The sign of the Lord's return is spelled out in Malachi, the last book of the OT. It says the day of the Lord comes when, "he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers..." The kingdom of heaven is in the restoration of the relationship between fathers and their children.
Today there are so many media influences working against the connection between father and child: like ALL cartoons, for example, that portray the father figure as a big dork. There are so many movies that portray the hard-line, oppressive father juxtaposed with the weak neglected family...like that's normal. And we live with it. It's no wonder that our society is deluded into thinking that it is okay to let the relationship between father and child deteriorate.
And it seems like (in my family, at least) my father was more concerned with himself, his career, his reputation, his fears, his achievement (or lack thereof), that he forgot about his own children somewhere in all that, striving to keep his head above water. And now that his children have grown, they have hence, forgotten about him. And all too often it's easy for men to give away the love they should give to their own children to replacements: their son's-in-law, or step-sons, or some other man's son, rather than to their own.
And why do so many young men grow up unable to maintain a respectful healthy relationship with their own father, choosing to seek out, sometimes, other father figures? What has happened that the father/son relationship in this society has become so broken? Why are men so stubborn that they can't humble themselves, sometimes, in their son's presence? Why are they sometimes impotent to give public praise to their own son - -or even be sensitive to the fact that they should praise their sons more?
Kudos to Rick Johnson for the book, Better Dads, Stronger Sons. The title is pretty self-explanatory. I knew it would be a "how to" book for dads to become, well, better dads. So, I bought it thinking that my husband could use all the help he can get, right?
But what I found in reading it was quite surprising. Instead of reading page by page and saying, “I wish Bryan would do that.” Or, “if only Bryan would be like that.” I found myself saying, “Wow, Bryan does that.” And, “Bryan totally cares like that.” The book was a complete re-affirmation in my belief about what huge obstacles my husband has overcome in defining his role as a father, husband and leader.
I’m not saying Bryan can't use any help because he can. But this book really helped me see and concentrate on how far Bryan has come in his life, how much he cherishes our boys.
So, get it!
Friday, January 18, 2008
Because Society Can Get Twisted
A lady was traveling with her boyfriend/husband; they met an old man in one of the towns they were passing through, and they went to his house to stay the night. When they got to the house, a gang pounded on the door demanding that the owner send out the husband so that they could rape him. The owner of the house told them he would send out the visiting lady and his own virgin daughter if they would leave the visiting husband alone. The gang wouldn’t listen, and persisted. Then the husband pushed his wife out the door. And she was brutally assaulted and raped all night long. The next morning, near dead, and with all her strength she crawled to the front door, and barely got her hands on the threshold, when she died. The husband opened the door and found her dead. He took her body home, cut her up into 12 pieces and mailed each body part to the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel – in order to find justice against... the gang. This is Why.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Nothing Like Cod Liver Oil
Do you ever feel like God isn’t there? There are a few things in my private little world that I struggle with constantly, pray for help with constantly, and constantly never seem to receive God’s help. One of these things is patience. I had none. In fact, it’s not a lack of patience more so than an insurgence of impatience that seemed to be my problem. Impatience had taken on a life of its own. It was almost like a mean little person who lived here in our house with me and my family, riding piggy-back with me from conversation to conversation. I wanted to rip the remote from my husband if he didn’t fast-forward through commercials fast enough. I would take over whatever my kids were doing if they weren’t doing it fast enough, or soon enough…a few weeks ago, my 6 year old boy was trying to string little beads, and I thought I was absolutely going to lose it.
I’m a person who talks to God all day long, but I have a more formal prayer time in the mornings and evenings. In the mornings, I like to go out in the back yard and look at the beauty of the pond, the water fowl just starting their day, and I take in the silence of it saying a brief prayer. My prayer always includes asking for patience for the day. At night, I climb in bed, grab my Bible, and ready myself to read a chapter before drifting off. Before I open the Book, I pray about the day: my thanks and my petitions (the things I want). I find myself saying something like, “I am so sorry for the impatient way I acted with (so-and-so) when they did (this-and-that).” Then I ask God, “Hey, where were you in all of that? Why did you let that happen?”, or, “When exactly will you be stepping in to help me with my impatience?” I pray about it all the time and nothing seems to change. Does that ever happen to you?
Meantime, I am dragging my feet through Joshua and Judges, because, as you know, the OT is like cod-liver oil: in my head I know it’s good for me and I will appreciate it when I am older; but in my heart I feel like – Ugh! It’s so hard to swallow. I don’t yet appreciate it…but I know I should. So I get to the end of Joshua where he is giving his farewell speech after having brought Israel over the Jordan, into the promised land, and conquered all the big cities so that Israel can now split up the land between the tribes and take up residence. Then he passes along a really interesting message from God to the people of Israel that straightened my back a bit in relation to my prayer about impatience.
God says, “If you turn away (from me) and ally yourself with the survivors of these nations (survivors of the conquered cities) that remain among you, and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.” (Joshua 23:12 & 13)
Personally speaking, God has brought me out of many Egypts in my life. He brought me out of my childhood and made my adult life a promised land that I never imagined. He saved my family from a painful dynamic and delivered us into loving relationships. Different careers, motherhood, you name it: it varies in size and scale but God has fought many battles with me, and He has paved many roads for me. And this passage says, “hey, you are going to have some internal habits and bad baggage remaining from the battles we have won together, and you need to NOT cling to them. On your own strength, you need to avoid them. Else, you become a slave to them…right back where you started. And not only that, but, your life will become a dead-end, because I won’t pave any more roads for you.”
Finally, I saw my impatience as a survivor of some previous battle. I finally realized that every ounce of energy I was giving to impatience was a measure of denying God. He has done a lot of fighting for me, and I will not let impatience cause us (me and God) to lose ground. It’s up to me to kick off the piggy-back rider, and not associate with it. Instead of praying for God to take it from me, I now pray that God show me resources available to tap into my own strength and use it to not associate myself with impatience anymore. …to ’strengthen my back’, rather than ‘lighten the load’.
Notice that I said I need the strength to, “not associate with it”, rather than “get rid of it”. I think impatience will always have residence in my world – just like the survivors of the conquered cities in the promised land – but the strength comes in the restraint of engaging with something. The goal is not to get rid of it, but to ignore it. This shift in focus allowed me to accept help from other people and books who, all of the sudden, came into my life right after I prayed for finding resources to tap into my strength. God was listening. This was just a little battle for me to fight…not Him.
This is what God taught me about myself through Joshua. I think it’s amazing, don’t you?
I’m a person who talks to God all day long, but I have a more formal prayer time in the mornings and evenings. In the mornings, I like to go out in the back yard and look at the beauty of the pond, the water fowl just starting their day, and I take in the silence of it saying a brief prayer. My prayer always includes asking for patience for the day. At night, I climb in bed, grab my Bible, and ready myself to read a chapter before drifting off. Before I open the Book, I pray about the day: my thanks and my petitions (the things I want). I find myself saying something like, “I am so sorry for the impatient way I acted with (so-and-so) when they did (this-and-that).” Then I ask God, “Hey, where were you in all of that? Why did you let that happen?”, or, “When exactly will you be stepping in to help me with my impatience?” I pray about it all the time and nothing seems to change. Does that ever happen to you?
Meantime, I am dragging my feet through Joshua and Judges, because, as you know, the OT is like cod-liver oil: in my head I know it’s good for me and I will appreciate it when I am older; but in my heart I feel like – Ugh! It’s so hard to swallow. I don’t yet appreciate it…but I know I should. So I get to the end of Joshua where he is giving his farewell speech after having brought Israel over the Jordan, into the promised land, and conquered all the big cities so that Israel can now split up the land between the tribes and take up residence. Then he passes along a really interesting message from God to the people of Israel that straightened my back a bit in relation to my prayer about impatience.
God says, “If you turn away (from me) and ally yourself with the survivors of these nations (survivors of the conquered cities) that remain among you, and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.” (Joshua 23:12 & 13)
Personally speaking, God has brought me out of many Egypts in my life. He brought me out of my childhood and made my adult life a promised land that I never imagined. He saved my family from a painful dynamic and delivered us into loving relationships. Different careers, motherhood, you name it: it varies in size and scale but God has fought many battles with me, and He has paved many roads for me. And this passage says, “hey, you are going to have some internal habits and bad baggage remaining from the battles we have won together, and you need to NOT cling to them. On your own strength, you need to avoid them. Else, you become a slave to them…right back where you started. And not only that, but, your life will become a dead-end, because I won’t pave any more roads for you.”
Finally, I saw my impatience as a survivor of some previous battle. I finally realized that every ounce of energy I was giving to impatience was a measure of denying God. He has done a lot of fighting for me, and I will not let impatience cause us (me and God) to lose ground. It’s up to me to kick off the piggy-back rider, and not associate with it. Instead of praying for God to take it from me, I now pray that God show me resources available to tap into my own strength and use it to not associate myself with impatience anymore. …to ’strengthen my back’, rather than ‘lighten the load’.
Notice that I said I need the strength to, “not associate with it”, rather than “get rid of it”. I think impatience will always have residence in my world – just like the survivors of the conquered cities in the promised land – but the strength comes in the restraint of engaging with something. The goal is not to get rid of it, but to ignore it. This shift in focus allowed me to accept help from other people and books who, all of the sudden, came into my life right after I prayed for finding resources to tap into my strength. God was listening. This was just a little battle for me to fight…not Him.
This is what God taught me about myself through Joshua. I think it’s amazing, don’t you?
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