Rules were made to be broken. God made the law knowing we couldn’t keep it. To be human is to sin, which means breaking the rules. God expected this when he handed them down. The rules, or more to the point, our propensity to break them was designed to point us back to the fact that we can’t be good enough. We can’t get to heaven on our own. We need God, not just to give us grace when we sin but also to give us strength to obey.
“Barriers alone can not suppress the heart,” said our pastor this Sunday. Our heart is our best and worst asset. We want to obey God; our hearts long to please Him. But it is also our heart that betrays us when the desire to be distracted or entertained by the world is stronger than our desire to be right with God. God already set limits, or barriers to sin, for us. We set them for ourselves too. “After this one time, I won’t do that anymore.” “Just this once, it isn’t like I watch/listen/read this stuff all the time.” We tell ourselves we are going on a diet (sometimes food and sometimes from media, electronics, etc) and right away temptation finds us. Barriers alone can not suppress our hearts.
I shouldn’t be surprised then that rules and limits are not enough to assure obedience from my daughters. I have to continue to work on their hearts. Character issues are frequently called heart issues, I like that. It gets to the root of the problem. What are ways you reach your daughters’ hearts?
Unfortunately I may talk about the faults I see that I think come from my child's heart. But many times I act on the symptoms and don't take time to get to the heart.
ReplyDeleteYes I have read Ted Tripp's material and I am aware, but acting is a different story.
I agree! Thank you for sharing. It is so easy for me to sit here and know the right thing to do, but it is a very different (and hard!) matter to follow through and do the right thing. This trips me up all the time. I mentally smack myself in the forehead when I realize I reacted to the symptom without addressing the heart.
ReplyDeleteBut I am trying. And I sometimes get it right. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. We just have to encourage one another, keep praying, and keep trying.