Touching their earthly lives

Children are such a wonderful blessing from the Lord that they bring us much joy and enjoyment on earth. They enrich our lives so much and are often our first teachers on learning to deny ourselves and put others first.

Through our children we often learn to enjoy the Lord’s creation. Through them we learn to see the wonder in a caterpillar or in the rippling of water.

And through our children we are given our best chance to live out our faith before others. Our children learn from watching us and our faith…as true, born again Christians…will impact them.

It is a great privilege to be entrusted with such blessings.

What we often forget in our enjoyment and day to day encounters with our children is that we aren’t just raising these little people that bring so much to our earthly lives….we are raising souls that belong to the Lord.

While we pray for our children’s salvation, while we live the examples we want them to follow, we may forget to stop and remember that this child that belongs to us is actually a soul that doesn’t belong to us at all.

Their souls belong only to the Lord and it’s His place to do with them what he wants. We can only guide those souls in whatever small way the Lord will allow us.

I am a homeschooling mother. Have…in fact…homeschooled my children since before they were old enough to need any form of ‘school’. In the homeschool world there is great stock placed in curriculum. There are conventions where all manner of it are displayed. You can order magazines about it, get catalogs delivered to your door that can eat up hours and hours of your days. There are hundreds if not thousands of websites offering everything from single subjects to all-inclusive curriculums. There are ‘Christian’ curriculums, secular curriculums, and more. You name it if you want to teach it to your child you can probably find it.

There are whole models of education formed around certain ideas of how you should teach your children. And there are complete models formed around the idea that you can’t teach your child, that children learn when they are ready and not before no matter what…or how much…you pump into them.

Some families are ‘homeschoolers’. That is their identity. It’s who they are and it describes everything about how they live their lives, much the way other people describe being ‘doctors’ or ‘world travelers’. It is…quite simply…who they are. And they take pride in who they are.

There are many families among the homeschool world that homeschool for the sole purpose of being able to pump ‘Christian’ content into their children. They believe that it is their place to be the religious instruction for their children and that that should include their children’s education.

Let me say…I agree with that…to a point. I do believe that as parents we have a responsibility to teach our children of our beliefs, to live out those beliefs to them, and to give them the gospel.

I don’t however believe that we can instruct our children into salvation…which is basically what some among the homeschool world are attempting to do.

Being entrusted with children…with souls…by the Lord is a privilege that comes with the added privilege of being able to live out our faith in front of our children and the ability to give them the gospel as we will probably never be able to give it to anyone else. Part of that privilege is the joy of watching our children grow and learn.

I have met many a homeschooling parent and curriculum provider that believed that getting ‘Christian’ beliefs into the ‘Christian’ child was the single most important purpose of home educating them.

The trouble with this philosophy is that it completely misses the Biblical teaching that salvation is of the Lord and that we can’t work our way into it.

If we could…if we had to…if our children’s salvation rested in our hands and in how much of the Scriptures we could get into their hearts…we would fail. Miserably.

Because salvation rests in the Lords hands alone. He is the only one that can save our children and He will do so at His will regardless of what we do or do not do.

The vessels of God’s mercy (Romans 9:22-23) are prepared for eternal glory by the Lord and they are prepared according to the plan He has in place for them. When the time is right the Lord will draw (John 6:44) or more accurately according to the Greek text…draw…their hearts and souls to Him.

What has gone into their hearts and minds prior to that moment is only what was placed in their lives so that the Lord could get them to the place where He would save them.

If it was required of us…as parents…to put everything into our children that would save them…we would fail. We simply cannot put the love of Christ into their hearts so that they will love Him above all else. Sin lives in their hearts from birth and it will take root and grow despite our best efforts to weed it out.

This sin kills our children’s hearts so much so that they are dead in sins. Only the Lord can give them life from those sins and it’s His will to do so or not and there’s nothing that we…or they…can do to affect that. While our children are dead in their sins they are in complete darkness, lost to their sins, so much so that the darkness they live in will keep them from Christ…aside from a basic head knowledge that will allow them to profess a belief that does not reach their hearts.

That is the best condition that we can hope to ‘impart’ to them through anything that we…or they…do. Everything else…salvation…is in the Lord’s hands. It’s a gift that he pours out into those that He chooses to receive it. A gift is something that is freely given, not something we work to earn.

The educating of our children in the ways of the Lord may give them a head knowledge, it may restrain them in their sins, but it will not give them salvation.

Oh, but if we could. How great it would be to focus all of our earthly time and attention on our children’s souls and know that we were giving them their very salvation.

I would gladly spend every hour of every day working the Truth of Christ into my children’s hearts if only it would save them.

But Scripture tells us that isn’t the way salvation works and that nothing I do will save my children. The good news in that is that nothing I do…no failure on my part… will cast them into hell either.

They came into this world souls that belong to the Lord, to be used for His purpose…whatever that may be…and they will go out of this world the same way.

I can only touch their earthly lives to the extent the Lord allows me to do so.

 

Hidden idolatry

How easy it is for our hobbies and interests to overtake us. Scripture tells us to have no idols and yet we do, even those of us that are truly born again. We may feel like we don’t, think we don’t, believe we don’t.

But we do.

How many times have you felt like you played second fiddle to a loved one’s interests? How many times has your husband or wife’s interests or hobbies pushed you aside…even without meaning to…and left you feeling as if you’re less important than whatever it is that draws their attention?

How many times have your children felt that way? Does you cell phone or computer take up more of your time than they do?

Even cooking and household chores can become something of an idol. I’ve known many a women that puts great stock in their home. They decorate it, rearrange it, buy more things to make it look better, move this here and that there just to get a better effect. I’ve been in many a home where I felt as if I touched something I’d soil it.

Is that not an idol?

What do the families of women like that feel about their home? About their mother’s love for their home?

I have a relative that loves to cook. She’ll often start cooking lunch as soon as breakfast is finished. She makes huge meals. So much so that eating at her home is like eating at a buffet style restaurant. She’s a very good cook and I’ve never heard anyone say a word of complaint about the meals she prepares. And plenty partake of those meals. As the meal she’s cooking nears the ready point she picks up the phone and calls all her grown children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and tells them it’s done.

Now we’re not talking about family that lives in her home or even down the road. A few are that close, others live across town or even in another town. They have their own homes and families but she calls them and when she does some combination of them comes to eat.

This relative spends hours and hours preparing meals. She does it when she’s the only one home and she does it when she has company in from out of state. It seems to be something she does for her own enjoyment but it also appears to be her way of taking care of her family, even when they need to be taking care of themselves and their own families.

But there comes a point that this interest…this hobby…this method of caring for the family crosses from simply feeding her family into something else. Call it obsession, call it a hobby, call it therapy…call it idolatry.

Here’s the thing, this same relative doesn’t allow anyone else to cook in her home, will…to a degree…allow someone else to do the dishes. She uses so much time preparing the meals that feed her family’s bodies but much less time feeding their need for time spent with her.

I’ve been the out of state relative in her home and I can tell you that as appreciative as I was for the meals she made…there were many times I’d have rather ate cold cereal or sandwiches and had more time with her.

How many times do those we love the most feel that way about the things we do?

How much more so does our Lord feel that way?

My children have told me on numerous occasions ‘you’re always doing _________’. Now it doesn’t seem to matter what I happen to be doing. If I’m spending quite a bit of time with one child for a certain reason, the others have that feeling…whether they voice it or not. If I’m spending more time with my husband, if I’m having to check my email more often, if I’m writing more blogs, even if I’m doing a lot of laundry. Their hearts seem to grab onto the thought and feeling that I’m putting something else ahead of them if I do anything that takes up my time. And the sad truth is that is often the case. Not because I want anything to take more time than my family but because it really doesn’t matter what we do if it takes our time, it takes us from our loved ones.

I can sit beside my husband or children but if I’m focusing on something I’m writing, reading, or doing…I’m not focusing on them. I can claim to be spending time with my children at the park but the reality is if I’m sitting on a bench while they play…how much of my attention are they getting? Just because I’m there…in their presence…doesn’t mean I’m focused on them.

I had to take one of my daughters to the emergency room a while back. It was late at night and this daughter, while uncomfortable, wasn’t in dire need of my attention. In fact she wound up sleeping through a good part of the emergency room visit. There were many an hour during that visit that I sat there either thinking or reading and not giving my total focus to that daughter. Now, she didn’t need my total focus but the reality is that since my attention was on other things through part of that…it wasn’t on her.

The same holds true for my Lord. If my total attention isn’t on Him then whatever I happen to be doing is causing me to break that first and most important commandment.

My husband works to provide for us. He puts in lots of long, hard, hours to do that. That work takes him away from me in more ways than one. It takes him away when he’s working away from home and it takes him away when he’s working at home. But it also takes him away from me when he’s thinking about work or when he’s so tired from all the work he does.

Working is something he has to do, and he does it for us, but it’s still something that takes him away from me. I know that. I can rationalize it. I can understand the reasons. But there are still times when I feel like I want to say…can’t you just set it aside for a while?

How many times does our Lord think that of the things that are in our lives? How many times are we ‘always doing __________’ instead of focusing on Him like we should?

It is impossible to keep the number one commandment. As fallen people we simply can’t love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, and minds all of the time. We just can’t do it. Thoughts and emotions come into play, worries about our earthly life come into play, we think of what we want to do, what we need to do, what we should be doing, and every one of those thoughts removes the Lord from our complete focus.

I know someone that is almost always talking of how busy they are, how much they have to do, how much they are doing, how much they will be doing. This person seems to keep so busy that I wonder if they aren’t running circles around themselves…and for what? I’m sure some of the things this person does are necessary, but I’m equally certain that a good part of what they’re doing isn’t.

I homeschool my children. In the homeschool world the world twaddle is used to describe any kind of school work that serves the purpose of keeping the child busy rather than any real purpose in teaching them something. It’s the things that are used to fill up space but serve no real function beyond that. Public schools use this method a lot.

How much of what we do would the Lord consider twaddle? 

How much of it hurts our families? How much of it takes us away from them even if we’re in their presence? Do the people we love most feel as if we love our hobbies and interests more? Do they feel like we’d rather be doing that than spending time with them? Do we turn to the things that give us peace, that ease our minds, that help with our own pains, when our loved ones hurt and need us most?

People with addictions will say they aren’t addicted. They say they can quit when they want. They rationalize what they’re doing by saying it doesn’t hurt anyone, or that they only do it for fun, or for relaxation…or whatever. But it does hurt those closest to them.

How many of our interests fall into the same category? How many people are addicted to the things they enjoy? How many of those interests wind up hurting those that they love the most?

And how much more does our Lord…a jealous God…get set aside for the things that draw our attention?

If our loved ones feel we turn more to our interests than we do to them, if they feel set aside, pushed aside, or ignored for our interests…how much more so does our Lord feel when our hearts and thoughts are taken from Him?

Protecting them

I’ve spent every year of my parenting experience doing the best I can to protect my children from the bad in this world. There were things I didn’t realize were bad early in my parenting days and there were things that I saw as bad that may not have been as bad as I thought they were at the time. Like most parents I did the best I could at each stage of raising each of my children.

Recently I’ve had some conversations with my teenage daughter that has made me wonder if all the protecting was as good as I thought it was. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t regret keeping them safe from the evils of this world, whether those evils were in real life or entertainment.

In the Christian homeschool world there are many different ideas of the right way to raise and educate children. Among ‘Christian’ families there seems to be two big differences though. There are those that believe in protecting their children from everything and those that believe in exposing their children to everything and then discussing those exposures. I always fell into the ‘protect them at all costs’ side.

There’s just something to be said for protecting the innocence of children. I’m not talking about innocence in the Lord’s eyes, that doesn’t exist, I’m talking about innocent to so many of the world’s ways. There are so many evils in this world that they must deal with in one capacity or another eventually, it just seems best to delay that as long as possible.

The trouble with that plan only recently became apparent to me. I still think it’s a good plan, a good idea. Our children need to be protected from all manner of evil. The trouble is…evil lives within their hearts. Sooner or later the desire to fulfill their own interests and longings will rear its head. Not only that but they will one day have to navigate this world on their own. For some children that day comes sooner than it does for others.

As much as I have protected my children from things I didn’t want them exposed to I soon discovered that the world encroached whether I wanted it to or not. Although I must admit that some of that encroachment was my own fault.

My daughters took a liking to fancy, very expensive, jeans after I took them to a ‘church’ building where that kind of jeans were the popular thing…everyone from babies to elderly women were wearing them. Was it any wonder my children wanted them?

The thing I struggle with now is where is the line between our beliefs and their desires? We can’t know ahead of time how something will affect them. I’m strong enough in my faith to be exposed to anything and walk away with my faith intact. I may have scars from what I saw or experienced but my faith will stand fast no matter what I’m exposed to. My children don’t have that.

The faith they have is superficial. It’s a head knowledge, a vocalization. It isn’t soul deep, it doesn’t consume their heart and mind.

And so they are like a leaf blowing in the wind. They may know what kind of leaf they are but what’s to stop them from landing in the pond instead of the yard? What’s to keep them from blowing into the manure pile instead of landing on the porch?

Without the complete and total faith that comes with regeneration…their faith can only keep them so safe. Their hearts long for something they don’t have and so they search for something to fill that longing. It may be hobbies, it may be the entertainment industry, it may even be ‘church’ but the reality is…

Unless Christ fills that void the longing will remain.

Something will consume them whether it’s Christ or things of the world.

I once spoke with someone that told me we can make our children believe what we want them too. This person’s oldest child was seven years old. My oldest was in the teen years. I tried explaining that we can’t force our children to believe. This person didn’t agree. I switched tactics, told them we can make them share our beliefs when they’re little but sooner or latter they must believe on their own. That seemed to sink in but only so far. I truly think that person believed that if we just force our children to believe as we do that we can make them share that belief.

No.

All we can do is make them express belief with their mouths. True belief is from the Lord and He’s the only One that can make them believe.

By the same token we can’t make them hate the sins of this world. All we can do is lay the foundation for telling them that those sins are wrong, why they’re wrong. Then sooner or later we have to get out of the way to let them experience the pain of the world for themselves.

Protecting them can only be taken so far.

No matter how much we may want to spend their lives keeping them from the evil of this world. And keeping the evil far away from them.

I think often of the 1800’s and how life was like in those days. I have a friend that has told me many times of how much she likes the 1800’s. She thinks of the simplicity of that time, of how they lived without all the distractions we live with, of how they were freer to focus on Christ. I can see what she means when she speaks of those times but for me when I think of that time period what I think of is how many of the evils were kept in check. Of how much of society didn’t accept the evil that people in our time accept. Of how nice it would be to be able to walk through town without seeing the majority of everyone’s bodies. Of how nice it would be not to hear so many bad words. Of how nice it would be to see a time when wickedness wasn’t given quite so much freedom.

I know the evil of men’s hearts was there even as it was restrained. I know that awful things happened in those days too. But I also know it was reined in at least a little.

And now…as I continue to have conversations with my teenage daughter…as I continue to see not only our lives but the world through her eyes. I am forced to ask myself how much protecting we can do.

As I grow a tiny baby within my body…I prepare a teenage daughter for the world.

As I think of the innocence this baby has of all the world’s ways…I must wonder if I have given my daughter the tools to face the world.

It’s a fine line that must be walked between keeping the evils from them and preparing them to one day live in those evils.

Have I walked that line?

Or did I fall off one side or the other?

Our children watch

I recently wrote about how our lives are a story being written in the book of our life and how those stories create the people that our children become (titled ‘The book we’re writing’). When I sat down to write that I had an idea of what I wanted to write and discovered that my thoughts went in sort of the right direction but that they took a turn I hadn’t even thought of. Because that happened I wish to write once again on the same topic but with the purpose of writing what I intended to write last time.

Funny how as I write sometimes I write exactly what I intended to, sometimes I had no thought in mind and I watch as the words take shape on the computer, and sometimes everything I planned to write gets pushed aside to write something I hadn’t even thought of.

When I sat down to write that last post I wanted to write about books…I did that…but I had a different point I wanted to make.

You see, I own many books, some I read and some I know I will never read again. My children have more books than I’d ever want to count. Those books have played a role in our lives and may continue to play a role in them.

The most valuable book I own is the Bible…and I own many of those. Within the pages of the Bible is not only the story of the world, not only the story of my Lord, not only the story of God’s people, but within those pages is the story of me. It holds the story of my family, the story of my marriage, the story of my children. We may not be mentioned by name but we are mentioned nonetheless. We are there in the pages, there in the words spoken and written.

It is within the pages of that Book that I find the meaning for my life, I find the reason for my life being written the way it was.

But it isn’t to that Book that my thoughts want to turn to today. As important as it is…my thoughts want to turn to the shelves of children’s book we have in our home. I think of the stories on the pages of those books. I think of the toddler books with the short sentences and intriguing pictures, I think of the chapter books with the ability to captivate my children.

And as I think of those books I also think of my children. A while back I wrote what I titled ‘Raising souls’. In it I spoke of how it took me many children and lots of years to realize that I’m not just raising little people that carry my heart with them everywhere they go but that I’m raising souls for the Lord. No matter what their eventual place with Christ is…they are souls with a purpose designed by the Lord. They have a purpose to fulfill. What that purpose is I may never know but they have one.

And it’s here in this writing and in my thoughts and heart where the words I wrote in ‘The book we’re writing’ and the words I wrote in ‘Raising souls’ meet and converge. It’s in my thoughts and here in my words as I write where those two different ideas come together to form one.

You see as I think of those many children’s books we have in our possession I think of the story my children see and learn from with each book. And then I think of the souls that my children are, the foundation that is laid in their lives with everything they do, with everything they encounter, and those thoughts become the foundation for much bigger thoughts that flow through my mind and heart.

You see we tend to see movies and books as being stories we see and listen to. Whether we like them or not we all know that those things are stories. Even the true stories are labeled as ‘stories’.

My grandmother spent many hours telling me about her life. They were the stories of my grandmother’s life. She told me stories about her parents and siblings. She told me about my mother when she was a child. She told me about life during the depression.

She told me stories of her life that transported me into the world as my grandmother knew it.

As a child I used to ask my grandpa to tell me about how he moved cross country in a covered wagon. That story fascinated me. My grandpa wasn’t a good story teller. He never made it sound like a story, never embellished it, never made it exciting or adventurous, he simply told me the facts and those facts were more than enough to captivate me with the story of how grandpa traveled in a covered wagon.

Now my children ask me to tell them stories of my childhood, they ask me to tell them stories of when they were little. Last night at midnight I was up with my five year old and for whatever reason I told him that when I was a girl we didn’t have computers, cell phones, ereaders… His little eyes grew huge and the shock on his face was clear to see.

My grandparents took me to times that I couldn’t really imagine as they told me the stories of their lives….and I took my son to the same kind of time. He’s never known life without computers, cell phones, and the many other modern technologies. He knows how to do things with electronics that I didn’t learn until I was grown.

The stories of our lives hold as much interest for our children as do the stories written in the pages of books. When my oldest was little I discovered a good amount of the history of my ancestors…enough to know who they were and where they came from all the way back to 1700. Because I knew that when my daughter would ask for a story I would tell her the story of our family. She loved it and asked me to tell her that story over and over. So much so that I eventually wrote it down in a way that she could understand and had it bound into a book that she could hold and read for herself. She spent many hours reading that book.

Within its pages was 11 generations of our family’s stories. They were short, giving only basic details…in most cases because basic details were all I knew...but she didn’t care. She was simply captivated and amazed by what wasn’t even a well written story. I didn’t need to write it in the perfect style required by publishers, I didn’t need to meet the expectations of my reader, because my targeted audience was so fascinated with the story I was writing that she willingly overlooked the bad writing.

Our children are fascinated by our lives. They watch the story of our lives unfold before them whether we realize it or not. I’ve heard many times that we shouldn’t tell our children to live one way while we’re in the midst of living another way, that actions speak louder than words, that they’ll follow what they see us doing and not what they hear us saying.

We are living out before them a story that they read every single day. It is a story that is more powerful than any they will ever read in a book, it is a story that will shape and mold who they are, it is a story they will remember long after we are no longer with them.

They may or may not choose to emulate the story they watch us live but it is a story that shapes their ideas and personalities nonetheless.

It’s said that girls base their ideas of how a man should treat them based on how they watch their dad treat their mother. Those are the expectations that our daughters will take with them into their future and into their marriages. They will get those expectations from the pages of the story their parents live out before them.

Our son’s will learn how to treat women, how to treat their future wives and children, based off how they see their dad treat their mother and siblings.

Years ago we had neighbors where the husband was abusive toward his wife. This couple had four children, two girls and two boys. When we met them their children ranged in age from about 4 to about 10. Their oldest daughter used to ride her bike up and down the road a good deal of the time she was home. She began to stop in front of our house and just watch us. She didn’t seem to want to come into the yard, didn’t speak to us at first. She just sat and watched us as we came and went. We would speak to her but in the beginning she said little more than hi to us. In time she came into the yard. It wasn’t long after that before she was a regular in our home. She spent the night, she went to town with us, she went to theme parks with us. Most nights she ate dinner with us.

Her younger sister would come with her from time to time but this little girl came pretty much every day and she stayed all day. It took a while before we understood what was happening. Home wasn’t a safe place for her and so she found somewhere that was safe. In time her mother admitted what was going on at home, told us of how her husband beat her on a regular basis.

This little girl watched the story of her parents being unfolded before her and it was, for her, a story of fear and anger. From the road she would sit and watch our family, hardly speaking to us, she watched our story and eventually chose to become a part of it...so much so that it was almost as if she was one of our own.

This little girl was the oldest of the four children in her family. Her sister would sometimes come to our house and in time her brothers did too. This little girl seemed to seek the kind of family we had, the kind of life that we had. She would play baby dolls for hours, she played with our infant daughter as if she was her baby. Her sister, when she came, had no interest in playing, instead she wanted to go through everything, she pulled all the books off the bookshelf saying that she wanted to organize it but never did anything more than make a huge mess before leaving, she emptied toy boxes for the same reason and never did anything more than leave the mess behind.

In those two girls was such a difference in what they were seeking, in how they were dealing with the stress of what the story in their home was. One craved not just the normal but nurturing, the other created chaos.

And the boys…they had learned at their daddy’s knee. They were mean and aggressive to the girls. Expressions often rested on their little faces that should never have been there. Even though they were younger than their sisters it was clear to see that their opinions of their sisters mirrored their dad’s attitudes toward their mother. And it wasn’t just their sisters that received this treatment. Our girls received it, the other girls in the neighborhood received it. I received it. The boys kept it in check with me and other teenage and adult females…they were only 4 and 6 at the time…but it was unleashed toward younger girls.

These children had been affected…influenced…by the story they saw being written between their parents.

They aren’t the only children that I have seen this effect in. They aren’t the only children that sought the safety of our home when theirs wasn’t a safe or good place to be. I have a sister that is much younger than I am. So much so that she was in her mid-teen years when I was raising children. She’s so much younger than I am that she’s closer to my oldest child’s age than my own. This sister spent a good deal of time in our home, even living with us. I was more of a second mother to her than a sister. When she was about 16 she had a boyfriend that loved to come to our house. He would come to see her and he would stay all day or as long as we would let him…there were days he had to be told that it was late and we needed to go to bed. Each time he left he did so reluctantly.

In time he admitted to us that his mother and sister were both alcoholics and that there was rarely any food in his house. He admitted to living on crackers and only had them because he bought them himself and kept them hidden so he’d have them.

In all his time at our house he found his place among us. He became something of a big brother to the children, he helped with things around the house the best way he could.

Eventually he and my sister split up. Long after the end of their relationship we saw this boy in town and he admitted to driving past our house on a regular basis just to see it and know that we were still there.

This teenage boy was a product of the story that his mother, his only parent, and his sister wrote for him. Tragically, not long after he told us how he would drive by just to see our house and maybe catch a glimpse of us, he was killed in a car accident. The accident happened about a year after he and my sister split up. The cause of the accident was his own choices. He was driving drunk, crossed the line and hit a diesel head on.

That boy left a mark on my life as I left one on his. His home life was such that he sought the security, the love, the normalness of our home long after he no longer visited us. When I learned of his death I was shocked. Not so much because it happened but because I remembered having him in our home, remembered the impact we had on his life. For a little while he watched a different story unfold and it was one he longed for until the night he died.

I’ve thought many times of that boy. Thought of how he missed something vital in his life to the point that when he found it in our home he longed for it. I’ve thought of how that boy, so close to being a man, knew that kind of life only for the short time he was at our home.

Now as I think of him, as I think of the choices he made that cost him his life. I see it from two sides…the earthly and the spiritual. I can look at that boy’s life through the faith I hold and know that his time on earth had come to an end, his choices were only the method the Lord used to end his days on earth. He had fulfilled the purpose the Lord had for him. His days had reached their end.

 But I can see it from the earthly also…I can see how the life his family lived affected him. I can see how their choices taught him to live in a way that resulted in the final choices he made that last night of his life. I can see how the story his family lived out before him set the foundation for what he became not only that last night but also during the time he was seeking something from us that he wasn’t getting at home. I can see how the story of his life, how the story he saw written before him on a daily basis played a major role in setting the foundation for the choices he wound up making. This was the life he was placed in, it was where the Lord put him. The story his family lived out before him set the tone for his short life.

And he watched the story from the day he was born.

They say the first three years of a child’s life are their formative years. Ideas and personality will be settled in them in those first years that will last the rest of their life. As a mother I have watched my children grow through those formative years. ‘They’ may be right about those first three years but all of childhood is formative years. They are little sponges that observe and learn based on what they see and experience. They watch the story of their parent’s life and follow the path they see set out before them.

I’m not saying that if real Christian parents live out Scripture before them that those children will be saved because they saw it. Only the Lord can save them and he will do so or not according to His will. Even the story that our children see before them are used for the Lord’s purposes…whatever they may be.

I don’t know why it was that for a while we were the safe place for our neighbor’s daughter. I don’t know what purpose there was in that. Was she in our lives so she could be an influence to us or so we could influence her? I’ll never know.

I don’t know why my sister’s boyfriend not only passed through our life but became so attached to us. Was it for his good, to help in the purpose of his life, or was it for ours? Was he there to teach us something or were we there to help him in the purpose that was soon to be fulfilled in his life? I’ll never know.

All I know is that, as I look back on the lives of those two young people who found security and love within the walls of our home, they were there for a reason. For a time they were placed in our life. And then they were taken out of our life. Our time in each others stories had come to an end. One chapter ended and a new one began. But for that time we were written into the story of each other’s lives. And the impact we made on each other was long lasting.

Our children watch our story unfold and get lived out the same way those two children watched their parents stories. Our children are effected by the way we live our life, by the things we do, by the things we believe, by the things we talk about, by how we interact with them.

As our children begin stories of their own, when they are still major characters in the daily life of our own story, they will take with them the memories and influence of the story we lived out before them. No matter how they eventually live out their own story they will always carry ours with them.

What story are we writing on the hearts, minds, and lives of our children?

 

The book we're writing.

When I was about 11 years old I discovered something amazing…to me anyway. I discovered books. I had always had picture books and had enjoyed them but it wasn’t until around age 11 that I discovered chapter books.

In the pages of those books I learned something that I had never known before. I could go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.

The stories on those black and white pages transformed my life from what it was at the time to just about anything I wanted it to be. I lived on the prairie in pioneer times, dressed in long skirts and lived without modern technologies. I suffered through the depression. I loved and lost. Explored caves, searched for buried treasure, survived kidnappings and time traveled.

Every time I opened a new book…I opened a new life.

At the time my love of books was a cross between entertainment and escape. Books helped me pass many hours in the years when I lived between childhood and the adult world. They gave me something to do when I wouldn’t have had anything to do. They were easy to carry anywhere I went and were always there when I needed them. But they also gave me an escape when I needed one. Illnesses that left me feeling awful were a little easier to get through when I could focus on the joys and trials of someone else’s life. Situations I found myself in that were too difficult to bear became easier when I escaped my life through the pages of a book.

And so books became my best friend.

I spent many, many hours with those friends.

Now, years and years after first discovering books, I still enjoy them. There’s something about reading about others, whether real or fictional, that can’t be found outside the pages of a book. Today I find it much harder to enjoy a book, not because the stories in them aren’t as good as the ones I remember from childhood but because I now know that so many of those stories go against my Lord.

As a child I didn’t care if a book contained time travel or magic. I didn’t care if it was about murder or other sin. I was simply looking for a story that could not only hold my attention but one that could transport me from my world to the world that existed only in the pages of that book. Now I have a higher standard.

In the pages of a book I now know that there’s so much more being played out than just what’s happening in the story. Depending on what the book is about and whether it was written based on Biblical principles comes through within only a few pages. Some books glorify sin, some degrade my Lord, others teach falsehoods while claiming to be Biblical, and a few speak truth. That happens in both fiction and nonfiction.

And what most people don’t know is that within the pages of a book, no matter what the story is about, the author’s views on everything in life is slowly being fed into us through tiny bite sized pieces.

There are books that are considered classics, books that most children have encountered at some point in their lives, whose authors dabbled in the occult. And once a person knows that it becomes easy to see it in the pages of the story. But you have to know it to really see it or else you have to be reading the book with a very discerning eye.

No child is going to read with that kind of discernment. Most adults don’t read that way. A book is seen as entertainment, something to pass the time. They can’t do any harm. Or so many believe.

But stories aren’t just written on the pages of a book. Those subtle influences aren’t penned only in the words portrayed in things of entertainment.

Stories are written every day, in every person’s life. They’re written in our minds and hearts with everyone we know. Each encounter we have with another person writes a story on our life. Some may be fleeting like the short picture books that passed through our hands when we were children, they may leave little or no impression. Others are long sagas with many chapters and hundreds of pages.

What may seem to be an innocent encounter with another person may indeed form ideas and opinions in our minds and hearts that will take root for all of our earthly life.

Our children are particularly susceptible to having their stories altered by encounters with other people and with each experience.

As a homeschooler I have encountered many different ideas on how to raise children, on how to bring them up in the Christian faith, on what to let them experience and encounter. There are those among the Christian homeschool world that believe that a child should never encounter anything that doesn’t teach them from a Christian perspective and there are those that believe children should be exposed to as much of the world as possible so that they know what it’s all about-in those that believe that way some will counter everything their child encounters with discussions on what they as a family believe and others let their children form their own ideas and opinions without trying to influence them.

As a Christian it has become difficult for me to find books that I feel are okay for me to read. It’s even harder to find books that I feel comfortable letting my children read. I know that the Lord will either save my children or not in His time and that there isn’t a book out there that will keep that from happening but I also know that the things we experience in life help set our foundation for what we will become. I have a responsibility to my children and to my Lord to help set the right kind of foundation for my children.

There were many years in my parenting life that I didn’t know that. Many years passed where we chose what came into our lives based on a much looser idea of what was okay and what wasn’t. I remember spending many, many hours reading chapter books to my oldest when she was too young to read them herself. Some of her favorite ones were a series about kids that time traveled with the help of a magician.

Yesterday that same daughter told me how her favorite books have always been the science fiction type with time travel, fairies, and other type situations.

Today as I think back on the many hours we spent with that type of books, as I remember the movies I let her watch and the play I encouraged, I must also think of the foundation we laid with each page we turned, with each movie we sat through, with the fairy houses I helped build and the toys I bought for her. The Lord used all of that in both her life and mine. He used it in the lives of each person in our family and I’m only now reaching the midpoint of the story. I’m still reading the book that is our life. I can’t see the end of the story, I can’t flip ahead to read the last page or the last chapter.

But I can see the influence those stories, movies, and play have had in my children’s lives long after the time when we stopped letting them through our front door. I see them when my children reminisce about the books and movies we once read, when they talk about the things they used to play. I see them in the smiles those memories bring.

And I see the failures of the ideas I wrote into our story when I didn’t yet know I was writing a story and I see the failures I write today when I do know that each day is another page in our story, when each moment is another sentence in our book.

And there is no delete button.

I can’t erase something once it’s been placed into the pages of the book of our life. Once a character comes into our story they are there forever whether they enter our story as real life people, fictional characters in books or movies, or ideas imparted through someone else. They are all there increasing the word count in the story that is our life, lengthening the pages of our book, adding to the story unfolding before our eyes.

As a Christian that now sees there’s a greater story going on than the story within my life, that now understands there’s a Book that was written that I never need to worry about the influence it has on my children, I find myself at odds with my thoughts sometimes.

I must wonder what in the story of our lives is building the foundation I want to put under my children and what is being written into my children’s lives that I may be opposed to but that the Lord has put there for their greater good.

I feel the need to protect them from all that goes against my beliefs, from all that might lead them astray, but today…so close to the discussion I had with my daughter yesterday….I must also wonder about the foundation that has already been laid.

And how that foundation has written words into the book that is my child’s life.

If our family story is a book then we are all characters in a continuing saga that will play out for many years to come, Lord willing. We are a series of books in which the characters are the same but the stories must eventually separate. We overlap because we have been given to each other for a time and our stories are all one but as our children grow they must, in time, move into their own books. Their stories must become their own and not merely a spot within the pages of the story of their parents lives.

What did they learn while they were in our book? What did they learn from the influence of the story we write in our own lives? What have we taught them through the encounters we have allowed them to have?

Was our story written based on Scripture? Can we hand them over to their own stories, to their own books, knowing that we have shown them, guided them, in the way that they should go or will we watch with bated breath as they jump from the pages of our book into the blank pages of their own without the proper safety net beneath them?

What are we writing on the hearts of our children while we have them within the pages of our life?

Babies then and now

Babies have shown up in my life in a big way this past year. In 12 months my sister told me she was pregnant, a friend became pregnant, two of my daughters became pregnant, and I became pregnant. Unfortunately we lost four of those five babies. Of the five of us only my sister was able to carry her baby to term and have it. Within a couple of months of the birth of my niece the same four of us that had so recently lost babies were once again expecting. First it was a new grandbaby on the way, then my friends baby, then my own, and now another grandbaby.

Never before have I had so many babies in my family. Added to the four that are now on the way…because the friend that is expecting is more sister than friend I count her baby as family…I also have my niece, a two year old nephew, and a one year old grandson.

Babies…babies…everywhere.

Blessings abound.

Lord willing, by this time next year (between the five of us women that have brought, or are bringing, babies into my family) we will have two four year olds, a three year old, a two year old, a one year old and four babies under 12 months old. And that’s not counting the children we have that are already over the age of five.

My teenage daughter just told me that she doesn’t count children over the age of two as babies so…let’s narrow the field a little bit. In my family we will have six babies aged two and under. Five of those babies will, Lord willing, be born within a 12 month time span.

All of those babies will be born to a different mother. We all have different ideas on how to raise babies. Some of us are just starting our parenting journey while others of us are far into it. As I think of each of us…all family…all of different families…that will, Lord willing be bringing babies into the world over the next nine months, I think of the differences in our likes and dislikes, the differences in what we will be acquiring for those babies.

I recently wrote about what a trip through the baby section in a store is like (Living in a theme park world). I wrote of the electronic toys that abound and how many babies are being raised on them.

Now as I think of the babies about to be born into my life, as I think of the toddlers that are already here, I think too of the differences in the toys that each child has. I think of the toddlers that are regularly handed their parents phones, of the two year old nephew I’m told can work his dad’s video game system, of the babies and toddlers that will be handed electronic toys and of the ones that will have no battery operated toy.

And I think of history. I think of the stories my mother told of when she was preparing for her babies, of the stories my grandmother told of when she prepared for hers, and I think further back then that.

 Thinking back what life would have been like in the 1800’s…I draw off what I know of that time, and what I imagine life was like based on what I know, to form an idea of what it would have been like to prepare for a baby in that time. If a couple in those days made a list of what they needed for their baby-to-be…what would that list have looked like?

Diapers

Gowns

Hat

Booties/stockings

Quilts

cradle

To make that list I consulted with my teenage daughter and after much thought that was the extent of what we could come up with. The cradle was something I even hesitated to put on there because it most likely wasn’t seen as a necessity. A crate, drawer, or basket would have worked just as well.

Now that was a list for someone who most likely struggled with money. Someone that had plenty of money probably added things like baby rattles, bonnets, spoons…and who knew what else.

If a family had some money but not a lot it’s possible that they might have added things like diaper pins and some sort of ointment or powder to the list. There might have been a few other items.

But when I look at the above list I’m forced to admit it isn’t realistic. It may have been a realistic list for what they needed but it wouldn’t have been realistic for what they were shopping for. Diapers wouldn’t have made a shopping list…diaper material would have. Gowns wouldn’t have made a shopping list…material to make the gowns would have. Quilts wouldn’t have made the shopping list…they would have searched their material scraps for enough to make a quilt.

There was no running to the store, filling a cart, and handing over money to buy the things they needed…things that were ready to use for baby.

Their lists would have been short and would have required a lot of work to acquire the necessary items.

A list from my grandmothers childbearing days may well have looked like this…

Diapers (these would have been cloth 99% of the time. Disposables existed but were expensive and considered an unnecessary expense.)

Diaper pins

Diaper box (a place to store the babies diapers)

Gowns/dresses (even boys wore dresses)

Diaper shirts (something along the lines of a button down shirt but usually without sleeves)

Hats

Bibs

Blankets/quilts

Baby powder

Bottles

Crib/cradle/bed

Possibly some sort of baby seat

Internet searches for baby necessities of the 1950’s turned up nothing useful so I made this list based on the things my grandmother talked of using with her babies. There may have been other items on a new mothers list of needs in those days or there may have been less. I really don’t know but must assume that then, like now, the list would have been made up of the items the new mother most needed/wanted and would have reflected her financial situation. If she was having a baby shower she may have added items she wanted but didn’t necessarily need.

Today…a list for baby-to-be is much, much different.

First off the list of things a new mother needs, or thinks she needs, has grown so many times over that it can hardly be recognized as the same sort of list as the two above. I have what’s called a pregnancy organizer and it, like most pregnancy books, give a list of what you must have for your new baby. Gone are the days of needing gowns, diapers, and basic clothing. Here is a sampling of what the lists of must haves in pregnancy books today look like…

Onesies (a number is given)

Sleep and play outfits (another number)

Gowns (number)

Blanket sleepers (number)

Sweaters (number)

Hats (number)

Snowsuit

Socks (number)

Bibs (number)

Diaper covers if using cloth diapers (number)

That is just the clothing section, minus a few things that to me fell into one of the categories I listed. Gone are the days of the simple list made up of necessities. Gone are the days of simple needs. Our great-great grandmothers didn’t have snowsuits for their babies…they had quilts. I’m going to hazard a guess that they had no more than three quilts for their baby. Today’s babies not only need a snowsuit but they also need up to half a dozen receiving blankets, a minimum of two heavy blankets and possibly other blankets each designed to fit the baby device they may be using…a blanket type cover for their car seat, a crib sized blanket, a bassinet sized blanket…

Which brings me into the other items our new little one must have…

Disposable diapers (by the case…put number here for each size)

Sheets for each type of baby bed or play yard

Waterproof pads for any kind of bed baby might lay on

Towels

 Washrags

Burp cloths

Bottles (even if you’re breastfeeding)

Breast pump if you’re breastfeeding

Formula

Pacifier

Feeding utensils

A long list of medication, ointments, creams, and medical supplies

An equally long list of personal hygiene items (I don’t even use this many different products). Apparently baby needs everything from soap (shampoo is listed separately) to ointment and creams (this is in addition to the ointments and creams listed under the medical supplies) to a brush and comb. And lets not forget baby powder, lotion, baby wipes…

If your house hasn’t been filled to capacity yet we can move on to all the many other things your five to nine pound baby that could care less about any of this stuff simply ‘must’ have before it makes its arrival.

Let’s add the big stuff now…

Stroller

Child safety seat (car seat)

Baby carrier

Diaper bag

Bassinet or cradle

Crib with mattress, mobile, and all the other attachments

Changing table

Diaper pail

Bath tub

Rocking chair

Bouncer

Swing

Baby monitor

Pack and play

High chair

Portable high chair

Entertainer/jumpy seat

Safety gates

I don’t know about you but that list is enough to boggle my mind. After having numerous children I can safely say that babies don’t need 95% of the junk on that list. And most of it…at least the big stuff…is designed to separate baby from mom and dad. Because they will be spending many hours on their own you’ll also need to add in a hundred different kinds of toys…they’ll need toys for the car and toys for the stroller. They’ll need soft toys for the bed and loud toys for when they’re most active…

I don’t know about you but I’m going back to the list from the 1800’s. There’s no difference in the baby I will, Lord willing, be having in a few months and the babies born in the 1800’s. No matter the time they are born into babies come into this world knowing nothing of the things society claims they need. I don’t need a million different items to take care of my child and I don’t want even a fraction of that many.

I want the enjoyment of my baby not the shuffling of it from one entertainment device to another to keep it happy in my absence.

 

 

 

The 'God' of Arminianism

There was a time when I thought that idols were the little gold statues, or big statues, that are worshipped in other religions. I know now that idols are much more than that. Those are idols, sure, but so are the many, many other things both physical and mental that are put before God.

I was recently in a large city where there stood on every street corner…or so it seemed…large ‘church’ buildings. These buildings were look-at-me buildings. They may or may not have been designed with the intent to draw a person’s attention but the sheer size of them made sure that they caught your attention.

I’ve driven through neighborhoods with houses made on the same scale. Whatever the owner’s reason for building or buying such a huge house it’s quite impossible to drive past one and not notice that it’s there.

And that’s just houses.

            I’ve seen cars that you couldn’t pass without looking at them, whether you liked them or not there was something…the color, the size, the number of toys in the window, the bumper stickers plastered on it…something that drew your attention. How about stores? Playgrounds? Restaurants? The list goes on and on. As you drive through any town, any area, there will be something that draws your attention. On an old country road with no buildings in sight your attention may be drawn to the biggest tree, the brightest flower, or the deepest pothole, but whatever it is…your attention will go to something.

In nature your focus is at least on that which the Lord created. A Christian might drive down that country road or walk through those woods and think about the One who created such a display. But even a Christian is hard pressed to find the Lord in the midst of the look-at-me everything’s that our society has built.

My mind goes time and again to those large ‘church’ buildings. I’ve written of them before and will probably write of them again. They simply stand out in such an extreme way that it’s hard not to think of them.

There’s no doubt in my mind that those huge ‘church’ buildings are idols or at least a place to worship an idol. The building wasn’t built to worship the Christ that was born into this world in a barn. They weren’t put there to worship the God that hates the wicked.

The God I spoke of could care less about big buildings. He’s more concerned with the condition of hearts than of outward appearances. He’d rather have one of His true Children worship him from a cardboard box than a million idolaters from inside a monstrous building.

There is no building that can get anyone closer to Christ.

But it isn’t just buildings that serve as idols in the eyes of those that claim to worship Him. I could probably write a blog post every day for a year on a different something that is worshipped, that’s an idol, and I’d still have so many more things to write about that I could fill another year with daily posts.

The other day my husband said that our country has reached the point of being lovers of pleasure.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. 2 Timothy 3:1-5

            They will become lovers of pleasure… What in our society hasn’t come to the point of pleasure? What hasn’t moved from serving a purpose in our life to being pleasure? Hunting has gone from a way to feed ones family to a sport. Fishing has done the same thing. Cars have gone from a means of getting from one place to another to a hobby. Clothes are collected to the point of overflowing closets and dressers rather than having just enough to clothe us. And the list goes on.

            I was surprised to discover the other day that there is…at least one…entire website complete with forums dedicated to a certain kind of ink pen. I knew there were websites with forums for flashlights, cloth diapers, parenting, fertility, child raising… But a pen? What can anyone find to talk about a pen enough to dedicate a whole website to it? But there it was before me. When I stumbled on it I took the time to look around. Who wouldn’t? What is there to say about a pen?

            As it turned out…pretty much what you’d expect. Designs, colors, types of ink, colors of ink, ways to use the pen…

            If that’s anything short of idolatry I’m not sure I want to know what it is. Basically if your mind is captured by something…anything…you can probably find a website, and mega store, to support it.

            But it isn’t just things that become idols. It can be a person, a place, or even the way you worship.

            I recently wrote a post on Arminianism. I don’t mind admitting that I felt ill equipped to write that post. I simply didn’t know enough about Arminianism to feel like I could adequately cover it but the need to write on that topic was there and with research I learned what I needed to know to turn out that post.

            It wasn’t until after I finished the post that I began to think of something else. I wrote the facts and my thoughts in that post but I failed to take note of a rather large…rather glaring…detail.

            The Arminian belief is idolatry.

Yes, I said it. It is idolatry. I grew up with that belief, have written many times of how I was taught to believe as a child. I know that other people hold different beliefs than my family did. I know that they practice those beliefs in different ways.

But I’ve noticed something among those that hold to the Arminian belief system. Some of them hold so fast to what they believe that they simply won’t accept correction. Not even if it’s delivered straight from the pages of the Bible.

 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 2 Timothy 3:16

How does a person that professes to believe in the Bible refuse to take correction straight from the pages of the Book they claim to base their most basic beliefs on, claim to learn from?

I’m not saying all Arminian’s are this way, I’m saying some of them are. I know there are others that are easily swayed from one type of belief to another and yet they all hold fast to the same basic belief that if you accept Christ then you are saved. I don’t know enough about the various denominations to be able to give examples of how they all do it but the general consensus seems to be that you must accept Christ to be saved.

That belief puts the individual and their decision, their choice, their free will, above God. And that becomes idolatry.

2 Timothy 3:6-7 goes on to say…

For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, ⁷ always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Something I learned while I was reading about Arminianism was how Arminius started it. He accepted a position to teach at a University that held to reformed beliefs. He pledged that he believed the same way. Then while teaching what was required in his classes he turned around and handed out private…confidential…papers that taught Arminianism.

He was a sneak. He didn’t just stand up and admit what he believed then try to teach it to those that wanted to hear it. He crept into a University teaching reformed faith and secretly taught something that went against, not only his job, but the very Bible he supposedly believed. He led students that trusted what he said was truth astray by teaching them a different doctrine than the one they were supposed to hear at the University.

He poisoned their minds under cover.

And today the things he taught are the number one type of Christianity in America. What he taught under cover in the late 1500’s is now being openly taught in ‘churches’ across the country. It’s filling books and movies. It’s even infiltrated the Bible to the point that one must be careful when buying a Bible with any kind of manmade notes in it lest they get one filled with the same heresy written within its pages.

That is idolatry.

 Arminianism has become synonymous with Christianity. When a person hears the term Christian they think of the Arminian belief. When most people hear the name God they think of the ‘God’ of Arminianism.

And anytime we think of anything higher than we think of God…it’s idolatry.

We’re warned time and again in Scripture to have no other gods, that our God is a jealous God, that idolatry is punishable by eternity in hell and yet…Arminianism is taught as the way to Christ. Those that hold to the Arminian beliefs scoff at those that see the Bible as it is really written. They call the regenerate Christians that try to teach them the dangers of their erroneous beliefs all sorts of names and often kick them out of their ‘church’ buildings.

If their beliefs are the right ones according to Scripture then why do they need to remove those that are using Scripture to point out something other than what they believe? Why can’t they simply use the Bible to contradict the reformed belief being presented to them?

Because idolatry isn’t easily given up. No idol is. And because most of them don’t know the Bible well enough to be able to use it to contradict anything.

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21

The Arminian belief in ‘God’ is an idol that gets them no closer to Christ than does total disbelief. What’s worse is that in all their certainty…many are still going to hell.

What would the Armenians say about any religion that believed something that went against the Bible? What would they say about a person that believed their salvation lay in anything other than Jesus? And yet they believe strongly in a system of religion that is based on

a gospel that isn’t taught in the Bible. The gospel that was once taught by Arminius and is now so widely accepted and believed was easily seen as being something other than the true Gospel in the 1500’s. Today it is what is considered by most to be the gospel of the Bible.

Arminius’ beliefs catered to the flesh and became popular with in the secular world but was seen by the Church as a heresy, as false doctrine. Arminius was very much a wolf in sheeps clothing. He slipped into a University where only reformed faith was taught, lied about his beliefs to secure a position there, then quietly and secretly set about spreading his beliefs.

These were brand new beliefs, beliefs that Arminius himself held and wanted to share. Like a burgler in the night he snuck into places he wasn’t wanted and took what wasn’t his. He spread lies and gained believers.

How?

Because the belief he shared was something that the secular mind could grab onto. It was a ‘god’ that anyone could have. It was a ‘god’ that man need only to accept to gain acceptance by. Where the reformed church taught the Truth which stated that man can only be saved by God and that unless God saved him he had no way of attaining salvation, Arminius changed all that with a ‘god’ that man need only accept and choose to follow.

No wonder the Arminian belief is so popular today. No wonder it has thousands, millions, of followers. The modern day ‘church’ in America has not only embraced the Arminian belief they have grabbed onto it with both hands and refused to let go. It’s a life raft for a drowning person. It’s hope when there is no hope.

The modern American ‘church’ has not only grabbed onto the Arminian belief…they are chasing after it in large crowds. They’re selling books, movies, and music that promote the belief’s they hold dear. They have conferences and conventions that uplift and encourage, they have revivals, they have Bible studies, schools, colleges, that all promote the Arminian belief.

And they promote a belief that is an idol and not the real Gospel. They promote a ‘God’ that isn’t the God of the Bible.

People that hold to the Arminian belief go into countries where people are desperate for help, they promote the same ‘gospel’ that Arminius did so many years ago, and they ‘convert’ hundreds and thousands of people to a belief system that’s false. Then they report on the vast number of people that have been reached ‘for Christ’.

All this is done because the Lord allows it to happen. It’s done for reasons we can’t know. I have no doubt that the Lord is using the Arminian system to save some of His elect…I’m proof of that.

But it’s still a religious system that not only believes in a false doctrine…they try and share it with as many people as they possibly can.

Years ago mothers used to take their children to what was known as chicken pox parties. The idea behind those parties was that children needed to catch the chicken pox while they were young so when one child came down with them other parents deliberately exposed their child to them in the hope that they would catch them and get them over with.

Arminianism is much like a chicken pox party only most of them don’t realize they’re spreading a false gospel. They ‘catch’ Jesus and then want to spread to it as many people as they possibly can. So they go from house to house trying to share their gospel, they go into impoverished countries offering to help the people there but in exchange those people have to listen to the beliefs they hold dear. They share their ‘Jesus’ and count the number of converts that ‘catch’ him.

And it’s a success because the numbers keep climbing. Their brand of chicken pox has reached epidemic proportion and they keep spreading it.

Never knowing that they’re spreading lies to millions of people. What they believe in gives them hope on earth and they want others to have it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs something to hope in. The problem comes in that what they hope in isn’t there. And when you hope in something that isn’t there…there is no hope.

It’s all a smokescreen that serves no purpose.

‘Here is my ‘Jesus’, accept Him and you will go to heaven with me. We’ll be together in eternity.’ Only their ‘Jesus’ doesn’t save people. He can’t save people because he must wait for them to save themselves. The heaven they think they’ve bought into isn’t waiting for them because it’s being set aside for those that Christ has saved.

The same ‘Jesus’ that they’re sharing with anyone and everyone is so sought after because he supports the secular mind. He allows them to live as they want, to continue to chase after bigger and better things. Their ‘Jesus’ is proud of their big tabernacles they call ‘churches’ and he applauds the sheer numbers of converts that ‘catch’ him. Their ‘Jesus’ is a god of the flesh that puts few if any demands on how they live their lives.

And he is happy when they sell him in their ‘Christian’ books. Happy when they portray him in their movies. Happy when they sing about him in their music.

Whole stores have been opened dedicated to selling the ‘Christianity’ of Arminius. Walk into one of those stores and you must look long and hard to find anything that promotes the true Gospel. Where in that store filled with ‘Christian’ materials is the real Christ? ‘Christians’ are turning out books and other materials sold in those stores at a rate that nearly rivals those in the secular world. ‘Christians’ are making millions off their ‘Christian’ bookstores and the things that are sold there. They’re making millions off false teachings that are spreading heresy.

And the ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism thinks it’s wonderful.

Hollywood, and its miniature versions coming from wherever they come from, have discovered that there’s money to be made in ‘Christian’ movies and they’re turning them out. Some of the more recent so-called ‘Christian’ movies are nearly impossible to find any form of God in them. But people are making millions off these ‘Christian’ films and ‘Christians’ are flocking to them.

And the ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism is thrilled because he is being sold to so many people.

The Arminian ‘Jesus’ is being taught in the seminaries, new preachers are being turned out ready to spread their ‘Jesus’ to anyone that will listen. They’ve been taught where to find their ‘Jesus’ in the Bible and how to teach him to the masses. New ministers are ready to go out and spread ‘Jesus’ far and wide. They’re ready to teach him from their pulpits to people that trust everything they say to be true. They’re ready to push him further by instructing the children they encounter by teaching them ‘Jesus loves you’.

And the ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism loves it.

Arminius taught a religion that the secular mind could grasp and grab onto. The modern day preacher teaches the same religion. It was a religion based on the work of man when Arminius taught it and it is a religion based on the works of man today.

Arminianism has been called many things from great to ‘deep darkness’ (Johnathan Edwards). I think I like the term deep darkness best. There are many people out there that believe in nearly anything but Christ. They chase their ‘gods’, and their beliefs that there is no God but I think for me the saddest part is when they come so close. Some Arminians have a deep belief in their ‘Jesus’. Some of them change their lives for him.

I heard a reformed preacher once say…they will get to heaven and say I was so close. It was there before me.

Armenians are so close. They know that Jesus is the Son of God. They believe that He is. And yet their belief is not in the Jesus that the Bible teaches it’s in a Jesus that they’ve made up in their own minds.

It’s in a ‘Jesus’ that is nothing sort of an idol that stands in the place of Christ. Their ‘Jesus’ hangs on their walls, speaks on their shirts, walls, and cars. Their ‘Jesus’ encourages the spreading of him to as many uninfected people as they can reach.

Let me ask you something…Does that sound like the Jesus of the Bible? It is the Christ that taught that he came not to bring peace but a sword? Is it the Christ that said if they hated me they will hate you?

Christians are told not to worship idols…

Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molded gods: I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:4

That hasn’t changed. God’s people have always been forbidden from worshipping idols. Idols are anything that are placed as more important than Christ in our lives. They are things that take His place in our hearts and minds and lives. They are what we seek after, what we chase after.

There are gods for just about anything man can think up. ‘Gods’ of fertility, gods of the stars, gods of prosperity. There are gods of money, gods of things, gods of loved ones…dead and alive.

Their land is also full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. Isaiah 2:8

Arminianism is just as much idolatry as the worshipping of golden statues. It’s idolatry because it is worshipping a god that doesn’t exist. It’s idolatry because it’s being spread like a disease to those that are desperate for hope in a depraved world. It’s idolatry because it takes the place of Christ and gives credit to a ‘God’ that isn’t the God of the Bible.

Scriptures warns that idols are not to be worshipped. Anything that is worshipped in the place of the one true God is an idol and should be seen as such. But the Arminian ‘God’ can’t be seen that way because he is promoted as being the God of the Bible.

This ‘God’ isn’t the God of the Bible. He holds little resembalence to the God of the Bible even though that ‘God’ did many of the same things that God did. That ‘God’ created the earth. That ‘God’ sent His Son to earth to die for sins. That God can be learned about in the pages of the same Bible that the real God can be.

That ‘God’ takes what God is and changes Him into some idea of what ‘God’ should be based on man’s ideas. The God of the Bible is pushed aside, ignored, laughed at…forgotten…to make way for the ‘God’ of man, the ‘God’ of Arminianism.

Because My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. Jeremiah 18:15

They have forgotten God.

When Arminianism was first being taught Arminius was investigated. His beliefs were seen as lies, they were seen as the heresy that they are. Today most people in the American ‘church’ don’t know that there’s any other God than the one that’s being taught from their pulpits.

I grew up in ‘church’ buildings, surrounded by ‘Christians’, even went to a ‘Christian’ school and yet I had no idea that the ‘God’ I was taught loved me was a ‘God’ that others said wasn’t the God of the Bible. I never knew until long after the Lord had changed the way I understood Scripture that the ‘God’ I had grown up believing in didn’t exist. I’ve known many other ‘Christians’ in the Arminian system that don’t know there’s any other God than the one that they’ve been taught. Though they hold the Word of God in their hands they simply have no idea that what they’ve essentially been brainwashed to believe doesn’t exist within the pages of the very Book they base their entire belief on.

Most of them wouldn’t know the term Arminian if you asked them what it meant. It was a term I never heard uttered in the many years, the many ‘churches’, I was a part of that system.

The ‘Jesus’ of Arminianism is a well guarded idol  and most of his followers have no idea that he is nothing more than an imaginary idol created hundreds of years ago by a man that promoted him in secret.

Those who regard worthless idols forsake their own Mercy. Jonah 2:8

How many people lose all hope of mercy when they believe in this ‘Jesus’ that doesn’t exist? How many place their faith in a ‘God’ that will do nothing for them? How many ‘Christians’ that spent their lives believing in, teaching about, ‘Jesus’ are in hell right now?

How many of them cry from the depths of torture ‘I was so close’?

What of the ‘God’ that wants only good things for you? What of the ‘God’ that allows you to claim all the blessings of this life? What of the ‘God’ that encourages chasing the things of the world?

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul… Matthew 16:26

Does that sound like a God that wants you to have prosperity on earth? Does it sound like a God that wants to give man the many blessings this earth has to offer? Or is it a god made up in the secular mind of man? A god that has been created to cater to the earthly desires of man?

What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it, to make mute idols? Habakkuk 2:18

What profit is an image of god that isn’t God? What good does it do to have a god that can’t save the people he supposedly loves? How powerful is a god who sits back with tied hands awaiting man to come to him before he can act on their behalf?

But more than that, notice the words in the middle of the above verse… a teacher of lies. That is exactly what Arminius was…a teacher of lies…and it is what those that continue to teach the Arminian belief are. They are teachers of lies.

Teachers of half-truths, deceptions, outright lies, that they go around teaching to others, filling their heads with those things until they can’t see that there’s any mistruth to them.

Where does such a deception come from?

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

I have heard many a preacher tell his audience that if the devil isn’t afflicting them then they aren’t ‘right with God’ because the devil doesn’t need to try to tempt those that aren’t ‘right with God’. Based off that statement…I have to ask…does the devil even need to mess with the ‘church’ in America today? His lies were spread far and wide and the many believers have fallen victim to them, they worship a god that doesn’t exist, they hold to doctrines that aren’t true, and they refuse to believe the ‘lies’ of people that try and show them the God of the Bible.

Idolatry is rampant in what is commonly believed to be ‘God’s’ people. They worship a god that doesn’t exist and because their god allows it…they worship many of the things of the world. Their god is a god of the secular mind, a god that lets them live as they want to and hold fast to ‘god’ at the same time.

People study the Bible, think on its verses, interpret them with their ideas of what they should be instead of seeing them for what they are, they write it in books, put it in movies, teach it as gospel…and other people grab onto it like it’s a rope thrown to a drowning man.

Christians are to keep themselves from idols…

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21

We are to keep ourselves from idols whether they are physical idols or mental, real or imaginary. God hates idolatry. He specifically spoke against it in the Ten Commandments, warned against it time and again in Scripture, gave examples of what it is.

Idols are imaginary gods made up by man’s deprived mind to give the sinner something to focus on because he can’t focus on Christ. No matter what the idol is, what form it takes, it is simply something that takes the place of Christ. Idols are useless things that serve no purpose beyond the need that the unregenerate place on them. They have one purpose…that of leading people far from Christ. Sinners minds and hearts are so busy following after their idols that they have no room for Christ.

Arminianism is an idol that pulls people far away from the real God and gives them a ‘god’ that they can grab onto.  It gives them a ‘god’ that has no real value, a ‘god’ that is held captive by the will of man, a ‘god’ that can do nothing unless man allows him to. A ‘god’ that serves the whims of man, a ‘god’ that caters to his desires, a ‘god’ that is what man wants him to be.

You can find this ‘god’ in just about any place that you see the term ‘christian’. If you don’t like the ‘god’ that’s in one ‘Christian’ establishment you can shop around until you find the kind of ‘god’ that you like.

That ‘god’ has no value beyond what man places on him. That ‘god’ does nothing for man’s soul. That ‘god’ gets his believers no closer to salvation than they were when they caught him.

Years ago while attending an Arminian ‘church’ I was taught that the earth is only a battle ground where souls are tested so that it can be figured out which ones follow Satan and which ones follow Jesus. That isn’t what I believe now but it was widely taught in that ‘church’ building. Earth was essentially seen as a war zone between Jesus and the devil. People were put here so that Jesus could know who followed Him that way only those that believed in Him would make it into heaven.

Let me say…I do not believe that way, I’m not sure I ever did, but it was taught in a ‘church’ I went to.

But…if a person subscribed to that philosophy…why would the devil need to do anything in the modern American ‘church’? The battle for souls has already been won there…if it were a battle…because the masses of people that flock to their buildings, that fill their pews, believe in a ‘god’ that doesn’t exist. There’s no need to fight over something you already own.

The truth of why man was put on earth is far different than the reason that was given in that ‘church’. There is no battle because God doesn’t need to fight for those that are His.

But if things were as that ‘church’ said…why would the devil have to battle when he’s already won?

The Bible is clear that idolaters will go to hell. Those in the idolatry of the Arminian belief are already lost. If earth were a battle ground the war for those souls is over.

Sadly, that’s just one of many of the false teachings served up in the Arminian ‘church’. The ‘deep darkness’ of the Arminian belief system perpetuates that which does not come from Scripture and they do so at an alarming pace, converting as many as they can to their belief.

And many of them do so in ignorance.

Will ignorance save them from condemnation from the God that they don’t serve? Scripture says it won’t.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. Hosea 4:6

Week after week, service after service, the ‘god’ of Arminianism is worshipped, often in ignorance. He’s perpetuated far and wide. He’s accepted and revered while the true God of the Bible is forgotten.

I don’t know about you but I find the verses about God forgetting our children, or visiting the iniquity of the fathers onto the children… I don’t know what it makes me feel exactly other than the fact that it is a vivid reminder of the power of God and how far He will go in His wrath against the wicked.

He will forget the children because the parents forgot Him. While Arminians believe they are worshipping God, they have…instead…no knowledge of Him. The ‘God’ they worship is not the God of the Bible.

You shall have no other gods before^[me. Exodus 20:3         

… for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…Exodus 20:5

If you read through Exodus 20:3-5 you get a very clear picture of what God thinks of idolatry…

You shall have no other gods before me. ⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me

Those verses pretty much spell out the whole of idolatry. Have no gods before me. Do not bow down to serve them. I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children…of those who hate me.

God equates idolatry with hating him and the punishment doesn’t stop with the person that commits it but is passed onto the children for three and four generations.

Arminianism is serving a ‘god’ that isn’t the God of the Bible. It’s idolatry. It’s worshipping a ‘god’ that doesn’t exisit. And it’s being taught to people in a repetitious cycle that is passed from parent to child.

Does that sound like a god that loves his people or does it sound like the wrath of a God that is punishing not only the parents but the children too?

As I write this post I find myself thinking of what I wrote toward the beginning. The god of Arminianism was created in the mind of a man, he was taught to others through deceit and lies, through sneaking. He crept into the minds of young people that were deceived by lies. That ‘god’ is now considered to be the living ‘God’ of ‘Christianity.’ He lives in the hearts and minds of people that claim to put their faith in Christ. He is taught from their pulpits, in their movies, in their books, in their songs, and in their Bibles.

Stop and think about that for a brief moment. The Arminian ‘God’ was created in the mind of a man.

That ‘God’ must be happy about that.

The Arminian ‘God’ has taken over the God of the Bible as the ‘God’ of ‘Christianity’.

Their ‘God’ must be happy about that.

The Arminian ‘God’ lives in the hearts and minds of people that claim to seek God.

Their ‘God’ must be happy about that.

The Arminian ‘God’ is taught from their pulpits and in their entertainment.

Their ‘God’ must be happy about that.

Now I ask you…Does their ‘God’ sound like God…or does it sound like lies that have been fed to people. Does it sound like God or does it sound like a warped version of God? Does it sound like God or…

Satan?