A dear friend shared with me today a beautiful understanding of God who is our El Shaddai which means "The Breasted One."
When a baby is born the mother instinctively longs to nurse and nourish her baby. Where does this instinct come from? Of course, it comes from God who is El Shaddai, "the Breasted One." The understanding of this name of God also means, "The God who is Enough." He longs to supply our every need and His wells are inexhaustible. He waits for us to come and feed from Him so we can grow and mature.
1 Peter 2:2 says: "As newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby."
Thinking of this I thought of the FAILURE TO THRIVE syndrome where a child has very low weight gain or low increase in weight gain. This is a serious condition for a baby. And yet so many are living in SPIRITUAL Failure to Thrive syndrome. Our El Shaddai waits and longs to pour out of His inexhaustible riches to satisfy and feed us. But often He waits in vain.
We do not come to Him. We do not come to His precious Word to feed. We take a little sip on Sunday when we go to church but starve during the week! We eat three meals a day to satisfy our physical body but except for a tiny crumb here and there, we starve our spirit!
What about our children? We wouldn't think of not feeding them three nutritious meals a day but how often do we feed their spirits? This is the most important part of our children. We must feed them God's Word at least every morning and evening, as we start and end the day. They can't grow "strong in spirit" on anything less (Luke 1:80).
May God save us from the "Failure to Thrive" diagnosis over our lives. And please, may God save mothers from being guilty of putting their children in a position of "Failure to Thrive" because we starve their spiritual beings.
As mothers, we are the feeders of the whole man-body, soul, and spirit.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
It is a very important aspect of parenting to build a hedge around our family and home. Truthfully, it is God who builds the hedge, but we have to do our part. God built a hedge around Job's home. Satan was not able to touch Job until God removed the protective hedge He put around him. Satan tells God in Job 1:10: "Hast not Thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?"
I love the different words God uses to describe our children. God loves to reveal His plans to us by pictures. Psalm 128:3 tells us that our children are like "olive plants" sitting all around our table. The Hebrew word for "olive" is "zayith" and means "an olive (as yielding illuminating oil)." Among many other uses the olive was used as oil for the lamps to light up their homes. It was also used to light the golden candlestick in the holy place of the tabernacle.
Proverbs 26:8 tells us that to bind a stone in a sling is as bad as giving honor to a fool! A stone in a sling is not meant to be bound up but to go forth to hit the target. It goes forth to slay the enemy. In the same way, we are foolish to bind up God's truth and hide it. God intends His words to go out from our mouths to accomplish God's plans and purposes (Isaiah 55:11). The spoken word has great power. God created the world with His Word. Many times, we hold back divine miracles from happening in our lives because we are too shy, too afraid, or too lazy to speak out the word of the Lord.
A mother wrote me, saying, "I love all the positivity about motherhood I read here, but it seems to outweigh the blurbs about loving wifehood. As a young mama who tries to keep my priorities of God, hubby, and children in that order, do you have any thoughts?"
Worry? Why worry? What can worry do?
Are you bold to speak the truth when deception and lies are being proclaimed? Or do you find it easy to stay silent because you feel too timid or you are concerned what people think of you?
The trying days, the sighing days, the days when things go wrong,
Many years ago I remember seeing this cartoon. The mother was sitting at the table with the newspaper spread out before her. The home was in a mess, the toys were all over the floor, and the children were running wild! The husband came in the door and said, "What on earth are you doing?"
Dear mother, are you feeling overwhelmed today? You feel you have too much to do. How can you fit it all in? How can you keep up with the housework? How can you effectively homeschool all these children around you?
God’s word is true from the beginning and from the beginning God’s word is true!
Here's a lovely quote by Marianne Neifert, which an Above Rubies reader sent to me. I'm sure you will identify with these same feelings . . .
Yesterday we talked about women being saved through childbearing and motherhood. But why? We have to look at the preceding verse: “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman, because she was FULLY DECEIVED, fell into transgression (1 Timothy 2:14 (NET).” The NET commentary explains that because two compound verbs are used for “deceived” in this verse that there is a stronger meaning intended for the second verb.
This is what the Bible says: “Women, however, will be saved through CHILDBEARING, if they continue in faith, love, holiness, with self-control” (1 Timothy 2:15 BSB). Other translations say that “she will be saved through MOTHERHOOD.”
Each Friday evening at our shabbat meal my husband reads Provers 31. He usually reads in the King James Version but the other night he decided to read from a different translation for a change. We chose the Knox translation. We got to verse 29 and I weas arrested: “Her husband is loud in her praise.” He praises her with these words: “Unrivalled art thou among all the women that have enriched their homes.”
Isn't it amazing to think that Jesus chose His own mother? He was the Creator of His mother. The angel who came to her called Mary "highly favored" and three times she is referred to as "blessed art thou among women" (Luke 1:28, 42, and 48).
My husband asked everyone at breakfast, "What good things are you going to do today?" That's a good question to start the day, isn't it? It's a good question for us wives. "What is something good I can do for my husband today? Take time to think about it. Be creative. Do something you’ve never done before.
If my motherly heart could give just one piece of advice to my children who are growing up in this era, it would be this: “Please, do not forsake your secret place.” (Matthew 6:6) I am convinced that to be faithful to the Lord in this hour, it is going to take way more than just a quick prayer or one short devotion, or church attendance every week.