Open your mouth...

Don't bother even opening your mouth... close your mouth. That is the often commanded statement from mother at this age.
The Proverbial mother was able to catch herself and not just say shut up, as is oft the temptation. Do the right thing with your mouth. Talk about the people who cannot talk for themselves. We have had some fabulous teachers this year and other years who, through their behavior have taught just this ethic to the children. Trip to the the special olympics and training in how to handle conflicts have come up all too often in our hearing of the lessons of the day. The children are learning much of what we would have taught them and more because we live in the Bible belt. Godliness is allowed to shine in the classroom and it is obvious. God bless those teachers' who have devoted themselves to be what they are teaching. I am very grateful for every effort on my children's behalf! Especially living in a day where the scriptures and the commandments are at a minimum in public schools. God bless the children who have teachers who are not ashamed of the gospel. We are blessed.

You are not a king or a queen!

So many people live like kings and queens, here in America. We are so blessed with comforts and conveniences, that we don't even know what the woman meant in Proverbs 31 when she said "don't give your ways to that which destroys kings." Pride, pride, pride and convenience is at the top of the list of things that destroys kings. It is not for kings to drink wine! It is not for princes to drink intoxicating drink. It is not for those who have the highest judgements, to give themselves to the affectations of their senses. What does that mean in America? All of our politicians sit in judgement innebriated or after innebriation. What is a sober judgement? What is the judgement of those who live a moderate life? A life of moderation in a world of excess is choosing to live moderately when you could gouge your senses with comforts. "It doesn't hurt me a bit!" we say because we live in our padded and comforting homes. We can sit back and feel nothing in the midst of great wealth. How hard, Jesus says for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We do not come to Jesus for the grace to live day by day, because we think, "we got this!" I need You Jesus is the life of faith. I need your grace to live in a rich land. Don't let me be innebriated by the wealth of our nation. Don't let me be blinded by the comforts of my life. Help me to truly love you and trust you and not be deceived by my own wicked heart. Your ways to that which destroys kings...? Pride, comforts, insensitivity, Sober me through access and guidance in Your Word my Lord! Help me to be lifted from the poverty of my exalted view of myself, that is poverty of soul indeed. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

What? My son! What? My daughter?

And what? son and daughter of my womb and what children of my vows? Do not give your strength to the "illicit" or your ways to that which destroys kings and queens.
There is, everyday, an advertisement to give yourself, to search out the illicit. We spend so much time in one area of the wickedness of man. Instead of that, look around you. Find a problem to solve. Be productive. Don't keep walking around, looking for ways to vex your mother and to satiate your impulses. This is a preventative warning, I hope. I don't see you, but the silly things that we look at can, swiftly direct us to the illicit.
I like looking at that, you might say: cartoons, movies, pictures, idolatry, simplicity, tastes and sights that are pleasurable, only. Wrestle your senses into submission, to you by applying yourself to dutiful obedience. What is there to look at, if not a beautiful, young person? They are everywhere. They are on television. They are pleasurable. Don't use your senses, in only, that way. That is what the teenage discipline time is all about.
How, oh how, do I put the blinders on my eyes to focus them on the real and not on the fleeting? The worm on a hook, is the pleasurable sight of the fleeting beauty. Where did it go? You leave the house, you walk outside to follow the beauty and you are on the hook of the devil and know it not. If you live to serve your lusts, they will enslave you. "I will turn to this, just one time and then I will do my homework." It won't happen! Your lusts are bigger than time. If you follow them, unrepentantly, it is conceivable, that you would be eternally lost in their sway. What else is there? Where else is there to go? Mother is always saying "don't, don't, don't!" Your pleasures are like an electrical current, waiting to be plugged in, for good use. There is a good use and there is a powerful use for that good pleasure and God will give that to you; if it is His will. Ordinarily, that is the way. Until then, wrestle your passions and use your life and pleasures in other areas. Use the power for the corrections of difficulties. Fill your mind with other things to be used for His glory. Save those senses for the covenant of marriage. The real pot of gold, at the end of the rainbow is marriage. MMMMM, that is good!