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Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

When Kids Have Doubts about Faith–12 Suggestions

  1. Answer (begin researching and compiling information) important questions as immediately as possible. Involve your kids in the process. They love discovering the answers!
  1. Do not stop researching important questions about faith until the child’s mind has settled and faith’s doubts are answered. Choose the addressing of doubts over other time commitments that are about temporal things.
  1. Never answer with the lazy answer “Just have faith in the Bible,” without showing both internal and external (Biblical and extra-biblical) evidences for that faith.
  1. Never become frustrated or angry with sincere questions. 
  1. Put your kids in environments in which there are good and studied people who have developed great faith. 
  1. Fill your home library with resources from Apologetics Press. (www.apoloageticspress.org)
  1. To answer alleged contradictions in scripture, check Christian Courier for studied resolution. (Particularly, study together, while they are teens, the “Notes in the Margin of my Bible” books.– www.christiancourier.com)
  1. Have an interactive family Bible time every day in which the kids are able and feel comfortable asking any questions and bringing up any doubts or challenging scenarios. 
  1. Show your children support for your local elders and have your children develop relationships with these godly men (and other men and women who are scripture-dependent in daily decisions). 
  1. Take advantage of the current immorality in the climate of our country. When it is “in the face” of your children and family, use those situations to show your children the scriptural “protection” God gives His people from the consequences of sin. Talk through the culture’s bold rejection of morality, especially as it relates to your community, and let God’s word echo the warnings when you encounter this brazen rejection. 
  1. As your kids grow, frequently point to the passages and examples in Scripture about persecution and prepare them for boldness even when the culture is mocking Christianity.
  1. If your children are enrolled in the public school system, constantly be vigilant. Be aware of the power that the system has to mold their thinking and their philosophies about truth. Constantly investigate, discuss with them and respond with time and diligence.
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Guest Writer: Caleb Colley–Two Tales of Gen X.

(Caleb has helped me immensely as I teach with these two compilations/scenarios. Next time: a few obvious, but timely, suggestions to help us stay in scenario 2.)

The first is a composite of several of the many stories I read (among the thousands that are available on-line) of deconstructors. Tom, a young man who grew up attending the services of the church and being active in the youth group, is doing research for a science paper he has been assigned to write for his high school biology class. He comes across an article that provides an argument for the common descent of chimpanzees and humans based on the fused chromosome that humans have. He doesn’t know what to do with this, but his confidence in the Genesis account is shaken. Not long after this, Tom finds out that one of his close friends thinks of himself as being homosexual. He asks his parents why they think that homosexual people are living in sin, and they have some vague sense that the Bible probably teaches against that, but they don’t know where in the Bible it is discussed. Tom has in his mind that his good friend must be pleasing to God, despite his homosexuality, so homosexuality could not be wrong. Later, Tom reads the accounts in Joshua of the Israelites driving out and killing the Canaanites. He doesn’t know how a loving God could allow that. He also reads that there is little evidence outside the Bible that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt. He talks to his preacher about it, who tells him to have faith in the Bible, but doesn’t explain any answers to these problems, and so Tom’s confidence in the Old Testament wears away. Tom tells himself that he still believes in Jesus. But then Tom goes to college, and in a religious studies class, he is presented with a book that argues that the New Testament text has been corrupted and is historically unreliable. So, Tom is led to believe that he can’t know what Jesus was really like. The final straw comes when Tom carefully considers the doctrine of hell. He thinks that it is impossible for a loving God to punish people everlastingly in hell. By this time, however, Tom is so unwilling to hear from people who are citing the Bible to him that he has distances himself from them and will not listen to them anymore. So, Tom thinks to himself, “I don’t think that Christianity is true anymore, and there may not even be a God.” 

The second story is quite different, but it is also a composite of my experience with many faithful young people who grow up in the church and stay with the church. Jane is a young woman who also grew up attending the services of the church, and in studying the Bible with a friend of hers who does not believe in God, she is presented with an argument that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor. She has never considered the evidence presented there, but she finds the article on the Apologetics Press Web site that presents clear evidence that the best explanation for human chromosomal fusion is not common descent, but common design. Jane is very aware of the LGBTQ+ movement, and she wants all of those who identify as being homosexual to be saved, but she also learns as she studies the Bible daily with her parents that God loves them too much to endorse their sin. Her Bible class teacher at church has made her well informed of the Bible passages that deal with the issue, and has even headed off the argument that these passages are cultural artifacts that are vestiges of patriarchy and are not to be taken seriously today. So she is too grounded in the Bible to be swayed by the Woke movement. Jane’s confidence in the Bible grows every time she sees archaeological support for biblical events, even though she understands that not every Bible event can be verified by secular archaeology. Her dad explains to her that there are those who think the Bible has been corrupted, but they  they review the manuscript evidence for the New Testament, showing how well supported it is, and that we can know the original text with greater than 99-percent accuracy. Jane’s preacher addresses the topic of hell, showing how that God is the One uniquely situated to determine the appropriate punishment for sin, and that Jesus died as an expression of God’s love, so that nobody has to go to hell. With every potential crisis of faith, Jane’s confidence in God grows, because she gets the answers she needs.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Ellis – Lions, Sheep and Goats

Ellis is four. He has a stuffed Simba (from Lion King) on his bed. He sleeps in the top bunk of a grey house-shaped bed. He has a window to look out and everything! Each night, when I went in last week, to tuck him in, I’d make up some wild story about how Simba had disobeyed; he had gone too close to the edge of a cliff or he had jumped on a barge in the river. He disobeyed through the week in a plethora of ways. Each  night, Samba would get a sound spanking and he’d have to sit in the corner and face the wall until Ellis woke up in the morning. Each night, Ellis would ask, in all seeming sincerity, “Why?…Why does he always disobey?” Then we’d have a little talk about the folly of disobedience and Ellis would affirm his own resolve to not disobey.

On the last night I was there, He began to talk about the sheep and the goats during our little Simba-time, in the vein of Matthew 25. He said “Samba is really just one of the goats.”

I said, “Well, YOU are one of the sheep, though. You are an obey-er. You always do what Mama and Dada say! I know you will never be a goat.”

Ellis said, “Well sometimes I cross over into the goats.”

I responded “Well, I don’t think so. You are always trying to obey. I watch you do that every day. You especially want to obey God.”

He persisted. “But sometimes I am a goat. Like tonight, I was supposed to be getting in my bed and I went back in there.”

He was right. He did venture back down the hall…to ask for one final drink, or for something he forgot to show me or for permission to have Papa come read a book or something. He had gotten into trouble and maybe his mama had seen one little glimpse of a billygoat horn growing out of those curls.

We talked a while more and I assured Ellis that I know he will always make the choice to be a sheep and we will all be in heaven together.

Just an fyi for all of us who have been sheep for a lot of years now: There’s no accidental “crossing-over” from sheep status to being a goat. If you are a sheep, you cannot accidentally join the goat-herd. It takes much more than a conscientious slip-up to join the goats. If you are walking in the light, as Christ is in the light, the blood of Jesus keeps you clean and in the right flock (1 John 1:7).

Further, there are no half-sheep-half goats. You are not an in-between spiritual species. If you are not a full-fledged sheep, you are on the left-hand—a goat. He will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left (Matthew 25:33).

I just want to be a sheep.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Themed Travel this Week

As you’re reading, I’ll be wheels up for Wisconsin, with a couple of cohorts for a ladies day in Spencer. I’m excited because it’s been a while since someone requested the topic of  “Home” or any of those lessons about the importance of keeping the home and shining His reflected light from our homes (although every spiritual topic is related to this foundational aspect of our Christian lives). . I’ll be talking this weekend about hospitality, organization, motherhood and evangelism. All of these are topics I can get pretty “worked-up” about, because all are fundamental commands for Christian women and all have such obvious eternal ramifications.  Did you know that the New Testament prescribes a place of priority for God’s women and that place is home? SO excited to get to talk about this from the Word!

It will be a themed trip because I’m also planning to take Colleyanna to Pepin, Wisconsin, to see one of the “Little House on the Prairie” Museums, on the day prior to the ladies event. (It’s her very first time to fly! She is hoping for a window seat.)  I think this particular museum is a tribute to “The Little House in the Big Woods”. We are reading these books together and we have progressed now to “Farmer Boy.”  We are learning a lot  together. (Yesterday was a comparison of the economic disparity between childhood in New York (Almanzo) in the 1800’s and growing up all over the sparsely populated plains and prairies (Laura and Mary) in the same era.)

Coincidentally, I discovered that the annual “celebration” of Laura Ingall’s Wilder is happening in Pepin on the Friday we will be there, so we will get to watch the home-making skills of the late 1800’s come alive in various recreations on that day. We recently spoke in Branson, Missouri and went through the museum and homes in Mansfield that commemorate the author, herself. God is so  good to be in the tiny things and seemingly co-ordinate our “book-learning”   with  travels on so many adventures. I’ve been watching this providence for three generations of learning now and it astounds me.

It will also be (right on theme)  Mother’s Day while we are in Wisconsin. We’re planning to  celebrate a week late because we all want to be together. In keeping with the travel theme, Colleyanna is finishing up a hand-sewn gift project for her mom. We have ripped out a few seams that went crooked or that tucked an extra layer under the foot (and I also think a treadle sewing machine sews faster than Colleyanna does on this Bernina). “Whatsoever you sew, you shall also rip!”  But this little gift is going to be finished before we leave on this trip! (Don’t tell her mama!) Colleyanna is way excited about this.

Also right on theme, are the demands in this house today. 100 percent of next year’s Digging Deep got to the designer yesterday!  When that happens, I feel like I’ve torn a ribbon at the finish of a long marathon, lots while lots of other things have been blown by and left in the dust (literally.)  I’m not sure about the quality of the study. I had no second eyes, this time, to peruse the contents.  But I am sure about the quality of its primary reference work! I hope you’re planning to join us next September. I cannot wait!

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley Dig-a-Bit Podcast

Crossing the Culture 1 Peter 3 (ConvoM08E04)

Dig-A-Bit is a weekly mini Bible study with Cindy Colley. It supplements the Digging Deep Bible study for women. In this episode, Cindy discusses culture.

For more information about the Digging Deep Bible Study for Women, visit TheColleyHouse.org.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:

    • 1 Peter 3

LINKS:

RESOURCES:

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley Dig-a-Bit Podcast

Salome’s Place of Honor (ConvoM08E03)

Dig-A-Bit is a weekly mini Bible study with Cindy Colley. It supplements the Digging Deep Bible study for women. In this episode, Cindy discusses Salome’s place of honor.

For more information about the Digging Deep Bible Study for Women, visit TheColleyHouse.org.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:

    • Matthew 20, Mark 10

LINKS:

RESOURCES: