Are you listening?

I (Ed) thought I should take a stab at this updating thing, so...here it goes. I have been talking to Wendi about how ineffective I have felt over here, mostly because of the language, and some of the reasons behind it. For about the last two weeks this has been on my mind and I could not shake it. And then, as kids always do, they gave me a great illustration to what I am doing to my heavenly Father.

A few days ago four out of the five kids, hint...it wasn't Shaylee, decided to forget every biblical principle Wendi and I have taught them over their lifetime. It was right after supper and everything came to a head so I had them all sit down. I went through how their attitude should be like Christ (Phil 2), asked some of them to tell me where they had sinned and how they could begin to have an attitude that was Christlike. Jaylin and Jayce were doing the talking while Tate and Gage were content to zone out. I noticed that Tate seemed to have lost complete interest in any words coming from my general direction. So...as dad's tend to do I called Tate back into the conversation with two simple questions. "Tate are you listening to anything I said?" Tate, "Yeah!" "Tell me what I just said." Tate paused and said, "Was there a 'the' in there somewhere?" That abruptly ended the lesson time.

Over the next day or two I realized I was doing the same thing my son was doing to me. I was not truly listening to my Father. I was just halfheartedly listening to Him. I realized that it was affecting all areas in my life. I was not being a good husband or dad. I was not taking the time to get deeper into scripture to hear His voice and so I had nothing left to give my family and the people around me.

By the way, there was no 'the' in the sentence I asked him about:) Listen to the Father; He knows how life needs to be lived.