I am such a bad blogger; it's been forever since my last post. Shame on me. *wrist-slap* But I do have something I have learned, or am learning, that I wanted to share because it's just blowing my mind.
I recently read the best parenting book out there, "Raising Godly Tomatoes". It's completely scripture-based and without all the psychological babble that leads many Christian parents into dangerous secular practices. Essentially, this wonderful lady's parenting philosophy is that you, as the parent, have God-given authority over your child to train and discipline them, that you can and must teach your children respectful obedience, that you must learn to discern your child's heart and discover what motives he has for disobedience so that you can not only correct the behavior but touch his heart and instill in him a love for God, and that you must teach your children to control their emotions, because selfishness and anger at two is no more attractive than the same emotional sins at twenty.
It's this last bit that blew me away. For some reason, no matter how many times I've read the Bible and how much I've studied the New Testament letters specifically, it has never occurred to me that God is commanding us to control our emotions. If you look in Galatians, several of the things Paul lists as works of the flesh are emotions -- fits of anger, jealousy, envy -- and the other things result from these emotions -- enmity, strife, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear. This is still rattling around in my head, but think about it -- our culture, especially the psychological influences out there, is saying that you need to let kids express their emotions, that you can't help your feelings, yadda yadda yadda. But God commands us to control ourselves, and how fair is it to treat a kid like he is a slave to his emotions and make excuses for him, then turn around when he's a teenager and say, okay, NOW you need to start obeying God in this?
Anyway, we are teaching Connor to obey us with a good attitude and explaining why selfishness and disrespect make God unhappy, but that's not where I'm really going with this. The idea of controlling emotion just hit me square between the eyes.
I have always said, in a joking manner, that I am not a patient person. I have treated my impatience as a rather cute character flaw, a quirk of my personality, and let it slide at that.
Son of a gun if it ain't a sin after all. God tells us to be patient, so acting impatient is directly disobeying His word, and that's serious business. It doesn't matter if I'm having a rotten day and my nerves are frazzled and I'm trying to do ten things at once and my sweet little boy is pestering me with "why?" questions. My feelings DO NOT MATTER. I am to obey God and be patient regardless of whether or not I feel like it.
Here's another thing. I have always considered myself slow to anger but easily frustrated. Huh. If that isn't the biggest contradiction in the world, I don't know what is. Frustration is just a nicer way of saying that I get angry at small, insignificant things. Or better yet, I get angry when things don't go the way I want them to -- like the jar of pickles just won't open or I struggle with a bag of chips that scatters its contents everywhere when it finally bursts open or every store is out of that one ingredient I need to make dinner. Frustration is ANGER. I never ever thought that I have a problem with anger, but lo and behold if God isn't flashing a big neon sign in my face this week and shouting in my ear, "That right there where your voice was terse with Connor? Anger. Oh and that, when you made that loud disgusted noise because the handle broke off the cabinet again? Anger. Oh, and here's a good one, the power going out right when you put dinner in the oven and you complained about China? Anger."
It is never pretty to face your own sins. And I now realize that you must call them SINS. These are not quirks, character flaws, or part of your personality make-up. There is no justification. This is serious, separating-you-from-God sin.
So. Beginning now until I master it (which means until I die, probably, but gotta try) I am working on controlling my emotions and not letting them control me. Justin is dubious, but supportive. He, of all people, knows how impatient and easily frustrated I am. But God, I think, is cheering me on.
I'll let you know how it goes. If you think about it, pray for me! This is going to be tough.
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