What’s going on biblically when children complain about something not being fair? Lee had a good discussion with one of our children, who was concerned about fairness when a sibling had computer time that neither of the other two siblings received. Lee mentioned later that people overly concerned with “fairness” are often simply envious. That was [...]
Filed under: Getting Along
Talking about Jesus with my daughter, I told her that Jesus was willing to obey God by dying on the cross, but he didn’t want to. I said that to encourage her that she needed to decide to obey even when it was hard. It was a good discussion. Trouble was, I was later that [...]
Filed under: Obedience
We’ve really been talking a lot at our house about how love sees things in the best light. That’s because children (and adults, too) naturally don’t give people the benefit of the doubt. Lately we’ve had a lot of conflict (instant screaming, instant hurt feelings, instant anger) simply because a child assumed something untrue. A [...]
Filed under: Getting Along
I’ve been wrestling with a decision. In our church on occasion, we use the overhead projector for songs that aren’t in the hymnal. The projector is high enough for me to see the words (usually), but not our children. When they were little, it was easy to hold them so they could see (even though [...]
Filed under: Church
Had a good actual discussion with one of my children about salvation. I mentioned that the Bible talks about a number of people who were reluctant to be saved or repent, and that we can see several reasons for not doing so. We chatted about a few. The pharisees were more concerned about what people [...]
Filed under: Communication and Meaning, Fear, Salvation
Shaking off the blog dust… Yesterday I was reminded of something I’ve wanted to blog (think) about. As our children get older, we’ve been getting more and more opportunities to teach them about modesty. It’s a fun topic for me, and one that I’m realizing is almost completely different when it comes to teaching it [...]
Filed under: Church, Modesty and Purity
This last month has been rather busy, and I told friends that my July was going to be completely empty! But that’s part of my story. We can divide many of our troubles into problems we can do something about, and problems we can’t do anything about. Often our problems are a mix of the [...]
Filed under: Friends, Military Life
The other night Bethel came downstairs. She was afraid of a tornado. I regretted showing them tornado pictures the night before, and sleepily asked her if she could do anything to control the tornado. When she answered no, I said “The good thing is that God can control the tornado, so we can trust him.” [...]
Filed under: Discipleship
On our street the neighborhood children have been buying and selling things. It started as an idea for raising money for a charity project at one of the schools, and it has evolved into a new diversion. It’s been interesting to see the things children value, but it’s also been interesting to see the approaches [...]
Filed under: Friends
Today I want share again an ongoing discussion about corporate worship at our house and church. (Here is part 1 if you missed it.) Today we’re talking about music. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Ephesians 5:19 Worshiping with Congregational Music [...]
Filed under: Church
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