Since I’m talking about our husbands as our shepherds this week I couldn’t resist showing you this video, Amazing Sheep Light, about sheep. Please take time to watch it as these are some incredible shepherds – and sheep! Just click on the highlighted words.
As you know I’ve been covering some of the areas that the Lord spoke to Dan and me about during our January planning time. We discovered that He had given us instructions that we hadn’t followed, and we repented and have made a commitment to put those things into place in our family.
So far we’ve talked about:
Husband/Wife relationship: couch time and weekly date.
Family: using our disposable time better – daily Bible and prayer times after dinner, using Saturday evening to prepare our hearts for Sunday, less time just vegetating and more time reading together or listing to good audio or video teachings.
Children: both of us having individual times with our children.
Those are a lot of things to put into place in a family, but with the Lord’s grace and mercy we are actually doing quite well with this.
I think the biggest reason we are succeeding is that we have all taken responsibility for being good sheep. I’m going to assume that all or most of you believe that the father is the head of the home – the shepherd. A shepherd is only as good as his sheep.
What do I mean by that? In the past years we’ve discussed how good the above ideas would be for our family, but then I expected Dan to lead us and make it all happen. I have to admit that many times he would attempt to begin something and I would secretly hope he would forget it some or most evenings so I would have more free time.
Sheep have to be willing to follow the shepherd.
John 10:11-14 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—“
This year I’ve realized that my place as his helpmeet and a good sheep is to help him to be successful at the things the Lord asks him to do. I remember learning this lesson years ago when I discovered, much to my dismay at the time, that the Lord expected me to be Dan’s helpmeet – not Dan to be my helpmeet – and it was only as I helped Dan to be successful in his calling from the Lord that I would also be successful in what the Lord was calling me to do.
Now instead of hoping Dan will forget what we are supposed to be doing I make sure things are prepared for our evenings. I have a Bibles in place where we have our evening study and prayer, I have someone queue up the audio or video that we are watching or listening to that evening, I plan our date nights, and I’ve gotten the children onboard with these preparations too.
And I’m seeing, as I have in the past, that when Dan is successful so am I.
This quote from Nancy Leigh DeMoss caught my eye the other day:
“We know so much. If we’d just live a fraction of what we know, we’d be spiritual giants instead of spiritual pygmies.”
How true we are finding this to be as we put in place those things the Lord has spoken to our hearts these past few years.
When I was first homeschooling Emily and we were working on reading she said to me, “Mom, if you are going to teach me something you should be sure you know how to do it first. Like if you were going to teach me to ride a bike you should know how to ride a bike. Mom, do you know how to read?”
There is one more area that I hope to share with you in the next week or so. I’m hesitating because we are still struggling in it and I’m feeling that I’ve needed to learn to live these areas before I really have anything to share about them.
Be sure to let me know what areas you are working to change, and how you are doing it.
Finding Joy in the Journey,
Phyllis
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Phyllis Sather Proclaiming God’s Faithfulness at:http://www.Phyllis-Sather.com
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2 Comments
Phyllis
How true. It is so easy to slip into that mind set. We need to be vigilant – I guess this is one good reason to spend personal time with the Lord on a daily basis. Thanks for sharing Rhoda.
Rhoda
Oh my! Me a helpmeet to my DH, not him a helpmeet to me! How often I expect it to be that way around. Oh for grace to be what God intends me to be. I needed these words right now (and probably every few weeks as I tend to forget what I need to remember). Thank you for sharing and being open to us.