2/24/17

As the weeks go by here at Future Men, keep in mind the ultimate responsibility/goal of your parenting; to bring up your son (and children at home) in the nurture and admonition of the Lord- Ephesians 6:4.  This 'bringing them up', can be characterized in three elements: self-control; wisdom; and responsibility.  These are traits we need to be trying to instill as we train, disciple, pray for, and live life with our kids.  Today I want to just hit on self control a little bit.  This is sort of summed up in the reality of having God-given passions, but not being ruled by them.  This is the common denominator that runs through every Future Men student (and staff!) that has ever walked on to our property.  God gave us our passions to inspire, and add flavor to life.  We have sadly taken God's gift and turned them into the deciding factor in how we live life.  In the students we see this played out in how they respond to whatever is going on around them.  They seem to truly feel helpless to act differently than how they 'feel' they should act.  This is allowing the emotions/passions to rule us, not add color to our day.  In adults we see this in our decision making (as well as in our every day more trivial responses.  By decision making I mean that we often make big life changing decisions just on how we feel, or how we think the decision will make us feel.  I tell the boys all the time that as a man, I am not allowed to live my life that way. It's called 'following your heart', and that will get us into trouble quick!  Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the heart is 'deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked'.  The heart their is referring to how we feel about something, not our blood pumper!  When we make a decision it should be through prayer, searching out the Scriptures, and the counsel of godly people in our lives.  To often I hear that a person has prayed about a decision, and they have a real 'peace' about the decision they made.  When I probe the situation just a little, I realize they have no Scriptural basis for what they have done, nor have they sought any counsel beyond their own heart.  That really isn't too different than how we see the boys responding day to day with each other.  We see their interactions, and it drives us nuts, but yet we pretty much are living much of our lives the same way.  I am going to suggest stopping this.  When you make a hard decision, do it according to Scripture, and walk them through this with you.  Let them know the struggle you are having in making the decision, especially if you don't initially like the decision you know God is asking you to make.  I know that in my own life there have been some very hard, major decisions that I have had to make.  On a few of those I did NOT have a 'peace' or good feeling about what I knew God was asking me to do.  But I knew God was asking me.  I just didn't want to obey.  One particular decision took about 5 years for me to be 'at peace' with!  I knew I had made the right decision, and I knew God was watching/protecting me in the middle of the consequences that came due to the decision, but it took awhile for it to finally 'feel' good.  When our kids are changing engrained habits or lifestyles it won't be comfortable.  They are honestly expecting things to feel good, or even 'fun', because they are making a God honoring change.  Help them to see that for a long time it just might feel like a sacrifice, not something that makes them happy.  When they can learn to control their emotions and not be ruled by them...they will have a new lease on life!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9/28/17

Today I want to briefly talk about a parent's job to stand at the "gates" of their home and stop any kind of foolishness to creep in.  In the early days of the Children of Israel they would post guards in many different locations around the city to "watch" for the enemy to sneak in (read 1 Chronicles to get an idea of how many men this entailed!).  What is crazy is that the best watchmen weren't placed on the back or side gates, but rather on the main front gates where the most traffic was going through.  The thought was that the enemy is more likely to sneak in where least expected rather than covertly sneaking in over some back wall (although they placed guards there as well).  As a parent YOU are that guard watching over the traffic coming in and out of your city, you home.  Most of the traffic coming in and out is safe, normal...but its also where you least expect it that the enemy strikes.  In a home this looks like the neighborhood kid, or the visitin
Read more

3/7/18

It is good to know the science behind what our kids are taught about their sexual orientation. We have been talking a little about pornography and how it effects our sons, but reality is it also plays a role in the shaping of their sexual orientation...which is a very scary thought.  There is a short teaching series on a web site called Your Brain on Porn, and it discusses the teenage brain and how viewing porn can actually change not only the way we view women, but also how we view our own sexuality.  The science studies show that DNA plays a role in how we view ourselves sexually, but so does sexual conditioning.  Unlike what our culture is teaching our kids, we really do reap what we sow in regards to how our brain is changing based on what we are dumping into it.  Today's porn is different in its content than the porn of the past, and the content is changing how our sons feel about who they are and what they think they "want."  As parents we need to have a tight fenc
Read more

11/8/17

Okay...I apologize a lot for not writing, but I am busy, and I actually have a legit reason this time!  First, my wife was in Africa for 2 weeks and I had all the kids (thats 10 still at home for those who dont know this).  Second, when she got back the internet at FM was actually down for 8 days!  Third, my wife and kids left for a yearly vacation they take with an old friend of hers (an ex-female student of mine who lived with us for three years and now is raising 7 kids of her own (my wife disciples her from a distance and they like to get together every so often to catch up and do some mom version of "iron sharpening iron!).  So...I decided to volunteer and build a fireplace hearth and mantle for one of my directors who is building his own home while she is gone!  Needless to say...too many irons in the fire!  But, I finished 30 minutes ago, I am sitting down, and thought I would try and catch up.  No more excuses.  One thought  that keeps coming back to me as I have been bus
Read more