Bible Thumper

I've been reading through Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers the past couple of weeks and I have been surprised at some of what I read about Moses.  I mean, I never thought I had anything in common with him but the more I learn the more I see the humanity in him that is similar to my own.

                                 

Of course we all know he lost his temper and killed a man.  Now, I have never murdered anyone in that sense, but boy howdy do I have a temper on me!!  I'm not very good at keeping my mouth shut either which tends to get me into lots of trouble ;)

Speaking of mouths...Moses tended to bumble his words.  So much so that he told the Lord he couldn't do what was asked of him because of his "faltering lips."  Again, I can relate! I have some wire or something broken between my brain and my lips and I have soooo much trouble speaking what I am thinking!!  Unless of course what I am thinking could get me into trouble...then I seem to have no problem getting it out!

As I read on I see that Moses tended to get really overwhelmed.  Uhhhh...ME TOO!!  Goodness, I am just trying to herd six people, Moses had thousands, but still the feeling is there :)

But boy howdy did Moses have some faith!  And you know what else, the Bible says he was humble. And the coolest thing is that in Numbers 12 Moses' brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, were kinda getting all snippy and critical of Moses and you know what God said??!!

Well, first He called them all three out for a meeting!  Man, If I had been any of the three, I would have been sweating bullets!!  'Course they didn't really have bullets then...hmmm...

Anyways, God calls them out and says "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses?" So the anger of the LORD was aroused against them, and He departed."

Did you catch that??  He said he might speak to prophets through visions and dreams, but God...GOD speaks to Moses FACE to FACE!!!  And He even does it clearly so Moses can understand!!  OH...MY....GOODNESS!!  How cool is that?!

Oh that God would deem me humble, faithful and someone He would speak to face-to-face!!! 

So many times I get caught up in all of my weaknesses, and boy are there a lot of them!  But the mighty people in the Bible had weaknesses too!  Look at David, Paul, Moses, and a so many more! And do you know what made them mighty....their faith.  

You wanna know something even cooler??  We don't have to conjure up faith in our minds or hearts, God says He is the only one who can give out faith.

How do we get this faith?

By hearing the Word of God.  
Romans 10:17, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."

Now, if you are like me, you might read that and think it's a little cliche.  Then I thought about how I have been reading or hearing the Word of God since I was a kid and I would not say my faith was great.

But sister girl, let me tell you something, reading God's Word is life-changing.  I had heard it for years and it's not that I didn't believe it but I had a morning study most mornings, I went to chuch, taught Bible class, I was in the Word!!

But when I actually took a look I saw that I was in some Word, but it was other people's words!  I read great books by Christian authors and I frequently got a taste of the faithfuless that comes from hearing the Word of God when I worked through Bible studies. But nothing...NOTHING beats just sitting down with your Bible and reading.

I started this challenge to read my Bible through in a year a few months ago and I was not expecting much.  I figured I would slush through the Old Testament and hurry on to the good stuff in the New.  I also thought that since I would be reading so much each day I probably wouldn't remember anything anyways, but I wanted to fulfill my commitment to the challenge.

I can't find the words to tell you how much this has changed my relationship with the Lord.  Ever since I was in my 20's I would hear people thought about how the hungered for God and they were in love with Him and so on.  I thought that sounded really neat and I really wanted that too, but I did not know how.  I loved Him, but I would never say I hungered for Him or craved time with Him.

But when you get to know Him through reading His Word, His living...LIVING WORD, it changes things.  It changes you.  And this little gift inside of your soul begins to grow..and grow.  You begin to have faith that you have no idea was there.  You walk in it, you talk in it, you live in it.

I know some of you are still skeptical.  I can tell you 100% that I was too!  But if there is one single thing I would encourage you to do it would be to read the Word every day.  Just start somewhere and go!  You don't have to know where you are going because God is going to meet you there and you will get to know Him there.  And then one day you will realize that it's not just some typed out words on a bunch of pages, but it is where you go to meet your Savior!!

Oh, and guess what else I've learned?!?!  The Old Testament stories are AMAZING!  :)

Walking Away....Our Move Back to the City

About eight months ago the Lord called our family to sell our farm and move back to the Dallas area. When my husband first told me what he was thinking, I told him he was crazy. I mean, we had just moved to our dream home and property two years prior and we loved it!  How could we just walk away??!!

Farm life with all of the animals, fresh air, awesome neighbors, great church, hiking, etc. was just what we had waited and waited for.  It was our dream.

William was pretty insistent that we needed to move back and I was pretty insistent that we did not.  Finally someone brought to my attention the dreaded "S" word...submit...and I did.  Then God took over. He was so faithful to change my heart once I stepped out with William based on faith and submission only.

We mentioned to my brother that we were moving back and he offered to let us stay with him until we could sell the farm, so, I kid you not, within a week we had given away our animals to good owners and we were gone.  Two weeks and our farm was on the market.  Two months and it was sold, papers were signed and we were officially homeless!

So now we go from our farm to living with my brother.  Now, my brother lives in a house of about 1500 square feet.  He was gracious enough to give us two bedrooms and a bathroom plus, since he is single and doesn't really care, I pretty much have run of the kitchen!!  :)  But living in a small space with 7 people (though one is away at college) has its challenges.

Well, after we sold the farm, we decided to get through the holidays just staying with my brother and then we would look for a house after the new year.  Well, it is the end of April and we are still here!!

There is so much I want to share with you about the last year and our move because God has just been so faithful to us and taught us so, so much, but today I want to share a struggle that I have been having...contentment.

My brother has blessed us so much by allowing to live here and we have had a really good time.  We have grown closer and have just had a lot of fun together.  But every so often the spirit of discontent will rear its ugly head in my thoughts.

I have called it many different things over the last several months and come up with a TON of excuses like, "We need to be in a house before Tori goes away to college so she will have something familiar to come home to."  Also, "I can't have people over until I get a house."  Or even "We have no room to put summer clothes!!"  But if we are going to be completely honest here....What I am feeling is discontent.

So why am I telling you about this?  Well, there are a few reasons!

First, you might be feeling that way too wherever you are planted right now.  It doesn't really matter what size house we have or how much stuff, we all can struggle with being content.  Content is defined as being satisfied and sometimes satisfaction is pretty hard to come by!  We see someone with bigger....better....more....prettier....whatever and we want that too.  

Second, it is REALLY easy for discontentment to hide under the guise of excuses!! Sometimes we just have to call a spade a spade and realize that when we are not happy with where we are in life we are discontent.

And the final reason is that I want to share with you how God is helping me in this area of my life!!

He has shown me that every day I need to make a point to spend time being thankful.  You see, I have learned our blessings come not from what we have or don't have, but from the Spirit of the Lord.  We are blessed by my brother's generosity.  We are blessed by the encouragement of our church.  We are blessed by the joy we have through Christ.  We don't need to have "whatever" in order to be blessed.  

If we did, that would mean that God loves and blesses Americans more than He does those in third world countries...and He doesn't.  In fact God has a special place in His word for the poor and the oppressed and He has pretty strong words about those that are wealthy.  

So what I have learned is that anything the Lord gives us, be it material goods, joy, peace, or blessings from others, is meant not for ourselves alone, but to be used to bless others.  And if I have the biggest house on the block, but I am not using it to glorify God, it becomes an obscenity.

Sometimes I need to be packed into a little house with no bathroom counter space to realize just how incredibly blessed I am and how much I must take that and use it to advance God's kingdom.

Sometimes I need to learn to be okay with a "transient lifestyle" to realize that it is about going out into all the earth and not bringing them all to me.  

And sometimes I need to live out of boxes in order to realize that my life is not mine to live, but that it is mine to give.

The Dangers of Homeschooling

You have probably read or heard about the dangers of homeschooling from those outside of the home school community, but I want to give you a different perspective.

You see, I am a homeschooling mom of four.  I have been homeschooling children for 15 years. Though I am by no means an expert in the field, I do consider myself an expert in the dangers, mostly because I fell into the dangerous home school traps and wallowed in them for years.

                                              

Talk to just about any home school mom and you will quickly learn some of the benefits of educating your child at home.  They probably also have some good come-backs to combat the dangers of homeschooling that you hear about from those that do not home school.  But you seldom will hear us moms talk about the dangers from within.  So today I'm gonna just be frank with you...homeschooling can be DANGEROUS!!  It can be dangerous to your children, to your spouse and to yourself.

Danger #1 Affection Affliction 
     Victim:  Spouse
This danger will effect not only your spouse, but your children and yourself as well.  You see, getting focused on homeschooling is easy.  Open up Pinterest or go to a book/curriculum fair and you have entered the danger zone!

                                          

There are soooo many totally cool and amazing ideas and supplies out there for us that sometimes it occupies too much space in our brains and we start to leave out someone.....that someone is usually your spouse.  I mean, you are there day in and day out planning, teaching, prepping, researching, and it is sooo easy to let one day just melt into another and then BAM!!!  You start to neglect the needs and desires of the one you were created to share life with.

 There are a few things that will help here.  First, and don't roll your eyes at me, but stop everything when your spouse comes in the door.  Better yet, take about 30 minutes before he gets home to calm everyone down and call upon the Lord to change your mindset from one of teaching and mothering to being a wife and a lover...Yup, you heard me LOVER!!!  :)  (I'm not gonna write on it, but you can't neglect that part either!!)

Also throw in a weekly date night.  It does not have to be anything fancy...you don't even have to leave the house.  Sometimes we just are not in a stage in our life that we can leave.  So have a nice dinner after the kids are asleep, or read the Bible together.  If you can get out but you don't have the money to do much, just go to Sonic and grab drinks and talk in the car!!

And last but definitely not least...pray together.  There was a study done that shows that only 7% of couples that pray together have serious thoughts of divorce.  This should be the very first thing you implement in your day to protect your family from danger #1!!

Danger #2 Drill Sergeant Drain
     Victim:  Children
Okay, we all know the dangers of not schooling....you don't learn.  Whether you unschool, classically school, World Views, or co-op dues, we all know that in some form or fashion we need to teach them.  But when you get in a group of moms and they are throwing out scary words like Latin, Logic, Calculus, and Pythagorean you might start to feel like you don't do enough.

                                                   

Then comes the dreaded....family meeting to discuss curriculum!  You drop it, you add it, you change it, you rearrange it and little by little your day goes from ending around 1 to ending around 6 or 7 because you are trying to meet some expectation that you have put on yourself.  And if you really want to be honest, those moms that throw out the scary words are most likely only covering those subjects 50% of the time.  I know....I was one!!

The danger here for your children is that you slowly, yet surely begin to drain the fun out of learning!  You go from hands-on projects and field trips to more and more sit at your desk work and any chance your child ever had of actually enjoying chemistry and Algebra II drains right along with it.  And we wonder why our high school students turn into stressed-out, brain-drain messes!!  We take subjects like math that show us examples of God's glory in the form of earthly patterns and we wrap it up and present it like 30 problems a day 5 days a week followed by a test!!

Don't compare your schooling to anyone else's.  You follow the Lord's lead!  And just because something isn't working the way you think it should or someone else thinks it should doesn't mean you are wrong!!  The absolute best way to plan your curriculum and school year is by spending more time praying about it than you do researching curriculum's, walking around book fairs and talking to other mom's about it.

God knows what your year will hold, what your schedule will look like and which ways your child learns best for each subject.  He wants to reveal Himself to our children through His creation so don't you think He will guide you in the best way to do that?

Now, don't go all hater on me thinking I'm saying don't talk about it or go to book fairs!  I AM saying that if you are going to walk around a book fair for 5 hours thinking and looking at stuff for next year, ya might want to pray about it for at least that long.  God kinda rocks at giving good guidance!!

Danger #3 Losing It All
     Victim:  The entire family
The final danger of homeschooling is the biggest and most threatening.  It is also the one that will sneak up on you and suddenly you have grown children and you realize you have lost it all.  I want to introduce it to you with cold, hard facts....

In high school let's assume you spend 2 hours a day on math including homework.  In a 36 week school year you will spend a total of 360 hours a year on math.  If you calculate the time you study math throughout high school it will be upwards of 1440 hours.
                                                        


Now, do you think most students who have 1440 hours in math are equipped to take on their adult life math situations?  What about coming up against someone who is passionate about math...could they hold their own?  What about a math pro?  Could they even last five minutes?

Nah...we probably all can pretty much agree that 1440 hours of secondary math hours is enough to get by only if they are not challenged.

Now let's look at the average number of hours our children spend at church.  Let's say they are there three hours a week.  That's two on Sunday and then one on Wednesday.  That will give us a total of 456 hours per year.  Think they can hold their own?

My friends, the statistics are staggering....70 % of young adults between the ages of 18-22 stop attending church for at least one year.  Of those 70%, only 20% planned to stop before-hand.

As believers, we raise our children to go out into the world and spread the Word of God, but we are not equipping them and because of that they fall away from their faith.  How can you serve and give your life to someone you don't even know.

Fellow moms, if you neglect anything in your homeschooling day, please do not let it be the study of God's Word.  If you get nothing else done during the day, spend time with the Lord.  We can't depend on our church to carry the load of educating our children in the Word of God and we can't expect our children to leave home and carry on a faith that they do not own.  They must know God, not just know about Him.

If we raise them and they come out of high school with perfect SAT scores and can speak 3 languages fluently, yet they walk away from the Creator, they have lost it all.

"For He established a testimony in Jacob And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers That they should teach them to their children, That the generation to come might know, even the children yet to be born, That they may arise and tell them to their children, That they should put their confidence in God And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments,…"
Psalm 78:5-7