Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Take it Easy ... by Charles R. Swindoll
Maybe it's because I just had another birthday. Maybe it's because I'm a granddad several times over. Or maybe it's because of a struggling young seminarian I met recently who wishes he had been higher on his parents' priority list than, say, fifth or sixth. He was hurried and ignored through childhood, then tolerated and misunderstood through adolescence, and finally expected to "be a man" without having been taught how.
My words are dedicated to all of you who have the opportunity to make an investment in a growing child so that he or she might someday be whole and healthy, secure and mature. Granted, yours is a tough job. Relentless and thankless . . . at least for now. But nobody is better qualified to shape the thinking, to answer the questions, to assist during the struggles, to calm the fears, to administer the discipline, to know the innermost heart, or to love and affirm the life of your offspring than you.
When it comes to "training up the child in the way he should go," you've got the inside lane, Mom and Dad. So---take it easy! Remember (as Anne Ortlund puts it) "children are wet cement." They take the shape of your mold. They're learning even when you don't think they're watching. And those little guys and gals are plenty smart. They hear tone as well as terms. They read looks as well as books. They figure out motives, even those you think you can hide. They are not fooled, not in the long haul.
The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch. Believe me, both are essential. If you and I hope to release from our nest fairly capable and relatively stable people who can soar and make it on their own, we'll need to pay the price of saying no to many of our own wants and needs in order to interact with our young . . . and we'll have to keep breaking down the distance that only naturally forms as our little people grow up.
Time and touch. Listen to your boys and girls, look them in the eye, put your arms around them, hug them close, tell them how valuable they are. Don't hold back. Take the time to do it. Reach. Touch.
When you are tempted to get involved in some energy-draining, time-consuming opportunity that will only increase the distance between you and yours, ask yourself hard questions like, "Could my time be better spent at home?" and "Won't there be similar opportunities in the years to come?" Then turn your attention to your boy or girl. Hold nothing back as you renew acquaintances.
Take it easy!
The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Keep It Simple ... by Charles R. Swindoll
Micah isn't exactly a household word. Too bad. Though obscure, the ancient prophet had his stuff together. Eclipsed by the much more famous Isaiah, who ministered among the elite, Micah took God's message to the streets.
Micah had a deep suspicion of phony religion. He saw greed in the hearts of the leaders of the
But Micah didn't just denounce and attack, leaving everyone aware of the things he despised but none of the things he believed. Like rays of brilliant sunlight piercing charcoal-colored clouds after a storm, the prophet saved his best words for a positive message to the people, and I am pleased to say that he did it with simplicity: "With what shall I come to the LORD and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" (Mic. 6:6-7).
Micah's words state exactly what many, to this day, wonder about pleasing God. Teachers and preachers have made it so sacrificial . . . so complicated . . . so extremely difficult. To them, God is virtually impossible to please. Therefore, religion has become a series of long, drawn-out, deeply painful acts designed to appease this peeved Deity in the sky who takes delight in watching us squirm.
Micah erases the things on the entire list, replacing the complicated possibilities with one of the finest definitions of simple faith: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Mic. 6:8).
God does not look for big-time, external displays. He does not require slick public performances.
What is required? Slow down and read the list aloud: to do justice . . . to love kindness . . . and to walk humbly with your God. Period.
Faith is not a long series of religious performances or a pile of pious things.
All God asks for is simple faith.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Believe ... by Max Lucado
Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet, “saying again and again, ‘My daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so she will be healed and will live’” (Mark 5:23).
There are no games. No haggling. No masquerades. The situation is starkly simple: Jairus is blind to the future and Jesus knows the future. So Jairus asks for his help.
And Jesus, who loves the honest heart, goes to give it…[He] turns immediately to Jairus and pleads: “Don’t be afraid; just believe” (v. 36).
Jesus compels Jairus to see the unseen. When Jesus says, “Just believe … ,” he is imploring, “Don’t limit your possibilities to the visible. Don’t listen only for the audible. Don’t be controlled by the logical. Believe there is more to life than meets the eye!”
“Trust me,” Jesus is pleading. “Don’t be afraid; just trust.”
Friday, July 31, 2009
Just What I needed ...
Monday, July 06, 2009
My Struggles are About Him ... by Max Lucado
What about your struggles? Is there any chance, any possibility, that you have been selected to struggle for God’s glory? Have you “been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29)?
Here is a clue. Do your prayers seem to be unanswered? What you request and what you receive aren’t matching up? Don’t think God is not listening. Indeed he is. He may have higher plans.
Here is another. Are people strengthened by your struggles? A friend of mine can answer yes. His cancer was consuming more than his body; it was eating away at his faith. Unanswered petitions perplexed him. Well-meaning Christians confused him. “If you have faith,” they said, “you will be healed.”
No healing came. Just more chemo, nausea, and questions. He assumed the fault was a small faith. I suggested another answer. “It’s not about you,” I told him. “Your hospital room is a showcase for your Maker. Your faith in the face of suffering cranks up the volume of God’s song.”
Oh, that you could have seen the relief on his face. To know that he hadn’t failed God and God hadn’t failed him—this made all the difference. Seeing his sickness in the scope of God’s sovereign plan gave his condition a sense of dignity. He accepted his cancer as an assignment from heaven: a missionary to the cancer ward.
A week later I saw him again. “I reflected God,” he said, smiling through a thin face, “to the nurse, the doctors, my friends. Who knows who needed to see God, but I did my best to make him seen.”
Bingo. His cancer paraded the power of Jesus down the Main Street of his world.
God will use whatever he wants to display his glory. Heavens and stars. History and nations. People and problems.
Rather than begrudge your problem, explore it. Ponder it. And most of all, use it. Use it to the glory of God.
Through your problems and mine, may God be seen.
From
It's Not About Me
© (Thomas Nelson, 2007),
Max Lucado
