Taking on a 4 Letter Word

I really love when I ponder and thus learn an important lesson through my children. I find it to be most humbling and awesome that they have the ability to teach me as much, if not more, than I teach them. I have had a rough week with Caleb, he has been acting out in anger… and sure I could have explained it away as unresolved feelings from Daddy being deployed, but in guilt I began doing research about child anger and discipline. God at this point very kindly gave me my own swat across my bottom with a firm voice saying, what happened to nightly Bible reading? What happened to the kind of discipline that ensures your children obey you and therefore will obey me? Well, Helllloooo God, that stung, but maybe this behavior by my son is just what I needed to be reminded of my calling to teach my children in your ways.The 4 letter word we are taking on here is OBEY...

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (Prov 22:6) 

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” (Eph 6:1) 

So I might be slow, but I’m not completely senseless.  We picked back up the nightly Bible reading… and on night two Caleb decided he wanted to read Noah out of his “big boy Bible” aka NIV, so I obliged. To be honest, I hadn’t read in the Old Testament—other than Psalms or Proverbs, for a long time. If you take a gander at Genesis 6 (which also half caught me off guard; can you believe humans were able to become so perverse in just 6 chapters of the Bible that God had to wipe us out?!?) you’ll find the story of Noah and God’s call for him. 

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.” (Gen 6:11) Awe inspiring that my son had requested the story that told of God’s wrath on people full of violence—and he has been struggling to keep his temper! I mean really God—show off ;) And that gave me a perfect way to talk about obeying God’s rules and therefore obeying his teachers and parents. Wow! And it seemed like he was really taking it all in. He had started to get down and thinking that he had really messed it all up when… in comes God’s SUPER ERASER! That’s why Jesus’ birth was so important (tying in Christmas!) that He came to erase our sins… and as soon as we repent (agree with God that what we’ve done was bad and don’t try to blame someone else for it; taking responsibility) and ask for forgiveness, then the eraser takes it away and God says it never happened anymore. Bright eyed and excited I can see him picturing one of those pink school erasers… but Giant… scrubbing away and then whoa… it’s Gone!


"If you love me, you will obey what I command." John 14:16


"If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love." John 15:10 

What an important lesson to remind ourselves of this Christmas season...  the Best answer is of course to obey God because that will give us the best life. When "life" happens and our not so Godly instincts get us into sin, we need to agree that we have chosen something less than the best, and ask for forgiveness-- Thank you for Jesus and Christmas! Then let Him erase it-- like magic! Christmas always has been a magic time of year, and rightly so, Jesus is amazing! He takes something ugly and dying and turns it into new life!

Merry Christmas!!

Reflection Question: Where are you still not obeying God and letting Him give you your BEST life? 


by the way... thank you to everyone who reads my blog for pushing it past 3,000 views this month! What an honor to be able to reach people with Christ's message through me! Thanks!!