YOUR FATHER WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!
How many times a day do you talk to your child? To communicate love? Lead? Inform? Correct? Speak identity? Instruct? Comfort? How many times a day do you listen to what your Father wants to say to you?
YOUR FATHER WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!
YOUR FATHER WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!
- Godhead Parenting, Hearing God's Voice
PRACTICING THE PROPHETIC
When I was teaching the children about the prophetic, I asked the kids to ask Papa what He wanted to say to the front desk gal at the doctor’s office. Kids barely recalled who she was, but were confident God knew her, and we asked anyway. One got “God’s not mad at you,” another got “It’s not your fault.” The youngest one just drew a picture of a dog. And another got a picture of a present with the message, “Something good is coming your way soon.” I wasn’t sure if I should release the words since they seemed a little out there, but I felt God was telling her it was okay. When they arrived, she was away from her desk, but her computer screen had a picture of her and a dog. When she returned, they asked her if that was her dog, and she started crying. I felt led to share the prophetic cards, and then the lady shared that something awful happened to the dog, and she felt like it was her fault and shouldn’t be trusted with another dog. The cards meant a lot to her hurting heart and removed the guilt. Our flowing in the prophetic as a family has allowed us to be the light to those around us.
LET’S ASK JESUS
“Father, You say I am the apple of Your eye. What do You love most about me?”
Gather as a family in the living room, in the car, at the dinner table, or at bedtime, and ask Jesus together. This is so empowering for children because they get to witness how God communicates with you, which increases their faith, and together you get to encounter Him. Spiritual hearing is a muscle that is strengthened by worshiping and praying. The more you do it, the stronger you become at it.
ASK YOUR FATHER
Years ago, as a homeschool mom of four, we went to the library weekly. I cared deeply about what their little minds were feasting on and had a high guard against witchcraft, sexual material, and language. They would bombard me with, “Mom, can I rent this one?” I finally said one day, “Ask your Father!” They asked Jesus, and 9 out of 10 times, He said NO. The amazing thing about children hearing their Father is that their spirit knows it is the truth and can be trusted. I was filled with joy to receive this testimony.
“We’ve been slowly learning to hear His voice. My nine-year-old just came to me with a book on cd from the library and said that God told him not to listen to that one. He put it back on our library shelf. I’m so thankful for your teachings that have helped me connect my kids directly to Him, as I do not have time to pre-read every book they want to read.”
JOURNEY NOT DESTINATION
The goal is not to be airlifted and dropped in the middle of the ocean just to say you have arrived in the depths. The goal is to do the journey with Him every step of the way. He is much more interested in your JOURNEY with Him than He is with your destination. So, what do you have going on today? Do it WITH Him.
SPIRITUAL ADJUSTMENT
Chiropractors bring your body into alignment. Sometimes we need spiritual adjustments to realign us back to Him. If your heart feels stretched too far, maybe a part of your heart needs to come into alignment.
MY AUTHORITY IN JESUS
God spoke to me years ago and said, “The same spirit you are encountering in the church is the same spirit that was in operation in your childhood. The reason it is so painful is that you endured it in childhood but did not overcome it.” It was so true. When my mom passed away, I no longer encountered that spirit with her and never learned how to defeat it. When I was faced with it again in the church, God was teaching me not to endure it, as I did as a little girl, but to rise up and defeat it. While I have no authority over someone else’s free will, I had all of the authority given to me by Jesus to demolish that spirit from operation in my life and coming under it. After God spoke this to me, this is how I responded: I had to first discern that it was a spirit and not me. Then I had to discern what was the spirit in operation. I asked Jesus to give me the strategy to defeat and overcome that spirit. I am intentional about releasing the opposite spirit. Where I wanted God to save me from it, He wanted to teach me my authority in Him.
MUTE PARENTING
During day three of the online Kingdom parenting class, we talk about having conversations with our Creator. Could you imagine your relationship with your children if you had no communication? It would be so hard to express love, acceptance, correction, and joy. Do you know the only purpose of your ears is connection? One can live without them, unlike a heart or brain, but connection with others becomes limited and challenged. God gave us a mouth and ears for a reason! He longs to connect with us and has much to say to us. I ask the question: “How many times a day do you talk to God?” Then I ask, “How many times a day do you allow Him to talk to you?”
If this is an area you would like to grow in, download this resource now! Conversations with our Creator eBook – Let the Children Fly
HEARING GOD
God speaks to us in various ways, but one powerful way He speaks to His children is through peace.
Peace – a sense of liquid peace comes over you like a warm blanket. Do you know that God is peace? Pure, 100% peace that doesn’t match your physical, on-earth circumstances. When we sit quietly and invite His presence, we can often feel it in the form of peace washing over us. What does a loving Father do when His children are upset? Begin giving instruction? NO! A loving Father would scoop them up, hold them close to His chest, and embrace their tiny bodies. He is communicating love, protection, safety, and security in His embrace. Sometimes we want God to tell us this and that, and sometimes He just wants to wrap us in His presence, and out of that, He leads us where we need to be. This is truly ‘entering the place of rest’ that so few believers learn to enjoy. We want to squirm or ‘do’ instead of just resting while He holds us.
Think about what life would be like if you went mute and had to try to teach, train, and love your children without words. Seriously, think about how many times a day you use your words to guide your children, teach and train them, encourage them, cheer them on, and help them. How often do you use your words to lavish love all over them and tell them how precious and beautiful they are to you? Now ponder how often you let your Father speak to you a day.
MORE LIKE JESUS
If I were to ask moms if they wanted to be more like Jesus, most would eagerly raise their hand with a resounding, “Yes!” Yet few of us understand or enjoy the process of becoming more like Him. Let me explain how God gives us an opportunity to be more like Jesus the moment we become parents.
Every home we have lived in had an open floor plan and my four children (very close in age) would begin in one end of the house and zoom in and out of the kitchen, dining room, living room and then repeat over and over at record speed. I am a very fun mom and can handle noises and messes, but it was like they would hit a certain octave and my blood pressure would shoot up. I would cash in on my parental authority and command that everyone switch gears to something more peaceful. I couldn’t shut it down fast enough. This would go on for years and I could never really figure out why I was fine one minute and not the next. One day when I was barking orders for peace, I heard God say, “What are they doing wrong?” I replied, “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” I began to see that maybe this was my issue and not theirs. For the next month, whenever the kids raced around the house, I would go in the back room and process my heart. I felt anxious, scared and uptight, yet my ears were hearing joy, laughter, and connection. Why was this so upsetting to me? God began to show me that when I was little and my siblings and I would get crazy, all hell would break loose and someone would get punished severely. You didn’t want to be on the receiving end, but worse yet was having to endure listening to your siblings get the wrath. He showed me that joy scared me because it meant someone was going to get hurt. He gave me four bundles of JOY to restore what was lost in my own journey. I began to cry at the reality of just how anxious joy made me feel.
Of all the things I have endured in life, the hardest to walk through has been the healing process of receiving the GOOD. And more times than not, it was something modeled through my children (joy, play, silliness, trust, lavish, loyalty, laughter). They are made in His image, not mine, and God knits them with gifts, talents, and a personality to redeem and restore what was lost in mine. God continues to parent us through our children. It’s like He gives us one set of parents to raise and train us and whatever area was neglected or shut down He continues the job when we become parents and uses our children to parent us (our kids don’t parent us, but He parents us through them). This is why family is so important to Him. He is building something in us and the generations are interconnected.
HeartWork – Get out your journal and recall the last time you had an above average reaction to something your child did. Ask Jesus some questions and allow Him to minister to your heart (do not be introspective, but rather ask and listen to what He has to share). “Jesus, was this their issue or mine?” If it was your issue, ask, “Jesus, what was my heart feeling at the time?” “What made my heart so uncomfortable at that moment?” “When was the first time I felt that emotion?” “What did my heart need?” If your reaction to something is on a scale of 1-5, chances are you are just feeling a response to the event, but if your reaction is a 6-10, there is a good chance you are being triggered from previous situations that brought pain. God wants to heal that place so that you can respond in love and walk in peace.
Use these questions the next time you are triggered with a higher than usual response to your child and allow those uncomfortable moments to be the times you are molded to be more like Jesus. We don’t want our wounds or lack parenting our children. We want to parent from a place of wholeness and freedom. Understanding this is so important because oftentimes we react to our children who aren’t doing anything wrong, yet our reaction (out of a wounded or hurt place) teaches them that it is not okay to be who God made them to be, such as joyful (in my case). Allow Him to parent you through your child!
P.S. I am proud of you for doing the hard things so that your child doesn’t need to reap the fruit.
HE IS HERE
God is not standing over you, watching you parent, or keeping track of your every wrong move. He is geared up, ready to jump in the moment you invite Him. So, give it a try today. Having a hard mommy moment? Frustrated over a child’s behavior? Hit with big news? Invite Him in and watch and see how He encounters you IN the moment.