A Final Note on the Top 25 Faith Blogs for Moms.

On Wednesday the 8th of June, voting for the Top 25 Faith Blogs for Moms ended.  

My Friends and Blog readers voted in surprising numbers and my blog had huge exposure.  I want to thank you all so much!  I ended number 101 out of more 300 faith blogs, which is such an encouragement for me in sharing my faith through blogging!

Unfortunately, there were also lot of negative comments about my Gate Keeper of the Home posting, especially from Blog readers of the other faith blogs like those from Pagan and Witch blogs.

There seemed to be some misunderstanding or misconceptions about Christianity in the comments posted by these people. Back to Ancient Ways is a Christian blog. My blog is not here to defend my faith or to evangelize Non-Christians.  The Godly calling on my life and thus on my blog is to disciple and encourage Christian Mothers in their high calling as Mothers! 

So as not to spread the misconceptions, I have deleted the comments that I had previously allowed through and will not publish any more comments received in the future on that particular posting; as it is not the goal of this blog to promote misconception about Christianity.  

In response a friend helped me put forward an attempt to state why I have hope and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It would take way longer than this to say everything that needs to be said, but here is what I trust will be helpful right now.

I do believe that the Bible is the Word of God. It is authoritative, inerrant and sufficient in everything pertaining to life and godliness. As a result, that is where I turn to for wisdom and insight into life; not my experience/perception/opinion. Faith is, after all, what we put our trust in. What we trust to deliver for us. 

Therefore I consider the following to be true:

I put my faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was born of Mary in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth and was baptised in the Jordan. He performed many miracles proving His Divinity; including the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, the lepers being cleansed, and the deaf hearing, the dead being raised up. And He also preached the gospel to the poor. He fulfilled prophesies that He had no control over like the place and date of His birth and where He would travel and then be located as a child, the linage of His parents, and what would happen to His followers and His body after His death. He was crucified, died and was buried and rose on the third day and appeared to many witnesses.

By being raised from the dead, two points need to be taken note of.

1. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. Romans 1:3-4 

2. God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through Jesus Christ whom He has appointed ...” Acts 17:31

Most people who have had some exposure to Christianity will know John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

Jesus said more than that though. He carried on to say ...

¹⁷ “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸ “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. ¹⁹ “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. ²⁰ “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. ²¹ “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” John 3:17-21

Ephesians 2:1-10 tells us a whole lot about our deeds. Some people are still dead in their trespasses and sins, while others are now made alive together with Christ because of God's mercy (not getting what we deserve) and grace (getting what we don't deserve). What is key is that we are saved by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. That faith is a gift from God, not a result of good deeds/works; so no one can boast about this salvation.  

¹ And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, ² in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), ⁶ and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:1-10

Once before, long ago, someone preached a message to the people of Athens in the Areopagus. Some sneered, some were willing to listen again, and some believed. That choice is yours today too.

²² So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. ²³ “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; ²⁵ nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; ²⁶ and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, ²⁷ that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ ²⁹ “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. ³⁰ “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, ³¹ because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:22-31

Good News - God is. More than that, God is worthy of all worship.

Bad news - We are sinners. Not just that we sin, but our nature is sin marred and does not want to submit to or worship God. We have rebelled against God. As a result we deserve God's judgement.

Good News - God has done what was required to reconcile us to Himself. He fulfilled the requirements of the Law in the death of His Son. His wrath at sin was satisfied in the death of Jesus Christ. As a result we can be forgiven.

Bad news for some (but it is actually GREAT NEWS) - There is salvation in no one else other than Jesus Christ; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12

At the close of a sermon that changed the course of history the preacher was asked, "What shall we do?" The preacher replied, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38

To repent is to think differently after. Now that you have heard what has been presented here, you are faced with a choice. Carry on with life as it was, or think differently after - God is worthy of your worship, you have rebelled against Him and deserve His judgement but He sent His Son to die in your place (satisfying His wrath as sin) so that you could be adopted as His child.

I pray that God would reveal Himself to you through diligent studying of the Bible (start in the New Testament book of John). That He would breathe life into your spirit, give you the gift of faith in Jesus Christ so that you can be bought back, made as if you had not sinned, made right with Him and ever increasingly doing right as defined by His Word, not our own wisdom or standards.

This same Jesus said that the greatest commandment is "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" and the second is like it, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." Matthew 22:37, 39

Question:

If your neighbour had taken some poison and you had the antidote; is it loving not to tell your neighbour "that's quite a refreshing drink you just had" and watch them die? Or is it more loving to tell them about the poison and encourage them to take the antidote?

Telling our neighbours the Good News about God's love and desire to save them from the power of sin is one way we demonstrate our love for God, because we are pointing people to Him. It's also the most loving things we can do for our neighbour so that they come into a right relationship with God by His grace.

Here's to a life of loving God and loving our neighbours.

Thank you so much Ray and Debbie Strydom for your time put into this!

With love

Linnie

Now, Run Your Race!

No one lives an individual life all by themselves, on an island.  Every day our actions will either be influenced by someone or our actions will influence someone. 

Over the weekend our family watched the movie Secretariat. 

image source

What a stunning, nerve recking movie, about a racing horse!  What impacted me the most were the words by Christopher Chenery to his daughter, Penny Chenery Tweety, owner of Secretariat, “He has run his race, now you run your Race!”  

Isn’t that so true!  I must run my Race.  People and circumstances, decision and reactions will work in on me from all sides, but I have to make a sound decision every moment of every day, to only run my race, to the best of my ability.  I can watch other people running their race, learn from their mistakes and ask advice from people on how to run my race, but at the end of the day, it is my race and I alone am responsible for the way I run my race. 

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I have to focus on my race and forget about people around me running their race. I can never look at another, and try to run my race like they do. Never try to compare my race with another.  God has appointed for each of us to run our own race.

That is why I cannot live my life without my God and Heavenly Father, who is Good!  My God is the only one for whom I run my race.  The only One I can put my hope in to carry me through my race. My Heavenly Father will never allow anything above what I can handle to come my way and on that basis I can run my race and look forward to the reward at the end.

The past ten days I got hammered from various directions - close friends, total strangers  and extended family.  I had to fight a spiritual battle almost every moment of the day, but the biggest of all, I had to fight the battle within myself.  The battle to justify myself against these people.  For the first time I understood no battle in the spirit, will ever be won, through retaliation.  Jesus Himself gave us this example.

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And how great the victory every time I win the spiritual battle agains the Enemy of my soul, when I in humility choose the lower path and let God, trust God.

I’ve also learned so much about hurting people, what caused their pain and the way they choose to run their race in this life. Fair enough they may believe they have reason for the race they choose to run. A race that takes them on a destructive path, far away from the only hope and salvation there is for mankind! But into each one of us God implanted a sense of a Godly authority.  To run a race for the One, for whom we are created.

You could have been hurt by people, and because of that choose to run a race for your own destruction, but even in such a choice only you will reap the consequences of such a race. God is there for all people and in every situation we can choose to run a race for His glory!  I fervently remember the little book I read years ago by Stormy Omartian and the testimony of Joyce Meyer. Both of them, examples of great women who rose above the hurt and pain of their circumstances and chose to run their race for God!  

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I deliberately choose to run my race for God!  He and He alone is my audience and with God’s grace I will not allow outside people or inside circumstances to influence the way I run and keep me from winning the prize.

With love

Linnie

 1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Hebr. 12:1-2

The Beginning of Our Homeschooling Journey!

Recently Heidi-Mari had the privilege of presenting her first Card Making Workshop to a group of young girls and she planned the workshop with great care and dedication.  

On the day of the workshop, as I nervously watched her, I felt very proud of my daughter who is growing up so fast and I felt eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me a daughter like Heidi-Mari.

Heidi-Mari wanted to present the class in a step by step method.  All the paper had been cut and embellishments sorted, but we didn’t take in account the girls worked at a different pace.    Not long after the class started everyone wanted Heidi-Mari’s attention at the same time.  

She stayed calm and spent time with every girl without getting stressed out.  To top it all, she had to present the class in English which is not her home language.

Card making is Heidi-Mari’s passion and a God given talent, but I believe that the success of the class had a lot to do with the fact that she is being homeschooled. 

She is used to being in an environment where she can be creative in her own way where no preconceived ideas are being forced on to her.

The same goes for CJ who was asked to perform as a stunt jump rider for the last scene of a 10 episode BBC television series, Camelot.  

It started in April 2011 on BBC.  Horse riding is CJ’s passion and God given talent. Thanks to his homeschooling he is able to think out of the box and this was to his advantage in the casting of the roles.  With great confidence, composure and his ability to communicate with anyone he connected with the crew and had the most awesome experience!

I am eternally grateful to God for opening the door to homeschooling to us and now we can guide our children to lead extraordinary lives to His glory through real life experiences.

So many people have asked what brought us to the decision to home school.  

Here is my story:

My firstborn son, CJ was born in August 1994 and from when he was about 3 years old, Christo has been asking me to homeschool.  

In the beginning I thought it was just a passing idea but as CJ was approaching the age where most children start school, I realized that Christo was serious.  I thought to myself how I would ever be able to do this, as I was not a qualified teacher?  Oh yes, I always had a passion to become a teacher and wanted to study teaching but my mother advised me to not even think about it.  She herself was a teacher and believed differently for her daughter. 

The time to formally educate CJ was creeping up on us. At that stage of my life I was not submissive to my husband in all things and Christo was also not yet the leader of our house in the way God wanted.  So we started looking for a school.  Just a few years before, it became law that a child had to complete a preschool year which meant my son would end up spending 13 years at school.  The hours I spent at school were not exactly of my fondest memories of my childhood.  It upset me to think that my child had to spend an extra year at school. Because of this, we were so excited to find out about a farm school nearby, just outside of our town.  There he would spend his first year learning as he played.  He would learn about picking grapes, making wine, sheep shearing and go on excursions to the river on a regular basis.  It didn’t sound so formal and we enrolled him there.

CJ started his first year of school.   I was pregnant with my third child, and Heidi-Mari attended a friend’s playgroup three times a week.  My life was carefully planned, I was in control and that was exactly how I liked it.

In April 2000 Christo and I was on our way to a Walk Thru the Bible seminar in the Magaliesberg.  I would receive training in presenting a New Testament seminar to children and Christo the New Testament seminar to adults.  On the first day things turned out a bit different to what I anticipated. For breakfast, lunch and supper we sat down with three different couples all of whom homeschooled their children.  I’ve always been very receptive to the Holy Spirit’s voice.  Add to that my studious spirit and my passion to please God. That night as we were getting ready for bed I realized that I’m not at the seminar for the reasons I thought. I think God wants me to homeschool our children. I shared that with Christo.

We were on our way home and very excited about this new path the Lord was leading us on. I was 5 months pregnant and we decided that CJ would complete his year at the farm school while I got to know our new baby and got him into a routine.  During this time I would also be getting everything ready for our homeschool journey.  Everything was still on track.

In August, days before the baby’s birth, CJ decided he wanted to be home to help his Mamma when the baby is born.  We were anticipating our first water birth at home and CJ didn’t want to be at school when his new baby brother or sister arrived!  We let the school know that CJ would not be going back and that he would be homeschooled.  Our announcement was met with numerous questions and frowns from friends and acquaintances. 

   

A week after CJ’s 6^th birthday his baby brother was born in the middle of the night, but he was there to support me the day before, while I was in labour. He was even the first to hold his brother’s hand.

As I mentioned before, my mother was a preschool teacher and provided me with the necessary preschool and foundation phase material.  Through the years I hardly ever used any of it and came to realize that although planning and hard work on my side was good, it plays but a small part when in obedience to my Creator, I homeschool my children.

During the past 11 years I cried out countless times to the Lord in despair to help and guide me in my home school adventure!  My well organized, being in control at all times lifestyle was nowhere to be found.  I had all sorts of questions and fears:  “What was the correct way of learning?” and “What was my child supposed to know at a specific age?” and as he grew older more questions like:  “Are you going to homeschool him during the high school years too?” and “What about tertiary education?” was asked.

I didn’t know how to answer these questions or what to think of them!  I felt defeated on many occasions but thanks to my Godly husband, the Lord brought me back every time and reminded me how He called me to homeschool my children.  It was God’s will for our lives and because of that, going back to school was not an option for us.  Every time I hit a bump in the road I used it to examine my attitude towards my children, homeschooling and the calling on my life as a mother. 

God uses difficulties in what we are doing to refine and grow us.  Not once did I see the difficulties as an indication from God to stop what we were busy with.  Instead I saw the difficulties as God pulling me to a greater level of seeking Him and depending on Him.

I’ve heard many women say that there is no way that they would be able to homeschool their children, they don’t have the self discipline or the patience to do it.  Their children are too strong willed and they would ‘destroy’ each other!   I still don’t know how to answer to these arguments!  Of all the people I know, I am one of those that are the most easily distracted and patience does not come naturally to me.   I like things to be done my way and I like to be in control.  During the past eleven years our family has been through four very difficult pregnancies, one easier one, a miscarriage and three moves.  During this time I was seldom in control and very seldom had any of my own plans come to be.

CJ in the flight simulator they built a few years ago.

To add to all of this, all my children are also strong willed and control freaks!  Everyone wants to be the boss of the other!  Home schooling is the number one tool God uses to shape me into the Godly woman He needs for His Kingdom.  I also believe that this is an excellent way to shape my children’s strong wills and controlling natures. By being amongst many brothers and sisters 24 hours a day and under Mom’s watchful, loving and corrective training shapes them for life.   I do not want the carefully planned, always-in-control life, I had before my homeschooling journey!  I live in total dependence on God and I get pushed out of my comfort zone on a regular basis and I see the Mighty Hand of the Lord at work in our lives every day.

I see miracles in my older children’s lives on a daily basis, and I also experience the small blessings in life as seen through the eyes of my little ones. 

Irritations, frustrations, my own selfishness and unrealistic expectations drive me out of my comfort zone every day; therefore I need these verses to keep my head up:

“He will feed His flock like a shepherd;

He will gather the lambs with His arm,

And carry them in His bosom,

And gently lead those who are with young.”  – Is 40:11

“It is vain for you to rise up early,

To retire late,

To eat the bread of painful labours;

For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.”  – Ps 127:2

"...seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" – Matt 6:33

This post features on the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers where South African home schoolers share experiences, ideas, philosophies and much more.  You can join the carnival too by heading to the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers sign up page.   In the meantime, head to the Hayes family where the carnival is hosted this week.  We hope you enjoy the carnival as much as we have!

With love

Linnie