Your children: is your aim true?

Every time I read the verse above, I often question myself, “Am I aiming in the right direction?” My wife and I indeed have our quiver full; we have five children that God has blessed us with. As the picture depicts, each arrow (child) at first glance seems the same but are actually just a little different from each other.

I recall someone once saying to me that “you only get about 18 to 21 years to give your children every thing that they will need to know in life.” I used to subscribe to that thought wholeheartedly but my mind has changed. There is a lot to teach a child while they are still in your home. Each child will present different challenges to us.

With arrows, sometimes it seems that you have to guide them almost right to the mark. Some arrows and you only have to fire one good time and they are well on their way to success, whatever success looks like that day. Sometimes you have to readjust your aim or straighten out the feathers a little more or sharpen the tip so that it will stick. You do the same while raising children. And if you do not train them in the right way, someone else will use them…and none of us wants that.

But, there is more to be done once your children leave home after those 18 to 21 years. Look at the arrows; You can utilize them again once they have been fired. Once they leave your quiver, they can be picked up and re-fired. When your kids leave home, they still need you.

They need you to help guide them in their future endeavors that you may have once been driven to when you were once a young adult. They still need you when they fall in love, when they get married, when they start a new job, when they have their own children and so on (you were there too at one time).

Speaking from a position where my earthly father was not there for me when I was a young adult and now has since passed, I long to be able to call him up and say “daddy, have you ever…?” “What do you think I should do; I’m not sure of what…?”

I am thankful to still have my mother around.

If you still have your parents, thank them for all that they did to raise you. If you have children still at home, raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord and prepare them to be given back to Him. Ready them to be taken out of the quiver and aim them in the right direction. If your children have left home, while it may be to late to teach them all the things that they should know before leaving the nest, they still need you. Be there for them. Make sure that they know this beyond you just saying it.

Raising children IS rocket science and is not for the faint at heart. You cannot be afraid to do some rewiring with them and/or with yourself…even after they have long been gone from the quiver.

Are you listening to what the scripture says above (Psalm 127:3-5)?

Stay prayed up and be blessed.

–Jayly

Who is your builder?

What are you building your spiritual life upon? It is easy to say that God is your pilot but are you living in such a way that shows that He is?

My trust is God

I do not just trust in God…He is my trust. He is so very good.

Are you listening to the scripture? Stay prayed up and be blessed. — Jayly

His name is strong by itself

God’s name is so strong by itself.

I mean, when you hear some names, they already command respect because you know who they are and what the person behind the name is capable of doing. However, those name holders are not perfect and even they are fallible.

But then there is God. He is perfect. There is nothing fallible about Him. When you hear His many names like God, Jehovah, I Am, what thoughts are conjured up in your mind? Perfect? Almighty One? The one that can never fail?

I think about all the ways He has taken care of me through life. Then I think about how He is taking care of me right this moment. Then I think about how He plans, Lord willing, to take care of me and my family in the future and I do not even know what that means yet.

But God has a proven track record. And just like the scripture is getting at; I can feel safe and assured just in His name, let alone in His whole being.

Are you listening to the scripture? Stay prayed up and be blessed by God’s word.

–Jayly

Something new?

Is God saying in the verse above that new miracles will happen? Is saying He will do something that He has never done before in the life of the reader? Is He coming up with a new way to bring people to Christ?

The answer to all of these questions is no.

But consider what He is saying. When you look into a desert, a path is not readily there, is it? If you find yourself in a dry land, all you thirst for is a little bit of water let alone a river, right?

It’s amazing how camels 🐫 can migrate from one point in a desert 🌵 to another point without losing their way. God has provided them the path.

In the lower dry plains of Africa, all types of 🦁 🦏 🦅 🦒 🦓 🦔 animals, wait by a dry riverbed with hopes of water flowing so that they can quench the thirst that is even stronger than their hunger. The snow melts in the northern mountains and eventually that water makes its way to the dry riverbed. God provides that for them.

Even more so, God makes a way out of no way for us that are His, according to to His Word. Yet, we worry about things that we have no control over and the things we do have control over, we worry or are anxious about those things too and we should not be.

“”Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew‬ ‭6:25-34‬ ‭

I hope that you are blessed in this thought and that it helps you to start your new year in the right direction. Stay prayed up! –Jayly Jackson