This morning, we heard a sermon preached from Ephesians 4:29-31:

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

As our pastor took us through the text, his first point was that Christians should be characterized by constructive speech. And under that first point, he highlighted that this meant that there should be “no foul language escaping” from our mouths (i.e., “corrupting talk” above).

As he came to this point, he shared that when a young teenager, yet still unsaved, he and a friend in his Christian school covenanted between themselves to cut out all foul language (cursing) from their vocabulary. They solemnly pledged to do this, and as a primary means for helping one another, they agreed to put rubber bands on their wrists. Each time one would hear the other cuss, he would “help” him by pulling the rubber band and then snapping it to the discomfort of the one who’d cursed.

This little experiment failed. Within a month, they stopped wearing rubber bands, for the only result was sore wrists — both young boys’ speech continued to be marked with foul language.

Why? Because, as Pastor Cliff highlighted, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34b). The problem was, so to speak, they were trying to stop sewage from coming out of a pipe connected to sewage drains. All the rubber bands, all the disincentive, all the external “fixes” could not remedy the nature of the output. It was not until he was saved by the Lord in college that — to his surprise — he found that suddenly his language was no longer punctuated by foul words! The reason? He had a new heart! As Jesus put it, “the good person out of his good treasure brings forth good” (Matthew 12:35a)! The sewage drain that had once dumped its contents out of the pipeline of his mouth, had been replaced with a well of clean water!

Yet… how often do we approach sanctification — the process of becoming more like Christ, obeying God’s commands and pleasing Him in every way — with a “rubber band” methodology rather than a heart-centered theology? When confronted (convicted!) with Scriptures that identify our sin and command us to change our behaviors… we put on mere external mechanisms in an attempt to change those behaviors. We seek accountability (the “rubber band” effect), we try harder (“the solemn vow”), we feel rotten and confess to others, read our Bible more often, with no real sense of what is at the heart of our sin!
In doing so, we seek to grow in holiness ignorant of the real problem: our sinful behaviors are the symptom. The cause of our sin is our hearts. As Solomon wrote (Prov 4:23):

Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.

To “keep” here, of course, does not mean the opposite of giving away. And the heart does not simply refer to a blood-pumping organ. To keep the heart means to have a vigilant watchfulness and care for the beliefs and affections and desires that rule our actions. That’s right: what we love and what we want and what we believe determines what we do!

The Christian has been given a new heart, which explains why when Cliff was initially brought to a saving knowledge of Christ, it was natural that foul language disappeared “mysteriously.” A love to Christ and corrupt talk are antithetical to one another. But insofar as we fail to cultivate a growing love for Christ, a growing sense of His majesty, a growing knowledge and understanding of His grace, and growing humility in the light of His kindness, etc.; we make room for the sinful habits of our old man to take root.

What then? Just as Christians parents need to do more than just behavior modification of their children, but are called to “shepherd” their hearts to lead them to Christ; so to we Christians need to shepherd our own hearts! We need to do more than just “catch ourselves” in acts of sin with “rubber bands,” in hope of being ashamed enough to stop.  We need instead to carefully figure out what it is that has replaced our love to and trust in Christ’s promises, to such a degree that we have been taken in by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:13).  And we should apply ourselves to the task of loving and studying and meditating and ultimately trusting in Christ’s promises — purchased for us at the cross, the heart of the precious gospel — so that sin’s promises would have no effect on our lives.

For our math curriculum, I just started my almost five year old with some simple addition. I made some flash cards and have him work through each equation on his own. After he gets the right answer, he is to repeat the equation and the correct answer three times so he can commit it to memory. We usually do about 2-3 new cards each day, with plenty of review.

This evening, just before his bedtime, I played an impromptu train game with him using these math flash cards. He is the train and I’m the train station. In order to go past the train station, he must pick up a ticket (the math flash card) and answer the equation correctly, i.e. a valid ticket. Each time he gets the equation wrong, he has to work it out correctly on his own and then repeat the equation and the correct answer three times. He was so enthralled with this game and wanted to play on and on. Unfortunately, the train master (i.e. Daddy) said the train had to retire to the shed to get proper rest for the evening.
Prior to having him work on these math flash cards and memorize the addition table, I made sure he understood what the equation meant. I didn’t want him to simply memorize something (which he can do easily) without truly understanding the concept. We played a lot of counting games and used a lot of manipulatives. I bought a set of poker chips and an abacus just so that he could use them to grasp the concept of addition and counting.

On several occasions while sitting in the car, I would ask him questions such as, “Matthew, if there are two trees on the left and three trees on the right, how many trees do we have?” He usually loves answering these types of questions often tries to come up with his own questions.

There was a period where he didn’t want to do math and resisted. I simply backed off, knowing that he wasn’t ready. From time to time I would test the water and see if he was interested. Recently he has demonstrated a big interest in math and seems to take delight in doing math flash cards, especially when presented in the context of a game.

Several months back I had him do a math workbook, but decided to quit the workbook approach shortly thereafter. I found that he was able to do the math problems, but he seemed to not understand the concept the workbook was trying to teach. I didn’t want him to simply do the problems and think that he has grasped the concept and move on to the next lesson. I decided it was time to take a break from the workbook. I’m really glad that we stopped the workbook approach at that time because he is flourishing in my simpler approach in learning addition. I don’t think workbooks are a bad choice. I believe workbooks can provide an effective structured approach. However, every teacher must be perceptive and understand whether this approach works at the child’s particular stage of development. This is, of course, one of the most obvious benefits of homeschooling – customizing the education for the child’s pace. I am not abandoning the workbook altogether. I’m simply waiting for my boy to be ready.

I have found Ruth Beechick’s little pamphlet Easy Start in Arithmetic: Grades K-3 to be very helpful.

Pulpit Magazine has a good post today on ways that parents can either intentionally or unwittingly violate the admonition given in Ephesians 6:4a: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger…” It was a good reminder to me, and I commend it to our readers who are parents (or plan on becoming parents someday). The post itself was adapted from John MacArthur’s commentary on Ephesians.

Here are the eight ways that MacArthur suggests parents might provoke their children:

1. Well–meaning overprotection
2. Favoritism
3. Pushing achievement beyond reasonable bounds
4. Discouragement
5. By parents’ failing to sacrifice for their children and making them feel unwanted
6. Failing to let children grow up at a normal pace [i.e., reproving them for being childish, when they are, well, children!]
7. Using love as a tool of reward or punishment
8. Physical and verbal abuse

A commenter on the original post added another point to MacArthur’s list that I think is also quite common: modeling anger in front of our children is probably the most common way to provoke our children to anger. For this particular tendency, I’d recommend Lou Priolo’s excellent book, The Heart of Anger.

I think I have perhaps been most guilty of #5 (sacrificing “my” time) and #6 on occasion, and appreciate the timely reminder as my oldest turns five next week. It’s so easy to expect him to act more “mature,” forgetting that he is still technically barely old enough to enter kindergarten! Not, of course, that we are to be conformed to our world’s pitifully low expectation of youth. Yet there is wisdom in the reminder that children will be childish. Part of our task as parents is to shape and mold and encourage them — not simply rebuke them for acting “their age” — to learn to help them long for maturity. Just as we should encourage young believers to grow up in their faith and not chide them for a lack of “maturity” at the point of conversion.

At the end of the original post, there is also a very thoughtful quote from a Christian father, whose children are grown up, on how he would do things differently. Do take a moment to prayerfully read through the original post. I trust it will help and encourage you as it did me. Thanks be to God that His Fatherhood is perfect and gives us something to imitate as we father (and mother) our children. What amazing grace!

My oldest son has shown some interest in drawing and it has taken me a while to tap into his interest. I borrowed several Draw Write Now books from the library to see if they are suitable for him. I was pleasantly surprised that Matthew demonstrated some drawing abilities right off the bat. Here are some samples of his drawings from his very first lesson:

After perusing through the books, I think these are great drawing courses for young children. There are eight books in the series with various themes such farm animals, Christopher Columbus, Native Americans, The Polar Regions, The United States, Animals & Habitats, Animals of the World. The drawing lessons are very appealing to the young children and their interests are most certainly peaked as shown by my son who kept asking for more drawing sessions. Each lesson is designed to teach both drawing and writing. The child follows a easy step by step drawing method, and after he finishes the drawing, he is to write a short paragraph about the picture. As an example, the writing lesson for the blue whale is as follows:

Whales live all over the world. In summer, something happens. Whales swim toward the poles. We call it migration.

If you wish to study the topic/theme of each book further, the last three pages of the book contain some information and recommendations.

I have previously reviewed the Ergo baby carrier here, and this carrier continues to serve us well wherever we go.  Now you can win an Ergo carrier at Along for the Ride.  Be sure to enter by May 30, 2007.

Our little Andrew turned three today! When he woke up, we told him that it was his birthday and then presented him a very small gift. He smiled and looked on with much excitement. An hour later, I went and got him two balloons and he was absolutely thrilled. Another hour later, I gave him another small gift. He was even more excited. He even generously shared his gifts and balloons with the other ones, after the initial scrutiny.

I chose to get him several small toys, costing about $2 on average, through out the day. As I presented each gift, I told him “happy birthday” and hug and kiss him. He feels very very special, and this is exactly how I want him to feel. After dinner we all enjoyed a birthday pie together. He was so enthralled by the strawberry pie that he didn’t want to look up for a picture.

It has been a special three years with our Andrew. His gentle spirit and musical talents continue to woo and enthuse us. It is our utmost desire that the Lord will draw him near, at a young age, to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is to this end we parent and love him. Happy birthday, my dearest!

I read Noël Piper’s book Treasuring God in Our Traditions several years back, and just now I’m perusing through it to look for ways to incorporate special traditions for our growing family. This book is beautifully laid out, and in it contains Noël Piper’s family traditions, stories, and recipes.

Piper draws from Deuteronomy 11 and establishes three ways of defining traditions (p. 26):

1. A tradition is a planned habit with significance.
2. Tradition is the handing down of information, beliefs, worldview from one generation to another by word of mouth, and by regular repetition of example, of ceremony, of celebration.
3. For a Christian, tradition is laying up God’s words in our own hearts and passing his words to the next generation.

After defining the meaning of tradition, Piper goes on to explain how to celebrate “everyday” traditions (daily prayer, devotional, reading, and singing time) and “especially” traditions (birthday, wedding, adoption, funeral, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter). What impresses me the most is Piper’s heart to honor God and make Him central in whatever tradition we celebrate.

This is a wonderful book and I would recommend it whole heartedly. As my family grows, it is my heart’s desire to establish meaningful traditions so to treasure God in various aspects of our lives.