I’ve been talking about the overall spiritual diagnosis within your home for the express purpose of helping you see spiritual training as a your role…and a priority, at that.
If you’ve missed any posts in this series, here they are for your review.
- Part 1 – Getting Your Priorities for the School Year… From God?
- Part 2 – Whose Job is it to be the Spiritual Trainer of Your Kids?
- Part 3 – Making a Plan for Your Fam’s Spiritual Training
- Part 4 – Spiritual Training in Your Home
- Part 5 – Intentionally Living It Out…As You Go
(By the way, if you’re a male, or a single adult, or married with no children, or even if you’re a student… YAHOOO! I’m glad you’re reading as well. I really think the things I talk about apply to all of us. Even though so often I talk about parenting, it always starts with our own self-confrontation. So, thanks for reading and sharing with your friends. To God Be The Glory! May lives and homes be impacted for Him.)
Yesterday, I talked about living out what you read in scripture. Being a DOER of the Word definitely needs to be part of the overall plan for your family. Here’s just one verse and a little check point for each of us.
Family Check Point:
How’s your family doing on applying this one verse?
James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Here are some ideas to just get you started.
- Do you know of any families in which the father has passed away or the father has deserted his family, leaving behind responsibilities that weigh solely on one parent?
- How might your family be a blessing to them?
- How might you lighten the load of the mother? (or father)?
- How might you include the children in to your family’s life? boating, fishing, taking to a ball game, back-to-school shopping
- How might you come alongside, in the absence of the parent, to guide their same-sex children through growing up? hygiene, make-up, dating?
- Are there financial needs you could help with? If God lays a specific event to cover or amount, or specific grocery items…do you just hop to it? We should. That’s faith. That’s believing God wants to use us and suffocating any doubts about how we don’t measure up to the task.
- Are there specific home improvement, repair, maintenance needs that you could either manually help with, have your children help with, her kids help with, or pay for someone to do?
- Are there skills that you could include their kids in learning? changing tires, home repair, plumbing, car maintenance, boat maintenance, yard work.
- When you start to do something for your own family, are you quick to think of their families and ask, Hmm… wonder if they could learn these skills or enjoy time spent over here?
- Does your family do fun outings, trips, vacations in which they could be included? This might be with just one child, all the children, or their whole family.
- Could you have the family keep a running list of needs – and you and your kids go and tackle these things WHILE INCLUDING, when possible, her kids so that they are learning as well.
- Could you just pop a meal on over to their home from time to time, as the Holy Spirit puts it on your mind?
- Moms, what about you taking the mom out for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and arranging childcare for her other kids?
- Do you have children who could babysit or take their kids on outings, being mentors in their lives while freeing up the mom to be able to take care of tasks that may need attention – or enabling her to take a day for herself?
- Helping with getting her kids to ball practice or events. (not having the thought of “equal” carpooling, but truly lightening her load)
- What about picking up an older widow to visit the graveside of her spouse? Taking her shopping? Helping her learn computer skills?
- What mundane tasks might you do without any thought that might aid an elderly person? Replacing a light bulb, cleaning gutters, organizing her home, cleaning the baseboards, putting things away on a higher shelf, pull weeds, pressure wash her home, give her car an oil change, or fill her car with gas?
- Can you drop off fresh flowers, her favorite dessert, or brownies? Or spend time sipping tea and asking her about her life?
- How can you and your children enter her world? plant a little garden, an indoor herb garden, set up a bird house by her window, read a book to her?
- Does anyone play an instrument? Can they go and just play (without thinking of themselves and “I don’t want to, I’m not good, What if she doesn’t like it? What songs will be have in common? Can they just go and be – with the attention solely on loving another person?)
- Can your children take her garbage can to the street and return it, with no attention desired? and simply do this every week.
- Have your kids been taught to not accept money from her, but to do joyfully as unto the Lord, and thus apply this verse?
- Can you take an extra plate of food from your meal (or from your dining experience) to her?
- (Do you know her favorite flower, meal, snacks, fruit, types of books?)
- Can you be mindful of her birthday to send a card, take a gift, say hello, take to breakfast, or sing happy birthday?
- Can you just simply be… just stop your world, enter hers, be still to listen and smile and give a hug.
How did you do? There’s work to be done for each of us. Let’s all cultivate homes that are doers not just hearers only.
Yard work for a recently widowed neighbor.
Lots of tree trimming and stick-pickin’-up going on.
True Joy = Serving the Lord.
That’s right. True Joy is found in serving the Lord. Feeling down? Ask Him who you can serve? Who you can bless? Who you can call -not to complain about self, but to invest in, to lift up, or to rejoice with about something exciting going on in their lives.
If feels GREAT to work hard and serve others.
Oh no! My Kids are Grown!
As we continue to grow and learn more in our spiritual journey with the Lord, we realize things we regret or didn’t teach our kids that we sure wish we would have. Here’s my quick philosophy on this. Simply pick up the phone (or next time you’re with your adult kids if they live locally), and let them know what you’re learning. Let them know you’re broken-hearted over missing an opportunity to live this out while they were under your roof. Apologize, if needed. Move on (meaning, don’t dwell on this), and live out the very principle you’re sharing with them.
In so doing, you are breaking down any barriers in communication that may be there, you’re living out a teachable spirit (important at any age), you’re creating a culture between you and they in which you talk openly about what the Lord is doing in your life, AND you’re indirectly passing on information that can help them in their parenting.
Tomorrow, I’m sharing about involving your family in brainstorming ideas so that you are Living Out Christ.
Rhonda mysonisintheofficewithmeputtingtogetheradesk.Ain’thesweet ellis