Eyes of The Lord

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." Proverbs 15:3

Everything we do is to be done to the glory of God. Our chief goal ought to be to glorify God. This is true of us in our calling as wife, mother, employee, church member, friend, daughter..... Our main concern should be to please God in all we do. Right now we are mothers. Some of us our wives. But we will always be Christians. This is one thing that not even death can alter!

How we view this verse will reveal how view God. If God is only watching us to catch us, then we will be motivated by guilt. If God is watching because he cares for us and delights in us, then we will be humbled and motivated by gratitude and thanksgiving. Sometimes both views can get a similar outward action. But the heart of a guilt stricken person is scared, selfish, bitter and far from the Lord of the Bible. The heart of the thankful person is motivated to please God because he feels gratitude. And he feels gratitude because he knows that God is God and he is man. He knows that God made all things, governs all things and still has a love for him!!! If this is not motivation to good works then I do not what is! Therefore, this verse should relieve us, and if it does not then you can be sure that your view of God needs to change!

So how does this verse apply to parenting. It is so easy to have the kids memorize this because we want them to feel burdened. We want them to know that we know how naughty they are and they can be sure that God is watching and is wagging his finger at them in a disapproving way. But God is not this way. So if we teach this then we are misrepresenting God to our children and it is clear that we need to have a little Bible study for ourselves! The main thing to impart to your child about this verse is the amazing truth that God is watching them because he cares for them. He is watching them because he is watching over them. He has their good in mind. He watches them because he delights in them. He watches them, not to catch them being naughty and say "I told you so" but he watches them because they are the apple of his eye.

If we are to rightly teach our children this proverb then we need to copy God in his parenting techniques. When you look at your child when he is doing something good, how do you respond? Do you encourage and praise or do you discourage by thinking "it is about time you do as you are told"? When your child is in sin and disobedience, how do you respond? Do you gently lead them in righteousness by grabbing their hand and bringing them back on the path or do you beat them down by anger, frustration and unkind words? Or are you not like God in the way of not noticing either good or evil in your child? If this is the case then you need to start paying attention.

Delight in your children!!! You cannot teach this verse rightly until you have that down. And if you are not delighting in your children, then bring it to God. Confess it as sin and ask God to give you a love for your children that is like his love for his children! Look on your children with love, wanting to bless them at all times. Wanting to bless them when they are in sin, wanting to bless them when they are producing the fruit of the spirit. But always looking at them with delight and pleasure.

And how do we do this when they are not being delightful? Well, if you already have a love for them in your heart (put there by God of course!) it will be much easier. Never forget that you are suppose to be the spiritual one. You are called to correct your children. Stop getting surprised by this!!! Expect it!! And get really good at helping them get out of the mess quickly.

Remember that God is watching you! He is watching you for the same reasons that he is watching them. He loves and delights in you. He gave you your story so that you could be the heroine. He gave your kids to you so that you could serve them and help transform them into his image. But you cannot do this if you are not being transformed. So know that God is watching you. And yes, he expects you to live in manner worthy of your calling. But this attitude of obedience should come from humble thankfulness not from a spirit of guilt. And just so you know, guilt produces terrible fruit!!! But forgiveness in Jesus produces the beautiful fruit of the spirit!!!

Memorize this verse for yourself first and couple it with meditating on God's attributes. This should lead you to praising him rather then fearing him. I am not talking about godly fear here but the fear that comes from the devil. And this fear cripples and withers any good fruit. It does not convict as the holy spirit does who leads us to Jesus so that we can be free of our burdens, but it adds to our load and makes us fall under a hard yoke. But Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light. So remember that he cares for you, he watches you because he cares. He wants you to succeed and He helps you have victory and joy!!! Be relieved then because he sees you at your best and your worst. And in your best, he is there working it in and through you. And at your worst, he is there to pick you up and carry you. At your worst he is there, ready, always ready, to forgive you! And this why this verse is incredible!!

God bless you as you strive to be as He is!

Sin in the Camp

This is not a Proverbs study but an issue that we all need constant reminders, and constant encouragement in. The issue is sin in the camp; the camp being your home. I was talking with one of my wonderful sisters this week and we were discussing how to deal with sin in our kids when it comes up. Sin is as old as dirt and will be around until that great day of judgment when Jesus comes back. It is something that we need to get good at dealing with. It is so funny to say, but if we are honest and believe the Scriptures, we know that we will always sin in this life and it is our duty to get good at how we deal with it. There are so many temptations that we struggle with when sin enters and it is our job to eliminate these temptations and deal with the real issue of the sin itself. It is easy to get distracted from the real issue. It is so easy to blame others for our sin, it is so easy to justify our sin, it is so easy to rename our sin so that we do not acknowledge it as sin, it is so easy as parents to blame others for our kids bad attitude, unwholesome speech, disobedience.... and the list goes on! And when we do this, we add more messes onto the original mess. And this makes discernment near impossible! At this point we have taken a mole hill and turned it into a mountain. As parents we so often do this with our kids. We call it "protecting" them. But making excuses for our kids is really doing them Spirtual damage. We need to teach them to get out of sin as quickly as THEY get into it! That sin was in there heart and no one put it there. If it comes out, you should be thankful because it gives you the opportunity to give it to God and have him separate as far as the east is from the west. Making excuses for them is wrong. Making excuses for them is our sin and we need to repent of it! Making excuses for them keeps the sin in the camp and in their hearts. And being a sinner yourself does not mean that you are exempt from teaching them the true and right standard of the Scriptures. It is true that God hates hypocrisy, but He also hates disobedience. And it is true that you need to be spiritual so that you can instruct your children. But do not use your lazy disobedience as an excuse for lazy parenting. Get sin out of you, so that you can get it out of your children!!!

I remember going to Tijuana when I was 17 with my youth group to build a house for a poor family. The family that my housing team was assigned to lived on an old dump. We literally pulled up to a mountain of garbage and had to build our house there. It was a very sad business but it is also a really good picture of what undelt sin looks like. Do not build your life on this kind of mountain. Rather through repentance, deal with the "garbage" (the built up sin) and build your life on the solid ground that is Jesus.

Picture a window. This window represents your childs heart. When the window opens, what comes through is sin. It may be that when the window is open an unkind word comes out. It may be a bad attitude. It may be out right disobedience to your command. Whatever it is, it needs to be named according to Scripture. You need to teach your children to deal with sin and this is how you do it. Call it what the Bible calls it. Administer the consequence for that particular sin. Go to God with it. Confess to God the sin and ask him to take it away. Thank Him for taking it away. Confess to who (if someone else is involved) you sinned against using Biblical language.

Helpful words for moms: do not become emotional! Stay sober and close the window quickly. Do not be surprised that the house is a drafty place! Remember that sin is guaranteed and it is your job to teach faithfulness in cleaning up after sin, by cleaning up promptly, with thankfulness in your heart for the grace that God always administers! Do not tire of doing good!! God is ever patient with us. We sin against him again and again. When your kids sin again and again, imitate your Father in heaven and be longsuffering. This is a fruit of the spirit and one that we need to actively cultivate as moms. Longsuffering refers to suffering for a long time. This suffering is talking about sin. God is patient with us and does not cast us away the moment we mess up. This is what it is to be longsuffering and it is the whole story of the Bible! Ask God to give you this fruit of the Spirit. Ask God to make you like Him in this area. Mediate on this attribute of God. Think about the cross. Think about the grace you have received. This will make you more thankful and will equip to do to your children as God has done to you!

There is no reason that we should be annoyed at our kids when they sin. There is no reason that we should be angry at our kids when the mess up. There is no reason that we should be surprised when our kids sin. But we do get annoyed, angry and we are so often surprised. So go and repent and ask God to fill you up the fruit of the spirit. Ask God to make you like him. And learn to deal with sin promptly and cheerfully when it enters your camp!

God bless you as you endeavor to act more like him in this area!

Tall Walls

This has been a long time coming, so I hope to make it worth the wait. "He that hath no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls," Proverbs 25:28. This is one of our favorites!! It applies to anger, being emotional, fits of all varieties, being too silly, and the list goes on.

But lets take a couple of steps back before we unpack this verse and talk about general wisdom getting. The Bible is God's word and it is full of wisdom. We are told to get wisdom and in all or our getting, to acquire understanding as well. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom so we know where to start. And James tells us that we have not because we ask not. So it all starts by going to God and asking him to make us wise. But remember in your asking, to not ask amiss. This means, that you ask according to God's will. And you cannot do this if you are not in His word! So fill yourself with the scriptures so that they will ooze from every pore, and pray without ceasing. This is the beginning. Read the Word, know the Word, pray that God would use it to transform you and ask for wisdom. Doing all this in faith with the chief goal being to know God better so that you may serve him better. And this is the reason that memorizing verses from the Wisdom books is so important and that is why I am starting this little series in Proverbs.

Lets head back to our verse in Proverbs. It is a tough thing to rule yourself well. We are told again and again that you should not deny yourself any pleasure. We are told that it is our right to do as we like. We are preached the gospel of autonomy again and again. It is a revolutionary idea to deny yourself something. Wouldn't that be stiffling who I really am? Wouldn't that be bad for self expression? You bet it would and the world would be a better place if more of us ruled our spirits well. We are so often ruled by ourselves and our selfish lusts but God's way tells us to rule ourselves.

Another important point of this verse is that, lack of self control makes you an easy target for the enemy. If you are city without walls, you have made it easy for the enemy to walk in and plunder what he wants. If our walls are down, then we give into sin easily and are not able to put up a fight and say as our Lord did, "get behind me Satan."

Lets say the wall is down and the enemy(sin) has come in and you have been beaten. Lets put a little more flesh on it and say that you got frustrated and annoyed at one of the kids and you snapped. Lets go a little further and say that one of the kids dropped a full cup water all over the lovely dessert that you just pulled out of the oven, the dessert that you worked on for a couple of hours. And in that moment of serious temptation, you burst out with an angry word (or words). Ok, it is easy when reading to see at what point we need to stop and remind ourselves that it is not the end of the world to have your lovely dessert ruined. It is easy to remind ourselves that our kids are more important then our fancy dessert. But in the moment it is easy to let the wall fall and to keep it down so that we have no defenses. And once that wall is down there is only one way to build it again......repent of your sin. Ask God to forgive you, ask your kids to forgive. This is how you get the wall back up again.

But how do you keep the wall up? How do you build it tall and strong? Rule your spirit well. This is so broad and covers all areas of our life. Lets list a few and talk about how we can rule ourselves well. In our speech. We should stay guarded in our speech. This means that we are careful what we say and how we say it. What are you spending your time thinking about? This is one that takes great self control and self reflection. Is most of your time spent in Prayer? What you read effects what you think about. What you watch effects what you think about. So be careful about what you are reading and watching. Who are you spending time with? Are you going to Church? Are you repenting of your sin? Are you quick to forgive? This is just a little list of things to think about. Having a tall wall that can withhold temptations and keep us from sin, is the key to this proverb. And the wall is your self control. And self control comes from living in a way that is in accordance with the Scriptures. Again we see that it comes down to the basics: read your Bible, spend time in your Bible, spend time in prayer. And ask God to give you the fruits of spirit, one of them being self control. And when the wall comes down, repent quickly and walk on in faith knowing that God is faithful to do a mighty work in you!

Blessings to you as you journey on and seek to glorify God in all you do.

A Series In Proverbs

When the kids where little and home all day with me, I had a nice schedule that I kept to keep us busy, productive and cheerful. We started the day with breakfast and I always read a Bible story while the kids ate. Before the kids where allowed to leave the table, they had to say a memory verse. The majority of the verses where from Proverbs. I wrote them on note cards and kept them at the table so that we would be consistent with our verse memorization. It has proved a good idea and now that mornings are busy with school preparations, I find it amazing to find time to do anything but eat, clean, dress and run out the door. But I have been trying to reinstate our old tradition because of the fruit I have seen from it. They still know the verses and Jason and I know them as well so it is easy to call them to mind in times of great need. And we find that these times of great need occur multiple times throughout each day. I often picked verses that I needed to memorize, finding that if mom is struggling in one area you can be sure that kids are right their with her. And it taught and is teaching the kids how to meditate on Gods word. Jason has pointed out a number of times to different groups of people, that meditating on Gods word is a public practice. It is not something that is meant to be in solitude. Meditating is the art of interacting with God's word with each other. God is a Trinity and never alone; He is always in conversation, the Son with the Spirit and Father, the Father with the Son and the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Father and Son. And so we are to imitate this. You should be in the word, getting yourself familiar with the stories, the poetry, the wisdom. But you do this not to internalize it all in your private little devotion but you take in God's word so that you can pour it out on those around you. You pour it out by talking about what you read. You pour it out by asking your kids specific questions about the text so that they can take it in and pour it out. And that is the gospel preached! You want to get good at this. It is something to strive for, to do in excellence. Memorizing scriptures with your kids will give you and them wisdom. It will teach how to meditate on God's word. It will lay a foundation for them that will bless them daily.

My future posts will therefore be meditations on proverbs that I have memorized with the kids.

Happy Sweeping to you and I look forward to meditating on God's word in the book of Proverbs with you.

Cast Your Cares On Him

This week has been plagued with that great beast the stomach flu. It is still rampaging the fort and has hit Jason hard tonight. I am usually the last to fall so we will see what tomorrow holds for me. I will say that being sick has its good moments. We have been forced to stay home and have been having a great time of it amidst the occasional interruption in the form of serious vomit and clean up. And I will say that I have been up for many nights in a row. But Jason is ever helpful and I have been taking lengthy morning naps to catch up on sleep. So even though we have been sick, we have stayed cheerful and are weathering the storm with movies, wii, Trouble and lots of Gatorade. But I will also confess that I do worry about the kids when they are sick and am tempted to worry myself sick! Every cough has me springing out of bed, heart racing and I can scarcely believe how quickly I wake up and make it to their room! I think that I could win some kind of award for this!

I have been reminding myself the need to bring my worries to God and leave them their at His feet believing and knowing that he will take care of them (the kids). David cries out in the Psalms repeatedly but he always ends the same way. And that way is one of surrender and thankfulness. Jason asked the kids what they where most thankful for during this time of sickness. I loved that he asked them and it was amazing that they all responding quickly and cheerfully. As the caregiver and nurse in times of sickness, I need to ask myself the same question. What am I thankful for? I love comforting my kids. I love rubbing their backs and pulling back their hair so that it stays clean amidst the foulness. I love giving them warm baths. I love snuggling with them during a movie. I love praying with them and teaching them to weather the sick storm with cheerfulness. I love finding them something to eat that sounds good amidst the carnival ride in their stomachs. And I love that God is constantly taking care of me the same way every day!

The other thing I remind myself when they are sick, is that we are going somewhere, we are preparing for something other then this time. And that my kids really are Gods children more then they are mine. And that he cares for them more then I can! "Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven," I do not know why sickness makes me think of this verse but it does. Maybe it is because I feel how inadequate I am. Maybe it is that I see how fragile our bodies are. But that verse sticks with me when we are sick and helps me remember the journey that I am on and the journey that my children are on.

If sickness comes your way soon, try to remember amidst the caring and nursing, to be a cheerful servant. To be a comfort to your children as God is a comfort to you. To pray for them and not to worry and fuss over them. To cast all of your cares on Him and go to Him for strength and encouragement. To remember that it is all apart of the race set before you. It is all apart of the journey God is giving you and that He is right their with you.

So blessings on you as you continue sweeping and if that sweeping includes some serious cleaning supplies and sleepless nights, may God help you be faithful through it!

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!

The Great Physician

Advent is here! We are in fact in the middle of Advent. And what is Advent? Advent is a time of anticipation; anticipating the great promise of the Christ Child! This is the season of remembering the promise. Remembering what the promise of Jesus means! And we are to teach this to our children. Our children naturally love this season! It is a happy one. It is one filled with presents, good food and family. But we must pass on the good news to them as well as the gifts that we give them. And what is the good news? The world needed to be saved. We were estranged from God and at war with his creation. We were far away from Him and his people. His bride was a mess and in need of a new dress because hers had been torn and spoiled by her reckless sin. Families were at war because their hearts were far from the One who gives peace. And in this mess God sent the Word. And the Word came and dwelt with God's people. The word came to heal, to bring peace, to give new life to dry bones, to take away the dirty rags and make new ones as white as snow. To speak peace where there was no peace, to fill what was empty, to bring near what was far away. And this miracle, this babe born in Bethlehem to God's handmaiden, was promised in the garden. And it was he who was promised through every age of Israels childhood throughout the old Testament. And it is he who has given us what we have today. And Hebrews tells us that we live in a more blessed time then the saints that lived before the promise humbled himself and took on flesh. And what have we done with it? Have we been faithful with what was given to us? Have we lived in a way that is worthy of our calling? What have we told our children about this promise in the things we say and they way act towards them?
We will meditate on one aspect of Advent and try to become imitators of Jesus in our homes this Advent season. Jesus is called the great physician. He constantly heals the sick, gives sight to the blind and mends broken spirits. And this man who was born of the virgin came to heal the broken. The word came to heal: as mothers we are constantly taking care of brokenness. This brokenness may be fixed up with a band aid but more often we are talking about a broken spirit that needs mending. Jesus came to heal, to set was broken and make it whole again. The world was broken. Fellowship with God was broken, and because of this, mankind was broken. But Jesus the great physician came to heal. So how do we imitate this in our homes? Think of it like this: Your home is a tiny picture of the world. The little people in your home are your responsibility; you are the "Lord" so to speak. Sin is the great enemy that comes to destroy the ones in your home. What will you do? What did God do is always the place we should start with. God sent Jesus. And it was this Jesus who came to heal our brokenness by having his body broken! So the pattern is, sin comes and brings brokenness, the great healer comes to be broken so that we can be made whole again. The main thing to note here is that there is no wholeness without brokenness. And who is the one that was broken, JESUS! You get to imitate him in your little world. You are to be Jesus in this way to your family. When your child sins, something is broken. Now sin brings brokenness, first it severs the one sinning from God, and secondly it seperates the one who has sinned from the one the offense was against. Often our children sin against us or a sibling. So when this happens, it is our responsibility to take on the role of Christ as he took on flesh to heal our brokenness. We should be joyful imitatators of grace because of the grace we have so freely recieved! If you really understand what you have been given, then you will take great delight in giving the same gift. If you do not give grace readily and cheerfully, it is because you do not understand what has been given to you. And if you are in this place, then you need to ask God in this special time of Advent, to open your eyes and make you deeply thankful for the gift of Jesus. And remember that you did not in any way deserve this gift. If you got what you deserved, you would stay broken and estranged forever. But grace does not give what is deserved but rather transforms by giving what is not deserved! So when your little one sins, be Jesus to them. Be Jesus to them because of what He has done for you. Act in a spirit of thankfulness! Act in a spirit of self-denial, treating your child as more important then yourself. And this is what Jesus did when he took on flesh. He humbled himself, he gave himself, he healed and all so that we could be made whole again! And we are made whole so that we can have sweet fellowship with God and serve him faithfully with thanksgiving and joy in our hearts! Go forth then imitating Jesus in your homes in this awesome season of Advent!

Happy Sweeping!