You know how it goes, you pray that the Lord will work in the life of your child and instead He shoots a reminder right across your bow that maybe you should be examining yourself. That happened to me this week.
I've got a Jr. Higher (again, for the 3rd time) and let's say, sometimes her words and tone used in speaking to me are not exactly Christlike. I've been working on my reactions to my husband since the beginning of the year so I thought I had been paying attention to my words and tone already, but once I started praying I began to notice the impatience in my own reactions when dealing with this child. In many ways she was just mirroring me. Ouch!
We had out-of-town family here for a few days this week and both this child and I did well...until they drove out of the driveway. Everything was back to normal within minutes. I thought, "Wow, if we can control our responses for our reputation, then we should be able to control them for our character too!"
That morning I had been reading in 1 Samuel and had to stop at chapter 3, verse 19.
"The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground."
This verse probably means that all of Samuel's prophecies came true, however, I can't deny the power of the actual words used...none of them fell to the ground.
I waste a lot of words and too often use an ungodly tone.
Not only should the following verse be a song on our lips, but a prayer in our heart, as well.
Psalm 19:14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
2 comments:
As the mom of a now-13-year-old, I find this in our lives too!!!! Somehow she and I can't have a normal conversation these days without her or me kind of getting uppity. And today, when she rolled her eyes at me, I slammed her bedroom door (real mature of ME, eh??!!). *sigh*
Thank you for this reminder. We too are working on our words (and actions!).
I shared this devotion with volunteers who serve with me at church and several moms said they'd been there. It's such a challenge sometimes to allow Christ to reign instead of ourselves. It's a blessing that believers can sympathize and exhort one another in love. We're not alone in our struggles!
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