Good Advice From A Parent
As a parent of four fantastic children, I find myself always wanting to know how to parent better. How to keep and understanding heart and mind yet guide and correct my children so that they can be more than me. One of the keys to that is listening to how other parents do things. Now I know that each family is unique, and even in my own household, each child is unique. What encourages and motivates one child, has little to no effect on the other.
As many of you know I often look to the Bible and the wisdom it contains in order to try and successfully navigate the issues and challenges of life. Through its pages I have been able to find example, advice, correction and guidance on many issues of life. I want to share with you one such passage today, and it is for you, a child of God.
Phillipians 2:14-15 “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation…”
Want to know how to live a right life, there it is. I like how the author puts it, “you may become”. It is a process, all of life is. How do we make it? How do we stay straight? Stop complaining and arguing. Man if I could get that across to my own kids, my home would be revolutionized. I cant tell you how many complaints and arguments I hear in a day. When I think about God, our Father, how He must feel with our arguing with each other and our complaining. Wow.
So that’s it, your challenge for today, “stop arguing and complaining”. Good luck. Remember it’s a process.
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Carpe Diem
There are certain movies, that no matter how many times I watch them, my emotions get stirred. One of those movies is “Dead Poets Socciety”. This movie came out in 1989, when I was in college, and stirred me to consider all the world had and challenged me to want more than mediocrity.
A few quotes from the movie by the lead charcter, John Keating played by Robin Williams:
“Sucking the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.”
“This is a battle, a war, and the casualties could be your hearts and souls.”
“Now, don’t just walk off the edge like lemmings! Look around you!”
“Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be resigned to that. Break out! “
“They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – – Carpe – – hear it? – – Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. “
A very stirring movie and I often get reinvigorated when I watch it. I find that certain passages of scriptures doe the same for me. As I am reading through Ephesians this week I am reminded to the movie and feel again challenged to look at my life and “sieze the day” or as the apostle Paul put it:
“Be very careful then in how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity. . . “
I hope that you will live today with that thought in mind. What does this day hold in store for you?
Doing Without
In a recent conversation with a friend, we were talking (like Im sure every parent has since time began!) how it seems our children operate with a sense of entitlement. They have a broad view of what the world owes them and that they should have whatever they want. In that conversation I recalled how as a child we often did without things because of our economic situation or other issues. Once, my father was out of work, because oil production in the US had slowed, and in East Texas at the time, that had major economic impact! During that time, we got our school clothes, shoes, etc from thrift stores and garage sales. That year, I remember that the only shoes I had was a pair of brown shiny dress shoes. I was extremely embarrassed to wear them with my clothes (funny thing is, now that actually is trendy!) and it was extremely difficult to run and play in them. But no matter how rough it was, we never missed a meal, failed to have a home to live in or was absent of parental love and care. I remembered how I hated some of the adverse conditions growing up. But I now wear them with honor, knowing as an adult, it was those things that make me truly appreciate all that I have. I am very blessed in this life.
As I was reading in Ephesians this morning, Paul’s writings brought that back to mind again, but this time on a spiritual level. After reading it through several times and reviewing several translations, I love how the Message puts it: Eph. 2:11-13 But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
Wow, that hit home! Christ has been my sufficiency for many years now. Sometimes I take that for granted and fail to appreciate all that He is in my life. As I find myself working through one my life’s greatest disasters, it is through what Christ is and His presence in my life that I find strength and sometimes even the ability to crawl out of bed in the morning.
I never want to forget what my parents did in raising me and caring for me, but more importantly I never want to forget nor take for granted what God has done and is doing for me.
Just Living
Just Living. Thats it plain and simple. Sometimes there is not much more to do than that. Our lives at moments are vivacious and streaming forward at an uncontrollable pace and other times they seem to stagnate and resonate with a stinch. So there are times when just living is a good thing.
It is definitely an ebb and flow of rain and sunshine, cold and heat. I find myself that way in most areas of life. There are days when I think I am a great parent, and others where I think I am the worst parent ever! Days when I am the best at what I do career wise and days I am praying they dont fire my incompentent butt. There are days when I feel I am so in tune with the Lord and days where I feel inches from Hell itself. How do you make it through? You just live. You live as if today is all you have. There is no promise of tomorrow.
You mess up, you straighten things out, or at least as much as you can. You break things, you fix them as best you can. You have to remember that its nearly impossible to repair something that is broken to like new or to bend something that is crooked back to perfectly straight. We do our best. Thats all we have. We live.
Just living beats the alternative!
Romans 14:7-9 (New International Version)
For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
1 Peter 2:15-17 (New International Version)
For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.
Galatians 2:19-21 (New International Version)
For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
