Recently I started reading the book and watching the DVD teaching series for "Shepherding a Child's Heart" by Ted Tripp. What a wonderful book and DVD series! It has challenged my thought process and my parenting greatly.
The basic premise of the book comes from Matthew 12:34 which says, "O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The book talks about how as parents we're often so focused on our kids' behaviors and what they do and don't do that we miss correcting their hearts and teaching them to understand why they do those things. It's so much easier to just discipline a child for misbehavior and send them off rather than taking the time to help them understand their hearts and why they do the things they do.
The book suggests helping the child understand what the real issue is in their hearts when they misbehave. If they're taking a toy from someone, their heart is filled with coveting or selfishness. When they see and understand the problems in their hearts, then this leads them to their need for Christ and his redemption, forgiveness and help in overcoming their sin nature. The problem with just disciplining them and sending them off is that you don't get to the place of discussing Jesus and his forgiveness and grace for us and why they are as they are. Their hearts don't truly change through Christ's grace and help and if there hearts don't change, their behavior may be modified and changed for a time, but inside there may still be rebellion and selfishness and all the heart problems and over time the wrong behaviors will still come out.
So the key to raising our children is
be willing to take time with them and discuss their hearts
pray for God to give them understanding into their hearts
pray that they would have the desire to allow Him to change their hearts.
Yes, there does need to be discipline and consequences for wrong behavior as well, but it shouldn't be administered neglecting the heart. The other hard thing for me is to be patient with my children in the same way that God is patient with me. It's so easy to want them to be loving, unselfish, wonderful kids after a week or two of talking with them and working on things. It's easy to let down on ambition and consistency when results aren't seen immediately. Instead I need to have patience and trust that God is at work in them even if I don't see immediate results. Certain punishments or rewards (bribes) may produce quick outward results in behavior but if the heart isn't changed, as soon as the reward is given, the behavior will quickly return because the heart wasn't affected.
I pray that I can rely on the Lord to change my children and have patience with them and dilligence to spend time with them to really know them and their hearts. I pray that they will turn to the Lord and through that their behaviors will look more and more Christ-like. God bless as we raise our precious children!
In the past year or two we've read a number of YWAM publishing's "Christian Heroes: Then and Now" missionary stories. They've been quite a source of inspiration and amazement in seeing how God worked through these "ordinary" people who lived extraordinary lives through their devotion and trust in God. My kids have enjoyed them and been inspired as well.
Lately I've been trying to encourage the kids to be "tough" - to not whine about little things or not cry over little hurts etc... We recently read the story of Gladys Aylward from this series. She was a missionary to China and has an amazing story. Just the story of her getting to China is incredible in itself - she almost ended up stuck in Russia working as a machinist by force. Towards the end of the book she ends up on 15+ day journey on foot over the mountains to get 150 or so orphans ages 4-15 to safety from Japanese soldiers. During this time she was sick with several illnesses - fever, pneumonia to name a few. I can't even fathom how she managed to care for these 150+ children and climb and hike for days on end with almost no food to get them to freedom!
At the end of reading this part, I asked my daughter (who tends to be a little less tough than she should be) how she thought it would be to hike all day for days on end with no shoes over rocks. I encouraged her that maybe she could be a little tougher at times so that if sometime in the future she needs to do something really hard, she is tough enough to do it.
Then I got to practice what I preached this past week. I got sick with a bad fever for 3 days and was exhausted and couldn't do much. I kept thinking while I lay there trying to take care of my little kids about Gladys Aylward and that my sickness was nothing compared with the sickness she had while crossing the mountains and caring for the children. She passed out a couple of times and was in and out of consciousness at a couple of points. Though I don't need to work myself to death in my circumstances, it did help me to be tougher at times. By the 3rd day, though my attitude wasn't as good as possible and I confess I was less than tough at times. But the Lord brought me through and thankfully gives us grace in our weaknesses.
So if you're looking for some good inspiration for yourself or your kids, check out missionary biographies - they're full of practical application and inspiration!
My parents recently went to a marriage conference and my mom e-mailed us kids to share from her notes what she learned. Here are her thoughts which I thought were very helpful and inspiring!
A marriage of unity, understanding and love is not rooted in romance, but in worship. In Romans 1:18 it talks about how man started worshiping created things rather than the Creator. We are by nature worshipers. Something lays claim to our hearts, either our Creator of something else. What you live for shapes and structures your relationships. James 4 talks about what causes fights and quarrels. It is our desires. There isn't anything wrong with desires, but our desires are often not in line with God's desires. We have our idea of what we want (our kingdom), so when something interferes with it, like our spouse who has a different dream or desire, there is a collision of dreams. So putting God first and worshiping Him first in our lives is key.
Sin causes us to shrink our lives to the size of our lives.
Our most difficult problem in marriage is inside of ourselves. We have needs and wants. (our own kingdom)
Marriage is two flawed persons with a faithful God. Real unity and understanding and love come when your heart is ruled by the kingdom of God, not self.
Our character is developed in the little moments. Even the small moments of living life in our marriages should give God the glory
What rules our hearts is THE important thing. Even desire for a good thing becomes a bad thing when it rules our hearts rather than Christ.
We want comfort, appreciation, power, to control things, etc. and if we don't get it we may get mad at those who get in the way of those things. That may indicate that those may be "gods" in our lives. God wants to build our character to be like Christ's and putting us into a marriage relationship helps mold us to have better character if we co-operate with Him. We should ask what is God doing in my life here and now to make me more like Him. I Peter 1:3 and following talks about how God gives us all kinds of trials, grief and suffering to refine us.
Metals are in rocks of ore and aren't useful or beautiful until they are boiled.
God can't leave us in our "ore" state. God will boil you and take you where you have not intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. Marriage is an effective boiling pot to build your character. It reveals your heart. God's grace is uncomfortable because it seeks to change us from self-centered people to Christ-centered people who will give Him glory. A good day is when God makes us more like Himself, not when we have comfort, pleasure or ease, or our own dreams fulfilled.
Throughout my lifetime I've struggled with my view of myself and my view of God. I have had the tendency to always try to do good, be good, please others and please God. This leads to constant striving and much disappointment as I can never be as good as I want to be.
Recently I've been part of a prayer group in which I've been introduced to the book, "Abide in Christ" by Andrew Murray. One of my friends lent me the book as much of our discussions had centered around living each day abiding in Christ. If you're interested in this book, I found a site where you can read it online here. Anyways, I have been so challenged to change my frame of mind and thought processes regarding my relationship with the Lord.
I want my focus to be on loving the Lord. I want to see him as my friend who I talk with daily, whether I've "been good" or not. I want to trust that he truly loves me and wants to hear from me even when I may not have been as perfect in keeping time with God and prayer a priority. I want to pray often throughout the day and not in a legalistic, "I need to make 30 min. for prayer" way. How can I do this? It's not something I do each day, but it's a mind-set of loving God and resting in him and in his care and trusting in him.
I want my children to see God, not as someone who makes them good or who they legalistically try to please, but as someone we love and walk with daily. I want them to see that more than anything I want them to love God - more than obeying, being kind, being hard-working or any other number of behaviors I try so hard to work into them. If they truly love the Lord, he will direct them towards these behaviors I so desire they develop. Though I still work on these behaviors with them, I should emphasize even more the desire I have for them to love God. They need to see my love for God first and see my grace for them.
I pray that I would abide in Christ each day and that his love would transform myself and others. I praise God for his love and forgiveness for me.
Lately I've been convicted about some areas where I can improve with my husband. He had been willingly doing several things around the house for me that would generally be considered under the realm of my responsibilities. In my mind I had been stewing over some things I wished he were doing until the Lord convicted me.
I realized that I was thinking about him and things I wished he were doing when there were areas I should be taking back over from him. He is keeping very busy now with his transcription work and our ink business so that his time is much more limited now (which is good because we're actually making better money now). So recently I decided to tell him I would take over these things he was doing for me and I have been blessed by the results. Just in doing these small things, I feel more of a sense of peace. It may be more work for me, but I find joy in this work knowing I'm obeying God's leading and serving my husband the way I should be.
I need to be reminded that I am his helpmeet and my mindset needs to be thinking about how I can help him as much as possible instead of wanting him to serve me. Not that he can't serve me in ways - he's very good at that, but my mindset needs to be on serving him. As I choose to love him, God honors this in our marriage and in my life and I see benefits. I can always be thinking of other things that I could be doing better so even though I've changed some things, I need to keep seeking how I can better improve our marriage rather than keeping things as they have been.
May God guide us and our marriages in the year ahead!
We've traveled down to my parent's house in the Chicago area for Christmas. Thankfully the 9-hour drive went well and we arrived on time with plenty of time to celebrate my oldest ds' birthday. He turned 9 on the Saturday we were driving! Hard to believe where the 9 years have gone!
We enjoyed a good Christmas church service with a good reminder of not just celebrating Christmas with the sentimental feelings of enjoying the familiar celebrations but to take time to reflect on Jesus and why he came to earth. It's such an amazing thing to think of that little baby being God and putting on flesh and bones with the whole purpose of bringing us to him through his death on the cross. Of course Jesus did much more than that in living life as an example and model of God's love and his ways. He showed us what it means to live God's way.
May our lives be filled with joy in Jesus and remembrance of all he's done for us. May we live in freedom and love for him knowing he loves us completely this day and always! God bless and Merry Christmas!
I was fellowshipping with some good friends yesterday and we were talking about what makes up a good day. When you think of the best day you've had what would it be? Here are things that might typically be included:
Smiling, cheerful children
No fighting or disobedience
Getting outside to enjoy nature
Enjoying extra-special, yummy food
Taking time for a bath
Going on a date with hubby
Going to a friend's house
These things are generally fun, good things but should we be seeking these kinds of "good" days frequently and measuring our current day against these standards? In our discussion yesterday we were talking about how any day lived with God in control and resting and abiding in him is truly the best day.
Imagine a day where you start out getting little sleep during the night. The baby got up and was fussy and wouldn't go back to sleep but you used that time to pray for family, friends, missionaries and didn't fret about it. Then you get up in the morning tired from getting woken up that night and spend a few minutes in the word and the Lord speaks to you from his word reviving you and putting your soul at rest. You move into getting the kids up and the 2-year-old starts screaming at the 4-year-old for touching his truck and the 4yo keeps teasing him by touching it more and instead of thinking, "here we go again, why do they always fight - when are they going to learn", you pray for wisdom in directing them and gently correct and discipline them.
You move through the day with the Lord, sometimes having moments of joy seeing the kids learn, but sometimes working through the inevitable challenges of parenting. You see the challenges as opportunities to correct your children and guide them in the Lord's ways. They are opportunities to show love and grace to your children despite their failures just as God shows us his love and grace in our failures. The day may not have been filled with the good, enjoyable fun things of life, but it was full of God and his grace and presence.
When we live our days longing for peace and happiness, so often we're frustrated and upset by the realities of our sinful selves, our spouse's sinful self, our children's sinful selves and so on. We so often want the easy life with no trials or challenges. If only the kids would behave..... But when we rest and abide with God throughout our day and live in his presence even when things go wrong, there is a joy that permeates the day that goes beyond what any happiness can bring.
Oh to live each day in abiding joy with God!
"Rejoice in the LordALWAYS, I will say it again, REJOICE. Let you gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." Philippians 4:4-5
Today I had the craziest of experiences - one I prefer not to repeat anytime soon! At lunch I drank a swallow of water when I realized it smelled funny. As soon as I swallowed it I realized it had the smell and tastse of bleach. That morning I had soaked a few things in a bucket in some bleach at the kitchen sink and then dumped the water down the sink. To this time, I don't know how come there could have been any bleach or bleach smell in the water. I poured it out of a pitcher that I had filled that hadn't been with the bleach bucket, and don't know how it could have gotten any bleach in or on it. Whatever was in there had to be pretty minute.
I first asked my husband if the water smelled funny to him. He agreed and I asked if it smelled like bleach and he agreed. He also had drunk some water. I then asked if any of the kids had drunk their water which they hadn't so I proceeded to get rid of their cups of water. I then started to question my husband about what would happen if you drank bleach water and started to get worried about it. I started to feel like I was a little light-headed and my heart was racing. I grabbed the bleach bottle to read the label and it said if you ingest it you should drink lots of water so I started downing cups of water.
I was still continuing to feel light-headed and felt like my heart was racing a little. After about 10 minutes I still didn't feel well and was feeling a little worse and decided to go to the computer to check out what happens if you ingest bleach. I was really starting to feel light-headed and started to worry I would pass out. I told my husband to call 911 where he got the poison control phone # and called them.
Meanwhile all I had turned up on a google search is a Yahoo answers forum that someone asks what happens if you drink bleach and everyone after that answers, "you die" and the 2nd site was named "Drink Bleach and Die". I started saying things to my husband like, "What if I'm going to die" and other such comments. Thankfully my husband was very level-headed and of course the fact that he had drunk more water than I had and hadn't suffered any ill effects probably helped his level-headedness. I started thinking in my head, "What a horrible way to end my life and die" and things like that. To make matters worse, my 6yo daughter was worrying about me the whole time and starting to panic that her mom was really hurt.
When my husband talked to poison control, he told them about the small amount that would possibly have been ingested and my symptoms and they said that ingesting bleach doesn't cause your heart to race, dzziness or light-headedness. They said that if you drank too much bleach you would feel a burning sensation in your throat and stomach and this would cause you to vomit so vomiting would be the symptom of a problem to watch for. Thankfully I had had none of these symptoms so all of my problems were entirely an anxiety attack from the possibility of having had bleach poisoning!
For the next hour or so I still felt awful even though I knew physically nothing had happened. I got cold and had a bit of the chills and laid down under a blanket cuddling my 6yo girl and letting her warm me up. This happened at lunch time and still I feel weak and have a headache at suppertime.
I find it completely amazing at everything that happened. I had absolutely nothing physically happen to me but because of the worries and my thinking something that wasn't true, many things happened to me physically. Even once I knew that physically all was fine, I still couldn't control the physical response that was going on in my body to what I had perceived had happened.
This really made me think about how many things in our life are a product of our thought processes. When we think something is some way, it often becomes that way to our bodies and our body reacts as if things are that way. If I think I'm horribly tired, my body will act as if I'm tired and respond that way. If I think I'm having an awful morning, I get depressed and everything continues to get worse and worse.
I wonder how many lies the devil feeds our minds to make us think things that aren't true and respond in wrong ways? How important it is that we only allow God's truth in our minds! How important it is that we know and believe God's word so that we know his truth. May we keep our minds free from Satan's lies - from negative thought patterns that seek to destroy us!
I love this quote. This is so my hope for my children.
"Here lies the secret of parenting that will produce good spiritual fruit in our children: the Parable of the Sower begins with the preaching of the Word, or the planting of the seed in the hearts of people. The seed is God's Word; the different soils symbolize different types of hearts; and the varied results show the different responses to the Word of God. It is our job as parents to sow the seeds lovingly into the hearts of our children.
The Word, unlike anything else you teach your children, is living and powerful (Hebrews 4: 12). It is necessary for the truth of God to be cultivated to take root in the heart before it will bear fruit. In the Parable of the Sower, three-fourths of the seed did not bear fruit, and there was no great harvest.
When you plant the seed (read God's Word), water it with prayer, and share it in love you are causing the seed to be rooted and established in love (Ephesians 3:17). The fruit will be seen in salvation (Matthew 7:16), in good works (Colossians 1:10), in holiness (Romans 6:22), in Christian character (Galatians 5:22-23), in winning others to Christ (Romans 1:13), in sharing (Romans 15:25-28), and in praising God (Hebrews 13:15). To plant this seed lovingly into the heart of your child, you need to have the fruit of love in your own live. It is a circle of life and you must impress them (God's Laws) on your children (Deuteronomy 6:7).
This is God's plan for passing on the truth about Himself, from parent to child. As a child matures, he becomes a parent to the next generation, and so on. The seed must come from fruit--fruit from your life--God's love, which is spread abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit. When your own heart is full of love--as a result of God's Word planted in you--the love of Christ will overflow into the hearts of your children: it will give itself out, give itself away, and enrich the lives of others....
There is no fruit unless there is hearing first."
May we be dilligent in training our children according to God's word and planting the seeds of his word in our life.
I was reading a familiar passage in Hebrews today and was encouraged in my mothering by it. The phrase that stood out in my mind was from Hebrews 12:3. It says, "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Some days I feel like I do grow weary and lose heart in my daily training of my children. Some days it feels like I'm not making any ground with them - like they'll be completely selfish and mean forever. When I'm feeling like this, it's easy to discipline my children in a frustrated, upset way. It's easy for them to sense this in me as I correct them.
As I looked at the passage more and the preceding verses, I began to see more of how to parent without having this weary, frustrated attitude. The first thing we are to do comes in verse 1. We are to, "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles..." First I need to look at my own life and see what is keeping me from having a close walk with the Lord. There are sins and areas of baggage that keep me from walking with the Lord and in his perspective and power. I need to spend time regularly asking the Lord to show me these things and then dealing with them and getting rid of them.
The 2nd thing I need is perseverance for the race marked out for me (from verse 1). It isn't an easy, do these things for a week or a month and the kids will be perfect little children. I certainly haven't become the perfect, godly mom that I want to be so how do I expect my little ones to throw off all their bad habits and selfishness in a few weeks with a certain discipline program. It takes perseverance for me to continue doing what is right in the Lord's strength over years and years.
The 3rd thing these verses call me to do is to "fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith". Faith for my daily trials comes from Jesus - he is it's author. Faith will be perfected by Jesus. Why do we fix our eyes on Jesus for this? Because as we reflect on what Jesus went through in dying for us "for the joy set before him", we can see that God can take us through hard things and allow us to walk in joy through them. We can find joy and faith that Jesus has won the victory through his death on the cross and that he empowers us to have that same victory. It takes faith to see our trials and see that God is working through them - to believe that our training and loving in God's strength is accomplishing something though we don't always immediately see the results.
This takes us back to the verse I started with, "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." We face opposition from sinful children, sinful spouses, sinful families, sinful friends, sinful people in the world around us, and our own sinful selves on a daily basis. Sometimes the affects of sin around us seem to overwhelm us. At these times, we need to consider Jesus who endured the ultimate opposition from men and cry out to God for his wisdom and power and presence to help us. We must keep our faith in God strong so that we don't grow weary or lose heart in our daily moments. When we walk in faith, we can deal with the daily issues, fights, and frustrations in faith that God is in control and at work. We can remain calm and at peace through God and his strength. May we keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith and not grow weary and lose heart!
