Mommy Minute

This past Tuesday, I got the privilege of sharing a quick thing at Mom2Mom.  We have instituted the Mommy/Marriage minute each meeting.  It’s just a 5 minute segment on anything. . .could be something God’s teaching you, a cool thing you do with your kiddos, or a way you love on your husband.

I decided to share a little about what we do with Owen to help start getting some Bible in him. :)  We’ve been reading his Bibles to him since he was a baby.  This is his current favorite of his 4 Bibles.But around 18 months I realized, he could repeat things  back to me, so I decided to start doing Bible verses with him.  I printed off a few of my favorite simple verses and decided to read one a week.  We use it as his bookmark and after we read his story, we read his verse.  I have him repeat it back to me and we sometimes talk about it.  Then, I pray it over him.  I think it’s so important to let your kids HEAR you pray over them.  So for example, if the verse is “Children obey your parents because you belong to the Lord.” I would pray that his obedience would stem out of a love for the Lord.  I would also try use this verse when talking to him about obeying me. I want to try to teach him the “why” behind why I’m asking him to do certain things
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After I used my ugly ones for awhile, I finally found these 2 cute printable ones.  No re-inventing the wheel here.  I printed them and “laminated” them with contact paper.  I put them all on a D ring to keep them organized.

{From HomeSchool Creations}

{From I Can Teach My Child}

Hope maybe you can use these with your kiddos.  Here’s a fun story from a friend who started using them with her daughter:
“I have a cool story I have to share with you since you shared those verses with me!   We had friends over yesterday & when it was time to leave, their son threw a fit.  I walked out with them, husband & kids were inside.  Daughter told dad "he was being naughty when they left."  He asked why & she said "he kept saying no, no & wasn't obeying his parents.  He needs to obey his parents because he belongs to the lord!!!"  What a huge blessing to me!  So, thank you for sharing those verses with me:) “

one of Owen's verses

In my (almost) daily Bible reading, I love to use the One Year Bible.  It's a great way to get through the whole thing in a year and everyday you read an old testament and new testament chunk,a Psalm, and Proverb.  So when the book of Jeremiah is killing you (like this past month for me) you know there will be something else that speaks to you that day. :)

Anyways, onto the real reason for this post.  Last Thursday, we read a chunk in Psalm that had been something I've prayed over Owen before he was born.  I like to only pray certain verses of it which would make some of VLI profs cringe, but well, there's still lots of power in the words.

Owen's name means young warrior. I love that meaning when I think of trying to raise a soldier for Jesus.  Even though these verses were written about David, I like to pray them over my little warrior:

Psalm 89:19-37
¹⁹Long ago you spoke in a vision to your faithful people.
   You said, “I have raised up a warrior.
      I have selected him from the common people to be king.
 ²⁰ I have found my servant David.
      I have anointed him with my holy oil.
 ²¹ I will steady him with my hand;
      with my powerful arm I will make him strong.
 ²² His enemies will not defeat him,
      nor will the wicked overpower him.
 ²³ I will beat down his adversaries before him
      and destroy those who hate him.
 ²⁴ My faithfulness and unfailing love will be with him,
      and by my authority he will grow in power.
 ²⁵ I will extend his rule over the sea,
      his dominion over the rivers.
 ²⁶ And he will call out to me, ‘You are my Father,
      my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’
 ²⁷ I will make him my firstborn son,
      the mightiest king on earth.
 ²⁸ I will love him and be kind to him forever;
      my covenant with him will never end.
 ²⁹ I will preserve an heir for him;
      his throne will be as endless as the days of heaven.
 ³⁰ But if his descendants forsake my instructions
      and fail to obey my regulations,
 ³¹ if they do not obey my decrees
      and fail to keep my commands,
 ³² then I will punish their sin with the rod,
      and their disobedience with beating.
 ³³ But I will never stop loving him
      nor fail to keep my promise to him.
 ³⁴ No, I will not break my covenant;
      I will not take back a single word I said.
 ³⁵ I have sworn an oath to David,
      and in my holiness I cannot lie:
 ³⁶ His dynasty will go on forever;
      his kingdom will endure as the sun.
 ³⁷ It will be as eternal as the moon,
      my faithful witness in the sky!”

lessons from Job

So I don't post a lot about what I'm learning in VLI because most of the time I'm simply overwhelmed at the amount of information I'm supposed to be cramming into my head about books of the Bible, how to do church, and the theology of the Vineyard. But this past quarter, in our study of the Writings (Job, Ecclesiastics, Psalms, Proverbs in these first 4 weeks) I've learned again why I like the book of Job and wanted to share a few of the things I just had write in an essay. I must give my instructors Don Williams and Steve Robbins the credit for good material.

If you don't know about the book of Job, here it is in a nutshell. Job is a blessed man who lives right with God. Satan challenges Job's integrity, saying that Job loves God because of all the good things he has and that God protects him. So God removes this protection and allows Satan to take his money, children, and his physical health. He wants to tempt him to curse God. Most of the book you read about the conversations Job has with his friends who are trying to get him to "confess his wrongs" so all this bad stuff will stop happening to him. Then God addresses them and opens with these words "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me." Job doesn't really ever get the real answer he was looking for though. But at the end of the book Job is restored in his wealth and went on to have 7 sons and 3 daughters and lived to be 140.

Whew, long nutshell.

This book has hit all to close to home lately. I've questioned God a lot about the place we've been in lately. So here are some lessons we can all learn from this book:

• We learn how to face suffering. We need to see suffering in the context of the battle between God and Satan and God’s reign usurped by the evil one.  We need to trust divine sovereignty and admit that evil is a mystery.
• In the midst of suffering and loss, we often lose perspective and look for simple cause/effect answers.  The real answer is to simply trust God.  Before God we are all humbled and broken. Our being is only possible because of his BEING.
• Even though we don't know all the God and Satan are doing, God can encounter us and turn things around by his presence.  Job doesn't get all his questions answer, but he does get a new, refined relationship with God. 
• When we counsel people, we shouldn't give cheap, quick answers.  We should listen first and hear their pain.  Then pray for God's kingdom to come.
• We should be slow to give theological explanations and even slower to defend God's goodness in view of the existence of evil. Instead we should point to the cross and the Savior who stands with us in our pain.  And we should always point to Jesus, who heals this pain.
• "In the end Satan is silenced.  And the astute theologians, Job's friends are silenced.  And Job is silenced.  But God is not." (NIV intro to Job)