Thoughts on navigating relational rough patches

Monday, 06. August 2012 by Renee Ellison

Are you going through a rough patch with an important, close relationship?  Here is an array of overcoming thoughts on this topic, to get you up and over the episode.

Life’s hard moments:  Realize that our Heavenly Father keeps us on the stretch (continues to keep the “life-CHALLENGE-rope” a little taut)—both physically and psychologically—to perfect His nature in us.  Sanctification, not happiness, IS what the earth experience is all about.

Re: relationships
One of the greatest attributes of the Creator’s love is its LOOOOOOOONGEVITY.  Correspondingly, He purposefully sees to it that WE have a few of those relationships that go on and on, to show us how WE do with them, in order that we may marvel at HIS ability to do it perfectly.  He manages to love us WHILE we warble and careen in bouts of alienation from HIM over an entire lifetime!  In light of that, how do WE do at loving others over the long-haul?

In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that all relationships have to crash first and then begin to rebuild upon the surer foundation of God’s love, i.e. endless selflessness.  “Crashing” means coming to the point that we have no expectations of the other person—none.  At that point we learn to work at BEING, ourselves, what WE were looking for and hoping for in others.

Realize that another person is who he/she is at their worst moments because of their OWN bankruptcies.  Prior experiences have molded their life responses and their modus operands.  As we mature we must grow to have a great compassion for how tough life has been for the OTHER guy, to CAUSE him/her to be like this.  In all conflict, try to see life through the OTHER person’s eyes.

If you have increasing desires to be holy but have just muffed it in an argument, do not be downcast.  The Father USES that failure.  Holy remorse is the refiner’s most perfect fire.

When you are amidst continuing tough relationships, come to terms with knowing that the Almighty engineers the parameters of each of our lives, moment by moment.  There is no BETTER life for us, today—no reason to long for someone ELSE’s circumstances and life.  He particularly designed THIS one for YOUR advancement and growth, today.  And HE can be found IN IT, working marvelously on your behalf, if you perk up our ears, sniff the air, and hunt for it.  He works for each of us EXACTLY what we need through our CURRENT life.  There are no mistakes—no “wrong” circumstances.  Surely, this is amazing ULTIMATE benevolence on His part toward us.

Be alive to the spiritual law of spiritual compensations.  It is EVERYWHERE.  The loving Heavenly Father’s wrapping paper and joy are sprinkled everywhere!  I broke my leg the other day.  But while I was sitting in the car all day, waiting hours for an appointment, He sent a gentle WONDERFUL breeze!  It was unusually refreshing.  Because HE lives, ALL of life is like that, even in a dungeon!  Someone may have a difficult childhood, but an easy marriage.  Or an easy childhood but a difficult marriage; or, run out of gas on a trip but meet a marvelous person who helps; skimpy groceries this week, but extraordinary unexpected dinner gifted to us; lots of friends but a difficult in-law, or an easy in-law but difficult neighbors; a cantankerous spouse but a delightful child; a taxing child but a delightful spouse; no money but good relationships; hot climate but refreshing friends; perfect climate but loneliness; a small left brain but a large right brain!  We may have a rotten “this” but a heavenly “that”!  But after we’ve been seasoned in God’s love enough, we drop demanding any adjectives to our experiences at all—because they are ALL good—when seen as FOR our good (Romans 8:28).

Even the teaching of the alphabet has been hijacked by the secularists

Sunday, 29. July 2012 by Renee Ellison

The moral free-fall of American education can be seen from the get-go with the teaching of the alphabet.  Today’s preschoolers learn A as in apple, B as in boat, C as in cat…M as in monkey.  Contrast that with how our founding fathers’ children learned the alphabet through the New England Primer.  Biblical doctrine was inseparable from the alphabet.

All knowledge comes in a context.  Today’s education is taught in a materialistic, empty, secular context. Dick and Jane replaced Adam and Eve, to our culture’s peril.  See it in the 1777 alphabet, below.  You won’t believe the contrast.

A = In ADAM’S fall, we sinned all.
B = Heaven to find, the BIBLE mind.
C = CHRIST crucified, for sinners died.
D = The DELUGE drowned the earth around.
E = ELIJAH hid by ravens fed.
F = The judgment made FELIX afraid.
G = As runs the GLASS [hourglass], our life doth pass.
H = My book [the Bible] and HEART must never part.
J = JOB feels the rod, yet blesses God.
K = Proud KORAH’S troop was swallowed up.
L = LOT fled to Zoar, saw fiery shower on Sodom fire pour.
M = MOSES was he who Israel’s host led thro’ the sea.
N = NOAH did view the old world and new.
O = Young OBADIAH, David, Josiah, all were pious.
P = PETER denied his Lord and cried.
Q = QUEEN Esther sues and saves the Jews.
R = Young pious RUTH left all for truth.
S = Young SAMUEL dear, the Lord did fear.
T = Young TIMOTHY learned sin to fly.
V = VASHTI for Pride, was set aside.
W = WHALES in the sea God’s voice obey.
X = XERXES did die, and so must I.
Y = While YOUTH do cheer, death may be near.
Z = ZACCHEUS he did climb a tree our Lord to see.

Movies: A passport to delusion

Friday, 27. July 2012 by Renee Ellison

The recent tragedy in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater has shaken us all, but, in addition there is a more subtle concern related to movies, that is also sobering.

I have been distressed recently, reading popular Christian writers and noticing that they can hardly write a paragraph without referring to some movie.  It dawned on me that our point of reference, as an entire culture, has actually SHIFTED from the Book of Proverbs to sit-coms and movies.  We now tether off of the movie for our conversations and analogies, instead of the Bible.  Recently while skimming some of the works of these popular Christian writers, I jotted down a few of the titles of the movies they referred to as I read, and afterwards looked them up on Amazon to get their ratings and to view a few short clips.  I was appalled at what I saw.

When one considers what is IN these movies, it becomes apparent that our culture is clearly in a deep state of “warpia”.  We think we are just in for a nice entertaining evening “swim,” but the water is growing HOT for us MENTALLY.  The HOUR is hot.  [And sometimes, as in the tragic situation inside the Batman Colorado movie theater a week ago, the actual environment is deadly.]  We are not MENTALLY where we once were.  We are at sea, with no moral shoreline in sight.  Modern films are saturated with arrogant saucy attitudes, self-indulge entitlement thinking, outrageous unkindnesses and/or violences to others, vices galore, and ridicule of God.  Yet we HAVE to use THESE vehicles as a point of reference to communicate about ideas?  What has happened to us?

HAVING to refer to modern films, many of which are dripping with occultism and altered realities, is a spiritually crushing state of affairs, indeed. All too often, the realities in these films are not God’s realities.  They are born of witchcraft and defiance against the heavenly order, both in what a being is created for (e.g., a homosexual couple can’t produce a child) and in what righteous authority was designed to be—endlessly making fun of fathers and clergymen.  In these filmed new realities, good and bad are often redefined; the person using devious means WINS.  REAL life with one’s real neighbor, real economics, my brother’s real need is of no REAL concern; we are nightly wrapped in a raucous digital life that means nothing.

Let’s add it up: occultism, altered realities, defiant re-ordering of created beings, and casting off of divine government—i.e. preferring rebellion to worship—THESE are what we NEED to communicate?  Movies are the source of the life-sized posters on the walls of our children’s bedrooms.  These characters are their EXAMPLES.  Where is the symbolic picture of the Good Shepherd on the wall?  It is in the trash.  Vile “scenes” are now our REFERENCE points.  And THESE are NOT in the trash.

Pastors and professors are increasingly using movie clips to make a point.  The other day the pastor of a mainline church near us used Walt Disney scenes to define the gospel for his audience.  All that did was entice the young mind to want to see the REST of those films, having whetted the appetite in a baptized holy setting…surely it MUST be all right.  The supposed “godly insight” that was gained was lost on the way home from church (or on the way out the door).

What happened to using the Book of Proverbs as our moral reference point?  How ‘bout the MEMORIZATION of the entire Book of Proverbs?  What about reading the Proverb of the day (i.e., this is the 28th, so today it’s Proverbs chapter 28)?  What if two people stood before you—one addicted to movies, the other addicted to Proverbs (i.e. one who conscientiously meditates upon that timeless wisdom and attempts to live by them, sorrowful when he falls even slightly from its precepts).  Which person would YOU pick for your boss?  your business partner?  Which one do you want to be the President?  Which one of them your car mechanic, or the producer of your food?  Your governor, Chief Justice, or accountant?  The violent and morally shady material with which the mind has habitually hobnobbed slam-dunk produces a disturbed individual—and a disturbed culture.  Be aware of this shift from the Bible to movies—at least where your own children are concerned and while you still have influence.  The hour is short and the battle is insidious.

(For further reading, download our ebook, TV Watching out of Control .)

Twisted mirror perceptions

Wednesday, 25. July 2012 by Renee Ellison

Recently I stumbled on an AMAZING discovery.  I interviewed a number of godly women, saying to each of them: “I’ve discovered that many pretty women look in the mirror and think they are ugly.  Does that happen to YOU?”

Nearly all of them said “YES!!!”  Isn’t that unbelievable?!  They ALL had trouble with their external image—thinking they’re ugly.  One VERY pretty woman started to cry, saying her father NEVER told her she was pretty or anything affirming, and that she struggles with it constantly.  A very with-it woman said she used to struggle with it IMMENSELY when she went out with her make-up on!  She said her father DID support her, but it was the culture—the worldly crowd she ran with—that made her constantly feel inferior, visually.

So, my suspicion that this was the devil’s strategy with most women was TRUE.  It was only a hunch before.  But now I see it as a deliberate defeating strategy that he has purposely foisted upon us, to defeat us.

Conversely, equally amazingly, all the younger godly gals I asked had absolutely NO PROBLEMS with the mirror OR had any thoughts of being ugly.  The difference?  We (their parents) kept them out of the public schools and away from the peer pressure, the comparisons, the glamour magazines.  One little average girl said: “No…well…wait a minute, I think yes, once THREE YEARS AGO I had trouble with it because my hair was a mess!”  Isn’t that a hoot!!!

We are God’s handiwork.  He made us.  We don’t have an option NOT to like the way we look, anymore than a porcupine should be sad that he (or she) is not a tulip! It is an affront to our MAKER.  We need to be grateful for however God designed us.  What God wants from us is noble character and inner beauty.  The longer you live, the more you’ll discover that is really what OTHERS want from us, too.  Soft, warm eyes; other-centeredness; good clean, neat grooming; brushed teeth; clothing that is in pleasing colors that go well with our God-given skin tone, hair and eye color; clean breath and body; and holy modesty in our apparel choices.  To wish that we could change our structural FEATURES is a waste of preoccupation in this finite world.  Think of who YOU are drawn to.  Isn’t it the person who is cheerful and other-centered, regardless of how she looks?  Think of famous people who were heroes throughout history; how important were their external looks?

It is helpful to understand that the average person in the world is not interested in all of the details of how you look.  People really couldn’t care less.  It simply is not important to them.  It has been said that the other guy “cares more about his OWN headache than if YOU DIE!”  Now, isn’t that a liberating realization!  Be a listening, caring, giving person, and you’ll have no trouble being accepted by anyone, anywhere.  Character over time endures far better than self-absorbed glamorous external looks, as any married person will tell you.  How pleasant are you to be around?  That is what matters.  Does God like what he sees on the inside?  If you are striving to live a holy life, ignore any bad press from your mirror.  You can be sure that God is not the author of it.

For further reading on this topic:
Sarah’s Beauty Secret
Growing Marriage
Women: God’s original design and purpose (former title: Women: A stumbling identity)
Feminine Dress

Beware of Classical Education

Wednesday, 11. July 2012 by Renee Ellison

All is not gold that glitters
Some homeschoolers today are becoming increasingly enamored of Classical Education.  For serious believers, this is not good news.  No matter how sophisticated and gold-leafed the packaging of any type of education, if it is anti-God at the core, even if it is revered by the world, it is deadly stuff to feed to our children’s emerging minds.  You won’t see the results today, but you WILL see them tomorrow, and regret them.

Results of ideas
All ideas have consequences.  As we saw historically with Karl Marx’s ideas (sold in an apparently innocent leather-bound book), they ultimately resulted in over 200 MILLION deaths in the last century.  Classical education, too, has lead to real death all over Europe and North America—a moral and spiritual death with just as many casualties.  The product of THIS schooling is secularized children.  The ultimate message your children emerge with is “who needs God?”  They have survived for 12 years without any reference to Him.

The original deviant education
Original Sin had to do with the seduction of the wrong kind of EDUCATION. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil SEEMED good.  Knowledge from this tree was alluring.  It was touted as better; it would make one wise, even would make one wiser than GOD.  It was advertised as “a cut above”!  This “knowledge package”, however, was an alternative route to education.  This education, at its core, was designed to avoid God.  It avoided His worldview.  It avoided obedience to Scripture from the get-go.  Satan’s remark, “Hath God SAID?” was his curriculum’s first statement to his first students.  That is where it all started.  This education substituted secular humanism for the tree of life—yes, right there in the Garden of Eden.  To make it “sell” better, it was syncretistic at its core—a mixture.  It was pagan AND “religious” so that it wouldn’t seem quite so off-base.  It was a subtle shift—with catastrophic consequences.

Who are the guys behind the scenes?
When picking out an education for one’s child, one must look at WHO the author(s) of various educational packages is/are.  Who ARE these men? Classical education was TAUGHT by godless men.  The literature itself is godless.  The worldview is godless.  Repackaged classical education may even tack on Scripture verses here and there (as the devil did in his temptations of Christ) but if you look at its ROOT, it defies God’s view of things.  Children raised in classical education are neither taught nor reminded throughout their entire 12 years that there EVER WAS A FALL.

Assumptions
Classical Education, as well as ALL godless education (tragically, the American university has been hijacked by this secular humanism) is taught FROM deviant assumptions.  It ensnares the student at the presupposition level.  The first assumption is evolution, with its sub-assumption that there is no six-day literal creation (see the recent blog on this topic and why it is impossible for a believer to hold a neutral position and still remain a believer).  A derivative assumption is that there is no need for a Savior, if we haven’t fallen.  Tsk, tsk.  Job done.  We got rid of THAT problem.

Replacements
So, then, by all means, let us move FORWARD—study Greek and Roman gods.  They are WORTH the time spent studying them extensively, including them in a six-year old’s education, for example.  Ahem!—but wait a minute—these “gods” are really demons!  Weren’t whole entire nations destroyed in the Old Testament for focusing on the wrong gods?  The gorgeous Artemais, the Ephesians’ most CULTURED and GORGEOUS tourist trap, was an affront to Almighty GOD.  Classical education has put DIFFERENT things—books—up on the high places.

Socrates, Aristotle and Plato all cast around to find some philosophy, withOUT God, to teach to their followers.  They were applauded for their philosophical DEFIANCES by eager listeners, lusting for some OTHER way to live life.  The Scriptures, on the other hand, warn us to “have nothing to do with godless myths…; rather, train yourself to be godly” (1 Timothy 4:7, NIV). 

Every book matters
What are your children READING?  Contrary to the perpetual slumber the devil has us all in, there aren’t an infinite number of hours in a lifetime.  This ISN’T an existence of: “earthly life is endless”—or “flop on the couch and watch another sit-com and yawn!”  There are a LIMITED number of hours in a lifetime, many of which will, in the beginning years, be spent in READING in order to become educated.  WHAT your child reads will shape him or her, totally.

We loudly hear touted “Get your children to read the Great Classics.”  Are you sure?  Upon a closer look, we find that much of the content of the “Great Classics” isn’t so great.  Many were written by flaming anti-God liberals.  So, why are we MAJORING upon them?  Is this the FOUNDATION you want for your child?

Let’s step back a minute.  Which books are we putting in the mix FIRST?  Has your child YET read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs?  How ‘bout all of the missionary biographies that are in print?  How ‘bout Pilgrim’s Progress? Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Augustine’s Confessions? Works by George Mueller and Matthew Henry? The Imitation of Christ? Andrew Murray’s writings?  Has your child read the Bible through even ONCE, cover to cover?  How ‘bout a dozen times, if he is an 18-year-old?  There is no dearth of MATERIAL here.  The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough CHRISTIAN books.  We could read from now until we die and still not finish the volumes of GOOD material that are out there.  The problem is one of APPETITE.  Why are we PREFERRING other books?  Who is picking OUT the materials for the Great Classics curriculum or for a Classical Approach to education?  To what end?  Whose hoops are we jumping through?

Cultural assessment from more accurate sources
How ‘bout your older children diving into substantive works like: Gibbons’ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or the more recently written weighty conservative works like: Amusing Ourselves to Death, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, The Freefall of the American University, and The Marketing of Evil.  With LIMITED hours, what are we doing at the trough of The Iliad and The Odyssey, and then giving the remainder of our evening hours to homosexually-laden T.V. shows and movies that teach ALTERED realities?  Much of the programming of television and movies is BENT on redesigning God’s ORIGINAL order—even re-defining the sexes.

Certainly not first-string
Why not push the apostate writers to the BACK of our bookshelves?  As Kevin Swanson says, “Mark Twain’s Huck Finn mocks Christianity throughout the entire book, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter deals with absolving guilt without Christ.”  Hemingway, Thoreau, T. S. Eliot—the whole troop of them have TILTED our culture fully AGAINST the God we love.  They have taken our young people OUT OF THE FAITH.  Recent surveys tell us that 85% of our college graduates don’t believe anymore.  At one time 60% of the population of London was believers; now it is down to .06%.  It begins with the food we feed our children’s MINDS.  Words on a page are not innocuous things; they can be LETHAL things—yes, though they are little bits of black and white INK.

A cursory romp
The classics can be briefly mentioned with Cliff Notes, if you must, for “cultural literacy”, but do it on a fast train through town.  But when it comes to eating DINNER, sit down with CHRISTIAN authors.  And certainly don’t put any MONEY into anti-God education.  Purchase not a single book.  Leaf through the library, catch some of its content on the run, but don’t worry if you miss ALL OF IT.  As Psalm 1 says: “don’t walk, stand or sit with a scoffer.”  Note the progression from “walking with it” to “sitting with it”.  Don’t loiter.  Keep movin’.  Does your child really MISS anything if he doesn’t read Little Red Riding Hood?—that a wolf eats your grandmother?  Have we lost our minds?  Do you suppose a Christian wrote that?  Where did IT come from?  Where did ALL of the nursery rhymes come from?  Classical education?  You bet.

Inevitable regrets
If you want to raise a pagan child, then teach him a classical education or send him to public school—it makes no difference.

Why Israel? Why?

Sunday, 08. July 2012 by Renee Ellison

Most evangelical Christians are thrilled that Israel became a nation in 1948, are happy to visit the Biblical tourist sights there, and have some far-off notion that there is a volatile military build-up soon to explode in the Middle East that they will have a mild interest in reading about in the evening papers.

But what is UP with Israel and YHWH/God?  What IS Israel, in the divine scheme of things? Have you ever pondered just WHY Israel is mentioned over 6,000 times in the Bible?

Why couldn’t redemption just be given to individuals all over the world without even a mention of a small rag-tag nation being attached to the passions of a redemptive God?  Why the need for this ADDITIONAL story of a nation of a small band of Jews being superimposed OVER the story of an evangelical, INDIVIDUAL access to redemption?  Why is the Father’s eye ALWAYS upon Israel?  “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4, NIV).  Why?  Why does it appear to be a DIVINE OBSESSION?  What IS the deal here with this hunk of earth and an apparently indefatigable race of people devoted to a God Who once spoke to them from Mt. Sinai?

If one meditates on this mystery long enough, surprisingly five “aha’s” emerge.  Wondrous musings, indeed!

One:  Israel is LITTLE
YHWH even calls her “little”: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).  He likes to work through little amounts, little events, little people—little everythings—to show his unmistakable MIGHTINESS.  Little loaves and fishes, little uneducated prophets, little armies…“Gideon, for heaven’s sake, send home thousands…you have too MANY soldiers!” (rough paraphrase of Judges 7:2).  Little David is needed because he is HALF the size of Goliath.  Perfect.

Two:  Israel is His FIRSTBORN
Firstborns have more responsibilities, more pre-eminence, larger inheritances, often lose their inheritances, and are more influential on all of the younger children, sought after by the Devil to destroy, tested more severely, and require more expensive ransoms and more elaborate celebrations.  Firstborns get larger coveted blessings.  When parental hands get switched upon son’s heads as blessings are uttered among the patriarchs, there is panic.

When Moses asked Pharaoh to “Let my people go” it was not because they were God’s people, it was because they were his FIRSTBORN.  Moses tells Pharaoh that God says “Israel is my firstborn…let my firstborn go” (Exodus 4:22, 23).

YHWH says later in the New Testament, “This is My Beloved, My only begotten Son” (Matthew 3:17 and 17:5)—ipso facto, my FIRSTBORN.  But Israel, too, is strangely His firstborn, here among the nations.  And there are other firstborns, tagged to Israel.  An entire tribe of Levi was offered as a firstborn replacement for the firstborn head of EACH house of Israel—to offer the equivalent of all the firstborn men of Israel in perpetual service in the temple (Numbers 8:16).  Sacrifices need to be gathered from firstborns ONLY—not from any old animal, or any old crop.  “Take the FIRST of your flocks, the first of your harvest” (Deuteronomy 12:6).

YHWH perpetuated His earthly seed through the lineage of His FIRSTBORNS here on earth—a divine lineage which He hovered over through all time.  While this fragile lineage precariously careened this way and that, God hovered over it and hedged it in.  It survived by a mere thread from the killing of Abel, the firstborn, onward to Herod’s slaughter of the baby boys, etc.  Ishmael was an imposter to replace Isaac as the firstborn.  They BOTH were firstborns—as were perhaps BOTH Mary and Joseph!  FIRSTBORNS seem to be terribly important as some sort of divine funnel for divine activity—contested all the way.  For some reason Israel is NEEDED as a FIRSTBORN.  Redemption can’t be offered any old way, at large.  It comes through a proper order, a specific lineage—a gate-keeper.

Three:  Israel is deeply embroiled in a covenant
Israel was CUT a covenant by God.  To make this covenant He required a split animal.  He walked between the bloody halves.  There was blood confirming this original covenant.  (It is why we have a central aisle in churches; a covenant is CUT between the bride’s side and the bridegroom’s side—symbolized by the aisle, with the altar directly in front.)  Israel was given not one covenant but SEVEN covenants, none of which have been done away with.  We STILL have the rainbow.  Israel has been promised “via covenant” a land, national security, a son of David to sit upon the throne, a millennium of peace, etc.  These convents were not made with seven billion people, they were only made with a smaller pre-eminent representative of divine government—a group of people to traverse this territory FIRST.  They are the elder brother.  There is a hint here about some celestial legal deal about HOW redemption comes to the world.

Four:  Israel is to be an EXAMPLE of the Divine Lifestyle
We, in America, believe in a redemptive GOD but spend our days in pagan CULTURE.  Our lifestyle is the same as our neighbors’ lifestyle.  Israel’s is DIFFERENT.  This daily DIFFERENT lifestyle is marked by seven divine appointments each year (feast days such as Yom Kippur) and a centuries-old observed Sabbath that has never been deviated from, from the beginning of time.  To this day, oddly, strangely, Israel’s commerce totally shuts down on the Shabbat—one day in seven in a full cease-fire from commerce—a truce with money and secular activity—devoted fully to Divine worship, instead.  The Sabbath was kept alive through the centuries in little hovels in Yugoslavia to Spain; it was kept by the Jews without interruption.

Israel was meant to be the carrier of a message—a message of what divine life LOOKS like.  Just take the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and one sees the POWER of this example.  The queen of another nation hustled to go SEE it.  This is what Israel was designed to be to all of the nations on earth—an example of extraordinary occupation with God in exchange for extraordinary blessing.  They are promised perpetual national security, abundance produce, and wisdom—depicted in the prototype of the judgments of Solomon, if Israel but consents to obey GOD’s commanded LIFESTYLE in addition to being redeemed by His blood.  Men (and one very curious Queen of Sheba) CAME to Israel to get counsel, to observe the abundance, to gawk at the godly LIFESTYLE—in hopes that they would get the message, jettison their inferior gods, and desire to worship the one great “I Am.”  Submitting to THIS God, and only this God, is the place of blessing.

And Five:  Israel is very possibly the site of the original Garden of Eden
“He who began a good work will also bring it to conclusion” (Philippians 1:6, NIV).  Did He abandon Eden?  Start a new story somewhere else?  Is it likely, given God’s nature to redeem all things?  Some now wonder whether Israel is the site of the original Garden of Eden (Ezekiel 28:13).  We had a worldwide flood in between—perhaps it camouflaged Eden’s location?  Was it on purpose?  Why the spiritual whirling dervish over the Temple Mount, and the foaming at the mouth of Israel’s enemies on her borders?  Why the raging of the nations at her doors, the staging of all three SUPER powers there in the surrounding waters right now—China, Russia and the USA?  Why the rush of all the religions of the world to possess the pinnacle site?  ...unless this little piece of geography hasn’t been claimed and counter-claimed since the beginning of time.

Conclusion:
WHAT has God’s attention?  Let us ask ourselves why.  Is it not a hint of something quite grand? larger than life?  Look straight toward Jerusalem.  Keep your eyes fixed upon ISRAEL.  Here at the end of days, Israel is God’s hour-glass, and Jerusalem is His minute hand.  We are PROMISED, “They that bless Israel, I will bless” (see Genesis 12:3).  Love her.  Seek citizenship in her forever.  Die to a national love of ANY country but Israel and you’ll be on the winning team when this world’s house of cards crashes.  She shall be a praise in all the earth, and Jerusalem shall enthrone the God you love.

For further reading, download our free 48-page ebook, A Simple Story of Israel, or order it in print.

A mini-lifetime lived in each day

Tuesday, 26. June 2012 by Melanie Ellison

What kind of a life do you want to have lived by the time you go on to Glory?  Does shaping your entire life seem overwhelming?  It need not, because a lifetime is made up of many days, and days are manageable things.  It is easier to succeed at exhibiting godly character when striving to do so a day at a time, rather than wishing one’s whole life will one day exemplify those elusive character traits.

Each day is like a mini-lifetime.  The Bible shows (through Creation week) that the day begins in the evening, and so with the beginning of life.  Every one of us began in that dark, special place within our mothers, and from there we continue to be knit together, sleeping and growing, as at night.  Then morning dawns as we are born and begin to relate to those around us.  Preparation for the day is mostly concerned with physical needs—dressing, eating, and cleanliness—as is a baby’s routine.

Then, life picks up speed, and by midday we are at the peak of productivity, just like in the height of midlife.  Toward the evening of the day, activities wind down and become more passive, as they do in old age.  Then, before sleep, the focus again turns to bodily needs (when we are elderly, our needs resemble that of babies’).  At last, there may or may not be a sliver of time to reconcile with any alienated relationships before one’s day is over (Eph. 4:26: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger”).  So with the end of life, as well, when people long to make it right with others before meeting the Judge of all the earth.

Finally, while lying in bed awaiting the unconsciousness that will last till morning or the Resurrection (as the case may be), the realization comes that the day/lifetime has been lived, and it is too late to change how.  Preparing to meet our Maker is the only responsibility left.  In prayer, reuniting the soul with its Lover, confessing our sins, and pleading for others in deep intercession is the best way to fall asleep in the Everlasting arms.

We can find encouragement in the microcosm (small-scale reproduction) of a lifetime in a day, because it shows that if a day is a picture of a life, the way we live each day will form the way we live our whole lives.  A day is manageable enough to ask for Yahweh’s help to bridle passions, shape our character, and demonstrate self-sacrifice for others.

So, if your entire lifetime were encapsulated in today, how would you want to live it?  Would you want to be more patient?  Invest more in certain relationships?  Display a more cheerful countenance?  Serve people more often?  Pray and worship the Creator more?  Today is the opportunity of a lifetime!  Let us live it in such a way that the King of Kings could condone with His glorious benediction: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”  Happy first day of the rest of your life!

Melanie Ellison (21), is a stay-at-home daughter of Todd and Renee (authors at http://www.homeschoolhowtos.com).  She loves classical music, babies, and sewing linen pillowcases that bless people with deeper sleep: http://www.pleasantpads.com.  She would love to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Teaching children how to handle their anger

Monday, 11. June 2012 by Renee Ellison

Anger is SUCH a hard emotion, even for adults to deal with, let alone children.  It comes from feeling violated, stepped on, overlooked, treated poorly.  We are all so frail underneath, that any episode of not being loved is almost too painful to bear—so we lash out.  We were all originally created to have a legitimate right to a protected personhood, i.e. being treated with NOTHING but love.  That was God’s original design.  So anything BUT that, throws us for a loop.  Due to the Fall, we not only have our own crookedness to deal with, but interfacing with others’ fallen natures, to boot.  We are ALWAYS surprised and ALWAYS unsettled by other people’s unkindnesses to us, no matter how frequently we experience them, because it is not our EXPECTATION, having been made perfect (before the Fall) and in God’s image.

So, here’s tool # 1: Change our expectations about others.
Expect others to be unkind.  Don’t be looking for a five-star hotel, when life is really a reformatory!  Teach your children that they will experience MANY episodes with many people—too many to count—over a lifetime.  Expect it.  Tell them to saddle up / put their seatbelts on.  Disillusion them about ALL people early on   Teach them that people weren’t put on this earth to love US, they are in our life to give us practice in loving THEM.

Tool # 2:  Go for a brisk walk.
There is no emotion that can’t be greatly settled by a LONG walk.  Teach children to DELAY dealing with their problems with other people.  Seek to settle almost NOTHING in the heat of the battle.  Teach them to withdraw.  Unhook.  Take deep breaths.  Tell your angry child: run to the fence outside, or the mailbox ten times, and THEN we will deal with this matter, perhaps even AFTER naptime.  Patience.  Developing the ability to delay anything IS maturity.  Impetuosity IS immaturity, in every case—even in adults.

Tool #3: Spread the matter before God.
Hezekiah, in his utter extremity, taught us how to cope with outlandish provocation from others and do it with success.  When Sennacherib threatened Hezekiah with a vile letter (II Kings 19), Hezekiah did not answer Sennacherib.  Instead, he went into the temple and spread out the letter before God.  By doing so, he would have NEVER needed to speak to Sennacherib about it, really.  His relief in the matter was total.  We need not spread the problem out before the other person, if we have spread the problem out before God.

(Now, in a family we can and should eventually work through that episode via some peaceful conflict resolution LATER to avoid a reoccurrence in an ongoing relationship—but it works best if we do so only AFTER we have spread the matter out before God.)  And with extended family, it need never be spoken of or resolved, if given to God.

Stuffing anger doesn’t work.  But shouting at the other person doesn’t work either, “For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” [James 1:20; ESV} EVER!  So, who DO we tell?  Tell God about it IMMEDIATELY.  NAME the sin of the other person.  Tell God specifically what they did toward you and how awful it feels, and then ask HIM how to cope.  USE God as an understanding best friend.  TALK to Him, AT THE MOMENT.  God WANTS this.  This will keep your children from developing ulcers!

Tool #4: Meditate on the other person’s good points.
A person is always far LARGER than this one cantankerous moment.  Therefore, sometimes get your children to name (OUTLOUD) three good qualities of the person who has just offended them.  Name those FIRST.  (Teach them to do this always MENTALLY—even if it is not spoken).  This immediately puts the conflict into perspective.  Teach them to mentally reposition the offender in a larger setting.  Help them recall that the offender was a sharing person with you YESTERDAY, and that you will rule angels together, TOMORROW, and that the “AWFUL OFFENDER” (really, just your wee sister, or spouse, or father-in-law) is faithful, hard-working, struggled at birth, has a cold, etc.!!!  It has been said: “There is enough in every person to make them out to be a demon or a god, depending upon which you focus upon!”

Tool #5 Memorize all scriptures about anger.
Review them.  They’re priceless.

Tool #6 Teach children how to fix their anger.
Teach them to get good at doing emotional repair jobs.  Most all of us are too immature to do it right even 50% of the time, even if in calm moments we KNOW what is right to do.  About 98% of the time, we’ll blow it.  So FIX it; do it right LATER, even if you’ve done it wrong at the moment.  And release the offender from the offense at their MOTIVE level.  In other words, believe that they didn’t MEAN to hurt you—they were just after THEIR OWN “crayon” to finish THEIR project even if it meant roughly wrenching it from YOUR hand.  Everyone is “ME”-driven.  It has been said that “people care more about their OWN headache, then if YOU die!!!”  Make your peace with their frailty and their self-absorption, because, given the right “off” moment, you have it, too.

Is believing in a 6-day literal creation a “hill to die on”?‏

Tuesday, 05. June 2012 by Renee Ellison

Is the issue of a six-day literal Creation part of your family’s core belief structure?  Should it be?  And, how does your conviction on this point affect the way your children are raised?

In our opinion, a six-day literal Creation is “a hill to die on.” Why?  Because without it, statistically, a person would raise children for calamity—for secularism, for eventual total unbelief.  The fruit of not believing in a six-day creation seems to be evident already in the current generation of children—including some of the ones who are homeschooled.  As Ken Ham says, an evolutionary model is a fissure at the foundation of one’s total belief system; it is a slippery slope to unbelief.  If the stress upon children’s faith gets high enough (the peer pressure of unbelief, and the college professor pounding on it), the culture (i.e., the children who are so trained), will collapse in the area of faith.  The evolution issue is a major tactic that the Enemy has used to bring our culture to its knees.  We already see it in American culture at large.  Recent surveys are revealing that 85% of our young people (this is a tragic statistic) are losing their faith by the end of their first year in college.  WHY?  Over this ONE CORE, VITAL, PIVOTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL issue of Creation that is hammered on by the Enemy from kindergarten through grad school.  No doubt this is why men like Ken Ham and Henry Morris have devoted their lives to clarifying this ONE point—as have the Institute for Creation Research  and others.  The results of NOT thinking it matters has become alarmingly dangerous in the world.  Creation vs. evolution is THE issue before modern man.  Its implications are TOTAL.  We DO die on this one hill.

If a person has an evolutionary model of Creation, he may not know it, but he believes in evolution, PERIOD.  All of it—even that we are STILL evolving.  So, let’s run with where that leads.  Is our conscience evolving, too?  In our judicial system, then, can we try a person for robbery, or is he not responsible because he is evolving?  The courts are currently saturated with this belief (chaos), rendering the administration of justice relative, i.e. virtually impossible.  The confusion even outside the courts is all over the place.  “Remember the Sabbath DAY”; is that a DAY or 1,000’s of days? or 1,000’s of YEARS?  Do we work for 6,000 years WITHOUT rest, if we are waiting for Creation to be COMPLETED, before we can rest?  Can we rest even now, if it is NOT completed; we’re still evolving, right?  At what point did accountability/ morality enter the human race; in the trilobite?

But the absolute CORE issue (why it hugely matters in a marriage) is that evolution as a Creation model has huge implications for a literal Fall.  The Bible states that sin entered the world through ONE man, Adam.  If you tamper with that—that the Fall DIDN’T occur through one man—you don’t HAVE a fall.  If you don’t have a Fall, you have no need for a Savior.  This belief is ANTI-CHRIST at its core.  The Enemy is anti-Christ.  He has commandeered the evolution issue for this very reason—it is solidly anti-Christ.  The Devil hates Him and he hates the redemption He paid.  No doubt, the thought of Divine blood spilled for man makes him RABID.  The Enemy is foaming at the mouth to STOP the need for it.  So, his primary strategy is to eliminate the need for a redemption!

You can’t have a GENERAL Fall that happened over 1,000s of years, and sustain a faith in a need for a savior.  You can’t have a slippery EVENTUAL Fall—because WHEN would it have been?  Under what circumstances?  How?  You can’t have a belief in NO Fall, at all—or else where did Hitler come from?  It puts one in a tailspin of logical incongruity.  Without a Fall, without knowing it, a person ends up a secular humanist at one’s core, believing that man is basically good, or at the very least NEUTRAL.  Regardless of how much one loves God EMOTIONALLY, even praising Him, such a person will be loving Him IN SPITE of his disbelief in what Scriptures tell us in Genesis—and eventually one will be at odds with himself spiritually at a deep level, even over other Biblically contested issues.  It is a Pandora’s box.  Many children from godly homes nowadays are there right now—wondering what is it all FOR.  Likely, at some deep level they are not entirely convinced that it isn’t all a fairy tale, because of their daily “schooling” to the contrary—especially about ORIGINS.

Summit Ministries hits this issue hard.  Thousands of young still-impressionable teenagers walk out of Summit knowing WHY a 6-day literal Creation matters and knowing why the theory of evolution is a sham.  These students, so trained, emerge STRENGTHENED in their faith, in EVERY WORD that God has spoken—because they are presented with science that shows that there is not one whit of evidence to support evolution.  We HAVE the science now; we don’t have to guess any more.  Any one who WANTS to believe in a six-day literal Creation, CAN, with strong intellectual support.  Anyone who is questioning this can visit Answers In Genesis’s website which offers a world of scientific material, and also could delve into The Creation Institute’s marvelous materials to clarify this point.  Reading Morris’ book ALONE, would be sufficient to cover all of the bases, and would nail the issue cold.

To orient young children, easily, about this vital all-important issue download our Special Creation vs. Evolution.  It’s a short summary of the most powerful arguments against evolution.

Dawdling

Thursday, 31. May 2012 by Renee Ellison

Question:
A mom asked, “Am I expecting too much of a six (almost 7) year old to work on an academic assignment without dawdling?  Soooo frustrating.  Any input?”

Response:
Yes, strangely it IS too much to ask.  You see, that IS what immaturity IS.  A child learns INTERNAL discipline only by the application of copious amounts of EXTERNAL discipline—actually EXPERIENCING what mental discipline FEELS like while sitting right next to a tutor.  I used to educate my daughter while I was peeling potatoes or reading my own book right next to her, so I could POINT to the next problem when her mind would wander.

Gradually the child’s mind grows disciplined by DOING DISCIPLINE over and over.  You, as the mom/tutor, will slowly and progressively change from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side” as this process takes place.  Be encouraged: although it happens gradually, it DOES happen!  My daughter grew to be INCREDIBLY disciplined via this daily line-upon-line focus, hour after hour, from her early childhood.  I have to pull her OFF a task now—she has such a long attention span, even with tedious mental work.

Your young child may be mature RELATIONALLY, but that is different from corralling the mind for CEREBRAL tasks.  Scheduling active vs. passive periods REALLY HELPS.  Have your child just do ONE problem, or just this ONE row, and then go clean the bathroom sink, or jump on the rebounder, etc.  (This is one of the techniques described in 12 Optimal Ways to Trigger the Brain; download it for MORE of these ways to prime the mental pump.  You’ll also find our booklet Motivation: Academic Energizer to be very helpful).

While your child is acquiring mental discipline, find lots of work for you to do right next to him.  Do your work in your lap or on the table; fixing meals is the best.  A mother can chop veggies for the whole day, etc., while sitting VERY close in PROXIMITY to help redirect the youngster’s mind with patience.  In helping your child develop discipline, keep in mind that tackling the concepts is almost secondary to tackling the mental muscle growth.  Five minutes with mama on piano or violin is way more powerful than a child trying to work for half an hour by themselves.  The two different approaches result in vastly different outcomes.  Think of Lipizzaner horse trainers putting those stallions through their paces again and again and again until sweat is pouring off those beasts—or think of the Olympic training coach who is hovering over those details, knowing that it is the route to excellence.  External mental discipline wisely directed by a tutor grows champions.  Stay vigilant and you’ll love the results.