My 9 year old has expressed a real yearning for hearing from God. Still young in his faith (he accepted Jesus at 5), I told him that it takes time to discern the voice of God. “But how do you know when you hear him and it’s not just you talking to yourself?” “What a good question,” I said and told him that many adults ask that question and I’m glad that he is searching now so he won’t be on a lifetime journey. I gave him some typical ways to become sensitive to God’s voice, including becoming familiar with who God is by studying the Bible, recognizing that God uses people to give you a message, and understanding that God repeats messages when He wants you to pay attention to something. The repeated message way of hearing God’s voice happened Sunday morning when my pastor talked about the unity that is necessary in the Body of Christ to draw the world to Christ. This is the crux of my latest post in EEW Magazine.

I believe God is speaking in this hour that Christians need to pay attention to His command to be united. This is the way we win souls. United with God the Father, this is the way Christ won souls (John 10:24-30). Check out the post that begins below to see how you can foster brotherly kindness in your family to effect change in the Body of Christ and in the world:

We have heard these, maybe even said them ourselves, when our children don’t get along and are at each others’ throat: “These kids just can’t get along;” “It’s just sibling rivalry.” Maybe their behavior is sibling rivalry, but are we resigned that they won’t get along because they just can’t or do we just wait it out, expecting the conflict to go as the children grow? Parenting expert Abbey Waterman, a mother of eight and home educator for more than 20 years, says parents have to foster brotherly kindness in their children and not just expect it to happen.

“I didn’t let my children ‘have friends’ outside of the family until they could get along with each other,” said Waterman, whose children range in age from 23 to 6. “We would go to church and I would have them head straight to the car after service. They didn’t get the privilege of socializing with their friends at church.” She once made a bickering son and daughter share a room, forcing them to deal with each other and work out their issues. Today, the children are close.

Waterman’s tactics may seem extreme, but God expects us to go through radical means to get radical results. Read the rest here.

My One Thousand Gifts List

#361-370
Not having to cook dinner
My author copies of Daily Guideposts: Your First Year of Motherhood arriving in the mail
Strength to cook dinner after a long day
Keeping me safe without access to a phone
Getting my blog posted before going to get Joshua from school and after a morning at Dan’s funeral
My family enjoying my fried chicken
My family rejoicing over the devotional book arriving
Taking a nap
Flynn cleaning the kitchen and allowing me to take a nap
Good “cornbread” made with non-corn meal and spelt flour