Many of us as Christians have often heard quoted the verse from John 10:10, “The thief does not come except to kill, to steal, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” (NKJV)
When I’ve heard that verse in the past I’ve always thought of things like car wrecks, plane crashes, terminal illnesses …in other words, BIG events that bring death and destruction and pain.
However, a couple of months ago I was thinking about my family and some of the challenges that I was facing as a mom and this verse popped in my head (seems like there was something I heard that triggered it, but, for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was now–only the verse stuck).
All of a sudden it occurred to me that things that “kill, steal, and destroy” are most often the little things in our lives. The little things happen so daily and we become immune and accustomed to them and don’t even pay them much attention at all. And we don’t even realize the damage they are doing.
My husband and I have really been challenged lately (well …since he was born actually) by our son’s behavior. He so struggles with self-control in many areas–which means he gets himself into trouble. A lot. But sometimes I see myself in him, mostly when I’ve lost my own self-control and start yelling. {sigh}
We’re also working on “attitude adjustments” with our daughter. She often antagonizes her little brother, which results in him losing his temper, which results in total mayhem. And by total mayhem, I mean mom plays referee and often loses her temper, too. It can be a vicious cycle some days.
And I began to think about how our enemy, satan, doesn’t just want to kill us physically, he wants to truly destroy our lives in every way. To destroy peace in our homes, to destroy our relationships, to steal our faith and trust, to truly kill families in all ways imaginable.
Jesus is the exact opposite of that. He brings us life, abundant life. He gives us abundant life here, right here on earth and not just when we get to Heaven. Because of Him we can experience peace, rest, restoration, healing and love right now.
So while satan is working against us in every way, if we are aware of his tactics we can combat them. We can strengthen our families by reading God’s Word together, praying together, working on developing positive character traits together. While these are things that we always done, we’ve decided it’s time to step it up to a whole “‘nother” level! We want our family to be strong together, not fighting and driving each other nuts all day long (believe me, I’ve felt like that!).
These things take time, and when I say time, I mean your time and my time–not just the process of time. It takes time for me to help my kids commit Bible verses to memory, time for me to stop and remember to also control myself in how I discipline my kiddos, time for me to stop when the atmosphere is getting heated up and remind us all of character traits we should be exhibiting, time to read with my children from God’s Word, time, time, time… But what an investment into the souls of our children and into the quality of our family life! We can begin to experience abundant life right now!
Now I promise you that our family isn’t perfect–not by a long shot–and we never will be. But being aware of the fight against your family and forming an offensive game plan to combat that fight will take your family a long way toward that abundant living. I want to experience that now!
That reminds me of another great verse that we can hold onto as we chart new territory with our families:
“being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ:” Philippians 1:6
Thanks for letting me share my heart with you today! Join me anytime at My Blessed Life!
Blessings,
Lora
Thank you for joining us in today’s Blogging in the Bluegrass series. For the month of September, Ben and Me is highlighting homeschool moms from around the state of Kentucky. Watch the blog every Wednesday and Friday all month long for these inspirational and informative guest articles!
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