What my kids have taught me . . . (part 3)

* The arms of Father is the safest place to be. We have a two-story house and the kid's bedrooms are all upstairs. When the kids were younger and scared by thunder or wind during a storm, not even their blankets or each other would suffice to keep them calm. When I go upstairs and hold them or just lay in their bed for a few minutes, guess what? They go right back to sleep! When we face the stormy seasons of life, we may need more than our spouse, our savings account, our friends, our intelligence. We need to run to the arms of the Father and enable Him to be our comfort, provider, and sustainer. Psalm 31:2 "Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me." (Need a Bible study topic? Search just the Psalms for "fortress," "deliverer," "rock," "stronghold," "refuge," etc. and read in awe the promises your God has for you.)

* There is no greater sorrow than lack of fellowship. Traveling is hard when I have to leave my family, I ache after only a day or two. Just being around the kids, they will look up and smile at me. I remember when Cooper was a baby, I was feeding him one day and I left the room for just a minute to get him more food. When I came back around the corner, he had a worried look on his face and looked about to cry but when he say me and realized that I was coming back he looked at me and broke out in a big smile. Prayer and Bible study is God's fellowship with us. When I don't spend time in personal worship, prayer, and Bible study, I can tell the difference in my attitudes and actions. What's worse is that I know it grieves the heart of God when I don't spend time with Him.

* God knows everything before we do. My wife is nothing if not organized and she is a devoted scrapbooker. One of her best ideas was when she took a monthly calendar scrapbook page and put it on our refrigerator. On the calendar, she writes down the key events in our lives and she has a different color pen for each of the kids with their activities and their hilarious sayings. One thing written on the calendar right now is a reminder of when my daughter Caris (almost 2 years old) said "oo ah-ck Daee" (You rock Daddy). This was a great reminder to me of how God filled out the calendar of our lives before we were even born. He planned it all out ahead of time and knows the funny things that we will do and say even before it happens. He also knows the hurts that we have and how He will work it out in the end. Psalm 139:16b "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

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