Turn It Over

Yesterday, I saw a post regarding “new” research on spanking children. Quite often I roll my eyes at “new research” because, well, it’s new and fresh and probably will be disproved with newer research. This new research, it goes against God’s word and much of what people start throwing out in support of the new research is not reality. For example, I don’t lose my mind and beat my children when they need discipline. If a swat on the seat of their pants is going to keep them from running into the streets, that’s what they’ll get. If that’s not how you would handle it, it doesn’t make me wrong.

I am not writing this to argue for or against spanking children. I’m writing this because when I responded to the article by simply quoting Psalm 13: 24 (“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”) and saying that I believe my God over any new research. Such a statement doesn’t make me backwards or ignorant. It means that I have been taught different, believe different, and am secure in those things. I don’t fly by the seat of my parenting pants with every new study that comes out. I simply trust thousands of years of expert advice.

Basically, scripture goes on to say that giving your child discpline will not kill them. So stop acting like it’s going to be the end of the world to spank.  

My response was simple and it’s my belief. I’m not a bad person and I don’t hate my kids. Scripture says just the opposite. What I walked away with after about 5 mins of being attacked is that I alone can not change a persons mind on social media. What we believe we believe for a reason. I carried the nasty words and hateful remarks with me for hours. At one point I was shaking because I know that face to face this person would never had said those things.

All I could do was tell said individual to read the Word for himself. That the things he was accusing my God of were lies. 

My prayers this morning were that I needed God to help me let it all go. I needed Jesus to show me how we would handle such a thing. Let’s face it, yesterday was someone disagreeing about discipline and today it will be something different.

Psalm 55:22 was the verse He gave me to meditate on and here is my take away.

cast your cares

1. Sometimes the best thing to do in a situation is turn things over to God.
2. Nothing you leave to God is wasted.

Let’s briefly discuss these two things.

1. Turn it over to God. As someone who gets up every morning with a to-do list a mile long, laundry over flowing, dishes up to my elbows in the sink, and a life that is full; it leaves little room for stressing about things we can’t control. So don’t. Give them to God.
2. Nothing is wasted when you let God handle it. How did Jesus handle naysayers and haters when He spoke His message? Shrugged and walked away? He left them to God. What about the Pharisees who were out to disprove Him, mock Him, and give Him grief? He left them to God.

This was only part of what God has given me today regarding those who mock Him.

He Already Knows

As I was praying over these feelings I had, the experience, the people who are hateful, and how I never know how to handle any of it; I opened my Bible to Romans 1:20-23

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

See, He knew long before I did.

We all see His beautiful works. We see the stars that He has named, we feel His breath in our lungs, we witness the rising and the setting sun every single day in time without fail. Yet, some believe they know more than God, that they are wiser.

He knows. He’s got their number.

My prayer for today in my little prayer book also said:

Do not let me go into my day believing only in the world of sense and time, but give me grace to understand that the world I cannot see or touch is the most real world of all.

Thank you, Lord:
For the power you have given me to grasp things unseen; for the strong sense I have that this is not my eternal home; for my restless heart which nothing finite can satisfy.

- A Diary of a Private Prayer: John Baillie

I truly don’t know if there is anyone else in the world that needed this reassurance today. Maybe it was only just for me, but I am leaving it in God’s hands as I publish this.

I pray it reaches those who need it most.