Romans 12:1-8
"1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.
4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function,
5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;
7 if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;
8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness."
I stopped praying for my children for a couple of months and told people I was, because I have prayed for them for more than 40 years now and believe my prayers during that 40 years still count. I became weary of praying and praying and praying only to watch them get worse.
So I turned them over to God completely to do whatever He will, whatever it takes to bring them to their knees. I know God is going to work one way or another, that is up to Him.
I felt a need for a break from the continual cogitation on their problems, their rebellion and their disrespectful attitudes. Now that I have had that break, the joy has returned and I have begun praying again, only without the agony anymore.
Also the desire to show them their need has left me, the realization that they may never be in my life again is not a grief anymore. The Lord has given me peace, what He does with them is up to Him.
I was also convicted that in my grief, my children had become idols to me. I placed far too much importance on their lack of love for us. When I realized that I was courting idols in my life, I was transformed into a free woman. Bondage to idols, whether they be artifacts, statues or people, will take it's toll on our spiritual walk.
I have never lost my love for my children, that will never go away, but I no longer expect anything, all my expectations have been laid at the feet of Christ.
No more idols, no more expectations and no more desire to help them fix their own lives. However, until God fixes them, I have to keep my distance, to prevent the mistake of returning to idols.
Yep, there is still hope, but a calmer more joyous hope in Christ rather than in the children.
We are approaching a time of anarchy in our country. It is here in subtle and covert ways, but I believe this will increase as the next generation is even more narcissistic than the last. They hate instruction, correction or guidance of any kind. Rebellion rules all that they do. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 comes to mind whenever I see these kinds of things and hear the testimonies of good people who are experiencing child estrangement.http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/09/08/audio-anonymous-911-caller-threatens-shoot-colorado-cops
To tell you the truth, I can't understand any woman who loves the Lord not spilling out all over the place with Scriptural talk.
The Lord in us just slops all over everything all the time. We eat, drink and sleep Bibleze!
I see this in the godly men too, they cannot get enough of God's Word and when they get it, they must let it come out their mouth.
Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God."
Perhaps when we have to do lectures on hair and skirt lengths we don't have other important things to think about. Majoring on the minors, while minoring on the majors is one way of feeling superior to others when we really have no control over all the injustice and evil going on.
I guess I get weary, when I see women standing so strongly about questionable things when there are people all over this planet dying for their faith, with all different hair lengths. There are families being ripped asunder by divorce and remarriage, children abandoned by their bio parents, babies being murdered in the abortion mills, while dictators all over the world are killing believers while burning down their entire villages.
In our town alone, we have 70% of the babies being born out of wedlock, the babies are often neglected, there are no fathers in the home and if they are they don't love their children....and we are concerned about hair length? Are you kidding me!!!! It would seem we have more important fish to fry than hair, clothing, cosmetics and salt on the fries.
I want to obey God, the minutia of these things wear me out.
