Wise Children

Recently I read a popular book that’s been pretty controversial. As I read through it I found some good points and thoughts from the author, as well as many statements that didn’t align with Scripture. In fact, there were quite a few things the author claimed as truth that simply aren’t.

But the book is well-written, and some false statements are close enough to being correct that they sound good. It got me thinking about how my kids will process the information they read and hear.

How will they know what’s accurate and what’s not? How will they avoid lies and things that will lead them in the wrong direction?

Many times parents and other well-meaning adults try to control every aspect of a child’s life. We try to shelter our kids from bad things, from lies, from things that will lead them astray. Certainly there is wisdom in that to some degree, but there also can be danger in trying to control so much.

Though my kids are young and I don’t have the experience of others, I have seen a method that works and is Biblical. Instead of trying to oversee everything related to your children, give them the tools to do it themselves. To weigh pros and cons, to determine whether something is right or wrong, to ask questions and come to reasonable conclusions.

We can teach our children how to figure things out for themselves. It may sound tedious, and I’m sure at times it is -- but their foundation on the Word of God is essential. They need to know His Word just as we do.

In our own lives, we strive to learn and grow in Christ, do we not? How do we do that apart from knowing Him through Scripture? (Answer: we don’t.)

So just as we learn how to navigate life and obstacles through God’s Word, we ought to do the same with our kids. Teach them Scripture, and teach them what the verses mean. Have them memorize it and hide it in their hearts, so that they can refer to it and understand the depth of its meaning over time. I am a testimony to this; I memorized Scripture in kindergarten that has stuck with me since, and over the years I have learned more about what those passages mean. Just because they don’t understand it at age 4 doesn’t mean it’s not worth memorizing.

When your kids have questions about things from their day, things they read or hear or see, enter into their world. Talk about it. Work it through with them. Help them get from A to B mentally, but don’t do it all for them. If you can be the assistant while they learn the decision-making and how to implement wisdom, they will be equipped to do it on their own later.

I don’t know about you, but having children who are capable of keeping a solid head on their shoulders and the Lord as the leader of their steps sounds like an incredible gift. Ask the Lord for wisdom and guidance to teach your kids, and be diligent to do the work. The outcome isn’t guaranteed, but ladies, as Christians we have the responsibility of raising our children in the way of the Lord. It’s never too early to be serious about doing so!

Written by Amy Parsons.

Sharing the Load

People always ask me how I do everything. Truth is, I don't! This guy right here literally carries the load.😉

Let me share with you a few things we do as a couple that has helped us stay strong in our marriage:

1) Think the best of one another, not the worst.

2) He gives me back-massages, which always leads to mutual intimacy.😉

3) Be a team player. Share the load. Literally.

4) If you're frustrated about something, speak up in a kind way, after the kids have gone to bed and you've had a few minutes to chill first.

5) Being opposites helps balance us out in a good way. Otherwise I would be broke, and he never would have had the courage to pursue his dreams.😉 (P.S. he's still getting there.)

6) Let him take out the trash, and you put the trash bag in. Otherwise, you will always be irritated that he forgot.😁

7) Speak his love language. He loves acts of service. So do it. And let him know what you love in return and he will do it too. Stop hinting and just be blunt with how you love to be loved. This isn't Hollywood, this is real life and a thriving relationship takes honest communication.

8) Pray together. It's amazing the intimacy and peace that is brought when you open up spiritual intimacy in your marriage.

What about you? What do you do to keep your marriage alive and thriving?

Originally posted on Facebook by Rachel Swanson. Used with permission.

Women, We Need His Word: A Plan for the Hungry and Busy

The idea was so simple it almost doesn’t count as one. Let’s eat God’s word. Together. At a fast but reasonable pace. Let’s encourage one another to get over whatever obstacles stopped us in the past. We want to become women of his word, not women who dabble in it occasionally.

Last fall, we settled on a pace of six chapters a day — some Old Testament and some New Testament, pairing books like Leviticus and Hebrews together, and matching psalms we could to the historic context in which they were written. We wrote catch-up days into the plan (because we have regular lives with regular interruptions). We would get through the whole Bible in the academic year with around 20–30 minutes of reading each day and none on Sundays.

We prayed that God would use our plan to ignite a love of his word in other women too. The project has grown beyond all of our ideas — spreading quickly far beyond our own community and even into other languages. Thousands of women have joined in over the last year. We like to say we are a theologically diverse group, but literally on the same page.

Time to Eat

We need God’s word more than we need food. We are strengthened by it. We are equipped for every good work through it. We can trust that where God sends out his word in our lives, it will not return to him void. It will accomplish the thing for which he sent it.

We’ve simply come to feast. We have all been invited. There is a place prepared by a loving Father for each of us. The food is abundant, endless, nourishing, restoring, perfect, and occasionally confusing. The task is simple. Eat it. Be filled. Do it again. Do it forever. Enjoy the bounty before you — enjoy what your Father has done for you and said to you. Trust the Master of this feast, and enjoy the table fellowship.

But many of us are not in our chairs. We’re under the tables, scavenging for crumbs dropped by the “good eaters” at the table — famous bloggers, Christian teachers, great preachers. We can find enough crumbs at their feet to survive, maybe even live well, but we wouldn’t be obeying God. There is a place with your name on it, a book for you to eat. Get up and eat. Do not be satisfied with crumbs, because your Father is not satisfied with that for you.

Why We Don’t Read

Many Christians are not eating at all. They are busy. They don’t have a quiet life. Often they are not eating simply because they are on a streak of not eating and breaking it seems hypocritical. I cannot eat dinner when I did not have breakfast or lunch! Many Christians quit reading their Bible when they feel like they have failed in some way.

Lost track, fell behind in a plan, didn’t understand, not good enough, forgot. Better wait for a new year, and try to be a better person then. Whatever reason you have, it isn’t good enough. Lay down your pride, and take up your fork. This is the continuing feast. The feast you should never leave, and that is yours to enjoy forever. You are never behind if you are eating today.

Others think you have not taken a bite unless you understand everything about it. As though the word of God is only powerful when we have weighed and measured it, attempted to label all the ingredients, taken voluminous notes, and gone to several lectures about it. We don’t approach this meal that way. There is a time for food science, but it is not at the dinner party. This is our time to simply eat.

Still others have been persuaded that the only way to eat is first thing in the morning in silence. They will not eat unless conditions are perfect, and conditions in this life are rarely perfect. But we always need to eat. We need to learn to take bites with crazy background noise, a squirming baby on our lap, and raucous laughter at the table.

Learn to Eat

It isn’t complicated, but it can be hard. We all face resistance from three directions. The world distracts, the flesh is weak, and the devil accuses. “Do anything but eat!” says the world. “Do something easier! Try Netflix!” says the flesh. “You aren’t good enough anyways and will never succeed! Just remember last time you tried,” says the devil.

Your answer to all three should simply be, “Watch me eat.” We are a scrappy group. We listen on our phones, jump in on the current day’s reading when we get behind, read while standing at the stove making dinner or while nursing babies. We encourage one another to confess sin but despise lingering guilt. When we don’t understand what we read, we do not worry about it — we will be back soon.

The Bible Reading Challenge is a movement of thousands of hungry women enjoying God’s word together. The challenge begins tomorrow, September 11, and runs through the school year. If you are ready to eat, you can learn more information or download the reading plan.

What we are becoming through the grace of God is an enormous party. Women laughing together, eating together, rejoicing in our God together. Cheering when our favorite courses come in again, and rejoicing with one another as we see the results of this perfect food in our lives. This past year we celebrated with many women as they read their whole Bible for the first time, some of them thirty or forty years into their Christian walk. It was time to learn to eat.

Is it your time to learn? Whatever strategy or plan you choose, find a couple women and decide together that you will refuse not to read the Bible this year.

Originally written by wife and mom of seven, Rachel Jankovic, for Desiring God. Used with permission.

25 Scriptures to Pray For Your Family

Prayer in and of itself is powerful. When you combine it with scripture, well, let’s just say you should be prepared to see some mighty things happen.

It is very important to pray for your family and for each family member, because right now our families are under attack. Satan is seeking to destroy the family unit, and we are constantly bombarded with the world’s views of what a family can look like, so that we can easily lose sight of how God intended our families to be. God created our families to be a holy unit, one in which He is priority, in which the husband and wife lovingly live out their God-given roles in marriage, and the children are obedient to their parents. Once we get our own families in alignment with God’s desired order for families, I think we’ll see God do mighty things in our churches, in our nation, and around the world. But it starts with us, in our own homes and within our own families.

Praying scripture is powerful because:

• God gave us His word and He wants us to pray. When you combine the two spiritual disciplines of reading the Word and praying by praying scripture, it will help you apply God’s word to your life while growing deeper in your prayer life.

• Praying scripture honors God by using His own words to praise Him and pray to Him.

• We tend to pray for things WE want, but praying scripture will help align your desires with what HE wants. And when our desires are aligned, that’s when we’re most likely to see God move powerfully in our prayers.

Feel free to print out this list of scriptures to pray for your family. Personalize the scriptures while you pray them with the specific things your family needs in that area. You may even want to consider focusing on only one Scripture to pray each day, making it a month long praying scripture challenge.

And so without any further ado:

Scriptures to Pray For Your Family

1. Pray that your family would always be submitted to God, that God would be its chief builder and protector. “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain.” Psalm 127:1

2. Pray that every member of your family would love the Lord. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:30

3. Pray that your family would be one who would be dedicated to serve the Lord. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15

4. Pray that your family would value God as priority in your lives and conversations. “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7

5. Pray for protection for every member of your family. “If you make the Most High your dwelling-even the LORD who is my refuge–then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Psalm 91:9-12

6. Pray for your marriage, that you would always remember it is a holy covenant to be treasured and nurtured. “God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.” Mark 10:6-9

7. Pray for your husband, that he would be the provider and protector of the home God created him to be. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Genesis 2:15

8. Pray for your role in the home and within your family. “Train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God.” Titus 2:4-5

9. Pray that you and your husband would lovingly embrace your role in your marriage. “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church…Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.” Ephesians 5:22-28

10. Pray that regardless of what challenging life circumstances you are facing, you will face them together with your husband. “Then Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.” Ruth 2:18

11. Pray that as parents you would wisely love, teach and train your children. “Do not exasperate your children, instead bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

12. Pray that your children would grow as Jesus did, “in wisdom and in stature, and in favor of God and man.” Luke 2:52

13. Pray that your children would grow in obedience. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Ephesians 6:1-3

14. Pray that every member of your family would experience health. “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” 3 John 1:2

15. Pray that when there is conflict among family members, you would remember Satan is the enemy, not the family member. “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:11-12

16. Pray that each member of your family would grow in every fruit of the spirit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22

17. Pray that each member of your family would grow in love toward one another. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 4-8

18. Pray that each family member would be forgiving. “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32

19. Pray that each member of your family would grow in understanding, “turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding–indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 2:2-5

20. Pray that your family would be devout and generous, like Cornelius. “He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; they gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.” Acts 10:2

21. Pray that each member of your family would be surrounded by good, godly friends. “There are ‘friends’ who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.” Proverbs 18:24

22. Pray that your family would always be thankful for blessing, “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:20

23. Pray for each member of your family’s minds, that their thoughts would be fixed on healthy, godly things. “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

24. Pray that your home and each member of your family would be filled with peace. “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places; in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” Isaiah 32:17-18

25. And finally, pray that your family would flourish and be blessed. “He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”

Originally written by Jenn of Embracing Life.