More on Foundations

Here is another observation that I have made about foundations that helps make the point about how important they are.

Perhaps you have noticed, as I have, that whatever note is played at the start of any relationship is very much the same note that is played throughout that relationship.

I have noticed that however my relationship starts with someone is generally how my relationship with that person continues. Years later, we still feel the same feelings and respond to each other as we did during the foundational period of our relationship.

This is not to say that relationships cannot change and grow, because they can and do. With the help and leading and guidance of God in relationships, I have seen them and do see them change. However, that original flavor is reluctant to let go. It takes time and work.

This just helps to make the point that a foundation, in whatever setting or application we find one, is very important. And, me being me, I will always focus on how the lesson applies to kids. So, the most important thing to learn and apply from this lesson, is this--"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." In other words, whatever foundation you lay in a child's life is going to last in that child as they grow up and become an adult.

I know that I am comparing two different things here, relationships and raising children, but I am just pointing out the power of foundations. We can see it in many areas of life, and so we must apply it in every area that we can.

Notes on spiritual warfare

One of the keys to spiritual warfare to remember is this--it is not so important to avoid spiritual warfare as it is how you respond to it. Everyone is going to experience it simply by living on planet earth and being human during this time period of human existence. So the key is not to avoid it, the key is to respond to it correctly.

And what is the correct response? Or, rather, what are the correct responses? Trust, receiving love, (from God and others), and responsibility, (not giving away, or abdicating, the responsibility for your life). If a person successfully knows how to do these three things, then they will be pretty much impervious to spiritual deception, temptation, etc.

Which, of course, leads me to the point that I make over an over and over again. Build these characteristics inside of your kids while they are kids so that they are natural responses when they become adults. Make them impervious to spiritual assault without their knowledge that you are doing so. Make them so trusting, so able to receive from God and other people, and so responsible that no spiritual lie can even find a tiny foothold inside of them. Build inside of them an undivided heart.

Foundations

There is no substitute for a good foundation. True of houses, true of lawns, and true of human beings.

I have learned this lesson by trying to fix peoples' lawns. People ask me to fix their lawns when they are not doing so well. The first thing I find out is whether or not it was installed correctly in the first place. This one factor, more than anything else, will tell me what is wrong with their lawn and what I am going to be able to do about it. Specifically, what I want to know is, when the lawn was first installed, was there adequate topsoil installed first? This is an all important question, because we live in Nevada. If you plant a lawn, either by seed or by sod, here in Nevada, and you do not first add six to eight inches of topsoil, then you are wasting your time. However, I see it done all the time. Then people ask me to come fix their lawn.

Now, to be sure, there are plenty of things that can be done to help a lawn that is struggling because it was planted right on the hardpack. You can aerate it regularly, you can fertilize, you can add many amendments that will break up the soil and change its composition, etc. But you will have to do these things constantly, and it's going to cost you a lot of time and money, for as long as you have the lawn.

On the other hand, if a lawn is put in correctly from the start, with a nice thick layer of good soil, and watered correctly, it is going to grow well and be much more healthy. This is because its roots are going to have plenty of room to go deep, and deep roots are the key to a healthy lawn. A lawn with deep roots is able to survive anything: pests, animals, freezes, droughts, disease-- a lawn with deep roots can survive it all.

So here is the parallel that I want to draw. Lawns are just like people.

God made kids so kidlike for a reason. When I say kidlike, I am referring specifically to their impressionability, malleability, their willingness to follow, etc. Kids are like sponges; they soak up everything around them. Again, they are like this for a reason. The reason is so that they can learn to be loved, learn to trust, learn to be responsible, etc. The reason is so that a good foundation can be laid, for the first 18 years or so, that will support them for the next 80 years or so. With a good foundation, a person will thrive and be healthy for the rest of their life. They will be naturally immune to pests, (spiritually), antagonists, (physically) diseases, (spiritually and physically), and all other dangers which can potentially befall a person. With deep roots, a person will thrive indefinitely. Without deep roots, because there is no foundation, a human being will be more susceptible to disease, attack, etc.

The point to all of this is, again, the infinite importance of teaching your kids how to receive love and love, how to trust, and, as they get older, how to be responsible and how to be free. These things are the four cornerstones of a good foundation for a human life.

hi

The ability to trust. It sounds simple enough, but there is a lot to it. People can have one of two identities at work inside of them. They can have the identity of a Truster, or they can have the identity of a Fighter. And to make my point poignant before I even make it, I ask you, which of the above two identities is given more respect, praise, and commendation in society? The blatantly obvious answer is the identity of a Fighter. This identity is lauded, applauded, and sought after the world over. It is constantly glorified in movies and television; we are taught from day one that it’s the fighters who win at life.

However, fighting naturally infers that there be someone or something to fight against, otherwise there would be no fight. This is all fine and dandy when faced with a real enemy who is threatening you. However, when it comes to the spirit, most of the time, there really is nothing to fight. You are only bombarded with lies. And lies, being lies, are not true; hence, they ARE NOT REAL. Hence, there is nothing to fight.

And here is where the identity issue becomes important. Because people naturally operate in whatever identity, (or identities), they have inside of them, whether they know it or not. It is something that is done without thinking about it.

So, a person is walking around with either the identity of a fighter or the identity of a truster. Now here comes a lie. How is a person with each respective identity going to respond? A person with a truster identity is going to respond with indifference to the lie. He will simply trust God, what God says about him/her, just trust what he knows to be true, and go on his merry way. However, a person with a fighter identity will, of course, see the lie as something to fight. He will immediately, because of his pride in “fighting for what’s right”, attack the lie head on with every weapon available to him in his arsenal. This is because he, we, have been taught, our entire lives, that fighting is the honorable and best thing to do. We should always fight all evil and bad things wherever we encounter them.

The problem with this is that when you fight a lie, you are fighting with an illusion. You are, literally, fighting with something that does not exist. Because a lie is just that—it is the opposite of the truth, and therefore it has no real substance. There is nothing to a lie. If you try to stand on a lie you will fall, because it does not exist. So, and here is the dangerous part of this: the more you fight with an illusion, the more real it becomes to the one fighting it.

Do you see why this is bad? It’s not very difficult to see. The more a person fights with something that is not real, the more real it becomes to him because he is focused on it. As any fighter will tell you, you must never take your eyes off of your opponent, lest he slip one in on you. Therefore, in an honest and honorable attempt to do the right thing, he actually only digs himself further and further into a hole that is going to be harder and harder to get out of the more he continues to fight. And the sad part is, that he really never needed to fight it at all, because it was never true in the first place.

This is why it is CRITICAL to build inside of your kids the ability to trust. It is absolutely critical. It is not just important, it is absolutely critical.

Jesus was a Truster. Because He knew God perfectly, and knew all the truth that there was to know, he never believed a lie. And therefore he never fought with a lie. And therefore he never wasted any time fighting battles that didn’t need to be fought.

I believe that massive amounts of humans are walking around every day fighting battles that do not need to be fought, because they are only faulty responses to lies. I also believe that a large majority of sin in the world is not a result of people’s bad intentions, but of people’s belief of lies. Specifically, lies about themselves. Which result in mistaken identities, which result in actions based on those untrue identities. Which is why you have a whole bunch of people, good people, doing bad things, all the while knowing that they are bad things!

A friend of mine used to tell me this principle long ago, and I never understood it. He would say to me that a person living apart from God and/or in sin was simply a case of mistaken identity. And he is right! That’s what it really is!

The solution to all of this is trust. And, unfortunately, it is harder for me to write about the trusting aspect than it is for me to write about the fighting aspect. Why? Because I had the fighter identity. That is how I learned all of this. But I know that the solution is trust. Because when you know how to trust, and even more importantly, when trust is your natural reaction, you will never even consider the lie in the first place. Your natural reaction to it will be one of disregard, because you are so grounded in the truth... as Jesus was.

When Jesus was tempted, his reaction was to rely on what God said was true. This account is given in a couple of the gospels. When the enemy lied to him, Jesus’ response was, “No, here is the truth—what God says.” Jesus response was one of trust.

See, real victory is not beating an opponent. Real victory is never being affected by your opponent in the first place. When you let yourself be affected by your opponent, then you will have to fight him. If you just ignore him, then there will be no fight.

This is important because when you are fighting, it is taking your time and your energy to do so—time and energy that SHOULD be employed in doing the productive things that you are created and called to do. Fighting is simply a diversion from productivity.

The important point in all of this, that goes with everything else I have said in this book, is this—teach your kids how to trust. Instill and literally build this trait inside of them their entire lives. Build it inside of them intentionally, the entire time that they are in your care, so that it becomes their natural way of operating. Do this for them so that they trust naturally, so that they don’t have to ever even think about it—they just do it, naturally—and this will save them WORLDS of heartache when they are grown adults.

And, on a related note, this is why we are admonished over and over again in the Bible to not judge people. Because we really have no idea how a person came to be involved in whatever "sin" they are involved in. I love it in Romans 1 where Paul states that, "we know that the judgment of God for those practicing such things is according to the truth" whereas our judgment is not according to the truth, because we cannot see or know all of these things that go on inside of human beings like God can, and does!

The Four Most Important Things In The World

The four most important things in the world are as follows--love, trust, responsibility and freedom. And, to get even a little more specific--not only is love the most important thing in the world, obviously, but the ABILITY TO RECEIVE LOVE, is the most important thing in the world.

This quality must be built inside of you while you are a child. This is because when you are a child, you are in formation mode. Just as your body is forming, and using all of the ingredients that are fed into it to do so, so it is when your soul is forming; it is using all of the ingredients that are fed into it. If it is consistently fed love, taught to trust, and gradually but consistently taught responsibility, then that is going to be the makeup of that person. When you reach adulthood, you are going to naturally, without thinking about it, walk around receiving love, trusting, and being responsible, which includes being able to handle freedom.

The point--if you are already walking around doing these things, be grateful. If you are struggling with any of them, realize why and choose to grow in them now. And, most importantly of all, TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THESE FOUR THINGS. Teach them: how to receive love, by loving them consistently: how to trust, by providing them an atmosphere of safety: how to be responsible, by consistently providing them opportunities to be responsible for themselves (age appropriate, of course): and how to be free, by, again, providing them opportunities to practice responsibility.

Getting what you want

Well, welcome back, to anyone who happens to still be reading my blog. Here is the latest wonder that I have beheld in my life.

Sometimes you have to get what you want to realize that you don't want it. I learned this lesson very nicely over the past nine months or so, having moved to a place that I was sure that I wanted to move to, and living a dream that I was positive that I wanted to live. So what happened? A lot. To put it briefly, I learned that I really don't know myself as well as I think I do. I learned that I really don't know what it is that I want. I learned that it is really not my circumstances in my life that are causing me unrest or unhappiness, but my own deeply ingrained attitudes and thought patterns, that I didn't even know I was indulging in. I learned why it is that I need to "Trust God with all my heart, and lean not on my own understanding". It is because we really don't know ourselves, or what we want, or what is going on inside of us, like we think we do. He does. The wonderful book of Proverbs states it this way (along with the one that I just quoted)-- "Sheol and Abbadon are open before the Lord, then how much more the hearts of men?" and "Every man's way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the motives of the heart" and "The crucible is for silver and gold, but the Lord tests hearts". And then there is this one from the book of Hebrews which states, "All things are naked and laid bare before the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do" and "The reckoning of the Lord is sharper than any two edged sword, able to discern between the thoughts and the intents of the heart". WOW.

The older I get, and the more I learn the truth, the humbler I get.