SCRIP-BITS

Proverbs 22:15.     Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.
 
Oh Friends, that wonderful day called Monday has come around again! And all God’s children said a hearty ‘Yeah!’ No, I’m not crazy or foolish, just a tad eccentric in wanting to change the attitude of followers of Jesus, so that we don’t abuse the weekend and when Monday rolls around we’re not so blue, tired, whiny and miserable. Instead we’ll be bubbling up with energy, brimming over with it, just dying to get out into the evil, ungodly world that now surrounds us and bring the many lost souls out there to Christ. And I’m going to do it, if it takes me until my dying day – with God’s help of course. And I can hear some of you chuckling and shaking your head in sympathy, sadly muttering, ‘Now we know that he’s truly crazy.’ Aye mih people, I’m just trying to do what God has put it in my heart to do. Anyway to help us accomplish that God-given task, let’s therefore sing our Monday Morning Battle Hymn with a whole lot of enthusiasm and sincerity. All together now, let’s rock the world this Monday Morning: ‘Oh Lord God Almighty, Creator of the universe and all therein! We, your humble servants, praise your Holy Name and thank you that this Monday morning we have jobs to go to; jobs we don’t like, jobs that are unfair, difficult and even dangerous, but which serve a useful purpose here on earth; keeping lives and families together. We also thank you Father for the renewed vitality and enthusiasm you’ve wrought in our weary souls over the last two days. It’s that rejuvenation of Spirit which allows us now to sally forth with confidence into the evil, ungodly world that surrounds us, to begin a new week of work, constantly buffeted and bombarded by the enemy’s wicked taunts, wiles and lies. But heavenly Father, we’re not afraid, for we know we’re invincible, sure conquerors, once we’re wearing your powerful, protective spiritual armour. We surrender our all to you, and humbly ask that you let your incredible aura of LOVE, the Holy Spirit, lead and guide all your servants as we go out to meet the enemy in battle. Fill us with steadfast faith, so that we can make worthwhile inroads into the enemy’s ranks, and thereby further your glorious kingdom. We pray this in the Holy Name of your Son, and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. AMEN!’ Oh Friends, that wasn’t as good as it could or should be, and I’ll chalk it up to the lingering after effects of the Christmas and New Year’s frivolity, but it should be good enough to get us moving. Now let’s move on to our challenging, controversial, but oh so right and truthful Bit. ‘Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.’ Yesterday we looked at some scriptures that warned and encouraged us to instil the Word of God early into the hearts of our children, so that there would be less cause for us to seriously discipline them at a later date. And granted even a century ago we were too harsh and abusive with our offspring. But now we’ve moved right along to the other end of the continuum, where we’re absolutely too lenient with them. In the last few decades we began listening to the wisdom of the world rather than that of God, to the crooks and charlatans about the distastefulness and abusiveness of corporal punishment, and have now abandoned it completely, giving them instead mood and mind altering drugs at a very tender age to combat a whole set of ridiculous neuroses dreamed up by those same crooks and charlatans. All to what good eh my people? To none whatsoever! Because we’ve ended up with a generation of weak, spineless, suicidal, drug addicted, rude, unmannerly, disrespectful, disobedient, selfish, immoral, ungodly, greedy children. Yes people, sadly we listened to all the namby pamby supposed mind doctors and others bewailing that we can’t hit little Johnny or Jenny because that would just make them turn out badly and resort to violence too. Hogwash! What have all the little Johnnies and Jennies’ that didn’t get a good cut-tail every once in a while turn out to be now eh? Violent and undisciplined, ending up in jails and mental institutions at an alarming rate. If we’d pay attention we’d notice that the majority of crime, particularly the violent kind, is being committed mostly be young people, then hopefully we’d ask ourselves why. Why do you think God punished His chosen people Israel so harshly for their disobedience eh, even to the length of several times removing them form the land of the living, or allowing them to be carried into captivity? Because He knew man’s penchant for sinful, unfettered, take it to the limit, ungodly behaviour, and He LOVED them too much to allow them to destroy themselves with earthly lusts and evils. Friends, that’s how we were supposed to LOVE our children too, but unfortunately we did not, we got too soft and lenient with them and thus they took, and are still taking advantage of the situation. Instead of some corporal punishment as the Good Book advises, we sent them to their rooms, where they had all the toys of today to play with, so they never missed nor learned anything from that. My people, as followers of Christ, we cannot pick and choose what to believe of the Bible. It’s either we believe and live by all of it, or we don’t believe any of it. If it says that we must administer some corporal punishment to our children every so often, then so be it. But a lot of that is our fault because we never taught them the Word of God properly in the first place. When you’re taught that from an early age, you understand what’s what, and thus you don’t make half as many mistakes or be as disobedient to require much corporal punishment. My Friends, there’s method in God’s seeming madness. Enough of my spiel though, because this is a very touchy subject with me. And you can see which side I’m on. I’ve been around too long and seen too many children lose their way because of both parental and societal misguidance. Let’s turn now to some scriptures that uphold the wisdom of our Bit. And isn’t it strange that many of them come from the Proverbs of Cousin Sol. Listen up my brethren. ‘He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that LOVETH him chasteneth him betimes (promptly).’  (Prov.13:24)  And again: ‘Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying (do not set your heart on his crying).’ (Prov.19:18) And one more time: ‘Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.’ (Prov.23:13-14)  Ah Friends, as I’ve said on several occasions, we’ve done a great disservice to our children by trying to raise them as though we were bleeding hearts and they would break if we touched them too hard. I can understand the reasoning behind some of it since some of us grew up in real tough situations, but I’m sure you’d agree that many of those tough situations have since proven beneficial when the hard times of life have accosted you. Sadly though our children cannot handle hard times since they are not accustomed to it. As the Good Book says, we get stronger when we face adversity, it forms strength of character. Anyway, it’s not too late for us to begin rectifying the situation. Obviously for those already grown we can’t administer corporal punishment, but we certainly can use other more supposed civilized methods. On a point of interest, I don’t know why we insist on thinking that we’re civilized nuh, when we’re the biggest barbarians ever, just well camouflaged, like wolves in sheep’s clothing, as our actions prove over and over. And here’s one last example to prove my point. Have you ever noticed that the children of rich folks who have everything handed to them on a silver platter, without any responsibility or accountability, more often than not turn out to be the biggest wastrels ever, as opposed to those who are taught to be responsible at a young age? All we’ve done is just lowered the level from mostly rich children not being taught responsibility to children from all income groups. But remember Friends, the results we get come from what we plant and how we nurture it, and we can’t expect to do the same thing over and over and get different results. Please ponder on how we are raising our children today and let’s get back to the godly way, which doesn’t mean a whole lot of corporal punishment, but certainly more of the Word at an early age and more teaching of responsibility and accountability. Much LOVE!…you can’t plant corn and expect to reap peas…or even not nurture the corn properly… and yet expect to reap a great harvest…