January 26, 2010 by admin.

I did this work as a lecture for a ladies’ meeting.  Unfortunately, the meeting was cancelled and I didn’t get to speak, so I thought I would use it on the blog. Please understand that I am not intending this blog as a sermon to men, and am in no way trying to instruct men on how to conduct your spiritual life, but in the spirit of Titus 2, I am intending to teach younger women.   

Title:  WHY?…A Study in Trust

Little ones are notorious for asking ‘why’. There is the cutest little five year old boy who comes to our church who happens to say the most hilarious things. For instance, at the dinner table one day he announces out of the clear blue that he’s thinking about getting a baby sister. His daddy told him to let him know when he decided on getting her. J 

His Mamma started homeschooling this year and sometimes bathes him to wake him up in the morning. One morning, it wasn’t working so well. He kept falling asleep in the tub.  She noticed he was drifting and said, “You’re falling asleep. What are you doing?” to which he replied, “I’m hibernating.”   So naturally, I asked his Mamma if he’d ever said anything profound, about the word ‘why’.   

You know, he never has!   

But she did.   

She said that sometimes if he thinks he knows best, doesn’t want to do something, or is questioning her authority, he ‘gets on a why kick’.  

Why do I have to do it?  Why do you want me to do it?  But  WHY!?   

That got me to thinking about some of the things that we, as Christians, do. These are all answerable by Scripture, so if you want something to study, these are free: 

WHY do we go to church?
Why do we dress modestly?Why do we behave modestly?Why do we love the brethren? 

Why do we NOT use the language of the world?Why do we stay away from places/things that will harm our testimony?Why do we NOT cheat and steal? 

Why do we study our Bible?Why do we witness to people, invite them to church or pass out tracts? 

And WHY, when we know that someone is under conviction of the Holy Ghost of God, do we ‘feel’ in our spirits the travail of birth for a new soul?  

My husband is an historian, and his history books are full of stories of women in the early times of America, who had hard labors and died just because they ran out of strength.  Sometimes I think that we get someone to come to church with us, and the Lord deals with them- they are on the verge of coming forward and making a true commitment to Christ- and then… we fail to have the strength to bring forth!  The Church of GOD- the Bride of Christ- fails to bring forth children because we are weak.  

Do we stop our prayers short just one prayer before we need to?  Do we maybe get caught up in the temporal instead of being conscious of the eternal?  We can’t expect to be unconcerned before church, maybe even during church, and then pray really hard during one verse of “Just As I Am” and wonder WHY that soul didn’t get saved.   

Now, I am not saying that a soul’s salvation depends on our sinless, holiness, so don’t feel too bad.  Remember that the LORD is the giver of life, physical or spiritual. But we are vessels who need to be clean and strong, fit for the Master’s use. That goes for our Christian lives and testimony, and for our homes and families.   

Tell me, IS the Bible the word of God?  I know you answered yes. Then WHY do we not try and study to show ourselves approved unto GOD?  Sometimes I think that we think that if people don’t see us do bad things that no one saw, but that’s not true.  God saw, he heard, he knows our thoughts.  WHO do we think we are kidding?   

Why do we expect God to accept us just the way we are, and then let stay the way we are?  He wants us to be holy as HE is holy.  GET RID OF THE JUNK, and stop trying to be like the world.  If you are going to sell out to something, sell out to Jesus- the REAL Jesus- not some made-up fictional, anything goes, peace-loving, sin tolerating, compromising, materialistic , plastic, soap opera drama queen kind of panty waist, mystically spooky IDEA. He is REAL. He is GOD. He deserves our worship and our reverence. He does not care so much about our happiness as about our holiness.  He’s the KING of KINGS and LORD of LORDS, and He wants a direct and personal relationship with you, but on HIS terms.   WHY don’t you want that?  WHY do you expect GOD to stoop to your ideas?  WHYWHY  

Since there is so much here with the questions at the beginning, I think I will break this study up into a couple more parts.  I hope that you can find a nugget or two in the WHY questions to exercise your faith.

Posted in Bible, attitude, child rearing, prayer | 1 Comment »

January 11, 2010 by admin.

Snow Days and More about Global WarmingCan you tell I might be a little bitter?  J  (bitter cold!) Well Global Warming has been disproved if not in text, in application in the Hoy household.  I know, we do not know it all, and there is much evidence supporting blah blah blah…What we DO know is that there is six inches of snow and ice in our front yard, we are having trouble getting into and out of the driveway, and we have been promised that if our electricity ever goes off (after blinking twice) it’s gonna be off for a while.  We’ve been asked- behind sneaky grins and sour attitudes- if we ever have snow days.  People have joked and laughed at us – “Ha, ha, we get a snow day and you don’t because YOU are homeschoolers.”  What do they know?  Not much!  Why do we homeschoolers have to continually prove that we are a viable source of education?  What can you do with snow?  Well you can pile it up and make a snow ‘whatever’. This can help you with learning about proportions! You can make a phys-ed. class out of shoveling!  You can study the theory that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Make snow ice cream!  You can make snow angels.  You can put a pan outside and measure the amount of snow. You can measure its volume.  You can measure its temperature. Or you can just flat-out PLAY in the snow.  What’s wrong with that?  The thing is, you don’t have to have school to learn and make it fun at the same time.  Kids don’t have to know they are learning.  I have found that most kids just like being with us homeschooling parents. Someone told me just last week that their son got a B-B gun for Christmas. They went outside to shoot it, and as things go most of the time, it took more time to set up the targets to actually get started than anything. As a side note, it was cold because global warming hadn’t made it to that part of WV; but I digress.  The point is, that the little boy, shivering profusely, looked at his dad before they ever put off one shot and said, “Dad, this is so fun!  I’m having a great time!.”Dad replied, “But we haven’t shot anything.”  The boy said, “I know.”   If that don’t warm you up…  Well, let’s just say Al Gore ain’t got a snowball’s chance…

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »