Category Archives: Children

Children, Encouragement, History, Issues of the Day, Parents, Prayer

The Ache of a Godly Parent

I discovered a long time ago when I worked as a social worker and later as a family and marriage counselor that some good children come from not-so-good homes and some not-so-good children can come from good homes. There simply are no guarantees. 

While we do our best to raise our children to love and to serve God, as they age, it becomes their decision. We hope and pray the seeds sown take root. 

Monica had a son named Augustine. He spent his teenage and youthful adult years seeking sinful desires and rejecting his mother’s Christian faith. Monica asked her bishop to speak with her son and his reply was, “It is impossible that the son of so many tears should perish.” He refused to speak to the young man. 

But one day in his Roman garden, God spoke to Augustine and said, “Take and read.” Suddenly God’s word was opened up to him and he began to see the promises of Christ and his own sinfulness. He shared his radical conversion with his mother and nine days later, with ecstatic joy in her heart, she died. 

Today we all know of Saint Augustine, one of the most influential believers mentioned in church history.

Maybe you can identify with this mother as you sow tears of sorrow and deep prayers of faith. Trust God to speak to your son or daughter in the garden of their life. He will speak. He is speaking.

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, Issues of the Day, Parents

Controlling the Temperature of Our Homes

We set thermostats to control the temperature in our homes, but as parents we are to maintain a type of temperature control as well. Parents are called to be thermostats, setting the temperature within the environment of their home. What does that mean?

Parents determine if the environment of their home will be fun, full of laughter, peace-filled, quiet, warm or loud, out of control, and lacking grace. They determine if their home will be a refuge or a place to avoid. Parents determine the family interaction, the authenticity of the home and how much time is spent on electronic devises. 

I recently heard a speaker state that our homes are not generating memories because families are staying in the here and now with social media at its center rather than family communication through games, devotions, storytelling and extended family interactions. Parents must control TV-watching, video game-playing, and how often family members isolate themselves in their rooms. 

The pace of the world today is frantic, but you can control that pace within your home and family. Kids do not need to play every sport or participate in every school activity. Your children need to become bored enough at times so they discover their own form of play, imagination, interaction, reading and innovation. Send your kids outside to find a stick, play at the creek, hunt worms, build things, do a work project, play freeze tag or play flashlight tag at night. 

Making memories with your children will be dinner conversations for the rest of their lives around your table and someday around their table. 

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Challenge, Children, Marriage, Men, Parents, Women

Having Small Children and Finding Intimacy as a Couple

Oh those little ones with insatiable needs. Let’s face it; you are tired when you finally get them down and find your bed for yourself. Your last thought is intimacy with your spouse. It’s a given.

God gave us sexual intimacy to have children; don’t let that same gift steal romance from within your marriage relationship. 

Mothers have to battle the temptation to allow their small children to steal their loyalty away from their husband. Those long days of responsibility in caring for children or working fulltime outside the home can cause a slow drifting away from the needs of her spouse. In fact, most moms will prioritize the needs of their children over the needs of their spouse–right or wrong. After all, her children can be helpless and her husband is an adult.

Here is the problem. Women can be totally fulfilled in being a mother, nurturing her children. It’s satisfying and it can create a sense of fulfillment experiencing the overpowering gratification of mothering. Moms are made for these moments.

But there is something missing from this formula. While God created you to care for and love your children, He also created you to care for and love your husband in all ways. He can’t be left with feeling like he is competing with the kids. He must know he is a priority to you. A priority as in someday the children will leave home. In fact, they are given to you to leave. Your husband is not given to you to leave, but to stay. He is your life mate, life lover, life partner and life friend.

So, return to nurturing each other once again. Yes, the children will always have needs, but so will your spouse. Nurturing one another is not any less important than caring for your children. 

What are some ways that you as a couple can keep romance alive, even while the children are small and have neverending needs?

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Challenge, Children, Issues of the Day, Parents, Training

What Are Your Goals in Parenting?

Do your children have the best, most stylish clothing? Are your children playing a sport twelve months out of the year? Are they attending the best schools? Are they applying to the best universities or working at well-paying, highly respectable jobs? 

I think we lose our vision for having children sometimes as they compare themselves among their peers and as parents do the same. Too many parents are living their lives vicariously through their children today. Too many parents think that things and stuff or more activity is what their children need. Too often parents feel that giving their children what they didn’t have somehow justifies always saying yes. 

But listen to what Deuteronomy 6:2 says, “That you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands…” Where is the best place for our children to learn this? In our homes, around our dinner table, or when putting them to bed at night. Your home is to reflect something so much bigger, so much more important than the things mentioned above. Children who receive and then who walk in a godly legacy will be the best hope for the world around them. 

Parenting is a sacred calling, a full-time job, a place honored and created by God. It’s a place to advance God’s kingdom. There is a biblical precedent to walk in this calling to the very best of our ability. It is not how much money a family has; how large their house is or how many toys and electronics kids have but rather how much of God is present in the home. 

If we fail to train our children to love and serve God, then our children will live life without God and that’s a scary place to be for anyone.

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Challenge, Children, Issues of the Day, Parents, Training

Rebellion in Our Hearts

Rebellion in our hearts or in the heart of a young person is never attractive. It is born out of resistance. And while there may be good causes for acts of resistance, a rebellious heart is often closed to change, closed to reason and closed to correction. (See Proverbs 13:1, 18; 15:10.) 

Rebellion has a main ingredient that travels with it: pride. A pride-filled heart will lead us into rebellion, because at its core it is the act of defending ourselves, our thoughts and our actions, be they right or wrong.

Having been a rebellious teenager and having a rebellious teenager does not make one an expert, but it does afford certain observations. (See Proverbs 17:25.) If we are astute enough to recognize our own heart or the heart of a child, rebellion can be addressed. 

Consider these four causes of rebellion:

  1. When rules and regulations are strictly enforced through a spirit of legalism, often rebellion is an end result. Love is absent in these types of relationships or at the least, not spoken and/or not felt.
  2. Rebellion can be an attempt to separate through resistance from family members like parents, siblings or bosses.
  3. When one engages and relates with other rebellious persons, the influence will be difficult to overcome. It will force an alignment with the group’s rebellious words and actions.
  4. Wanting all authority to lead one’s own life without the ability to take on all responsibility will foster rebellion. Often teenagers desire all authority to make their own decisions but since they cannot take all responsibility, that authority cannot and should not be fully given.

Since Genesis chapter three, rebellion is found in the human heart and detected even at very early ages. It was mankind’s desire to do it his way. We were created to live in the perfection of a Genesis one and two world by God, but when we chose to rebel we found ourselves in a fallen, Genesis three, sin-filled world.

It was God’s heart to place mankind in a perfect garden, a perfect world with perfect relationship and by Genesis chapter three, God giving us choice, we chose to disobey. That disobedience caused a separation from our Creator and now thousands of years later we still suffer the consequences of wanting our own way, outside of God’s way. (See Proverbs 21:30.)

If we are rebelling against God or His written word, we are emphatically saying our way is a better way or, we think we know better than God knows. Those thoughts reek of pride. (See Proverbs 18:12.) We are saying to God, “I want all authority over my life.” And here is the strange thing about that: God will let you have it. There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death (Proverbs 14:12).

And you will be one miserable human being, quickly coming to the end of yourself. That’s the thing about rebellion: it is building a wall of separation, a wall that closes oneself off to input and a wall that stunts personal growth. It’s your wall, you’re in charge of it and you’re in control. It’s dangerous and it will become disastrous. (See Proverbs 16:25.)

If we sense any rebellion in our heart, we need to give up. Surrender. Leave selfish desires. Leave selfish ambitions and give our thoughts and actions to God, asking Him to shape our heart toward His. 

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, History, Issues of the Day

Two Days Until Christmas

Brief thoughts leading up to the celebration of Christ’s birth and a Christmas carol, Drummer Boy.

Drummer boys. Were they there playing a drum solo for Mary and the baby that night? Doubtful, but drums are still my favorite instrument and I’d love to have played for Him.

A new born King to see

Pa rum pum pum pum, 

Our finest gifts we bring…

What gifts do you bring? Gold prices are up; that’s a great gift. Diamonds are still pretty meaningful and pricey. 

But those are not the gifts He’s looking for. He was sent to earth to dwell in you. Bring Him your best gift: you.

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, History, Issues of the Day

Three Days Until Christmas

Brief thoughts leading up to the celebration of Christ’s birth and a Christmas carol.

He was there, creating. The first book of the Bible, the first chapter reveals, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” 

Imagine then a seed would fall from heaven and be planted in a young teenage girl’s womb not yet given in marriage–an incarnate One. 

Imagine the One who made the mountains and the oceans, the sky and the multiple variations of life on the earth would come and dwell on that earth in human form.

Imagine this One as a child growing up like you and me, learning a trade from his earthly father. 

Imagine the bewilderment of those around Him marveling at His intellect and uncanny wisdom. 

Imagine His baptism and those affirming words spoken from heaven before His ministry would begin, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am pleased.” 

Imagine this One healing the leper or the blind man who then went leaping with joy.

Imagine His deep anguish in the garden, His stripes received on the whipping post, His body thrown on a splinter-filled wooden cross with His flesh torn to the bone. 

Imagine the joy of His resurrection!

Imagine that, “…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Colossians 2: 10, 11)

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Children, Encouragement, History, Just for fun

Four Days Until Christmas

Brief thoughts leading up to the celebration of Christ’s birth and a special Christmas song for you.

“A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!” It was a Holy Night just as Isaiah the prophet prophesied 900 years earlier: “For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.” (Isaiah 9:6, 7)

There is no peace greater than the peace of Christ in the heart of man. There is no greater government, no other Son given, no better counselor and certainly nothing close to everlasting life without Him.

He is The Prince of Peace for every need you face this Christmas. Call on His Name. Nothing and no one comes close to His love, His acceptance, His approval and His security.

O Holy Night

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, Just for fun

Finding a Camera with Sixty-Year-Old Film in It

While my wife was cleaning out our attic, among tha many boxes (some that were not opened since moving from our first apratment) she came across an old Kodak camera that was mine when I was a young child. Fiddling around with it, I opened the film compartment and discovered a roll of finished film still in place. It had been waiting to be developed for 60 years!

At first I thought I would throw it away knowing it had been exposed to extreme cold and heat in our attic. But then my curiosity got the best of me and my wife and I decided to take it to the local drug store who told us they could in fact develop the film. 

Two weeks later and $18.00 less in my checking account, exactly eight pictures survived. Can you believe it? I was astounded.

They were black and white. There were several pictures of my Collie dog, Lady, and an unnamed cat. There was a picture of my mother on the phone located in our kitchen. It was an old-style black phone connected to a “party line.” (Meaning multiple parties were on the same phone line and if one party was talking you could not use your phone to make your call until they hung up.) 

There was a picture of my neighbor who was younger than me. And there was a picture of our camper trailer parked in a campground somewhere in Pennsylvania. 

I began to think about finding that film and what has transpired since those photos were taken by me as a very young boy. I thought about:

-All of the time that has transpired since those pictures were taken (six decades) and where life has taken me.

-How my heavenly Father has protected me, walked with me, blessed me and provided for me.

-How He has worked in my family since I received my Savior at age 17.

But, my most profound thought from this unusual find was regardless of age, time and life passing by, what has been hidden has a way of surfacing eventually and it will be exposed.

Jesus said, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight.” (Luke 12:2,3)

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Challenge, Children, Encouragement, History, Identity, In the news, Issues of the Day

We Do Love Independence!

I was thinking about independence and how much we love this word and all it represents. We can move to become independent rather quickly. After all, isn’t that what we spent 18 years training our children to become? Then one day they attempt to be independent of us and we want to hold them back because we don’t like their attitude or some such thing.

I can still remember my teenage boys pushing to become independent of their mother. They actually practiced not listening to her or at the very least looking like they were not listening as she followed behind them telling them what she thought they ought do. 

There is something inside of us that speaks to not desiring to be told what to do because that’s not independence. It feels like hovering or maybe even smothering to us. So we say to our wives, “Yes, yes, yes, I hear you.” Or to our husbands, “Are you listening to me?” Or to our wives, “I’m serious when I say this.” Or to our husbands, “You must be joking.” We’ve been longing for independence since Genesis chapter three. Our fallen nature thinks we can do it; we can be self-dependent, not needing others. 

But the actual truth is every day we need others. We need our mechanic to fix our car. We need our boss to keep us employed. We need our church family to help us lead. We need our spouse to look out for us and to help us find things we’ve lost. Daily, we need others.

But more than anything or anyone, we need God. We are wholly dependent upon the Spirit of God to lead us, cover us, answer our prayers and speak God’s direction to us. We are never really independent of others. We certainly do not want to be independent of God. So let’s truthfully acknowledge our need for Him and of those He has placed in our lives. 

I saw this “need” pictured in a scripture I read the other day. “Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother (Philemon), have refreshed the hearts of the saints…that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ.” Philemon 7, 20b

Be refreshed this Independence Day and bring refreshment to others by loving them!

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