Influence

Well, it's taken longer than I expected due to a modem issue but I'm back now and ready to finally finish the other lesson I mentioned in my last post.  This time it's about influence and how it affects the people around us. If you'll remember, King Josiah came from a legacy of men that did evil in the sight of the Lord yet he chose to follow in the footsteps of David instead and follow God.

Once the Book of the Law was found King Josiah heard what it said he was convicted and tore his robes. He realized that God was angry that those before him had not respected and obeyed God's Law. However, it says:
"Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place." 2 Kings 22:19-20

So King Josiah gathered all the people so that they could hear the Book of the Law and he publicly renewed the covenant with the Lord and the bible says, "Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant." ALL the people...wow.

In this story one person, King Josiah, changed the course of his people by his obedience to God. There are lots of other stories in the bible of influence, both good and bad. So what's my story? How can my obedience or disobedience affect those under my influence?

Who are you influencing today?
We may not have the influence of a king but we influence those around us just the same. We influence our children, spouse, friends, social media followers, and other people we interact with from day to day even without realizing it.

What kind of influence do you want to be?

Respecting God's Word

This week I've been reading 2 Kings 22-23. It tells the story of King Josiah, who unlike his evil father and grandfather before him, followed in the footsteps of David and worshipped the Lord.

During the previous kings' reign, idol worshipping and human sacrifice had become the way of the land and God's Word was lost as it had become irrelevant to the people who turned to other things for fulfillment. When Josiah had the temple repaired they found the Book of Law and brought it to him. He heard the words of the Lord and was filled with remorse and repentance so he gathered all the people together and read to them the Book of the Law and renewed the covenant to follow God and the people did the same.

I was reading this bible passage to prepare for my Sunday school lesson on respecting God's Word but there is another important lesson that I got from it that I'll talk about tomorrow (Lord willing!). When we don't respect His Word it becomes unimportant to us and can become lost both physically and mentally when we need it most. Just like we have to move daily to protect our muscles from atrophy, we need to spend time in the bible to prevent our faith from doing the same. Spending time daily reading the bible has made such a huge difference in how I speak, act, respond and think about the things that happen in my daily life. I find myself referencing scriptures as I go about my day, when talking to friends or even while reading the paper or watching TV. It's pretty amazing how it's woven into every part of my life now and I am so grateful for it.

Another part of respecting God's Word, and sometimes the most challenging part for me, is to do what it says!  John 15:14 says, "You are my friends if you do what I command." and James 1:22 says, "Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.". I named this blog from that verse because in doing so I hope to challenge myself, my family and anyone that may read this blog to put feet to their faith and live out what we have learned from God's Word as our act of obedience. Not that we have to earn our salvation (we don't), but as an outpouring of the love we have for God and from God.

My prayer today is to respect God's Word, to read and obey what it says.

Linking to:

May The Words of My Mouth

My prayer for today can be summed up beautifully in the words of this song:

May The Words of My Mouth

by Rob Hill & Tim Hughes

 

May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart

Bless your name, bless your name, Jesus

And the deeds of the day, and the truth in my way

Speak of you, speak of you, Jesus

 

For this is what I'm glad to do

It's time to live a life of love that pleases you

And I will give my all to you

Surrender everything I have and follow you

I'll follow you

 

Lord will you be my vision, Lord will you be my guide?

Be my hope, be my life, and the Way

And I'll look not for riches, nor praises on the earth

Only you'll be the first of my heart

 

I will follow you



On Good Intentions

Wow. I can't believe it's been a year since I last posted. So many good intentions to chronicle our homeschooling adventures lost to procrastination...sigh.
We've had a wonderful home school experience, and although it's come to an end I will truly cherish the time we spent learning together. I wish I would have spent the extra time to write each day as I had planned so I could look back at it later as my memories become hazy.

Unfortunately, I think that in other areas of my walk with God I tend to do this as well. I intend to prepare my Sunday School lesson way ahead of time and do an in-depth study but I put it off for when I can "focus on it" then next thing I know it's Saturday night! With the blog, I put it off because I didn't feel "inspired" about what to write so it gave me an excuse not to write anything at all. When I pray I think, well, God knows what this person needs better than I do so I can just give a half-hearted prayer.

Honestly, when I started this blog I wanted it to be a visual reminder of the ways we live out our faith and give glory to God in our daily lives as a family and as individuals. I also wanted it to be a place to share the ways that God was working in my life and maybe be able to share something helpful with others. Hmm, perhaps He's teaching me about commitment and diligence?

So why didn't I keep up with this blog? It wasn't that I didn't want to, I really did. I originally had the best of intentions but I didn't make it a priority in my life so when it got hard, I quit. I didn't intend to quit but by continually putting it off, that was the ultimate result. But while it was easier for me to put it off until tomorrow, it's not biblical. Proverbs 27:1 says, Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. In James 4 it says that tomorrow is not promised and that anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. Ouch.

So what now?
Do I give up and live in regret of what could have been? I'm writing this, so obviously not, that would be foolish and just add misery to failure. But how often do we do just that? Darn, I slept too late to have my quiet time...guess I'll try again tomorrow or I'll wait to post until after the kids go to bed knowing full well that by then I'll be too tired to string a coherent sentence together and I'll put it off.

Praise God for His patience and grace! Each day we are given is another chance to start anew. I don't have to be a slave to my procrastination and good intentions. When I feel the urge to put something off because it's too hard, or I'm tired or whatever the excuse is I can give it to God and ask for His strength and leadership. Instead of waiting to be "inspired", I will look deeper to see what God's word says and how it applies to my life. Seek and ye shall find...amazing.

Repentance and commitment

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3
 

Lord, I am sorry for giving you good intentions when I should be acting in obedience to you. Father, I commit my plans to you, help me to be a doer and not a hearer only. Amen.

First Day of (Home)school!

Although we've been working on learning activities for a while now, today was our first "official" day of school! Our schedule so far is:

Brush teeth
Breakfast
Chores
Bible
Unit Studies (a 4 week study on gardens)
Lunch
Math
Science
Piano

However, I see that Bri's already switched science & unit studies on our wall chart so we'll see how it goes tomorrow...

Things didn't go completely without a hitch - our first attempt at the science experiment flopped, the second nearly caught fire:

But finally on our third attempt we created...FRANKENPUPPY!

So your first thought might be that the picture's upside down. It's not.
Ok, maybe that wasn't your first thought, but I'm sure it would have crossed your mind eventually if you looked close enough. Guess the secret to our fresh clean scent is out.. Anyway, at this point we couldn't be too picky  - it looked similar to what we were going for and wasn't on fire.

I know it's hard to tell but the blue jewel is its eye, the green push pins are the collar and the binder clips are some sort of cage to keep it from escaping...or something like that.

Also worth noting, you'd think the smell of melting soap might be pleasant but I can assure you that's not the case. At all. Burnt soap is slightly worse.

For dinner Bri made homemade pizzas and they were ON FIRE! Just kidding, they were delicious. I couldn't get her to smile for the picture though, she says that she's not smiling again until her front teeth come in.

I'll post pictures of her "gardens" tomorrow. We planted lots of great stuff and can't wait to see it grow!

My Testimony

I struggled with this post a bit, ok...a lot, because although I've lived my testimony, I've never shared it other than in brief conversations. I hope that by writing this down I and others can see how God has been working in my life even when I wasn't aware of His presence and that it will help me to share the way that God has become the source and strength of everything I do now.
I was raised in the church but had ran into the world as fast as I could fallen away during college. I tried doing things my way for many years but that just left me lost, frustrated and crying for help. I started feeling God's call in my life several years ago and was getting back into church when my friend's daughter was in a serious accident that nearly took her life.
The accident had a profound effect on me and I started thinking about my children and the "age of accountability", something that I'd heard of before but didn't really know anything about so I started seeking answers from God's word. We joined Fellowship of the Woodlands where my oldest daughter was baptized in June of 2008.
A short time later my grandmother's church in the country partnered with a small church in my neighborhood for GA camp and my daughter was invited. After camp we started taking her there for GA's on Wednesday nights and soon we started coming on Sundays as well. North Woods Baptist welcomed us as family and had such an amazing focus on God that we knew that this is where we were meant to be.
I was baptized when I was 8 but was ready to rededicate my life so when my husband became a Christian we chose to be baptized together as a public symbol of our new life in Christ.
The story doesn't end there. Actually this is where it begins and I will add to it, God willing as He allows as we live out His word in our daily lives.

And So It Begins!

Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.  Proverbs 16:3, NIV