Dear Reader,

Do you have a favorite aspect of God’s creation? Is there something that just strikes you as wondrous?

A couple weeks ago I blogged about 9 books that helped our family. One of those was a parenting book by Andrew Murray, a Christian author, pastor, and missionary who died in 1917. He and his wife raised 8 children, and he wrote over 200 books. This book, Raising Your Children for Christ, sat on our bookshelf for years after I first studied it, until I looked for it to reference for the blog.

After the blog was written, I picked up one of the revised versions of the book, Raising Your Child to Love God, and opened it. The chapter I came to was “Choosing the Good”. This chapter title grabbed my attention because I often tell people that the purpose of education is to “train our children to discern between good and evil, and to choose the good.”

I first heard that definition from my son. I don’t know where he heard it, but I thought about it a lot and after reviewing some scriptures I adopted it as the best description of proper educational goals. And while I saw how we can train our children to discern between good and evil (see my video “Understanding Why”), I struggled with how to train a child to choose the good.

Well, Andrew Murray nailed it in this chapter. It reminded me why I like Mr. Murray: he understands human nature in the context of what the Bible tells us. Then he explains it so I can understand it. This chapter starts with what Murray considers the coolest part of the creation of man:

Murray goes on in the next paragraph:

The rest of the chapter describes training the child’s will, training the child’s conscience, and use of God’s word as the standard for that training.

Murray’s discussion of training the child’s will led me to think about my responsibility to train my own will. Since I am not a child in my parents’ household anymore, I bear my own responsibility to train my will and mind to conform to God’s will.

How do I do that? Start like Jesus did: Humility.

Then put off the old man (my worldly/fleshly way of thinking) and put on the new man (a new way of thinking, directed by the spirit of God and His word).

It must be an act of my will to not be led about by the world, but to re-train my mind to the word of God.

It’s my will in submission to God’s will that works wonders in the world around me. He gave each of us free will to learn how to use our wills the right way. The only way to conform my will to His is to choose to submit to Him, then I can trust that “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)

Whose will are you following?

By His calling, in His strength,

Dean

P.S.: I received an email from a friend of my sister who had just read The Story Farm. She called it "a delightful little read!" She went on, "I especially liked the part about what an emphasis Augie and Elaine put on play."

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading The Story Farm. Share it with others by sharing the Facebook page: The Story Farm - book. You can also help by sharing your review on the Amazon review page.

P.S.S.: Here's the link to the Families from the Beginning blog page. You can see posts with links for the blogs on our Facebook page, too.

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