I want to pick him up. Hold him.

Yet, I know, that will wake him up. So I stand there watching him, marveling at the beauty that can be found in a toddler fast asleep. I stand there, in the room, the room still littered with little toys around and books crooked on the shelf, and I bask in the moment.

I really don’t see those toys. I don’t see the little people that got put in the lego box or the books that are under the crib or the stuffed animals resting in the middle of the floor. I don’t see the laundry basket full of clothes to put away or the pile of laundry waiting by the door to be brought down to the laundry room. The marker on the wall fades into the night, and the stain on the carpet disappears.

I’m in the room with my baby.

I want to sleep like him. Peaceful. Unaware of the messes around him yet secure to sleep, to rest, to feel safe. So often I fall prey to seeing all that is wrong and needs to be fixed or I have yet to do. I scurry here or there and race through life only to go to bed exhausted with a mind that won’t rest.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7

I look again and remember. I remember the moments earlier in the day where he sat in my arms and we read page after page after page in the same book that we always read. His sweet little body nestled in my lap as I encouraged him to “find the duck” and turn the pages. Oh, how he just wanted to be with me. To spend time with me. To rest.

No wonder Jesus talked about the faith of children so often. I look at my Samuel, and I look at how he feels safe and secure, and how he wants to spend time with me and sit in my lap, and how he sleeps and doesn’t see the unimportant — and I realize — that is a picture of how we are to come to the Lord everyday. Instead, if you’re like me, we  tend to come with our stuff, our earthly agendas, and we rush through our prayers — and don’t really rest.

He wants us to sit with Him.

To slow down. To rest deep. To feel safe. To let go of the things of this world.

Watch your children. Watch how they want to be with you, and how they are eager to sit in your lap, and how peacefully they sleep at night. And then pray that you may have that same heart with your Father in Heaven.

Rest. In Him.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

How do you handle this kind of conversation?

I have a few tips to share should you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

1. Don’t Gossip

• Be very careful to discuss the problem without names.
• Details are unnecessary, stick to the big picture.
• Focus on the problem, not the people (the sin not the sinner).

2. Don’t Judge

• Keep your heart tender.
• Recognize your own sins.
• Remember the mission is to extend God’s love to hurting people.

3. Put Away Your Weapons

• Words can be weapons of mass destruction.
• Don’t divide God’s army into regiments by stirring up strife.
• Engage the Sword of the Spirit personally through prayer and Bible study.

4. Be Patient

• Pray.
• Wait on God to open doors for you.
• Pray.
• Trust God’s timing to walk You through open doors.

I’m going to share with you that this list has come through many personal failures.

I used to be a “fixer.” I’d see a problem and charge in wielding my weapon and war would be waged. But wars always leave casualties. Always.

In Scripture, there were certainly times when God led His people into battle quickly . . . but there were also times when He told them to wait while He went ahead of them and prepared the way. Either way, the point is that God was doing the leading.

Just because I am agitated about something doesn’t mean that God is preparing me for battle. He might be, but He might just be inviting me to pray for the individuals whose battle it is to fight.

Pray and wait!

When it comes to battles I pray and then I pray more. I ask God to help me to keep my eyes on Him and trust His guidance. Then I wait for Him to open doors, and I ask Him to give me a nudge through those He intends for me to walk through.

I said to the Lord, “You are my God!”  Listen, O Lord, to my cries for mercy!
O Sovereign Lord, the strong one who rescued me, You protected me on the day of battle.
Lord, do not let evil people have their way.
Do not let their evil schemes succeed, or they will become proud. Psalm 140:6-8

But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:15-16,22-23a

 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

I awakened this morning with the title of this post running through my mind. What if the first time you had a thought, it was just that . . . a thought? The second time you thought it, you were granted a mulligan by God’s grace. But if you continued spinning it around in your head, it appeared across your forehead in ticker tape format. Right there for everyone to see!

I often hear individuals say, “But I can’t control my thoughts.”

It’s true that it is very difficult to control our thoughts, but our heavenly Father must provide a way for us to do so or He would not have told us to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Would we be more deliberate about controlling our thoughts if we new that they would be revealed to everyone around us? I think so!

If God gives us a command, He has a plan. He has provided us with ways to change our thoughts and turn to Christ.

1. Pray – If the first time we have a less than God-pleasing thought we repented of it and prayed for God to deliver us; I believe that with the help of the Holy Spirit we would be less likely to spin on it the third, fourth, or fifth time.

2. Read Scripture – The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, is able to defeat the enemy’s attacks. Reciting or reading the Bible is a wonderful way to manage our thoughts.

3. Turn up the Praise – Play some awesome praise tunes, then sing and dance your negative thoughts away.

4. Count Your Blessings – Start thinking about all of the wonderful things God is doing in your life. Big things and even the little things. It’s harder to to have ugly thoughts when listing all of the good things God has done.

Okay, now it’s your turn. What will you do to keep from having ticker tape thoughts?

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52 NIV

Earlier this month, we started talking about what it takes to raise godly men.  I shared a little bit about how God captured my heart and gave me the desire to be a boy mom.  If you have not had a chance to read it yet, then take a minute to go back and read it (Raising Godly Men, Part 1).

I shared about how to get started if your boys are in preschool and now I want to take a minute to talk about elementary, middle, and high school boys.

Here me on this real quick…it is never too late to get started.  I talk to moms every day who have turned their lives over to Christ and want to parent their children in ways that honor God.

I love when that happens…you don’t have to live in regret and sadness over the fact that it didn’t happen sooner, but take a minute to rejoice in the decision you are making right now!

If your boys are in elementary school, then get started now by;

• All the things listed above, and
• Teaching them to memorize Scripture.
• Having a Family Devotional time each day.
• Encouraging him to attend their church group regularly.
• Meet with his group leader to get to know who is building into your son’s life at church.
• Encourage him to get together with their friends from church outside of church.
• Start praying for his future wife (I know, this is a hard one especially since he is so little but the prayers for his future wife are covering her while she is growing too).
• Hang this verse right beside the door so that your son will see if before he leaves the house every day; Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. Colossians 2:8 NLT

If your boys are in middle school, then get started now by;

• Praying, praying, and praying God’s protection over your son.
• Middle school is one of the hardest times in a child’s life, they need your prayers more now than ever.
• Encourage him to attend the church youth group regularly.
• Meet with his group leader to get to know who is building into your son’s life at church.
• Even when he doesn’t “want” to go, make attending group a priority for him.
• Encourage him to get together with other kids from youth group outside of church.
• Have a family devotional time.
• Keep praying for his future wife, at this point girls are on the radar and it is a great time to remind him that God has the perfect woman already in mind for him.
• Buy him a nice student Bible, whether he reads it or appreciates it right now it will be there with him when he is ready to receive it.
• Keep that sign up by the door with Colossians 2:8 NLT where he can see it and pray it over him as well.

If your boys are in high school, then get started now by;

• Praying, praying, and praying God’s protection over your son as he grows in wisdom and stature.
• Get him involved in youth group and make it a priority to attend.
• Have him attend “Big Church” services with you, as a family.
• Read the Bible together before he heads off to school in the mornings.
• Pray for his future wife
• Dating is around the corner for your high school son, keep an open dialogue about the importance of dating in a way that honors God.
• Keep praying for that special girl that will one day capture his heart.
• Give him plenty of room to spread his wings but gently guide him back on course with truth and love.

There is always room to grow, for us as moms just as much as for our sons.  I would love to continue talking about this with you, so make sure you stop on over to Mel’s World in February 2011 where I’ll share some of the parenting books that I’ve read over the years.

Father God, you are the perfect example for us as we seek to train up our sons to be godly men.  Show us Father where to jump in, where to get started and what to do next.  We thank you for the gift our children are to us and thank you for allowing us to be their moms.  Teach us how to lead them to be more like you. In Jesus name, Amen.

And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52 NIV

From the very first moment I found out that I was pregnant with my first child, I just “knew” that I was going to be a “boy mom.”  I don’t know how or why, but I just knew that God knit me together to raise boys. The exciting, adventurous, rowdy days could be a challenge, but the sense of purpose was like a mission for me.

Twenty-two years old, married less than a year and completely overwhelmed with this next stage in my life, I cried out to the Lord and asked Him into my heart. I had no idea how to be a Christian, how to be a wife, how to be a mom but I sought His direction with every bit of my heart and soul.

As I grew in my own faith walk, my child grew right along with me. I read every single parenting book I could get my hands on. I took pages and pages of notes on what my son was doing, what he was eating and how often he went to the bathroom (yep, I was one of “those” moms).  God brought me this child for such a time as this and I intended to do the best that I possibly could.

I started by praying.

I prayed this prayer for my sons…”That my sons would be good godly men who knew, loved and feared the Lord. That they would be the leaders of their families, that they would love their wives and treat them with honor and respect. That they would be the leaders that God created them to be, that they would stand firm in the face of temptations, that they would seek Him first in all they do and that they would do the right thing even if it is the hard thing.”

To this day, I still pray this prayer over them. If you have absolutely no idea where to start in raising godly men, then let me suggest that you always start by covering them in prayer.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24 NIV

Now that my boys are knocking on the door of becoming adults, I see the seeds that we planted while they were little have been watered over the years and God has been doing a good work in their lives.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it is never too late to get started on raising godly men.

If your boys are in preschool, then get started now by;

• Praying over them,
• Reading an age-appropriate Bible with them,
• Praying with them,
• Attend church where the Kids Ministry is more about ministry than babysitting,
• Talk to them about God

There is so much more to raising godly men, so make sure you come back on January 31^st as we talk about getting started with Elementary, Middle, and High School boys, as well as some practical ideas for raising godly men of all ages.

Father God, you have given us such a precious gift in our children.  We want to be moms who raise our kids to passionately pursue you all their lives.  Father, as moms of boys we know that we have a special responsibility to raise up godly men who will lead their families with a purpose to serve you.  Thank you for this honor Father, we don’t take it lightly and today, Father we commit these young boys to you.  In Jesus precious and holy name, Amen.

fools are leaky faucets, dripping nonsense.”

Proverbs 15:2 The Message

Nonsense!

Wow, what an amazingly fantastic word.  I know we “know” what it means, but digging a little deeper, look what I found out about nonsense…

According to Merriam-Webster.com nonsense means;

1a : words or language having no meaning or conveying no intelligible ideas    b (1) : language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense (2) : an instance of absurd action

I’m not a rocket scientist or anything but I can tell you this…I do not want to be a leaky faucet dripping nonsense, do you?

This Christmas season there’s going to be a lot of opportunities for you to gather with friends, family members, and probably other believers as we prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

We have an amazing opportunity to do something completely different this year.

We can lay down all the useless dribble that surrounds our life and truly focus on the most important things this Christmas.

Less of;

* Me

* Words

* Stuff

* Distractions

and oh so much more of;

* Him!

This is not always something that is easy to do, and if you have a run away mouth like I do (Big Mouth 1 and Big Mouth 2), then you’ll know that this is not something you can do on your own.

It’s taken me a very long time to figure out that less of me and more of Him is by far a better way to live that I would care to recount, but I am learning more and more each and every day to let go of the other stuff and cling hard to Him.

For far too many years I was a leaky faucet.

I don’t like that, but it’s a part of my story.

Thankfully He continues to show me there is no room in my life for the nonsense.  There is, however, tons of room for Him, which is ultimately what He’s been trying to show me.

Father God, you are truly the most important thing in our lives. Help us to lay down the useless dribble, turn off the leaky faucets and ultimately become the spring water flowing from the wise. Guide us this Christmas season to be more like you. In Jesus name, Amen.

What is one thing you can do today to turn off the leaky faucet?

Let’s be the women He wants us to be, who share the spring water flowing from the wise.

Praying for us as we journey together…Melissa

Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

How do you feel when you read those verses? I usually feel a little guilty. It’s hard to be joyful and thankful in the midst of worry and anxiety. Unless you are living alone in a cave, there are usually plenty of things to be worried and anxious about.

Maybe that it why right between joy and thanksgiving, the Lord reminds us to never stop praying!

I moderate the prayer requests for Prayer Ministries Int. Recently I received the following prayer request (the name is changed for privacy):

Please pray for my friend Cathy. She is 45 years old and is very ill with breast cancer. She does not believe in Jesus. We have been praying for her and one of our friends is going to travel to visit with Cathy and her husband. Would you also pray for her as she shares the love of Jesus with them? Thank you.

My husband and I prayed and I sent the prayer need out to one of our prayer teams. This past week I received this email:

The Lord granted success to our lady that went to share Christ with the lady dying of cancer. (Cathy) died Sunday morning, but she and her husband came to the Lord the day before.

What an awesome answer to our prayers! God not only blessed Cathy with faith, but her husband, too.

Do you have something you have been praying about for what seems like “always?” Do you occasionally get discouraged and feel hopeless, or struggle with worry and anxiety? Me too! But the Lord’s will for us is that we would never lose hope or allow our circumstances to rob us of our joy.

His will for us is joy, thanksgiving, and prayer. 

He is always our reason for joy! He never stops hearing our prayers!  We can be thankful in all circumstances because for those who belong to Christ Jesus there is always hope.

This verse just keeps coming up this week.  I love when you see Scripture in a new light.  I have read this verse several times in various translations, but just this week new and exciting things started to pop out to me.

Two key words hit me square in the jaw, made me sit back scratch my head, and burst out in a great big Aha! moment. I’ve spent the last few days scouring my other translations of this verse and look at what I found.

Keep ~to continue in an action, course, position, state, etc.: to keep in sight; to keep going.

We’re not just supposed to knock once, walk away and forget about it, but we are to keep on asking, keep on looking and keep on knocking.

Which means it requires persistence on our part.  We can’t show up one time, present our quick request then say, “Oh well, I guess He’s too busy today“.

No, dear sisters, He is never too busy to hear our requests.  We are to pound down the doors of heaven with our prayers, not just once, not just in the morning, but we are to Keep on asking, looking and knocking.

The other word that I couldn’t shake was everyone.  According to Dictionary.com this is what everyone means;

Everyone ~every person; everybody.

You guessed it, everyone means exactly what it says: everyone.

Not just you, not just me, but everyone is offered this amazing opportunity.  For everyone who asks, received.  Everyone who seeks, finds.  And the door is opened to everyone who knocks.

Sweet sisters, we need to keep knocking, each and everyone of us.  Take your requests to Him, seek Him and knock until you can’t knock any longer.  The truth is right there for us in Luke 11:9-10.  If we do this, then He will answer the door.

Father God, thank you for showering us with your love and mercy.  We can not even begin to grasp just how amazing you are and yet you give us glimmers of grace each and every day.  Thank you that you answer the door each and every time we knock.  In Jesus precious name, Amen.

I was about to share my story of struggling with an eating disorder in college with a few dozen teenagers. I was a mentor to teen moms through Youth for Christ at the time, and I had volunteered to speak that night.

So why was I nervous?

I knew that I was meant to talk about what I’d gone through. Here was a room full of girls, each facing their own challenges, and I wanted them to know they weren’t alone. I wanted them to know that we all go through difficulties, even if our situations are different.

And, mostly, I wanted them to know how God can make a difference.

Like He did for me.

But, even though I knew I had a message of hope to share, I didn’t feel confident.

And as I thought about it, I realized why.

I was approaching that night as if everything was up to me…

I wanted my speech to be inspirational so it could touch the heart of the girls listening.

I wanted the things I shared to be relevant.

I wanted the hope I spoke about to tug at their hearts, so that they could hope too.

I wanted to do a good job speaking so I could make a difference.

And that’s where I got it wrong.

Because it wasn’t up to me. It was up to God. He was the one who reached down and brought peace and healing into my struggle with food. He was the one who changed my life.

And He was the one who could use me to change the lives of others, too.

And as I sat there in that room, praying not to be nervous, and finally realizing it didn’t all depend on me, I began to feel more confident.

When we stop looking to ourselves to be the solution and, rather, start letting God use us for his solutions, that’s when our confidence can shine.

He hears our every prayer.

And with Him in our lives, we can accomplish far more than we ever could alone.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1 John 5:14

“Dear Lord,
Please help me to stop cracking my knuckles.”

She paused for a minute, then added,

“I know I can pray all I want, God, but if I don’t do my part, it’s not going to happen. So please help me to do my part too.”

Her prayer reminded me of that saying…

Pray like everything depends on God, then act like everything depends on you.

And I think it’s true. We can cry out to God for help in any area of our lives—and we should—but if we don’t do our part to make changes or act on what we are needing help with, we will likely be frustrated with the results. Or lack of.

My daughter’s prayer was an important reminder for me to not only ask God for help, but to also ask him to help me to do my part.

No matter what we’re facing in our lives—whether we need help finding a job, making health changes, improving relationships, or anything else, if we don’t do our part, we might miss God’s answers, and his plans for us.

He can give us wisdom in what job to pursue, and He can give us strength in the interview process, but if we don’t get out there and prepare ourselves and look for jobs, nothing may happen.

He can help us to make healthy choices about food and exercise, and put people in our lives that will support us, but if we don’t love ourselves and take action to make the choices stick, they likely won’t.

He can give us opportunities to heal our relationships—to reach out, to forgive, to love unconditionally—but if we chose resentment instead, those relationships will still suffer.

So the next time you’re in need of help, no matter what you need help for, remember to do your part too. And never forget:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13