Is Discipline Important

Over the past several years, I have worked with a few different women.  They were each very different from each other, but they all had one thing in common.  Each of them believed the lies of this world that to discipline and tell their child no would cause him mental harm.  This lie is the cause of the mental harm that their children face.  Like us, children are sinners.  If they are breathing, they have the capacity and the tendency to make wrong, sinful decisions.  Children, like adults need to be told what to do, and what is expected of them.  I'm not saying we need to punish them every time they make a wrong choice (God is rich in mercy and has given it to us so freely, we cannot refrain from demonstrating this mercy to our children). 

Discipline is not merely the correction of and execution of punishment.  Discipline is coming alongside our children, letting them know that we understand it is hard to obey.  Showing them our faults, and our own need to seek God's forgiveness.  Discipline is coming to our children and walking the path with them to help teach them to choose obedience over our selfish desires.

I found Grace Driscoll's article Godly Mother: Discipline can be Painful to be an encouragement when I read it the other day.  I hope you also find it to be an encouragement to continue seeking God's best for our children by teaching them to deny themselves and seek God's truth.

Intentional Prayer

While attending college, my husband and I both took a class on prayer.  The summer after that class I taught the lessons to my children's church class.  However, since then the vital truths and lessons I learned in that class have been neglected and set aside for what I "thought" were more important things like cleaning, laundry, cooking.  Now, as the Lord has been working in my life, I see how wrong I was to let these lessons fall away. 

This year, one of our goals as a couple is to be intentional in teaching our children how to pray.  We want to teach them that prayer isn't just a routine we go through before we eat, before we sleep, and when we disobey.  We want them to develop a lifestyle of prayer.

Last summer I read a book about a monk named Brother Andrew and how he took every moment and every event as an opportunity to talk with God - he didn't need a special place, or perfect quiet, just a heart felt desire to communicate with God.

Today MoneySavingMom linked up to a post at When You Rise sharing seven printable prayer cards she created to post around the house to pray aloud in the presence of our children.  I think it is so important that our children hear us praying even when we are not specifically praying with them. 

This morning as I was completing my Bible reading, I shooed my son away with the statement, go play in your room so I can read in quiet.  Oh, how wrong I was to push him away instead of allowing him to observe and realize how important the Scripture is and how vital it is to not allow the little distractions to push us away from communing with our Father.

A Clean Slate 2012

I once heard the analogy that our lives are a book to be written, and each year a new chapter.  Last night ended one chapter of my life, and today I start writing a new chapter.  However, the beauty about life verses writing a book is that each chapter need not progress the story as the last chapter did.  The failures I had last year need not reoccur this year (although many of them probably will be default).

One thing I love about this analogy is that by the end of the book, hopefully the lead character of the story will have changed from me as an individual to the person of Jesus Christ.  For the past thirty something years I have lived primarily for myself, what makes me feel good, what I like to do, and not entirely focused on Christ.  Yet, each year as my story progresses I begin to hand over the leading role more and more to my Lord.


You see, my life should have nothing to do with me.  My life should be nothing more than a conduit (like an electrical wire) for the power of the Holy Spirit to work through me.  I am to be the hands, feet, and mouth for my Savior.  Exclaiming His greatness!  Sharing His Gospel, and passing on His love to those about me.


My plan this year is to read through the Bible four times - This should take no more than about an hour a day to accomplish.  I also plan to have my oldest daughter read through the Bible this year.  I am going to give her the same reading schedule I will be reading so we can discuss what we read.  My younger children will be reading/listening to the Day by Day Kids Bible (as none of them are proficient readers yet).

We are also reading the Daily Light at Breakfast and Supper each day.  I was given this wonderful gem years ago when I graduated from high school by a family that has had a huge impact on teaching me what it means to give everything to the service of the King.  They also taught me how to study my Bible and how to love those around me.  The sad thing is that I never really paid much attention to this gem until my MIL was here last year.  She had been reading it during her visit and was so excited about it.  She brought it to us, and as we read the Scripture compilations, we realized how wonderful this would be in helping us to pass on a love for the Scriptures to our children.

Anyways, my prayer for this year is to cultivate a love and passion for God's Word in my children.  But to do that, I must plant and cultivate and care for that passion in my own heart.  I pray that at the end of this chapter I can look back and say wow, God's Word is EVERYTHING to me.


What do you plan to have written in your chapter this year?




*Just a side note - right now I hear my six year old stumbling through the words of the Day by Day Bible and the sound of it is so precious.