Growing Godly Men {Link-up Day!}

By on August 25, 2011 in growing godly men, Uncategorized

Today’s the day!

Let’s all benefit from each other and share our struggles and insights about raising godly men. If you have a post on that subject please link it up below. It can be a recent post, or a (not so) recent post. No restrictions except that it be based on the Truth of the Word and be specifically about your attempts to raise godly men. Be sure to share as much of the title in your link name as possible so that other moms can look for what they need.

(Looking for a great resource on raising godly men? We recommend Plants Grown Up, by Doorposts.) Link up!



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Light Reading {Unequally Yoked}

By on August 24, 2011 in Unsaved Spouse

So far there are two men in my life that have said “the” prayer. Yet, why is it so easy to believe the younger one?

When my husband and I met faith was not in my priorities – let alone a second thought. I was filled with anger from so many places that I was happy to find someone who saw past all of my baggage and loved me for who I was at the core (even if I had no clue who that was at the time).

As the years past and our number of children grew I also was growing and discovering who that core person was – or is. I found God again and as a family we began attending churches. Still not knowing the area we were living in we bounced from church to church trying to find a place that not only spoke to me but more importantly spoke to my husband.

Finally we found a church that after our first time attending I got the following statement from the husband “I think that’s the first time I’ve not fallen asleep during a sermon“. As much as I wanted to roll my eyes it was the first positive remark I have heard from my husband about a church.

We have spent many random moments talking at home about God, Jesus and that anyone can pray to God without a Priest, Pastor, Father, etc to do it for you. One morning the service was centered around forgiveness and praying to have Christ enter your heart. When prayer time began and it started getting heavy and ‘the’ prayer began my husband squeezed my hands a little tighter.

    My husband in that moment accepted Christ.

As time passed different situations came up that made me question that night and if it really happened. His unwavering beliefs that you can do anything you want in your life and if a Priest comes and prays over you (or even just your body) that you will automatically go to Heaven.

Fast forwarding again just a few weeks ago our boys attended a Vacation Bible School. Each night the boys talked about roads of yellow, being able to do anything through Christ, to not have bullies in Heaven and seeing Jesus who is light. Not only was the translations of what they learned exciting but the fact that they were excited sharing was amazing. The night before the last Hunter brought home a Bible.

    My oldest son had accepted Christ.

Since then he falls asleep each night reading that Bible he so proudly showed me. While I know he can’t read all of the words, he is still looking at the images and reading some of the captions he can decode. Throughout each day little moments will happen like when I got spaghetti sauce on the palm of my hand and Hunter told me how it looked like Jesus’s hands. [Insert a sigh and tear]

Perhaps it’s the purity of a child but for me I believe my son accepted Christ with every fiber of his being without a shred of reservation. A reservation I see my husband holding onto and not allowing his heart to fully open to all that Christ can give and all the pressures He can take away.

I am striving daily to live as God would want me to live as it’s through me that my children will see God’s love and hopefully my husband will feel His embrace.

“Even though we had some standing as Christ’s apostles, we never threw our weight around or tried to come across as important, with you or anyone else. We weren’t aloof with you. We took you just as you were. We were never patronizing, never condescending, but we cared for you the way a mother cares for her children. We loved you dearly. Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts. And we did.” – 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8 The Message

    How do you share His love with a non-believing spouse?

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Five ways to grow a spiritual leader

By on August 23, 2011 in The Word, Uncategorized

 

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. 2 Timothy 1:5

We all long to raise up our boys into men who love God and who lead well their families, communities and churches. Timothy, a young yet strong spiritual leader, was given a great head start on his spiritual journey through the legacy of his mother Eunice and grandmother Lois. We too hold this baton of faith and we everyday are slowly handing it to our children.

Passing the baton

Photo Credit

Here are five things we can be doing as we strive to pass the baton of faith to our future leaders.

Pray for them.

Let’s be sure of this: only God can raise up a spiritual leader. We can teach our boys everything we know about walking with the Lord, but without the Spirit of God moving in their hearts the knowledge we impart to them will be only that-knowledge. Pray that your boys would come to a saving faith in God, then pray that the depths of the gospel will penetrate every area of their lives. (If you don’t have it yet, our own Brooke has a great e-book on how to pray for your sons.)

Model what it means to serve the Lord.

Many things are caught, not taught. As our boys watch us serve the Lord, as they experience how we prioritize the will of God in our lives and as they see our passion for God to be glorified in our lives they will have a head start on realizing these things in their own lives.

Confess your shortcomings.

Humility is a must in a spiritual leader. When we admit our sinfulness to our kids, instead of acting like we have it all together, we show them that no one is perfect and that perfection is not the goal. Running to Jesus with our sin is the goal. In order to take our burden of sin to Christ, we must see that we have a need for Him. Being able to say “I was wrong, will you forgive me?” is a key component to teaching our boys humility. (It won’t hurt for his future marriage either!)

Let them see you spend time with the Lord.

Little feet hit the ground running in the early morning hours. They come quickly down the hall and look for me. On the mornings I’m up, they find me curled up in my favorite chair with my Bible on my lap and pen in hand, scribbling down observations in my journal. On the not-so-good mornings they find me snoozing (and grumpy) in bed. I notice a difference in my days when my kids wake up to me digging in the word of God. They do too.

Our boys cannot be the leaders God has designed them to be without consistent time in the Bible. As they see us make time to study the Bible, they will want to model it. As they see the grace of God in our lives and the life change that results from a life based on the word of God, they will want that for themselves.

If you are struggling with getting into the groove of regular time with the Lord, can I make two recommendations?

  • Inspired to Action’s Maximize Your Mornings challenge is starting back up on September 15. This is a great source of encouragement and accountability towards “waking up for your kids, instead of to your kids.” I’ll be an accountability captain, and I would love to have you in my group! (Just make a note during registration.)
  • Secondly, if you need help with knowing how to have an effective quiet time, my friend Lara and I are releasing an e-book next month which will be just what you need to help you with this time.

Talk about God in the home.

Share with your boys what you are learning from your time in the Bible. Point out the handiwork of God in your surroundings. Praise Him aloud when blessings come. Pray when you really need patience, and let them hear you (I think I have to do this one everyday.) God is amongst us and is continually at work, let’s help our boys be aware of His presence and comfortable sharing about it.

 

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are simple, everyday ways we can strive to pass the baton of faith to our boys.

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He Is Wild – And Why That’s A Good Thing

By on August 22, 2011 in a mother's heart, growing godly men

My son is two.

Very, very two.

The kind of two that lies prostrate on the living room floor screaming for forty five minutes, his screams punctuated only by a special kind of thrashing that can be likened only to ‘the worm.’

He is loud and rambunctious and forever throwing himself from something he shouldn’t have been climbing and scaling the furniture and hitting his sisters and throwing a football up on the counter tops with the express purpose of shattering the breakables that I have desperately crowded into the only “safe” place I could conceptualize.  At night, I fall face down in bed with my ears ringing, stopping just short of crying myself to sleep from the exhaustion.

And I have come to see all of this as a very good thing.

Because never has this world been changed by a passive man.

One with a more restrained temperament, yes…but there is certainly nothing about my son that can be called “restrained!”  He is vibrant and passionate and wild inside.

How can I pray that he will fill in the extraordinarily large shoes that a man of God must grow in to, and simultaneously try to slip a bit and bridle over him?  How can I teach him to step out boldly for the Lord, yet force him into a box…one labeled “Good Behavior?”  {The new version of “Seen and Not Heard?”}

I can’t.  And I don’t want to.

Day by day, I pray for the wisdom not to temper his personality, but to harness the fire inside him.  And not to simply let him run amuck, but to guide his energies, and focus them where he is strong; where God will take my exasperated tears over this Tasmanian devil of a boy, and transform him into a gale force powerhouse of a man.

My son is two.  Very very two.  And by the grace of God, he will still live with the same vivacious intensity, directed under the banner of God’s ways and seasoned with wisdom when he is eighty two.

And that he will keep barreling down the track of his life, setting the world on fire for God {and please Lord, not my couch}…

wild and free.

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