Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs
Through the weekly and daily devotionals you can be constantly encouraged in your great role of parenting, the highest career in the nation. You can also stay updated on what's happening with the Above Rubies ministry.
WHAT LANGUAGE DO YOU SPEAK?
Above everyone else, mothers primarily teach their children to talk. They not only teach them their first words, but by their example, will influence their way of speaking throughout their lives.Although I speak the English language, I still have a New Zealand accent and continue to say many words we use Down Under that are unheard of here in the States. It’s amazing that even though nearly all of our grandchildren have been born in America they will often come out with New Zealand words, and you can sometimes detect a New Zealand accent which they have received from their mothers.
I noticed the power of this the other day when reading Nehemiah 13. I have always loved the book of Nehemiah because it reveals how Nehemiah did not give up but continued on building the walls and the gates of Jerusalem in the face of ridicule, opposition, and persecution. His enemies did everything to stop him building the wall.
We are also in a building career of building godly marriages and families. The devil doesn’t want us to do this and constantly seeks to thwart us from our great and high calling from God. We must have the attitude of Nehemiah who when his adversaries tried to get him to come down from his building project, he replied: “I AM DOING A GREAT WORK, so that I CANNOT COME DOWN: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it hand come down you?” (Nehemiah 6:3).
Back to Nehemiah 13 which somehow, I hadn’t noticed before with all my reading of Nehemiah. Nehemiah became aware of a huge problem. Many of the Jews had “married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab” (v. 23). And guess what? Their children “could not speak in the Jews’ language, but each according to the language of each people” (v. 24). Wow! The children were growing up speaking a foreign language. They didn’t even know the language of the land, the language of their heritage!
And who was teaching them these foreign languages? THE MOTHERS! The mothers were not in only influencing the children but the whole nation!
Nehemiah soon put a stop to this. You can read what he did in verses 25-28. He certainly didn’t beat about the bush.
But dear mother, this incident is also a challenge to us. I know you are teaching your children the English language because you live in America but are you also teaching them the language of the kingdom of God. Ultimately, this is the most important language we must teach our children. If we belong to God’s kingdom, we should certainly teach them the language of thIS kingdom.
Of course, we can’t teach our children language of the kingdom if we don’t know it—if we DON’T KNOW WHAT GOD SAYS IN HIS WORD! Sadly, I hear most of the church speaking the language of the kingdom of our enemy, Satan. They spout forth more ideology of his kingdom than they do of God’s kingdom. They are more familiar with the lifestyle and language of our humanistic society than of the lifestyle of the God’s Word.
God’s kingdom language should roll off our tongues. It should be familiar to our children so that they grow up speaking it. Instead we are often guilty of Hosea 8:12: where God says: “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a STRANGE thing.” Isn’t that such an indictment to the people of God? That God’s words are strange to us and the language of humanism, liberalism, materialism, and the things of this world are more familiar than God’s ultimate truth?
What language are you speaking to your children today?
Love from Nancy Campbell
Painting by Jessie Willcox Smith
