Would You Believe Me?

 

Jamie and I were drinking coffee this morning, when our 8-year-old, Mady, asked us “If I thought God spoke to me that something bad was going to happen to you on the way to the store, would you believe me and not leave?” First of all, I don’t think kids should be allowed to ask poignant questions first thing in the morning. This question was totally out of the blue. Second, I hadn’t even had my first cup of coffee, which was very unfair. I don’t even think she said Good Morning or Hello. How do you answer a question like that?

 

Two thoughts quickly passed through my mind.

 

If I said yes, I would be concerned of training her that every stray thought she had would be God speaking. That isn’t true. She will have a variety of feelings and intense dreams that are merely feelings and dreams, not God speaking. I don’t want her to be led by the swooshing and tossing of chemicals in her body.

 

If I said no, I would be concerned of squashing the discernment of the voice of God in her life. I believe God does speak. I want her to recognize and trust the voice of God.

 

How does one train someone to expect and notice the voice of God, while not wildly yielding to other voices?

 

I think of God telling Jeremiah to buy land in Israel at the time the country was under siege by the Babylonians. That’s like being told to buy a timeshare in Syria. It wasn’t until after his cousin came to Jeremiah with the suggestion that he says, “Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.” (Jer 32:8) To me that means Jeremiah wasn’t totally sure he knew it was God speaking to him. But once his cousin confirmed the same thing Jeremiah was sensing, that was enough.

 

What did I tell Mady? I affirmed the fact that God will speak to her. I told her Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing [the voice of God] and hearing [the voice of God] comes by the word of God.” God wants to build our faith in his voice. I told Mady that God does that mainly in two ways. First, we can trust the witness of Scripture and the better we understand the Bible, the better we can discern  the difference between God’s voice and other voices. Second, God speaks to us through other people. That’s how Jeremiah knew it was God speaking to him. God uses preachers, Sunday school teachers, friends, and family to speak to one another. So if you came to us, I told her, and felt God told you that we were not to go to the store, we would pray together and try to figure out if God is trying to tell us something.

 

I don’t know if that was the best answer. I would appreciate your insight. I don’t want her to live at the whim of her own feelings or the whim of others. I want her to know the voice of God. I want her to believe that the same voice that spoke everything she sees into existence, still speaks and will speak into her existence.

 

The Cost of Children

Author unknown:

This came across my desk recently and I felt it was wisdom that definitely needed to be passed on. The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle-income family. Talk about sticker shock. That doesn’t even touch college tuition. For those with kids, that figure leads to wild fantasies about all the things we could have bought, all the places we could have traveled, all the money we could have banked if not for (insert child’s name here). For others, that number might confirm the decision to remain childless. But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month or $171.08 a week. That’s a mere $24.44 a day. Just over a dollar an hour. Still, you might think the best financial advice says don’t have children if you want to be rich. It’s just the opposite. There’s no way to put a price tag on: Feeling a new life move for the first time and seeing the bump of a knee rippling across your skin. Having someone cry, “It’s a boy!” or shout, “It’s a girl!” then hearing the baby wail and knowing all that matters is it’s healthy. Counting all 10 fingers and toes for the first time. Feeling the warmth of fat cheeks against your breast. Cupping an entire head in the palm of your hand. Making out da da or ma ma from all the cooing and gurgling. What do you get for your $160,140? Naming rights. First, middle and last. Glimpses of God every day. Giggles under the covers every night. More love than your heart can hold. Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs. Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds and warm cookies. A hand to hold, usually covered with jam. A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain. Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day. For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs and never stop believing in Santa Claus. You have an excuse to keep reading the adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies and wishing on stars. You get to frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray-painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, handprints set in clay for Mother’s Day and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day. For $160,140, there’s no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a sliver, filling the wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless. You get a front-row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, first time behind the wheel. You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications and human sexuality no college can match. In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God. You have the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

How to Individually Shepherd Children

Brian Croft:

Most pastors would affirm our priority is first to shepherd our family, then to shepherd the church. Yet, I fear many pastors are laboring hard to shepherd the church to the neglect of their family. The Lord in His kind providence, challenged me several years ago about this as my neglect in this area had become known. However, it was not another pastor that challenged me. It was through an out-of-town friend who is a pharmacist and faithfully serves as a deacon in his local church that exposed my neglect. His effort and model to shepherd his seven children both individually and regularly in addition to their regular family worship challenged me, convicted me, inspired me, and put my pathetic efforts I had made thus far to shame.

Read more here.

Don’t Provoke Your Teenage Children to Anger

C.S. Lewis quote about not giving your teens a good reason to get angry.

Children, including teenagers, should treat their parents with respect (Ephesians 6:2). But it cuts both ways. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger” (Ephesians 6:4). Of course children can get angry for no good reason. But the point is: Don’t give them a good reason. That would include things like treating them rudely in front of others. C. S. Lewis gives good counsel:

We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the rising generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters’ side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of parents to children than by those of children to parents.

Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family meals where the father or mother treated their grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered to any other young people, would simply have terminated the acquaintance?

Dogmatic assertions on matters which the children understand and their elders don’t, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions, ridicule of things the young take seriously — sometimes of their religion — insulting references to their friends, all provide an easy answer to the question, “Why are they always out? Why do they like every house better than their home?” Who does not prefer civility to barbarism? (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 42).

via Don’t Provoke Your Teenage Children to Anger – Desiring God.

Send Your Kid off to School with Encouraging Words

Here is a tip for the start of the school year. This is a great idea from Megan Miller. Keep a stack of Post-It notes or 3X5 cards in the kitchen drawer and tuck an encouraging word, Scripture verse, or picture into their lunch box or book bag.

How are you intentional about encouraging your kids throughout the day? What gets in the way?

via Use Lunch Box Notes to Encourage Kids | meghmiller.