Mini-World to Greater World

All is quiet in my house. The kids are out tromping in the mud with Jason and I am left to prepare for tonights Sabbath dinner. My tree is still up and Christmas decorations are hung about the house looking ready to come down. And I am drinking coffee and water trying to recover from the New Years late night! My bread is rising and I found a minute to sit down. I think that it is amazing that Christmas is gone and the new year is here. We are in the middle of the "Christmas" season and Ephinany is right around the corner. My endurence is not quite up to all of the celebrating that needs to take place in this season of goodness and joy. But every year we make it a little bit closer to our goal of running the seasonal race with celebrations and establishing traditions for the kids to pass along to their kids. In this time of quiet amidst the rush of preparations and recovery I was thinking about how our children our going to some day run their own homes. Crazy to think about and a little bit scary! But all that we have done this season really is for them. It is to teach them about what God has done in history for his people and what he is doing for his people now in this new year of 2011. We are handing them a story, a story about the way the world works. A story that they are apart of. Whether you mean to or not you are teaching them about the world. Whether you are teaching them the truth or not, you are teaching and they are learning. God has designed it this way and that is why he again and again tells his people to make sure that they are teaching the right story, the true story, His story! Christmas is an easy time to get the story right. An Easy time to tell and retell the great story of the incarnation, the great story of the Magi (the gentiles) coming and kneeling before the King of the world! Your home is a mini-world. It is the center of your childrens life. But it will not always be this way. Does your little mini-world match the one that God has made? Does your home reflect the truth and beauty of God? Is there joy in your home? Is their laughter? Some day your children will grow up and look around at the greater world around them. When this happens they will either feel like they have been lied to or they will have deep wisdom in understanding the world around them. If they have deep wisdom they will want to go forth and leave their mini-world and conquer the greater world. If they have been lied to, they will want to leave their mini-world and they will enter the greater world and be conquered by it! Either way, they will be leaving your home. I think of faithful parenting as giving your children a full tool belt to go out and conquer the world with; whatever comes their way, they have been prepared and can grab the tool the need for the job set before them. When you do not teach your children faithfully you send them out to the job site without any tools. They will fail, they will fall, and they will not produce any fruit. If they are not producing any fruit in their mini-world, there is no way that they will produce fruit in the greater world. So what do you do if there is no fruit now. You pray! You humble yourself and go before God and ask him to give you deep wisdom and faithfulness so that you can go and be fruitful in your home. If your kids are not being fruitful, it is because you are not being fruitful. So humble yourself and confess your sins to God and to them (your kids and spouse) and go forth in the forgiveness that Jesus brings and in his strength to do better! Solomon was pleasing to God and God told Solomon to ask anything from him. Solomon was King and felt like a child leading God's people. So he asked for wisdom in leading God's people. Your children are God's people, God's children. Be like Solomon and ask for wisdom in leading them. He will give to you! He is faithful to his children and you are his child. So go to your Maker and ask, so that you can faithfully represent the world that he has made. Go to him so that you can fill your childs belt up with all the resources he will need to conquer the greater world!

And happy sweeping to you as you imitate your great Maker in all you do!