Category: Uncategorized

Summer will be here soon. How will your family make sure God is not forgotten in the return of the hustle and bustle of activities? Here are this week’s social media posts to challenge you.

Monday: Your kids may never be tempted to worship a statue of a false god like Neptune, but there is one false god they probably will be tempted to put before God – themselves. Society will try to convince them they are smarter, wiser and more tolerant than God. That they will make better decisions for themselves than obeying God’s commands and principles. That they need to love themselves first. Giving them a strong spiritual foundation will help them keep God in his rightful place – first.

Tuesday: This is a class I took on mixing scents for candles. If my adult daughter lived here, I would have asked her to join me. Why? Because one time classes like this are great for doing something fun together, having conversation starters later and discovering whether or not something is a gift or passion God may have given one of you without a huge outlay of cash. So the next time one of your kids wants to learn about something, try signing both of you up for an exploratory class. Who knows what will happen!

Wednesday: Did you know in the days of the Vikings in Ireland, the Bible was considered the most valuable thing they could steal because the Irish would pay top dollar to get the Bibles back? If a thief came into your home and stole your Bibles, would your family even know they were missing? Your kids need to see you truly value God’s Word and spend time in it daily if you expect them to do the same.

Thursday: Believe it or not, behind that fog is the Grand Canyon. We believed it because we saw lots of signs along the way. We couldn’t prove it to ourselves or anyone else until the fog cleared the next day. There are signs all around us that God exists, but you can’t prove it until Jesus returns. Your kids will need faith (and reminders that atheists can’t prove God doesn’t exist either – atheism is also a faith of sorts) and they need you to point them to all the signs of God’s existence, so they don’t miss them

Friday: The Bible tells us that God’s creation points to Him. Your kids also need to hear you connect things in nature to God and His love for us. Don’t forget to mention God to your kids when you visit the zoo or aquarium, go on a nature hike or visit the farm.

Writing a Christian parenting blog isn’t easy. There is the burden of helping young Christian parents be as effective as possible in giving their children strong spiritual foundations and helping them develop to their full godly potential. Then there are parents whom you want to reach who are actually harming their kids in some way out of their naïveté. That all must be balanced with the realization that there are some days or even seasons in parenting that are a true struggle for survival.

On those bad days or during those tough seasons, you don’t want or even need to be reminded of what you aren’t doing. You are already well aware that you will be thankful if you all just survive – forget about thriving or growing through the events. Sadly, there is a subset of parents who are having perfectly normal days who have convinced themselves they are too burdened to Christian parent. I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t counsel you to examine the situation and see if it can’t be improved by making different choices.

If not, I want to encourage you by reminding you that it’s okay to let almost everything slide on those days when everyone is violently ill with a stomach bug or one of your kids is in the hospital for a time. Or those days when it seems like everything important you touch breaks and there’s no money or time to figure it out that day. God knows your situation. He knows your heart. He loves you and your children dearly. He understands you will make mistakes and even sin. He wants to forgive you, if you will only ask.

More importantly, God has put people in your life to help you through these tough times. His people. Christians who want to love and help you. You may not be seeing them in your exhaustion, but they are there. Ask for help. Pray. Listen to godly wisdom. Read the Psalms for comfort and for reassurance that God wants you to pray your emotions to Him.

Your kids are resilient to a point. They love you and most of the time, they know you love them. An apology and a hug go a long way. Taking a break from the stress just to do something that will make you all laugh is good for the mind, body and soul. Praying together can be healing. Your kids want to forgive you. They want to be close to you. They love you – even if they don’t always act like it.

No mom or dad is perfect, but we can all learn and grow. Perfection may not be attainable, but doing our best is within reach. What that “best” looks like may vary from day to day, but we should never be proud of our parenting mistakes. Don’t live a life of making excuses to get out of doing the hard work Christian parenting takes. Laugh at your mistakes if they are silly. Apologize for them if they are serious. But keeping trying to be a more effective, more godly parent. Your kids desperately need you to parent them towards God as many days and in as many ways as possible. You can do it!

With only about a month or two left of school, many of you are starting to make plans for the Summer. Are you planning some margin to spend time together as a family – engaged with one another? While you are deciding how to spend your summer, here are this week’s social media challenges.

Monday: Young parents always roll their eyes when older parents tell them to enjoy their kids when they’re little. Or that the time flies and they’ve grown and gone. Or that you will wish one day that you’d spent more time teaching them the things God wants them to know. Haven’t heard the last one? If more older Christian parents were honest about it, you’d hear that one a lot, too. And you would possibly roll your eyes at that one, like the others. The hard truth is that whether or not you are tired of hearing those statements, they are all very true. Don’t have parenting regrets.

Tuesday: Teaching your kids how God wants them to handle money is critical. The world’s view of earning and spending money often leads to high debt, stress, selfishness and a love of money – to the point of idolatry. If you don’t teach them how God wants them to handle money, it is highly unlikely they will learn it from someone else.

Wednesday: God never promised us the Christian life would be filled with happiness and problem free. He did, however, promise us there is joy to be found in it. Joy is possible regardless of the circumstances. It’s why Paul could sing in jail with Silas and wrote some of his most joy filled books when in jail waiting to see if he would get the death penalty. Part of joy is found in being grateful for the blessings God gives us. Teach your kids to look for those blessings and thank God for them daily.

Thursday: Have you ever thought about how much slinging practice David had before he fought Goliath? As a shepherd, a slingshot was a primary weapon used to protect sheep from predators like lions and bears. In fact, God sent those very animals for David to fight before Goliath. God gave David a talent and may have put a little extra something in it when he fought Goliath (or not as slingers could sling a rock with the force of a bullet from a gun), but David had to take advantage of the opportunities God gave him to develop the gift so he would be ready when God needed him to use it. Your kids each have one or more gifts from God. One of the most fun parts of Christian parenting is helping them discover and develop those gifts and find those first opportunities to use them to serve God. Who knows what plans God has for your children? Help them be prepared!

Friday: This case has a lot of fish in it, but it holds an extremely small fraction of the fish in the world. Jesus left a charge to his people – the church. Go into the world and preach the Gospel message to everyone. That means your kids need to help teach the Gospel to 7.674 billion people! It’s called the “Great Commission”, yet the majority of Christians today don’t even know it! Make sure your kids understand their purpose in life is to get to Heaven and take as many people as possible with them. Otherwise, they won’t be living the full Christian life.

It’s Easter weekend and since it’s early, everything here is blooming. It’s going to be a great weekend! If you make Resurrection cookies with your kids, be sure to stop by our Facebook Parenting Like Hannah Community page and post pictures. (Here’s the link to the recipe.) Here are this week’s social media challenges.

Monday: A Week Away is a film on Netflix that attempts to be a Christian High School Musical type movie. Has your family watched it yet? What are your thoughts on what are now called “faith based” movies? Do you care if they get the theology a bit off or depict Christianity a bit wrong? Would you prefer your kids watching this type of content over the regular Disney/Pixar content, or is it an add on for your family? Do your kids think the production values are similar? (It’s a big deal for many savvy kids and early Christian movies had poor production values.) If parents want to have a voice and influence this type of content, you need to be having this conversation in your home. Would love to hear what you think in the meantime!

Tuesday: How much time did you spend fully engaged with your kids yesterday? The day before that? A year ago (during quarantine), we saw the families in our neighborhood walking and playing with their kids. Now that quarantine has started to lift, we see fewer and fewer kids with their parents. Did I mention the kids seemed so much happier getting their parents…both parents…full attention for a block of time each day? Your kids need you to be fully engaged with them for a block of time each day to grow to be emotionally and spiritually healthy. How much time can you set aside to be fully engaged with your kids today?

Wednesday: “Knock and the door shall be opened…” There are a lot of things in the Bible that confuse children. Taking the time to explain vocabulary, metaphors, figurative language and the like can make the Bible easier for your kids to understand, remember and apply to their lives.

Thursday: A new study found that the people “frozen” in time in Pompeii probably only had fifteen minutes to run before they were overcome. Many were caught in the middle of various activities which they never completed. Your kids tend to believe they will live forever. Many think they can live on an imaginary path that allows them to claim they are Christians while freely and knowingly disobeying God. They believe they can “have fun” living in disobedience to God now and obey God later when they are much older. Unfortunately, as we have learned from the last year, no one is guaranteed tomorrow. You don’t need to frighten your kids, but they need to understand there are only two paths in God’s world – those who accept and attempt to obey His commands and those who don’t. There is no third path.

Friday: We had a hard freeze last night, so to protect the young plantings, I had to protect them with a covering. Your kids are too young to be faced with some of the temptations facing adults. Protecting them from being exposed to those things until they are old enough to understand what God wants them to do is a very good thing. Unfortunately, in today’s world that means to protect them you may also have to have conversations at ages that break your heart. Leaving them uninformed, though, when they are able to go places without you, can leave them open to being innocently broken by the sins of others.

I don’t know about the weather in your area, but here Spring is full of rapid weather changes. Your kids are changing rapidly, too. You will need to adjust some of your parenting as they change. Here are some challenges from social media to start your reflection process.

Monday: This tree is beautiful, but its blooms stink – even from a distance. Your kids need to understand how God views beauty. While they may be beautiful on the outside, if they are “ugly” on the inside, God won’t be happy. On the other hand, even if the world does not consider their outward appearance to be beautiful, if they are kind, loving, wise, godly…..that inner beauty will also make them look more beautiful outwardly. They need to focus on being the person who God created them to be…inwardly beautiful.

Tuesday: What are your kids reading and watching? Studies show it influences their thinking more than parents would like to believe. A quick glance at some of the content Netflix creates for teens normalizes all sorts of unhealthy, ungodly choices and frankly rather unrealistic jumps from teens making great choices to immediately making questionable and dangerous ones. Don’t assume the normalization of these behaviors doesn’t impact your kids, because over time they can come to believe those things are not only normal, but laudable. It can create a rift they place between themselves and God which some will never want to repair.

Wednesday: Your kids may think you are a couple of hundred years behind the times culturally. You don’t have to participate in or even appreciate what your kids like. You do need to know enough about it though to understand any impact it might have on their attitudes, beliefs, behaviors or health. Who knows? Some of it may actually be great and you can enjoy it together from time to time.

Thursday: This is the Titanic Museum. In the end it’s a story about a company whose pride got in the way of taking safety precautions. Christians always need to take safety precautions against Satan, but your kids need to be taught godly ways to protect themselves from giving in to temptation. They also need to realize that no matter how confident they may be in their faith, Satan can still tempt them…at times using the over confidence that often accompanies pride.

Friday: The last year has been particularly hard on some kids and teens. How do yours feel about everything that has happened? Do they blame God? Have they been resilient, leaning on God to help them through the tough times? Knowing their thoughts can help you know what they need from you to help them process everything. Teaching them to be resilient by leaning on God can help them in the future, too. They need you to teach and show them how to do it though.