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My latest post continues my discipleship journey with my kids and we talk about abiding with God.
Disciple Lesson #6:Temple Work

Patience: A Ministry of Reconciliation

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By His Grace

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By His Grace
Stacie

Home

Joining up with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. She says, ” why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing. So now on Fridays a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write without worrying if it’s just right gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Your words. This shared feast.”

HOME

START: As the Israelites journey through the desert the resounding words that led them on were 'keep My commands and remember My promises'.  God spent many chapters reminding them to keep His commands and to remember His promises. This 'keep and remember' kept them focused on their home, the promised land, the place they were to find their inheritance.
I love the journey of the Israelites because it reminds me of where we are called to find our home.  If you think of the old adage 'home is where the heart is' and put that in the context of keeping and remembering, we should find home in the Lord and His promises, as the Israelites did.  Each time they made a mistake they had to revert to that keeping and remembering.
What do we keep and remember each day?  What do I encourage my kids to keep and remember?  I desire to keep God's commands and remember what He has promised.  But what is that?  In the end it is a singular promise of eternal life for those who believe in Him.  Is that the idea of home that sustains me each day and the idea I instill into my kids so that they view home as eternal life with God? STOP

D5: The World

In Jesus' conversation with God in John 17, the third and lost priority He addresses is our need to 'love the world'.  Hmmm...kinda hard to explain to kids coming off the idea of being yoked and rooted in Jesus and with other believers.  In John 17:20-22 it says, " “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." We are called to show Jesus and His love to the world so the world will discover the plan, peace, and eternity He has in store for all who believe. So love the world? No. Be salt and light to the world? Yes.

Salt and light to a 10 and 12 year old is hard to explain and understand. The world flies in their face daily. They are faced with things I was never faced with and now they have a mom who has never experienced what they are experiencing or will experience in their lifetime. Great. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. But God is a God of victory and not disaster. I want my kids to show Jesus to people daily and they can do that by living out the fruits of the spirit, by learning to seek Him as their foundation and dwelling and by learning and establishing spiritual disciplines in their lives. Blah, blah, blah, their faces glazed over as I  have said all that before and said it often.

What I have been faced with lately is an overwhelming number if conversations and comments about the teenage years. I am a year away from that ominous age thirteen. But in my naivety I believe that the teenage years don't all have to be bad. Do all teenagers hate their parents? Are all teenagers impossible to live with? If we are really to fly in the face of the world and be different than the world but live in the world, can't we challenge that paradigm?

So in light of the conversation about loving the world versus finding inheritance in the world, I challenged my kids. We have talked about teenagers and the societal expectation of hardship as a result of the age. I challenged them to show that they are different by being different teenagers. What if a whole generation of teenagers got along with their parents, talked with their parents, worked through issues using the love of Christ with their parents? I do believe that we can speak things into being, especially when they are circled in scripture and prayer. So, let's see what happens. I will continue to challenge my children to be different teenagers and I may end up with the proverbial egg on my face or I may end up with a glorious relationship that is only supplied by God. Either way, it will be a learning experience and I will be on my knees.

By His Grace

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

Joining up with Lisa-Jo for Five Minute Friday. She says, ” why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing. So now on Fridays a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write without worrying if it’s just right gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Your words. This shared feast.”

ORDINARY

Here goes: God calls ordinary people to do extraordinary things.  He is the God of ordinary to extraorindary.  If we trust Him.  Do we leave enough room in our lives for Him to talk, to transform, to lead our children?  Do we have quiet time that allows us to reflect and listen to His voice. I find that when I simplify my life, make it more ordinary, then He, in His wisdom transforms the ho hum to extraordinary. 
Just last week my son and I were sharing a story about his friend that walks through the school's carpool line without looking for my car.  My son and I were laughing about it, then, out of the mouth of babes he says the following: Mom, my friend not looking for your car is like us not looking for God, even though He is there and waiting for us we do not look for him in our lives and He continues to sit and wait and then He even has to track us down sometimes.
Ordinary to extraordinary.  What a blessing God gave me in that moment.  He desires a relationship with us but we need to take the moments and hours to develop that relationship so we can be in tune with Him.  As we prepare for the ordinary, He creates the extraordinary.  I am excited to see what He does with my ordinary day of carpools, projects, and as much quiet time as I can get.  STOP

Check Your Yoke

Yokes can be heavy or light, positive or negative based on what the yoke is or what you are yoked with.  Jesus promises that His yoke is easy and His burden is light in Matthew 11:30.  But there are times when we dot not choose that easy, light yoke and instead choose the yoke of the world.
As promised, we had an 'awesome' example in our house of being yoked together and how that can take us over. If you have read my blog frequently you have probably gotten the impression that my son, Cole, tends to be an introspective and sensitive boy. He loves God and has some deep thoughts and ideas about his own walk.

Well, this boy also LOVES handball. He had, notice past tense, a goal of playing as much handball at school as possible while honing his skills on a wall at our house after school hours. Recently, by way of another mother, I found out that Cole had been in the vice-principal's office. Whoa is right! At Cole's school as it was at mine, the principal's office equals good and the vice-principal's office equals bad. The story was shocking to me, not only had he gotten in trouble but he had neglected to tell me about it. So here's what ensued...

Cole had taken to playing handball with a group of boys that had, shall we say, a different spirit and mode of behavior that Cole has previously exhibited, but, they played some good handball. The words this group were exchanging on the handball court were inappropriate and flew in the face of what should be exchanged at a Christian school.  After cooling my jets, I talked to Cole.

Once I got the story from him I asked, "How did it feel when Joey (code name) called you a ____?"  He said, "It was fine."  Ugh!  Cole had become desensitized to the behavior of these boys and had joined in and taken on the actions of the group. Talk about being yoked and rooted! God provided an amazing situation to have a conversation about how easily Cole had transformed from what we know him to be into something foreign to those of us that live with him. Then together we came up with a remediation solution.

I share all this because I desire that you, as biblical parents, would continue to talk to your kids about their priorities. What is our goal anyway as parents? How can we point them to God and have them listen for His voice? Our yoke and roots influence our actions and behavior. God provides the content in His word and the situations in our lives to follow Him, but do we? Or do we become like the group? We just have to seek, watch, and take each moment as an opportunity. What a privilege that God tagged Cole and taught him such a valuable lesson. I pray the same for your kids.

By His Grace