Putting Sin to Death

Today's Sabbath School Lesson was about David, his sin with Bathsheba and his repentance. I have read and heard this story many times. Each time I come away with something different. David was supposed to be at battle, but instead he stayed home (his first mistake). While on his rooftop, he sees a beautiful woman and enquires about her. He is told exactly who the woman is and who her husband is (his way of escape-I Corinthians 10:13). He calls for the woman anyway and sleeps with her. She becomes pregnant so David calls for her husband to come home from war. This is his first attempt to cover up what he has done. He tried, unsuccesfully to get the man to sleep with his wife so he will think the baby is his. After this attempt fails, he resorts to murder. He brings the woman to his home, and marries her. He then goes on about his life as if nothing has happened until...

Nathan the prophet confronts David, but with wisdom and skill that only God could give he uses a parable to tell David of the wrong that he has done. David acknowledges that he has sinned against God and repents. God forgives David and cleanses him, but the baby that was conceived dies.

This time when I read this story, the death of the baby stood out to me. The word conceived stood out in my mind and God brought James 1:15 to my mind: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

This baby symbolized the sin brought forth from David's lust. Even though God forgave David, He had to separate him from the sin that had defiled him. I always found it interesting that David cried and cried until the baby died, but isn't that how it happens? We are caught up in the very thing that God doesn't want from us. He tells us that He is going to take it away and we are sorrowful. Perhaps it's a job we shouldn't have, maybe a relationship. It could be anything that separates us from God. But once that thing is gone and we realize that God has taken it away we can now move forward and walk in God's purpose for our life.

I myself have experience that pain of God putting my sin to death, but O the joy that comes in the morning when God has cleansed me and created my heart anew! What a beautiful lesson in how God separates us from sin, puts that sin to death, gives us a new heart and sets us on a new path, the path that lead to Him.

Stay faithful and I pray that I will see you at the end of the path.

Our Daily Schedule

A friend of mine asked me about our daily schedule and so I decided I would write a blog post about it.

We keep this schedule (or the routine of the schedule) 95% of the time. I have learned to be flexible and so we adapt when necessary.

6:00 am Mom's quiet time with God

7:00 am Children rise and complete morning routine, Mom's morning routine and breakfast prep

8:00 am Family Worship, Breakfast and Breakfast Clean-up

9:00 Morning walk or other exercise

10:00 School

12:30 Dinner Prep

1:00 Dinner, Kitchen Clean-Up, Afternoon house pick-up

2:00 Room Organization time (Because we are moving)

3:00 Quiet Time (Don't call my name and I won't call yours!) :-)

4:00 Craft Time (Knitting, Crocheting, sewing, etc...)

6:00 Supper or Light snack then cleanup

7:00 Family Worship

7:30 Bath Time, then Bed

A few notes about the schedule. I am not a schedule type of person. I have time restrictions and I really struggled to come up with one. The more time I spent with God, the more He impressed me to be accountable with my time and to teach my children to do the same.

In the morning the children must have their routine completed before coming to the breakfast table. Our philosophy is that the man who does not work, does not eat (II Thess 3:10).

I often get the question of how can we finish school in 2 1/2 hours. This block is mainly for what I need to teach or go over with the kids. Most of their work is done independently after I give assignments and so a lot of time I may be doing something else during this time. Also we do not do every subject every day. We use the Unit Study method of learning and may spend a week on history, a week on science, etc. We generally 2 Bible plus 2 subjects a day.

For our meals, we eat our heaviest meal for Breakfast and we eat at 5 hour intervals with no snacking in between. This has worked wonders for us. When we snacked, my kids had little to no appetite at meal time and always wanted a snack. This encouraged us to eat junk as most kids to not associate anything healthy with "snack food". Not eating between meals means that my kids are hungry when it's time to eat and they eat well. We drink 2 hours after eating or 15 minutes before.

Hope this helps and I would love to see the schedules of others. May God be with you as you seek to use even your time for His honor and glory.

The end of the 1st 40 days

Our first 40 days is up and I must say that I am pleased with the results. It was great only concentrating on one thing and what was even more wonderful was getting into a clean car! No more shuffling papers around when I have to pick someone up for church. :-)

Now we are on to the next 40 day challenge. This time I am concentrating on my kitchen. The general theme in all areas of the house is to leave a room the way you found it with the focus on Christ and His grave clothes. Before He left the tomb, He folded them up neatly even placing the napkin in a separate place, so before we leave any room, we should leave it neat and tidy.

Whenever I leave the kitchen, especially after mealtime, it should be clean. What a new concept this has been for me, but it is amazing how the Spirit is leading and how He speaks to me and prompts me to help me keep things in order!

I don't know what God has in store for me, but I believe He is using attention to little things to prepare me for greater things.

I can't wait to see what the next 40 days holds!!

40 Day Challenge update

We are half way through our 40 day challenge and I must say that I can see God's hand working with us. The car is still clean! I even got a comment from one of my neighbors on how nice it looked. WOW!!

The kitchen is taking shape and is clean most of the time. I have a new work schedule and so I am adjusting to it, but otherwise things are going well. I am getting back into the habit of planning out my meals. This helps with grocery shopping as well as having meals on time. One habit that I am working on is cleaning out my refrigerator before going to the grocery store. This helps in SO many ways. It helps me know what's in my refrigerator and it helps to cut down on wasted food. Sometimes I just forget what is in there, but cleaning on a weekly basis helps to eliminate the science projects that tend to grow in the fridge! :-

On to the bedroom, now this is an area that I really need some serious deliverance from. My room is mess MOST of the time. I just don't understand it. It's almost like I find comfort in the mess or something?! At any rate. I have broken my room up into zones and it works so much better than trying to tackle the whole thing at once.

One thing that I found is that I am really bad at putting things away. So I am working on the habit of always putting things back after I use them. There's no telling what you might find on my bed, from cookbooks, to calculators, to notebooks. Even my Bible has been known to wind up on the floor because I just lay it next to me after reading it. :-/

Even though we have a way to go we are definitely making progress. I am confident that God who has begun this work in me will finish it!!

40 Day Challenges

As I was thinking about us becoming more orderly and building habits, I thought of how many breakthroughs in the Bible came after 40 days. So for 40 days we are going to concentrate on areas of orderliness. First up on the dock is our bedrooms, the kitchen and the car.

I'll begin with the car as it has been the easiest and most effective so far. A while back, the kids and I were riding in the car with a friend. I marveled at how clean his car was. He said that when he was a kid, his father taught him to always take out of the car whatever he brought in. How is that for simple. And it works!! So as we speak, my car is clean!!

On to the kitchen. We have not mastered keeping the kitchen clean, but it sure has gotten better than what we were doing. Sticking to our established meal times helps by eliminating snacking and by helping my mind be in a mode of preparation for the meal and cleanup once the meal is done.

I have established a habit of having the dishes in the dishwasher be clean at all times. So if I put any dirty dishes in the dishwasher, it's only right before I run it. Otherwise, I wash them before putting them in. This is a little extra work, but it's worth always having clean dishes in the kitchen.

Meal time is not over until the dishes have been washed and put away and all food has been put away. We then declare the kitchen officially closed! No meals in between means healthy appetites for the next meal and it also means our stomach has a chance to do its job and rest up before the next meal.

And then finally are the bedrooms. Yikes! My bedroom is looking better everyday, but it's still not to the point where I would want anybody to come in here. My prayer is that by the end of the 40 day period, it will be company friendly and that it will stay that way.

Looking forward to deliverance from the bondage of bad habits.