From the Jesus Calling:
“Let thankfulness rule in your heart. As you thank Me for blessings in your life, a marvelous thing happens.”
Have a marvelous day!
ESP Character Training(Explain, Show, Practice) |
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Happy Thanksgiving!
From the Jesus Calling: “Let thankfulness rule in your heart. As you thank Me for blessings in your life, a marvelous thing happens.” Have a marvelous day!
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Now what? Yes, there are “shoulds” that are bombarding me; please sum up some action steps.
1) Recognize. Be highly sensitive to the word should. Recognize the shoulds others are putting on you. Be aware of the shoulds you are putting on yourself. Eliminate those that are: vague, don’t line up to God’s Word: want to become an idol, aren't what your husband wants, distract from training of children and are burdensome. 2) Change. Let’s change our vocabulary with others. When we tell others they “should” do something, we are actually saying that if they don’t do it they are a dummy. Instead of “you should” let’s try, “what do you think about?”, “this is how I see it”, “what the Bible says is”…keep conversation open by discussing ideas, not giving shoulds. 3) Celebrate. Each time you recognize a SSS necklace and remove it, celebrate! Rejoice and thank the Lord for His freedom. Gal. 5: 1a “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” 4) Obey. Lastly, when a should is specific, lines up with God’s Word, and is light not burdensome, obey. I John 5: 3 “This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome.” I mentioned yesterday that the Lord has given me three verses that help me weigh the "shoulds" in my life. There are actually six verses, but three principles.
The first Truth comes from Exodus 20: 2 “You shall have no other gods before Me” which is the first commandment. And Matt. 22: 37 is the greatest commandment, “Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” These verses remind me to weigh a should by if it causes me to love the Lord more or wants to be an idol in my life. Early in our marriage I was convinced we should eat healthier. My first action was to buy wheat bread. Soon I read that I should make my own wheat bread. Later, I heard I should grind my own wheat berries for my homemade wheat bread. On top of this, I knew we should eat vegetables at meals, but then the experts said we should fill half our plate with vegetables. Cooked vegetables weren’t enough though, I should have at least half those vegetables be raw. If I really wanted the value of fresh vegetables I should grow my own vegetables. ENOUGH! Eating healthy wanted to become an idol in my life. In order to do it all, I needed to dedicate my time and energy to this goal. Food was the focus of my thoughts, not the Lord. This “should” did not help me love the Lord more, it stole His time and place by trying to become an idol. The second Truth God uses to help me weigh the shoulds that cross my path is: Col. 3: 18 “Wives submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Did you know we are told six times in the NT to submit to our husbands? Eph. 5: 33b “the wife must respect her husband.” The question that helps me to apply these verses when a should comes up is: Does my husband even want me to do that should? Our husbands can often see what is too much for us. Their outside view helps them see more clearly than we can. Plus our husbands tend to not be as led by their emotions, so they are often more rational. Just the other day, a friend called to see if I was going to drop off her son’s coat that I had picked up at church for her. I told her I would be going out later and would try to drop it off then. When I got off the phone my daughter said, “Don’t you think Jesus would take the coat over to their house now?” I tried to explain to her that if they needed it, they could pick it up sooner, after all, they had left it in the first place. As I explained this to her I started to feel wishy washy; perhaps Jesus would drop everything and take the coat. If nothing else, going now would be a good example to my daughter. Thankfully, my husband walked in the door just then. I quickly told him what was going on and without hesitation he declared, “If they need it sooner they can come get it, you keep doing what you’re doing and if it works to take it later, fine.” My husband quickly took that should off my plate. Lastly, the Lord has given me two verses regarding parenting to help me discern the shoulds I come across. Proverbs 22: 6a “Train a child in the way he should go.” It is for our training not our entertaining that we will one day give an account. Eph. 6: 4 “Fathers, do not exasperate your children instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Do not exasperate INSTEAD train and instruct. When our children were small email was new. I would often steal away and check if I had mail. If there was a note from a friend I would sit down, read it and then feel the need to quickly respond with an equal length note. Often as I sat writing my friends I would shoo my little ones away. Sometimes they would even cry as I continued to connect via email. Then these verses came to mind and I realized email was getting in the way of my training our children and causing me to exasperate them. Email had to go. Now, I don’t remember for how long I didn’t email, but it was long enough to break the bond it had on me. Tomorrow I will finish up with four things we can do now that help in identifying the shoulds in our lives. You should eat healthy. You should get in shape. You should get facebook. You should wear fashionable clothes. You should cut coupons. You should plan more play dates. You should keep your home cleaner.
Anyone feeling a little weighed down yet? All these statements are not a help, but a burden. These are what I like to refer to as a SSS necklace. An SSS necklace is Satan’s Strangling Should necklace. It is Satan weighing us down with shoulds that are not from the Lord. Sometimes, like I just did, others try to put shoulds on us, but more often we put them on ourselves. So how do we know if a should is from the Lord or not? That is what I would like to help with the next couple of posts. A first test is something a friend shared with me recently, “God’s conviction is specific, where Satan’s condemnation is often vague.” Many of the above shoulds are vague. For example, what does it mean to get in shape? Are we talking training for a marathon or going for a walk three to four times per week? Vague condemnation never feels satisfied. When God asks us to do something we understand what He wants us to do. This is not a fool proof test though, because I could be very specific in what you should do and still be wrong. So there are more ways of discerning the value of a should to follow. Secondly, there are shoulds in the Bible, but one thing is clear about what God asks us to do verses what Satan lays on us. The Lord says His burden is light and His yoke is easy. On the other hand, Satan wants to weigh us down and keep us ineffective. Matt 11: 29-30 “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Galations 5: 1b “do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” This is easy and light verses burdened and slavery. I did not say life will be easy, because it will not be. In this life we will have trouble. (John 16:33) Notice these are both yokes, we will feel some weight, but with the Lord it will not be burdensome. When God leads us, He strengthens us. Phil. 4: 13 “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” Here is an example: You are constantly being reminded that you should pray more. After all, the Bible says, “Pray without ceasing” I Thes. 5:17. Satan wants to hang this necklace with an extra,”You are a bad Christian, you should pray more.” Again, what is more and what would ever satisfy that should? While, on the other hand, the Lord is inviting us to be in His presence. His yoke is light, it might sound like this, “Daughter, I am here, talk to Me about your every thought. I love you, when you need Me just call out my name.” This is still pray without ceasing, but the yoke is easy not burdensome. Tomorrow, I will go into three verses the Lord has given me to help discern the shoulds in my life. Want to know what one of the hardest things for a planning, driven, over-achiever to hear from God is? "Wait." Yep, wait.
Our oldest is learning a lot about trusting and waiting on God. Amidst the waiting though He is speaking some amazing lessons to her. Recently, she was looking at some friends lives that are living out what she we would want for her own life, yet they got it younger than she is now. She was feeling a little sorry for herself when God whispered, “That is not your story.” She felt peace knowing God has a story just for her. Shortly thereafter, Sammy was thinking of some other ladies she knows that are ten, fifteen years older than her and still do not have what she wants for her life. Fear started to grip her when again God whispered, “That is not your story.” There were no promises made to her about what her story is, just that she has a unique story with God and He already has it written for her. This blind waiting is still not easy, but it is surrounded with mounting excitement to see what God’s plan is. God has made each of us for this time. We can know this because He is the giver of life. He knit us together in our mother’s womb. It has taken every generation since Adam and Eve to line up to make you at just the right time. There is no mistake in you being here at this time. As confidently as we can know we were created for this time, we can know we were created for a purpose. We must beware of trying to live someone else’s story; that will only lead to disappointment. God has a plan He wants to fulfill through each of us. We just need to focus on staying near to the author of our story, so He can guide us. We have friends whose children are all younger than ours. Yet, whenever one of us is going over to these friend’s home, there is a resounding, “Can I come?” from the crowd. Age is forgotten because our children enjoy playing with these well behaved youth.
Often our children will state how enjoyable these children are to be with. They are mature and polite. Yes, there are times of sibling rivalry; yet, the key is they stop quickly once they are asked. It is these same children’s mom that I will periodically get a phone call from stating, “I am failing. The children are not getting anything I am trying to teach them. Will there ever be fruit?” As an outsider, I can clearly see the fruit this family is producing, but in the day to day, this mom is too close to see it. Mom, it is not the truth when you think you are failing or that your children are not getting anything you are teaching them. Mothering is a walk of faith, believing God is going use us to produce His good in our children as we continue to train them in the way they should go. God used a strange verse in Hebrews today to show me this point. Now this verse is from the chapter on all those faith heroes that died before they saw the fullness of what they had been promised. As moms we aren’t dying, but we are perhaps going to bed each night living by faith. Here is the verse: Hebrews 11: 13 “All these people were still living by faith when they died” (went to bed). “They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.” Each day may not be one wonderful victory after another, but God is working in your children. As you remain faithful in training and keep your eyes on the goal of raising children with godly character, you will be able to see glimpses of God’s moving in each day. Take each glimpse and step back for a moment to view from a distance the fruit God is producing. Use these glimpses to give you strength for another day. |
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