It's amazing at times when you are teaching your children things that the Lord speaks to you. The Lord has been working on my heart so much within the last couple weeks. So many times when I would be sitting down reading a Bible story to the kids in the morning or turning on a Patch CD for them the Lord would be speaking to me through them. I didn't "obey right away" and it kept eating at me. I gave every excuse there was not to do what the Lord was telling me (and I thought my son was stubborn). Through my own devotions and various things I described above I finally told the Lord I would obey and poured my heart out to Aaron about the situation and then acted on it.
If there is one thing that I have learned lately from my pastor and his wife and through the lessons from God's word it's not to give up on people no matter what they have done to you. When disciplining Drew, we try to quote scripture to him so he knows what the Bible says and why he is being disciplined. Lately, it has been, Ephesians 4:32 and it ended up hitting home to me. I don't have to agree with those who have done wrong, but I must be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving and sometimes that can be HARD! It took a lot of prayer and going through God's Word to know that I should obey the Lord. Some examples in the Bible that I found of those who chose to forgive were Joseph (Gen. 45), Stephen (Acts 6), and probably the most important would be Jesus. Not only did I learn that I should love them, but bless them, do good to them, and pray for them. Titus 3:2,3 is another scripture passage that talks about it. I did a lot of thinking and Bible reading and allowed the Lord to work on my heart and now looking back on it Aaron and I know I did the right thing. I am thankful the Lord loves and forgave me even knowing that I will disappoint him in the future. I told Aaron I am glad the Lord worked on my heart. It has helped me to have more of a desire for others and to help them.
2 comments:
The Lord reminds me often how much discipline hurts. It's HARD WORK to make yourself do what you know you should be doing instead of what you WANT to do right that second. My biggest lesson lately that I feel like I'm constantly relearning is that I can't expect my kids to be disciplined if I'm not willing to be.
Often Josh and I look around in disbelief, and say "How did we end up with this many kids??" I'm convinced we must have more to learn than the average set of parents in the area of discipline. :/
We must be following a similar Bible reading plan. :) I've been reading in Genesis, Psalms, and John, and monthly I read Proverbs and Acts. I, too, was unusually struck by the sincerety and completeness of Stephen's forgiveness this time around! I couldn't stop thinking about it all day long. :)
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