Titus 2 and the Dunbar Number: Social Limits and Priorities

24 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Living Faith

Tags

Christian life, Christian Women, Home and Family, Intentional Living, motherhood, priorities, Relationships, Social Connections, social media, The Dunbar Number, Titus 2

I’ve been on a bit of a minimalist kick lately, decluttering my house, my closet, my recipes, my priorities, you name it. While I don’t necessarily hold to minimalism as a whole-life philosophy, I find that it does offer some necessary push-back to our modern tendencies to be “ever expanding,” whether that be in our possessions, resources, opportunities, or social connections.

On that last item, social connections, I recently read an article explaining the theory of what’s called the Dunbar Number. A British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar posited (after some research on primates and combing through human records) that the greatest number of meaningful connections any one person can hold at a given time is about 150.

Titus two dunbar number social connections family

I have to admit I had quite the confirmation bias response to this article, because not too long ago I was explaining to my husband that I have social limits, and I simply cannot keep up with all-the-people, and I certainly don’t have energy for continually adding to the number of all-the-people to whom I feel some measure of social obligation.

With interest and perhaps some of that confirmation bias running through my veins, I decided I’d see where my current number of connections stood. I pulled out my brain dump notebook and began to write down all of the people with whom I have some meaningful or working connection. I started with family. That easily reached over 30 people. Then it was long-standing friends. You know, the people you may or may not see each year but whom you are committed in some way to maintaining for the long haul: again, over 30. Neighbors came to about 20. Homeschool connections almost 30. Church connections (which is small right now because we’re still new at our local church): about 15. And then I listed those who are a bit more distant but still qualify under this idea of meaningful connection: 60 or more. If you just add up the rounded numbers I’ve listed, that makes 185, more than the Dunbar Number (150). No wonder I feel a bit overwhelmed and like I can’t add any more.

But guess what kinds of people I didn’t add to any of those lists of contacts? For the most part, I didn’t include online-only relationships. There are seven ladies who make the cut because they are part of an online stand-up/accountability group. Other than those ladies, every other person on the list has some real-life, meaningful or workable connection (or has had in the past and therefore they are on the list).

What this little exercise demonstrated for me was twofold: One, there isn’t really any room for me to build or even maintain relationships on social media or other online platforms. No wonder I feel a little overwhelmed trying to keep up. Two, even these connections that I wrote down are pushing the limit, and I need to prioritize.

Now, Dunbar’s theory itself has prioritization built in. He suggests that any one person can have only about 5 people in their inner circle—these are loved ones, your most trusted and closest kind of friends (large families can adjust this number accordingly, IMO). Next up are “good friends,” of which you can maintain about 15 (or just ten more than the 5 closest friends we already mentioned). There are about 50 that can be called “friends” in a meaningful way before our own capacity is stretched enough to make the term “friend” less meaningful (I’m looking at you, Facebook). And then the next jump is up to that limit of 150 meaningful contacts. Beyond that, the study claims we could have face-recognition of up to 1500 people–but not meaningful relationships. I can’t say I’ve taken the time to test the limits on that last one.

Now, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt. The Dunbar Number is a theory, not gospel nor scientific law. But it is interesting, isn’t it?

I’ve titled this article “Titus 2 and the Dunbar Number,” so it’s about time I brought this back around. As Christians, we know that the greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. And while Jesus insisted that anyone who we find in need of our help can be considered our neighbor (see the parable of the good Samaritan), in today’s times, we tend to be over-exposed to people and needs via the internet and social media, skewing our sense of responsibility away from our nearest neighbors and toward those far from us.

The impact here is both quantitative in that we’re compelled to give emotional energy toward more people than we have capacity for and qualitative in that we’re tempted to prioritize (at least in the moment) people far away from us, for whom we are not most responsible. The issue here isn’t that caring for people far away is bad (it’s good to be concerned for people in different places than we are), it’s just unnatural to have a constant reminder of them and to be pulled away from the people literally right in front of us or across the street. The combination of those quantitative and qualitative elements makes for a rather big challenge, especially if we take seriously the call to “love our neighbor.” We’re left asking Jesus for clarification, “Who is my neighbor?”

This is where Titus 2 comes in. Some people hate this passage because they see it as limiting women to the home, keeping them barefoot and pregnant, etc. But I think we can see it in a different light. Here it is for your consideration:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
Titus 2:3-5

If we are to love God and love people, the first place that we ought to practice that God-honoring people-love is within our own households. What Titus 2 (and a few other passages) implies to me is that this temptation to concern and even distract ourselves with people “out there” isn’t something only modern social media mavens have experienced. Even women in the first century needed the reminder that a love that isn’t fulfilling its duty at home first is a hypocritical love that can lead to the gospel being blasphemed, the good news being spoken of as if it’s bad.

Now before anyone throws stones because they think I’m promoting “the patriarchy,” let me be the first to say that this principle holds true for men as well. It’s why elders are supposed to be good managers of their own households before they are recognized as leaders in the church (1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9). It’s why a man that doesn’t provide for his own is called “worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). The call to prioritize the people right in front of us is universal. This responsibility to one’s own household is why singleness is, for some, an effective state to be in for the sake of ministry to others: because the man or woman who isn’t tied down has more time and energy to devote to the Lord, which may include serving others beyond the home in a way that the married person simply can’t (1 Corinthians 7:32-35). But that’s more the exception than the norm for believers. Most of us are called to marry and build families to the glory of God.

So the reminder in Titus 2 to love your husband and love your children and focus on the work that must be done to keep the home running well isn’t slavish or limiting. It’s a sane call to put first things first. The calling toward home and family doesn’t necessarily preclude other callings, but it does take precedence over them.

And, if you think about it, all of this makes sense in light of Dunbar’s thoughts on human social capacity. We each may vary in terms of our social capacity, and some of us may need to cut back while others may need to stretch themselves. But at the end of the day, we all have limits. And we all have to choose how we will use the limited resources we’ve been given.

How about you? Do you feel our modern connected world pulls your attention away from the folks that matter most to you?

We may not need to dump online community and resources altogether, but might it be helpful to imagine what our priorities would look like if those things didn’t exist. Join me for a thought experiment?

If the internet didn’t exist, what would you want your family life to look like? How might you prioritize your husband? Your children? If you are in a different stage of life: your roommate, parents or siblings, or extended family?

If the internet didn’t exist, what would you do to get to know your neighbors? To be a blessing to them?

If the internet didn’t exist, what would you do to get to know the people at your church better? How might you reach out to discover needs and meet them? In your church and your local community?

If the internet didn’t exist to make long distance relationships many-and-easy, who would you 100% want to keep in touch with–even if it meant more effort?

Commonplace: Charlotte Mason on … Fad Diets???

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by Lauren Scott in Books, Living Faith

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Books, Charlotte Mason, Commonplace, Living Books, Ourselves, quotes

I’ve been reading Charlotte Mason’s fourth volume, Ourselves, and while it is full of wise words, this section I’m sharing here today struck me by its almost surprising timeliness.

It’s easy to get the idea that folks over a hundred years ago lived lives so vastly different from ours that they were somehow either more boring and serious or else more backward and superstitious than people are today. The reality is that humanity is humanity, no matter what the era. And apparently there were people getting obsessive over special diets in England at the turn of the 20th century. They may not have the same names or focus, but they perhaps share the same craze. And it’s the craze, the self-absorption, that Miss Mason calls attention to in her chapter on temperance. I’ll let her take it away:

Conscience is not, in fact, so much concerned with the manner of our intemperance as with the underlying principle which St Paul sets forth when he condemns those who “worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.” This is the principle according to which we shall be justified or condemned; and, in its light, we have reason to be suspicious of any system of diet or exercise which bespeaks excessive concern for the body, whether that concern be shown by a diet of nuts and apples, of peacocks’ brains, or of cock-a-leekie. England is in serious danger of giving herself over to the worship of a deity whom we all honour as Hygeia. But never did men bow down before so elusive a goddess, for the more she is pursued, the more she flees; while she is ready with smiles and favours for him who never casts a thought her way. In truth and sober earnest, the pursuit of physical (and mental) well-being is taking its place amongst us as a religious cult; and the danger of such a cult is, lest we concentrate our minds, not upon Christ, but upon our own consciousness. We ‘have faith’ to produce in ourselves certain comfortable attitudes of mind and body; this serenity satisfies us, and we forget the danger of exalting the concerns of the creature above the worship of the Creator. The essence of Christianity is passionate love and loyalty towards a divine Person: and faith, the adoring regard of the soul, must needs make us like Him who is ‘meek and lowly of heart.’ A faith which raises us to a ‘higher plane’ should be suspect of the Christian conscience, as seeking to serve ourselves of the power of Christ, less to His glory than our own satisfaction.
(Ourselves, Book II Part I Chapter III, p. 230-231)

Wow. Fad diets aside, isn’t it so easy to fixate on improving our physical and mental well-being apart from the glory of God? Our culture is drunk with this sort of thing. And while Christians certainly seek to learn and grow, our aim ought to be entirely different.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added,” Jesus tells us in the gospel of Matthew.

It’s good to be reminded that in all our living and striving, our eyes ought to be on Christ and not on …ourselves. Even when writing a book with that title, Miss Mason makes clear that self-knowledge isn’t an end in itself. And neither is self-improvement. In all of our growth, are we growing more “like Him who is ‘meek and lowly of heart'”? It’s a good question to grapple with before the Lord.

What have you read lately? Anything quote-worthy? I’d love to hear about it! Drop a comment below.

Gardening: A Prescription for Perfectionists

18 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by Lauren Scott in Living Faith

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christian growth, Christian life, Christian Parenting, Garden, Garden Therapy, Gardening, Perfectionism, Recovering Perfectionist

It’s garden-planting time where I live. And that means I’m spending more time outside in the cool air and warm sunshine with my hands in the dirt. Time outside often gives me space to think, and time in the garden gives me a lot to think about–including the attitudes that I bring with me.

I can be a bit of a perfectionist. Wanting to get things just right. Spending way too much time researching a subject until I know it thoroughly enough to not mess it up (as if that were somehow possible). Perfectionism is a kind of obsession over performance and results. While it focuses on improvement and promises fulfillment, it actually tends to get in the way of both.

gardening cure perfectionist perfectionism

When I walk out into the garden and away from my other chores and plans and projects, I’m confronted by something very outside of myself. It’s easy to assume that my home and my work and my plans are all somehow a kind of extension–or at least a reflection–of who I am. But when I walk outside, I encounter something obviously other. There’s a wild beauty to things that grow. And in the presence of this wild beauty, I’m less tempted to delusions of control over it. Instead I’m drawn into wonder.

By the time I’m out planting our first seeds, the snow has just melted and revealed that under a thick blanket of frozen white, our daffodils have not only been surviving but actually growing–green and tall. And I didn’t do a thing to make this happen. I’m in awe of their happy refusal to stay dormant in our recent and unseasonable cold snap. Arguably not the perfect conditions. Yet they respond to the call to perk up–a call that doesn’t come from me or my plans.

Stepping outside of the four walls of my home usually gets me out of the four walls of my perfectionistic, all-or-nothing head. You could say that going outside prepares the soil of my heart to receive seeds of truth. To that soil, the garden adds images, active reminders of those seeds, of that truth.

As I plant and marvel at seeds in the dirt, my Father sows and tends seeds in my heart.

Here are a few of them:

Not every seed will sprout. When you have an all-or-nothing mentality, it can be discouraging to know that if I plant just one seed it may not work out. Planting more seeds than the number of plants I intend to grow feels potentially wasteful. I don’t ultimately control germination. I can help it along, but I mostly have to sit and wait and see. And be generous enough with my seeds to see something come to life. If I’m seeking perfect outcomes and efficiency, I might be upset that I won’t get a return on every little bit of my investment. But that’s just reality. God calls me to generously plant seeds anyway.
But somehow seeds DO sprout. We’ve been at this gardening thing for at least six years and yet it never fails to amaze me when tiny bits of green pop out of the ground where we planted seeds a few days or weeks before. God is good. He made this beautiful process and I get to take part in it. How much more delightful when God is at work in human hearts and invites me to participate and marvel at His work?
Frost may come and kill. Sun may scorch and burn. Those precious little seedlings that do sprout are up against the elements. I do what I can to protect and provide for them, but I cannot shield them from everything. In fact, a measured exposure to the elements is actually part of the process for these little plant babies to grow strong and learn to stand up on their own. Oh, how this speaks to me as a mama!
It pays to be firmly rooted. That exposure to the elements can benefit the plant only if it has a good root system–both for taking in water and nutrients from the soil and for keeping the plant sturdy enough not to topple over. When we transplant tomato seedlings, we burry about three quarters of the plant! It feels like a setback. Like we’ve now put ourselves behind in terms of growing a nice, big plant. But that apparent setback results in greater health and fruitfulness.
Bugs may devour. Vigilance is required. Whether it’s squash bugs or tomato hornworms or aphids, we’re always on guard. This is not a once-and-done thing, as though picking all of the bugs off in one day would keep us from having problems the rest of the season. A perfect sprint doesn’t work here, but rather faithful watchfulness. And even still, we will lose some fruit and some leaves to pests. That’s how we know they are there.
Pruning is hard. Cutting off potentialities doesn’t feel good. But we don’t have infinite space in the garden (nor does each plant have infinite resources). Despite aiming for high-intensity growing methods, there are still, by nature, limits within which we must work. Refusing to stay within the limitations of nature results in stunted growth and disease. That perfectionistic tendency to push for more-and-better often ignores the reality of limitation. If we don’t cull the excess seedlings, if we don’t prune the lower and non-productive branches, we aren’t helping our plants. I, like my plants, am finite. I, like my plants, have limitations. Culling and pruning are necessary and good.
Results will vary. With all these variables of seed conditions and weather and pests, it should be obvious that I can’t perfectly predict the outcome. I can’t guarantee the results. Sure, I plan carefully and consider quantities needed in advance. But the results simply aren’t that much in my control. We may get a lot, we may get a little. Our harvest may be beautiful or riddled with holes. Related to this fact…
Imperfect fruit still eats. In the store, when I’m putting down money for fruits and veggies, I inspect every piece, making sure I get the most perfect and untainted produce possible for my dollar. But when I’m harvesting out of the garden, a tomato that is only half-eaten by a worm is still good for half a tomato. A couple of these “bad tomatoes” can dress a salad or tacos. A bunch of them can make a batch of salsa or a tomato pie. It requires more work to make the most of the imperfect gifts from the garden, but they are gifts nonetheless. It’s an opportunity to grow in both thankfulness and resourcefulness–two things that I might miss if I continued to always insist on “perfect” produce.
God causes the growth. This is the real “capital T” truth. And it’s the truth that runs through the rest of these bullet points. I’m not in control, God is. I’m not on the throne, He is. I may plant the seeds and provide what I can, but God causes the growth. The reason gardening is so powerfully instructive, so beautifully corrective of my perfectionistic tendencies, is because it visually, tangibly illustrates the truth that God is the Creator and Sustainer of all things, and that He simply invites me to participate with Him in His beautiful work.

We read in the scriptures truth about God, truth about the world, and truth about ourselves. We know we are to respond to it properly. But sometimes the truth takes time to sink in. And sometimes it takes living the metaphor.

When God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in a garden. He told them to “cultivate it and keep it.” The Hebrew words in this phrase from Genesis 2 mean something along the lines of “work or serve it and guard or attend to it.” Working in a garden was part of the original earthly paradise. And I think it’s interesting to note that God’s calling here is not to make things grow–that was His job. His children were simply to work and guard, to serve and attend. Basically, to show up and care for it.

It’s the same for me, whether in the garden or in life. My responsibilities, beyond staying firmly rooted in Christ and His Word, come down to these:

Faithfully sow
Faithfully water
Faithfully tend
Expectantly watch

Every time I wander out into the garden, it’s an invitation to enter into the metaphor, to contemplate the truth beautifully woven into the fabric of Creation.

Here are a few of the scriptures that bring my garden time to life:

And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil;and he goes to bed at night and gets up daily, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the stalk, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. Now when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:1-5

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 1 Corinthians 3:6-7

I’ll sign off with a quote my husband found in a gardening article some time back. He shared it with me, and I’ve made a point of hanging on to it.

The principle value of the garden . . . is to teach . . . patience and philosophy, and the higher virtue – hope deferred, and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation, and sometimes to alienation. The garden thus becomes a moral agent, a test of character, as it was in the beginning.
–Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in the Garden (found at this website: http://www.leereich.com/2012/06/every-time-i-go-near-my-apple-and-plum.html)

Post script: The day I started writing this article, I realized that our refrigerator went out. Nothing was cold. All the ice had completely melted. My day was not my own. We had to change gears, adjust, adapt. Within 30 minutes of wiping up the floor, I managed to drop a quart jar half full of coffee as I was attempting to put it in a cooler. Coffee splashed all over the floor, the fridge, and the cooler, requiring me to wipe up everywhere-again-and-then-some. I found myself saying, “Well! This is the day!” And then I laughed. And started singing, “This is the day that the Lord has made…We will rejoice and be glad in it,” inviting my kids to smile and laugh along with me. Yes, my friends, God is good. He graciously allows us many imperfections–and uses them to capture our hearts…if we but recognize the invitation.

Gardening is just one way God reminds us we’re not in control, that seeking to be perfect in ourselves is a fool’s errand. How else do you feel His gentle nudge?

How We Homeschool: Bible

14 Thursday Jan 2021

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Home Education, Living Faith

≈ 1 Comment

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Bible Curriculum, Bible Lessons, Charlotte Mason Homeschool, Child Training, Christian Classical Education, Christian Classical Homeschool, Christian Homeschool, Christian Parenting, discipleship, Family Culture, Family Discipleship, Family Worship, Homeschool Bible, homeschool encouragement, homeschooling, parenting

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“What Bible curriculum do you use for grade x?”

It’s a question I get from time to time, and it never ceases to make me squirm a little.

Why, you may ask? Well, because the idea of “Bible curriculum,” and especially for a particular “grade level,” is foreign to me.

Now of course I’m aware of the fact that “Bible curriculum” and “Bible classes” exist in Christian school settings, but I’ve always wrinkled up my nose a bit thinking about the Bible being made to fit the mold of an academic subject, added on to a school day like just another textbook or workbook to get through. What affect does that have on the way kids approach the Scriptures? And do they give grades for those classes? What does that teach?

Our approach to the Bible looks a lot less like school and a lot more like discipleship. Reading the Bible together has been a part of our family culture since before our children were born. We haven’t ever felt a need to make sure we added Bible to the kids’ schooling because they’ve been getting Bible with their breakfast since they were tiny.

In fact, while every part of school is informed by the Scriptures, we like to keep the Bible itself separate from “school” in a sense so that they don’t get the impression that a day off of school is a day off from devotion to the Lord.

But what does that look like? And how can you get started with this holistic family discipleship model of Bible learning if it’s foreign to you?

Well, let’s start with why.

Our Why: Created Reality and Biblical Goals

Our children are precious creations of our Heavenly Father–and they are precious gifts entrusted to us as parents. We desire to give them access to the Truth that God has revealed in His Word so that they can grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man, that they would begin to know and love their Creator.

Ultimately, we desire that our children would trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from their sins and that they would love and serve Him all their days–for their good and God’s glory, both in this life and in the life to come. We don’t ultimately control this outcome. But we can be faithful to train our children in the way they should go.

Our Why Dictates Our How: Holistic Family Discipleship

Given the nature of our children, the nature of our relationship to them as their parents, and the nature of our goal (that they would have a relationship with God), it follows then that we ought to teach them in a way that is first and foremost relational. And decidedly not academic.

This means that interaction with the Scriptures comes woven into the fabric of our every day lives. There are no worksheets nor tests, no grades nor grade levels.

This doesn’t mean we don’t use printed materials to aid our children’s learning (I will link to some below), but we need to remember that the greatest resources we have to instruct our children in the ways of the Lord are His Word, His Holy Spirit, and our own lives lived alongside and before our children.

God’s Word: We must be in the bible ourselves and we must offer the Scriptures to our children.

The Holy Spirit: We must be seeking God to be at work both in us and in our children–apart from Christ we can do nothing. We may have had a direct role in bringing about our children’s physical life, but the spiritual life is of the Spirit–we cannot manufacture it in our kids. Prayer is indispensable.

Our Own Lives: We must model for our children what it means to believe the Word of God, to study it, to meditate on it, to practically submit our lives to it, and to receive both correction from it when we fail and comfort from it when we repent.

What does this actually look like?

Family Bible Time (what some call Family Worship)

Our current family Bible reading pattern, which we’ve had going for several years, is Proverbs at breakfast and Gospels at supper.

Now, this doesn’t mean each one happens every day. The reason we read the Bible over breakfast and dinner is because we often don’t read the Bible over breakfast and dinner. This is a scattering of seeds, not mechanical planting. We aim for faithfulness and perseverance rather than anything that resembles perfect consistency. But in keeping up the habit, we pretty reliably hit at least one of these each day, sometimes both. And before it was Proverbs and Gospels, we read slowly through the entire Bible at meal times–it may have taken a decade, but we kept going. The reason we’re in Proverbs and the Gospels right now is because the primary needs of our children are to receive instruction and correction according to God’s wisdom and to receive Jesus the Messiah as their Savior.

While we eat breakfast, my husband will read a few verses from the chapter of Proverbs that matches the calendar date (since there are conveniently 31 chapters in Proverbs), either selecting these verses ahead of time or asking for the kids to randomly select a number. He reads a verse and asks what it means. The kids give it their best shot and then we all discuss the meaning. He asks if they can think of any examples (a child may not use his brother as a negative example–this is a necessary rule, folks!). It has been fun over the years to hear the examples the kids come up with–sometimes from a fable, from literature, from a Bible story, from a movie. They are learning about wisdom and foolishness and learning how to identify each.

After Proverbs, we recite the Shema and the Lord’s Prayer. We switched up this recitation time over the holidays last year in order to recite and memorize Mary’s Magnificat. Now that we have the placeholder for recitation, we may use the time for other passages when they seem fitting.

Our evening Family Bible Time involves my husband reading from a passage of Scripture (currently Luke) at mealtime and then asking a few questions:

What did we learn? This is a good time for kids to either pick one thing that stuck out to them or simply narrate what they heard.

What can we worship God for? Sometimes, when we’ve been in the prophets, the answer is usually “That God was so patient and gave so many warnings.” Now that we’re in the first few chapters of Luke, the answer is usually “For sending Jesus to save us.” Sometimes the answer is different, but it’s no problem to worship God for the same things over and over again–in fact, it’s right to do so. Once answered, we pray and praise God based on what we saw in the passage–even if it’s simply for preserving the genealogy of Christ (which is pretty amazing when you think about it). Sometimes there may not be an obvious answer. When we were in the middle of Job as a family, it was admittedly hard to find any answer from the text–so we felt Job’s desolation a bit but worshipped God anyway.

What can we do with what we have learned? This is where we pay attention to the right response(s) to what we have read. Sometimes it is simply to worship as we did in the second question. Sometimes there is a command that we ought to obey. Sometimes there is something for which we ought to be thankful, something that ought to amaze us, something that ought to cause us to care for others, an example to follow or an example not to follow.

Now, these questions aren’t magical. They’re just the tools we have used for discussing the Bible as a family and for attempting to respond to it properly. Sometimes the kids are fully engaged and wow us with their insight. But sometimes the kids aren’t super excited to answer. Sometimes we get blank stares. But we don’t read the Bible and ask the questions in order to get perfect responses from our kids. We do it so that they are regularly interacting with the Scriptures and learning by modeling how to respond to them. It’s not perfect, but it is worthwhile. We are planting seeds.

Other Applications and Resources

The seeds we plant in Family Bible Time are watered by a lot of other practices and experiences.

We pray together as a family before meals and before bed. We try to remember to include intercession: to pray for neighbors, friends, family members, etc–sometimes on a weekly rotation so we don’t forget (but let’s be honest, we sometimes forget and go for long stretches with just basic bedtime prayers).

We have also made sure to include Bible time for our children to enjoy independently, even from a very early age by listening: Dove Tales (with cassettes–yes, we inherited these from my in-laws), Jesus Story Book Bible (with CDs), and a dramatized audio Bible from Faith Comes by Hearing. Now that our boys are 11 and 9, they are expected to read a chapter of the Bible first thing in the morning before coming downstairs for breakfast. This doesn’t mean it always happens, but that’s the goal and the general habit.

We’ve also enjoyed watching videos by The Bible Project–edifying for parent and child alike.

This emphasis on the Word of God being integrated into all of life means that it also influences our school day–just not in the graded-Bible-curriculum sort of way.

We read church history: Little Lights Biographies (for very young children, from a Christian seller), Christian Biographies for Young Readers (from a Christian seller), and Trial and Triumph (from a Christian seller).

We read aloud some theological books for children: A Faith to Grow On, Sammy and His Shepherd, The Attributes of God for Kids (from a Christian seller), and The Ology (from a Christian seller). As the kids grow older, their school reading list will include many Christian books that encourage them to walk with God and know Him more deeply.

We have listened and sung along with scriptures put to music: Hide ’em in Your Heart and Seeds Family Worship.

We have enjoyed singing many hymns in our Morning Time (currently singing along with this channel), and we have also enjoyed music by Sovereign Grace Kids (from a Christian seller). Even as adults, when we listen to music with lyrics, we generally choose music that is spiritually edifying. Our kids take this in as well.

The Scriptures inform the other books we choose–and how we read them–whether literature, tales, history, poetry, nature, etc.

The Scriptures make it into our kids’ copy work and dictation, too (that’s language arts).

Keeping It Real

We don’t do all of these things all the time. The most regular parts of our every day life are family Bible time, listening to hymns and other spiritual songs, family prayer, and good discussions on all kinds of things as we go about our days together. And these discussions aren’t just aimed at our kids. My husband and I discuss books, current events, and so many things with each other, seeking to apply God’s Word and His wisdom to everything we encounter. Our kids are audience to these adult conversations, too.

The aim is holistic, not check-list driven. And it is gloriously free from pressure to “get through it” on any kind of annual school schedule (thank God!).

The point of this post isn’t to say we’ve got it down, nor to set any kind of expectation for anyone else. The point is to demonstrate the many ways in which we can spiritually nurture and disciple our children–without boxed curriculum. And to remind all of us (myself included) that we may sow seeds, but the Lord causes the growth. Our dependence upon Him is central to our efforts at training up our children in the ways of the Lord.

All of the things we do have begun as small habits. A little here, a little there. If you are just starting to bring Scripture into your home and homeschool, don’t be discouraged or overwhelmed. Pick one thing. One habit that you and your children can enjoy. Plant a seed. And then another. Water where you can. The Lord causes the growth.

I hope this post has helped to somewhat answer the “What do you use for Bible curriculum?” question. It’s not a short answer, but I hope it may encourage some to think outside that proverbial box … of curriculum. 😉

How do you nurture your children in God’s Word? What resources have you found helpful?

Five Intentions for Christmas Break

19 Saturday Dec 2020

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Living Faith

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Tags

Advent, Christmas, Christmas Break, Christmas Bucket List, Intentional Living

Today marks the first day of Christmas Break for my family. My husband is off for the next two weeks (which has never happened before!), and the kids and I are off from school. Over breakfast we discussed what we want to do with our holiday time off—but the notes we took down didn’t turn out like your typical Christmas Break Bucket List…

My husband and I are both project-oriented people. We’ve been building mental to-do lists for the coming “break” for a couple of months. So our family’s little exercise could have easily turned into another one of mama and papa’s project lists—without much room for margin.

That’s why my husband had us start our breakfast planning session with more general intentions: How do we want the next two weeks to feel? Not just, what do we want to do, but how do we go about it? What atmosphere are we trying to achieve?

This turned out to be a great place to start, guiding our hearts before drawing up schedules.

christmas break bucket list five intentions

Here are our intentions for Christmas break in five words: Celebratory, Connected, Contemplative, Peaceful, Prepared.

Celebratory You would think that celebration ought to go without saying (and maybe that’s why it was the first word to come to mind!), but it’s easy to forget that a lot of our chores during this season have celebration as their goal. We want all our doing to be consistent with festivity, with celebration, with joy!

Connected The people God has put in our path are important. Family and friends near and far, neighbors, our local church—we want to strengthen these connections, sharing with them the joy of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Contemplative Amid the hustle and bustle, we want to take time to listen, read, learn, and consider. To think deeply, to pay attention. To share what we’re learning and thinking in a leisurely manner with one another.

Peaceful It’s good to be reminded that our break is not just an opportunity to get more work done! Even while we still want to tackle a few projects (especially between Christmas and New Year’s), we know we need to slow down. To rest. To be still. And to come at all our work and activities from a place of rest rather than rush.

Prepared We want to both enjoy the fruit of our labor (by being prepared for things in a timely manner) and enjoy the preparing process itself. We can enjoy the process if we remember that our preparations—of food, cards, gifts, etc—enable us to better celebrate and connect with others. And taking the time to calm our hearts, by contemplating the meaning of Christmas, we can more meaningfully engage in the work—even when it seems tedious or overwhelming. Making room for rest is as much a part of our preparation as all of the physical logistics.

It’s been fun to rethink our to-do list in light of these intentions! Making Christmas cookies and taking them to friends becomes an opportunity to connect, to share in celebration, to provide scripture on a card for contemplation! Our meeting over breakfast this morning was an important part of preparation for the coming weeks, so that we could set our hearts and then plan our days accordingly. Our Advent devotional listening to Handel’s Messiah invites us to contemplate the life of Christ as we sip eggnog together on the couch (connection). The kids are preparing Christmas songs on the piano, and we’ve been memorizing Mary’s Magnificat, providing contemplative and celebratory riches to share with friends and family—some in person, and some virtually. Even activities like hiking and cleaning and reading and playing board games and finishing up a few random projects take on fresh new color when we consider how they work toward the intentions we have stated.

As we’ve thought over our list today, we’ve also realized that each of these intentions are a part of our devotion to Jesus during this season. We are celebrating the birth of Christ, seeking to stay connected to Him in prayer and in the Word, contemplating what it means for God to become man, thankful for the peace that comes because our sins are forgiven in Jesus. And we are preparing our hearts to welcome the new born King—as a reenactment of history but also as a foretaste of things to come. The King will come again, and we must be prepared to receive Him.

May every heart prepare Him room…

Merry Christmas!

What are your intentions for your holiday season? What kind of atmosphere are you aiming to cultivate?

Thanksgiving: A Holiday Made for Unsettling Times

24 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by Lauren Scott in Living Faith

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Tags

American History, Giving Thanks, Gratitude, History of Thanksgiving, Lincoln's Proclamation of Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving 2020, Thanksgiving History, Thanksgiving Holiday, The First Thanksgiving

We’re all familiar with the modern traditions surrounding Thanksgiving in America: parade, family, turkey, football, pumpkin pie, and …shopping like maniacs the following day.

We may even take a few moments to give thanks or remember that iconic feast shared by the Pilgrims and American Indians nearly 400 years ago.

But for most of us, our understanding of the holiday doesn’t go much deeper than that.

And now it’s ~~2020~~ ~~2021~~ 2022.

We’re living in a pandemic, watching tensions mount between different groups of Americans, and trying to see straight in the aftermath of a vicious and confusing presidential election. [As for 2022, we’re living in a post-pandemic, highly-inflated world and have just come out of yet another vitriolic-though-midterm election season.]

For some of us, this Thanksgiving may look like holidays-as-usual. We’ll gather with all the family, thankful for our health and thankful that our state hasn’t locked us down again.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

For others, we may begrudge the restrictions in place that cramp our traditions–or maybe we’ll voluntarily cancel trips and gatherings.

For still others, there’ll be at least one empty chair at the table. A chair that was warm just last week.

We Americans have some common experiences this year [and the past few years] in that we’re seeing history unfold before our eyes more than we usually care to.

In light of this, I’d like to share a peek into the past that I have found encouraging. Thanksgiving is indeed a holiday made for unsettling times. There are three key moments in Thanksgiving history that can help us to understand both the holiday and our place in the story today: the colonial period, the founding of our nation, and the Civil War.

Thanksgiving in the Colonial Period

The colonial period of American history involves a complex interplay of different people groups and different motivations. The Native Americans consisted of various different tribes and customs while the Europeans likewise were represented by explorers and settlers from Spain, France, England, and Holland.

There could be peace or war in any and all directions.

There could be prosperity or famine and plague.

There could be–and there was–kidnapping of Native American youth to be sold as slaves in Europe.

Against this tumultuous backdrop, the coming of the English Pilgrims and their warm and life-saving reception by Squanto and the Wampanoag Indians radiates hope for peace and provision in the midst of very uncertain times.

It’s also an incredible picture of forgiveness: Squanto was one of those youths stolen from his home and sold as a slave in Europe. He escaped to England and eventually made it home to find that his people had been wiped out by plague. What had been done to him was terribly wrong and deplorable. But in the process, he acquired the English language and faith in Christ.

What was the Pilgrim’s response to this incredible provision of practical help and a mediator with the native people? They set aside time to celebrate a harvest feast, giving thanks to God for His protection and provision–even after nearly half of their company had died in the previous year. Their neighbors, the Indians whom God had used to preserve them, joined them in the feast.

Giving Thanks for a New Nation

Let’s fast-forward 160 years to the first proclamation of a national “day of public thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789. The fledgling United States of America had won their independence from Britain just a few years earlier in 1783, the Constitution had just been peacefully ratified in 1787, and President George Washington, with a nudge from both houses of Congress, saw fit to give thanks.

Washington’s three-paragraph proclamation begins by recognizing “the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” He continues to summarize reasons for a day of thanksgiving and prayer before dedicating the remaining two paragraphs to 1) a call to thanksgiving and 2) a call to prayer. I highly recommend you take the time to read Washington’s address in its entirety here.

As you read, you’ll find an aim at uniting as a people around both thanksgiving and prayer. You might be surprised to find no reference to the pilgrims. And you might also be surprised to find that the call to prayer includes a call to plead for forgiveness:

…that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions…

There’s a lot more food for thought here than “pilgrims” and “family” and “football.”

Before we jump ahead in time, I think it’s important to recognize that the Pilgrims and George Washington alike were not perfect people, nor were they living in perfect times. The early days of our American republic set the stage for the drama that we’re about to discuss–by raising the standard of liberty while simultaneously failing to fully apply its ideals. While their blind spots are tragic (just as our own are today), they gave us the language with which we have continued to pursue liberty and justice for all throughout the following two centuries. To mock at their ideals and their giving of thanks is to cut ourselves off from the very things we ought to bring forward.

With that in mind, let’s look at the third moment of Thanksgiving history for our consideration today: the Civil War.

Thanks and Praise in the Midst of War

While Washington made the first presidential proclamation of thanksgiving, and while pockets of Americans (particularly in New England) celebrated a thanksgiving feast from year to year, President Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863 was the first in what would become a continuous string of thanksgiving proclamations by US presidents up until our times.

Sarah Josepha Hale, best known for writing “Mary had a Little Lamb,” had been writing to presidents for decades, pleading with them to create a national thanksgiving holiday; and for decades she was ignored. When she sent a letter to President Lincoln, however, she found a listening ear.

Within a week Lincoln issued the Proclamation of Thanksgiving–nine months after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and one month before delivering his Gettysburg Address–and smack in the middle of a war that would become a five-year scar on the face of American history.

Lincoln’s proclamation (actually written by his Secretary of State, William Seward), contains only one substantial paragraph, weaving back and forth between poetic consideration of blessings from “the ever watchful providence of Almighty God” and the context of “a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity.”

Of the blessings listed he declares: “They are all the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

Like Washington’s proclamation 74 years earlier, Lincoln’s call to thanksgiving and prayer is not without reference to sin. In fact, after inviting all Americans to unite for this purpose on the last Thursday of November, he continues:

…I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity [sic] and Union.

The Civil War saw more American casualties than all other wars combined up until the Vietnam War about a century later. The need to remember “widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers” was palpable.

And while there is always more than one motivation at play on either side of such a conflict, it is undeniable that the continued enslavement of Africans and black Americans played a central role. It’s not at all a stretch to read this cause into “our national perverseness and disobedience,” and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address makes this soberingly clear.

It would be nice to be able to tie this up with a pretty bow. To demonstrate that changed laws and a presidential proclamation of thanks, prayer, repentance, and a call to unity could indeed make all things right.

But Lincoln was shot. And his expressed desire for repentance and healing left unrealized.

And there’s no reason to believe that had Lincoln lived to serve his second term repentance and healing would have come any more easily. These kinds of changes start in hearts not heads of state.

Bringing it Home

So here we are now. Twenty-twenty (and ‘twenty-one…and ‘twenty-two) has been quite a year. But we aren’t alone in facing “unprecedented times.” These are the things history is made of.

I believe we can better find our place in that story if we remember where we’ve come from, if we remember that what is true and good is worth pursuing in any age, and if we repudiate the cynicism and resentment that work against these ends.

In a holiday season thrown off balance and stripped of some of its usual charm, may we look back to find our bearings and the traditions that are most important.

In the face of a pandemic and its associated isolation, may we remember “widows, orphans, mourners [and] sufferers.”

In a social climate rife with vitriol, may we “fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation.”

In the fierce clamor for control of the political sphere, may we seek the “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience” that comes from the work of God in the hearts of individuals who look to Providence more than presidents.

What human beings on this continent have needed in 1621 and 1789 and 1863 is the same as what we need today: hearts humble before God and man, hearts that are quick to repent of sin–in all its forms–and do what is necessary to truly love our neighbor. Our Thanksgiving holiday, both in history and today, is an invitation to practice that humility and cultivate that love.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sources to explore:

https://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving

https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-sources-2/article/thanksgiving-proclamation-of-1789/

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-proclaims-official-thanksgiving-holiday

https://www.history.com/news/abraham-lincoln-and-the-mother-of-thanksgiving

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/civil-war-casualties

[Real] Life After Instagram

28 Wednesday Oct 2020

Posted by Lauren Scott in Living Faith

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

delete instagram, quit instagram, social media, time management

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On August 22, 2020 I finally did it. I deleted my account. I had only been on Instagram for two or three years, but it was long enough to feel pretty at home there–and long enough to have spent considerable time wondering whether it was worth keeping up.

Here are my reasons for quitting–as well as my reflections after a full two months without the ‘gram.

Why I Quit Instagram

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with social media ever since my then-friend-now-husband convinced me to join Facebook back in 2006.

That love-hate relationship (with Facebook, not my husband) extended to Instagram a few years ago when I decided that it looked like a less-cluttered and possibly more fun platform–and that it might help drive traffic to my blog.

It was fun. And I enjoyed the people I met there. But over time I found the positives didn’t outweigh the negatives. Here’s what finally led me to walk away.

REASON #1: The InstaNature of the Beast (and the Guilt Cycle)

There’s something written into the name “Instagram” (and thus into the platform itself) that creates a sense of urgency where it doesn’t really belong.

Cute moment with the kids during school… Ooo…I should share this!

Hike in the mountains… Ooo…I should snap a photo!

The sense of urgency interrupts real life, but then real life interrupts my attempts to craft a cute caption. When the post is finally made, guilt swoops in, nagging at me for the time spent when I really should have been all-there with my kids or thoroughly enjoying God’s creation or maybe even writing an actual article.

But then the guilt that comes from real life’s call for my attention gets pushed around by the guilt that the platform itself creates. When “instant” is in the name (and the algorithm), it’s hard not to feel like you are somehow failing if you don’t update frequently.

The only way to break this crazy Guilt Cycle is to recognize that I don’t owe Instagram my content, nor do I really owe anyone (and especially not strangers) a near-daily peak into the life of my family. That’s really absurd when you think about it.

REASON #2: The Time-Sink

Even at times when I wasn’t posting very often (which, let’s face it, I was never a super-frequent poster to begin with), there was still the draw of the feed: cute pictures of parenting or homeschool moments, inspirational quotes, updates from some of my favorite people (because I followed real friends on IG, too), and give-aways for things I actually wanted (and which I won on more than one occasion).

These things are lovely, but while they might seem like benign encouragements in my day, they more often than not were the bait to keep me scrolling when I really needed encouragement to get up, do my duty, and love my people.

This past summer I installed the Freedom app, which I have found very helpful.

Putting your social media use on a time budget may just reveal that you don’t have time for it at all.

When I put reasonable restrictions on social media, it became abundantly clear that there simply wasn’t time for creating those cute posts that seemed so necessary. Even when I tried a post-scheduling app, I simply I couldn’t keep up.

All I was left with was that oh-so-addictive scrolling. And it began to feel more and more empty, more and more like stealing time away from what really mattered, even as I had given myself less opportunity for it. My moments of Freedom opened my eyes to the fact that my life off-screen was very, very full. You might say that Instagram wasn’t helping my real-life bottom line, which leads me to the next point…

REASON #3: Low Return on Investment

My real-life bottom line wasn’t the only one that failed to see great returns. While I did manage to stir up a little more interest in my blog, it wasn’t worth the time nor content invested. I enjoyed being able to share things on Instagram, and I’m happy that people could enjoy what I shared there, but it was a drain on my actual writing goals–goals that are more important than traffic, likes, or “social media presence.”

All that said, my initial goal of driving traffic to my blog didn’t actualize in any significant way (it just meant more sharing work surrounding each new blog post). And in the past year, I’ve discovered that a timeless and well-written post that people are searching for is my single best draw for new traffic. I’ve always preferred the “just write and let them come” thing, and now I’m beginning to see how that can work–without Instagram.

REASON #4: A Healthy Dose of Positive Peer Pressure

The three reasons listed above were not the only ones nagging at me. My love-hate relationship with Instagram included a few more considerations and questions that I hadn’t fully enumerated before. Enter Mystie Winckler, whose blog I’ve been following for a number of years and whose voice and thought process I highly respect. I was actually trying to convince myself that I could take this “Instagram thing” up a notch–make it work, post more content–when Mystie announced she would be deleting her account and gave her reasons in this article. Having some of those nagging concerns listed out in front of me helped me see that I really didn’t want to work things out with Instagram!

I posted my “resignation,” if you will, a few days later.

The Results: Goodbye, Instagram; Hello, Freedom

So, how’s life on the other side? Well, it’s life. Real life. And a whole lot of it.

Getting off of Instagram (and making good use of that Freedom app) has made me so much more aware of how buried I am in projects around the house. 😂 And doesn’t that make sense? Don’t we often look to social media as an escape from what we have to do? From the overwhelm that hits when we consider just how much there is to do–and the guilt that has piled up from the last several instances of escapism?

With social media and even email under tight regulations thanks to the Freedom app, I can begin to see the mess much more clearly. And yes, on one level that is frustrating. But it’s also liberating. I’m making huge gains in home and life management: chipping away at goals surrounding our school booklist, finances, painting/remodeling projects, fitness, being “all there” during school time with my kids, more readily reaching for a book, more readily allowing prayer to fill the natural pauses in my day. And doing so without any impulse to capture it for the world to see, which I find allows me to enjoy these things–and not just the images of them–far more.

I’m also free to enjoy our homeschool without images of someone else’s pretty school room making me sigh over the scratched up kitchen table and 34-year-old linoleum floors that greet us every morning.

You think these things–all the perfect images–don’t get to you. But they do… Until you decide to ignore them.

And that is when you begin to really appreciate the beauty of the people God has given you and the places and things–even the worn-out, unphotogenic things–He’s graciously provided.

I’m still planning on replacing that floor, though.

As for the blog, well, while I have never gotten high amounts of traffic, I’m getting better traffic than ever, even when I haven’t posted for a whole month. That increase in traffic is coming from search engines, not social media–even though when I initially publish a post my greatest source of traffic comes from sharing it on Facebook. Turns out my real-life friends are far more likely to read what I write than strangers on Instagram. I think that’s the best I could hope for–knowing that what I write blesses the people I know is way better than increasing numbers among people I don’t know.

I only wish I could say that I’m writing and publishing more frequently, but I think that will come in time. For now I’m taking care of business around the house and for my family (which will continue to be my top priority by a long shot, even as I hope to up my writing output).

The Verdict

While I understand that some people favor Instagram over other platforms and can use it to reach their goals, I have found that I absolutely do not miss or need Instagram in my life.

It’s also true, however, that a distracted mind will find distraction without Instagram’s help. And that’s why I can’t say that all of my results come from simply dropping the ‘gram–deleting my account along with the Freedom app’s ability to schedule blocks on any other online distractions or apps has been a knock-out punch. I highly recommend you look into Freedom or another such tool. I’ve found it an invaluable piece of the puzzle.

Whatever you choose to do to manage the social media and internet beast, let me leave you with this encouragement:

Rightly ordered living is, well, rightly ordered living. And no amount of pretty pictures or affirmation in the form of likes on Instagram can make up for the lack of it.

Homemaking in 2020 [and 2021!]: Sticking to Calling in a Year of Crisis

01 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Living Faith

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Tags

Atmosphere, Attitudes, Home and Family, Homemaking, motherhood, worry

“How’s 2020 been treating you?” It’s a fairly normal question in a normal year. But this year it gets thrown around accompanied by a sinking feeling or an incredulous laugh or the quoting of a meme or two.

Some of us have faced down the loss of a loved one. Some, the loss of a job. Some have found themselves with lots of free time on their hands. Some have found themselves with a call to long hours and high stakes. And some (especially those of us whose work is at home already) have found themselves worried about all these things while simultaneously experiencing “life as usual”—only a little too usual since outside-of-the-home, in-person social interaction has been sadly lacking.

As a homeschooling homemaker married to a man who works from home most days anyway, I have found myself in that “life as usual” category, wondering at times if it’s even right for me to go about my normal routine around here while there is so much wrong in the world out there.

There’s a kind of anxiety that comes from knowing about tragedy and feeling like you can do nothing about it.

So what’s a homemaker to do?

We may be tempted to think that our ordinary work at home matters less because there is so much apparent work to be done in the world beyond our door. But our role as a homemaker is no less important in times of crisis. In fact, unless we are obviously given a public-facing assignment, I contend that our work at home matters even more.

Just because the needs out there become more apparent doesn’t mean that the needs right here have gone away. We all feel the upheaval and uncertainty of our times. And while children may appear to be carefree most of the time, they feel it, too—especially as it effects their parents.

Before I spend too many words on the subject, take a look at this cover art for Blink, an album about motherhood by the Christian musician known as Plumb (Tiffany Arbuckle-Lee).

motherhood storm homemaking crisis 2020 blink plumb

I love the imagery and what it speaks about the role of mothers. Amid the storm, there’s a shelter, there’s light, there’s a smile, there’s wonder, and there’s both space and provision for beautiful things to grow.

Whatever age our children, or whether we have children at home at all, I think this image can be inspiring in our homemaking as well.

We do well to fight the darkness by turning on the light. Not by brooding. Not by worrying. Not by endlessly researching the latest hot-button issue on the internet.

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to [her] life span?” our Lord asks. We might also ask if our worry adds to anyone else’s life either.

This isn’t to dismiss or ignore the real challenges facing our world today, nor is it a call to ignore the needs in our communities that we are capable of meeting, but it is to say there is an appropriate way to deal with all these things–and especially the ones that are beyond our reach.

“Cast all your anxiety on [Jesus] because He cares for you.”

The home that our loved ones experience is made up of both our internal attitudes and our practical service. We would do well to look after both—and to see that they often rise and fall together.

Ladies, if we aren’t taking things before the Lord then we’re choosing to bear them ourselves, choosing to be weighed down with cares that He doesn’t intend for us to carry, cares that keep us from joyful service in our homes. And how will we teach children to cast their cares on Jesus if we don’t practice it ourselves? Will we even see that they have cares that need our guidance and prayers?

And this is where I admit that I know these things because I fall prey to them myself. Even personality types that are supposedly led on by facts and logic and reasoning rather than emotions can find themselves in the endless scroll, the incessant trying-to-fix-it—both of which amount to a worrisome attempt to control circumstances that are beyond our control while ignoring our God-given responsibilities and the people we’re most explicitly called to love.

So if we repent of our worry, if we leave it behind and resolve to trust the Lord, what then are the needs in our home?

And here’s where our attitudes and service really rise and fall together. When we’re worried about so many things, we can’t see what’s right in front of us. So the first step in moving forward is to begin to really see our homes and really see the people in them.

That Proverbs 31 woman “looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.”

The answer is simple, even if not easy: What we really need is to pay attention and do what we know we ought to do with diligence.

There are a few practical ways this has worked itself out in our family. It’s still a battle to choose joy and to actively resist the temptation to despair, to refuse to bring anxiety about the world into our home environment rather than casting that anxiety on Jesus. But here’s where we have chosen to draw some lines and plant some seeds in our family.

Of course there are the usual chores: keeping the home running and clean, keeping a watch on the budget and food, keeping up with other home projects.

We’ve also committed to sticking to our schedule more than we have in the past. The routine is good for all of us.

We’ve kept up our family bible time. We all need God’s word, all the time.

We’ve focused on our garden. We’ve made space, planted things, and watched them grow. Vegetables, yes. But also flowers. Lots of flowers. Those proverbial roses don’t have to stay proverbial. It’s good to literally stop to smell them, too.

Making space for fun and creativity and good conversation.

Getting outside to enjoy God’s creation and take in visible, tangible signs of beauty and hope. Creation is full of parables.

I took a two-week break from social media to clear my head and my focus. I thoroughly enjoyed it (and I think my family did, too).

We’ve painted as a family. Gone on walks. Read aloud. Caught caterpillars and watched them turn to beautiful butterflies.

We’ve tried to make special days and holidays all-the-more special, not allowing quarantine to keep us from celebrating as a family, from marking times and seasons with thankfulness to God.

Not all of these things are always easy, but they have been good. And this isn’t some checklist or quarantine bucket list. It’s just an encouragement that the ordinary things you do for your home and with your people matter.

And they matter even more in times that are anything but ordinary.

homemaking 2020 crisis ordinary

Fight the good fight to do this work rather than neglect it. And most of all, seek the Lord and see your people. Ask God to help you look into the faces of your family members with love and joy and interest. And ask Him to give you wisdom to know what each one needs.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

When the darkness out there seems to close in all around us, when our hearts are troubled, when we’re cut off from regular fellowship, the tone we choose to set for our homes matters immensely.

I’ll sign off with a few words I shared in an email exchange with another mommy-friend:

Yes, the world is a pretty crazy place. … I’ve wanted to do more to help people during this time, but something to remember is that providing a fun, godly, and secure home for children is foundational to civilization. Your and my role in that cannot be overstated. Sometimes I feel like I’m not really doing anything if I’m not somehow being active or being heard ‘out there.’ But what I’m really called to is to be gladly at work and speaking truth and kindness right here. At home. Making a home. A haven in all the crazy. That is kingdom-building and soul-liberating work.

Soli Deo gloria.

Now to get to that pile of laundry…

Me, Myself, and Martha

31 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home and Family, Living Faith

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I used to think I was more a Mary than a Martha.

About twelve years ago, sitting in a ladies bible study, I listened as the godly older women around the table sighed over how much they saw themselves in Martha. Martha, the one anxiously doing the serving and complaining rather than sitting expectantly at the feet of Jesus like her sister Mary (see Luke 10:38-42).

My newly-married-without-children self chimed in, “I think I’m more of a Mary, actually–I love sitting with the Word, listening to sermons…but sometimes maybe to a fault. I’m maybe a little bit lazy.”

I’m sure the older, wiser ladies at the table couldn’t help but chuckle or gasp inwardly at my inexperience. To their credit, they did a good job of smiling and nodding rather than lashing out, “Yes! You are lazy! Just wait until you have kids! You have no idea!” These were gracious women.

Johannes Vermeer: Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, Public Domain

In recent years, I’ve come to see that my preference for quiet and contemplation is just that–a preference. A personality trait, if you will. It’s easy to imagine it’s a spiritual virtue in and of itself, but the Lord is calling my bluff. And I’m recognizing, along with those lovely ladies from twelve years ago, just how much I relate to dear Martha.

There’s a separation, a disconnect, between my still-and-quiet time and my active-doing time. I’ll read the bible in the morning in perfect peace and within five minutes of stepping into the kitchen, I’m barking grouchy reprimands, put off by the fact that my kids need to be reminded, once again, to wash their hands before setting the table. Can’t you help me out with the serving by doing the obvious?

Lord, can’t you tell my children to make my life easier?

Jesus speaks to me as He spoke to Martha, “Lauren, Lauren, you are worried and troubled by so many things.”

That’s not to say that my children were choosing “the better part” in that moment, but it is to say that I sure wasn’t.

I can put the stresses of our days out of mind for a little while when I have my coffee and a quiet room all to myself. But if I’m honest, that’s not a trusting, “Mary” heart. That’s just getting what I want: the pleasure of quiet, comfortable spirituality.

I think I have the “Mary thing” going, but really I’m a “Martha” who is only at peace or at rest when she’s getting the help she thinks she’s due and the quiet atmosphere she thinks is necessary for spiritual things to take place.

As Rachel Jankovic says in Loving the Little Years, life at home with kids is life in a rock tumbler–we’re always bumping up against each other. How we respond to all the bumps and bruises and duties of everyday life tells a lot more about our maturity and spirituality than some bible-and-mocha time does.

What happens to “Mary” when I do have to roll up my sleeves and feed the boys who are bouncing around my kitchen like pin balls? Where does she go when it’s time to wash the dishes? It’s as though she flies away, back to that quiet corner where I left my bible. “Mary” doesn’t seem to come with me when it’s time to get things done. It’s like I’m “Mary” for 30 minutes out of my day, and “Martha” for the rest.

My selfishness and desire for the ideal and comfortable spiritual experience, especially when I imagine that such an experience is somehow a “Mary thing”, actually leads to a lot of the resentment and laziness that underlies the worry, irritation, and grumblesome “service” of my not-so-quiet times.

Seeing myself as a spiritual “Mary”, I peer through dagger eyes of self-righteousness at any who would dare disturb my supposed inner peace. And even the daily work to which I’m called becomes an affront to my desire for “better” things.

When the pendulum swings and procrastination finally gives way to panic, “Martha” comes out in full force, barking commands and working feverishly–anxiously, resentfully–to catch up on the work that “Mary” let slide. Self-righteousness turns to self-loathing and guilt. The work to be done becomes oppressive, and so do I.

There is, of course, no “Mary” to be found in the whole scenario. The very thing that I imagined made me a “Mary” fuels the “Martha” reality of my waking hours.

Mary’s heart was capable of resting, of listening to Jesus, even in what was probably a crowded and busy environment, an environment that clearly caused anxiety for Martha.

Martha’s problem wasn’t in her serving but in her heart.

Same environment, two different responses.

One sat in tender dependence, focused on the Son of God who loved her; the other served with furrowed brow, focused on what she wanted but wasn’t getting.

One demonstrated a heart capable of resting whether seated or serving; the other couldn’t have rested at the moment even if she had suddenly decided to plop down next to her sister.

O that we would have our eyes so fixed on Jesus that our rest in Him would permeate not just our devotional time but also every act of service.

O Lord, you loved both Martha and Mary. Your rebuke was gentle and revealed the storm inside Martha. Thank You for revealing, at least a little more today, the storm inside of me. Forgive me for trying to control so much, for fidgeting and fighting through my days rather than sitting with You in them–and with the people You’ve given me. Please continue to expose and calm the storm in my heart. And teach me to rest in You and know Your love even in the midst of daily chores and service and failures and disappointments.

It’s a mercy of the Lord when we begin to see our hearts more clearly. It’s painful, to be sure, but it’s also an invitation to repent and reaffirm the gospel of grace. Jesus deals gently with us because He already paid the penalty for our sin on the cross.

The ladies at my bible study twelve years ago knew this far better than I did at the time, and so they dealt with my naivete quite gently, too.

When the Lord exposes our self-deception and reveals our sin in places where we thought we were doing well, it’s an invitation to know not just the depth of our sin, but also, so much more, the depth of His love.

May we rest in grace. And from that place of rest, may our daily work be a labor in love–a kind of serving that sits at the feet of Jesus.

Godly Homeschool Planning

02 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by Lauren Scott in Home Education, Living Faith

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back to school, faith, Godliness, Gospel-Grounded Godliness, Home Education, Homeschool Planning, Planning, Relationships, ungodliness

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It’s planning season for many homeschool moms, myself included. While there are a lot of wonderful practical posts and resources out there to help with dreaming and scheming for the coming school year (and a couple excellent resources I’ll recommend at the end of this article), it’s easy to get focused on the logistical side of things and forget that even the most perfect planning system can fall short if it’s not humbly oriented toward the Lord.

Godly planning, of course, requires more than considering our children and taking stock of our resources. It requires considering our Creator and taking stock of our hearts.

That’s the essence of godliness–being mindful of God and aligning our hearts and lives to Him, for His glory.

But how do we do that? How are we to be godly as we plan for the future?

Let’s dive in by first looking a little more closely at our definitions and purpose. Why before How (I promise the How is coming!).

Why: Two Kinds of Righteousness

It’s important to remember the difference between godliness and righteousness and how these terms apply to our planning process. Godliness is a life-altering devotion to God. Consider these words from Christian author Jerry Bridges:

For the godly person, God is the center and focal point of his or her life. Every circumstance and every activity of life, whether in the temporal or spiritual realms, is viewed through the lens of this God-centeredness. …Everything we do is to be done to the glory of God. That is the mark of a godly person.

Righteousness means justice, or more simply doing what is right. It’s a good, noble, and necessary goal. But there also exists this thing called self–righteousness, which ought to soberly remind us that the motivation for our right actions, or our right plans, makes a big difference. Godliness ought to be the source of that motivation.

When we Christian homeschool moms make plans for school, we’re often aiming for righteousness. Often motivated by convictions about what is right–both before the Lord and for our families. This is good.

But if we pursue that righteousness as an end in itself, we can easily begin to operate solely in the practical outworking of our convictions, forgetting why we came to them in the first place. We risk swapping God-centeredness for work-centeredness, which can easily become a kind of self-centeredness.

My children. My plans. My time. My results. My reputation. My … glory.

It was supposed to be about God’s reputation. His glory. But righteousness without godliness becomes self-righteousness.

Let’s say that again: Righteousness without godliness becomes self-righteousness.

Planning without God-centeredness becomes self-centeredness. If we’ve gone down that path we know we need to repent, turn around, turn to God.

Jerry Bridges continues:

…Such a God-centeredness can be developed only in the context of an ever-growing intimate relationship with God. No one can genuinely desire to please God or glorify Him apart from such a relationship.

The first “step,” if you will, in godly planning is being in right relationship to God and growing in God-centeredness. If you know Jesus as your Savior, you know the gospel or “good news” of what Jesus has done to save you from sin is what puts you in right relationship with God. Keep coming back to that. Rest in that. Rest in grace. If you’re not really sure what all of that is about, please check out this simple and straightforward presentation here.

To sum up our WHY, we must be oriented toward God in our planning if we are to truly honor Him. The best-laid plans can either be tools for God’s glory or temptation toward our own. Keeping our hearts in check is essential to maintaining the good intentions of our convictions.

How: Looking Up and Following Through

At the risk of creating yet another checklist, here are five “steps” from my own reading and study to encourage you in godly planning–whether you’re just scratching down the first details or are about to tie it up with a pretty bow (or custom cover).

When Planning, Look Up:

ONE: Trust God’s goodness.

It’s difficult to align your priorities with someone you don’t trust. Now, we probably don’t wake up and say, “God isn’t good, I’m not going to trust Him today.” But we may find ourselves forgetting God is good, which can land us in one of two ditches along the path of godly planning: self-sufficient overconfidence and anxious worry. The remedy for each is to remember God’s goodness is still there and look up.

The weight of our responsibility as moms and educators can overwhelm us. Real challenges may weigh on us. We think we’ve got to shoulder it ourselves, and we don’t feel up to the task. Enter anxious worry.

The lure of shiny curriculum can distract us with exaggerated promises. The act of making plans can make us feel like we’re in control. Like we have some power over the future. Like we have this thing whipped before we start. Enter self-sufficient overconfidence.

We can even find ourselves hopping from one ditch to the other in the midst of the same planning season. Anxiously despairing of our situation turns to confident expectation that these new plans or new curricula will solve all of our problems. When things don’t go according to plan, we jump ditches again.

Without a good and sovereign God in view, we tend to celebrate our sense of control or else mourn the lack of the same. Looking to ourselves, we’re unstable, swinging from one ditch to the other at the whim of our circumstances or emotions as they waver from day to day or season to season.

But keeping the faith by remembering the goodness of God will steady us for the long haul.

The book of James has a surprising amount of continuity when it comes to the goodness of God. Look at this line up from chapter one:

We are to “count it all joy” when we face trials. They test our faith, but they’re also for our growth and endurance. This is the good that God intends in the trials He allows.

We are to ask for wisdom in faith that God “gives to all generously and without reproach.” God is a generous giver. He isn’t stingy with what He knows we need. He’s good.

There is a crown of life for those who persevere under trial–God has promised reward to those who love Him. He’s good.

We’re to recognize that temptation springs from within us–not from God. He doesn’t tempt anyone. In fact, every good thing given comes from Him. He’s good.

The anger of mom doesn’t achieve the righteousness of God–His ways are better. He’s good.

Behind James’ every call to repent and endure is a deep confidence in the goodness of God. Let’s make our plans with that same confidence, climbing out of the pitfalls of overconfidence and anxious worry to stand on solid ground.

He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in His arms
and carries them close to His heart;
He gently leads those that have young. [1]

Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust. [2]

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord. [3]

When we see that God is good, we’ll want to seek His wisdom and aim for His glory…

TWO: Seek God’s wisdom.

Many homeschool parents recognize that education ought to be more than filling our kids’ minds with information. We want them to know how to properly sift through and apply information, whether in an academic setting or real life. What we really want for our kids is wisdom. And we’re bold enough to think that we can give it to them. But this is a tall order. Anyone who’s been at this parenting gig for a little while knows that children push the limits of what we thought we knew.

If we desire to raise silly kids into wise adults, we need to model the wisdom we wish to pass on. We need the wisdom of God.

If we are to wade through the sea of educational advice and resources available to us today and choose what fits our family and convictions without being “driven and tossed by every wave,” we must practice discernment. We need the wisdom of God.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so we ought to start there. In simple terms, the fear of the Lord is being mindful of God as He is in all His attributes and responding to Him with appropriate fear, awe, wonder, and respect.

The practical fallout of such a disposition toward God is to recognize that this wise, good, and powerful God has ordered the cosmos such that there are consequences for our actions. Orderliness and cause-and-effect relationships are woven into the fabric of the universe. There is purpose, there is reason, there is beauty, and there is Truth by which we ought to live our lives. Failing to live in accord with this Truth brings on the one hand hard knocks in this life and on the other judgment in the life to come.

Remembering that godliness is being God-centered in our thoughts and deeds, it’s clear that the fear of the Lord, and the wisdom derived from it, is an indispensable part of a godly life.

But we’ve got to bring this lofty pursuit of wisdom down to desk-level, don’t we? How does this touch my planning pages and curriculum guides?

Wisdom involves putting things in their proper place, in their proper order–differentiating between the things that are truly important and those that are enticing red herrings.

God has revealed to us in His word what is right and good in His eyes. What does He have to say about children? About discipleship? About marriage and family life? If you’re a wife and mother, there’s pretty clear instruction to consider your husband, your children, and your home in this process.

It’s easy to think that our children and our selves are the only people involved in this education thing. But be careful not to cut your husband out of it. Biblically, he’s accountable for the training of his children. Make room for him, see what he thinks–you may find a great source of wisdom (or at least a sounding board) and freedom from all the voices on the internet that make you feel like you aren’t keeping up.

The scriptures don’t spell out a particular method of education, nor do they prescribe any kind of schedule. But they do give us principles, goals, and boundaries upon and within which we can order our homeschools in freedom. We don’t have to all choose the same method or materials, but we do need to make sure that the ones we choose (and how we plan to use them) are informed and perhaps even transformed by scripture.

To circle back around to James, if we need wisdom, we’ve got to ask. God is good. He will give it as we trust and seek Him for it.

THREE: Aim for God’s glory.

Trusting God’s goodness is good. Seeking His wisdom is, well, wise. But even in these we may think the purpose of God’s goodness and wisdom is all for us–to make us feel better and to smooth out our lives. It certainly can do those things, but the trajectory isn’t inward on self. Rather, the goodness of God and the wisdom we employ ought to show that He is good and wise and glorious. Aiming for our own comfort and saintliness as an end in itself means we’re exchanging the glory of God for our own.

Likewise, in our planning and in our homeschools, we do well to recognize that we’re not raising children to be trophies of our success but arrows for the kingdom of God.

We know we want to be that city on a hill, the light of the world. And sometimes we make plans that are so idealistic it’s as though we think that the way to glorify God is to have perfect Ivy League children, a spotlessly clean house, and gourmet meals on the table each night. Wouldn’t that be shiny?

But when we come down from our ivory tower with our plans, we find that we can never reach that goal. The kids … aren’t perfect. Who knew? The house … is just mostly maintained. The meals … well, somehow we eat each day.

Maybe the purpose of God is not to get glory from self-satisfied creatures. Maybe what really glorifies God is not a family that looks like it has everything put together, but a family that gives thanks and praise to God as they seek to honor Him in all the ups and downs of ordinary life.

Maybe we need to adjust our aim.

As we realistically work out the details of our year, our months, our days, seeking to choose books and activities that honor God and fit our family, we’d do well to build on our trust in God’s goodness with thanks and praise, glorifying God with heart and voice.

Thank you, Father, for the people you’ve put in my charge. Thank you for the home you’ve given us. Thank you for the opportunity I have to be intimately involved in the growth and learning of my children. Thank you for the abundant resources I have at my disposal. Thank you for your Word and Spirit to guide me.

You are a Good Father, a wise Creator. You’ve made me and those around me in your image and for your praise. You’ve infused the world with order and beauty for us to enjoy and explore and discover. You are good and do good. You establish justice and You are the definition of love and righteousness. You supply our needs and give grace unmeasured. You are bigger than I can imagine, and yet you care for little ol’ me. You have given your Son for my salvation. You are good and gracious and kind.

A godly heart recognizes God is worthy of thanks and praise in the midst of a serious planning session. But it also carries those things forward. Here’s where our WHY rolls up its sleeves and meets the mess of life. Godliness greatly effects not just HOW we make our plans, but also HOW we hold and execute them.

Plans in Place, Mind Your Follow Through:

FOUR: Hold those plans loosely and humbly.

“If the Lord wills we will live and also do this or that.” James reminds his readers in chapter four that our confidence doesn’t need to be in what we think we can make happen in the future. Our confidence ought to be rooted in … wait for it … the goodness and sovereignty of God.

“God is good” and “God is in control” can almost seem cliche in modern meme-saturated church culture. But that’s only the case if we don’t stop long enough to actually consider these truths. If we’re not meditating on the goodness, wisdom, and glory of God, knowing that His plans trump all and that His plans are, indeed, better than our own, we will struggle miserably when things don’t go our way.

We’ll likely struggle anyway, to be honest, but we can only struggle well if we have a godly perspective.

When it comes to the plans in our hands, we need to do more than look at what’s slated on the calendar. We need to number our days “…so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Our plans may be ideal, even godly, but our expectations must also be in line with reality.

James calls our over-confident planning “arrogance” and insists “you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

Those words might not make us feel good. But we have a choice. We can either take such conviction as a downer and ignore it, continuing to allow the clouds of emotion and pride to obstruct our view, or we can take it as the wind that blows them away so that we can see clearly.

If we see God ruling for our good and His glory, we can more easily clear the air, relax our fists, and halt our grasping for control. Once we take a deep breath and accept reality, we begin to actually rejoice that God is in control and we’re not. A truth that didn’t feel good at first can become one of our greatest comforts.

Remembering we are faulty and finite puts us in a position to move forward with humility and good humor.

Imagine your life is a folk dance. The fiddle begins to sing. And you begin dragging your loved ones across the floor, steamrolling them if they get in the way of your carefully choreographed moves, and grumbling when one trips or steps on your toes. This is a likely enough outcome if you imagine yourself as the caller. As though they’re all supposed to keep in step with you.

But God’s the Caller and you’re just another one of the dancers. A dancer who steps out of line sometimes. A dancer who has little feet following behind her own.

You know a lot more of the moves than your kids. You’ve practiced them longer. You’ve even made plans to optimize the effectiveness and enjoyment of the dance. But when the Caller changes the pace, you’ve got to follow. Insisting on your own way will only make a scene and get someone hurt.

Imagine the same scene with a humble heart:

When a little one gets their right and left foot mixed up, you remember what it’s like to miss a step and help them set it straight–but you do it with a laugh and a nudge to get back up, listen for the Caller, and enjoy the dance.

The freedom to enjoy the dance, to adapt to each change in the music, comes when we hold our plans loosely and humbly–because we trust in God’s goodness and know that He’s in control.

FIVE: Execute those plans with kindness and gentleness, by God’s grace.

Holding our plans loosely doesn’t mean we never look at them or try to make them work, and it sure doesn’t mean it’s cool to be lazy or haphazard. Putting our plans into action requires intention and consistency. But as we march forward, plans in hand, we seek to implement them in line with the fruit of the Spirit and in light of the fact that our priorities as homeschool moms are ultimately relational and not mechanical in nature.

When I think of not just the planning but the managing of our days, one of my favorite places to find inspiration is that often-resented Proverbs 31 woman:

Strength and dignity are her clothing,
And she smiles at the future.
She opens her mouth in wisdom,
And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.

Here’s a strong woman who wears a smile, pays attention, and gets things done. But those two lines in the middle point to something more. Her joyful hustle and bustle to the tune of productivity isn’t off in some corner where she can enjoy the solace of personal achievement free from smudgy fingers and untimely interruptions. Nope. There are other people in her household, and her words to them are marked by wisdom and kindness.

Ooph. Does that knock the wind out of you, too?

Our buddy James echoes this Proverbial link between wisdom and kindness–and he introduces it with a surprising warning: “Let not many of you become teachers…”

Woah, wait. Too late. We’re teachers.

Ah, but that means we ought to pay even closer attention to what he has to say:

With [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

…Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

Show? Deeds? …Gentleness? Where’s the dispensing of wisdom with many words and lectures? James doesn’t seem to mention that. It would seem true wisdom is clothed in our friend from the last section: humility.

The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

Tall. Order. Sounds an awful lot like the fruit of the Spirit, doesn’t it?

Is our teaching characterized by kindness? Do we pause our reactions and consider how to answer with the gentleness of wisdom, according to the need of the moment, to give grace to those who hear (Eph. 4:29)?

Does our kind intention toward our children permeate not just our lesson plans but also everyday ordinary moments?

The two greatest commandments are to love God and love others. If we’re at home with our families most of the time, it’s pretty obvious who those “others” are. Maybe that’s why Titus two urges older women first of all to encourage the younger women “to love their husbands, to love their children.”

We ought to plan to love our own but still love them even when those well-meant plans are foiled.

I don’t know about you, but I need some help in this department.

This is why we sought God’s wisdom to begin with, and why we won’t be done with that practice anytime soon.

To act on our plans in keeping with the rule of love, we need the fruit of the Spirit. We need kindness. We need the gentleness of wisdom. And for it all we need the grace of God.

If that doesn’t motivate your prayer life I don’t know what will.

Apply: Condense, Remember, and Be Ready to Troubleshoot

Let’s condense the big ideas we’ve covered so that we can remember them in real-life situations. We said at the outset that godliness means being mindful of God and aligning our hearts and lives to Him, for His glory. In keeping with that, I’ve outlined five steps or concepts:

Trust God’s Goodness
Seek God’s Wisdom
Aim for God’s Glory
Hold Plans Loosely and Humbly
Execute Plans with Kindness and Gentleness, by the Grace of God

The first three big ideas involve “looking up”—-there’s our being mindful of God. And the last two apply to our “follow through”—-aligning our hearts and lives.

As a memory aid or perhaps a motto: We can be mindful of God in our planning by trusting God’s goodness, seeking God’s wisdom, and aiming for God’s glory. An easy way to keep these in order is to recognize that they (intentionally) correspond to a very familiar and very relevant passage (Prov. 3:5-6):

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.

To remember the specific outworking of the last two steps, imagine you have all your plans on a clipboard (or a smartphone or tablet if you’re techie like that).
What are you doing with them? You’re holding them.
What are you doing when you take a step forward and give marching orders to your minions? You’re executing them (the plans, not the minions, mind you).
If you can visualize holding the clipboard and marching forward with it, all you need to do is ask how?
How do we hold our plans? Loosely and humbly.
How do we execute those plans? With kindness, gentleness, and grace.

And so we have another motto: We can align our hearts and lives for God’s glory as we hold our plans loosely and humbly and execute them with kindness and gentleness, by His grace.

That may seem repetitive, but it’s how I’ve been able to use these ideas to keep my heart in check (or reel it back in) this planning season. I hope it’ll help you, too.

Mamas, we can make the loveliest plans, but when lessons don’t come easily, chaos ensues, or the February blues strike, those plans aren’t what will make us godly. Our focus and response to those things will be the determining factor.

Watch over your heart with all diligence as you plan, and watch over it with all diligence as you move forward (Prov. 4:23). So that whether your plans roll out smoothly or blow up in your face, you maintain the disposition of a sinner saved by grace, of a daughter looking expectantly and dependently to her Heavenly Father, giving thanks and praise to Him.

I’m praying toward that end. May He give us grace to do it.

Recommended Resources

If this article has resonated with you and you’d like to dig deeper into how heart attitudes intersect with everyday life as a homeschool mom, I highly recommend The Art of Homeschooling e-course (accessible through Simply Convivial Membership).

If you’re still chomping at the bit for very practical help with school planning, check out Plan Your Year–I’ve used this process for several years now. Plan Your Year provides a step-by-step guide so that you can take these godly-big-picture why’s and how’s and translate them into the particular-day-to-day why’s and how’s of your unique family situation.

This article was inspired by my study of the book of James and by reading Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges. I heartily recommend both books. 😉

See more articles on this topic:
The Love Chapter for Homeschool Mamas
Wisdom in the Book of James

Kept and Keeping

~ Rest in Grace, Labor in Love

Category Archives: Living Faith

Commonplace: Charlotte Mason on … Fad Diets???

Gardening: A Prescription for Perfectionists

How We Homeschool: Bible

Our Why: Created Reality and Biblical Goals

Our Why Dictates Our How: Holistic Family Discipleship

Family Bible Time (what some call Family Worship)

Other Applications and Resources

Keeping It Real

Five Intentions for Christmas Break

Thanksgiving: A Holiday Made for Unsettling Times

Thanksgiving in the Colonial Period

Giving Thanks for a New Nation

Thanks and Praise in the Midst of War

Bringing it Home

Homemaking in 2020 [and 2021!]: Sticking to Calling in a Year of Crisis

Me, Myself, and Martha

Godly Homeschool Planning

Why: Two Kinds of Righteousness

How: Looking Up and Following Through

When Planning, Look Up:

ONE: Trust God’s goodness.

TWO: Seek God’s wisdom.

THREE: Aim for God’s glory.

Plans in Place, Mind Your Follow Through:

FOUR: Hold those plans loosely and humbly.

FIVE: Execute those plans with kindness and gentleness, by God’s grace.

Apply: Condense, Remember, and Be Ready to Troubleshoot

Recommended Resources