The Mystery of Parenting: Our Role, God’s Role

I’ve raised kids long enough to know that there is no formula for turning out great ones.

But I’ve also raised them long enough to know that “a child left to himself brings his mother shame”.

Is there a greater mystery than the fact that a heart belongs to God and yet parents have a grave responsibility to train them and bring them up in the Lord?

Where’s the balance then in what belongs to Him and what belongs to us? If it’s all Him, we have a free ride. I don’t think any of us believes that. And if it’s all us, then the formula should “work” right?

Sadly, too many of us have fallen into one of the ditches, either forsaking our careful responsibility to train “arrows” because after all, “it’s only God’s grace”, or depending on a formula and being wildly disillusioned to find that it doesn’t always “work”; and if it does, being swallowed in pride, attributing their “success” to our precision.

The answer? Just like God’s sovereignty over salvation and our responsibility to submit to His authority intersect at a mysterious, humanly-out-of-grasp understanding, so does that of the dual partnership parents and God play in the lives of our children.

We cannot escape our obligation to teach them to love the Lord, even if they don’t appear to. We are commanded to give them wisdom–the fullness of all that is written in Scripture, to help them gird themselves with the armor of God, to resist Satan, to take every thought captive, to repent of sins, to pursue holiness, to deny lusts, to love their neighbor, to walk in humility, to do good works, to flee sin, and to stand firm in the faith.

Underneath those commands we must help our children flesh them out in their lives. To speak respectfully, to not burp at the table, to dress lovingly, to pay careful attention to their recreational choices and to express kindness in a thousand ways.

And even more than all that, we must live it, demonstrating the reality of Christ and the power of forgiveness.

We must be faithful. We cannot escape our never-ending obligations.

But still they are the Lord’s. He discipled carefully and faithfully, and still one turned away. God turns the heart and He indwells His children. We must hold both, simultaneously, understood or not, in our hands.

Walking this road with you and finding it often difficult….we keeping walking.

(Thank you, Cathy, for good dialogue that inspired this post )

Legacy Conference Audios Now Available

“I’m back from the Living A Legacy conference. All I can say is WOW. What a great time we had. It was just fantastic….” -Heather

If you missed it, you can GET THE AUDIOS!

My Mother…Reflections on Mother’s Day

My mother has had over three dozen children. She gave birth to two, but giving birth isn’t really what makes one a mother, is it?

It’s the hard stuff. The stuff my mother has done over half her life, with little accolades and with no earthly payment. The mother-stuff.

And the most important of her jobs? BEING THERE. Being available….the heart of what it means to serve.

She never thought of being anywhere else. She was a wife and mother, and she was needed. Still is. And she is still there…available. Serving. That’s my mother.

My mother and I are hardly anything alike. I actually inherited far more of my father’s qualities, which made my mother’s life more…challenging, and I’ll leave it at that.

I wish so much to be more like my mother–more sacrificial, more in tune to needs around me, more willing to place my needs and wants behind those of my family.

Yes, my mother is amazing.

She’d rather be in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes than talking politics around the table. She’d rather serve the food than mingle with the guests. And regardless of what she’d rather be doing, she does what needs doing because that’s what  mothers do.

My dad is strong, wise and capable. And yet he is only half a man without my mother. She completes him because she serves him. She completes our family because she serves us.

There will be a gaping hole in our lives when my mother isn’t in it.

I’m so grateful to have had a mother available for me, willing to lose her life every day.

I rise up and call her blessed while it is Today.

Disciple Your Nation

At the conference, Kathy made a profound point that encouraged me so much. So often when we hear the Great Commission–”go ye into all the world and make disciples”–we think of foreign missions. I guess it’s the word “go”.

But “the word translated as ‘go’ is a participle and thus should be translated as ‘going’ or ‘having gone’. Thus, this point of the sermon becomes: ‘As you are going make disciples.’ ” (The Great Commission)

Also, “nations” means “your people group”. I find it poignant as we compare the Great Commission to the example Christ left through His ministry on earth, that “discipling the nations” happens through building close relationships with a few people (your people group) around you, walking daily, intimately and intensely with them.

If everyone would disciple his people group–starting with his home and the few people with whom he comes in the closest contact (neighbors, grocery store clerk, etc.) the nations would be transformed.

Relationships=Nations changed.

That’s how we do it. When we rise up, when we lie down, when we walk along the way, and when we sit in our house. Without bells and whistles, no programs necessary.

Faithful lives, tireless work, eternal rewards.

Living a Legacy…Changing the World One Home at a Time

Our Living a Legacy conference was a huge success! I am so refreshed, encouraged and inspired by the many women who came and whose hearts are yearning to build homes for the glory of God! We laughed, we cried and we came away with a renewed vision of the profound work of “home missions”. A BIG thank you to all who attended!

THE AUDIO VERSION WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON!

Here are a few pictures from our wonderful day together:

Kathy shared with us the profound work of making our homes a “mission base” for our families, neighbors and surrounding communities. Kathy and her family are a living example of this message and how far-reaching its effects can be. Truly the harvest is ripe!

This lady inspires us! She is mom to 13, 12 of whom are adopted, special needs children. She manages with a grace and joy that exudes from her.

“I am so thankful I was able to attend the Leaving a Legacy conference yesterday! I can not even begin to tell of all the ways the Lord worked through Robin Brooks White, Kathy Brodock, Kelly Crawford, and their daughters (Taylor White.Olivia Brodock. Emma, and Bria). I was especially touched also by Sherry Lee’s testimony. The Lord used this day to encourage, convict, and teach me so much! What a blessing!!!” Jeanette

So many sweet, fun ladies!

Good tears.

Robin admonished us with a contagious passion, to raise up warriors for the next generation, to answer the call to rescue the needy, to be available to the fatherless and to count it joy to die daily, as we do the “hard, messy work” of being the hands and feet of Christ in our homes. Stepping outside of our “comfortable, American boxes” brings the sweet fruit of finding our lives as we lose them.

“..how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

Part of our “nation”, waiting to come up and meet everyone.

Emma Brodock

Our girls shared their hearts for what it means to live where they are joyfully, contentedly serving the Lord.

Taylor White

Bria Crawford

A sweet sister, having just recovered from a burst vessel in her brain, and an emergency c-section to deliver her 23 wk. old baby girl during the brain surgery. God’s mercy is everlasting.

Getting to meet so many of our blog friends, adding a physical dimension to our friendships, was a little slice of Heaven.

We had so many wonderful vendors! Here, Jessica encourages aspiring film makers to join her home industry, Plant and Pillars, a young, film-maker’s festival.

Olivia “wowed” us with her amazing culinary gift, serving two meals during the conference.

My handsome husband…just because.

Sherry Lee closed the evening with a heart-warming, profoundly moving account of her recent trials as she lost her husband in last year’s devastating storm, and with poised humility, spurred us to remember that “He is enough” no matter what storms we face. She encouraged us to “live a legacy on purpose” and shared that her family’s tragedy had  confirmed the reality that her children all owned their faith personally due to her husband’s faithful legacy….the legacy of trusting a Heavenly Father who is sustaining them through the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

Changing the world,  by God’s amazing grace, one home at a time.

What is the Message of Christianity?

“We live in a church culture that has a dangerous tendency to disconnect the grace of God from the glory of God.  Our heart resonates with the idea of enjoying God’s grace. We bask in sermons, conferences and books that exalt a grace centering on us. And while the wonder of grace is worthy of our attention, if that grace is disconnected from its purpose, the sad result is a self-centered Christianity that bypasses the heart of God.

If you were to ask the average Christian sitting in a worship service on Sunday morning to summarize the message of Christianity, you would most likely hear something along the lines of, ‘the message of Christianity is that God loves me.’ Or someone might say, ‘the message of Christiantiy is that God loves me enough to send His Son, Jesus, to die for me.’

As wonderful as this sentiment sounds, is it biblical? Isn’t it incomplete based on what we have seen in the Bible? ‘God loves me’ is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if  ’God loves me’ is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity?

God loves me.

Me.

Christianity’s object is me. …

The message of biblical Christianity is not ‘God loves me’, period….The message of biblical Christianity is that ‘God loves me so that I might make Him–His ways, His salvation, His glory and His greatness–known among all nations.’…

We are not the end of the gospel, God is.”  David Platt, Radical