This is kind of a long Update this week. You may not want to tackle it all in one sitting, but you be the judge. The bulk of the issue is a recap of our last gathering, which was a wonderful discussion on Christian parenting. If you missed it, don't just read the recap, talk to someone who was there and ask them to hit the high points with you. Also included this week are links to some of the resources suggested by Tony & Robin. This week's devotional reading is especially applicable for American Christians, I believe. I hope this e-mail finds you in a good place in the middle of the week. If not, ask the LORD to redirect your focus, and He'll answer your prayer. (rg)

Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.

Ephesians 6:4 (The Message)

Last Sunday's ABF Recap:
rg

Tony Galieti & Family led our discussion this past Sunday and they did a fantastic job.

The two overarching goals for our time together were to (1) understand our Biblical responsibility as parents, and (2) gain some understanding about where we can focus to help us succeed. Tony & Robin delivered.

One of Stephen Covey's "habits" is to begin with the end in mind, and in keeping with this idea, we were asked, "What do you want your child to be like when he/she grows up?" Some answers from the group included:

• I want my child to find their value in Christ.
• I want my child to follow Christ with reckless abandon.
• I want my child to be happy and satisfied with their decisions.
• I want my child to have good friends and to be able to choose friends wisely.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4 (NASV)

This verse is about responsibility. To the men: we can delegate duties, but we cannon delegate responsibility. We are responsible for our families and our children. Tony said, "It was always more comfortable for me to be successful in my career than to be successful in my parenting." Perhaps this is why Paul is so blunt in Ephesians. If left up to us, we'd shirk this responsibility, but the LORD makes it clear that we must take this responsibility seriously.

What are these responsibilities outlined in Ephesians?

To provide Security and Stability in the home
In other words, we must foster a safe environment for our children that allows them a place to get away from the craziness of the world. In Ephesian and Roman culture, fathers held the fate of their children in the palms of their hands, and it was not unusual for fathers to abuse this "priviledge." This, no doubt, bred resentment and anger in the children of these fathers who became excessive in their orders, demands and expectations. It was nothing short of revolutionary for Paul to say, "Fathers, don't do anything that might cause resentment or anger among your children." Rather than fostering anger, we're to foster Security, Stability and Safety.

How can this be done?

• Love your spouse. This is the greatest thing one can do to create a safe harbor for children.
• Provide firm, fair and consistent discipline. In other words, create and enforce appropriate boundaries for children.
• Offer companionship and supervision. Not, "be friends with your kids," but develop a relationship that encourages them to be comfortable coming to you with needs and concerns. This will come more easily for moms than for dads. However, dads should not leave this up to moms, and moms ought to encourage their children to find companionship and guidance from their fathers.

To provide Discipline
While discipline often has a negative connotation today, discipline is a part of life, and it will be part of our kids' lives. They will be disciplined, the only question is, "Who will be doing the disciplining?" Tony & Robin suggested establishing Clear and Firm Boundaries while they are young. You can probably think of a few examples of teenagers you know who weren't disciplined much when they were young, and now their parents are trying to make up for lost time, and the situation is messy. The solution to this is Clear and Firm Boundaries at a young age, according to the Galietis.

How can this be done?
Be sure...

• your kids experience evidence of love and commitment from you and your spouse.
• your kids have clear verbal (and sometimes visual) instructions.
• your kids have corrective experiences.
• your discipline is in harmony with your long-term goals for your kids.

To provide Instruction and Warning
When it applies, it is incumbent upon us to tell our children, "You're about to walk into the street, look both ways before you cross."

How can this be done?

A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. Luke 6:45 (NLT)

And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Deuteronomy 6:5-7 (NLT)

Think of a sport that you like to play that requires concentration. Golf, Tennis, Bachi, Darts, etc. How successful can you be when you're thinking about all sorts of other things beside the sport at hand? Not much, huh? You're most likely to be successful if you have one thought on your mind, and according to Luke and Deuteronomy, when it comes to parenting, that single thought ought to be your child's heart.

Tony and Robin were asked how they balanced work and traveling with parenting. His recommendation was first to take a job that doesn't require much travel during the formative years, but also to hug and communicate love to the kids very frequently. This was affirmed by the two of his three daughters who were present. Robin's experience initially was difficulty with Tony's traveling, but after a conversation with a mentor, Carol Heasley, she learned that she ought to pray for him when he was gone; pray for his success, pray for him as he missed his daughters, pray for him as he missed her home-cooking, etc.

Some assorted Pearls of Wisdom from the Galietis...

• The Golden Rule of Parenting: Never de-edify your spouse in front of the kids.
  
  
• When there is conflict or an argument, listen to your spouse. God wired your husband/wife differently from you and in such a way as to compliment you.
  
  
• Perfection is not a requirement... for you or your kids.
  
  
• If you don't give your daughter affection, she'll find someone who will.

Tony & Robin made reference to several books that were helpful to them at various times and stages of raising their kids.

(For Tony's original, bare-bones outline, click here; for his Power Point slides, click here.)

• Latest from Michelle Lyons' friends, Kristina and Eddy, and their son, Cooper:

  Cooper is home from the hospital. His lungs are getting stronger, he even cried aloud on Saturday. (that was the first time he had ever cried). Thanks for all the prayers.

• Expecting Parents: Christine & Jesse Dolan (twins!)
  
  
• Healthy, God-honoring marriages.
  
  
• Matt Koons, and the rest of HCC's leadership.
  
  
• Hannah Koons and her healing leg.
  
  

Not all of the points in this weeks devotional reading will apply to each of us, but I bet you'll find one or two that hit close to home. #6 especially was a zinger gor me. (rg)

What Drains Your Energies?
Joe McKeever

Rebellious children sap the energies of parents, leaving them with no will, no time, and no strength for outside interests or ministries. The question before the class today, students, is: "What depletes your energies for God?"

Here are my top ten energy-depleters:

10. Compromise.
You're doing something displeasing to the Lord and you know it. The guilt lingers and weighs you down. When you try to read your Bible, pray, or worship, the fog is so thick you could cut it. God seems far away, and you know without being told it's because you moved. You're being torn down the middle and it's a miserable feeling.

Isaiah 59:1-2 comes to mind. "Your sins have separated you." Confess them and move back closer.

9. Nay-sayers.
The discouragers around you are constantly pointing out that you cannot do this, you are not the Christian you ought to be, the Bible cannot be understood, your prayers never go beyond the ceiling, and your pitiful offering amounts to nothing. To make matters worse, sometimes that negative voice hounding us is our own. You lose heart and want to give up.

Psalm 103:1-5 comes to mind. "Bless the Lord, O my soul." Speak to yourself words of faith. Believe your faith and doubt your doubts.

8. Nit-pickers.
A family member, a colleague in the office, or a so-called friend has taken it as their personal calling to remind you of your failures in living up to the standards you claim. Your clothes do not match, you need a haircut, why do you waste your time on those books or that writer or that church, why aren't you exercising more, you're putting on weight, and I don't think you're right for this. Of course, he tells you this for your own good. You leave your friend's presence feeling worthless and hopeless.

Philippians 4:8 comes to mind. "Whatsoever things are true, think on these things." Choose where your mind will land and come to rest and what it will feed upon.

7. Time-wasters.
A few years ago, we would have named television as the biggest time-waster. It still is for many, but these days, the tube has lots of competition: the computer, computer games, the telephone, worthless reading materials, shopping, mall-crawling, and such. Each person has his own battlefield in this regard. But it's not just the time; the problem is that it robs you of your energy for God or doing good or relating to other people.

Luke 18:1 comes to mind. "We ought always to pray and not to lose heart." The old hymn told us to "Take Time to Be Holy." It takes time.

6. Starvation.
When you're really hungry, instead of pausing for dinner, you gulp down a soft drink and a bag of chips. Now, you have stopped the hunger but you're starving your body. A few minutes later, your wife or mother calls you to dinner. You beg off; you're not hungry. You dare not admit what you just did. That foolish scenario happens spiritually, too.

Try this experiment. After watching two hours of television--especially sitcoms of the type the networks are running these nights--get up and go get your Bible and read a couple of chapters. You'll have to make yourself do it. After a steady diet of mental junk food, you have no appetite for real nourishment.

Matthew 4:4 comes to mind. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." And Psalm 34:8 "O taste and see that the Lord is good." You need to feed your soul if you expect to have any energy for God.

5. Fatigue.
You're doing good work; you're just doing so much of it that you're exhausted. When tired, you get irritable and are no fun to be around. You end up having to force yourself to do your spiritual activities. It's not an admission of weakness to confess you have physical limitations, that you need 8 hours of sleep at night and maybe a little rest in the daytime and a vacation once in a while.

Mark 6:31 comes to mind. "Come ye apart and rest for a while." And Matthew 11:28-30: "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden."

4. Depression.
You are a Christian, one who believes your Bible and has the Holy Spirit, so how could you be depressed? Ever say that to yourself? The roots of depression (mental, emotional, whatever) are many and complex. You might need to remind yourself that some of the finest Christians ever to walk the planet have battled depression. You have good company. Those believers made the same discovery you have made, that sometimes you just have to get up and go on with your day while depressed, that you don't dare give in to it. Missionary leader and inspirational writer Elisabeth Elliot has said that when she's depressed, her method for dealing with it is: "Do the next thing." She does not make a long list of tasks to accomplish that day, but does the next thing before her, then she looks around and decides what is next, and so forth.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 comes to mind. "Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines... yet I will exult in the Lord." Praise Him anyway.

3. Rebellion.
Compromise is one thing; you rationalize a sin and turn a blind eye toward a practice you know is not wise and is hindering your spiritual life. But rebellion is another matter altogether. In rebellion, you drop all pretense about wanting to do the right thing. You enthrone your self and devote your life to pleasing only you. This really gets scary when you're in the Lord's service and draw a paycheck from a church or religious organization and yet are in rebellion against the Lord. I've been there; I know. People are looking to you for spiritual direction and expecting to hear God's voice through you, but what they are receiving is shallowness and staleness, negativism and putdowns, all bubbling up from the acid eating away at your soul.

Revelation 3:4-5 comes to mind. "I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember... and repent." The prodigal son story of Luke 15 applies.

2. Laziness.
Sloth. Idleness. Lethargy. Listlessness. Dullness. Slackness. Find yourself in any of these? You just can't make yourself get up and do anything spiritual such as reading the Bible or praying meaningfully or volunteering for a service project. You "just don't feel like it." Sound familiar? There's a law of physics you may be familiar with. Inertia is the tendency of an object at rest to remain there, and a moving object to continue moving. Now, it takes energy to get the object moving and it takes energy to stop it once it's in motion. Like priming a pump, we use energy to get energy. This pertains, whether speaking of the physical or the spiritual.

Proverbs 6:6-11 comes to mind. "How long wilt thou sleep, O thou sluggard?" Wake up. Get up.

1. Satan. The enemy himself.
You wondered if we would get to that? The unholy trinity of the world-the-flesh-and-the-devil are always at work to discourage believers from living the life Christ commands and we profess. The devil has had longer to study human nature than we, so he knows methods we have yet to discover. He uses detours, overloads, and even good works to keep us from doing the best things. He uses our diversions to sap our time, people to sap our joy, and work to sap our energies. Our time gone, our spirits depleted, and our energies sapped, we decide not to read our Bible tonight, to skip on our prayer time, and to get our rest tomorrow by sleeping late and skipping church. Chalk up another victory for the roaring lion who walks about.

I Peter 5:6-9 comes to mind. You know what it says. "We are not ignorant of his devices." 2 Corinthians 2:11

I'm no teacher or preacher, and I don't often issue challenges because I have little authority to do so, but might I offer an idea for the second half of the week: spend a moment or two praying specifically that the LORD will bless your husband/wife with wisdom, and then spend a moment or two praying for another couple in the ABF. Extra credit: let that couple know that you were praying for them.

Enjoy your week. Send an encouraging e-mail to a friend.

RG