Thursday, January 29, 2009

Reading Together


There is a Book Study beginning this week at Passionate Homemaking. They will be reading the book Practical Hospitality: The Joy of Serving Others by Pat Ennis & Lisa Tatlock. I've decided that I'm going to read this book along with them. I'll explain a bit more later. But you can go here to check out how it's going to work.





Also Tim Challies over at Challies Dot Com is just ending his current "Reading the Classics Together" and he'll be starting a new book in a couple of weeks or so. Keep a look out for his next read. It is wonderful to read and discuss what we read with each other. It helps us learn, mature and grow.

2009 - A New Beginning.... New Mercies

“Remember as you’re cleaning—as you’re iron­ing, as you’re sewing, as you’re pick­ing up, as you’re paint­ing, as you’re beau­ti­fy­ing your home, as you’re doing things to make your home attrac­tive, remem­ber that you’re paint­ing a pic­ture for your children—a pic­ture of God.

You’re demon­strat­ing to your chil­dren in ways that pen­e­trate deep into their hearts, the heart of God, the ways of God, and you’re increas­ing the like­li­hood that your chil­dren will grow up to love that God and to want to be like Him.

You’re demon­strat­ing para­bles of spir­i­tual life to your chil­dren as you work with your hands, as you serve in your home. When you pre­pare food for your family, you’re demon­strat­ing to them that God is a faith­ful provider.

When you’re being qual­ity con­scious in the things that you pur­chase, you’re show­ing your chil­dren the excel­lence of the char­ac­ter of God.

As you are orderly, you are teach­ing your chil­dren that God is a God of order.

When you clean things up in your home, when you keep a clean home, you’re show­ing your chil­dren the impor­tance of purity, holi­ness of heart, of being clean and washed before God.

When you’re dis­ci­plined in your life and habits and sched­ule and the time you get up and the time you go to bed accord­ing to the way that God has directed your family, you’re teach­ing your chil­dren that the Chris­t­ian life requires dis­ci­pline. You are teach­ing them that you can’t just stay in bed and become spir­i­tual. It requires effort and coop­er­a­tion with God’s Spirit to develop godly habits, pat­terns, and sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion in our lives.

When you reach out your hands…to the poor and the needy and you’re min­is­ter­ing to the needs of others, you’re show­ing your chil­dren the heart of God for those who are poor and needy and oppressed.

There is indeed no mun­dane task! Every task assigned to you is spir­i­tual and paints a pic­ture of God!”

This is something that I read on a blog called Passionate Homemaking, (I have discovered this blog very recently). It orginally came from the program Revive Our Hearts. What wonderful gems for us to hold onto and remember.