Living the gospel daily.What does that mean? What does that really look like? As I sat down this morning for my quiet time, this is what the focus of the day was, The gospel, the Word of God being living and active in my life now. It should have changed everything in my life, it’s impact woven through the way I think and act. Here's an excerpt from today: ”..the gospel redefines how we understand our whole story, how we think about the meaning of life, how we understand the human struggle, where we get our identity, where we look for peace and security, what we consider in life to be dangerous, what we see as successful living...” ”..When Jesus takes up residence in us everything in life changes. Nothing remains the same. Now if you don’t know this, you celebrate your salvation, but for help with your marriage, parenting, sex, money, friendships, fear, addictions, decisions, and such, you don’t look to the gospel. You log on to Amazon.com and scan for the latest self help book... You’ve forgotten who you are as a child of God.” Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies This was just the conversation I was having with my brother the other day, as I was asking his opinions on the influences I allow on my kids, and the methods I use to teach them. His comment was that there is no greater teacher of wisdom, critical thinking, persuasive speaking, etc., than the Bible, and Christ himself. If we take time to really look at the the gospels and what Christ is saying, we see he IS the greatest teacher. How true and freeing that was to be reminded of! Why did I start to forget the power and completeness of the gospel?! The Bible truly is the best source for teaching, and how wonderful it is that God has given us all such a blessing to have his word at our fingertips! So, the spirit of God should be working in every aspect of my life, including parenting. The gospel isn’t just something we hear at church. It changes us. How have I see the spirit working? What does this look like practically? Well, if you’re are a parent, then you know how time and time again you are put in situations where you are completely at loss on what to do. You see your limitations, your lack of wisdom, your inability to completely help and solve every problem your child throws at you. It is humbling, discouraging, frustrating, but is also where you can allow God to take control if you are willing to submit to him. We’ve been battling anger and tempers right now in our parenting journey. My kid definitely has my temper and gets mad to the point of being out of control. I get it 100%! That’s me. The problem is I don’t really know how to help. He’s sobbing in frustration and learning that throwing things, hitting others, or biting himself all aren’t ok ways of dealing with his feelings. When I was mad as a kid, I’d ride the fourwheeler or shoot some pine cones with the BB gun to take a break and calm down, but those aren’t good options for a toddler. We pray, but that honestly just irks him more, and again, wrong as it is, I get it! When I’m mad, I’m mad at God too. Don’t hug me, lecture me, belittle the issue, just give me space, and talk to me later, But how do you help a toddler who doesn’t even understand what he’s feeling and why? We were praying, disciplining, trying to give better solutions, modeling how to talk it out, but we were grasping at straws and felt like we were drowning. (That drowning feeling is usually a good hint that I’ve been trying to be in control of something instead of giving it to God.) Then, finally one day God revealed to me what was before right before my dumb eyes, Danny’s favorite Bible story, The Talking Donkey. Every morning we read the story about Baalam’s talking donkey. And what does angry Baalam do? Hit his nice donkey. Seriously, I feel like God must have been rolling his eyes at how dense I was for not seeing this as my kid requested it every morning. But finally, thanks to the Holy Spirit, I finally saw a way to connect scripture to the issue at hand. So now if he’s mad or hits, we talk about Baalam. Walk about how Baalam sinned. How Baalam could have acted in a better way. We even called Baalam on the play phone and talked about forgiveness, something that has been very challenging around here. It hasn’t completely solved the issues. Like any normal human being my kid still gets mad, makes mistakes, needs to calm down, but I’m now learning to try to connect the situation to a story in scripture and it greatly calms him down. As I work through those times I have peace, I’m no longer drowning, because I’m letting God teach me and him. Isn’t it funny how as a kid you think parenting is all about training kids, and then you realize it’s God training and teaching adults by using kids. My child listens better to a story about someone else struggling with the same thing over just lecturing on why his behavior isn’t ok. We talk about times I have struggled and needed to make a better choice and we talk about people in the Bible. The other issue we’ve been battling is him making noises at us when he’s mad. In not knowing how to properly handle correction, he’s been getting disciplined for making what we’ve been referring to as animal sounds. Again the Holy Spirit stepped in. Who acted like an animal in the Bible? King Nebuchadnezzar!!!! Here I already had experience telling this story to a bunch of toddlers thanks to BSF covering it just months before. Little did I realize God was training me in the story to be prepared to use it to teach my child. How good is He! Suddenly if found myself telling the story of someone who REALLY acted like an animal. I was careful to not stretch the story to fit my parenting needs, although it was scary how tempting it was. I just shared the truth of the story and the lesson in it. Even though it didn’t relate to what I wanted my kid to learn, I trusted that maybe God wanted to teach him something different than I did. God knows my child perfectly. He sees his heart. So I felt at peace talking about Nebbuccanezzar’s arrogance before God, his depraved mind, and what wisdom without God is really like, and let go of the perfect obedience lecture I wanted to give. Discipline is an opportunity to share the gospel with my child, to come together before God, and that is what God provided, so I had to let go of how I wanted the teaching moment to be and follow where God was taking us. The freeing feeling of peace after these issues helps me know God is working. I’m sure plenty of Christian parents would have frowned on the whole Nebuchadnezzar situation and how I handled it. The story did distract him from the issue. I didn’t reconnect it to the behavior by saying something like “God made Nebuchadnezzar an animal for not obeying.” I can’t change scripture to meet my needs. The lesson of Nebuchadnezzar was different so I just shared that lesson. But I trust God. He led me to the story. Somehow he is going to use it. Who am I to say I know exactly what the most important lesson is for my kid?! Bottom line is, I can’t change my child. Only God can. His wisdom is perfect. His word is perfect. He provides for us all we need, including our parenting needs. We’re still working through these issues. This post in no way it so say we solved toddler tantrums, but God truly does provide all we need in his word. His spirit provides all the wisdom we can ever need or get.
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