When You Rise Up - Chapter 5 - Parenting With Purpose

My Kids in the Grand Tetons (July 2014)

1.  Share how you came to know Christ as your Lord and Savior. 

I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior when I was 7 yrs old in Daily Vacation Bible School.  Though CW was the one that began taking me to church at 3 yrs old faithfully until she died over 10 yrs ago, it was a woman named Grace that I said the prayer with.  However, it was the faithfulness and prayers, the love of CW that Christ is my personal Savior and I am forever grateful.

2.  Discuss one thing that you are currently trying to teach your children.  What are some of the greatest challenges you have experienced in this process?

Consistently doing a great job no matter who, when, where.  They take for granted that they are smart, talented kids, but without a good work ethic, intelligence & talent only goes so far without having a good work ethic.  They don't seem to get it.

3.  What encouragement can you glean from these verses as we experience the challenges of practicing the truth in our own lives and then teaching our children truth?

• Galatians 6:7-9 - 7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. 9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith. (MSG)

None of us are perfect.  But we need to study and know the Word of God and what God desires of our lives.  When sin occurs, we need to be quick to acknowledge and repent, keeping a clean account with the Lord so that the devil does not have a way into our lives to destroy things.  Often those seemingly small sins are like weeds.  If left unchecked, they grow and get out of control.  On a regular basis we need to weed sin out of our lives.  When we do this regularly, it doesn't get to be overwhelming like when we let it all pile up and allow bitterness to develop in our lives.

• Ephesians 6:12-13 - 12 Our fight is not against people on earth. We are fighting against the rulers and authorities and the powers of this world’s darkness. We are fighting against the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly places. 13 That is why you need to get God’s full armor. Then on the day of evil, you will be able to stand strong. And when you have finished the whole fight, you will still be standing. (ERV)

All of these things are heart issues and Satan has all sorts of ploys to get us off track.  So when we're having issues with things or other people, Satan is behind all that.  We must get things right with God and use the power we have in Christ to fight against Satan, who is our greatest adversary.  We cannot do it alone or with only partial spiritual armor.

4.  Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9.  4 “Listen, people of Israel! The Lord is our God. The Lord is the only God.5 You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 Always remember these commands that I give you today. 7 Be sure to teach them to your children. Talk about these commands when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road. Talk about them when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them on your hands and wear them on your foreheads to help you remember my teachings. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.  How important did the Israelites consider it to teach their children about God?  Describe to what extent they did this.  Then share ideas about how you can apply these same principles to the teaching of your children today.

It was so important that they wrote it on the doorposts of their houses.  Whenever you enter the house or a room, you go through doorposts, so then you are sure to see these teachings, just in case you forget.  I can teach these to my kids, God's teachings by daily talking to them about them, praying with them, praying alone for them, role modeling to them God's Word in action.  We can also look at different situations and apply God's Word to it and see what God says on how to deal with all sorts of things.

5.  Share one verse or thought that most encouraged you from this chapter.

Psalm 127:3 - Children are a gift from God.  Sometimes I forget this and gifts are to be received with joy and delight, to be cherished.  As both my kids are teenagers, I forget this at times.  I have to remember that I was also a teenager once and that if God was able to take me safely through that time and to develop me, God can do similarly with my own children.

Tuesday, 19-Jan-2016 - Living Life With Purpose

Over this past weekend, my family and I went to the Lower Salt River to find the wild Salt River horses.  We did come upon 5, but they were not by the river as we had hoped.  However, we saw how beautiful this place was at the Phon D Sutton Recreational area and stayed for awhile.  As my husband snapped away with purpose, setting up each of his shots, the kids and I went hiking and climbing all around this area.

I spied this man fly fishing a ways down the river.  He was actually quite far away, but my husband gave me a 70-300 mm lens so I was able to capture this man fishing with purpose.  I don't know if he caught anything but he was there for quite some time.  He had a purpose that afternoon and that was to catch some fish in the Salt River.

We had a purpose also, to find and take pictures of the Salt River horses.

When you live life without purpose, there is no direction.  It doesn't mean you have to be rigidly directed pursuing your purpose, but you can live confidently knowing that the steps you are taking are purposeful, have meaning and is making a difference.

On days where I know my purpose, I get so much accomplished and I am not floundering.  On days where I don't have a real purpose, I get nothing or hardly anything done and I drag on.  My energy is flat, uninspired, and lethargic.  There is no hope, just existing.  I'm not saying that you have to be busy all the time, as you don't and shouldn't.

Purpose helps us live with hope and gives us a direction.  Are you living your life purposefully?

Mon, 23-Jan-2012 -- The Leidenfrost Effect

The Leidenfrost Effect, a photo by geetarooman on Flickr.

I love science and I find the Leindenfrost Effect quite interesting how it occurs. You can see this happen when the pan is hot enough and you drop some water into it and the drops just skitter across without evaporating quickly due to where the temperature of the pan is at or above the Leidenfrost temperature.

Today is the beginning of the new year for billions of Chinese around the world. It is the Year of the Dragon. It's supposed to be a good year, but I'm not superstitious nor do I subscribe to superstition.

So, how does Chinese New Year's, the Leidenfrost Effect and this spiritual God blog all correlate in this Chinese woman's mind? I've been thinking a lot about life and death, about man's search for significance, and does what we do really matter.

Logic would dictate that if water hits a hot pan, it should quickly evaporate, but when it doesn't, that's pretty odd. Just as when gold is refined, and a person is refined spiritually. How does turning up the heat help them to get better, to become a purer entity?

The question Solomon asked so very long ago, my paraphrase is, does it matter? That's the book of Ecclesiastes in a nutshell -- DOES IT MATTER?

If you died today, would it really matter to anyone? Did you make enough of an impact that anyone really cared if you were gone? Was your life worth it? Do you even care?

Or, were you so self-absorbed in all your own "stuff", being comfortable with you, that you didn't pour into anyone? What if you disappeared? Would it matter?

I think everyone has a God-shaped void in their lives that only the one and true God can fill. However, many of us attempt to fill it with all sorts of things - work, pleasures, money, travel, people, doing stuff, self-improvement, various religions & gods, and the list goes on. Only the ONE TRUE ONE can fill this need in your life.

I had someone recently want me to care and love for them so much. It was really important. Why? If I didn't give my love, what would happen? When I did, what would happen? A God-shaped void that only He can fill, not me.

We have this effect when the sh** hits the fan, or maybe there isn't any pressing thing but there is an unrest in our souls that just nags at us. We try to soothe it with all sorts of things, but nothing except God can fill this.

Maybe as the breath of the dragon attempts to ignite us, maybe we've grown so cold and stale, that it's easier to not feel, to not want, to make excuses. Maybe it's easier to not matter to anyone, because that requires action.

I just want to encourage those who don't think they matter, you do matter. There is one who cares -- Jesus Christ. And, if there is no one else, He cares for YOU!

Don't be fooled. Make your life count for something. Sometimes we don't get a pouring out into our lives because we've never poured into anyone else. Start today to make your life count with at least one person other than yourself. Invite Christ into your life to give you the strength to live a life that counts for something.

God bless you! I'd love to hear how you matter to other people.