The Family Altar - what an amazing concept. Nancy brought us back to Exodus 20:24 again. "An altar of earth you shall make for me...I will come to you and bless you." God wants to come and meet with us in the busy-ness and the overwhelming-ness of our day. He wants to manifest Himself to us in our homes. The Patriarchs were told to make an altar as a point of contact to hear God and have Him speak to them. But the altar-builders were to make it of earth, not of cut stones or polished stones, just plain earth. That speaks of the simplicity of how we are to worship - nothing complicated. He just wanted the rocks piled up in a heap. The He said He would come.
We simply have to make an altar in our home, but how? It is a simple matter of setting a time and a place where we meet with God as a family. A spiritual fire needs to get lit by God. Leviticus 6:9 says, "Command Aaron and his sons, saying 'This is the law of the burnt offering. The burnt offering shall be on the hearth on the altar all night until the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it." The priests had to keep the fire going; they had to be faithful, taking out the ashes. Isn't that what our families should be doing? We should be taking out the "ashes" which is sin in our family's life and then add the fuel of the Holy Spirit, through God's Word, morning and evening to keep our "fire" going.
"There I will meet with you." (Exodus 25;22) God could have left it at just a fire burning on the altar, but what I love about reading God's Word is that He also wants incense. I think if we just sit around and read God's Word, but there is no sweetness or love in the communication, then it will quickly become resented by the children. God wanted a sweet aroma as well as the burning fire. How interesting! If we only have a sweet aroma and no reading of God's Word, the fire won't last and it will burn out. Again, the principles in God's Word are clear. We need both.
Whenever we try to do this as a family the enemy is at work. It's either a kid, or a bunch of kids, who upset the time together or a phone call interrupts or a work emergency stops it from happening or something "better" comes up. It is critical that we try to keep the time set aside, no matter what. Nancy encouraged us to train our children to pray, for everyone in our lives, from immediate family to those outside our family, to nations, the persecuted church, international needs. It was a great encouragement. In Jeremiah 10:25 it says, "Pour out your wrath on the nations that know you not, and on the peoples that call not on your name." Being a praying family is what separates us from those who do not know God. Wow. Satan hates families who pray. She encouraged us to evaluate our homes and the things we involve ourselves in that just so happen to "coincide" with that special time around dinner or when we would normally pray as a family. Isn't it fascinating to see when so many things get scheduled at the exact time? Why is that? Because Satan is trying to keep the family from prayer, from worshiping God together. It'll never be something obviously bad, it'll be something subtle and as we like to say around here, "good is the enemy of best". It'll usually be something "good" that drags us away from what we should be doing.
We must press on to keep that time set aside!
Now that my Stephanie story is "over", at least for now, I'm back to thinking along financial lines again. Today I'm going to challenge my kids to think of an area that we can cut back on even more. Could they think of one thing they could do without for a year that normally we would buy? For me, and this is going to be hard, I'm going to not buy any new clothes for a year and by new, I mean "new to me" as I love going to the thrift stores for "new" clothes. My closet is full. Yes, I get bored with what I have and I love getting new stuff, but I don't really need it. I don't think my kids can do that as they are growing so fast, but I'm going to ask them to try not to spend anything in that area unless absolutely necessary.
We can always cut back. We cut back in some areas last year and we hardly noticed it. I'm thinking we can cut back even more.
The winterizing of our house continues - we will side another part of our house on the weekend, I hope, which will help keep our place warm and cut back on heating costs. Every little bit of siding gets us one step closer to warm! It is cold at night now!
I've got a couple more Nancy "sessions" to share and then that's it. It really was a powerful weekend and has helped recharge me and my enthusiasm to be content at home with the little ones and not-so-little ones in my care. I'm looking at them with such different eyes, new eyes, grateful eyes. I asked myself all day yesterday, "Am I speaking sweetly? Do I look happy?" When I sensed I was not, I quickly tried to turn it into a pleasant conversation, a loving conversation.
My middle daughter is starting to notice that my oldest daughter is gone more and more. She is very busy with her piano lessons, teaching, serving in other's homes, just not here like a toddler is, underfoot all day. It made her sad as she realized how much she loves having her around. The fact that she is noticing this made me realize how true her observations were - my oldest daughter is starting to be very adult-like. A new life, new responsibilities, not just to us anymore, are starting to develop. One day, she will likely marry and be out of our house and it might be sooner than we think! How I need to make the most of the few opportunities I have left. Nancy said, "You'll never have enough time." It wasn't meant to discourage, it was more a realistic statement to make the most of the time we have with our kids, to build into them all we can as it just will never be enough time.
Don't laugh, I'm off to do some push-ups. I've taken on a ridiculous challenge - 100 push ups, so each week I increase a series of push-ups (with breaks in between). Be impressed. I'm at 40+ with breaks. Not bad! The sore muscles remind me of my age. Ah well, at least there are muscles to be sore!
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