God loves to bless His people. But isn’t it amazing how many times we don’t want Him to bless us. We see many examples of this in the Scriptures.
Isaiah 28:9-12 is a wonderful passage about how God shows us the best way to teach. God’s way of teaching is “precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” Your children don’t need to learn everything in one day. Children learn better in bite-size pieces. There is always tomorrow. In fact, there is a lifetime ahead!
What happens when we do it God’s way? God continues speaking: “To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing” (Isaiah 28:12). Did you get this dear, weary mother? It says: “This is the REST and this is the REFRESHING!” Let me repeat it again: “This is the rest!” God knows the best way for your children, and they learn a lot more this way.
He also knows the best way for YOU. You will enjoy rest instead of becoming a stressed-out, anxious mother.
Of course, you will be diligent. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 tells us to diligently teach our children. This is not a half-hearted word. It means: “To impress sharply by verbal repetition, to point, to show, to engrave, to make them penetrate, and to whet as in whetting the appetite with repetition and diligence.”
How do we do this? God tells us to do it as we live life—when you sit in your home, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. He doesn’t tell us we have to complete every curriculum we purchased (just because we spent the money on it). He doesn’t tell us we have to accomplish the set block of teaching we planned for the day. He wants us to faithfully teach, but little by little, line upon line. Isn’t that lovely?
However, we have a problem. Many don’t believe God’s way. They think they must teach like the school system, or like some other mother. Dear mother, don’t be like the people to whom God showed His way but the response to the “line upon line; here a little, there a little” was “yet they would not hear” (Isaiah 28:12).
Why are we so stubborn? Why do we go our own way and get stressed out when God invites us to His life of rest? Don’t refuse God’s invitation. Embrace them with a great big “Thank You.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Painting by Pino Daeni (1939-2010, Italian artist).