[SAHD] What I Learned From My Baby

Courtesy science-essentials.org

The title gives you a clue as to why I haven't posted in a while.

Not long ago in a place not far from where I live, my baby daughter was born.  As events sometimes go, I am now a stay-at-home dad (and no, I have not seen "Mr. Mom").  This prompted me to start a new element of this blog  (hence the acronym in the title).  I toyed with the idea of starting a new blog for the parenting stuff, but figured to stick with this one (although that may change in the future).

I had heard it said that parents learn as much from their children as their children learn from them.  A thought I did not fully understand until I had one of my own.  Here are a few of the lessons I have learned so far.

Realize Your Helplessness

In the Bible, God refers to Himself as our Father.  This name is not so much a means of depicting His gender, but more as a means of clarifying roles.  God takes care of us, and we get taken care of by Him. The main lesson I learned in this area is our utter helplessness without God.  My daughter is completely helpless, she cannot clothe herself, bathe herself, or feed herself.  She even occasionally has difficulty passing gas.  Such is the state of humanity without God's care.  We often deceive ourselves with delusions of self-sufficiency. We would have a much better life if we would let go of this delusion and let God be in control of our lives

Correct Communication is Crucial

Like many infants, my daughter has a very limited vocabulary, which makes understanding what she wants/needs quite challenging.  When she starts crying I often find myself playing a somewhat stressful guessing game.  If only she could tell me right away her need then everyone would be happier.  However, this is not possible given her limited skill set.  In the same way, we have to be understanding of other people if they don't communicate exactly the way we would like them to communicate.  Many people (both male and female) simply lack proper communication skills.  We need to be patient and do our best to understand what they are attempting to tell us.

Don't be Counterproductive

This one goes right along with the previous item because many times since I do not know what my daughter wants, she does not get fed exactly on her preferred time table.  Many times when this happens she will often gain such momentum with her crying that even though the food is there for the taking, she would rather cry than take it, which, of course, makes her more hungry which makes her more angry.  Too often I have to get her to calm down so that she can eat the food she so desperately wants.  How many times do we get so involved in our complaining that we waste valuable time and energy that could have been used to actually accomplish our goals?

So that's it for now.  I'm sure there will be more lessons in the future, so stay tuned.  In the mean time, what lessons have you learned from your (or other people's) children?

What is In Your Hand?

Courtesy Pitts Theology Library

We make a lot of excuses not to follow God's plan for our lives, and those excuses mean very little to God.

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?”   Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
   “A staff,” he replied.
  The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.”
   Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.  Exodus 4:1-3

I had to laugh a little bit when I read that text, and I'll tell you why.  God told Moses via the burning bush that He had decided to deliver His people from Egyptian bondage, and that Moses was to be the one to tell Pharaoh that this was going to happen.  Moses wasn't excited about this new assignment, so he tried to convince God that He should look elsewhere.  (You can find the entire conversation in Exodus 3 & 4.)  One by one Moses kept making excuses, and one by one God kept knocking them down.

• Moses:  Who am I to go and say these things to Pharaoh?   
• God:  You won't be alone.  I will be with you.
• Moses:  What if the Israelites ask "What is this God's name?"   
• God:  Tell them "I AM has sent me to you."
• Moses:  What if they don't believe that You actually sent me?   
• God:  Throw your staff on the ground, and it'll turn into a snake then back into a staff.  If that doesn't work, put your hand in your cloak and it will become leprous and then be healed.  And, if those two don't work, take some river water and pour it on the ground and it will become blood.
• Moses:  You know, I've never been a good speaker.   
• God:  Who made your mouth?  I will help you speak and teach you what to say.
• Moses:  I still would feel better if you sent someone else.   
• God:  Oh, alright!  Take your brother with you.  He's already on his way to meet you, and he will speak for you.

We may not be called like Moses to help deliver a nation from slavery, but we all could be doing more in regards to following God's plan for our lives.  God has already promised that He will be with us.  So stop making excuses, and do what He has asked you to do.

Comments on Complaining

The subject of complaining is less black and white than I originally thought.

A little more than I month ago I set out to write a blog post on the subject of complaining.  I was going to entitle it "Stop Complaining!" and it was going to talk about the evils of complaining, that we shouldn't do it, and how doing it is a sign of an unconverted heart.  More recently I have come to have a somewhat different view of the subject.  I had been thinking a lot about religious liberty thanks in part to an excellent program on the subject from PBS entitled "God in America".  I saw that how throughout the history of the United States that the existence of religious liberty is in a large part due to quite a bit of complaining.  In fact, most, if not all of the rights citizens and visitors enjoy exist because of complaining.  Here are a few examples.

If nobody had complained . . .

• We would all be a member of one state church.
• We would still have slavery.
• Women would not be able to vote.
• School, buses, etc. would still be segregated.

And most importantly . . .

• We would still be part of the British Empire.

This is by no means an exhaustive commentary about complaining, but if you have the same views that I used to have, I hope this helps you start thinking about things in a different way.

Time for a Change?

I've been studying the book of Numbers the past few weeks, and although it has given me quite a bit to think about, my study hasn't yielded many "Aha!" moments. That is, until a few days ago when I looked at what I like to call "The Quail Incident".

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, it's found in chapter 11, and what happened was that the Israelites, as was their practice, were complaining about something. The NIV has them "wailing. . . 'If we only had meat to eat (vs. 4)!'" Then God basically said, "You want meat? I'll give you meat! You'll get so much meat that it'll come out of your noses!" God caused a wind to blow and it blew in so much quail from the coast that the minimum gathered per person was about 60 bushels. Now that's a lot of quail! Sadly, they didn't get to enjoy it much, because before it could even be swallowed, God struck dead all the quail eaters. That place then, for obvious reasons, became known as "Graves of Craving" or "Craving Graves".

This passage has often been used by dedicated vegetarians as an illustration of the perils of eating meat, but I think that if one focuses solely on that aspect, they are missing the point. One commentator said that the Israelites had more food variety than one may think. The manna could be prepared in a couple of different ways, plus they could get milk and curds from their flocks, plus there were sacrifices in which the person offering would share a meal with the priests. A meal mainly comprised of meat. Also the majority of the things the Israelites were pining for were non-meat items (see vs. 5). The main problem wasn't so much that they were craving meat. It was that they were craving Egyptian meat; meaning that they would rather be slaves in Egypt than to be free under God's guidance.

The lesson that struck me this time around was the whole "We want something else!" concept. I had found myself recently wanting a change simply for change's sake. Sometimes the routine of life can seem a little tedious, but if the routine is of divine design, then we should think twice before demanding something different.

Is It All In Our Heads?

I have all but given up watching the news on TV as of late because the usual bad news is worse than usual, but during the commercial break of my sitcom rerun I switched over out of curiosity. They were talking about the usual stuff: how bad the economy is, how low the stock market is, etc. etc. After they ran their story about how some guy was ranting about how he didn't want his money used to help stupid people keep their homes that they couldn't afford, the news anchor was talking with their financial reporter in the studio. He remarked how it was all the foreclosures that started this whole economic tailspin. What was said next is what really caught my attention.

He mentioned how that he and the reporter often talk about the economy and that he was surprised to find out how many people actually pay their mortgage on time. The reporter then replied with this figure, 92%. (That's right, all this "Mortgage Crisis" is about the 8% of Americans who got in over their head and bought a home they couldn't afford.) The reporter continued and said that this just goes to show how much of today's economy is based on what might happen in the future. Companies, the people who run them, and the consumers that support them, are basically afraid that next month, next quarter, etc. might be worse than the one before and they act accordingly. We basically become a self-fulfilling prophecy; the cause of our own problem. Now I know that this is somewhat of an over-simplification, but you have to admit that if people were a bit less fearful, a bit less stressed out, things could be a lot different. Maybe not on a national scale, but definitely on a personal one.