Ponderings In The Field of Grace

The kids and I have been studying Proverbs. We’ve just been getting together letting everyone read the passage from their own Bible and discussing what it means. Today we talked about Proverbs 2:1-5. It sounds like more than it is. It’s really just one sentence, but it has a lot in it.

Today we discovered that in order to be wise 5 things had to happen.

1. We have to listen to  God.

2. We have to remember what He says.

3. We have to listen to Him again.

4. We have to do what He says.

5. We have to beg God for wisdom.

Then we have respect for the Lord, and that is when we begin to learn wisdom. Which goes right back to Proverbs 1:7 “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Hope you have a blessed day!

1 Corinthians 10:23 (NASB)

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.

Whenever I am having a hard time deciding of I should do something or not, I will usually pray about it, and try to find an answer in God’s Word. However, as you may know, I’m just not going to find the answer spelled out as clearly as I would like sometimes. It is in those times, when I seek the counsel of those close trusted friends I have. And, one of the closest is always quick to ask me, “Does it edify?”

That’s not the easiest of questions.

Especially when I really would like to do something, and I realize it doesn’t really edify me.

That’s tough.

As you may guess, right now I am dealing with one of those situations. It’s not fun, and truthfully I would rather be able to enjoy this little thing, but I think I am at a point where I will just have to say, “No.” Even though I don’t really think it is bad, I don’t like the uneasiness I have.

As Dave Ramsey says, “Kids do what feels right. Adults do what is necessary.”

I guess it’s time to grow up a little…

I’m reading The Heart of Anger by Lou Priolo. I bought it at a homeschool book fair this past spring to help me with M1. He has a temper, and it worries me that at only 7 he can be very defiant at times. I’ve always belonged to the camp of “If I can’t handle them now what am I going to do in 10 years.” So, I wanted to check out this book and see what practical solutions it may offer.

It figures, the first thing the book did was to make me see I have to deal with my anger.

The book lists “25 Ways that Parents Provoke Their Children to Anger“

Here are just a few. (I haven’t gotten all the way through the list yet. )

1. Lack of Marital Harmony (as in “one flesh”)

2. Establishing and Maintaining a Child-Centered Home

3. Modeling Sinful Anger (ouch)

4. Habitually Discipling While Angry (another ouch)

5. Scolding

6. Being Inconsistent with Discipline

7. Having Double Standards

8. Being Legalistic

9. Not Admitting You’re Wrong and Not Asking Forgiveness

10. Constantly Finding Fault

This book is definitely giving me some things to mull over. I just thought I would go ahead and throw these out for you to think about. I will hopefully be back soon to talk more about them. Feel free to let me know what you think as I go.

I was reading in 1 Samuel today and something just seemed to really make me want to ponder it some more.

1 Samuel 15:3 says:

Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Later on in v. 8-9 of that same chapter it says:

He (Saul) also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

What kind of got me dwelling on this was the fact that God had told Saul to completely wipe out a people and Saul didn’t simply because he saw the “good” in it, and didn’t want to destroy it.

How many times are we like that? I don’t mean with material things, I mean with people. The Bible tells us we can love the sinner, but we are to hate the sin. In this passage God is exacting revenge on the Amalekites for an offense which occurred as the Hebrew people were leaving Egypt (if I am correct). This generation was not the one who committed the original sin. Why should Saul kill all of the people? Why not just the “bad” ones? Because God knows the heart. We only know what people can show us.

Honestly, God had told Saul to do this even though it did not make sense to Saul. That’s just like today. In His Word, God has written out some very specific codes of conduct for the Christian believer. It may be tough to effectively apply them sometimes, it may even hurt. But God has a reason for it. If we compromise like Saul did, we may fall to the same punishment Saul faced. Will we lose the blessing of God on our lives if we continue to do things that seem right in our own eyes? Absolutely. God may pour His anointing on you, but the Holy Spirit cannot co-habitate with open sin and rebellion in our lives. Do we lose our salvation? No, but we do lose the blessings of God which we would have received if we had walked in obedience.

I pray each of us will not accept sinfulness because we are afraid to offend or we see some other advantage. Instead I pray we will all be strong in the armor of the Lord, that we will not compromise, but instead stand firm in our faith and in the One who sent us.