Great and hidden things

This verse was in my morning Bible reading.

Jer. 33:2-3

Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it--the Lord is his name:  Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

The omniscient Creator, God of all the universe who knows EVERYTHING, is the one we pray to.  He can and will teach us things that it would be impossible for us to otherwise learn.

John 14:26 (Jesus talking)

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

John 16:13 (still part of Jesus' discourse above...this is possibly the best 4 chapters in the entire Bible, if it is possible to rank it: read John 14-17)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

We should not rely on Google for our information.  Go straight to the source!

Foundational Truth 2: Called and Gifted for a Specific Purpose

Did you know that God already has a plan for your life?  He called and gifted you before you were born for a SPECIFIC purpose.  It is not just up to us to find out what we are good at or what we can make the most money at or what we like to do.  He has a Plan, and that Plan is better than any of the plans we try to make without Him.  I found well over 50 passages in the Bible on this topic.  Psalm 139 is amazing.  Below is an excerpt.

Ps. 139:13-18
For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you. 

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Paul all specifically say they were called while in the womb.  (Isa. 49:1-7, Jer. 1:5-10, Gal. 1:15).  There are many other examples in scripture as well (Samson, John the Baptist, etc.)  On of my very favorite passages is about "regular" people (not people who were called to be heroes for God or write books of the Bible).    This story is about Bezalel and Oholiab and "skillful women," just regular people, called for a job as artisans and craftsmen and teachers.  You can find the story in Exodus 31:1-6, Exodus 35:25-35, and Exodus 36:1-7.  These passages, among others (including the "God shows no partiality" in ESV or "no respect of persons" in KJV passages including Acts 10:34, Rom. 2:11, and Gal. 2:6) shows me that God calls all of us, not just the "super-saints" for a specific purpose.

In the New Testament, Paul uses an interesting word picture.  He calls the Church the Body of Christ and then talks about what that means.  I Corinthians 12 is one of the funniest and most profound passages of the Bible.  What would happen if the whole body was an eye or an ear?  Or a crazy giant nose?  (The nose is the one I use with my kids as it gets the most laughs even though that isn't actually in the passage.)  The body wouldn't function very well without all of its parts.  Sure we can live without an appendix or without tonsils or without a finger or even an arm, and sometimes some parts even have to be removed to keep us healthy or alive, but no one would say that is ideal.  Our bodies have different parts: different internal organs, different sense organs, different limbs, and the individual parts should all work together doing their individual jobs well to keep the whole body functioning at peak performance.  If even your little toe gets banged, your whole body's performance plummets for at least a moment.  Romans 12 also talks about this concept.  If you really take some time to really think about this concept it can revolutionize your view of the Church, education, and your own life.

Here are some more references for you to look up.  No time to link them because the house is suddenly alive with children and it is time for me to go make some Saturday morning pancakes.

Amos 7:14-15 (God changed Amos' career mid-life)
Ps. 71:6
Isa. 45:3-13
Hag. 2:23
Rom. 11:29
Eph. 3:1-13
Eph. 4:1
1 Thess. 1:4
2 Tim. 1:5-12
1 Pet. 4:10-11

Now for some pancakes...

Foundational Truth 1: The Heart

The heart is what is important, not appearances or behavior! So much of our time as parents is dealing with what are kids are doing, and rightly so. I don't think you can avoid this. The problem comes when we see their compliant actions as success because their hearts can be rebellious while their actions are obedient. We have to consciously focus on their hearts and attitudes even while we work on their behavior (don't ignore the behavior or your job will be tougher, though...I learned this the hard way). As I now tell my children, "what is going on in your heart is more important to me, but I can't just ignore what you are doing."

Think of an apple tree. The behavior is the apples (the fruit). The heart is like the roots. If my apple tree is producing bad fruit can I fix it by going down to Whole Foods and buying some lovely organic apples and duct-taping them to the branches? Yet that is what we often try to do with our children. We teach them the right actions and then practically force them (as much as possible) to do them...duct-taping good apples on their tree while ignoring the real problems. We see that lovely fruit and think we have succeeded in parenting. Now if my apple tree has bad fruit, I may have to buy my apples (teach them the right actions), but meanwhile I need to find out what my apple tree needs to produce better fruit next year. Maybe I need to fertilize it or water it more or figure out some organic pest control or even prune it. I need to deal with the roots and the whole tree, NOT specifically with the fruit, for long-term fruit production. And this doesn't happen just once. It is an ongoing process...a long, long, process. It takes TIME, but eventually the fruit will grow on its own. Incidentally, this process does not just apply to our children, but to ourselves as well. My good friend Shannon posted a great post about this a few months ago. I'd highly recommend reading it.

There are so many scriptures about this (I've found almost 60 different passages so far!) I will write down a couple here (copied and pasted from Bible Gateway) and give you a list to look up yourself.

1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

Luke 16:15 (ESV)

And he said to them, "You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

More passages:

1 Chron. 28:9-10
Prov.1:7 and Prov. 9:10 (these verses go together in my opinion)
Isaiah 11:3
Isaiah 29:13-16
Matt. 18:1-6
Luke 11:37-44
1 Cor. 4:5
2 Cor. 5:11-12
Col. 2:20-23
James 3:13-18

I would encourage you to open your Bible, or make use of Bible Gateway, or Blue Letter Bible (which included a concordance and links to commentaries and other study aids) and look some of these up. Be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who searched the scriptures for themselves to make sure that what they were taught was true.

God's View of Education

I was going to call this "God's View of Education: Part 1," but the truth is, this post actually starts with two previous posts. If you haven't read My Collection or What I Did With My Collection start there. For a tiny bit more background that wasn't mentioned in those posts: I was a math education major in college and taught high school math for several years before getting married. I also taught junior high math for a year when I was pregnant with LOTL, and then tutored math for a few years during the afternoons. I was entrenched in the educational system. It was my life for well over 20 years (kindergarten through career). That would help explain why my first attempt at homeschooling "differently" (you need to read My Collection for explanation) was a failure.

I have to admit to you that the description of What I Did With My Collection didn't last terribly long. I got bogged down, so I dropped that plan and decided to organize my collection of education scriptures more efficiently. I simply wrote a list of the books of the Bible in a notebook (leaving several lines between each) and wrote the references under the appropriate book. This also made it handy to write down new references when I found then when reading my ten chapters per day (and lest you think I am amazing, I am currently on day 66 of this plan...I was on day 40 on Feb. 25, but you'll find out some of what I have been doing meanwhile). I ended up with around 400, FOUR HUNDRED, different passages in the Bible about education! WOW! I was shocked! I haven't even gone through the whole Bible yet (especially the Old Testament...I think I made it through the entire New Testament).

I didn't take the next step in organizing these scriptures until after I ran into a former student who was interested in homeschooling. I told her that my views on education had radically changed from the time I was a teacher and that I was finding out that God had lots of information on education in the Bible. She was interested and wondered if I'd share what I'd found out with her and some friends. Although it took us months to schedule (because of my crazy life), we were able to meet last week. In preparing for that, I decided to re-look through all of the scriptures in my collection (now nicely organized, which really helped) to see if I could put them under some broad headings. I ended up with five of what I called "foundational truths" and seven principles on how to follow through.

My focus verse is Ephesians5:15-17. Below it is in the Contemporary English Version.

Act like people with good sense and not like fools. These are evil times, so make every minute count. Don't be stupid. Instead, find out what the Lord wants you to do.

I need to find out what He wants me to do so I can make every minute count, especially with my kids. We all have heard how fleeting our time is with them, and I am starting to find it out firsthand as they grow up before my eyes.

Update July 27, 2013:  I posted the list of scriptures (it is not all of them, but it includes the ones that really "spoke" to me) under their various headings on the "God's Plan for Education" tab at the top right of this blog.  I hope to one day soon blog at least briefly about each topic, but meanwhile you can do your own study (which is actually better.)

Here is a direct link: http://transformationbytheword.blogspot.com/p/gods-plan-for-education.html

Then and Now

Lately I've been doing a lot of sorting and rearranging (which, if you know me, you know I do not enjoy). Last night as I was filing some insurance papers, I saw a file that had my maiden name on it. I knew it was the file that my parents had for me and that lots of my old test results and certificates, etc. were in it. I took it out (anything to procrastinate). In it among the college report cards and high school transcripts was a career interest inventory I took in high school. After looking it over I was so disappointed in my high-school-self. How could I have not known myself like that? There were many things I listed that I would "like to do" that I would truly HATE to do. Some of my real self peeked through, though. At least I didn't put "NOT like to do" on what I now love, most of those just had the "neutral" marking. The disparity between my high school self and my 2011 self really bothered me and helped some fragments of thought about my past gel into something semi-solid.

The short version (and still only Jello-consistency) is that my high school view of myself was defined by my academic interests and achievements. I was good at school, and I enjoyed science. I measured my worth by my brains, and my plans were mostly defined by my academic interests. I had a relationship with God, even a "good" relationship with God. But He didn't really enter the "career interest inventory" process. Fortunately He did get to me before I made life decisions, and I listened to Him and went into the field of math education. I discussed on of the reasons here. Over the past months, though, I have struggled with this. Did God lead me to this because I had a narrow view of myself and wouldn't have been open to His true plans? Or was this progression His plan all along? I don't have answers for these questions yet, and maybe never will. That is fine. There are future reasons (my children) why I feel this is important to think about. It is not all about figuring out my past, it is about helping them for their futures.

After thinking about this last night, I woke up thinking "blog post," but didn't want to skip my Bible reading. I tossed up a quick prayer to the effect of "if you want me to post something about this confirm it in scripture." Guess what happened? Here is a passage from Amos (which I maybe wouldn't have ever read before, but because of my 10-chapters-a-day did).

Amos 7:14-15 (this is immediately after Amaziah told Amos to go away and stop prophesying to him)

Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, "I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.' "

Amos then goes on to prophecy really horrible things to Amaziah, undaunted.

God changed Amos' career midstream! We don't know if Amos wasn't obeying God before, or if there just was a change, but Amos was SURE of what God had called him to NOW and he was going to DO IT! God switched him from a natural career to a supernatural one (and one that people uncomfortable and angry). But Amos was obedient and took action. May I do the same.

Examples

"...shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock." II Peter 5:2-3

From the margin of my Bible there are six verses cross-referenced to the phrase "examples to the flock." Look them up and see if there are marginal note for them.

John 13:15
Phil. 3:17
1 Thess. 1:7
2 Thess. 3:9
1 Tim. 4:12
Titus 2:7

"For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you." 2 Thess. 3:7 (this was not cross-referenced above, but was cross referenced from 2 Thess. 3:9.)

Ouch. I could not say this to my children and have it be the truth. I have to work on my own life before I can set a good example for them. "Do as I say, not as I do" is not a Godly principle. I need to have the Holy Spirit show me where my example needs to change and then look to Him for the strength to change it.

I Corinthians 13:2

And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Psalm 25:12

Who is the man who fears the Lord?
He will instruct him in the way he should choose.

Psalm 119:97-99

O how I love Thy law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Thy commandments make me wiser than my enemies,
For they are ever mine.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
For Thy testimonies are my meditation.