Of Intolerance and Dog Droppings

{Oh you are not going like what I have to say.  You are probably not  going to like me because I am intolerant!   Go ahead crucify me!  I will not be moved!}
   Acquiring  2 dogs has taught me many things.  One of the first things I learned was that found female dogs will more than likely be pregnant.  Another lesson learned was that old dogs can not be trained to do new things.  If they poop and pee in a home, they can and will poop and pee in yours no matter how you train them.   
 It is intolerable to live in a home where 2 big dogs constantly do their business if you know what I mean.  There is a relationship that I expect with an animal that has been rescued: I am the master and it is to obey my rules.     That seems like a reasonable relationship to me.  And yet they will not yield that authority. One dog Lucy almost does but because of the other dog she follows the bad behaviour.  Linda is so nasty out she will go today.    We are putting her outside pups and all. I am intolerant of dog poop and pee in my home.  For the sake of the pups society says I should tolerate this poop and filth.   The world wants me  to clean up the piles in my home and subject my family to it's disease all for the sake of the precious puppies.  Out they go where there will be barking and whining where there are snakes and birds of prey.  It is my home and I have others to think about.  My children deserve a clean home and a mother who has not had to waste her time cleaning up poop.  I can not afford to be intolerant of dog poop in my home.
   God is intolerant too!  He does not tolerate sin or disobedience.  We can accept his salvation but if we choose not to follow the rules we do not belong near him.  His home is perfect and does not have even the slightest imperfection.  Our disobedience is no different than  dog droppings in our Father's home.  He knows if we will sin in His home and will not tolerate it.  We have accepted being rescued from our old sin now isn't it time we wake up and follow the Messiah as our MASTER?  He asked us to pick up our cross and follow Him.  Isn't it time we asked how or at least what the rules are?  I for one do not want to be thought of as the Dame that left droppings at Heavens door.  Good thing He left a set of the rules too.

God's Top Ten and Parenting

God is the best parent.  He designed some very simple rules to follow that yield some powerful results.  My favorite are his top ten.  Do you know them?  Can you say them backwards?  I can.  That is how I learned them.....as an adult.  No one forced me to learn them as a child well because Jesus did away with the law.  Right?  So we do not need it.  Right?  Hold on cowboy, let's not throw out the baby with the bath water.  Granted I do not need to accomplish a perfect life in order to enter heaven I do want to follow the rules to be pleasing to God and to honour Him.  When our Lord was asked about the commandments He said loving God was the most important thing.  Do you know why?  If you love God you will naturally do the rest.  Boy that would be nice. 
I am always cleaning out my spiritual closet, always trying to improve, always attempting to do it right.  I know it is the saving grace paid on the cross by Yeshua the Messiah  that makes me perfect but I want to be better for Him.  I want that for my kids too.  Did you know all of the offences they break in the house can be dealt with using the 10 commandments.  Maybe that is why they were in every school years ago.  They were not just good moral code to memorize. They were the rules to live by.  The boundaries set in place by God himself because he knew that we were incapable of loving Him enough and He knew that we did not love one another.
What are those ten?
10. Do not covet    
9. Do not Lie about another
8. Do not steal 
7. Do not commit adultery
6. Do not murder
5. Honour your father and mother
4. Keep YHWH's sabbath
3. Do not take the name of YHWH in vain
2. Do not make or worship idols
1. YHWH is One and the only God

As you can see they are great tools to parent a child.  Using them as a parent I can see that each commandment correlates to a problem children have.  This is a little of what I add in the explanation to train my children.
10. Do not think of taking your siblings stuff.  It leads to all kinds of heartache. 
9. Do not lie about someone else because they do not deserve your punishment for your gain.
8. Whatever your sibling has you can not take.
7.  Do not even begin to develop lustful thoughts about anything because it will lead to divorce.  If you fornicate you are sinning against your future wife  and the person you are with and if you look lustfully at the TV magazines etc. you may fall prey to adultery in your head as an adult and you need to control that appetite always.
6. Do not hate your siblings or friends or anyone for it leads to murder.
5.  If you can not honour your parents you will not develop an understanding of how to honour God.
4. The 7TH day from sun down to sun down you are to take a break and rest.  Do not buy.  Do not sell.  Rest and remember God made the heavens and the earth so YOU do not forget because God loved you. He made you.  Do not for get it.
3. YHWH is Gods name.  Erasing it and replacing it with another term or using it to swear by all is wrong.  Any name you use to refer to Him is holy because He accepts you and loves you and you should not use that term in any negative way.
2. There are many things that can become idols.  We can make them or we can just worship them.  We can even set ourselves up as our own idol when we put our self first. 
1. YHWH is one.  He is a being with many facets but He is a beautiful mystery that is to be above all other things including ourselves in our lives.   We are to love Him with everything that we are and nothing less.

It is tough training kids in this manner.  Other people have let me know just how wrong I am.  They have called me names and hated me for it.  It is not the most easy path when parenting but it yields great results.  The most wonderful thing about using Gods rules is the realization that He knew we were not perfect and prepared these rules from the beginning and wrote them out with His own finger on stone tablets for Moses.  Now that is truly cool.  Oh I always include that part when parenting too.  This was so important that God took His finger and wrote them down perminately just for us.  Cool!

Dirty Little Words

Oh I love my dirty little words.  I have nurtured, cared for and preserved them.  I have lovingly embraced them as commas, exclamation marks, periods, extended pauses and friends.  They are there when I am angry. They are there when I am hurt.  They are there when I want to flirt.
I did not mean to take them on at first.  It was dangerous to say one here and there.  They were always said under my rebellious breath amongst my closest of friends.  Lucky them.  As I grew older, they grew with me.  A symbol of the lost rebellion gone now from my spirit yet ever present, ever part of something in me.  I grew cautious never saying these words in public but at home watch out.  I relaxed my hold over my tongue and out they would fall like pebbles over a cliff.  My children heard a word or two.  Some took them as their own.  The roots, the seeds have been passed down.
Oh what I would do to remove these words, yet will I?  This is one thing I had no intention of passing on. 
In an effort to change I am taking offence to these words.  When my young people use these words they are punished and made to look up 50 words for each offence to replace those words.  Then they are to use them to bless those that caused the circumstance to use the words.  What about the punishment for me?  First it is punishment enough to hear my children say even one of thee words but, I must learn new words as well and add them to my heart to bless others instead of cursing them under my breath. It is difficult to bless those who have caused offence.  It is so easy to slip into anger and frustration and hate.  God asked something different from me.
 It is written (Luke:6:27-36) ",But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to him the other also.  If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him  from taking your tunic.  Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  Do to others as you would have them do to you.  If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even 'sinners' love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is it to you?  Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners' expecting to be repaid in full.  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.  Then your reward will be great, and you sons of the most high because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." 

 It steals my ability to be close to God when I return anger for anger and frustration for frustration even if it is only under my breath.  And I want to be close to God.  I want that for my children too.

 Even if I don't really mean it I need to learn not to say it.  It will be hard choosing to do the things Jesus asked of us in Luke 6:27-36  I must change.  I must change for my children  for I am their example.   But more importantly I must change in order to grow closer to God.  I'll let you know how it goes.   

Put on the full Armour of God

Recently I purchased an Armour of God set  to teach my children about Ephesians 6
 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+6&version=KJV  
This is where we are to put on the FULL Armour of God.  I got ready to teach this to my kids when I discovered that  this is really a weighty passage of the bible.  
We are up against some serious foes: Principalities, Powers, Rulers of the darkness of this world, and against Spiritual wickedness in High places oh and the wiles of the Devil himself. 
We are given great instructions: withstand the evil day and stand.
Yup that is what all this armour is for so we can stand and withstand.
Well, I was going to teach my children how to stand and we took out the store bought armour distributing it around the room.  We  placed the helmet of salvation on one child's head and the belt of truth on another child.  The shoes of the Gospel of peace turned out to be shin guards of the gospel of peace so the kid with the helmet got those.  The shield of Faith went to the child directly opposite the child with the Sword of the Word of God so he could defend himself.  Some one else received the breastplate of righteousness.
As I examined my children and began the lesson on the Armour of God, I myself began to learn a lesson.  How I distributed the armour in the room is how we sometimes distribute these gifts of God amongst ourselves as believers.  Some of us have salvation, others faith.  Some have the sword of the word meanwhile others must defend themselves from us  with the shield of faith rather that us using the sword only for defence, and those shoes we intended to keep us on the right path are not truly shoes at all but simply good intentions as shin guards making us wonder if we really are on the right path. 

I think where I am going here is that the Armour of God is not for fighting amongst ourselves over trivial inter congregational nonsense. YHWH is our Elohim.  We all love Him and we are all on the same side.  We are to defend ourselves and others by constantly praying in the spirit for them and for the quenching of the darts of the wicked.  I think we miss the most important points from this passage anyway; Pray in the Spirit all the time for All the Saints so they can withstand the challenges that are coming their way and stand on the last day. 

Oh by the way, this passage is where we learn about obedience to parents, to masters and to God.  It is where we learn our place and why it is so important to do the will of God with our whole heart.  We miss so much when we use only bits and peaces of the bible and do not take on the full passage of the Bible. It is a lot to teach my children but I am up for the challenge!
Finally, my bretheren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might put on the full armour of God!  It makes me want to pray for missionaries and you right now! Peace.

Recently we took a sabbatical for Home Coming complete with bon fire, and a visit to the school mascot. While there we visited as many museums as time would permit. Boy, were we worn out! Boy, did we have a good time! We also received a private tour from a professor friend of the new science facilities!! My future scientist were really impressed. Then we letter boxed across campus. We collected many stamp impressions and had a good time trying to find them. We were really disappointed when we could not find a box or two but finding a few made up for it.
To learn more about letter boxing go to http://www.letterboxing.org/index.php
We also went camping at a modest camp site with cabins. There was room for all 8 of us. We petted miniature horses and watched peacocks nest in the tree in front of our cabin. We also got really cold but we had a great time. Now back to school!

What can we do?

What can we do in this small span of life for our childern? Should we fight to hold on to the values that our forefathers fought so hard for or should we change into a new society with it's constantly changing value systems? Should we hold on to our children's hands and guide them through the snares and traps of life or should we just let them fall prey to the pitfalls that surround us all and hope for the best?

I think we should hold on to what is dear to us and teach it to our children. We can make a difference in their lives if we take one moment at a time. No one knows your child better than you do. No one will love your child as much as you do. These years go by so quickly. It does not take a village it simply takes parents.

God bless,
Janie