What, My son?

God's Boys will be good boys!

What a pleasure it was to discuss English Lit with my 17 year old! Watching God place the baton in the next generation's hands and cause sympathies to emerge from the soul of the future. It was delightful.
They say a son is a son, till he finds a wife. It is clear that my sons are wedded to the gospel from the earliest days. They are never mine. Not in the way that the girls have been. I must pry and press for any answer of what they are doing or thinking. I saw the word sepulcher on the laptop and decided that it was time to press for some interaction.
I am grateful for every contribution he gives. He said, You know what, I missed the end of the world this time. It passed without a hitch. I am glad, I responded. But what is it about a sepulcher that you are looking at. English is getting me down, was the response. This was the second interaction about an emotional downer in school. I had to tag this second and jump on it with both feet. These interaction are getting fewer and fewer with age. My very aware husband is always trying to keep me from wrapping my apron strings around the boys, because of my over mothering tendency and this keeps me at arms length in most subjects. This emotional stuff is my subject. Walkers don't talk about those kinds of things. We have gotten along for generations without the help of a psychiatrist and I will not have you making my son shrink happy, was the underlying theme, understood. I persisted none-the-less.
The Scarlet Letter was read by my sensitive lad, {that is you Enoch, if you are reading this}. I remembered the heart palpitations that were mine in the reading and the watching of this dramatic story. I remembered other short stories that haunted my heart and still crop up in the midnight hours of a halloween season or other. We interacted on this theme for all of 10 minutes, a very long time on a sensitive theme such as this. Not another word, except to say that, I think that the story is sensitive because it is a part of our personal history and the smoke that could have been the lot of our own souls, but especially my dearest Grandmother makes the story ring more true for us. God sent a godly and Christian family to pray for my Grandma and lead her to see that repentance is the key and not the situation of her state with the church on earth. She was able to see a way out, right from the door into Hell, as it were. I believe that God saved her. The Lord is real and I am grateful that I had memorized the Documents of Vatican II before reading the Scarlet Letter. I think that this gave me some stablization in the reading of it.
Enoch said, Mom, I felt alone in the reading of it. I felt dark and without direction. It is my opinion that we should never leave children without direction in the reading of such things as this. It seems situational. It questions the goodness of God. It questions the reasonableness of all that we profess. Or should we? On second thought, I believe it may have been good to let him to himself in the reading; that if we ever needed the Lord, or call out to the Lord for His realness, it is when we are faced with a dilemma such as the Scarlet Letter, or other such ironies of our own lives. Especially, when we have a tendency to self righteousness, we should look at the chains of our own pride that would lead us to Hell, if not vanquished by the stronger than the strong man, Jesus. We do not know how to pray as we ought. Left to ourselves we would make a mockery, even of the gospel. God gives us both sides the side of righteousness in self, needing cleansing and the side of perversity and dirt, so clearly needing cleansing. God give us grace to walk with You and not to lean to our own understanding.

Seaming, or Seeming to Seam?

God's Boys will be good boys!

Proverbs 14:27 The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.

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Sometimes our doctrine and practice promote life and sometimes not. God doesn't want us to be overly scrupulous, ie. double checking the dotting of the i's and the crossing of the t's in our doctrinal perspectives. He does, however, bid us to know the state of our souls and whether or not our doctrine is lending to life or departing from the snares of death. Are we opening the fountain of life in our souls? The ears of hearing and the feet of doing the Word of God, are we learning to grow in these unstopping the fountains of our disobedience and sluggishness. Are we observing and growing in relation to God and His precepts? In these things, we are seeming our souls to our bodies and to the Body of Christ. And not just, concerned about putting on appearances.
Do these people see me to be a pious Christian? This is not the question unto edification. Am I related to God and does my soul embrace the priorities of the Grace of God, for His glory and not for mine? Do I labor unto the Lord and for His glory and the good of others? Do I use my might to show forth the image of God in my labor and in my rest? This is the fourth commandment. Laboring, in imitation of God and resting in the imitation of God. Stepping softly for our God and carrying a big example of practice is a large testimony in this age.
Many can say that they had a large, visible cross, ever in view. They spoke up at every juncture. God's test is departing from the ways of evil and death. When did we do that, was the question of the Godly people, exemplified in scripture. Evidently, they didn't even know that it was Jesus that they ministered to. They only knew that they were rightly related to Him and did all that they could to preserve life and live out the Gospel.

I love the lessons of being in a big family.

God's Boys will be good boys!

It seems a blessing to be a part of a big family, except when it comes to the area of gossip. A story or an identity of being one of the people in a large family can follow you for the rest of your life. We have a pecking order set up in a family and as the eldest child, eldest son, or just one of the older ones, we are often the perpetrators of the identities of our younger siblings.

I often tell you guys how, we would gang up on Amy or Jo, or the "Flora Dora's" as if for sport. You are a ... and any number of categories would follow and we would agree that that was what they were. A Beggar, was the worst thing, in our family to have been. Don't let someone come to the car or on the walk, with a piece of candy or gum from someone else. The family labeler would be set upon them and they would have to live for a long time to come with that dilineation.

I see David, living out that scene in Goliath, as his brothers castigate him in the usual way. He was used to it. As we become, when we are members together under the same father. It became the gas, as it were that fueled his antipathy to the godless and cursing of Goliath. It made him pull out his resume, to King Saul. No, I am not just Jesse's youngest and out here to spy on my older brothers. I am first, a creation of God and I know the love of God, if not the love of my older siblings.

I pray, dear son, that the faults of your siblings, would guide your heart, not to seek vengeance, as is the encouragement of some; but, that it would guide you to "FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!"
The Good Fight is knocking down the strongholds of the enemy. The Good Fight is putting a rock in the head of Goliath. Don't spend so much time defending your name, as you spend defending the name of the God of Glory. He alone is Worthy of defense and honor. In that way, David was a man after God's own heart. He could have been rolling in the grass fighting his brothers at what they said to him, instead of seeing the enemy for who he was, the one speaking against the God of Glory!

Baal Worship--- or Blessed?

God's Boys will be good boys!


God, through the Holy Spirit condemns Baal worship. Sometimes, I think that we are holding onto Baal and letting go of worship. Baal is the lordship of anything other than the true and living God. We have so much stuff that lords over us. We have so much privilege, that lords over us. We have so much anxiety that lords over us. I call them the "time flies". Flies that are eating at our time and our worship and our heart's attention. I call them the things that eat at our love. We get distracted by the obvious things, that we may have discarded, for more of Him, but what of the things that our hearts still cling to.

On this day that we have been blessed with much stuff, as a gift. I pray for help to repent of my own Baal worship. Help me see You, God, through the lattice of my stuff.

Be Authentic

God's Boys will be good boys!

What, My Son?

God's Boys will be good boys!


My highly regarded prince is marrying tomorrow. It may be shocking to a young man that there is a season of grieving after marriage. Perhaps, not immediately, but shortly after marriage, it hits you that you have chosen the mother of your children and the father of your children and that there is no turning back from this choice, without saddening and embarrassing consequences.
I have never seen a man that I regarded as great, who didn't learn to speak respectfully of his wife. This is certainly a learned skill. To speak well of her when refering to her in public and private.
It puts a beautiful and happy knot of admiration in my stomach, when great men speak of their wife's counsel, in this or that circumstance. It is endearing, especially for a Prince, to consider learning to speak of his wife in respectful terms in public.
That every other woman would look for that type of respect to be given her, raises the standard of culture. Men, as it were, put their finger in the dike of degradation of women, when they protect the honor of their chosen vessel. God promises great reward for such; answered prayer, not the least.
"I invite you to stand in the presence of my chosen vessel, my princess, confidant and friend, the one whom I have chosen to share my royal position and life..." Respect for the blessing of the Lord in a wife is the closest we can get, in this fallen world to contentment in our estate. If we cannot choose to be content when we have all, and abound, we are truly ungrateful. But, as with Solomon, if we choose wisdom and the fear of the Lord, God often comes near and gives a real sense of contentment and love. These things don't come by accident, they are sought from the Lord. God says to seek Him and He will be found by you, in whatsoever state.

What, my son?

God's Boys will be good boys!


What does this paper say? I am looking at an orange paper with various and sundry questions about the Bible.
I love how the mother in Proverbs 31 shows the neutrality of the questions of sons. What are you asking me, son? What is your question? Do you see this mother? Can you feel this emotion with me? I need you to help me, son, what is it?
When mother and child attempt to bear with and communicate with one another there are unspoken understandings. I wanted to say my piece before he said his.
I am often too outspoken, saying that is wrong and this is awful and that is off key and that is out of tune and that is the wrong flavor and this is the wrong way to say that and you should have washed your hands first. This time, I shut up and let him tell me the wrong thing that I should have seen.
Do you see the glory of God attacked? Do you see the minimizing of the Word of God? I do, my son. What should I do? What can I do?
God had given us a launching pad into devotions that we didn't expect. There are attacks against God's Word all around us and we must not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
God grant us all the sensitive spirit to note Your concerns for Your Word, even above all Your Name. Thank You for the season of defending and learning to live in the fear of God and in the love of one another. Amen.