the right choice. Rather than allowing my children to buy into the cultural attitude that life will simply fall into place, I want to train my children to make good choices, courageous choices, then be prepared for the hardships that might come.
This month’s topic: What do you think?
Do lines in songs ever grab you? Out of all the noise, something breaks through and you can't stop thinking about it? Last week, one grabbed me.
A new Christmas song retelling the story of Jesus' birth was playing and the chorus had one line that stuck in my head and focused my thoughts, "Our salvation has a name."
Think about that.
In an incredibly insecure world, people long for security--something in which they can trust. Some trust in money--putting all their energy into building personal wealth to protect them against life's storms. Some put their trust in power--continually expanding their reach hoping this means nothing can reach them. Some trust popularity, some relationships, some luck. The common thread? None of these has a name.
They are nameless, impersonal forces that can have no conception of the people who trust them, no intentions toward them, and no interaction with them. The force simply moves through lives with people hoping against hope they gain the good side as the force moves through.
God never wants us to think of Him as an impersonal force. He is a person. He has feelings, desires, disappointments, hopes, dreams, and plans. He wanted us to know all this--so He came to personally to talk to us, relate with us, and live and die for us.
Coming in all His God-ness would have overwhelmed and made it difficult for us to get beyond the force of Him to see the person of Him. So He came as a baby--a form easily embraced, easily trusted, easily welcomed.
And He was given a name--Jesus.
Our children don't have to find their security in some nameless, faceless force that may or may not care for them. Their salvation has a name.
Want to make your children's Christmas perfect? Introduce them to their salvation. His name is Jesus.
A new Christmas song retelling the story of Jesus' birth was playing and the chorus had one line that stuck in my head and focused my thoughts, "Our salvation has a name."
Think about that.
In an incredibly insecure world, people long for security--something in which they can trust. Some trust in money--putting all their energy into building personal wealth to protect them against life's storms. Some put their trust in power--continually expanding their reach hoping this means nothing can reach them. Some trust popularity, some relationships, some luck. The common thread? None of these has a name.
They are nameless, impersonal forces that can have no conception of the people who trust them, no intentions toward them, and no interaction with them. The force simply moves through lives with people hoping against hope they gain the good side as the force moves through.
God never wants us to think of Him as an impersonal force. He is a person. He has feelings, desires, disappointments, hopes, dreams, and plans. He wanted us to know all this--so He came to personally to talk to us, relate with us, and live and die for us.
Coming in all His God-ness would have overwhelmed and made it difficult for us to get beyond the force of Him to see the person of Him. So He came as a baby--a form easily embraced, easily trusted, easily welcomed.
And He was given a name--Jesus.
Our children don't have to find their security in some nameless, faceless force that may or may not care for them. Their salvation has a name.
Want to make your children's Christmas perfect? Introduce them to their salvation. His name is Jesus.
This month’s topic: What do you think?
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