Children

Children on the Block

Somebody will pay for this!

Taliban buying children for suicide bombers

Pakistan’s top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say.

A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 – huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year.

These youngsters surely end up in the arms of the Everlasting Father, who surely will avenge the cruelty inflicted upon them.

Fathers and Children

We’re almost a week past Father’s Day in the USA.

My heart aches for the children whose dads treat them unjustly. I have observed that far too often, even in Christian homes. Shame!

So here are two tips for dads:

Nurture your children; don’t provoke them.

Don’t exasperate your children or they’ll lose heart.

Do any of the following flaws (or sins) describe how my children experience (or just perceive) me?

  • too proud to apologize
  • too busy to give positive attention
  • too upset to listen to reason
  • too suspicious to imagine good
  • too demanding to be generous
  • too selfish to share
  • too hypocritical to live by the same standard
  • too stubborn to change
  • too blind to avoid favoritism
  • too wounded to offer healing
  • too negative to recognize good
  • too carnal to model the Heavenly Father
  • too inconsistent to be just
  • too unpredictable to be dependable
  • too angry to see clearly
  • too vengeful to forgive
  • too unpleasant to be cheerful
  • too tough to be kind
  • too rigid to be flexible
  • too insecure to back down
  • too “right” to value a different view
  • too bossy to serve
  • too self-centered to do something another’s way
  • too mature to play
  • too tense to relax

If you think your child is too young to catch on to these things, don’t kid yourself!

And even if your child hasn’t caught on yet, your Heavenly Father has! And He will make you pay for being unjust to your children, especially the little ones.

Oh, those two tips with which I started?

They’re actually commands…from God:

“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

“Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Colossians 3:21).

Fathers, how we treat our children influences their perception of the Heavenly Father. Check this out:

“Like as a father…his children, so the LORD…” (Psalm 103:13).

OK, dads, I offer a question to help guide you in your day-to-day interaction with your children:

How can I show
the Heavenly Father’s heart
to my children?

Father’s Day Message

No, this isn’t a message to my father.

This is a message from me as a father:

That’s your mother you’re talking to!

OK, there’s a second message that’s like unto it:

That’s your mother you’re talking about!

Those are my messages to all children out there.

Here are excerpts on the same subject, as recorded in God’s Word in Proverbs:

“Forsake not the law of thy mother” (1:8).

“A foolish man despiseth his mother” (15:20).

“Despise not thy mother when she is old” (23:22).

“There is a generation that…doth not bless their mother” (30:11).

Last. First.

I got up around 5:15 this morning — that would be roughly an hour and a half ago.

And there — exiting the spare bedroom — were our oldest and their oldest.

They were heading home to Madras! (Her husband is likely out in field already.)

Our oldest — aka LaVay — was the last to bed last night and the first up this morning. After a big day yesterday which included picking and doing up strawberries.

How does she do it?!

Now she’s driving home…probably going by Mt Hood as I type. (She’s probably got about an hour to go.)

Oh, I mentioned seeing them exiting the bedroom. LaVay had already taken their second oldest out to their vehicle. And while she escorted their practically-sleep-walking oldest, she carried two others — their youngest and their truly-youngest.

She’s due in late September, as I recall.

You go, girl!

Lengthy Career Ends

You already know the news:

Another usher came in and told the congregation to remain seated, then escorted Tiller’s wife, Jeanne, out. “When she got to the back doors, we heard her scream, and so we knew something bad had happened….”

Oh the pain that woman must have felt…and continues to feel! May she find in Christ the comfort and peace and healing she needs. And the power and will to forgive.

She is suffering because of someone else’s choice. Someone was pro-choice…and made the choice to murder someone who surely preferred to live. And the victim wasn’t consulted about that preference.

OK, the above news excerpt was at the end of page two of the story. Here’s how the story begins:

George R. Tiller, the nation’s most prominent provider of controversial late-term abortions, was shot and killed yesterday in the lobby of his Lutheran church in Wichita, where he was serving as an usher.

[…]

Tiller, 67, had performed abortions since the 1970s. He ran the Women’s Health Care Services clinic, one of three in the nation to perform abortions after the point when a fetus is considered able to survive outside the womb.

So Mr. Tiller slaughtered (butchered, if you will) people for some thirty years…maybe longer. If he averaged only one such murder a day, that’s roughly 11,000 over a lengthy career.

I wonder how many he had scheduled for tomorrow.

And I wonder if any of those women will change their plans as a result of Mr. Tiller’s killing.

And I wonder what the abortion doctor learned at the judgment seat of Christ.

What he did in the practice of his evil is abominable.

What was done to him today by his killer is also evil and abominable.

How God must grieve!

Will God’s people also grieve?

If so, for whom? And what about?

Now, may the God of grace and truth and holiness find able-bodied men and women through whom to live out those attributes.

I say, “Yes, Lord, yes!”

News Source: Late-Term Abortion Provider George Tiller Killed in Wichita Church

Coming to a…Near You

Yeah, I didn’t want to use Church in the title. Maybe because I didn’t want to lose you. So please read on a little further, at least. 🙂

So, yes, (likely) coming to a church near you:

Harmony in the Home
Ephesians 5:21 – 6:4
May 24, 2009

That’s to be next Sunday’s lesson in many churches.

And I’m supposed to send out something on that subject to over 4000 subscribers.

Earlier this morning I decided to just use something I wrote back in 1999:

A Glorious Home Life

Using something I wrote long ago seems safest at this point. 😯

Eliminating Fear

Do I know my fears better than you know them? (Says who?)

How shall we then not fear…

  • heights?
  • water?
  • death?
  • conservatives?
  • life?
  • government?
  • fire?
  • public speaking?
  • strangers?

Is that how we overcome homophobia as well? (I need a barfing emoticon for that term! Term, OK? Not people.)

Here’s the headline that precipitates such thoughts: Gays, lesbians in worldwide call for end to homophobia

How do I know I suffer from homophobia?

How do I overcome it?

Here’s another headline this morning: Obama urges “fair-minded” abortion debate

Fair-minded — what’s that?

What does it sound like?

What are some fair-minded words?

And now…to connect the first headline to the second:

Mr. President, world citizens, ladies and laddies: I call for an end to life-o-phobia.

Thank you.

Above all, love God!