Author: mary

Parenting takes an act of love and can be a laborious journey. It can be difficult, but it also can be such a blessing if you follow the Lord and trust Him to be a part of your life. There is no manual that comes with your children when they are born, and no book can hold all of the answers you need. However, the Bible is the Christian manual with all of the answers for living a godly life, so if you seek its wisdom, you will find hope and love in your parenting journey. One definition of labor means “to strive, as toward a goal; work hard” (Dictionary.com). That describes parenting.

What is your goal when it comes to parenting? Do you want to see your children be successful? Or maybe you want them to know the Lord and live a life that is pleasing to him. Whatever your goal for them may be, it definitely takes a labor of love to help guide them in the way they should go as Proverbs 22:6 states (Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it). Parenting takes seeking the wisdom of God, setting boundaries and disciplining, loving and giving grace as needed. When you do those things, you will see God work in the lives of your children, and in your life as well.

While you will labor in your parenting journey to provide the love and care your children need, you will also find that you are not the only one who labors. Pray and ask God to care for your children and you will watch Him work in the lives of His children.

God made man and woman for each other to complement each other. It would be quite boring if we were all the same with the same personalities! He made each person unique. He gave men the ability to lead his family and train up his children. He gave women the ability to care for and nurture her children and to be a partner for the man. When they work together in marriage, they can create the beautiful picture God intended for them.

In Colossians 3:18, Paul tells wives to submit to their husbands as is fitting for the Lord. The word submit can seem like a weak term to society, but it takes a lot of strength and selflessness to submit to someone else’s authority. The Lord wants all of us to submit to Him and His authority, so by submitting to the husband, the woman is showing her trust and faith in her spouse. In verse 19, Paul says for husbands to love their wives and to not be harsh with them. God knew that women had tender spirits and would need their husbands to be gentle with them. These qualities fit together to create a godly marriage, a partnership or team. The wife trusts and respects her husband as the leader of the family and the husband will love his wife and treat her with kindness.

Not everyone trusts in the Lord’s institution of marriage and even try to distort it, but the couple who follows this wisdom, will find God at the center of their marriage and will see how they can complement each other to create the best possible marriage.

We live in a culture that gives up easily. When something gets hard, it is easy to just throw in the towel and give up. We see this in Hollywood all the time. They are married for a short time, and then they divorce and start over with someone newer, younger, more fun, different than what they had. They are a dangerous example to follow, and we should never place our hope in them. Instead, we should look to godly couples who have invested time and effort into their marriage.

A godly example of a marriage will teach us how to persevere in times of trouble and will give us hope. They will show us how to love and respect each other. Get involved in a church family and seek out another couple to help mentor you and your spouse. This can only be done, when you are plugged into a church family. However, if you seek advice about your marriage from people who are not plugged into a church or have a relationship with God, then expect that you are not going to get godly advice. For example, there was a girl who needed advice about her marriage, so she went to her family to seek advice. Her family did not know the Lord and so the advice that they gave her was to leave her husband. Then, she sought out the advice of a godly friend, and her friend encouraged her to fight for her marriage.She and her husband sought marriage counseling and fought to save their marriage. Now, they are in the ministry working with other couples.
Your marriage can be a thriving, godly marriage that stands the test of time when you invest in your marriage by seeking out people who love the Lord to help you. Fight for your marriage and watch the Lord do his work.

Marriage was created in the beginning of time by the God of the Universe. It was set up to be a picture of the relationship between Christ and man. The scripture says that Christ is the bride groom and we are the bride of Christ. It is a beautiful picture of eternal love. But this is something that the world cannot quite understand. They want to understand more about love, but they look everywhere except for God‘s word.

A marriage that is based on the relationship between Christ and man will survive. When both husband and wife seek God together, the marriage will not only survive, but it will thrive. We were not made to do anything on our own. We need the love of God in our hearts pouring out of us so we know how to love each other. Yes, marriage is still difficult. There are still broken relationships. And there are marriages that begin again after a divorce. We live in a broken world so there are broken relationships. But that is not God‘s will for marriage. His will is that we would seek him together, unified, and build our relationship upon him. That is the ideal marriage.

So you must decide whether or not you are going to allow God to be the foundation for the marriage you are building. The beautiful thing about living in a broken world, is that it is always in need of restoration, and we serve a God who restores and mends what has been broken if we allowed him to. It is never too late to begin anew.

In this life we will have times when we struggle with our faith, stumble and fall, and even times when we try to run away from God. However, He is willing to pour out His grace and mercy over us time and time again. He knows that our flesh is weak, and we can be influenced by the world. He promises to restore us and reconcile us back to Him when we run away if we turn back toward Him.

Look at the story of the prodigal son. In this story, you have two sons. They were both given everything they needed, but one son worked hard while the other spent his time enjoying life. He was favored by his father. He decided to take his inheritance and run away to find a better life. This drove him to spend all of his inheritance and destroy his life. He was in such a low place that he decided it would be better to be with his father and eat with the pigs than to stay in that low place, so he returned to his father’s house. When he returned, his father was so overjoyed that he threw a party in his honor. His prodigal son had returned. The other son was angry and jealous because he had served his father all that time and did not receive the same reception.

We are like that prodigal son. Even when we run away and try to do things on our own, if we return and truly repent (which means to turn away from sin), then we will experience the same reception from our heavenly Father. He will be so overjoyed that we returned. That is reconciliation.