More on Proverbs 22:6

Proverbs 22: 6 “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

I started a series of lessons on this verse last week and will add a short idea this week. I am getting things ready for a trip and so my time is limited. I just want to repeat a thought that I wrote about several weeks ago relating to “the fear of the Lord”. I believe it fits in this series concerning in what areas our children need training so “that when he is old he will not depart from it”. I have come across a couple of verses that I think are pertinent to this topic, so I would like to add those to what I wrote in the previous lesson.

The first lesson in this series was concerning making sure that your children understand their need of Salvation and making sure that they are born again at a young age. Actually, “the fear of the Lord” may be a great thing for them to understand even before they are born again as this may get them to thinking about where they are and whether they are happy with their standing before God. If they aren’t familiar with “the fear of the Lord” before they are saved, then it would be a good thing to cover as soon as possible.

The first verse is in Proverbs 15:33 (NLT). “Fear of the Lord teaches wisdom…” And the second one is Proverbs 16:6. “…By fearing the Lord, people avoid evil.” As I read these two verses, I became even more motivated to teach the fear of the Lord to everyone, but especially to our children There is great reward for fearing the Lord and if we desire for our children to be wise and to avoid evil, then we need to take steps to be sure that they learn this concept. It is very evident that they will not learn this from the culture, so again, Moms, it is up to you and your husband to teach these concepts.

Live it before them as an example. Teach them the Scripture. Make sure that they understand that besides “God is love”, there is “God is just” and let them know that sin brings consequences! God will not play the “blame game” that so many are getting away with in our culture. They will be standing before God one day and they need to know that now so they can be ready!

I will be away from the computer for a couple of weeks. Trust you are having a great summer. I will be back soon!

Training Your Children - Part 2

Wow!!! We have been on a whirlwind summer! It has been wonderful and fun, but so very busy!!! Last weekend we were able to have our annual family camping trip in Southern Indiana. Our whole family met there at the Mounds State Recreation Area and we camped for three wonderful days! On Friday we took our whole family to the new “Answers in Genesis” Museum and it was a wonderful experience! Even the little ones, age 3 and 5, enjoyed it and it kept their interest! It is well worth the trip to go and see it! If you have any questions about it, feel free to write to me and ask. It was a real encouragement to see the whole picture of Creation to the Cross and on to the coming events and see how everything fits! Take it in if you can!

Now I will continue the discussion on training your children. Last time I covered the topics of teaching and training your children. Some of what I go over today will give direction to those endeavors. The first topic I want to cover relates to correcting and disciplining them. Proverbs has many verses concerning correcting your children, but the first verse I want to mention is Proverbs 22:15 where it says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.” (There is NO room for any kind of child abuse here and there is NO suggestion that there be any kind of permanent damage done.) The idea behind this verse is that God knows that spanking is sometimes needful and usually a very effective form of discipline and He even created a place on the body of your children where He intends for that to take place! (Other verses for you to look up are Proverbs 13:24; 19:18; 23:13; 29:17) Punishment should never take place just because your children embarrassed or frustrated you, but because of an offense to God! Childishness should not be punished unless it is a result of disobedience or some other offense to God or if it is something that could bring harm to themselves or others. And children should always know why they are being punished! And of course, all punishment should be given lovingly and consistently.


The next responsibility I will discuss is for you to cherish your children. I believe this has somewhat of a different connotation than loving your children. In I John 2, I was noticing that several times, John used the endearing term, “My little children”. That sounded like a term that meant he really cared for and cherished them! Your children need to know that they are VERY loved and taken care of! However you communicate to them, there should be times when you speak lovingly and just very tenderly to them of your love and their value to you. Following close behind that idea as the fact that one way you can demonstrate how much you cherish them is to listen and pay close attention when they speak to you! (Proverbs 27:23 and 29:15) And you need to know each child well enough to know when and where is their favorite place of communicating with you. You need to look at them when they are talking with you so that they can feel the security of knowing that they have your full attention. Don’t let the phone or anything else disrupt that time. You need to set aside all other things at some point each and every day to listen to your children. And if at all possible, be there when your children come home from school or other major activities in their lives. If they do their “talking” with the baby sitter, you may never hear what is going on in their lives and find out the things that are important to them. It is such a heartache when I hear parents say something of this nature; “My child was on drugs while he was living in my home and I didn’t know it!” That shouldn’t happen if you are accomplishing Biblical parenting.

Next week I will continue on this thought and suggest some thoughts concerning getting to know and understand and shepherding your child’s heart. Have a great week and I think I am home for the duration now, so there shouldn’t be as many interruptions.

Teach the Young Women to be Obedient to Their Own Husbands

This is a very “new and unique” topic in this present culture! However, it is not unique to God who created male and female and established the rules of how marriage was intended to be!

First of all, notice that it says to be “obedient to their OWN husbands”. This takes us back to our earlier discussion concerning whether women should place themselves under the authority of men who are not their “own” husband in the work place. It is particularly crucial if the other man is going to be requiring time and allegiance that belongs only to your husband. I believe that this gives credence to my earlier statement that women ought to consider this before they take a job outside the home and avoid this circumstance if at all possible!

Now we get to the topic of obedience. This is a bit hard to describe as we live in a culture where these role issues are very distorted and we don’t have a good picture of what this means. Basically, God meant for the relationship between husband and wife to be one big picture, but sin entered in and everything went haywire! God meant for the husband to love his wife as Christ loves the Church and gave Himself for her (Ephesians 5:25). With that in mind, God gave women the responsibility to submit (obey) to the leadership of her husband (Ephesians 5: 22 and Titus 2:5). However, most husbands don’t know what it means to really love their wives as Christ loves the Church and that makes it very difficult for a wife to submit to her husband. Some husbands think that to obey means that he rules and she is his door mat. Husbands in this culture aren’t being encouraged to be the loving Spiritual leaders of their wives, so in some cases the wife must make her own way and the family submits to her. There are so many issues here, and I am not prepared to confront them all, but I do want to speak to women and I pray that God will use this lesson in your life in whatever circumstance you might find yourself.

Basically, I believe that God designed marriage and that He knows how it works best. He knows that someone must be in charge and someone must follow. He gave it to the husband to be the leader and the wife is to follow. His intention was for the husband to love his wife and lead her in a loving and gentle way and for the wife to respond with loving submission. When sin came into the world, things changed drastically and mankind has never recovered. However, God repeated His design for marriage in the New Testament and it is to be our lifelong desire and goal to obey His desires in this area. God used the example of a marriage relationship as His picture to the world of how much He loves the Church and gave His Son for the Church (Ephesians 5:25). It is therefore VERY important for us as Christians to present to the world an undistorted picture of marriage where the husband loves his wife and she lovingly submits for a lifetime.

As none of us is perfect, we must daily make course corrections in order to keep the picture pure. If we have a husband who is not fulfilling his part of the plan, we must pick up the slack and do the best we can to still respond in a Godly manner. God does not let us off the hook at that point, but He tells us to stay with our husband and do everything we can to win him for the Lord. So, if you have a Godly husband who loves you in a Christ-like way, praise the Lord and do everything you can to keep him happy and to submit to him in a loving manner. If you don’t have a husband who is loving you as Christ loved the Church, then lovingly submit to him anyway and pray for him and do everything you can do to let him see the love of God in you! Remember: You can only control your own attitude and that is your responsibility! God is at work and He will do the work that needs to be done in your husband and He may very well use you to help accomplish that, so be sure you are up to and ready for that task!

I will be away from the computer for a couple of weeks now, so I pray that you are all having a great summer! When I get back, I will start a new series as this pretty well finishes Titus 2. “Talk” to you soon!

Loving Your Children - Part VI

Discipline Your Children (continued)

In the last entry, I talked about reaching your child’s heart in your discipline. It is very important in all of your child rearing days that your goal is to reach your child’s heart. Discipline and training that is expressly for the purpose of changing behavior without reaching the heart is pretty ineffective in the big picture of discipline.

One point that I wanted to add to last week’s discussion, is to dispel the idea that is pervasive in today’s culture and that is the whole idea of “time outs” or what we used to call “grounding”, especially for young children. Now I don’t have any Bible verses that say that this type of discipline is not effective, but from my own personal experience and from seeing what happens in homes where this type of discipline is regularly practiced, I want to say that in general this type of discipline is pretty ineffective. First of all, though Scripture doesn’t say not to use the other, it does definitely come down in favor of physical discipline. Proverbs 13:24 says. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him (his son) chasteneth him betimes (promptly NKJV).” This verse pretty much rules out long stretched out forms of discipline. Punishment needs to be swift and the relationship needs to be reinstated. When discipline is administered properly, there is a sense of a broken relationship that the child needs to have repaired as soon as possible. If there is a prolonged form of punishment, then it is that much longer before the relationship can be fully restored. One other principle has to do with the idea that as parents we get tired and we can get distracted in our goal and we can easily back off on following through with a long drawn out punishment. This sends the wrong signal to the children. It is usually better with young children to discipline with something that gets over soon and allows the relationship to resume normally.

Discipline, of course, involves more than physical punishment. Discipline involves teaching and training as well. You need to spend time building Godly habits into the lives of your children as well as punishing them when they do wrong. This refers back to something I said earlier and that is that child rearing takes time! It isn’t something that can be done in between all of the other activities of life. It needs to BE your life for as long as it takes. Your children are among the people that you would like to take to Heaven with you and that makes it worth the time! Mothering is a job, but it is more than a job, it is a way of life. It is never over and there are no vacations. But the rewards are better than time off and vacations!

One more issue that I would like to touch on before we leave this topic is to look out for the tricks (“foolishness”) that is “bound up in the heart of your child”. One of the initial lessons that must be learned by a child is the lesson of who is the boss. I want to keep this short, so I will just tell you that when you tell your child to do something, he needs to do it. He needs to do it now and he needs to do it the way you told him to do it! It is great fun for a child to determine how much of your command he needs to follow. There should be very RARE instances when things are open for negotiation. For instance, if you tell him to sit beside you on a chair, he shouldn’t be allowed to sit beside his friend on another chair without your permission. If you desire that he just sit down and you don’t care where, then don’t tell him to sit beside you. If you desire that he sit beside you and you tell him that, then he needs to be obedient and do just as you said. Children are very good at changing the instruction to fit their desires and to show a little bit of control. Don’t be fooled by that. Biblically, parents have control until it is gradually handed over to the child as he shows himself to be mature enough to handle it. Make sure that your children know that you are in charge and that you will give them authority for their own decisions as you see fit.

Well, I think I have covered the topics on loving your children as thoroughly as I plan to at this time. There are many more topics that could be covered, but I think that next time I will move on to something else. I trust these thoughts have been helpful and encouraging to you as you seek to raise Godly children for Him!

Loving Your Children -- Part IV

Giving Your Time

Time is something that we can give to our children that doesn’t cost anything in the way of this world’s goods. And yet, it is so very misunderstood. Again, there is no verse in the Bible that commands us to give our time to our children, but the implications are that time is a very important thing we can give to them. I believe the best Scripture that makes this clear is Deuteronomy 6:5-9.

Verse 5 tells us that we must love the Lord with our whole heart, soul and strength. And then in verse 7 we are commanded to teach “these things” to our children diligently! We are to talk about them when we are in our homes, when we are out walking, when we go to bed and when we get up in the morning. This sounds like a lot of time to me! This means that we must be WITH our children in order to accomplish this task.

I do not claim to know all that is included in “these things”, but I believe that one of the things we are to talk about is God’s faithfulness in our lives and in the lives of our family – not just our present family, but to our ancestors and those in our extended family. In that same chapter, verses 20-25, we are told that if “your son” asks you about the meaning of the things he sees and hears they should be telling him of all that the Lord did for them (the Israelites) in delivering them from the Egyptians. And I think it is even wise and helpful for us to put things up around our homes (pictures, mementos, etc.) that will cause them to ask questions and give us opportunities to share things about their heritage. Praise the Lord if they have a Godly heritage, but if they don’t there is something else that you can do! That would be to have a prayer journal and keep track of your prayers and answers so that you can show them to your children frequently so that they can see God’s work in that area of your life and so they can know that you are busy establishing a Godly heritage to pass on to them and their children. The important thing is to let your children see that God is alive and active in our lives and that He works through His people and that He has a plan for them that He is bringing about through prayer and through their family heritage.

There is a lot that could be included here in this topic about time, but I just want to cover one more item at this time and that is in the area of something we all hear in the culture. If I could, I would ask how many of you have heard the idea that it is “not the quantity of the time, but the quality that matters”? I want to go on record right now that that statement is a lie and meant to deceive loving mothers who really desire to do the right thing, but also have other things that they desire to do with their time. That statement can make us feel very good about planning our time so that we fit in a fun time at the amusement park on Saturday or on a weekend trip when we are out the rest of the week doing things we enjoy or making money so that “our kids can have everything that they need to be accepted in this world”. There is no way that we can be obedient to the mandates in Deuteronomy 6 if we are out and about most of the week except for the time we are out having some “quality time” with our kids on the weekend. I am here to tell you that small children and even some older ones may not be able to put it into words, but they would much rather have your time and attention on a daily basis just being there and providing their needs, than to have all the “stuff” or the big “thrills” that the world can provide.
So, Moms, I pray that you will take these admonitions as coming from my heart to yours. If you can apply some of these Biblical principles, your life and the lives of your children will benefit greatly through living life at the pace that God, the Creator intended was best for us! Take a walk with your kids. Plan a picnic with them and look at all the flowers that are out this time of year. Let them “help” you bake some cookies. Just enjoy them and when the time comes that they leave your home, you will not have regrets and you will not be bemoaning the fact that the time was way too short because you were way too busy or way too otherwise occupied. You only have one opportunity to raise your children. Make it count for the Lord!!!

Loving Your Children - Part 2

Titus 2:3&4 “That the older women likewise…teach the young women to…love their children.”

“Pray without ceasing!” I Thessalonians 5:17. What does it mean to pray without ceasing? I wondered about that for many years, until I had children! There is something about raising children that taught me a lot about that verse!

God commands us to pray for all kinds of things, but until we have something for which we carry a great burden, praying is kind of perfunctory and usually done out of obligation or habit. I have thought for a long time that if having children doesn’t drive a Christian mother to pray, then we need to check to see if she is alive! Where does the burden come from? Well, as you look at the world around you and see what it is that your children will face as they grow up, it should strike you that without God’s personal intervention in their lives, there is little hope of maintaining a godly walk with the Lord. If we truly desire God to intervene and save their souls and give them strength to “stand” (Eph. 6:13), then we must spend much time on our knees.

There are many examples of godly mothers who spent time praying and saw God do great work in and through their children. God reminds us in James 5:17 that “The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” Who would we want to benefit from our prayers more than our children?

I think it is important that your children know that you are praying for them. I think if they realize the importance that you place on prayer for them, that in itself will have a great effect on them. AND let them know when you receive answers to your prayers. Children need to know that God answers prayer and what better way than to let them know what you are praying and when you receive the answers?

When you pray together, let them hear you pray for them. Hopefully, praying together is an important part of each day in your home. If you have a husband who isn’t interested in this aspect of life, then take it upon yourself to do it. Remember the example of Timothy in the Bible who was won and grew up with the prayers of his mother and grandmother. (By the way, Grandmas, the kids need to know that you are praying for them as well.)

Start each day with an emphasis on prayer. We used to pray as we walked out the door on our way to take them to school. If there is any place where they need to be covered by your prayers, it is at school – no matter the kind! This season in their lives REALLY spurred me on to pray! We had had the kids in home school and Christian School, but when we put them into public high school, that is when my burden to pray for them really peaked! I with a friend even started a Moms in Touch group to help get mothers together for prayer that God would protect the hearts of our children as well as that we might have opportunities to reach the hearts of their teachers! It was a wonderful blessing and we had opportunities at the school that we would have never otherwise had! Some teachers even came to us a few times to give us prayer requests!

This just touches the surface, but the important thing is that you need to pray for your children, Moms! And it never stops! There will never be a time when you can think that your job in that area is finished! NEVER underestimate what God will do in honor of the prayers of a godly mother!

Just to update my last entry – our grandson came through surgery well, Praise the Lord. We had a good little trip over spring break and enjoyed the time with our son as his son went through this little medical event. There is nothing so rewarding than to see one of your children adopting your same priority on prayer or any other spiritual priority.

REMEMBER: “Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season you WILL reap if you faint not!” Galatians 6:9

Loving Your Children - Part 1

Titus 2: 3&4 “That the older women likewise…teach the young women to love their husbands and to love their children.”

We talked in the last series about loving your husbands and I trust there were some practical ideas for you to practice in learning how to accomplish that. The next topic in Titus 2 relates to loving your children.

I want to point out something that kind of builds a bridge between these two admonitions and that is that loving our husbands comes first. I have been there, so I know that it is very easy, when that first little one comes into your home, to focus in on him/her and let your husband be more on his own! He, after all, is a “big man” and that little baby needs us so much! It is very easy to give all of our time to the baby and kind of let our relationship with our husbands go “on the back burner” to be picked up again after the last child leaves the home. I know all about this and I wish someone had cautioned me during those early years of motherhood as I found it very natural to give most of myself to those helpless babies and assume my husband would do well on his own. Oh, I did the necessary chores of making the meals and keeping the house relatively clean and keeping his clothes washed, but I was giving so much time and emotion to those babies that I know now that I wasn’t totally being there for my husband.

You may wonder how to balance everything during those years, and it is difficult. I think it is true that the wife (mother) sets the tone in the home and so it requires a lot of planning and dedication to keep everything in perspective. But I think that is why God gave women such an array of emotions – we have an ability to love many people at the same time and balance things that might overwhelm our husbands. And we need to remember the truth that God equips us for everything HE asks us to do. (Philippians 2:13) If we find we can’t do everything we are trying to do, then we are trying to do something that isn’t a priority to God!

First of all, it is very important that you set goals (short term and long term) for yourself and your family. Of course, you and your husband should be setting these goals together so that you are both working toward the same ends. (If you don’t have time to do that just now with your husband, think of the Biblical goals set in the Scripture and work toward those.) Next, prioritize your time. Make a list of the things that you need to do in a given day. Look over your list and cross off anything that isn’t necessary to meet your Biblical goals. Be sure to leave time for yourself to do something meaningful or helpful to your own personal growth in making you the wife and mother God wants you to be. Be sure you are getting a good amount of rest. You will function better and be more efficient if you are rested. If you are getting up in the night with children, then sleep when they do during the day. Make sure your children are at least resting an hour each afternoon – this is important for them, but it is also important for you as you need to have something left to give when your husband comes home. There are other things you can do, but this is a start.

The best thing you can do with any of the thoughts that are shared here is to take one bite-sized piece and try it tomorrow. (If I were you, I would start with the one-hour rest time for the kids!) Practice that and then add another bite-sized piece. If you always say, “I will try that some day”, you will continue on in frustration and miss some of the blessings that God has planned for you.

Well, this kind of bridges the gap between loving your husband and loving your children. These are not meant to be theological lessons, they are just thoughts from my heart that I hope will help you in a very practical way to avoid some of the pitfalls that will come your way if you follow the patterns of the culture.

I will be away from the computer for a week or so, but next time I will share my heart on how to accomplish the very important responsibility of loving your children by praying for them. Our grandson, Iain, born January 28, 2007, will be having hernia surgery on April 5. We would appreciate the prayers of anyone who would think about him on that day. As God has planned it, we were going to be in Dayton on that day anyway, so we will be able to be there with his parents to make their day a bit easier, we hope. Have a good week.

Loving Your Husband

In the last entry, I mentioned the fact that Titus 2 admonishes older women to teach younger women to love their husbands and children. Today I want to expand on what it means to love your husband and some practical things you can do to show your husband that you love him. It is, after all, of little use to love your husband if it doesn’t manifest itself in some way so that he can see it!

I am thinking of three areas of practical applications to this principle. They are:
1. Keep yourself looking good to him.
2. Keep the house neat and warm and inviting.
3. Keep good food on the table.

As I expand on the first point, it is necessary for you to remember that if your husband works out of the house, he is exposed at every turn to women who are dressed so as to attract his attention to them in some way! Be up and cheerful and somewhat ready for the day before he leaves so he will have "happy thoughts" of you during his day. It is the right thing for you to be dressed and fixed up in a nice sweet way in order to bring his attention to you as soon as he walks in the door. This does not mean extravagant dressing in the definition of the culture. It just means to present yourself when he comes home as neat and clean and sweet.

The house should be neat and clean as well. This doesn’t mean there is no dust or dirt, but it does mean that he doesn’t have to jump over toys, magazines or see a pile of dirty dishes in the sink or whatever may be your weakness. Be careful of the priorities of your day and make sure that you are “prepared” for his return home at the end of his busy day.

And make the meal attractive and tasty! Make meal time enjoyable! You can serve good food without spending all day and you don’t need a three course meal so as to avoid adding those extra pounds. Just put some thought into it and plan. If you serve soup, make some muffins to go with it! It you serve a sandwich, make a good salad to go with it. Once in a while, serve a roast with mashed potatoes and a pie for dessert. Pies aren’t really hard to make once you get the hang of it. A little time and effort in making things interesting and comfortable may save you a lot of time in court at a later time!

Here are a couple of easy recipes to start:
Chicken Breast Supreme -- One of our favorites
6 boneless chicken breast halves
8 slices dried beef
3 tablespoons real bacon bits
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Grease the bottom of a glass 9 by 13 baking dish. Lay dried beef on the bottom of the dish. Trim chicken and lay on top of beef. Sprinkle with bacon bits. Mix soup, sour cream and cheese and spread over chicken. Bake uncovered at 275 degrees for 3 hours. Serve over rice.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 ½ sticks real butter melted
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
Cream the above.
1 large egg plus one egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
2 cups chocolate chips
½ teaspoon soda
Mix well and add to creamed mixture.
Place 1/3 cup dough on cookie sheet about 2 ½ inches apart. Bake at 325 for 15-18 minutes until edges begin to harden and cookies turn golden brown. Cool cookies on cookie sheets and then remove with large metal spatula. Makes 18 large cookies.

Older Women To Teach The Younger

The concept of the older women teaching the younger women is one that has gotten somewhat lost in the culture. In our culture, even within the Church, age has become something not to be revered, but something to at least dread and at most to be totally avoided if possible! It is not commendable to look older, much less to have thoughts and ideas that are from a bygone era. However, Biblically, God has given older women a very important duty, that of teaching the younger women! Maybe that is why husbands aren’t being loved (respected) as they ought to be. We as older women need to be obedient to God’s mandates no matter how the culture dictates and according to
Titus 2:4, one of our main duties is to teach the younger women “to love their husbands and to love their children”. (I will address exactly what I see that means at a later time, but for now, I will focus on the teaching.)

So who are the older women? Well, we are all older than someone and some of us are older than many! If we have experience in the Christian walk and if we have young ladies or girls that are under our realm of influence, then we are to teach them the things that God has instilled on our hearts through His Word. We are not all able to have audiences of hundreds or even tens as some of the godly ladies that God has gifted for public speaking, but most of us have daughters and others in our families who need to be taught and encouraged to step out from the mold and do what God has commanded!

How do we go about teaching these principles? “Example” is one good way, and it is VERY important that our example support our words, but the words MUST be there as well. Without the words of admonishment from God’s Word, our example may be considered just that, an example or a preference. This principle of the older teaching the younger is not just a preference, it is a command, and we need to be sure that we let that be known. Our culture is so relativistic, and we need to be sure that Christian young ladies know that God’s commands are not relative, they are mandates backed up with Truth. And if they truly are commands of God, then not to obey them is sin.

Let’s make a difference in our homes and our churches and let’s be “doers of the Word and not hearers only!” James 1:22. This is part of the motivation for this blog! May God use these thoughts in the hearts of my own daughters and grand daughters and if He so chooses, may He use them in the hearts of many other young ladies for His Glory!