The home that I raised my kids in had many rooms, and sometimes I literally had to become a mini search party of one in order to find out where everyone was. I would be between tasks and hear the glorious but telltale sound of complete household silence; always glorious because there’s no noise, but telltale because the level of silence is a meter that gauges individual seclusion. Complete household silence usually indicates complete individual seclusion.

That’s when I would go on my one-man search party. As I found each child, I’d sit for a short time and engage him or her in a little “wazzup” talk. It takes only a few minutes, but it reconnects everyone to the family collective. The best part is that it doesn’t take long. You just need to take advantage of the minutes you have between tasks to personally connect with each of your children.

Another thing I did and still do to counteract individual seclusion and get in some quality family moments is to get some or all of us to seclude ourselves in the same room. If my wife and I are reading in the evening, sometimes we’ll grab our books and sit in the living room. Then we let the other family members know what we’re doing and they’ll sometimes grab their books and join us. I really love doing this because we end up laughing and talking and taking breaks together.

It takes only minutes to battle seclusion, but it’s worth it.

The Neighbor’s Dog

An older, tired-looking dog wandered into my yard; I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of.

He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head; he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the hall, curled up in the corner and fell asleep.

An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.

The next day he was back, greeted me in my yard, walked inside and resumed his spot in the hall and again slept for about an hour. This continued off and on for several weeks.

Curious, I pinned a note to his collar:  ’I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap.’

The next day he arrived for his nap, with a different note pinned to his collar: ‘He lives in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of 3 – he’s trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?’

Unfortunately, as with most email forwards, this came to me with no links or author credits so I don’t know where it came from or even if it actually happened. However, it’s hilarious, and most of us can see it happening and can identify with it.

Some families give their kids ‘timeouts’ when they’re misbehaving. Many times the misbehaving comes at times when the child is tired, hungry, frustrated, etc. and the time-out really just serves to settle them down so that they can be talked to and dealt with rationally.

This email forward reminded me that parents get tired and frustrated from time to time and also need a timeout. It’s when we push ourselves past our own strength and run ahead parenting, even when we’re tired and/or frustrated, that we end up misbehaving towards or in front of our children. Every parent needs an exit strategy. Kind of like a fire escape plan so that you can get a little rest when you feel the need before you reach the end of your rope and parent badly. Here are some ideas:

• If you’re a full time, at home parent, and your spouse has an outside job, arrange for your spouse to take the kids for a hour when they get home to let you escape to what ever relaxes you (a bath, exercise, a prayer walk, etc.).
• If your kids have nap times, coordinate the naps to happen all at once. Even kids who are older can have a ‘quiet time’ in their room while their younger siblings are napping. Take some of this time and do something that relaxes you. Resist the temptation to spend all of this time doing chores. You being rested for your kids is more important.
• If your kids take well to the stroller or riding in the car, get out and take a walk or a drive. Don’t have an agenda, just walk and/or drive to relax and maybe see some nice scenery.
• Make time each evening, after all the kids are bedded down, to do something that relaxes you, reading, praying, chatting with friends online etc. Identify which activities recharge you and spend even a small amount of time recharging.
• Plan a bigger timeout at least once a week. Get a babysitter and get out and about doing something you enjoy.

What do you do to make sure that your batteries are recharged so that you can parent calmly and in control? Leave your comments, they could be helpful to another parent. We may not be able to follow our dog to the neighbor’s house, but with a little bit of planning we can keep ourselves rested and ready to go.

(If you know where the email forward originated, please let me know so that I can give proper credit.)

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that there are times when your marriage isn’t always as great as you’d like it to be.

In my family, we have 3 very active children, a fourth one on the way, a family-run business, and we homeschool. Finding time to spend alone with my wife is a bit challenging.

Yet I know for an absolute fact that the times when I take her out on dates and give her my complete, undivided attention and focus means more to her… and to our marriage… than almost anything else I could do.

I know this because she has told me so… more than once.

All the flowers, chocolate, jewelry, movies, or anything else I “buy” for her don’t even come close to the love she feels from me when I simply give her my time and focused attention. It makes her feel valued and cherished by me.

One of the best dates we’ve ever had was exactly like this. Since Valentine’s Day is coming up,  I asked her to briefly share about it. (The book she mentions is called My Wife Journal, and I highly recommend it no matter what stage of marriage you are at.)

“This is what I can tell you from my heart. I will always remember our date on a cold winter night.

Thank you for dazzling me with something more beautiful than diamonds and much more significant than flowers!”

Fellow Dad, I can’t tell you enough how much my wife appreciated this date. I hope this encourages you in your marriage. 

You can learn more about the “My Wife Journal” here.

Blessings on your marriage,
Joey Watkins Founder, FamilyDads

PS – Don’t forget, Valentine’s Day is February 14th! 

FamilyDads is a dad-founded and dad-focused organization committed to helping dads prioritize and lead their families. Learn more at http://www.FamilyDads.com ]]> http://christianparentingdaily.com/2009/02/03/best-date-ever-by-joey-watkins/feed/ 0 http://christianparentingdaily.com/2009/01/26/daniel-at-school/ http://christianparentingdaily.com/2009/01/26/daniel-at-school/#comments Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:28:42 +0000 Rick Osborne http://christianparentingdaily.com/?p=1062

Daniel’s life and the details surrounding it fascinate me. This man of God, full of deep integrity and wisdom, wrote some of the most detailed and much-studied prophecies in the Bible.

As a teenager, Daniel was uprooted from his home and taken as a captive to Babylon. He ended up in the royal court after the king ordered several young Israelite captives of noble birth to be brought to the palace (Daniel 1:3). Until the time Daniel was taken captive, he evidently grew up in either the royal family or in a very influential home.

Daniel was a young boy when the very godly Josiah ruled Judah. So since Daniel probably grew up in an influential family during Josiah’s reign, he likely was raised with spiritual training and with a godly world view.

Daniel and three other teenage Israelites were taken to the king’s court to get a Babylonian education. All four of the boys received Babylonian names. Daniel was called Belteshazzar; the name hints at the purpose of his education. “El” at the end of Daniel’s name refers to God. “Bel” at the beginning of his new name referred to a Babylonian god. Daniel and his friends were to be educated not only in regular school topics like literature, but they were to be trained to think and view the world, in every way, as the Babylonians did.

In other words, they attended a school similar to those where many Christians send their children to get educated today. Our public schools don’t only strive to give children a God-neutral education; very often they contradict what Christians believe.

Some contend that it’s our job to stand up, be counted, and change all of this. I wouldn’t disagree, but I’d like to point out something even more fundamental: it’s not the governments job to ensure that our children get the right intellectual or spiritual education – that’s our job. Government schooling should aid us in getting the job done, of course, but when we recognize the task as ours, we no longer resign ourselves to the status quo, but instead do what we can to fill in the gaps and right the wrongs in our own child’s education.

If your child is gifted in music, for example, you many conclude that the music program at her school is just not enough. So what do you do? You take control and get her involved in community or private lessons outside of school. Or if you or another family member has musical abilities then some training at home.

In the same way, if your children attend public school and are being taught things contrary to the truth, then it’s your responsibility to fix the problem. You may consider it a civic responsibility to help change things on a political level, but while you’re doing that, it’s also your parental responsibility to change it for your child, whether it changes for everyone else or not.

Fortunately, Daniel and his three friends had been well educated in Judah before their exile to Babylon. Not only had they learned what was right, but they also learned (at the very least from what Josiah did) about the dangers of the pagan religions that Josiah worked so hard to eradicate. This would have prepared the four young men to learn, discern, and understand everything they were taught in light of God’s truth.

In Babylon they learned about practices God had forbidden, such as astrology and divination. They didn’t refuse to learn about these subjects, but they did recognize them for what they were and refused to practice them. When it came to interpreting dreams or predicting the future, Daniel didn’t follow the ways of the Babylonian magicians; he went to God.

We need to prepare our children by educating them in the truth so that when their instructors teach something wrong, they know it and know what the real truth is.

Does this sound like a ton of work that you don’t feel equipped to take on? Don’t worry; you can do some pretty simple things to make sure you’re fulfilling the crucial task of educating your child to view the world from a Christian perspective.

Before diving in to what you can do if your children attend public school, let me briefly speak of the alternatives. Some speak about the alternatives in terms of right and wrong. They believe that everyone should home-school or send their kids to Christian school. Let me say that I disagree. There is no one perfect educational answer for everyone. It depends on the family, the child, the circumstances and much more. Jesus attended the equivalent of a Christian school. Moses was raised and schooled in Pharaoh’s courts, definitely the equivalent of secular school. Daniel and his friends attended Religious school in their youth and then secular school in Babylon.

The key is not where your children are schooled, but how they are taught at home. Moses’ mother evidently taught him and prepared him when he was young so that when the time came he chose God not Egypt. Daniel and friends were also prepared and ready for the temptations they would face and the incorrect teaching they would receive. Jesus may have learned the Torah at school, but practical life application was taught at home according to Deuteronomy six.

Many Christian families are opting to home-school their children, especially in the early years. This is a great idea, but not for everyone, or even possible for everyone. If you go this direction, you’ll still need to make sure you get curriculum that features a Christian world view, and also spend time teaching them about what the world around them believes and how to separate truth from error so that they are well prepared to live and believe in the real world. I home-schooled my oldest daughter for several years and it was a wonderful experience. I also made sure that I taught her from God’s Word everyday.

The other alternative is a Christian school. Again, this is not the right choice for every family, nor is it possible or even available to all. If it is possible and a good Christian school is available to you, it can be a great option.

Just because it’s a Christian school, however, doesn’t mean that you’ll like everything it teaches. If you choose this option, view it as a great assist; but just as you can’t delegate spiritual training to the church, so you can’t delegate education carte blanche to your child’s school – whether public or private. All of my children attended a wonderful Christian school and I can tell you from experience, the Christian school option does not get you off the hook. Christian schools are full of kids who are not living their lives as Christians, and although Bible class is part of the curriculum, our children still need to be taught the practical application of their Faith at home 24/7 in the midst of life.

Your child’s education is very important and one of your primary responsibilities as a parent is to pray about, plan, and oversea it. No matter which option or combination of options that you choose, you are still a key part of your child’s education. Stay on top of it, know what they’re learning, correct it if it needs correcting, add to it what needs adding and always remember, the most important things in life aren’t taught in school. It’s our job to teach our children the practical application of their Faith, matters of character, relationship skills, love, manners, morality and much more.

Daniel and his friends arrived in Babylon ready to serve God and to learn in a secular, pagan world. Perhaps their parents believed what Jeremiah (who began his ministry right around the time Daniel was born) prophesied about the exile, and prepared their children for the inevitable. Perhaps they were just protecting them from being led astray by the pagan Canaanite religions. Either way, it’s a good thing they did. Daniel changed the world – and all because he was able to chew on what he was taught, compare it with God’s truth, and spit out the bones.

Chapter 1 of Daniel records one of the most fascinating details of his story. It describes what happened when Daniel and his friends were tested by the king himself, and also shows what can happen when students trust God and learn through God-colored glasses:

In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. (Daniel 1:20)

The Bible

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did. Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don’t lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor’s stuff. Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me.

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don’t have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, ‘Close the door! Were you born in a barn?’ It would be nice to say, ‘As a matter of fact, I was.’)

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans.

Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn’t stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead.

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

The End

Funny, right? One thing I noticed while reading it was that despite the humorous gaffs, this kid’s grasp of the overall story of the Bible is quite good. One of the first things we need to teach our children about the Bible is the big story from Genesis to Revelation. Once they understand that, it’s easier to make sense of the individual stories because they have a context to place them in.

Read the retelling with your kids and have a little fun seeing if they can correct the mistakes. It’s an enjoyable way to help them start to grasp God’s big story.

What’s the difference between a seven-year-old and a really bad comedian? Their age. In my experience, every boy and most girls go through a phase where they discover jokes and set out to be funny. And truth be told, we all still have remnants of our first childish experiments with being funny – especially dads who can revert to boyish humor in a moment’s notice.Hey, we can have a lot of fun with young children by letting our sense of humor slide back a few years and getting into a good round of knock-knock jokes with them. When my kids went through this stage, I released my inner 10-year-old and really got into it. In my case, I have to admit I didn’t do it on purpose. It just happened.

It’s good to laugh and just have fun with our children. If each moment becomes a “teachable moment,” a “correctable moment,” or a “meaningful moment,” your children will start to close their ears every time they see your mouth open. Laughter helps dismantle the defenses and opens up communication, but most important, because you’re willing to just have fun with your children, it lets them know that you like them and like being with them.

When someone sends me a good joke on the Internet, I make a point of remembering it or printing it out and then telling it to my kids during a lull in the conversation – or when I want to start up a conversation. It takes only a minute to remember and tell a joke, and it always amazes me how often meaningful and fun conversations follow a punch line.

Here are a couple corny jokes you can use to get started:

• How do you catch a unique rabbit? Unique up on it!
• What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work? A stick.
• Knock, knock? (Who’s there?) Banana! Knock, knock? (Who’s there?) Banana! Knock, knock? (Who’s there?) Banana! Knock, knock? (Who’s there?) Orange. (Orange who?) ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA!
• What does an octopus wear in the winter? A coat of arms.
• What do porcupines say when they kiss? Ouch.
• What does a cat like to eat on a hot day? A mice cream cone.
• Why are elephants so wrinkled? They’re way too hard to iron.
• Why did the banana go to the doctor? He wasn’t peeling well.

I was flying into Chicago on United Airlines shortly after they had completed their new terminal. The captain welcomed us to Chicago and “The New Terminal of Tomorrow.” He went on to explain that everyone who’s tried to catch a connecting flight out of there understands why it’s really called “The Terminal of Tomorrow” – because you might not get on your connecting flight till tomorrow!

I’ve often waited in the Chicago airport.  It’s a very busy place and reminds me of my home: children’s parties, sleepovers, friends coming and going, neighbors calling, extended family dropping by. And there are the departures. The car just doesn’t stop. There are youth groups, lessons of all sorts, sports, school, church, errands to run, and children’s friends to pick up or drive home. Sound familiar?  In the middle of all the flights in and out, once in a while I find a wonderful parenting moment with one of my fellow travelers.

The first time it happened, everyone had flown in and back out of “Osborne O’Hare,” and only my son and I were left. During the next few hours he had his agenda, and I had mine. However, in the middle of that time the two of us needed to sit down and eat a meal. What followed started with me pointing out that it was cool that it was just the two of us guys.

Then we decided to have some guy food and talked about guy things, and we even used some guy table manners (intentional oxymoron). We laughed a lot and afterwards headed back to our own tasks. The meal needed to be prepared anyway, but the time we had was memorable. I now watch for “home alone” moments. My son and I have our “guy time” every time the Osborne Terminal clears out, and I have special dad-and-daughter meals whenever I find myself alone with one of them.
For more quick and easy parenting tips and teachable moments, we recommend “Parenting at the Speed of Life”

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)

Very few of us would ever seriously ask that same question but how about if we tweaked it slightly, “Why do things that take place in stupid families keep on happening in mine?”

Isn’t that kind of what we’re asking when we get frustrated and throw out questions like, “Why must everything be a fight?” “Can’t anyone clean up after themselves?” “Would it hurt anyone to help out a bit for a change?” “For once, could you please just get along?”

One day many years ago, a friend and fellow worker very politely pointed out that I had a bad habit of interrupting him pretty much whenever he spoke. I admitted I had the problem, apologized and told him that I was going to do something about it. In the days that followed, he politely reminded me time and time again. I responded the same way each time.

A week or two later my friend reached the end of his patience and said, “Every time I talk about this, you say that you’re going to do something about it. Stop putting it off! Make a decision to change and do something about it now.”

I stopped and prayed on the spot for God’s help and I made a decision. Once the decision was made, I began paying attention and I put some effort into learning the skills I needed like really listening and following up with a question.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I stopped interrupting however the biggest benefit of my friend’s rebuke was that I later learned how to apply the change principle in my family. Let me give you a brief example.

Once our family was suffering from chronic tornado kitchen syndrome. At first I whined, I complained and I asked the ‘Homer Simpson’ style questions.

My wonderful wife pointed out that perhaps we needed to do something different if we wanted change. (Where had I heard that before?) After some prayer and thought, I taped a note to the kitchen counter and had a family meeting and the fun began. If a single thing was out of place after someone left the kitchen they were on kitchen duty until the next time someone was caught. For awhile everyone was catching everyone else and kitchen duty revolved frequently. Within a few weeks everyone was getting the hang of ‘the game’ and those caught were spending longer periods of time on kitchen duty which made it even more important not to mess up.

What needs to change in your family? Is it the way you communicate with each other, are the kids not helping out, is the sibling rivalry fierce, are you constantly cleaning up after everyone? Here’s what you do, pick one thing that you want to change, pray about it and ask for wisdom. Now go looking for wisdom, search this site or other Christian parenting sites, Google the problem, read a parenting book, anything you need to do to find an idea or solution.

Proverbs 9 says that wisdom has prepared a huge banquet and she’s yelling, “Come and get it.” Finding the wisdom is very seldom difficult once you’ve decided on change. Now have a family meeting and get started.

What I found out was that small efforts at change can yield big results. A simple fun game in the kitchen led to everyone learning skills that began to spread to the rest of the house. My simple decision to stop interrupting people led me to better communication skills and therefore to better and stronger relationships.

The things that happen to stupid people happen to Homer Simpson and us not because we’re stupid but because we keep doing the same things over and over again and that’s stupid. And if we expect any change without changing, according to Einstein, that’s insane. Start today and fight stupidity and insanity with a little change.

For more quick and easy parenting tips for bringing change to your family, we recommend “Parenting at the Speed of Life”

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)

After having that thought, my mind jumped immediately to the same question that yours just did, “Can someone romance God? Isn’t romance reserved as a wonderful dance between a man and a woman?” So I looked up the word romance. While it is true that the word romance has, for the most part, come to refer to the expression of love between lovers, its origin and breath of meaning reveals other possibilities of use for this powerful word.

The word originally referred to a type of popular stories that were written in the Roman language; fanciful stories of extravagant and surprising adventures, featuring heroes and heroines, stories that carried their readers away. A romance is a story. It seems that over time the word began to be used of the romance or the adventurous love story between a man and a woman. Unfortunately, for many of us, the word has merely come to mean taking our significant other out for a dinner or buying them flowers once in awhile. However, what it should mean to us, is to intentionally weave and build your love relationship into a wonderful lifelong tale of expressed love and shared adventure.

Knowing this and seeing that the word’s definition is not just confined to the love between a man and a woman, I rethought David. His whole life story was a romance, full of adventure and all built on the foundation of his love for God and his expression of that love. David’s life was a romance with God.

Wow! I started thinking right away of how I could romance God. Sing him a song, write him a poem, stop more often to thank him and find more ways to demonstrate my love; unexpected, not required, from-the-heart, just-because-I-love-him ways. I want to intentionally build a love story, an unexpected romance between God and myself.

Now stay with me because my musings took me one step further. Jesus said that when we express our love to others, giving to them, caring for them and helping them, that he takes it as if we were expressing our love for him (Matthew 25:45). One way we can romance God is by loving and serving those around us.

When I think of romancing my wife (and now God as well) I look for thoughtful and unexpected ways to surprise with an expression of my love. These expressions begin to build our story or romance.

So one way to romance God is to look for unexpected ways to surprise those around us with expressions of our love for them. I’m calling it ‘Romancing your family.’ Here’s how; stop at the store and pick up your kid’s favorite chocolate bar, hug them when they walk by, write them a nice note, sit down beside them and be interested in what they’re doing or tell them something you love about them etc. Every thoughtful and unexpected expression of your love will build your relationships and begin weaving a wonderful story out of each of them.

My wife has called me a romantic but I want to take this to a whole new level. As I live my life romancing God directly and by loving others, my prayer is that God would weave each effort together so that one day the story of my life can be looked at like David’s and called a romance.

What can you do today to romance God by surprising each member of your family with an unexpected expression of your love?

For more quick and easy parenting tips for bringing change to your family, we recommend “Parenting at the Speed of Life”

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)

I remember hearing this saying when I was young and my Granny was still alive. I remember wondering why (if this saying were true as a fact as well as a metaphor) she would hang her unmentionables on our clothes line when she visited. Now I should mention that my Gran was a wonderful lady but she was a very large woman and her private garments would attract attention. However, for some reason she seemed oblivious to this fact.

I’m telling this story because I believe that somehow, somewhere along the way, we’ve adopted the idea that what happens behind closed family doors is no one’s business but our own. Which has again somehow led to the idea that we are free to behave in ways in our homes that we would not act in public.

Although I’ve seen this in many Christian homes, it is not God’s idea of how a Christian home should function. Being a Christian is about who we are and who we’re becoming, it’s not just about what we believe. As we submit our lives to God, he by his grace and the work of the Holy Spirit begins (and never stops) to change our hearts and that change should be reflected in our behavior. The first place that our changed behavior should show up is in our closest relationships – in our family relationships.

The Apostle Paul wrote these words. “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” (1 Timothy 5:1, 2)

Notice that Paul assumes that our best behavior would be used on our family members and he therefore exhorts Timothy (and us) to treat other Christians how we treat our family. Would it go over well if you treated the people at church the same way you’ve allowed yourself to treat your spouse and/or children from time to time in the privacy of your own home?

In the same letter to Timothy, Paul outlines the qualifications for leaders in the church and reveals that what goes on at home either qualifies or disqualifies you for leadership. Would others question your ability to minister to others if they saw a video (taken secretly) of you at home?

The only Biblical application I can see for ‘Don’t air our family’s dirty laundry’ is that we shouldn’t gossip about our family members or maliciously share their mistakes with others. Our homes should be a safe place to grow and make mistakes but it was never meant to be a place where we can behave badly because we’ve been led to believe that a Las Vegas like slogan applies, ‘what happens at home stays at home’.

Try this, next time you’re reading the Bible, with each instruction ask yourself “Am I living this at home?” If you’re not, stop and pray and ask for God’s help. Also start checking your home behavior, if you’re about to scream or get unreasonable stop and think if you’d speak that way to your pastor. If you’re doing something that you wouldn’t want to talk about Sunday morning then think about why you’d even consider behaving that way in front of the ones you love the most.

Perhaps my Granny knew this to be true and was reversing the metaphor when she hung out her large unmentionables to dry. Or perhaps she just wanted dry unmentionables. I’ll ask her when I get to heaven.

For more practical and Biblical Christian Parenting ideas we recommend the Christian resource, ‘Teaching Kids About God’.

(RICK OSBORNE / Christian Author, Speaker & Bible Teacher)