Keely's gone to spend the day with a sweet friend of hers, the littles are downstairs and currently quiet, and Noah is vacuuming the hall. Ahhh. I love the sound of the vacuum running...in another room.My Mom is coming to spend the week with us, and will be here in a few hours. I'm so excited! It's always great to have her here and see her pour herself into the kids. I am so blessed.
I need to do a few more things to get ready for Mom, but I wanted to share something from a great book I've started. I've had this on my nightstand for months, and I'm so glad that I decided to try it before returning it to the lender. (It's coming your way, soon, Michelle!)
It's Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, by Paul David Tripp. Since we are on the cusp of the teen years, I wanted to check it out. I'm only in Chapter 4, but so far I have been so very encouraged with the wisdom presented in the book, that applies to parenting all ages, I think. The following is long, but I couldn't leave any of it off!
Modern Christians have wrongly attempted to handle the Bible as if it were an encyclopedia of religious thought. We tend to have a 'where can I find a verse on..." approach to Scripture. This approach robs the Bible of its vitality, its genius. The Bible is not put together like an encyclopedia, organized by topic. For instance, you would not understand what the Bible has to say if you separated out all of the verses marriage, government, sex, parenting, communication, work, money, the church, etc. Whatever you would learn from these verses would be distorted and out of context because they would be understood separated from what the Bible is really all about. The Bible is not a topical index, a dictionary, or an encyclopedia. The Bible is a storybook. It is God's story, the story of His character, his creation, his redemption of this fallen world, and his sovereign plan for the ages. It is the one true and unalterable story. It is the story. All other stories of people and nations find their life, meaning, and hope in this story. This grand, universal story is what gives all of us a reason to get up in the morning and do what we have been called to do.....The Bible has much to say about all the topics mentioned earlier, but what it has to say only makes sense when seen from the vantage point of the glorious story of God and His work. We have to be very careful that we do not "de-God" the commands and principles of Scripture. He stands in power and glory behind every one. Every command looks to him for strength to obey, every principle looks to him for wisdom, and every promise looks to him for its fulfillment. The whole system depends on the truthfulness of the story.This is what teenagers need to understand about life....We must teach them always to ask, "Who is God?" "What is He doing?" "What has He promised?" "What does He command?" "How will these facts shape the way I think about and respond to the daily situations of life?"from pgs 58, 59, 60
You can see why I'm excited to read more. I'm sure I'll be sharing more as I progress through the book. Enjoy your day!
2 comments:
I LOVED this book, too! I read it with some friends this last summer. It not only made me feel less afraid (and a little more prepared) for the teen years, but it really changed the way I parent now.
It's so easy to stay focused on the behavior, because we have to when our kids are little. But the book made me realize I need to look at the state of the heart. Anyway, I would love to know more about what you think of it.
This is the finest book on parenting I have ever read. I heartily recommend it. WARNING: If you think it will help you figure out what is wrong with your kids....think again. I found it helped me figure out what was wrong with ME!
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