Color Me Family: a Practical Guide to Family Discipleship Shani Ferguson Book Buy
On our trip back dwelling to Israel this summer, our flying was canceled, and we got stranded in Washington, D.C. for two days. Looking to make the best of a lousy situation, nosotros visited the Museum of the Bible. Only recently opened in the nation'southward majuscule, I have to say the place was zippo less than magnificent – a worthy monument to the greatest Book ever written. The gorgeous seven-story building had an entire floor dedicated to bringing the stories of the Bible to life. There was even a village yous could walk through and collaborate with characters from the Bible era.
A section dedicated to the Tanach (Onetime Testament) had a multi-sensory presentation that included a stunning audio and visual walk-through feel of the Bible timeline. As we walked through the rescue story from Arab republic of egypt and journeyed through the desert, the sheer emotion at finally arriving in the Promised State was electric. Right before we turned a corner, we stood by a pile of rocks and on the wall saw a Bible verse from Joshua 4 explaining:
"In the days to come, when your children ask their fathers, 'What are these stones doing here?' tell your children this: 'Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry out ground.'"
Every bit we turned the corner, my excitement waned every bit I saw the side by side verse on the wall:
"And so another generation grew upwardly that didn't know anything of God or the work He had done for Israel." Judges 2:ten
I turned to my daughter and asked her, "What happened between that final poetry and this one?" She looked at me and her eyes got wide, "Ohhh! They didn't tell their kids!" she answered.
MOVING AT A Family unit Stride
Twenty years ago this past month, Kobi and I exchanged our vows. It took six years earlier we had our first kid and two more years before we had our 2nd. Nosotros had gotten used to traveling and ministering and were very involved with our congregation in Tel Aviv. Even with two trivial ones we were able to drag our kids with u.s.a. or take hold of a babysitter. By the third child we realized nosotros had to slow downwardly a bit. And by our fourth child we started rethinking everything.
Four was more than a handful, but with three girls and one boy, I couldn't assistance but wonder if we should try for one more than male child. I was leaning in the direction of having another 1 merely wrestled with the idea of some other pregnancy. And then one night while sitting at the dinner table, our oldest daughter, who was ten at the time, said out of nowhere, "I feel like there'south someone missing in our family."
That statement non simply confirmed to me that, indeed, we were destined to take this fifth child (which did turn out to be a male child!), but also something clicked in me nigh families. It seemed there was really a plan for how many children God wanted in our family unit. For Jacob it was 13, for Isaac information technology was two. Every family is different. For our journey, team Ferguson needed five new players to get usa to where nosotros were going in God'due south story.
Already ministering full-time, we looked to families of successful ministries and businesses we knew and saw that more often than not, the family was in the background of the parents' lives. No ane would argue that the parents securely loved their children, but there was an underlying feeling of guilt the parents seemed to have. It was a feeling that focusing too much on their children was somehow neglecting God's call. Something about this seemed off. For what skillful is it if a man helps save a whole nation and loses his own family?
And yet somehow, our order has been gear up like this.
Processing through this was like the feeling you get when you finish putting together a piece of article of furniture and realize there are nevertheless several unused screws laying around. It looks like y'all congenital it right, merely at some point, something is going to fall apart because it isn't put together the way information technology was designed. Not in one case in Scripture did God give someone children to punish them. Children were always seen as a approving, and a reward for following the means of the Lord – a promise that 1's story would continue after them. If a person'southward business or ministry building was part of God's plan, nosotros knew children couldn't exist an obstacle in its path.
Non WITHOUT MY SON
A few years ago news outlets all over the U.S. debated this very issue. Adam LaRoche, a professional baseball game player, brought his teenage son to practice every day. Adam also had an arrangement with his son'due south school when they traveled for games and everyone on the team loved the kid. At some point, however, the team'southward president decided that out of principle he didn't like the arrangement. "Nosotros all recollect his kid is a great fellow. I merely felt it should not be every mean solar day, that'south all. You tell me, where in this country tin you lot bring your child to work every twenty-four hours?" the squad president texted. Adam, who clearly knew his priorities resigned, and walked away from the 13 million dollars he would've earned that year.
Why do we come across people abandon high paying jobs or prominent ministry positions considering of burnout or, in Adam'south instance, refusing to live a life that would burn down him out? I would venture that as long equally guild ignores the most basic of human needs – the need to grow upwardly in a loving family and then raise your own – y'all will discover successful people increasingly empty. At that place is and so much focus on how we as individuals should alive our lives – with the right habits, food choices and squeezing the life out of every moment to get ahead.
Family doesn't work on a time clock. Whether information technology's a sick kid the forenoon of the planned trip to Disneyland or on the night before an important meeting at piece of work – the chaos of raising kids brings fifty-fifty the most organized of people to their knees. My guess is, God did that on purpose (non the sickness, only the unpredictability of it all). Fifty-fifty the disciples didn't get it at get-go – shooing kids away who interrupted Yeshua every bit he spoke, only to be rebuked by Yeshua for interrupting the kids. The chaos messes with us, but information technology doesn't mess with Him. Similar the Sabbath, raising kids puts the brakes on our ambitions and forces us to stay rooted in humanity – and dependent on God.
IT'S POSSIBLE
Several years ago we visited Brazil with our whole family unit. We spoke at a conference with all sorts of well-known ministry and worship leaders. At one point afterwards singing a vocal and speaking a bit nosotros brought our kids up and introduced them to anybody and even allow our five-year-quondam share. His ambrosial ii minutes on that stage got 100,000 views on YouTube within the week.
The next day of the briefing I was sitting in the green room backstage when several people started pointing at me and talking intensely in Portuguese. They looked upset so I asked my friend in a whisper – "What are they saying? Are they mad at me?" She giggled and explained, "They are maxim they don't understand how you can exercise all these things, sing and speak, travel the earth and government minister and raise five kids at the aforementioned time. People here love children but they are afraid to have many because they think they volition not have time for their ministry building!"
I replied, "Tell them you tin exercise anything with five kids that you can do with no kids. You just have to do it slower at first."
No one can claim to accept all the answers to everyone's state of affairs considering in that location are so many family unit variables. I practice know that we practical Biblical principles and Jewish traditions that accept proven successful in many cultures for thousands of years and adapted it to our life circumstances – and it is working. It worked and so well, in fact, that nosotros published Color Me Family unit, a family discipleship manual/coloring book to help others who wanted practical ideas for training their family unit in the ways of the Lord.
In the brusk run, choosing family first is difficult because you will observe the "success" of people who are willing to give up their personal life in the name of the Lord'due south mission or their dominate's vision. In the long run, however, walking at a step your family unit tin keep upward with will prove far more than rewarding.
MONKEY Run into, MONKEY DO
People inherently strive to go what they see. It's the reason young children want to be "big" like their parents and why expert kids begin to behave badly when they hang around bad visitor.
Isn't it interesting how many young people today who tin't sing dream of being singers? Do you think information technology has annihilation to do with the countless singing contest shows and movies that climax with a immature person on stage performing a vocal? This betoken was demonstrated when scores of people began posting proud before-and-afterwards pictures of their clean closets before long after Netflix aired shows like Marie Kondo and The Minimalists – shows on tidying up and enjoying the uncluttered life. I bet nosotros could solve a skillful bit of the agronomics crisis – where the average farmer is over 60 and young people are not lining up behind them to take the reins – by making shows most the unique life of farming and the tight community that surrounds it.
But no. Gone are the days of Leave It to Beaver where the children create innocent mischief and are and so corrected and guided by their parents on how to explore life safely.
That is deliberate.
Films that include a traditional warm family are rare these days. Instead, movies geared towards kids almost e'er include one parent missing and the child on a journeying to reject the life their existing parent is trying to "force" on them. Mothers are often portrayed as smart and capable (though exhausted) while the fathers are portrayed as blubbering fools or, at the very least, weak men.
God provided the family structure as a safe place to develop each fledgling generation in the ways and noesis of God. Therefore, family would be the most obvious target for those who want to run across the knowledge of God removed from the globe. And who isn't enlightened of how intensely influencers in places of power similar politics and the entertainment industry would like to see merely that?
Information technology is interesting that the moral lawlessness – or liberty, as a they similar to spin it – applauded in pop culture, specifically targets the wellbeing of the family. No one is arguing that theft or murder is okay. The agenda is to deliberately lay an axe to the root of the human calling to be fruitful, multiply and pass on the knowledge of God.
A archetype case for this is the normalizing of couples living together without first making a lifelong commitment. Though the flippancy of casual sex activity carries with it its own problematic consequences of disease and heartbreak, the greatest losers from this practice are the millions of children who will grow up knowing they had a begetter who ditched them. Thus their response to the thought of a God would be, "And so, who is this Man in the sky maxim He is like that guy who left my mom when she needed him most? How is He going to assistance me sympathise who I am and where I came from and why I am hither?"
YOUR STORY MATTERS
If I gave you lot a necklace and told you I got it from the shop today on the way to meeting y'all, you would likely appreciate information technology and maybe put information technology on. But what if I gave yous a necklace and shared with you in particular how my Jewish grandmother received information technology on her twelfth birthday, and so the next day had to abscond an attack on her village? Then she took a ship beyond the body of water to pre-State of israel British Palestine, was denied entry by the British but was granted asylum in the US. She married and had 7 children, one of which was my dad, and he passed this necklace to me that she carried with her through her harrowing feel. And now, I was giving it to you.
There is no doubt in my mind yous would view and treat that necklace differently. Y'all may even feel awe as yous take in the history of all this necklace has been through and survived. That is the awe we must instill in our kids equally we tell them of where they came from – the seed of who they would become has been carried for generations.
Except for the necklace part, that is in fact my story. And having been told what my ancestors went through to get me to where I am makes me not want to be the one who drops the ball in my family unit's story.
One of the coolest (and a bit embarrassing) things about being in the lineage of the Jewish people is how much of my people's history is recorded. True, it's bad-mannered that everyone has to know some of the misdeeds of my ancestors – they were a family of humans subsequently all. Still, it's a part of who I am just like your imperfect ancestors made yous who yous are. We are the continuation of a long story. And knowing where we came from should give us purpose – as it would to anyone who learns of their ancestor's journey.
What if our kids lived their lives in awe of all the things previous generations of their family unit went through to become them where they are now? The story isn't limited to a blood line. When a child is brought into a family, that family'southward story becomes their own. If the generation nosotros are raising can grasp the by and dream of their futurity significance in this long story, maybe all of a sudden that pair of jeans or iPhone won't be the about of import thing in the world. Maybe doing things that will matter 100 years in the future will thing to them now.
So, if I may ask again, accept you told your kids withal?
Source: https://maozisrael.org/report/2019/10/have-you-told-your-children-yet/
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