Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Forget about A Face-Lift

In my never ending quest to fine tune my parenting skills, I am reading a new book. It is called "Shepherding a Child's Heart" by Tedd Tripp. I had heard about it from a couple of my friends that really liked it. It is mostly background info and explaining the biblical basis of the book thus far. (I am only on page 70.) But, today, I read something that caught my attention. It was in reference to correcting your child's behavior without actually touching their hearts. I think that it can apply to our behavior as adults as well, though.

"God does open-heart surgery, not a face-lift. He produces change from the inside out. He rejects the man who fasts twice a week and accepts the sinner who cries out for mercy."

I am dealing with some issues right now that are eating away at me. I realized today that I am looking for the quick fix (the face-lift). I want everything to work out the way that I have planned in my head. But... the fact is that the things that I am stressed about are really out of my control. I am going to try to give it up to the Lord and realize that I cannot "fix" it myself. (Thanks for the pep talk, Leigh. :))

In related news... we still haven't found a house. Looks like we will be spending yet another weekend looking. I woke up in a cold sweat this morning after dreaming about whether the Fed was going to drop interest rates again by the end of the month. Totally normal, right?!?!?

3 comments:

Albus Adventures said...

I like what you wrote about the heart surgery Christ does on us. I am doing the Breaking Free study of Beth Moore's and she says that God wants to redeem our hurt and make us Whole. I'll be praying for you. Love you.

Albus Adventures said...

Our pastor mentioned this book this morning during his sermon on parenting.

Jeff said...

Good luck with the house search... it can be hard narrowing things down to the right house. We would like to borrow the book when you are done with it. We heard a great message on parenting in church this past Sunday and our pastor recommended the book.