Guest Post: Are you Smarter than a 5 year old?

I'm in sunny Florida:) Hope you are doing well where you are at. Here is one of my guest posts to keep you entertained while I'm relaxing with my family.


This post was written by my mom, Vicky, enjoy!

Don’t kids amaze you with the things they say? During one of their Florida visits with us, my daughter Jaime’s family and I were making plans for the day. James, then almost five, chimed-in with a new vocabulary word: “perhaps”. We adults were tickled. Without having defined it, James had used “perhaps” correctly, much to our delight. Little ones constantly pick up words and their meanings from context without their parents even realizing it. We soon learn that we need to be careful about what we say.


At the end of each year, the American Dialectic Society and dictionary publishers take surveys on the “word of the year” (WOTY) including the most overused words or wrongly used words. It is fun to hear their lists, but I keep my own. At the top of my list for the most misused word is: “awesome”. Pay attention for a couple of days—and, keep paper and pencil handy. You will need it to keep score. I am certain you will hear awesome applied to everything from a child’s drawing to interior decorating to sports achievements to lunch.


Does anybody know what awesome really means? Thankfully, Merriam-Webster does:
1 : an emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime 2 a : dread, terror b : the power to inspire dread


Are you surprised? If awesome is part of your daily vocabulary, do you use it correctly? Or maybe you wonder does it matter? I say “yes”--because the little ones are listening.
Before it became the most overused compliment of American English, this word was chiefly found in the Bible where awesome appears 34 times and awe appears 16 times. A few passages help us with context:

Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God,

who is among you, is a great and awesome God.

The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you…

throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. Deu 7:21-23

For the LORD your God is God of gods and

Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,

who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes….

He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you

those great and awesome wonders you saw

with your own eyes. Deu 10:17

If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law,

which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious

and awesome name--the LORD your God--the LORD

will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants,

harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and

lingering illnesses. Deu 28:58-59

You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness,

O God our Savior ... those living far away fear

your wonders. Psa 65:5-8

Then Samuel called upon the LORD,

and that same day the LORD sent thunder and rain.

So all the people stood in awe of the LORD and of Samuel.

I Sam 12:18

My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws.

Psa 119:120

Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you.

Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it

is for you when you forsake the LORD your

God and have no awe of me," declares the Lord,

the LORD Almighty. Jer. 2:19

Before using the word “awesome” again, I challenge you to read the remaining verses containing “awesome” or “awe” using an online resource such as http://www.biblegateway.com/. When you do, the context will convince you that this word can never apply to anything inanimate nor anything you or your preschooler can achieve. Awesomeness is an attribute of God and the word itself is one of the few adjectives that captures both the fear and power of the Almighty.

My prayer is that after reading these verses you will be inspired to a renewed reverence of God; one that will cause you to reserve this praise to God alone, seizing the many opportunities to carefully instruct and correct your child as to its proper meaning. Otherwise, if we continue to casually exclaim “awesome” when we really mean “cool”, “nice”, “way-to- go”, or “not bad”, how will our children understand that the AWESOME God is smarter than a five year old?

Vacation!

My family and I are heading to sunny Florida for 2 weeks!! The picture above was taken last spring when we were there; that is a real background and it really is that gorgeous in real life!! My parents have lived on an island across the street from the ocean for the last 3 years (and they aren't rich, just blessed by the Lord). They will be moving inland after our next visit (sniff, sniff) so we are going to live it up!! We will be with my WHOLE Family (minus 2 nephews and a brother-in-law) which hasn't happened in 4 years! I will be meeting my niece for the first time (she is already over a year old!). We are very excited. After that wonderful week we will be in Disney with my in-laws family! Another exciting week of events.

Since it is Thanksgiving I want to say that I am sooooooooooooooo THANKFUL for each one of you who grace me with your time and encouragement. I truly am grateful for each one of you and pray for my readers often. Because I love you so much I couldn't handle leaving you hanging for 2 weeks without hearing anything from For His Glory but I also don't expect a lot of free time with 7 kids, 8 adults one week, and Disney with 10 people the next week! So again I have some beautiful, lovely readers who have blessed me and agreed to write guest posts! So you will be meeting some of my favorite people in the next 2 week and hearing what they have been learning from the Lord: my Mom, Ms. Latina and Karen. I hope you enjoy and if they are anything like me they love to hear feedback from you, so if you have a minute leave a comment:)

I pray that you and yours will be blessed on this Thanksgiving holiday. You'll hear from me again in Dec,

Refining Fire

Heart's Afire by furtwangl

One thing that I have been learning during the last few months is that God really cares about our heart and His desire is for our heart to belong only to Him. This hasn't been a very pleasant lesson to learn but in retrospect I am very grateful for it.

Hebrews 12:26-29

"Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens."

The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken—

that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom

that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful,

and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,

for our "God is a consuming fire."

During, my Breaking Free study Beth Moore discussed the refining process. The picture she used to describe the process really stuck with me. She said that when gold is refined, or put through the fire, all the dross is brought up to the top and then scraped off. After that process you are left with what is valuable, the gold.

Sometimes God sends us through the refining process. Did you see how God is described at the end of the above verses? "God is a consuming fire." During times of shaking, and being consumed let us not forget what God's ultimate goal is, to have us emerge as pure gold and as a vessel that He can use.

Isaiah 45:10

"Woe to him who quarrels with

his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among

the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
'What are you making?'
Does your work say,
'He has no hands'?

The Lord has been bringing up junk, putting things on hold and making me deal with many issues. What I am learning through this process is that He is doing this because He loves me. He still leaves us with a choice, though, we have the choice to allow Him to mold us and refine us, or we can jump off the wheel, or out of the fire and run away saying "What are you doing?", or even worse, "You don't know what you are doing."

As I said at the beginning, it has not been easy to be molded or to sit in the fire, but for me, understanding why He is doing what He is doing for has helped me to endure and cooperate with the process. If I can encourage you, I would encourage you to cooperate with the Lord. When you are in the fire and start seeing the junk rise to the top, do not freak out, that is how the process works. Instead, give Him your whole heart and let the All-Consuming Fire refine you. He is refining you in love and in order to have us stand and withstand the things to come.

PS Thank you to Debby from Heavenly Humor for giving me my 3rd blogger award: You Add Sunshine to my Day.

There are no requirements to receive it but I am passing it along to Karen from Karen's Threads of Hope Thank you Karen for the Sonshine you've added to my days.

Amazing Creator

I now know I’ve crossed the line to getting “older.” Yesterday, I watched the following video clip of Pranav Mistry telling about his sixthsense Technology (The clip is 13 minutes long, but it has some pretty neat stuff which makes it worth watching). As I watched the video clip I felt like technology was definitely advancing much faster than I am. I remember first hearing about the internet in middle school and not even understanding the concept. Now of course, I know how to use it, but the future ideas of how technology is advancing seems amazing and it is well beyond my understanding.

As I watched the video I was amazed by the intelligence of Pranav and his ability to come up with these ideas. But as I reflect on the intelligence of one individual person, it causes me to reflect even more on the intelligence of the One. The Bible says in Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The meaning of this word Create means

to cause to come into being, as something

unique that would not naturally evolve

or that is not made by ordinary processes.
to make out of nothing (dictionary.com).

Have you ever noticed that man has never “created” something? He has never made something out of absolutely nothing. Rather man has discovered ways to use the information that has been hidden in this world since the beginning of time. Last spring I was riding in an airplane and I was amazed as I looked down at the ground. Here we were traveling across the United States from Florida to Wisconsin and the plane would arrive at its correct destination without any roads or signs pointing the way. Yes, the plane was using scientific instruments invented by men to help them navigate, but the instruments were responding to magnetic fields that were already part of the earth. In the beginning God created a road map in the earth's magnetic fields; that just amazes me. Men has invented technology but God was the One who originally embedded those abilities into the fabric of earth for man to discover.

Colossians 1:15-17 says,

He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God,

the firstborn over all creation.

For by him all things were created:

things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,

whether thrones or powers or

rulers or authorities;

all things were created by him and for him.

He is before all things,

and in him all things hold together.

Do you realize what a great and powerful God we worship? There remain millions of things yet to be discovered by man, which God embedded into the fabric of the earth when He created it. As time goes on man and technology will continue to amaze us as different men discover other ways to harness the amazing things God hid within the earth from the beginning. Let these discoveries continue to draw you in worship towards the amazing Creator of the universe.

Psalm 103

This Scripture ministered to me tonight. I thought I would share it with you:

Psalm 103

Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-

who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;

the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children's children-

with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.

Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.

Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.

Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.

Did you notice that this Psalm ends with the same phrase it begins with ~ Praise the Lord, O my soul? However, I believe there is a significant change in the Psalmists' heart from the beginning to the end. In the beginning the Psalmist is probably going through a hard time, a moment of confusion and despair and he tells his soul to praise the Lord and not forget all His benefits. He then goes on to list many of the benefits of the Lord. The list is long and beautiful: He forgives, He is compassionate, patient, kind, He loves us, He knows we are but dust yet so GREAT is HIS LOVE for us (If you have time I would highly recommend going back and rereading each benefit and take the time to pause, reflect and pray on each one. It's a pretty incredible list and it will refresh you). By the end of the list the Psalmist is excitedly telling everyone to praise God, from the heavenly hosts, to the angels, to his very own soul. The change that takes place from the place of discouragement to the place of declaring, believing and understanding what is true: THAT HIS LOVE IS GREAT, so GREAT we can't help but praise the Lord, O my soul.