Encouraged by God's Word

Archive for the ‘Train Your Child’ Category

Hello Family,

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard some rude comment about my bald head from one of my three children. I love them but they are crazy and just because I’m a little thin on the top does not mean they need to make insulting statements all the time.

I think it all started some years ago when my now 19 year old daughter was having a sleep over for her birthday. All of the girls were in the basement yelling and screaming and making a lot of noise like little girls do and as I went downstairs with more snacks, someone made a comment about a clown. In excitement my daughter looked at me and asked if I was getting a clown for the party. I told her no and that’s when it got down right disrespectful.

I remember it like it was yesterday. One of my daughter’s friends looked at me and said, “Mr. Rodney, you can be the clown.” And then she started to chant, “Bal-dy the Clown, Bal-dy the Clown, Bal-dy the Clown,…” and before you knew it there was a chorus of these annoying little girls chiming in and calling me outside of my name.

I walked upstairs and I contemplated calling their parents and telling them to come get their daughters from my front yard (because that is where I was about to put them) but I decided to let it go and be the bigger man and let the party continue as planned.

For those who know me know that I wasn’t really insulted and I actually thought it was funny. They were good kids and just having some fun at my expense.

Now I may not have considered them to be disrespectful but there are a lot of kids who are. They don’t have an ounce of respect for their elders or anyone else for that matter.

As a kid my friends and I did some things that I know my parents would not approve of but we were respectful when we were around our elders. We changed our behavior, we watched what we said and we acting like we had some common sense when we were in the presence of an adult. A lot of kids these days aren’t like that. They will talk back to AND cuss out an adult in a heartbeat.

The bible makes it very clear why and how youth should respect their elders. First of all it is right and it leads to long life. They are to set an example and stand up and honor them. Also respecting elders could save their lives. I truly believe our society is in a mess partly because of the way youth treat their elders. They have lost all sense of what is right and wrong.

Now for me personally, I had to share this scripture with my 19 year old daughter a couple of days ago when she made a disparaging remark about my bald head and when she read it, she was amazed. I told her to be careful of her remarks because they could get her in some serious trouble.

2 Kings 2:23-24 says Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Now that is what you call a punishment. My daughter will think twice before she disses my dome anytime soon.

Be Encouraged and Have a Wonderful Weekend!

P.S. Please share with this with your Facebook friends or anyone who just needs a good laugh.

Hello Family,

One of my favorite comedies is the movie Liar Liar. It stars Jim Carey who plays Fletcher Reede who is a fast talking lawyer that consistently tells lies. His job as an attorney is more important than anything in the world which caused Fletcher’s marriage to end in divorce and caused him to break a promise to his son Max and not show up to his birthday party.

Max knows that his father is a habitual liar so when he blows out the candles on his birthday cake, he makes a wish that his father can not lie for 24 hours.

When Max’s wish comes true, Fletcher’s biggest asset, his lying lips, becomes his biggest liability. Instead of confusing people through lying, he is now in a situation where he must be truthful.

He no longer can manipulate the system and take advantage of people in the courtroom where he is a very successful attorney.

Throughout the movie Fletcher comes to a point in a very important court case where he is bewildered because all of his old tactics of lying were not available and he had to tell the truth and right at the very last minute, he found the evidence he needed to win. For the first time he won a court case without lying and manipulating the system.

Not only did he win his case, he managed to make amends with his ex-wife and son and they became a family again.

Is lying a part of your character, your lifestyle? How many times do you lie in order to get what you want?

Proverbs 12:22says Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who deal truthfully are His delight.

The Lord hates lying lips, point blank! No excuses! He calls it an abomination because He is disgusted by it and He hates it.

Conversely, He loves one who deals truthfully. It delights Him. It is extreme gratification and joy for God when we deal truthfully.

Many times people feel as though they have to lie in order to make things right but that’s not true.  People think that if they don’t lie, they may hurt someone’s feelings. Maybe you don’t need to know how to lie but you need to learn some tact.

If I don’t like what someone is wearing and I think it’s ugly, I don’t have to lie and say it’s nice. I can say it’s just not my style. Did I lie, no. I told the truth and used some tact as to why I didn’t like what you had on.

Fletcher Reede would not have ever had the opportunity to get back with his ex-wife or have a loving relationship with his son if he continued to lie. It was tearing his family apart and it was destroying his character. He was out of control.

But when he decided to be truthful, everything he wanted he got. God blessed him because he saw how he had changed and how he had decided to practice being truthful.

So the next time you think it’s okay to tell a lie, step back and re-evaluate what you’re about to say and speak truthfully because it delights God.

Be Encouraged and Have a Truthful Weekend!

P.S. Leave me a comment and tell me if you liked this post or if you’re struggling with lying or anything else that’s destroying your character or relationships.

Hello Friends,

I took my son out last week to go sledding and we had a good time. The hill was big and fast just t he way

we like it. Now I must admit that it was a lot of work walking back up the hill but we still had fun.

Later on I spoke to my parents and I was telling them about our excursion and one of the things I told them was that I was somewhat disappointed at what I saw, or should I say I didn’t see. I didn’t see any other kids out there.

Now this hill was not in my neighborhood, it was in the neighborhood I grew up in. Where I live now, we don’t have a big hill like that so when we got to the old neighborhood and there weren’t any other kids out there, I was disappointed.

My dad made the comment that kids now a days don’t play outside like they used to. When he said that it reminded me of some conversations I previously had with other parents about the same thing. My response to other parents is why aren’t you making them go outside and play? When you were young that’s what you did. You have to train them how to have fun.

As a parent, if you buy your child a video game system, computer, cable TV, Ipod, Itouch, cell phone, CD’s and all that other stuff, why in the world would they go outside when they have all of those other things occupying their time?

Proverbs 22:6 says Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Every time I’ve heard this scripture, it was always in reference to training up a child in the ways of God. Train them to love the Lord. Train them to live righteously. Train them praise and worship God.

All of those things are correct but I do believe it can mean even more. We should be training our children (grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins and others) in other ways of life.

We should be training them how to use their creativity and resources instead of always getting stuff from the Internet. We should be training them on how to relate and communicate with others. We should be training our kids on some basic etiquette and table manners. We should be training our kids on how to respect their elders and authority figures.

I saw this teenage girl at the bus stop one day talking on the phone to her friend and the whole time she was on the phone, she was cursing up a storm. The sad thing about it was she had a little girl with her that was about 3 or 4 years old and this little girl was close enough to hear everything the teenager was saying.

What do you think this teenage girl was training this other little girl to do? How to cuss and sound like an idiot? How not to have any respect for yourself?

As adults we can’t blame kids for not knowing how to do or act a certain way if we don’t train them properly so in the future, don’t criticize your child for not knowing, train them up.

Be Encouraged and Have a Great Day!