Would You Like Some Cheese to Go With That Whine?

My children are champion complainers. I think all children are. Sometimes it seems like no matter what you do with and for your kids, they can always find something to complain about. And it can make you want to throw your hands up in frustration.

Last night, my youngest daughter had hockey practice -- outside. Now, we don't normally practice outside, but the rink where she plays closed down and some of the other rinks in town offered us ice time. Our team got sent to the outdoor rink in town. The most important piece of information that you need to know about last night is that it was 9 degrees with sub-zero windchills. Oh, and did I mention it was snowing?

I have to tell you that I was in a mood to grumble about the insanity of having practice in those types of conditions, but I bundled her up in as many clothes as I could fit under her pads and off we went. On the way there, we talked about not complaining about the weather. I told her that her coaches knew it was cold and it wasn't going to make it any less cold if she complained about it.

I fully expected her to come off the ice at the end of the hour complaining about how cold she was. She actually came off the ice with a smile on her face and couldn't stop talking about how much fun she had. It was amazing. The only comment she made about the cold was that her toes were tingling. I was so proud of her.

You see, complaining is all about attitude. If we teach our kids to go into a tough situation with a positive attitude and a commitment not to complain, then their attitude is focused on the good stuff -- not the bad. God's not a big fan of complaining either. Philippians 2:14-15 tells us "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe."

But it's tough not to complain when something doesn't go our way, especially when you're a kid. Make it a point to teach your kids the value of not complaining.

• Help your kids memorize Philippians 2:14-15. Talk about how not complaining makes them stand out from a crowd. Take them outside on a clear night and look at how bright the stars are. Talk about how when we refrain from complaining about things it makes us stand out like the stars stand out on a clear night.
• Have your kids make stars to hang somewhere in their rooms. Tell them that every time they look at the stars, it should be a reminder to them that God wants us to do everything without grumbling or complaining so that we can shine.
• Examine your own attitude. Your example is the one that your kids will follow. If you tell them not to complain, but then you complain about the things that go wrong during your day, then your kids will follow your example.
• Recognize the difference between complaining and explaining a problem. You don't want to make your kids afraid of bringing their problems to you. You simply want to cut down on the whining.
• Praise your kids when they don't complain about difficult situations. If you know they are going into a tough situation where complaining would be easy, remind them to focus on the good stuff and to refrain from complaining about the bad. When they pull that off, praise them.

Learning to focus on the positive and walk through a tough situation without complaining is a valuable skill for kids to learn. It makes them stand out, but remember that it's not easy. Encourage your kids to ask God for help when they are tempted to whine or complain. God gives us strength to do the tough stuff -- including overcoming the urge to complain.

Feeling Inadequate

Usually this blog is easy for me to write. I sit down to write and the ideas just pour into my brain. But this morning, I have written and erased this first paragraph at least a half dozen times. You see, God wants me to share my heart with you this morning. He wants me to share my inadequacies and fears this morning, and I'm not sure I really want to do that. However, I know that at least one of you, dear readers, needs to read this, so here goes.

I'm getting ready to teach two Bible studies on parenting. This morning I woke up with the thought "What am I doing? I can't even get my girls to pick up their dirty socks. What do I know about raising great kids? Heck, my kids haven't even reached 10 years old yet. Why on earth did God ask me to teach others?"

I'm not a perfect mom -- no one is. And to be truthful, some days it seems like I'm not even a good mom. Like you, I have days where I yell when I shouldn't, tear down my kids instead of build them up and treat my children as nuisances rather than treasures. To be honest, many days, I sit down to write and feel completely inadequate to tell you how to teach your kids because mine just walked out the door fighting with each other.

Yet, in the midst of all this feeling inadequate, God spoke up and reminded me that I don't have to be adequate -- I just have to be available. God has more power than I could ever need. I'm not raising these kids to be like me. I want to raise them to be like Him. To do that, I have to tap into His power.

I am convinced that Satan's most powerful tool against women is making us feel inadequate. He tempts us to focus on our own failings and inadequacies instead of on God's power. If we make ourselves available to be used by God, then He can fill us with His power. We can use that power to be the parents that God intended. We simply cannot do it ourselves.

In Ephesians 3:20, Paul tells us that God is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." But the only way for us to tap into that power is to make ourselves available to God. We may do an OK job of being a parent under our own power, but imagine how much better we can be if we let God be the power in our parenting.

So, make yourself available for God to use today. Tap into his power and let Him chase away your inadequate feelings. Lay your fears and insecurities before God and let Him wipe them away. Because God chose you to parent your precious child, and He didn't make a mistake.

Memory Monday: Identifying Evil (Psalm 97:10)

Has anyone else noticed that evil seems to have disappeared from our world? We talk about things being bad or sad or scary, but few people talk about things being evil. Evil has become a word relegated to comic books and scary movies. Our society has become so "tolerant" that we're afraid to label anything as evil.

But just because we refuse to call something evil, doesn't mean that evil has disappeared from our world. There's plenty of evil out there, whether we choose to call it that or not. Persecution, drugs, abuse, murder -- it's all evil. When we refuse to call it what it is, we lessen its impact.

Our kids need to know that evil exists. When men fly airplanes into buildings full of tens of thousands of innocent people with no intent other than to kill as many as possible, that's evil. If we downplay the evil and it's effects in an attempt to be "tolerant," we keep our kids from understanding that Satan is alive and well and working really hard to turn people away from God.

Psalm 97:10 tells us "Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked."  God tells us that if we love Him, we will hate evil. Hate is a pretty strong word. It kind of rules out a timid response to evil. God hates evil. If we love Him, then we need to hate it, too.

The last thing we want to do is to scare our kids into thinking that the world is a place to scary to set foot into. However, by ignoring evil, we give our kids a false sense of security about the world. What we want to do is see evil and name it for what it is. The second half of Psalm 97:10 states that God guards us and delivers us if we are faithful.

The next time you encounter evil in your world that your child notices, talk about it as being evil. Identify it for your kids, so they know that it's from Satan. Teach your kids to be able to discern the things that are of God from the things that Satan put in their way. Show them how to test everything they see against what the Bible has to say. Sometimes evil can look nice on the outside -- Hitler was a handsome man who, by all accounts, had an amazing amount of charisma when he spoke, but no one would deny that he was evil -- but we need to teach our kids to look past the pretty exterior to discern good from evil.

As you memorize this verse this week, be on the lookout for opportunities to help your children be discerning. And don't hesitate to name evil because your kids won't know what it looks like if you don't teach them to identify it.

Answered Prayers

Three and a half years ago my youngest daughter's best friend moved halfway across the country. He took his parents with him, leaving my husband and I miles away from some of our best friends as well. We kept up through e-mail, phone calls and visits. The visits were sweet but oh so difficult to end. Watching my daughter and her friend tell each other goodbye every time was heartbreaking.

Despite the distance and the passage of time, our families have remained close friends. Through a series of pretty difficult circumstances, our friends moved back here a couple of months ago -- without a job. When they came back, we told our daughter that it might be only temporary. It just depended on where her friend's dad found a job. We encouraged her to pray that he would find a job here -- and she did. Many nights her bedtime and mealtime prayers would end with a fervent plea for her friend's dad to find a job -- here.

Two days ago, I got to tell her the fantastic news that her friend's dad had, indeed, gotten a job -- here. There was much rejoicing knowing that her friend would "get to stay." Her bedtime prayer that night included a fervent thank you to God for letting her friend stay here.

The deepest desire of my daughter's heart for the past two months has been that her friend would remain nearby permanently. We encouraged her to pour that desire out to God. We celebrated with her when God granted that desire.

It's so important that we teach our kids to pour out their hearts to God in prayer -- and that we acknowledge when God answers their prayers. Sometimes those answers aren't as fun to hear as the one we heard this week. Sometimes, God says no, and we have to help our kids understand that God's plan is bigger and better than anything we could design. But, we need to make sure our kids always understand that God does not let prayers go unanswered. He either says yes, no or wait, but He never ignores us.

• Encourage your children to pour out their hearts to God -- both the good and the bad. Tell them not to hesitate to ask God for what they want, but talk about their motives first. Requests made out of selfishness and a desire to better themselves are not what God wants to hear. Matthew 6:33 says "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." We have to be seeking God first, then asking for the desires or our hearts.
• Listen to your children pray, and be ready to point out when God answers their prayers. Talk about how when they ask you for something, sometimes you say "yes," sometimes you say "no" and sometimes you say "wait." God answers our prayers in the same way. We don't always understand His reasons, but He never ignores our prayers.
• Celebrate when prayers are answered and remember to thank God for the answered prayer.
• Have your kids keep a prayer journal where they write down their requests and the dates those prayers were answered. This gives your kids a tangible picture of how God answers their prayers.

No matter the answer to your prayers, remember that God has a plan for you, one that will prosper and not harm you (Jeremiah 29:11). Keep seeking after God and sharing with Him the desires of your heart -- and He will answer.

God is not a Spy

For Christmas, we gave our girls and four of their friends a "spy sleepover." Tonight, I'll have six little girls in my house cracking codes, completing missions and saving the world. My girls love to play spy. They like sneaking around and peeking around corners to see what other people are doing. Sometimes they write down what they see in their spy journals.

Too, often, I think, our kids see God as something of a spy. From the time they are little, we talk to our kids about how God can see everything and He knows everything. Too many time, kids can take those characteristics and create an inaccurate picture of God. If we aren't careful to point out the many characteristics of God including His unconditional love and amazing grace, then our kids are left to fill in the blanks of God's character with their own imaginations.

Sometimes, our kids come up with a picture of God that makes Him seem like a spy. They see Him as this all-powerful being who is just waiting for them to mess up. He can see everything, and when He sees them mess up, He writes it down in His "spy journal." That's not an accurate picture of God, and it's not one that we want our kids to have. It makes God seem like he's out to "get" us.

When we give our kids a complete picture of God's character, we reveal an all-knowing, all-powerful God who loves us and desires to have a relationship with us despite our unworthiness. Romans 5:8 says "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That's the picture we want to create for our children.

• Find out what kind of picture your kids have created of God. Ask them what they think God is like. Have them write it down or draw a picture. This is a great starting point for you to understand which parts of God's character your kids are missing out on. If they've created a picture of a sneaky, spying God, you'll know that you need to focus your conversation on God's love and grace. If they create a picture that's all love and compassion, you might need to introduce some conversation about God's love of justice and righteousness.
• Understand that creating a picture of a one-dimensional God doesn't benefit our kids. God is so much bigger than we can understand. If we create a one-dimensional picture of Him, then we make God small. If we can completely describe and understand God, then we have made our picture of Him too small. God doesn't fit in any "box" we can create, and if He does then we have an inaccurate picture of Him.
• Talk with your kids about the different aspects of God's character. Ask your kid to describe her best friend in detail. Have her focus on the character qualities that make up her friend's personality. Talk about how important it is to a relationship to really know the other person. Talk about what happens when she makes an assumption about her friend's personality that isn't true. Then ask her to describe God, focusing on His character qualities. Talk with your child about their description of God. Flesh out any areas that she is missing. Talk about how just like with knowing our friends, it's important to know God's character so we can have a close relationship with Him.

Remember, God is not a spy, watching and waiting for you to screw up. He loves you and wants to have a relationship with you, but the only way He can do that is if we seek to know Him better and understand all facets of His character.

Digging Out

Like much of the Midwest and Great Plains states, we are digging out from more than a foot of snow this morning. When we shoveled the driveway yesterday, we had to scoop through 2 1/2- to 3-foot snow drifts. It took us close to an hour to shovel, and by the time we got done the wind had blown so much snow back on the driveway that you couldn't tell we had shoveled.

Sometimes dealing with the sin in our lives is like shoveling out from the great Blizzard of Oz (yes, we live in Kansas). God makes us aware of the sin, but we sit and look at it rather than deal with it because it's so much easier to just maintain the status quo than it is to work to change it. I certainly didn't want to go outside and shovel that snow. It was much more cozy in my house than it was outside. However, the snow was not going to move itself -- just like the sin in our lives isn't going to just disappear without some effort on our parts.

Once we were out shoveling, the temptation was to just shovel half the driveway so we could get one car out and leave the other half for later. It was hard work shoveling a foot of snow. I was hot, tired and my shoulders and back hurt. Digging out of our sin can be just as painful and tiring. Especially, if, like the snow, we've let ourselves become entrenched in that sin. It takes working at it one shovelful at a time. And sometimes we have to shovel the same path over and over until we have purged that sin from our lives.

The most frustrating part of shoveling was getting to the end of the driveway, turning around and seeing the driveway covered with snow again. Sometimes, we dig out of our sin only to return to it later, like the snow returning to my driveway. Yet a little sun and a little more shoveling today will clear my driveway of the snow, just like letting God lead the way will clear that entrenched sin out of our lives.

While I can shovel the snow under my own power, I cannot get rid of sin on my own. Paul talks about this in Romans 7:14-15 when he says "We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Only God's power and love can do that. My job is to turn away from that sin and tap into God's power to stay away from that sin. It is only through God's power that we can dig out from under the weight of our sin.

So, as you send your children out to help you shovel the driveway, use the moment to talk with them about how difficult it is to dig out from our sin. As you heave that snow to the side of the driveway, remind your kids that it's only through God's strength and power that we can clear the sin from our lives.

Blizzard Warning

For nearly a week, the weather forecasters have been telling us we're going to get hammered wtih snow today. We're under a blizzard warning, and school is cancelled even though it hasn't even started snowing yet. It's been a long time since our area has seen a blizzard warning. This is unusual weather. The grocery stores were doing a booming business yesterday as everyone stocked up for the storm.

With all the talk about big storms, my husband suggested that I write about snow days today. I told him I had already exhausted my store of snow day ideas on all our previous snow days, but as I thought about it, I realized that a blizzard is an entirely different animal.

Did you know that back in the pioneer days, homesteaders would tie a rope from their house to the barn, so they could use the rope as a guide when the snow was blowing so hard they couldn't see? They would keep one hand on the rope so it could guide them to the barn. That rope was a lifeline. Blowing snow can blind you and get you so turned around that you don't know which you are going. If you lost contact with the rope you could wander around in circles and freeze to death just feet from your own front door.

When trials and danger come our way, God has given us a rope, too -- His word. The Bible is our lifeline to guide us through the blizzards of life. It keeps us on the path and helps us find our way home. Psalm 119:105 tells us "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." God's word offers us guidance and comfort as we weather the storm.

But, like a person in a blizzard, if we let go of the rope, we can get lost. We can be close to where we want to go and never get there because we're not following the path God laid out for us in His word.

If the blizzard is headed your way, tie a rope between your front door and a tree in your yard. When the wind is blowing crazy hard, and it's hard to see, bundle up, and have everyone put a hand on the rope. Use the rope to walk from your front door to the tree. Talk with your kids about how the Bible is like that rope. It guides us and helps us to know what to do when a storm comes in our lives.

If you're not in for a blizzard or you just don't want to get cold and snowy, tie a rope between two places in your house. Blindfold your kids and have them use the rope to get from one place to the next. Use the same explanation after you have finished the task.

If you are in the path of this storm, stay safe and warm. Find a teachable moment today and grab it. Use the storm to show your kids how to keep their hand on the rope of God's word so they can weather the storms of life.