Our Children will be Spiritually Hungry Today

image from arttimecollective.com

The desperate cries of these baby chicks waiting to be fed echo the silent pleas of our children for spiritual nourishment.  They ache for their souls to be satisfied with the “living water” and “bread of life” of Jesus, their Creator and Sustainer.  God has given us as parents the responsibility of tending to this need.  The way that we provide for their spiritual needs will determine whether their souls will thrive or be malnourished.

When we think about our day as a parent, we naturally think about what our children will have for breakfast, lunch and dinner unless it is provided for them at a childcare location.  In this new year, why not take time to think about your child’s spiritual meals.  What will be be on their spiritual menu today?  Will their soul be satisfied with Scripture at breakfast?  Will the concerns of their heart be addressed in prayer at lunch?  Will they have opportunity to lift their voices in praise at dinner?

If spiritual nourishment has not been a priority for your family up until now, using the example of our body’s need for physical sustenance is an easy way to introduce the concept of their souls need for spiritual sustenance.  Children will find it easier to understand the development of new mealtime habits that address their spiritual needs.  These spiritual meals don’t have to take long.  Start with just spending 5 minutes additional at a time to read a Scripture, sing a song of praise or pray together.  This year we were given a little desk calendar with a Psalm of the day on it.  You can pick one up at most grocery stores or book stores.  A child takes a turn each day to read the verse of the day.  A parent provides any explanation that is required, and it’s as simple as that.

Our children will be hungry today…what will we feed them?

What I couldn’t learn at boarding school

The face of motherhood is multi-faceted.  It changes from season to season, varies from woman to woman and situation to situation; but it seems that one thing we could all agree on is that motherhood is full of challenges both big and small.  Motherhood stretches us, many times beyond what we think we can cope.

Most of what we do as moms is difficult to outline.  We nurture, cheer, worry, walk alongside, not to mention the list of chores that go with it.  We spend much of the time wondering if we’re doing the right thing.  Oftentimes, we feel isolated and alone on this journey of parenting.  We are exhausted and worn down.

It can be easy to look at others and think that our mothering doesn’t really matter.  What progress are we making anyway?  What is so important about what we do?

As a child I spent a great deal of time separated from my family in boarding school.  It was the only school we had access to at the time, and my parents often lived in remote locations.  I learned a lot of things in boarding school.  We were taught how to read, memorize math facts, appreciate literature and to do some chores.   There were a lot of things that couldn’t be learned there though.

1.  We couldn’t learn to communicate effectively.   In programs and institutions we learn what is acceptable and unacceptable to talk about.  If what we have to contribute doesn’t fit the protocol then it is unwelcome and we just stuff it down.  Home is the place where we can let our children know that we are interested in the things that make them happy, sad, worried or afraid.  We can create an environment of safety and trust so that our children are free to be themselves, loved just as they are.

2.  We couldn’t learn how to function in a family.  Our families were scattered so the natural dynamics of having shared values, traditions and roles in relationship to one another were interrupted.   An institution could not replicate the same DNA as God gave the family.  Home is the place where we can give our children a foundation for life.  Making it a priority to be with our children communicates to them that we as parents are the ones responsible for giving them guidance and direction.

3.  We couldn’t learn  to resolve conflict in healthy ways.   We didn’t want to involve the adults around us in our squabbles so we just carried our resentments around with us.  The adults either seemed too busy or disinterested to bother with our petty problems, but unresolved hurts don’t just go away. They build up.  Home is the place where we can teach our children how to listen to each other, how to handle our anger and frustration.  It is where they can learn how to forgive as Jesus has forgiven them.  Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally to us though.  It takes engaged parents (not perfect parents) to take time to walk through the process of forgiveness over and over and over and over again.

4.  We couldn’t learn to seek the Lord.  Sure, there was Biblical instruction at boarding school, but seeking the Lord requires more than instruction.  At home we can take time with our children to show them what seeking God looks like.  We teach them how to talk with God, how to know who He is and take time to point out how He is working in our midst.

5.  We couldn’t learn our identity as a person created in God image.   God has created each of us with a desire to know what we were created for and to know what our purpose is.  In school we were just students, roommates and sometimes friends.  Home is the place for us to help our children understand that they have been “fearfully and wonderfully made.”  God blesses those who trust Him with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (1 Peter 1).  As parents we help our children to have confidence in God’s generosity toward them.

Although most of us will not be sending our children to boarding school, children are increasingly spending less time at home with their families.  This lack of time at home in the family is a developmental risk.  Many children today are not thriving, they are coping.  So when we’re wondering about whether our mothering matters, God has given us a role that no one else can replace.

Our children need us.  They need us to seek the Lord for them and with them.  When we don’t know how, we take time to learn because it matters.  Anyone can learn to seek the Lord.  Anyone can learn from other godly parents.  Will we be perfect?  We can count on the fact that we’ll mess up.  But our children desperately need us to persevere in parenting.  They need us not to give up.  God made us mothers, and He will give us what we need as we look to Him.

The Heart Checkup

He was speaking random letters into the blue and red toy stethascope around his neck.  First, he said the letters to himself.  Then, he found our dog under the dining room table to be his audience.  When he had enough of that he wandered into the kitchen where I was busy preparing lunch and asked, “How’s your heart, Mommy? Is it clean or is it dirty?”  “That’s a good question, little man.  Let’s check it,” I answered.

At three he knows that hearts are like teeth, without regular cleaning the plaque builds up.  We are unkind to each other.  We don’t listen to instructions.  We substitute other things for God.  The list could go on.  All of this just builds up on our hearts and we carry this plaque around with us everyday unless we get a cleaning.  If we leave plaque on our teeth, we will lose our teeth.  If heart plaque is left untreated, it can kill you (Romans 3:23).

Heart cleanings are different from teeth cleaning though.  There are no toothbrushes for cleaning hearts.  No one sends us a postcard in the mail to remind us that it’s time for our heart checkup either.  It’s in the “Big Boy Instructions”  as my brother would say.  As “big boys and girls” we know that when something gets dirty it doesn’t clean itself.  We have to take the responsibility to make sure that we do what is necessary to get it clean.

The good news is that heart cleanings really aren’t that complicated.  Jesus has done everything for us.  He paid for the dirt on our hearts when He spilled His blood on the cross for us and rose again from the dead three days later  (Romans 5).  The only two elements that are needed are 1) humility (being willing to see our heart as God sees it)  2)  asking Jesus to was our hearts clean from the dirt that has settled on our heart (1 John 1:9)  When we ask Jesus to forgive us of the darkness in our hearts, He washes us clean. Then when God looks at us He only sees the perfection of Jesus. These cleanings are a gift, but when we realize how much the gift costs we won’t want to take the gift lightly.  We’ll want to give Jesus our whole life.  We’ll want to make sure that our hearts cleaned daily so that our heart will be ready for Him to use.

Having a clean heart is so much more rewarding than having clean teeth.  Why not take time for your heart to be cleaned today?

14 for 2014

 

It’s the start of a New Year, and many of us our thinking about what will shape this coming  year.  Some of us are setting out goals for ourselves.  Some are thinking of the one word that they want to describe 2014.  For those who are children of God there is only one Person who can direct our thinking about a space in time.  He is the creator of time.  His Word says that He is the same “yesterday, today and forever”, He is the only good, kind, slow to anger, abounding in love, gracious, merciful, holy, true, all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere, perfect and majestic King of 2014.

As citizens of His kingdom, here are 14 things we can count on this year:

1.  We have a “lamp for our feet and a light to our path” (Ps. 119:105).

2.  We won’t lack any good thing (Psalm 23).

3.  Goodness and mercy will follow us every day (Ps. 23).

4.  “Shouting for joy to the Lord” is what we were created for (Ps.33).

5.  Our King will not abandon us (Joshua 1:5).

6.  We can be “strong and courageous” because our Lord is with us (Josh 1:9).

10. Forgiveness is available to us when we confess it to Him (1 Jn. 1:9).

11.  The Holy Spirit will empower us as we rely on Him  (John 16:13,14).

12.  There is work that has been prepared in advance for us to do  (Ephesians 2:10).

13.  When we stay connected to the vine, we will be fruitful  (John 15).

14.  When we follow Jesus, He will “make us fishers of men”  (Matthew 4:19).

We have an eternal inheritance that can never be taken away from us  (1 Peter 1:4).  Let’s press on to “take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of us.”  (Phillipians 3:14)  What we gain from living for Jesus is better than any fireworks or New Year’s Celebration…it’s heavenly, and that is something more impressive that we can ever even begin to describe.  No matter what comes our way in 2014 our God will never change, so let’s let Him define it.