A Net in Time

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Book Series: Parenting – be an ambassador parent

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Paul David Tripp wrote an interesting parenting book called Parenting: 14 Gospel Principals.  I thought it might be interesting to read through this book.  Join in if you would like.

I decided to start with the introduction rather than digging into the first of 14 chapters.

In the introduction Mr. Tripp talks about how as he has travelled the world helping parents learn to do this job better, he has discovered that what they need help with is “big picture parenting worldview”.   Having this worldview will give us grounding in what God calls to do as parents.. it explains, guides and motivates all that we do.   Ergo as he writes this book he wants parents to understand the gospel behind good parenting practices.

To start with, we have to know who we are in relation to God, to what life is all about and to who your children are.  This knowledge is of paramount importance.

Mr. Tripp wants us to move away from the ownership idea of parenting to the idea that we are ambassadors.   We need to remember, these children aren’t ours.  They belong to God and we need to parent them with that idea in the forefront of our minds.

As we parent, we need to be aware of something.   As much as we desire to be ambassadorial parents….. we will fail.  We will want to do things our way, to meet our needs, to just want the short run satisfaction.  We’ll fail.  But that’s not the point.  The point is to keep striving to do God’s will.

Questions we could ask ourselves.
1. Identity – where do we get our identity from. 
2. Work – working to turn your children into something?  or helping them develop into something more?
3. Success – which is more important the end product or what you are doing?
4. Reputation – Living with the craziness that children can bring… does it affect who you are or does it reflect your children?

An ambassador is called to represent the message, methods, and character of the Owner to their children.  (p.20)

The next 14 chapters will introduce different principles to reflect upon to help us do the job of ambassador of God to your children effectively.

….

I read the thought of “you will fail” and it made me smile.  I so often feel like I am failing in what I am doing as a parent.   But it strikes me that seeing oneself as an ambassador of God before the eyes of my son… strikes me as a grave responsibility, as well as taking a load off.  It’s not my job to make my son into anything…it’s God’s job.  Mine is simply to show God to him.  That’s it. 

Song Study: I am Not My Own

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This is a song produced by Jeremy Zeyl, it is based on the Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 1.   But don’t let that scare you away.   🙂   The song stands on it’s own without as a biblically based song, meant for today’s congregations. 
At age 21 “I heard Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer 1
read at a church service. Those words about “my only comfort in life
and in death” leapt out at me and inspired me to write the song “Not My
Own.” ” (source)
Here are the lyrics: 
 
 Verse 1

This my only comfort in my life and in my death
You have fully paid for all my sins and all my debts
With your precious blood you’ve set me free
With your precious blood you’ve set me free

Chorus

I am not my own but belong body and soul
In my life and in death to you Lord, Christ my Lord
Verse 2

You preserve my life in such a way that without you
Not a hair can fall from me unless you will it to
All things work together for my salvation
All things work together for my salvation

Verse 3

Therefore by your Holy Spirit you assure me
Of eternal life and make me willing and ready
From now on to always live for you
From now on to always live for you

This song had my hubby singing out strongly beside me which is unusual with songs that he is not familiar with.  He tends to just listen until he’s sure of the tune….but he sang with this one right from the start as loudly as if he’d known it all his life.  🙂

No real history to it other then Jeremy is a CRC kid born and raised close to home in London, Ontario.

If you’d like to know more about him, read this interview with Calvin Institute.

Book Series: The Prayer Saturated Family, Becoming Prayer Saturated

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The Prayer Saturated Family was written by Cheryl Sacks, it’s a 12 chapter book.   Every three weeks or so I plan to do another chapter in it.  🙂 

This first chapter is called Becoming Prayer Saturated.

The central theme is this: Praying together as a family is one of the best investments you will ever make.   She gives four reasons why this is so:

1. Praying together strengthens and heals.
2. Praying together impacts future generations.
3. Praying together ignites nationwide revival.
4. Praying together shapes young lives.

So I piecing together what I think about some of these thoughts.

I am fully on board with point 1, 2 and 4.  I can easily see the truth of these statements.   I query number 3.   If the point is to have a prayer saturated family I don’t understand how that will lead to nationwide revival.  How can one family praying spark a nationwide revival?   I know that families praying together can change neighbourhoods.  I know this. I read about it. I have seen how the prayer of one family for another makes a difference…in the lives of both families.  I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of one family prayers being able to influence the trend of a nation.

So perhaps that means that my mind is too small to conceive the idea… or that my belief in God is too small… or perhaps that I don’t really see the strength of prayer… or that it just isn’t possible.

But yet I know that with God all things are possible … if one has the faith and if it be the Lord’s will.
So who I am to say that the faithful prayer of one family isn’t just what God is requiring in order to start a revival in our land?

Thinking that makes me see just how small I sometimes make God.
How small and unimportant I make talking with him.
When prayer, it can change the world.

Not Good.

Prayer isn’t small.
And the God we talk to…he isn’t small either.
He changes the world.
Query is this: Am I prepared to help him?  To do my part?  Despite my lack of seeing the big picture?  Can I believe that my prayers can help to change the world?

Hymn Study: For The Beauty of the Earth

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Hebrews 13:15-16 – “Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.” 


 Written by Folliot S. Pierpoint, this is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving and was originally written as a song for the Eucharist (The Lord’s Supper).

Pierpoint was the author of several poetry collections, including The Chalice of Nature and Other Poems (1855), Songs of Love, the Chalice of Nature, and Lyra Jesu (2nd Edition, 1858). The words of this hymn appeared in Lyrica Eucharistica, The Hymnal Noted (second edition, 1864).  (source)

Pierpoint was born in Bath, England in 1835.  He was educated at Queens College in Cambridge, and later taught at Somersetshire College, where he was a teacher of classics.

He wrote numerous poems, but For the Beauty of the Earth is the only one he is remembered for today. Not only did he write books of poetry, but also produced two hymnals.   He was 29 years old when he wrote this particular hymn.

 The song was inspired by the beauty of the countryside that surrounded
him.  Pierpoint wrote praises of God for the beauties all around him
into the lyrics.  Take for instance beauty of the earth and sky, beauty
of each hour, and the joy of human love that he incorporates into the
lyrics. (source)

The words to the original text can be found here.   The tune Dix was written by Conrad Kocher in 1838, also the tune used for As with Gladness Men of Old. 

Pierpoint died at age 82 having written 7 volumes of poetry. 

 Originally the last two lines of each verse read: 

Christ our God, to thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

Lyrics
(1) For the beauty of the earth, 
For the glory of the skies; 
For the love which from our birth, 
Over and around us lies; 
Lord of all, to Thee we raise 
This, our hymn of grateful praise.

(2) For the wonder of each hour,

 Of the day and of the night; 
Hill and vale and tree and flow’r,
 Sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to Thee we raise 
This, our hymn of grateful praise.
 (3) For the joy of ear and eye, 
For the heart and mind’s delight; 
For the mystic harmony,
Linking sense to sound and sight; 
Lord of all, to Thee we raise 
This, our hymn of grateful praise. 
 (4) For the joy of human love, 
Brother, sister, parent, child; 
Friends on Earth and friends above, 
 For all gentle things and mild

Lord of all, to Thee we raise 

This, our hymn of grateful praise.

(5) For Thy Church that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above
Offering up on on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love 

Lord of all, to Thee we raise 

This, our hymn of grateful praise.


Breathe, in …. out

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Today’s Five Minute Friday word prompt is the word Breathe.

Don’t know what Five Minute Friday is all about?   It’s all about community gathering around a single word, sharing our thoughts in a five minute free write.   Just letting that word soak into our brains and letting that single word spill out onto the screen in front of you. Then.. after linking up… taking time to do what I love doing… encouraging others who are spilling out as well.  🙂

So today… shall we breathe together?

….. Go….

Breathe
in …..out
It’s the way it works
One takes a breathe in
One releases that breathe.
In come the good
the needed
Out goes the old
The used.
So to is life you know
You breathe in what’s around you
What you read
what you see
what you focus on
and out it comes.
Question is
What comes out.
Is is a reflection of 
what you see
what you read
what you focus on?
Or is it somehow different?
Is it better?
Is it worse?
We are told in the scriptures that
what is the heart of man
Comes out on a man’s tongue.
What is on your tongue?
Does it show what you are breathing in?
Come today.
Think on what you are breathing in
Is it good?
Is it edifying?
Is it right?
Is it useful?
Think on these things.
As you,
Breathe.
…..STOP…. 
Copyright Annette @ A Net in Time, Feb 3, 2017

To What Way Does Your Heart Turn?

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 We continue our study in Ezekiel, the last time we met was about The Watchman’s Job. You can read more in my Ezekiel Studies here and here.

Now that Ezekiel knows his job full well, God talks to him saying “Say to the the house of Israel”. 

So Ezekiel, the watchman, has a warning a “beware” to deliver to the people he is on the job for.  
‘Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ 11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God,
I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn
from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for
why will you die, O house of Israel?

It’s a fair question to ask don’t you think?   For God to show them their sin and then ask … is this the hill you want to die on?   What sin is so important that you will die to continue committing it?


God goes on to say:  

12 “And you, son of man, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him when he transgresses, and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall by it when he turns from his wickedness, and the righteous shall not be able to live by his righteousness when he sins.

Do you see it?   We can’t count on the good deeds of others, on the righteousness of the righteous to pull us through our evil deeds.   We can’t be the bad son of a good family and get away with things.  We can’t.   Our deeds will stand on their own merits.
 
  13 Though I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, yet if
he trusts in his righteousness and does injustice, none of his
righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his injustice that he has
done he shall die. 

Again God is clear.   If a righteous man stays righteous, he will live.  BUT he can’t stand on his past deeds, he must remain righteous.  If he does evil, he will have to live by that evil, that is how he will be remembered.  All that previous good is wiped away.   Makes me think of something I read or watched one day… A person was mourning the fact that her father was such a good man….until the end of his life when he committed a horrid crime…and that was all people remembered of him…was the horrible crime he committed.  She asked “doesn’t the rest of his life matter?”   We see clearly from God’s word that is DOESN’T matter.

14 Again, though I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ yet if he turns from his sin and does what is just and right, 15 if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has taken by robbery, and walks in the statutes of life, not doing injustice, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 16 None
of the sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him. He
has done what is just and right; he shall surely live.

But if you flip it around, a bad man turns his life around… it is that turning that is remembered.  And why… because that man has done what is just and right.   That’s all there is too it.   The person who turns from their evil ways and does good…that is what is most remembered.

17 “Yet your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just,’ when it is their own way that is not just. 18 When the righteous turns from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it. 19 And when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live by this. 20 Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, I will judge each of you according to his ways.”

Israel is like so many people though crying…but that’s not fair… just as the young lady cried that it wasn’t fair that her father was remembered for his bad deeds and not his good.   It’s the turning that counts….. turning from good to do evil… or the turning from evil to do good.   The one deserves more merit than the other, and it is how our deeds are judged.  

To what way does your heart turn?

Hymn Study:I Come to the Garden Alone

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“11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.”   John 20:11-18

Lyrics
 I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses. 
  • Refrain:
    And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
    And He tells me I am His own;
    And the joy we share as we tarry there,
    None other has ever known.

             He speaks, and the sound of His voice

Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.
 

I’d stay in the garden with Him,
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.
Charles Austin Miles wrote this hymn in March 1912.  In his own words he said “I was seated in the darkroom where I kept my photographic equipment and organ.  I drew my Bible toward me, it opened at my favourite chapter, John 20….that meeting of Jesus and Mary had lost none of its power to charm.   As I read it that day, I seemed to be part of the scene.  I became a silent witness to that dramatic moment in Mary’s life, when she knelt before her Lord, and cried “Rabboni!”…under the inspiration of this vision I wrote as quickly as the words could be formed the poem exactly as it has since appeared.   That same evening I wrote the music”.   Some sources add additional information about seeing visions which I don’t know what I think of.  🙂

Miles, started his career as a pharmacist, but later abandoned that in order to work as editor and manager at Hall-Mack.  he started writing gospel music in 1892.   Hall-Mack published his first gospel song “List ’tis Jesus’ Voice”.   He was very proud to be known as a gospel music writer.   His desire was to be of good use to the Lord God.   As he said in this “way I may be of the most use to my Master, whom I serve willingly
although not as efficiently as is my desire.”  (source)