Archive for the 'Bible Study' Category

She speaks with wisdom…

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

and faithful instruction is on her tongue Prov 31:26

It’s not always easy to know what the right thing to do or say is.

I manage a forum of over 1,000 people, mainly women, in the Virtual Assistant industry.  The forum is many years old but in recent years I’ve felt the need to bring on board some moderators for a number of reasons – some are on the other side of the world to me and they can moderate messages when I’m in bed asleep.

But there are times when we need to discuss a certain member for not behaving well on the forum or to another member who becomes demanding and insists we do things their way.

Over the past couple of years I’ve had a small number of newer members take exception to an older member and they feel I should be banning her from the list.  I’ve struggled with this particular problem and took it to my moderators for discussion – it wasn’t a decision I wanted to wrestle with on my own.

Thankfully my team of moderators are a group of wise women of varying ages and experiences and each were able to give me their perspective and thoughts on the women involved in this latest conflict. And they were able to help me see things in perspective.

When you’re in the middle of conflict and each side hold what seem to be convincing arguments it’s often hard to see the wood for the trees.  You need to be able to step back and look from both sides, and seek wise counsel.  We can’t always know the answers ourselves.

In the midst of this I had prayed to God for an answer and as if to help put the final part to the answer, this evening a lady I know from another state rang me out of the blue. She manages a network about 12 times the size of mine, but like me, it’s her business, and like me, she has problems with members from time to time. As she says ‘they are human and all have different personalities.  They need to learn to get over it or go without’.

I didn’t know Lyn was going to call me and I had not contacted her about my problem.  I had responded to a newsletter she’d sent out several days ago and it was tonight she chose to ring me and encourage me and just have a chat.  She’d been away interstate and hadn’t seen my email of encouragement to her until this evening.

Isn’t God good? He provided a woman with 12 times the ‘talent’ that I have (see Matthew 25:14-30) to call me on the very day I’d been struggling with a problem, providing just the answer by a woman who could speak wisdom and faithful instruction into my life. Thank you Father!

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Do Not Forsake Your Mother’s Teaching

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

Proverbs 1:8b ‘… and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.’

Do you hear your mother in yourself when speaking to your children? I know I do. Repeating things that were said over and over and over again. Learning by repetition. Some of those things I found I had to curb when my children were younger because of things I have learnt as an adult and because of my faith. But other things were good to uphold and continue to teach to my daughters and hopefully they will follow through with their own families.

Throughout Proverbs and other books in the bible we are told the same thing over and over and over again. And we are encouraged to bring up our children in the training and instruction of our Lord (Ephesians 6:4). It is important to repeat the lessons often so that they can be instilled in our children. And for that reason, we should also check ourselves – our actions, our words, are we living a life that reflects what we are teaching our children? Mothers, our children need us.  Let’s not forsake teaching our children.

Instructing our children

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

Joash was seven yars old when he became king… All his life Joash did what was right because Jehoiada the High priest instructed him. 2 Kings 11;21, 12:2 The Living Bible

Funny how these verses are suddenly now coming to my attention but I feel it is such an important message for us all. On the radio this morning was an article about a schoolboy who had been expelled due to drug trafficking at the school a couple of months ago. Apparently the police weren’t involved and the school was choosing to deal with it themselves, counselling all the boys involved and some were suspended for a time.

Not knowing the full details it’s hard to know what to think but I am concerned that the boys involved may think that the matter was simply swept ‘under the carpet’ and that it may lead to worse things later in life. Of course there is the usual media hype about what’s taken place and people now making comment that the police should have been involved. I know if I were a parent of a child at that school I’d be asking lots of questions.

Our children are so easily influenced by their surroundings and their peers and parents have a really hard job ahead of them in trying to keep children on a straight and narrow path. But if it is instilled in them from a young age they are more likely to respect their parents’ opinion and seek to earn their parents’ respect. Some worry that it might stifle their child and restrict development if they are too ‘instructive’ whilst the child is young but if kids are left to roam ‘free’ and are not corrected from a very young age, it is far too late to change that once they reach early teens or even the pre-pubescent age. Children need to know their boundaries from a very young age – how else are they going to learn right from wrong if not from their parents?

Just as we are taught in Proverbs 22:6 “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” This is not to say children don’t stray as they go older – often they will, but if they have no basis for knowing right from wrong they are less likely to experience a personal inner conviction when they have done something they shouldn’t.

Proverbs 31:31

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

The final verse of this book! It took me almost a year to get through this – that hadn’t been my intention when I first started but it seems fitting I finish the last verse on the last day of the year.

This verse shows that the Proverbs 31 woman bears fruit for all she has done. She has virtue, she is faithful, she is a loving and caring mother and wife who provides for her family all that is necessary, she is a good manager, is a good worker and is industrious, she is wise in business, kind in nature, looks out for those who are needy, she is praiseworthy, excels at what she does and fears the Lord. A tall order for us all to aim for, and yet if we aim for nothing we will get just that – nothing! I can’t profess to be a Proverbs 31 Woman – at least not in entirety, but that is my aim.

I will continue to post periodically as I think of things that relate to this topic and I welcome your comments which might also encourage discussion. Bless you and thank you for coming to read this blog.  KMT