If we could pin point just one place where more erosion to our society has occurred, it is without a doubt the HOME. Broken marriages–the home. Troubled children–the home. Redefining of traditional family life–the home. Women broken and searching for their own worth–the home.

The home is a concentrated point of attack from an enemy who seeks to steal, kill and destroy.

In battle, a known point of attack would be heavily fortified and guarded. I find it no coincidence that “keeper” as in “teach them to be keepers at home” from Titus 2, is translated from a Greek word meaning “to guard”.

Sadly, our enemy has done a stellar job at offering all the right decoys, blinding us to the very NEED to defend home.

We are warriors in the greatest, spiritual sense. Fighting for our homes, our marriages, our children and our own integrity as women of God.

This isn’t about “well, good for you but I’m not made for that sort of thing…it’s not my calling”.

If we have homes, we are called. But we are not called to go at it alone! God has always called the weak and the incapable and then when they admitted, “I can’t do this!“, He replies, “I will go before you…my strength is made perfect in weakness”.

Part of the fighting will be against the battle that rages within us. We can’t give up. Here’s what we do:

• Prepare for the attacks, knowing they are an expected part of life, whatever form they may take.

• Stay mentally alert to the task. We guard, we fortify, we nurture, we restore, we prepare soldiers, we hold up the arms of our commander-in-chief…we do A LOT in a day. Throwing every ounce of energy into that is not wasted time. Anything less, and we won’t have enough resources to guard properly.

• Get up and do it again. Every single one of us has those days where the task feels too hard. Giving up is not an option. We divert the enemy. We change pace, change scenery, change tactics. Then we get on our knees and utilize the power God offers to us. We spend some time in God’s Word, meditate on truth and get ready to do it again the next day.

We ARE called. We are called to fight, defend, guard and build our homes. To build a legacy that will continue beyond us.

The question is, will we answer?

“His master said, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant’..”

“‘Parenting is hard’.  My friend announced their family motto.  I agree with her 100%.

There’s the delicate balance between “training them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” and all that entails, and the work that only the Lord can do in a heart…We teach them character, to be thankful, to be cheerful to be servant-minded, but all those things must spring from a heart that acts in gratitude toward a risen Savior.

Sometimes it all seems to flow together naturally….

But sometimes, we see the Deceptor’s hand at work using love of Self to breed rebellion and ingratitude.

It brings every parent to the throne of grace faster than anything.  We can talk, we can plead; but it soon becomes evident that only a work of God can soften that heart, bringing it to a place of joyful submission to the Lord….

We can’t change the heart.  But there are things we CAN do do bring them toward the One who can…

Read all of “Training the (Deceitful) Heart: Giving Our  Children the Mighty Weapons”

 

“The parent’s part is to train them for life, to send them out of the home ready for whatever duty or mission God may have ready for them….What we want to do with our children is not merely to control them and keep them in order, but to implant true principles deep in their hearts which shall rule their whole lives; to shape their character from within into Christlike beauty, and to make of them noble men and women, strong for battle and for duty. They are to be trained rather than governed. Growth of character, not merely good behavior, is the object of all home governing and teaching. Therefore the home influence is far more important than the home laws, and the parents’ lives are of more moment than their teachings.”

It has grieved me more and more to realize that, as a result of a number of factors, I think parents–even Christian parents, are largely unaware of their purpose. Too often children can be seen ruling over parents as the parents strive, the best they can, to maintain some control, but really feeling helpless to the manipulation, dreading certain circumstances where the lack of control is made obvious.

I bumped into acquaintances recently at the grocery store. A mom, dad and their two-year-old. With barely our hellos exchanged, Mom said, “We’re just trying to get through this with her. She’s the child you hear screaming through the store. We’ve tried bribing her, we’ve tried threatening her, nothing works.” I know the girl enough to know that nothing is wrong with her. She’s a normal little toddler exerting her will. I’ve also observed the “problem”. A new set of parents, enamored with her antics, allowing her to rule the home. A misunderstanding of the privilege of growing her to maturity, helping her discover the safety of authority and the necessity of self control.

From our distorted sense of “why” we are given children (they are actually not for us, but for Him) to a society driven by self-indulgence, this generation seems largely unprepared to bring up responsible, mature children who will become responsible, mature adults. And that’s just the beginning for believers who are also instructed to bring up children who will live fully for Him, reflecting His character in all they do.

I just want to encourage you with a few practical words if you are a struggling parent.

• Do not get confused about what authority is and isn’t. So much new-age parenting (and yes, it exists in Christian teaching) forsakes the wisdom of Scripture and teaches that a parent doesn’t have a “right” to claim authority or to require obedience. That is simply a lie and will destroy a child.

• Authority is established EARLY. I have said, “the battle is won or lost in the high chair”. My eight month old is beginning to test the boundaries around him. It seems like a little thing, but when he squeals in anger because I don’t get the spoon to his mouth fast enough, it’s an opportunity for me to help him begin to understand self-control. I can pause, tell him “no” with a calm but serious tone (he gets it!) or, I can do the easy thing and give him what he wants as quickly as possible, laughing at his “cuteness”. But that cuteness will turn ugly fast and soon I’ll find myself in a grocery store line blushing because he’s using the same tactic to get what he wants there, only louder. Yes, from the time they are born, we move them forward; it’s our job to “grow them up” in a thousand ways.

• Don’t flippantly tell a little one to do something that you aren’t prepared to see accomplished. If you don’t really care if they pick up the toy, don’t ask them to. If you do care, make sure they obey when they are told.

• If you are getting angry at your child it’s most likely because you are not requiring obedience. Tell them clearly, get them to answer you so there’s no question whether they heard you, then follow through the first time if there is disobedience.

• Understand that your diligence or lack thereof has huge implications for the “success” of your children. The degree to which you help them develop self-control and self-governance and respect for authority, will enable them to be better husbands and wives, friends, employers, employees, and children of God. Yours is a grave responsibility if you have been given children!

“Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise you will ruin their lives.” Proverbs 19:18

The parent’s part is to train them for life, to send them out of the home ready for whatever duty or mission God may have ready for them….What we want to do with our children is not merely to control them and keep them in order, but to implant true principles deep in their hearts which shall rule their whole lives; to shape their character from within into Christlike beauty, and to make of them noble men and women, strong for battle and for duty. They are to be trained rather than governed. Growth of character, not merely good behavior, is the object of all home governing and teaching. Therefore the home influence is far more important than the home laws, and the parents’ lives are of more moment than their teachings.

-J.R. Miller, Homemaking

More thoughts on this quote coming up!

I ran across this older picture of Mallie. So yeah, maybe as we read through Proverbs 31 we'll hang out in the "clothes herself with fine linens" section.

“Unless God gives you the unique gift of singleness, the Bible says ‘it is a good thing’ for you to get married and have a family. Raise your hand if you hope to be a wife and mother one day”, I asked my little girls, down to the two-year-old.

And then I read….

“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.” Proverbs 31:10-12

That’s packed full of good stuff! “Who can find her?” She was rare then and rare now. An “excellent wife” isn’t just born. I want my girls to know that raising children and being a wife is a monumental task. One that will require all their energies, all their hearts and all their attention. It will utilize all their gifts and creativity. It will take enormous wisdom and fortitude. It is a full time job. That is, to be an “excellent” wife. A “virtuous” wife. It’s a job for which they must begin now to prepare.

We must do the counter-cultural job of teaching our girls, from a young age, that they are likely entering upon the job of a lifetime–a job that will change the world if they embrace it. We must be willing to bear the criticism (ironic, isn’t it?) and teach them to as well. We must learn to give an answer in truth and in love.

It always stumps me that the job of helping a husband, running an efficient home and raising the next generation has been ridiculed into a tiny corner until it is hardly recognized as a “job” anymore. Marriages, the ministry of home, children-turning-adults…how could any other pursuit be more worth our following?

That part doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me, and saddens me, is that Christians followed suit. We know better. And until we reclaim the home as a place in which soldiers are raised, marriages become a reflection of the gospel, and the family gains enough strength to reach beyond itself and lend a life-saving hand to the lost, we will continue to wonder why the church is impotent and our society ravished.

Yes, it takes time to undo generations of effects that pull some from home. But we have to have a “true north” starting point. We have to recognize truth before we can follow it.

It is our one mission, dear Church, to glorify Him with our lives. It is our mission to stop bending the knee to a humanistic god. It is our mission to raise children who will carry the Light of Christ, the Hope of the world, into the next generation.

Let’s do it.

“The efforts which a mother makes for the improvement of her child in knowledge and virtue, are necessarily retired and unobtrusive. The world knows nothing of them; and hence the world has been slow to perceive how powerful and extensive is this secret and silent influence….the influence which is exerted upon the mind during the first eight or ten years of existence, in a great degree guides the destinies of that mind for time and eternity! And as the mother is the guardian and guide of the early years of life, from her goes the most powerful influence in the formation of the character of man.” John Abbott

When Christians stop being “Kingdom-minded”, they stop making Kingdom choices. Choices like devoting a life to raising the next generation to love God, to honor authority and to live wisely. The very church of Christ has so degraded the blessing of children (and thus minimized a mother’s work), that it is almost unthinkably ignorant. For how can we expect to pass the torch of passion and faithfulness to our Savior unless we have made it our chiefest aim to daily impress His character onto the hearts of our children?

When we understand that our whole existence is to glorify the Lord, we live each moment differently. We get about our Father’s business. We don’t measure “if we should have children” by their convenience or how many vacations it will cost me or whether I can pursue my favorite pastime or career. We don’t have children to look cute in their ball uniforms and homemade hair bows.

We fall down on our knees with the grave responsibility of stewardship over these children, these people who will either further the Kingdom or be a blight on society, based largely on our diligence to the duty of raising them.

Mothers, you must govern your home well. It is the cruelest act of motherhood that you should neglect to teach your children to obey the loving authority over them. For in doing so, you make them unable to submit to God.

Children who have not learned self-government stand to be the most wretched of all men and women, loathing you for your indulgences.

But don’t you see, it isn’t harsh! It wells up from the deepest love, the deepest desire to see our children walking in truth and evokes sheer delight to walk beside them.

When I see my children through Kingdom-eyes, their vices aren’t irritations that bug me and cause me to be angry; they are offenses that sober me and call me to the tireless and tender action of praying for, teaching and tending the garden of their souls.

My children are the very happiest when I have loved them enough to require gratitude, obedience and honor. Their little faces light up into mine when they sense my tenderest sincerity toward their character.

And then, to place my hands on their heads, kneel over them and pray…

“Father, you have blessed me with this child. Thank you that she is growing to love You, thank you that she is obedient, and I pray that she will serve you all the days of her life”….

causes a heart-smile to break across their faces, and they know–it sinks down deep and they KNOW that I am in this for life, through tears, joys and hardship. I am their advocate, and I will stop short of nothing to give “my life for yours” in these few years they are mine.

That’s because Proverbs is the book of wisdom–the “secret” to life and whether our children will do well at what they put their hand to or not. “Wisdom! Get wisdom!” the Proverbs screams. Why would we clamor to get our academic ducks in a row but neglect this principal thing?

Swanson has made it easy to teach through the book of wisdom with his 3-book series, the Proverbs Study Guide.

Our family uses this in our devotion time, but it could easily be implemented during school as well. I love the simple, short yet thorough explanations Kevin gives of each verse of Proverbs. He ends the lesson with questions for discussion, as important as the lesson itself.

Containing everything from how to handle finances to political and social ethics, we simply cannot neglect to teach our children these most essential life lessons from the Word of God.

The Book of Proverbs Study Series comes highly recommended from this family!

Improving at break-neck speed, technology has enriched our lives in so many ways. We could start with electricity or the washing machine, but recent advancements like instant, fingertip-access to the globe has brought convenience and possibilities never imagined before.

On a personal level, internet access is highly beneficial to our family. It has brought new dimensions and possibilities to homeschooling where the pioneers had little more than paper and pencil with which to work. It is entirely possible to access a rich education for free, if one so desires.

It also allows us home-business opportunities, given the world-wide market now at our fingertips, where once a business was limited to the short arm of its local community.

Recipes, medical advice, help diagnosing ailments, “how-to” anything, sharing our lives with friends and relatives across the world…all in seconds. “Google it” is a household term. Our lives have been revolutionized by the Internet.

But the technology brings a host of trouble with it.

I remember reading a story to my children about the debut of the telephone in homes. The father in the story was livid at the idea that he was expected to have a device through which people could intrude on his personal, family time at any hour of the day. How far we’ve come.

For most, there is no place, no time that affords privacy, free from at least the possibility of interruption, the pressure of answering or texting. If a person CAN be reached, we expect them to answer us–without waiting.

And it’s not just our time that is bombarded. Facebook–ah, where do we begin? It’s addictive because we are all voyeurs at heart . Peering into the lives of other people without being seen–doesn’t that draw us?

And we’re narcissists too. Why else would we “exhale” in public and then check every few minutes to see how many people “like” it?

We build fake farms, plants fake gardens and maintain fake relationships until we have little time for anything “real”.

What about information overload? And what does it do to us, emotionally, now that we inadvertently share the grief and strains of our “friends of friends of friends” in addition to our own real life?

Blogging, tweeting, sharing, surfing…

Then there’s texting, perhaps the most intrusive of all technology. It physically endangers drivers, pedestrians, and in general, leaves masses of people only barely tuned in to the world around them. In a culture where strained relationships are already a monumental problem, texting might be the nail in the coffin.

It is common for every member of the house to own a phone with texting capabilities. It is common to see a family sharing dinner, oblivious to each other, oblivious, even to the food they are supposed to be savoring, having lost all concept of the relaxing, connecting potential of a shared meal.

There are so many levels of harm it would take a book to develop the issues. No time for thinking, creating, imagining, dreaming, problem-solving–the constant connection to some device robs us of fundamental living!

There is advantage in moderation, in carefulness, in deliberate use and in a whopping measure of self-control.

But it’s time to recognize the danger, the subtlety, and refuse to allow ruin to come to our families just because it has become “normal”. It’s time to create protective boundaries around our relationships and fight with vengeance, anything that threatens to harm them. It’s time to look up, into the faces of those we love and remember that our lives will be more enriched by that than by the latest Facebook status.

I’m speaking to me, to you, to all of us.

A family in tact, building healthy bonds, spending time sharing their lives through conversation and focused attention is now in the minority.

Will you be one?

I’ll never forget hearing one of the young men (single, strong, able, employed) who once lived with my parents in an assisted living-type ministry upon a return visit: “Man, Obama has to do something…I’ve got bills to pay.” Yes, this is the generation we have raised.

And a recent proposal by the President will work wonders to further state-dependency rates: it mandates that in a school where 40% or more of the students qualify for free breakfasts and lunches, every student will be given free breakfasts and lunches. Why? To eliminate the stigma. Like manna from heaven…free for all. Don’t get me started on “eliminating stigmas”.

“We desperately need to teach our children, by real life experiences, the basic connections between earning and spending money, and trading effort for income or benefits.”

We are witnessing a generation who has essentially transferred what they were taught in their childhood to their adulthood expectations. If I spend my childhood being given everything I want, all my favorite clothes, movies, electronic devices and sports equipment, (because everyone else does and I may be stigmatized if I don’t), if I get a new car when I turn sixteen, insurance paid, and gas money to putter around, if my mother does all the housework and cooks all the meals and my father makes all the money to pay all the bills while I spend most of my time having fun and receiving all that I want with little exchange of effort, I will likely grow up with an entitlement mentality.

Family economy is so misunderstood and underrated in the typical American home. Because we love our children, it *feels* like giving them everything they want is a good thing. And while I love to give my children gifts as much as the next parent, we need to distinguish between gift-giving and a daily practice of proper economy.

We desperately need to teach our children, by real life experiences, the basic connections between earning and spending money, and trading effort for income or benefits. The value of work can only be felt by the opportunity to spend or save its pay. The value of things can only be appreciated if there is some investment made. Likewise, the motivation to work can only be felt by a lack of the desired thing.

Obviously, there is balance in teaching this to children. But here our some ideas we hold about family economy:

• EVERYONE is an important part of the family and that belief needs to play out tangibly. ”Teamwork” is verbalized; each member knows his presence is treasured and needed.

• Little ones learn to help with basic chores; older ones grow into age-appropriate responsibilities (looking different in every home). We need to be deliberate in affirming this idea.

• Think in terms of “multiple-income family”. This is something I’ve been mulling over. When we marry, we are one, and therefore our income is one. We have one account and all expenses/needs/wants are paid out of it with no distinction about who made what. What about our children? Should money they make go into this “family pool”? And if so, how do we teach them the distinctions between a socialist attitude (where money is forcibly taken from one and given to another) and a “family-is-one” economy? Just thinking out loud on this one. Would love your thoughts. I love what Kevin Swanson says: “We’re a seven-income family”. Bottom line is, we all work and we all reap the rewards.

• We all participate in making/saving money or exchanging work for food and shelter. Not to be overly simplistic, but a child needs to understand that while Dad may earn the money to buy food and Mom may cook it, he contributes in some way to the process (taking care of his chore so Dad doesn’t have to). Or though Dad pays the power bill, we are all responsible to use energy wisely. If a child disregards his job of conserving, charging a fee or requiring extra chores can help him see the importance; to learn that “nothing is free”.

• A word about “housework”: I have seen so many families instill awful habits in their children by treating Mom like a maid. My job is to manage my home. That includes work but doesn’t exclude other members from sharing that work. It’s an enterprise. We all work, we all eat, we all glean the benefits from the joint effort of family. We all have clean clothes because we all play a part in the laundry. We enjoy a clean home because we all do our part to keep it that way. Mind you, this requires constant reminding and training, but the outcome is worth it.

• Encouraging productivity…going through our years of being laden with debt and scraping to make ends meet (and many months the ends did NOT meet), was an invaluable time of learning. We were forced into a new level of creativity and my children learned more than ever the value of saving a dollar. Now they all seem to share a love of making gifts, making and selling crafts and pursing business opportunities. From the pencil-sketched portrait business my son keeps busy at to my 9-year-old upcycling enthusiast, they all know that each gift they make and the money they earn builds our family economy and they delight to know that God can use their talents in a variety of ways.

Reading over this post seems a bit like I’m stating the obvious. It seems only natural that parents understand the importance of helping their children make these vital life connections. But I’m afraid our super-busy lives and hyper-stimulated minds often just forget these basic concepts that once ran naturally through the course of life. Let’s allow God’s truth and common sense to guide our parenting instead of the pressure of popular opinion.

We Didn’t Get the Memo

“We have come to the conclusion that we will only truly “retire” when we meet Jesus face to face. Everything in between, we pray, brings honor and glory to the king of Kings and Lord of Lords…the only true living God…maker of heaven and earth….the one who we want the whole world to know as their Miracle-working, Mountain-moving, Awe-inspiring, Gasp-giving God….and so we press on with more determination than ever….we will give our lives away as best we know how, always praying that God breaks our hearts with the things that break His and asking Him to continue to get rid of any traces of selfishness in our hearts.”

A Place Called Simplicity