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Cindy Colley

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #68–House Sitting

Posted on March 21, 2024

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 67  of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

I’m sure this one’s intuitive, but it’s a great responsibility tutor. Look for families in the congregation or neighborhood and let your kids volunteer to do the necessary plant watering and pet feeding, and mail-gathering while they are gone. Your non-Christian neighbors will see the church in a good light and your Christian family will develop closer bonds with your children. Be sure your kids ask politely, for the chance to volunteer in this way. “Is there something we can do while you are gone? I’d love to help and my mom says she can help me.”  For the younger ones, you’ll need to go along, of course, and be sure plants aren’t drowned and dog food stays in its place.

Then, as kids mature, they can take these tasks seriously and complete them on their own. When they get to be driving age, they can be really good at house sitting, even if it involves spending the night in homes of trusted friends when they are out of town.

It’s important not to expect or ask for payment from those you know. But it’s my recommendation that you allow your kids to take the tip that will likely be offered when the travelers return. That gives a great opportunity to practice thank-you notes and giving to the church from the gift received.

This is truly a wonderful way to learn the importance of remembering (writing down or setting alarms for) responsibilities and keeping up with keys and scheduling around other activities. It’s a win in every way as long as you are parenting with safety in mind.

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“I don’t want it to die!”

Posted on March 19, 2024

My daughter, Hannah, posted the following last week. Several of you said you could already anticipate the upcoming blog post. So scroll down for the points well-taken from this little lament.

The most precious thing just happened. I was in my room and I heard Eliza calling me. I went to her in the kitchen and she was holding a petal that had fallen from my flowers in the vase. She said, “Mama, I need you to put this back on the flowers.”

I said, “Well, I can’t. It fell off.”

She responded, “But it needs to be in the water.”

I explained, thinking this wasn’t a big deal, “Well when petals fall off, they die….We have to just throw this one away.”

I went back to my breakfast-cooking and, in a minute, I  heard sniffling. I looked over at her and big tears were streaming down her baby face. I immediately went to her and asked what was wrong. She was still holding the petal, and wailed softly, “I DON’T WANT IT TO DIE!”

 

  1. Young children give us multiple daily opportunities to put the Word in them. We have to be opportunity-alert (Deuteronomy 6:4-6).
  1. Young children think their mothers can do anything, even restore petals to the bloom. Therefore, the responsibility to show them Christ is a huge one (2 Timothy 1:5).
  1. Physical life requires water. Spiritual life requires living water. We have no hope without the water (John 4:1-15).
  1. What is significant to our children is just as important to them as what’s significant to us adults is important to us. Unselfish parenting makes unselfish adult children (Luke 18:16).
  1. Sometimes we can be dismissive of someone’s grief. We fail to realize the hurt is continuing in hearts right beside us (Romans 12:15).
  1. Sometimes we cook, or clean or scroll on a device through the most teachable moments of our kids’ lives (Proverbs 127:3-5).
  1. Death is a natural phenomenon. But God meant for us to see the urgency demanded by the brevity of life. He used grass and petals and vapor to illustrate this. Evangelism’s opportunities are in the lessons of this petal. We should be constantly thinking, speaking, working for souls around us: “I don’t want it to die.” We should be getting them to the water of life (James 1:11; 4:14).
  1. Sometimes, a child needs a few minutes of explanation, when the quick version seems very sufficient to us parents. That’s why quantity time is so very important. We don’t know when those moments may occur, but they are time-sensitive (Deut. 4:9).

Now, in case anyone thinks I am postulating that Han is a dismissive, scrolling, uninvolved parent, that cannot be further from truth. She’s one of the most involved parents I know. It’s just that God is good to give all of us little reminders of the important in the midst of the chaotic urgent. I needed this little reminder.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep Correction: 1 Samuel 27…Raids, not Roads.

Posted on March 18, 2024

The KJV in 1 Samuel 27:10 has Achish asking David “Whither have you made a road today?” More correct, for our vernacular today is “Where have you made a raid today?”  The latter is how almost all other translations state the question. 

The definition of the Hebrew phrase for made a road/raid is:

pâshaṭ, paw-shat’; a primitive root; to spread out (i.e. deploy in hostile array); by analogy, to strip (i.e. unclothe, plunder, flay, etc.):—fall upon, flay, invade, make an invasion, pull off, put off, make a road, run upon, rush, set, spoil, spread selves (abroad), strip (off, self).

So, David was pretending, to the king of the Philistines, that he was out gaining territories for the Philistines…raiding towns in Israel, when, in reality, he was killing and plundering the enemies of Israel…the sub-tribes of the Amalekites. 

Special thanks to Song Nicholas of the group in North Mississippi, for catching this. I try to dig in more than one version, but, for this question, apparently I was stuck in the KJV, which contains an obvious mistranslation of this phrase. 

Month 7, Question 12, should read:

When Achish thought David was making raids for the Philistine nation, he was actually empowering Israel by destroying key enemies that should have already been destroyed. What enemies did he kill and plunder? 

…And thanks for your patience with this fellow-digger!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep is on YouTube!

Posted on March 12, 2024

We’re moving on up! Digging Deep officially has it’s very won YouTube channel. All available archives will be right here! https://www.youtube.com/@Digging DeepinGodsWord  I hope you’ll find this easy to access and full of the info that you need to navigate the current study or any past study you may be doing.

Due to some streaming changes at West Huntsville, from which our podcasts emanate, we had to switch platforms. YouTube seems to be the best option and we hope it will be a one-stop for digging deep watching/listening. Special thanks to Jennifer Benavides for a labor intensive job in this switch!

VIdeo podcast will be next Tuesday, the 19th of March and Jennifer Crowden will be co-hosting. (It’s the month of the Jennifers) SO thankful for her willingness to jump on board last minute. Details about where to watch will be forthcoming so check the facebook page for updates.

Thanks for following wherever we go! We pray as you follow us, you’ll be following HIM! That’s the best part about Digging Deep. It’s about Him and His divine will for our lives. Please pause and pray and praise for Digging Deep. He’s so good!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

DD: Have You Killed God’s Anointed One? (The Crown, Chapter 6)

Posted on February 29, 2024

In 1 Samuel 24, David had this amazing opportunity to kill his foe. Saul went into a cave to relieve himself. At the risk of being graphic, it looks as if, in doing this, that he was squatting or sitting. Afterward, he rose up. Before he did rise up, though, David, who was apparently already hiding in the cave, stealthily crept over and whacked off a piece of Saul’s clothing. 

Here we have the morally faltering king of Israel, caught by the one He’s zealously trying to kill—caught quite literally with his pants down—and finding that he was utterly at the mercy of David for his life in that cave. It’s an incredible story for your family Bible time!

You remember the reason for David’s restraint. He told his men, who wanted him to complete the fatal task, “I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anointed.”

The Lord’s anointed. David, the one revered by the Pharisees (and all Jewry) even today, would not put his hand on Saul’s life because He was God’s anointed. Yet the Pharisees lived in the Judean world with the most highly favored, anointed One that God had ever chosen (Acts 10:38). Jesus was prophet, priest, and King of kings. He was God. And the Pharisees could not wait to get Him to the Roman cross. Had it not been for the Roman rule over them (and the prophecies to be fulfilled), they would have likely killed King Jesus long before Calvary. They killed the anointed One.

You and I can do it, too.

Hebrews 6:4-6:

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Have you once been enlightened about the Lord? Do you know His story? Have you tasted salvation? Have you known just how good the Word of the Lord is in your life? Did you once rest in knowing the power and sovereignty of the anointed One?

What happened? Have you remained loyal to the Anointed? Or have you walked away? If you have walked away, as scores that I know have done in recent years, you have “put out your hand against the Lord’s anointed.”

You have crucified Him afresh.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

DD…Let’s Not Skip Over Doeg!

Posted on February 28, 2024

I’d like to take the next couple of blog posts to tie up loose ends in the February Digging Deep study. We will talk more about the “persecution” aspect of the lives of David and the Messiah in March, but I wanted to notice a couple of things from Month 6 that are powerful in their applications for us. 

We had come to the end of our video podcast time before we even got a good mention of Doeg. Let’s take a minute with this incredibly destructive man and make some applications. His story is found in 1 Samuel 22:6ff. 

Doeg is the man who saw the priest, Ahimelech, give David the showbread from the holy place to eat as a common meal. He became a self-appointed spy for King Saul when he saw that exchange.  He saw Ahimelech give David the sword of Goliath that was in the “vault” under the protection of the priests at Nob. Ahimelech had been deceived by David to believe that David needed these things in the service of King Saul, when, in reality, David needed these things to protect himself from Saul. 

Doeg went directly back to Saul to report David’s confiscation of Goliath’s sword to Saul. Consequently Saul called for Ahimelech’s death. His footmen would not put their hand against the priest of the Lord. 

Once again, Doeg to Saul’s rescue! He ran the sword through 85 priests of God on that day. Eighty-five innocent anointed men perished at the hands of Saul, the sword being administered by Doug, that day! It’s hard to even think about the impaling of 85 men—the blood, the stench, the entrails, the cries of their families and then, the unthinkable…Nob’s women, children and animals were smitten and killed with the sword . There’s no telling how many people lost their lives that day at the hand of Saul, because of his envy of David. 

Who killed the innocent people that day? 

  1. David was involved. He chose to lie to Ahimelech about being in the service of Saul. (1 Samuel 21:2). David was also aware that Doeg was going to “tattle” to Saul (22:22). He knew he was going to tell the wrathful king. Yet, David continued on the self-protective path. David had a part in these deaths. David’s murder motive was self protection. (He was also ignoring the fact that God was/is sovereign and He would not allow the taking of the life of His anointed, himself—the future king of Israel.) We can also be sure that David, when the lie was told, did not envision the severe consequences. Mark it down: Sin is always worse than the sinner expects it to be. Oh, the devastation we could prevent, if we could think of this fact BEFORE the sin is committed.
  2. Saul killed these men, women and children. By command, he was directly responsible. His motive was wrath and envy against David. 
  3. Doeg killed these innocents. His motive was a desperate need for the approval of Saul. He was a small man. (A son of Esau—another man who could become very wrathful.)

The lesson for us is so clear. We can easily become complicit in destructive behaviors, even spiritual deaths. Every time we bend the truth, we elicit possible, even probable harm in the lives of other people…and we do it without any possible way of knowing how far our lie may go in its final consequence. 

Further, we don’t have to always be the one who is the direct tempter in order to be complicit in sin. When I fail to teach my children and they, in turn, influence others to do wrong or even to abandon the Lord, I am complicit. When I support my children in sin, I am complicit in their continuance in that sin—all the way to hell. I am complicit in their bringing others, possibly my grandchildren, with them to that ultimate tragedy. When I give my dollars to venues of sin I am complicit in the behaviors that result. When I am a leader in the church and I look the other way, rather than addressing, I am complicit. 

When I become too attached to any human being (thus unequally yoked—2 Corinthians 6:14-18) I become tempted to do things I might otherwise find unconscionable. I do not want any part of Doeg behavior on my conscience as I stand before the Lord on the final day. May I bypass all impressive people in my attempts to be pleasing and make my strong desire for approval to be ever heavenward. Then, in a providential turn, the people who are worth pleasing will be pleased with my life and choices.

God is so good to us in the examples of the Old Testament that are for our learning (1 Corinthians 10:11).