Author: theministrymama

Come Back Home

Come Back Home

Do you know someone who needs to come back home to God? The lyrics of this song, really have touched my heart…  God wants his wandering child to come back home because they really do mean the world to Him.

The old man stood beside the window, facing down the road
His eyes were sad, his shoulders stooped
His tears of sorrow flowed
Every day he’d come there hoping that he’d find,
His son returning to the life and love he’d left behind
Faraway in a distant land a young man starts to see
The life that he had chosen wasn’t what it seemed to be
As he turned to go back down the old familiar way

It seemed he heard the loving voice of his father sweetly say
Come back home
Please come home
I love you so much don’t you see
You still mean all the world to me
I’m still waiting for you to come back home

Have you dreamed those elusive dreams of a better way of life?
And has the road you’ve chosen served to bring you pain and strife?
Did you get just what you wanted but you’ve lost all that you had?
Instead of bringing happiness, this new life has made you sad
Turn around he’s waiting, the one who love you so
His eyes have never left you, though he grieved to see you go,
As you begin your journey down the old familiar way
You too will hear the loving voice of your Father sweetly say

Come back home
Please come home
I love you so much don’t you see
You still mean all the world to me
I’m still waiting for you to come back home

I’m still waiting for you to come back home.

Find this track here, sung by The Epley’s. I believe this song was written by Benita Epley.

The truth is, at times, we all need to come back home to God. You know I write primarily to people in ministry, so we too, even though we may be busy in the work of the Lord, may not be as close to God as we once were. You may be running away in your heart from home, please come home. God knows your situation, whatever it is, and is waiting for your relationship to be rekindled and reunited.

On a Side Note: I would also like to put in a plug for their music. The Epley’s, now husband and wife , travel and minister in song in Baptist Churches around the country. They formerly sang as a family, but as their children have grown, they now sing as a duet. They are a blessing to have in your services and the songs they sing are always songs that have a good godly message that will speak to the hearts of those in your congregation. We met them for the first time last year when they came to sing for our church anniversary service. They are a sweet blessing!

Right now, my favorite song if theirs is I Don’t Know Any Better Than Jesus from their God’s Been Good album. You can find their music on the Faith Music Missions website.

I found one of their songs from their God’s Been Good album on Youtube called This Blessed Old Book. I hope you will enjoy!

 

*This post does NOT contain affiliate links.

5 Bible Lessons to Teach Boys While Building Things

My sons received their first toolbox and some of the Lowe’s building kits. While we were working several days in a row on putting all of them together, I began to think of Bible lessons that could be taught to boys while you work beside them building things. Even as a mom, you can teach your sons manly Biblical principles while they are learning to avoid hitting their fingers while driving their first nails.

All you have to do is read through these simple little lessons and then when you are working on your project, talk about them. You don’t have to read word-for-word any of this script, it is just here to help you have a starting place to be able to teach your children while you work beside each other on a project.

Teaching Boys While Building Things

God’s Word is like a hammer.

Did you know what God’s Word, the Bible, is like a hammer!? Yes, God’s Word is strong and true, think about this verse:

Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Jeremiah 23:29

God’s Word breaks the rock in pieces! The hard rock of our hearts can be broken by God’s Word. Just as a hammer is an important tool to have in your toolbox, the most important tool in your life is the Word of God. Learning God’s Word and obeying it will help your heart not to be hard. There are times in our life when we do not want to give up the sin in our lives, and when we learn and hear what the Bible says about that sin, God takes the hammer and strikes us right in the heart. When God speaks to you about something it is just like a hammer when it strikes a nail, in your heart, you know exactly what God is speaking to you about. It will be best, when God speaks, to do what God wants you to do and give up what God wants you to give up.

Optional Idea: Take some time to try to break a rock into pieces with a hammer. Is it difficult? Does it take a lot of strength?

Guide the nail, just like God guides His children.

When you start to hammer a nail into a board, you have to hold the nail in the exact place where you want it to go. You hold it still between your finger and thumb and raise the hammer, and tap, tap, tap, you hit it a few times to get it in the right spot. Then, as it sinks into the wood, you can let go of the nail and finish driving it in with the hammer.

God can guide His child with his eye, just like you do when you watch carefully as you begin to hammer. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. Psalm 32:8

We are never alone, once we are saved, God promises to guide us in our lives until we die. Psalm 48: 14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.

God is the best carpenter and builder. He builds our lives because of His skillfulness. He knows and sees everything, and has a heart to take care of us in the best way, if we will let Him. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.Psalm 78:72

Your words are as powerful as power tools.

Power tools are awesome! They are like a manly steak dinner, they are so awesome! Power tools have some special “powers” that help us do our work faster as well as better. The feeling of holding a power tool and pulling the button to make it work, makes you feel strong and capable of doing any type of construction job.

Power tools must be used properly or they can be very dangerous. If you were to be irresponsible with a power tool then you could hurt yourself very easily. Just as power tools have strength, our words are just as powerful! The things we say can fly out of our mouth and hurt someone very quickly. We may also use our words and help and encourage someone when they are having a difficult time, and it may make all the difference in the world to that person.

Our words can be like a deadly poison if we use them in a wrong way.
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:8
And our words can bring life to a person’s life if we use them in a right way. Death could be the result if we disregard the warnings signs when we become angry, rude or disrespectful.

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Proverbs 18:21

Follow God’s plans for your life.

Almost everything you build will require plans or instructions that will teach you step by step how to make the object that you are building. We follow those plans so that we do not build the object incorrectly. The plans are very important or you might lose time if you have to take things apart and start again. It might cost you materials if you do things in the wrong order and ruin your pieces.

God has plans for our lives. In Genesis, God gave Noah plans on how to build the ark. In Exodus, God gave Moses plans on how He wanted the tabernacle built, as well as all the furniture that was to go inside it. These plans were very detailed, specifically drawn out and described, so that the builders could follow them and build it exactly the way God had described. God did not leave Noah or Moses with a huge task to complete, without a way to do it. He gave them plans and instructions. God does not leave us with a life to live with no plans for our life.

The Bible is our instruction manual, the plans for our life. When we read it we learn how to put the pieces of a godly life together. It is very important to always read your Bible and learn what God wants for you to do. God will speak to you through your personal time with the Lord as well as when you listen to Bible teaching and preaching.

Be faithful like Noah.

In Genesis we can learn that God instructed Noah to begin building the ark because the flood would come to destroy the entire earth. God tells him ahead of time that he and his sons and their wives would be rescued with the earth’s animals inside the ark. Noah went to work constructing the massive boat of gopher wood, and followed God’s instructions to seal it with pitch on the inside. Then, the day came when all the animals were inside, and Noah walked into the ark with his wife and family and God shut the door. On that day the rain began to fall for the first time.

Hebrews 11:7 “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…”

In this verse we learn that God warned Noah about things he had never seen before. He showed his faith, that even we he did not understand or even know what a flood or rain was, that he still moved with fear and prepared the ark. Are you the type of person when you do not know the answer, you still have faith to trust God and do what He asks you to do? We all have Noah, the great builder of the ark, to look up to, when we are scared to obey. His faith is encouraging!

Reading these simple little lessons can give you talking points in which you can help grow your child’s faith as you sharpen your axes as you work together. Please remember that you have to teach these lessons with a right heart yourself, and a gentle and kind manner, so that they will cling to your child’s heart and memory.

Sprinkling Spirituality Into Our Summer

Sprinkling Spirituality into our Summer

We live in the desert so playing in the grass in our yard is NOT an experience that our kids have, they do not get to run through the sprinklers like most other children do in the good ‘ole summer time. So, instead, we sprinkled God and spiritual things into our summer in some new ways for our family both last year and this year.

Last year we…

Fell  in love with Lamplighter books, and have invested in buying not only books but the audio dramas. They held a Summer Reading Challenge that ended at the end of August. The reading challenge awarded points for each book read, audio listened to, and had awesome extra challenges that were easy for each of our boys (ages 7 and 6) to take part in easily. But, that’s not the best part, adults could participate too!

We spent family time listening to the audio dramas. We drew pictures of our favorite parts of the stories and even earned extra points for listening to them with a senior. We earned enough credits to buy many of their ebooks, that are also character oriented and Bible based with special meanings that are applicable to Christian living. Some of our favorites are The Hedge of Thorns, Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince, and Teddy’s Button, although it really is difficult for us to even choose because they all keep you on the edge of your seat at times as you listen.

We also memorized scripture with the Abeka Bible Memory Cards. These cards are the ABC’s, just with a Bible word associated with them and a verse. A is for all, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23” B is for Believe, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” We would just sit the kids down on the carpet in front of us and repeat them regularly. The awesome thing that is our 3-year-old daughter had many verses memorized and will still quote them from time to time on her own.

We did take part in our Vacation Bible School. I taught the 4 & 5-year-old class and my husband was the organizer of the event. It was a fun spy theme complete with crazy skits my husband loved to be in. The kids always have a fun time in class and participating in the Penny Race. This year we’re planning a Kid’s Crusade in the fall, so no summer-time VBS for us this year.

This year…

In a search for devotions to do with my kids, someone suggested Keys for Kids audio devotionals from KeysforKids.org. The stories are read by the friendly voice of Uncle Charlie, they offer great illustrations and examples of how Biblical living can be done in a child’s life. They ask questions at the end of the story and have a “key” for the day that the child is supposed to think about. For example, the key for today is: Be blind to outward appearance. The only thing we have to do is look up the Bible verse in our KJV, because they read out of the NKJV, and I always want to make sure they have not left anything out. The neat thing about Keys for Kids is that they have an app that can be found on the App store as well as on the Google Play store so we can listen to it almost anywhere. This has been a highlight to our summer days, making it easy to learn and listen together.

For the past 2 years we have bought the Imagination Station series of books for our boys. They are awesome!! We have all 13 books so far, and we are waiting for the next books to be published. If you are familiar with the Imagination Station radio program, these are books with different adventures for kids to read on a 2.3 reading level. Each book has something to do with cousins Patrick and Beth traveling to a Bible site or finding themselves learning about a Christian hero. Another neat thing about the Imagination Station series is that the kids can figure out a “Secret Word” from reading the book and then go to The Imagination Station website and type it in and listen to a special audio story. The boys have picked these books back up again this summer and are enjoying them for the 100th time!

In May The Ministry Papa was able to attend a Music College with Ron and Shelly Hamilton in Colorado and he came home with a set of Patch the Pirate CD’s. It was Volume 7 of the Story and Song Treasure Box with the following CD’s, The Colonel’s Colossal Character Quest, The Villain of Venice, The Kashmir Kid, and Shipwrecked on Pleasure Island. If you’re not familiar with Patch the Pirate then I like to describe them as musicals for kids. You have the story that happens with great dialog, creative voices and storyline, then all of a sudden you can feel a song coming on. Each song fits into the story with either a godly or funny theme. In The Villain of Venice, one of the songs is about how a man ate so much garlic he reeked so bad that no one wanted to be around him and his mother just called him on the telephone.

When we need the kids to have an early bedtime because they’ve been wild and wooly part of the day, then we will put them in bed at 7:30 to listen to some Patch.  What I love about them though is that they are doctrinally safe, written by someone with a heart for God and children, and they always have a message that is right on. The songs will stick in your head and when you have a problem sometimes you start singing them so the kids will remember how you are supposed to do to be kind to others and love the Lord.

The Ministry Papa and I have listened to The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom on audio book and I have also been listening to The Shadow of the Almighty by Elisabeth Elliot. Both books have challenged me to have a better faith in God and allow God to work through unexpected or unwanted circumstances and trust Him. It is amazing how testimonies from other believers can help you realize that your situations in life are not that bad and how you can have hope and trust no matter the circumstances.

I hope that our investment in taking the time to listen, read, and take part will make a difference in the hearts and lives of our children. Sometimes it’s a trip to the zoo, or the holding of a lizard the kids caught to teach them about God’s world and His knowledge. It is always about sprinkling spirituality in not only our summer but our life. We thoroughly enjoy how we can sharpen the axes of each person individually as we do things together. The summer break has not been a break from God, it has been an open door to view life differently outside our normal day-to-day routine. This is why I love summer!

*This article does NOT contain affiliate links. Only things we like and enjoy that we would like to share with other believers.