It Was a God Day!

The prompting began last night and grew in intensity during a home school question-n-answer meeting I had attended. The Lord confirmed it in my spirit during my morning devotions as to what my day was to consist of.

It was going to be an unusual day. One like I have never had before in my 12 years of educating my children at home. So, what did the Lord speak to my heart about?

To put all the educational books away -- GASP!

Seriously?? No math, grammar or spelling? But they must practice typing everyday and what about dictation and science? It was true...The Lord wanted the day completely devoted to Him. He wanted me to do nothing except teach from His word, work on character traits and talk about serious, heart-felt issues like modesty, diligence, guarding your heart, and their moral values.

I opened my Bible and guess where the Lord led me? Galatians 5:19-23. I won't quote the entire text here, but it starts with, "When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results...but when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, He will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.. Here this is no conflict with the law."

Thus the beginning of our day was spent on the couch for 35 minutes talking about these scripture verses and how important they are to our lives - all before breakfast was even consumed.

With great anticipation, I explained to the kids what the Lord had told me. Their eyes were bulging with shock trying to understand exactly what this meant for them - the pupil...

Well, the day is over now and I will have to say that it was probably the most rewarding day we have ever had. As I put my daughter to bed, she wanted to know if we could have a "God Day" every week! So you want to know what our day looked like? I thought you'd never ask :)Once their chores were finished, we read the Bible for about 40 minutes. Then I started drilling them on some fun Bible Quiz Flashcards. We went to the bookshelves and pulled out some books we had about God or moral issues. We read I Wonder How God Hears Me and a few stories from Hinds' Feet on High Places (arranged for children).Right before lunch I brought out my three volume set of Read Aloud Bible Stories from the Moody Bible Institute that I used to read to them when they were little. They were once again captivated by the pictures just as they were at such a young, tender age. We decided to pick a Bible character that they remembered or found interesting. After reading about them, they let the artist within them come alive on paper! I had them mesmerized by my personal testimonies and enthralled with each true-to-life story that was told. We ate lunch on the floor while watching a missionary video called Stephen's Test of Faith.

Next was the Clarksons book called "Our 24 Family Ways". I have had this for years but with so many other books, it just wasn't being used. Today it happily made its appearance. It completely amazed me how one topic can bring about so many questions and the different rabbit trails you can venture on. I actually took notes as to what we talked about so that I could relay everything to daddy.

The spectrum of discussions? Addictions, regret, denying yourself, modesty, protecting your heart, your moral warehouse, movie and book selections, peer pressure, leading instead of following, purity, inappropriate billboards and public displays at the mall, no guarantee of tomorrow and God's commands and promises. Then we began our unit study on character traits. I will write a separate blog about this awesome book, but it is called "What Every Child Should Know Along the Way".

The best topic was explaining what we believe as a believer in Christ and why we believe what we believe. We actually ran out of time, but will write out our beliefs on paper tomorrow.

The end results were truly amazing. Inspired by God's and led by God. It's incredible how well your day can go when God is in control.

Are we behind in our school work and schedule? What schedule? (Haha!) We made an immense amount of progress today. I actually feel we are further ahead mentally and spiritually than if we had our noses in the books.

Thanks God...for caring, for the gentle nudge, for giving me the right words, for my children's open hearts and minds and for being such a God of order.

Blessings,
Rhonda