Derek Thomas has a great article about the joy marriage is supposed to be, the dangers of sin within marriage, and our objective of having our marriage bring lasting glory to God. It is brief and a bit choppy, but calls attention to the many threatening views our society holds about marriage. It is both an encouraging and convicting read. His thesis statement is pivotal for all to understand:
None of our family relations will be right unless we fear God. This is the soul of godliness - fearing Him
Much of the article is aimed at men, but there is application for all.
Justin Taylor had a post about adoption that pointed to Shaohannah’s Hope. I watched this video and it reminded me of a
thought I had while on my roof cleaning out the gutters Monday (ah my random thought life). While adoptions is a wonderful thing, it is also a reminder that so is having our own children. Sometimes adoption may make what we are doing more intentional, caring for this child, teaching them the things of God, giving of ourselves, etc., but we who have unadopted children need to be intentional as well. Did we have children to glorify God? Are we raising them to the glory of God? No matter under what circumstance you had children, this is the goal. It is so difficult in the midst of daily whiningvand fussing to forget and just try to make it through another day, but God has given us our children as a gift, for our good and pleasure, but ultimately for His glory. It is easy to forget this simple truth, we have a responsibility to bring Him glory in our parenting.
There appear to be 3 attitudes parents fall into:
- Shepherds: Rearing children for God’s Glory.
- Wardens: Ready to give up or trying to maintain peace, but with no real joy.
- Golden Calf Herders: Love their children to the point that they become idols.
I will write about each in the following days.
This video is spreading on the blogs today, but for those of you who haven’t seen it, who have children, enjoy!
(HT: Justin Taylor)
TUESDAY, Aug. 7 (HealthDay News) — DVDs and videos that claim to help boost infants’ ability to learn new
words may actually hinder their language development, a new study says.
For every hour a day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants between 8 and 16 months old understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who didn’t watch them. The baby DVDs/videos had no positive or negative effect on the vocabulary of toddlers ages 17 to 24 months.
“There are only a fixed number of hours that young babies are awake and alert. If the ‘alert time’ is spent in front of DVDs and TV instead of with people speaking in ‘parentese’ — that melodic speech we use with little ones — the babies are not getting the same linguistic experience,” Meltzoff said.
You can read the whole article here. Several thoughts:
- be slow to trust new scientific studies.
- nothing can replace relationships.
- God knew what He was doing by creating parents and families rather then DVD’s to train children.
- This applies to adult growth and development as well, one cannot grow as much or properly simply through DVD’s, books, or Internet. Relationships are a key part of God’s plan for us to grow spiritually.
Recently several young couples in our church went through half of the video series on Shepherding a Child’s Heart. It was convicting and encouraging then, but more convicting today. He often taught about listening to our children. He encourages parents to ask questions and find out what the deeper issues are rather than provoking our children to wrath on the surface issues that really aren’t the problem.
I had gotten on one of our children today about a tardy note. I wanted her to understand this was not acceptable (we have been working with our children about not piddling). The tardy happened because she wanted to get a notebook out of the school vending machine, had trouble with the machine, and was then late. I was ready to set the course straight, “you should not be tardy!” The discussion caused her to get more upset than I thought it would. Next I saw a very sad face had been quickly drawn on the first page of the new notebook. The issue then moved on to not pouting. Nothing was going to get by me today! During the course of lunch we began to discuss the notebook and why she had all of her friends sign in it. Turns out Dad and Mom had failed to purchase a yearbook, and this week was yearbook week and all her friends had received theirs and were signing each others. Now the tears really poured down, this was the real issue.
We never thought twice about the reason we had been asked for 4 quarters for a notebook the morning before. I spoke too quickly and made a special notebook a mark of shame. The real issue had gotten completely by me and was nearly missed. I was reminded again of how important it is to make sure we are daily connecting to our children. To make sure we are asking questions and then listening, so that we are dealing with the real issues.
Here is a blip from a recent article found on Dr. Al Mohler’s blog.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad played the media like a musical instrument, greeting the captives just prior to their release. The Muslim world loved it. Tragically, the most damaging element of Ahmadinejad’s media triumph was handed to him by the Royal Navy in the person of Leading Seaman Faye Turney, the only woman among the captives and the mother of a 3-year-old daughter.
Her presence among the captives taken from the British patrol vessel gave Ahmadinejad the opportunity to make this observation:
“You will know that among the detainees there is one lady who is a mother of a child. Why is it that the most difficult work like patrolling at sea should be given to a woman?
“Why is there no respect for motherhood? Why does the West not value its women?”
Ahmadinejad’s questions still reverberate around the Muslim world. Nothing could more effectively demonstrate the immorality of Western values before Muslim eyes than this — a mother of a little girl sent as a warrior.
As you step back and look at the differences between the Western and Muslim world one of the key difference is the treatment of women, and neither worldview on the topic is totally correct. We think we are superior and far more intelligent because we have given women “equal” rights and have allowed them to function equal to men in nearly every way. They think they are superior because they view the woman’s place as in the home raising children, or at the least, certainly not as a warrior. Funny thing about this? We consider ourselves more civilized, more educated, and yet we think the elevation of women is to treat them as equals to men. My wife is not my equal. There are many ways in which she is superior to me and there are ways in which I am superior to her, and much of this comes because she is a woman and I am a man. Why can’t we, who are so educated, see the difference?
Dr. Mohler has an interesting article today on how family time is now replacing church time. Many churches have called an end to mid-week activities/Prayer meetings and Sunday night worship, often because of dwindling attendance due to families have had to steal away “family time” because of their busy schedules.
Let’s be honest here — these families, for the most part, are not spending these additional hours of the week in joint spiritual activities and disciplines. It is not as though “family time” was a time of biblical instruction and spiritual edification. No . . . increasingly it’s Little League and NASCAR.
At the same time, when Christian parents take their kids to Little League games rather than worship on the Lord’s Day, these parents teach their children that team sports are more important than the worship of God.
Every kid has a “thing” going on virtually all the time. That is the condition of life today, it seems. But when that “thing” keeps the child — or the whole family — away from church, we need to name that thing what it is . . . at best a snare, at worst an idol.
Dr. Mohler also calls into question much of the dividing up that occurs in churches, where family time and church time are seen as two entirely different things.
Dr. Mohler of Southern Seminary had an interesting post yesterday entitled, A Cry From the Heart of a Generation — The Pain of Divorce, in which he draws from an article written in a college newspaper. The student begins the article with several raw thoughts:
Those of us on our way out of
Northern
Illinois
University are getting to the point in our lives when we start looking for spouses and thinking about kids. My advice today is not to have them. At least, not yet.
If there’s one thing I need no citation or research to prove, it’s that our parents have done a pretty horrendous job bringing us up…Since the Baby Boomer generation has gotten so much fun out of naming us hurtful and insensitive things like “Generation Me,” “Generation Why,” “Generation A.D.D.” or the “Entitlement Generation,” we should perhaps return the favor and start calling them “Generation Divorce.”
He then points out what he has seen in the example of his parent’s generation:
Our parents were so repulsed by the idea of the scrubbed-clean “Pleasantville” 1950s nuclear family that they have divorced in record numbers, and the lesson I see they’ve taught us is that compromise and fidelity are no longer in vogue. We’re seeing it with more women marrying older, couples staying in long-term relationships without committing to marriage, crippling divorce rates and the ideal family now becoming a minority in our country.
His conclusion:
Marry late, and marry once, and don’t have kids until you can love them, nurture them, pay for them and teach them there is such a thing in life as two people who cannot be severed.
I see the actions of this baby boomer generation far more outreaching than divorce in the home. We have seen a generation that is unwilling to compromise or submit one to another. Some are left with no example of how to prefer someone else above themselves. We see little commitment to anything. There is no brand loyalty, no denominational loyalty, no geographical loyalty, and no marriage loyalty. It is time for the church to demonstrate true greatness. It is not found in rights and being true to yourself or blazing a trail, but in being the servant of all, a willingness to lay down one’s life for others. We need to learn to compromise, not our morals, but our preferences or our own way.
We often here the phrases, quality time verse quantity time, in the context of parenting. Some will argue that it is not the quantity of time you spend, but rather the quality of time that matters. Quantity of time is easily defined and measured. Quality time is more difficult, but often is measured in terms of memories or a deep discussion. In reality, you need both and neither can substitute for the other in the parenting relationship. However, the greatest need for our children is connected time. Connected time involves several aspects. Like our Heavenly father our children need to see their parents are concerned about what is going on in their life. He knows the hairs on our head, he know when we sit and when we rise. We need to make ourselves aware of what major and minor things are going on in their lives, what their likes and dislikes are, what excites them, what changes may be happening, what they view as significant. But it must go deeper than just knowing. The Spirit is the Paraclete, meaning he comes in and along side of us to guide us in the Father’s will. As parents we too play a paraclete type role. We are to find out what is going on in our children’s lives and then parent them, or guide them as to what is right, the way they should be thinking, acting, and responding. This is where quantity and quality may not cut it, we are not just being buddies, but are parents. Children need this, they long for this, it is as innate as our longing for God and is connected to it. Are you spending connected time with your children?
