Now that it is February 1st, I managed to miss writing anything at all during the month of January. Actually, I started two posts and just didn’t get them finished. Both were on the subject of “What is your vision?” I find that in the winter months I like to take stock of what we are doing as a family in homeschooling and homesteading, as well as in homemaking. It is a time to focus on what we have in our hands, and on doing the best we can with what we have. It is also a time to draw near to the LORD and lift up to Him all hopes and dreams and heart’s desires and exchange it all for the sheer delight of seeking and knowing Him. Sometimes I think we get distracted with our own wants and goals and forget that the first ambition of our hearts and minds should be to delight ourselves in Him. What does HE want for us? How can we be faithful to Him to do His will with where we are and what He has given us? Do we desire HIM, or do we desire what HE can do for us? Of course we desire and need His provision, but what we really need is His fellowship and to sit at His feet. We need to wait upon Him. We need to wait in the way that we wait for Him to move on our behalf. We also need to wait upon Him in the way a servant waits on his Master – to be ready to do whatever He asks us to do – at any moment. This is the first priority as I ponder everything on my lists of duties and responsibilities. If we seek Him first, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness – then everything will be added as needed and in due time according to His will. This is not just rhetoric, this is undeniable truth.

As this nation faces a new President and a lot of difficult things, many look increasingly to the politicians, the scientists, the doctors, the government, the teachers, the experts – for help, for answers, for money, for rationale or recourse. Everybody thinks they have a better idea for how things should be run, what needs to happen, what shouldn’t have happened, or who’s fault it is that we are in “this mess.” Today when we were having our Bible study, we read Psalm 146. It proclaims just whom it really is we need to put our trust in:

“Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD while I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
His spirit departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.
How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the LORD his God,
Who made heaven and earth,
The sea and all that is in them;
Who keeps faith forever;
Who executes justice for the oppressed;
Who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free.

The LORD opens the eyes of the blind;
The LORD raises up those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous;
The LORD protects the strangers;
He supports the fatherless and the widow,
But He thwarts the way of the wicked.
The LORD will reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the LORD!”
~Psalm 146~

So as we continuously lay before the LORD our plans and concerns, we are trying to be diligent. All the children in our household that are school age (and Amanda who is in college) are working on diligence with regard to school lessons and chores. I am working on trying to finish revising my e-book Nurturing The Generations. This is a diligence test for me because even though I love to write and spend time interacting with people, I find that being a wife and mom takes up most all of my time. I look with admiration at women who homeschool, have a home-business, write and speak and keep blogs and Facebooks and Twitters and travel to conferences and then do all sorts of creative things in their spare time. I truly admire these women, because they have managed to do a lot more than I can with the same number of hours in their day as I have. I have decided that at this point in my life, I will endeavor to finish revising my e-book and it will be available. Then if anyone has questions, they can e-mail me. I am always available for questions, especially about nutrition or health concerns, but also on homeschooling or home-managing. If I don’t know the answer, I will research it or find someone who does. This is what I do. All day. Every day. My job is to love and support and keep happy my husband, love, clothe, educate and train my children, and keep house so that everything stays in fairly decent order, there are elements of beauty all around, the meals are nutritious and good-tasting, and there is a lot of laughter and happy voices for the most part (and some beautiful music!). If you wonder why I don’t blog more often, it really is because all the things I just listed take up most of my waking hours. And I truly love my job! And on that note, I need to close now and get on with my job.

Blessings to all,

Chris

I started to write a flowery commentary about the results of this election, but I just didn’t have the heart. The truth is, I am disappointed. Terribly. I am not discouraged, but I just have a hard time trying to understand the people of this nation. Actually, it is not understanding them that is difficult, it is seeing the tragic consequences of their choice that is hard to accept and understand. It is something akin to watching a quarterback try to throw a pass to a receiver who is triple covered – only to have it picked off and returned for a touchdown. You are left with asking the question, “Why did he DO that?” Why did he make that foolish choice? Of course, that is a poor example because that does not demonstrate a pre-meditated choice, but rather a reactionary choice. I guess voting for a person is more of a pre-meditated choice even if it could also be reactionary.

All that aside, the only thing I know to do now is seek the Lord and wait on Him – for everything. This is the charge no matter what happens in life. Always we should seek the Lord and wait on Him. I trust that the Lord heard the prayers of the small minority of people who genuinely sought His heart and will on the matter of this election. Everyone else got what they asked for. So come what may, we are at His mercy, and we humbly implore Him to help us completely seek His face, seek His direction in and for our lives and our calling, and be obedient to Him. What would He have us do now?

As for me, with God’s help, what I determine to do is take the best care of my family I possibly can. I endeavor to create the best tasting, most nourishing meals I can to feed my precious husband and children. I will seek to keep order in my household and homeschool and challenge my children to do the best of their ability at everything they put their hand to. I will make it my ambition to create the sweetest, most pleasant atmosphere in my home I possibly can – full of pleasing aromas, beautiful music and continual praises to the Lord Of Hosts – to Yahweh. I love that Name. I have found recently that when I am in a bad mood or frustrated or having difficulty that just pausing and then praising God helps to change things almost instantaneously. Lift up the Name of Jesus! He is always worthy of praise!

So, let us put our hand to the plow and push on ever harder. Let us continue to pray for this nation and for some of the congressional races not yet decided. Let us look well to the ways of our households and do what we can to further the Kingdom of God from our own homes, in our own families in the place where God has put us.

All of that aside, I know that there are some very high-stakes issues facing us concerning this election, and I received an e-mail which I will share that gives some good ideas as we go into the last week before this extremely important election:

The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher

October 27, 2008

With the upcoming elections 8 days away, satan has worked hard to deflect attention off of the real issue. This has been relatively easy through the economic meltdown and an unpopular war. Many Americans, including Christians, will vote based on these two issues. While these things are obviously important, they pale in light of the real issue-the Supreme Court.

The cover story of USA Today, on Thursday of last week, spelled this out quite clearly. It stated that the real legacy of the next president won’t be the economy or the war, but the Supreme Court. The next president of the United States will appoint at least 2, and maybe 3, Justices in his first term. If he serves 2 terms, it could be 5 Justices-there are 5 of the 9 on the Court 70 years old or older! Since the trend is to appoint younger and younger Justices, the next president will most likely shape the court for the next 30-40 years! This means we are not voting only for a president, we are voting for the Court we want for the next generation! The vote we cast on November 4th will do more to shape the culture we give our children and grandchildren than any other vote of our lifetime! Perhaps some succinct bullet points will help us see this clearly:

Without question, no institution, organization, or agency has shaped the current culture of America in the last 50 years more than the Supreme Court. You don’t need millions of people, the majority in Congress, or the President to shape the culture of America. You only need 5 people-the majority of the Supreme Court. Five people can kill 50 million babies (the number aborted since Roe vs. Wade), legalize homosexual marriage, remove parental rights, put God out of schools and government, rob from us our godly heritage, etc.

It is now split-sometimes 5-4 toward life, family, morality, our godly heritage, the intent of our forefathers when they wrote the Constitution; sometimes 5-4 toward death, immorality, legislating their beliefs from the bench (though not their constitutional role or right, this is easy-they simply say the Constitution is a fluid, living document and therefore must be changed to accommodate the times), removing God from our nation, etc.

2-3 Justices will retire over the next 4 years, their replacements chosen by the next president; possibly a couple more will step down 5 to 8 years from now, making it 5 potential Justices that could be appointed by the next president if he serves 2 terms. This will determine how the Court rules for a generation.

The first two Justices to go will almost certainly be Stevens who is 88 years old and Ginsberg who is 75 and ill. They are the two most liberal and are no doubt waiting to retire, hoping for a president that will replace them with 2 more liberals. These two replacements alone, if they are good, conservative judges could shift the Court toward righteousness for many years.

Conclusion: our vote this November 4th will be not for a president, not for the economy, not for ending our involvement in Iraq. Our vote will be for what we want America to look like 40 years from now!

The ramifications of this are staggering! We are no doubt reaping great judgment now in America-diseases, family breakdowns, violence, a death culture, destructive weather, and much more-because of abortion alone – not to mention expelling God and His laws from our schools and government. I don’t know that we can survive another 40 years of this without completely losing our godly heritage and destiny. The economy will recover and the war will end no matter who is elected president-but this is not the case with the Court and the soul of this nation.

If you don’t know where the candidates stand on the Court and the kind of Justices they would appoint, read the USA Today article. It makes their positions very clear. Share this information with every friend and acquaintance you have. And finally, pray like never before for God’s will to be done in this election. We CAN win this war and we MUST NOT lose this war. Pick up your word, go to war and let’s make history together. Here are some practical suggestions to consider:

Fast (a meal a day; a day this week; a Daniel fast; 3 days; TV; etc.) and spend the time praying.
Agree in prayer with someone everyday for God’s will to be done.
Hold nightly prayer meetings
Take time in every gathering to pray. (Take 15 minutes in every service to pray for the elections. Turn an entire service to harp and bowl style intercession-worship and prayer combined.)
Join 2 or more friends on a conference call and pray for 15, 20, or 30 minutes.
Pray on the way to work (and on the way home).
Pray before you go to sleep.
Pray before church services.
Ask God to give you His strategy-He will!

For God and Our Great Nation,
Dutch Sheets

Oh I understand all the arguments and vote-your-conscience pleas, but what I do not understand is the arrogance, judgmentalism, anger and self-righteous tongue-wagging that I have witnessed in the last few days. I hear out of the mouths of liberal reporters (who make no effort to hide their bias), all of a sudden this “concern” they have of a mother of 5 children, one of whom has Down’s Syndrome, and one who is pregnant out of wedlock…how can she possibly have a role in government and mother her children at the same time? What is she doing and who does she think she is and isn’t John McCain a fool for asking her?

And then many anti-feminists are condemning this woman and pointing fingers at her failures as a mother (you know, the pregnant daughter and trying to go to work after giving birth just three days prior, and “she’s not tending the hearth at her home”…) I tell you it feels like the crowd is gathering around and the stone piles are getting higher…and pretty soon the pelting will begin. Or maybe we will just burn her at stake.

I say all of this because this is what I see plain as day. I am disgusted. I looked today at the Constitutional Party website and Ron Paul’s too, to see what the hype is over these people whom so many godly people have flocked to. The Constitutional Party platform is not all that different from the Republican Platform. They claim to be Federalists, but so is John McCain. Ron Paul has some good economic ideas, but he is not that far off from his own party’s platform, either, except that he is clearly a Protectionist, which would be fine if the world weren’t so dangerous. That is kind of like saying it was better before women could vote, which maybe it was, but it is never going back to that, so the godly women had better vote. People are still mad about the Iraq war, and the liberal media feeds that anger, and buddy, it sure works. Let me tell you something. The war has stirred up a spiritual hornet’s nest, but it had to happen. It had to happen because God ordained that it had to happen. Nobody likes it, especially the military families that are making the sacrifices. I am sure the children of Israel didn’t like it when they were involved in so many wars because they are expensive and people die. But I am telling you God has a purpose in it. Do not forget that. And do not fall for the bait when people demonize George W. Bush. He was the ruler that God used, like it or not.

If you had the most perfect President imaginable – just make a list of attributes and ideology and perhaps color in his family and his theological doctrine, you would still have one huge, major problem. Congress. If Ron Paul or Mr. Baldwin were President, they would still have to deal with Congress. And with the liberal majority in Congress, they would not get very far. It would have to be the Republicans doing the fighting, because they have the same values and ideals. Most Democrats do not, excepting a few individuals. Perhaps they would be able to get Roe v. Wade overturned, but then, so could McCain and even more so perhaps with Palin on the ticket because of her raising national awareness. So this notion that Ron or Mr. Baldwin could solve all of your problems and secure God’s blessing on this country better than McCain is probably not sound from a political standpoint. The only way to change Congress is for the people of this country to put so much pressure on them that they force issues to be dealt with. But we are a lazy people. We talk the talk but don’t walk the walk and that is evident when you look at our government. And there are lots of people in this nation who don’t want anything to do with Christianity and don’t want people telling them how to live. They believe in their Constitutional right to worship or not worship as they please. And don’t even start telling them how women are supposed to live, because they don’t want to hear it. The only way you can reach them with any legitimacy is to live the way Christ calls you to live. Try modeling true womanhood instead of preaching about it. You don’t have to tell the world that you are against feminism, just live it. Demostrate there is a better way and do it with the love of Christ.

We need to be praying. If you are not specifically praying for Yahweh’s perfect will to be done, the Enemy might just sneak in and snatch the victory. The Enemy is already stirring people up to bite and devour one another and to quibble over foolish controversies and get totally distracted. I am begging for you all to pray. Get down on your knees and pray if only one minute. Pray for our sister in Christ, Sarah Palin. Even if you don’t like her or don’t think she is biblically qualified to serve in government, pray for her and her family, because of the love of Christ. Stop tearing her down. If God does not want her in office, be assured she won’t get there. But if He does, we need to pray for her and this nation and wake up and get serious about our responsibilities in a modern day federal republic.