Clear 2 Learn
Discipline and Success through Forgiveness and Understanding
We are amazing machines. Our brains are powerful computers, our bodies are self-repairing, self refueling and reproducing dynamos of activity, and sadly we often go through our lives without giving it a moment’s thought.
We are an amazing creation, but we don’t live that way. What’s amazing about you? Probably far more than you can imagine! It’s time to relearn who you are!
God made you beautiful! It’s time to remember that, and forgive yourself for having forgotten it. It’s time to ask yourself, “what could I really do with my life if I really believed?”
Peace be with you…Always.
So we have these young people who have been taught to be lazy and selfish, and we have these parents that feel obligated to keep those children happy and entertained. These parents are tired and worn out from going out of their way for their children all the time without receiving even a thank you. Children become whiney and selfish, and parents become bitter and angry unless we learn to do things differently.
First, we parents must ask ourselves a question:
Why do I constantly put my child’s needs and wants before my own?
Yes it’s good to sacrifice, and yes it’s better to give than to receive, but there has to be balance! To put anyone on a pedestal does everyone harm!
Where is the balance in your life? Ask God to guide you! God, not the advertisers on TV, not the neighbor or relative with deep pockets, but God will show you the path you should take.
Maybe you’re used to doing all the housework, stopping only to get your kids a glass of soda or a snack. Why should you be doing all the work? Ask God!
Maybe you’re used to sitting around and complaining while someone else works because you’re not happy with the quality of their work! Ask God what you should differently!
In any situation, it would be easy for someone else to listen to complaints and dole out advice our solutions, but real solutions are always found between you and God! Unfortunately that is often the last place we look.
I used to often find myself going to God as a last resort: “I’ve tried everything else and nothing has worked, so I guess I’ll pray.” Then amazingly things would come out okay. I’ve learned that going to God first makes things so much easier!
More often than not, it’s not our method that fails us but our attitudes. “I want to do it myself!” or, “I want to figure it out!” are responses we often hear from kids, and I think such assertions of independence are necessary stages of development, but when it comes to making big decisions in our lives and raising our chldren, we need to let God be our guide!
Is your life out of balance? Do you have an infuriating boy who annoys you to no end, or a bratty girl who’s never satisfied and always wants more? I do…several actually.
God has taught me to forgive them for being the way they are, and forgive me for being the way I am. God has taught me to say no when I world otherwise have said yes, and to remain silent when I otherwise would have yelled. God has taught me how to demand more from them rather than do it all myself and to love them unconditionally. Gods has brought what can only be called supernatural peace to our home, and I take no credit for it. THANK YOU GOD!
What does God have to teach you? You won’t know unless you ask!
-May God bless us all, now and always!
There are many things that keep young people stuck in their current predicament. The one that stands out the most to me is how we view children and childhood in our society: We as a society have gone out of our way to make things easy for our children! We don’t want their “self-esteem” shaken, so we lower the bar, we minimize, we make things easier for them. We let them win in the mistaken hope that by making them feel like winners, they’ll grow up to be winners. What they’ve learned instead is that, “winning should be easy! If I have to work hard, then it’s too hard and it’s not fair!” Children are not stupid! All this softening the standards, and protecting them from disappointment has led them to believe that they should be able skate by all the time. They don’t have to work if it’s not fun.
They’ve never been held accountable before and they’re not going to be held accountable now, and somehow if they are held accountable, they droop! they fall to the ground with tears in their eyes and wait for Mom or Dad’s pity to pick them up. Poor babies! It’s easy to pick them up when they’re 2, and when they’re 5 it’s still expected. But what about when they’re 17? When they’re 30? How do you teach someone in their teens or later the value of work? How do you build self-respect in a person who has never had it and doesn’t even understand it?
…To be continued….
Why do we make the same mistakes over and over? Everybody knows a kid who’s a screw up. He couldn’t sit still in first grade and blurted things out at the wrong time. Despite the teacher’s best efforts he was always behind, always playing catch up, while being annoying and bothersome the whole time. Teachers and other students all heaved a sigh of relief if he was absent, and all but cheered when they heard he was moving, and perhaps felt a little guilty after he was gone. Poor kid: Wish I could have done more.
That same kid (usually boy, occasionally girl) will shuffle through the education system until he gives up and quits or the staff passes him through. He will be annoying and infuriating through middle school and high school, getting in trouble again and again for the same stupid reasons: he keeps interrupting, he cracks jokes while I’m explaining, he argues and riles everybody up, HE WON’T LISTEN!!!
It’s the sad question that no one has ever been able to definitively answer, and one that I hope to answer here over the next few days: How do you teach someone who refuses to learn? How can you teach a child to value his education when he doesn’t value himself? (to be continued)
So many people are depressed and lonely! We are struggling with our conscience. We are struggling with our past. We are struggling with our wants and needs and we are miserable. Many of us are control freaks! We are perfectionists and hate ourselves for not living up to the impossible standards we set for ourselves.
I am one of those by nature. But over the past few years I’ve learned to consistently put my worries and problems in God’s hands and it has had an amazing effect on me! I go about doing good, and trying my best and rather than obsessing and worrying before and feeling inadequate after, I am content.
THERE IS NO PERFECTION IN THIS WORLD!
If we can learn to embrace that and our own imperfect selves, we would be so much happier! How do we do that? We pray! We ask God to guide us and ask God to teach us. When we are worried about our children or our future, we can put them in God’s hands and give the authority and control to Him. It’s amazing how much easier life gets when we don’t feel like we have to make all the choices or have all the answers!
Sometimes literally moments after I pray I know what to do! I don’t pray for a specific outcome: I pray for God’s will! I pray for God to do what I cannot, and He always does! And so I pray like this:
Dear God, I pray that You bless me. I pray that You come into my mind, and into my heart, and into my soul, and that you change me into who You want me to be. Lead me God to do your will, and live my life to glorify You. Guide my hand God to make choices, and solve problems that will bring the greatest good. Guide me Lord to become who You created me to be.
Amen.
For years I dealt with fears and worries so strong I often felt like I couldn’t even leave my house. Fear interrupts your sleep, your work, your play and it can wear you down. Emotional trauma can really wear on you.
Some of us have been victims of some kind of abuse or trauma. Feeling powerless can lead to high anxiety and worry. I had to start trusting God and start forgiving before I could feel better. I forgave and forgave and forgave, and over time it truly changed my thinking. The hardest lesson for me was to learn to say the words regardless of how I feel! I would say something like,
“I forgive ______ for ______. As I hope and pray to be forgiven, so will I forgive,” when I needed to forgive others; and, “Dear God please forgive me for __________. I repent of my sin. In Jesus’ name I pray,” when I needed forgiveness for myself.
Do any of us really deserve that forgiveness? Probably not, but Jesus died for us so we could be forgiven. He’s paid for all our sins no matter what we’ve done or what’s been done to us, and when we start trusting in God through forgiveness it will make a difference.
As far as dealing with fears right now, praying and putting them in God’s hands will also help. I pray something like,
“Dear God, I am so burdened with worry, I don’t know what to do or how to handle it. I give my worry about _________________ to you. I know I can’t control my future, so I will put my trust you in you. I give my worry to you and ask you to come into my mind and heart and soul and make me into who you created me to be.”
Every time a worry comes, pray about it immediately and give it and yourself to God. Over time it will make a difference.
You also don’t have to be hostage to your thoughts and emotions. Interrupt them! Usually a sense of fear comes first and then the thoughts follow. Learn to recognize that fear and pray then! Bible phrases are great mantras to repeat in times of trouble. My favorite comes from 2 Timothy: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” And Psalm 23: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
I hope these prayers and thoughts are a blessing to you!
God bless us all!
I struggled with this very question much myself. Why do tragedies occur? Good people are struck down with cancer, earthquakes and tsunamis kill hundreds or thousands, and then there are wars. If there’s really a God, why would he allow so many to die so needlessly? Personally, I suffered a tragedy. My oldest son is mentally and physically challenged and has lifetime disabilities, and my father was killed in a hit and run pedestrian accident. I remember telling a coworker, “I don’t know if there really is a God.” He was horrified! He said, “Don’t say that! Lightening is going to strike you down!” I laughed at him. I said, “Oh sure, there are people murdering, raping, and bombing shopping malls and nothing happens, but I’m gonna get struck down! Sure!”
Well, I know there are many Christian brethren who will disagree with me, but this is how I see it: I tend to believe that God is ultimately in control, but the world is more like a ball that God set rolling, and not like a car that God drives. The bible does not tell us we will not face hardship, nor does it tell us that we will live forever. But it does tell us that God will be with us and God will save us. Remember, we are not our bodies! God wants us to be happy, and he wants us to enjoy the lives He has given us, but we are all going to die one way or another, and knowing and believing that we will go to the arms of a loving creator can fill us with a great sense of peace.
When we become hurt and angry and disillusioned we close ourselves off from God’s love and in the end we hurt ourselves. Do I know if there really is a loving God watching over me? Nope. But I believe! I’ve found that the times when I’ve forsaken my faith were the lowest and hardest for me. When I returned to God and opened my heart to God’s love everything else got easier. I hope you and I can forgive God for not making the world the way we think it should be. It wasn’t easy for me, but with acceptance came peace! My life is far better now than I ever thought possible and I can only look up in wonder and thank my Jesus, my Savior, my Redeemer, my God.
