March 18th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

The Child's Caress - from http://www.marycassatt.org

Yesterday was epic – our first trip to the zoo, just me and the three kids. Between stopping to admire lions and jellyfish and red pandas, I found myself constantly observing other mothers around me.

The boy, about 6 years old, runs down the rope bridge, pushing little ones out of his way. He loses his shoe in the middle of the bridge and begins to scold my 3 year old LB, accusing him of causing his shoe to fall off. I retrieve the shoe and remind him to watch out for the little ones playing around him. He looks up to me and says he needs help getting his shoe on. I tell him to find his mom. He wanders to various mother standing in the area, asking for someone to help him with his shoe. Where is his mother?

Meanwhile, another mother has her cross-hairs fixed firmly on the boy. Her voice is shrill. “Would you PLEASE get away from my TWO YEAR OLD child and stop PUSHING her? Come on, girls, we’re leaving. We’ll have to come back when THEY aren’t here. If his PARENTS were WATCHING him maybe he would stop PUSHING and you could play.” I understand her feelings – seeing my children get pushed around riles me up like few things do. But I wonder, does she have no compassion?

We kept walking, I kept watching, thinking. Our issues seem to be in full and radiant color when we become mothers. Selfishness evidences itself in being absent, uncaring, unaware of the way we wound our children or leave them vulnerable to danger. Pride rears its ugly head as parents valiantly try to show their children as smarter, more talented, more valuable than those around them. Second generation vanity demands the most expensive stroller, most stylish diaper bag, expensive boutique clothing on a child stomping through a muddy zoo. Laziness makes a subtle appearance, showing as lack of discipline, unwillingness to deal with behavior and intentionally teach our children.

Motherhood is hard. Sinful, imperfect women make sinful, imperfect mothers.

I am one of them.

I wonder how many times others have watched me in the store, in the park, in the zoo – how often have they seen me snap too quickly, scold too harshly, respond to the grueling days of motherhood with selfishness, laziness, pride, vanity? My heart aches at the thought.

God has given us an incredibly difficult job, ladies. We cannot do it on our own. I cannot imagine attempting to parent without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

We need to ask Him to cause us to mother selflessly, to enable us to say “follow me as I follow Christ.” And in the meantime, when we watch the broken, sinful, imperfect parents around us… may God give us hearts full of compassion and grace. May we be quicker to pray for them than to sit in judgment, may we remember where we would be but for the grace of God.

February 25th, 2011 by Kristi Stephens

My five year old had her first quiet time yesterday. I set up the audio Bible on my laptop and got her settled with headphones on the couch. I gave her a little spiral notebook and a pencil, explained that she could listen to the Scripture, draw a picture about it or write words to help her remember what it was about. We talked about how God wanted to meet with her and how she might pray – praising God for who He is, confessing what she had done wrong, thanking Him, praying for others. She nodded eagerly.

LB and I slipped away upstairs to put BW to bed. Well, I slipped up, LB stomped up. :) He asked what AG was doing – “She’s having time with God,” I answered. “I want to play with God! Where is God?!” His reply was emphatic, on the brink of a three-year-old breakdown.

My crazy little LB… how he loves Jesus. They have a picture of Jesus holding the little children in their room. They love it. AG picked it out at P Graham Dunn and asked wistfully with wide eyes if they might get it to hang in their room. How could we say no to that? They were watching a portion of The Story of Jesus for Children the other day, and we were talking about Jesus holding the children and the picture in their room. LB smiled with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Sometimes Jesus picks me up! Because He loves me so much.” Oh yes, He does, sweet boy. And someday in heaven He will pick you up and swing you around in His arms. How He loves you.

I knew this was what he was thinking about as he looked around the room and declared, “I want to play with God!” Jesus is so real, so tangible to him. In his mind, there is no reason why he wouldn’t expect to see Jesus sitting on the couch with his sister, reading a book or putting together a puzzle. Someday his concrete little mind will understand more… for now, I know God smiles tenderly at him like I do.

AG, meanwhile, settled in with her notebook. I had set the audioBible to play the account of creation from Genesis 1. After a while she came and told me she might need another pencil… and excitedly showed me her notebook.

“See what I wrote, Mom? ‘I love God.’ And I drew a heart. There’s an elephant, and a cat, and a fish… because I was listening to the story of creation.”

Sometimes I think my heart will burst.

It was 9:00. “Do you guys want to watch Word World?” The typical excited chorus answered, and then AG paused, “but, I didn’t pray yet! Maybe after Word World.”

After their show was finished LB and I went back upstairs because AG wanted to pray. I’m certainly not going to interfere with that! After a few minutes I heard her singing. She came bounding up the stairs and said, “Do you know why I didn’t pray as long as usual? I wanted to sing. I sang “This is the Day,” and “For God so Loved the Word,” and “Jesus Loves Me.”

This little window of time yesterday morning not only cemented in my mind that I need to be consistently deliberate about walking my children to the throne… it also smacked me in the face. My children know more about abiding than I do.

My son just wants to see Jesus. To play with Him, to show Him his favorite cars! My five year old daughter spent longer in God’s presence today than most adults do. They just love Him. The thought of Him picking them up and listening to their chatter is as natural as thinking about talking to me or NP.

He is real.

He loves me.

I can spend time with Him.

…what else is there to know?

Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Mark 10:15

July 8th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

At the end of Judges 8, we see our pattern of apostasy repeating again:

No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals.

They set up Baal-Berith as their god and did not remember the LORD their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side.

They also failed to show kindness to the family of Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) for all the good things he had done for them. (Judges 8:33-35)

Now, that was step one. Remember, throughout Judges we have this four step process:
1. The people sin and fall into idolatry
2. They are oppressed by their enemies
3. They call out to God in distress
4. He raises up a judge to deliver them from their enemies
Then the judge dies and they repeat step one – only worse than before.

Notice what happens here, though. We have an anomaly in the pattern – always something to notice!!

Abimelech son of Jerub-Baal went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother’s clan, “Ask all the citizens of Shechem, ‘Which is better for you: to have all seventy of Jerub-Baal’s sons rule over you, or just one man?’ Remember, I am your flesh and blood.” (Judges 9:1-2)

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said all 70 of the sons of Jerub-Baal (Remember, that was Gideon’s nickname – “He who fights against Baal”) were going to rule? Back in Judges 8:23, we looked at Gideon’s statement about rulership: But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The LORD will rule over you.” The Lord is the King of Israel. When they are oppressed, HE has raised up deliverers for Israel. Notice that this time, Abimelech is appointing himself!

This story does not go well. Abimelech slaughters all of his brothers and sets himself up as a self-appointed ruler. God turns the city of Shechem (the ones who followed him to begin with) against him, and they begin to ambush and rob people who are passing through the hills near them in opposition to Abimelech. It ends up being a strange civil war; Abimelech wipes out the entire city of Shechem, besieges another city, and is mortally wounded when a woman drops a millstone on his head from the tower in the city. Abimelech doesn’t want to die at the hands of a woman, so he has his armor-bearer kill him with a sword.

Warm and cozy! Now, we’re going to go back to those questions we’re keeping in mind as we work through this book:

*What is the progress from one story to the next, or what changes take place?
What stands out to me here is that now we have an Israelite killing off his family and countrymen and appointing himself as the leader, rather than God raising up a leader to deliver his people from outside oppression.

*How does each story make you feel?
I definitely am marking “Abimelech” off the list of possible names for any future sons…

*How does the treatment of women and the roles they take in each story relate to the main theme?
Not a whole lot new, here – we pretty much covered it in “Women and their Deadly Nails.” We’ve got a woman hefting a millstone off the city tower, and a man so ashamed to be killed by her that he commits assisted suicide. Pretty pictures all around.

The most interesting thing to me about this account is that Abimelech is Gideon’s son. It’s intriguing how many times we see this pattern in Scripture where the son or grandchildren of a spiritual leader ends up to be completely set against God – I also discussed this topic in “Memory Loss.”  Parents, we must pass on the Truth.  Of all the things we train our children in, nothing can compare to the importance of introducing them to God’s Word, discipling them, teaching them to fear the Lord, training them to obey Him.

I was recently listening to a message from Alistair Begg on parenting, and he was talking about the hesitancy of people, even genuine believers, in our day to “indoctrinate” their children – in many cases we’ve bought this lie that we need to let them explore and discover “their own truth,” “decide for themselves what is best,” etc.

He pointed out that as parents, our main job is “indoctrination” – putting doctrine in. Teaching them, training them, imparting wisdom to them. In classic Alistair style he said, “what is this if it’s not indoctrination – this is the way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth, brush our teeth…” If I would take it as my parental job to train my kids to properly brush their teeth, why would I not take it as my deep responsibility to train them how to properly understand God and His Truth? It is a high calling – may God strengthen us for the task.

How do you teach your kids Truth?  Head on over to the fan page and share your ideas in today’s discussion!

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
Psalm 145:3-5

*Picture from http://www.biblepicturegallery.com

May 9th, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Being a mother is hard.  It brings out our me-monsters.  And sometimes… if not every day… it’s easy to feel unappreciated, unimportant… forgotten.

Do you ever feel invisible? That your own family doesn’t notice all that you sacrifice for them?

Remember… we don’t do it for them.

I posted this video in September 0f ’09, but I wanted to share it again for Mother’s Day.  May God bless you richly today for faithfully serving and sacrificing for your families – even in ways that others don’t see! Press on, moms!

He sees.

Happy Mother’s Day.