|
'The Power of a Praying Parent' by Stormie Omartian.
The book suggests some 30 topics that we might like to pray specifically for relating to our children including:
Praying for protection from harm
Strength to release our children into God's hands
Feeling loved and accepted
Honouring parents
Resisting rebellion
Maintaining good family relationships
Attracting Godly friends and role models
Developing hunger for the things of God
Being the person God created
Following truth, rejecting lies
Enjoying freedom from fear
Inviting the joy of the Lord
Avoiding addictions
Rejecting sexual immorality
When you read through the list, the first thing that strikes me is that there is a challenge here to parents, to model and get victory over the very things we are praying for our children to receive.
Discriminatory Broadcasting
After all our thousands of letters, petitions and lobbying, the Government White Paper has promised nothing when it comes to removing the ban against United Christian Broadcasters and national religious broadcasting.
They do however ask for views about the ban on religious ownership but express their own views saying, "religious content has a particular capacity to offend those with different views and opinions, or sometimes to exploit the susceptibilities of the vulnerable. Religious issues may also shade into matters of political controversy."
It is important that we as Christians do send our views and we ask that you would email or write to the address below by the deadline of 12th February 2001.
If you believe - contrary to the opinion of the Government - that Christian radio, such as UCB, can bring good news, good values, good music and hope to our nation please write and ask your friends and family to write. This is a very important opportunity for the church to be heard.
Please write asking for freedom for national Christian radio by: Monday 12th February to:
Communications White Paper Consultation,
c/o Cll DTI, 151, Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9SS
or email to:consultation@communicationswhitepaper.gov.uk
Eating Disorders
Anorexia and bulimia have a common origin - a dissatisfaction with one's perceived self-image.
Delusions are so hard to remove because the decision to reduce food intake, for whatever reason, becomes a curse with super-human power.
It is surprising that otherwise healthy Christians should decide to limit their intake of the Bread of Life.
The average person spends 21 years sleeping, 10 years watching television, 6 years eating. The person who attends church three times a month for 70 years will hear only 2½ months of Bible messages in a lifetime!
As an exercise, calculate your spiritual nutritional intake and see how it compares to at least 3 years per lifetime of ironing or gardening.
We cannot live off our spiritual fat indefinitely and more than the anorexic person can physically. The problem is that when we are well fed spiritually we may become dissatisfied with our image in the eyes of the world. We decide to limit our intake of spiritual food to improve our job, family, home, leisure or rest.
That decision becomes a habit which starves our souls and so is soon noticed by our children who also think that their image will be best improved by attention to other matters than God's Word.
It is only our image before God that matters. His Word is our spiritual food. Decide to change your decision about limiting your spiritual intake and it will change your destiny.
|
|
