This morning I woke up "on the wrong side of the bed", and I was very grouchy. Thankfully the Lord foresaw this attitude problem, and sent me the latest No Greater Joy magazine. I always look forward to receiving this little free magazine, because it is such a wonderful reality check for me. This latest edition was no different, and I read the articles thinking, "Ouch, gotta work on that; Oops, gotta fix that; Whups, sorry Lord!", but in a good way. Here's a little bit of one article that especially spoke to my complaining heart.
"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good." How many times have we read this, sung it, or admonished the little ones to be thankful? Thankfulness is not something you can teach by rote or script. You can't discipline your kids into having a thankful heart. If you tell your children to be thankful, and yet you are rude, discourteous, and unthankful to the waitress at the restaurant after church, your actions speak much louder than your words. Every night as I tuck my girls in and pray with them, I thank God for the things in my life. I thank Him for loving me while I was yet a sinner. I thank God for dying for me, for giving me my precious children, money, health, and happiness. All this is good and important for them to hear, but that is not where they learn thankfulness. Those are big issues that are important to me, their daddy. Financial well-being is a difficult concept to grasp by the two-year-old mind. When I come home from work, hot tired, and care-worn, and my wife greets me with a smile and a kiss, her eyes and spirit all say, "Thank you for what you've done for us today." That is where my little girls learn a thankful heart. It is the spirit of the home that teaches thankfulness to my children, not just something that is said or taught. You an discipline for unthankfulness, but that does not create a thankful spirit. Thankfulness is a world view. it is how you perceive your lot in life. Proverbs 23:7 says, "For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he."
If you are a mom or mother, I'd highly recommend getting these magazines. After all, they're free! I don't agree with them exactly on some of their doctrinal issues, but I think their emphasis on the home is excellent and their focus on the heart is exactly what is needed. Their book, "To Train Up a Child" is really good too, and I'd recommend it any time!
3 comments:
Very good lesson we all need to hear on a regular basis...
I just subscribed... though I'm a bit wary b/c I've heard odd things about the Pearls.
It's definitely good to focus on being thankful to the Lord for all he provides us with!! I think we all tend to forget that our children imitate our actions, so how they percieve thankfulness through us is how they will probably grow to be thankful in their everyday lives. As partents it can be a tough job to keep our behaviors in patterns that we want our children to model themselves after, can't it?
Thanks for sharing such a poignant reminder. I'll have to check out the publication... Have a great day!
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