The Small Branch

  124  (Biblical text in italics) 1 “Had it not been Yahweh who was on our side,”   God is in control and totally sovereign. Let Israel now say,   This line may have been said by a priest leading corporate thanksgiving. 2 “Had it not been Yahweh who was on our side When men rose up against us,   This probably refers to God delivering Israel from Egypt, but there have been numerous instances in history where it has been clear that God is intervening for His people (the whole book of Judges, for example). 3 Then they would have swallowed us alive,   Here, the Psalmist is pondering what would have happened to them if men were the ones in control.  “Swallowed us alive” is a phrase used to indicate that their enemies would have killed them (see Proverbs 1:12 for clarification). When their anger was kindled against us; 4 Then the waters would have flowed over us, The stream would have swept over our soul; 5 Then the raging waters...

  123  (Biblical text in italics) 1 To You I lift up my eyes,   The Psalmist lifts his eyes to the Lord rather than seeing the tempest (Matthew 14:28-31).  This is where we need to look when we are distressed. The One enthroned in the heavens!   He is Lord and King. 2 Behold, as the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, As the eyes of a servant-girl to the hand of her mistress,   We are His slaves - doulos - because He has saved us.  We are utterly dependent on Him.  Many New Testament Scriptures help us to understand the word “doulos,” a Greek word that can be translated “bondservant” or “slave.”  In Luke 1:38 and 48, we learn that this word expresses humility and utter submission.  In Romans 1:1 and Galatians 1:10, we see that this word indicates someone who is totally at the disposal of a master.  In Philippians 2:1-11, we see Christ’s example of living out the meaning of this word.  This passage shows us...

  122  (Biblical text in italics) - general note: compare to Psalms 46, 48, 76 1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of Yahweh.”   They go to the temple “That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” (Isaiah 2:3b, see also Deuteronomy 12:5-7)  Now, we can meet with God wherever we are because of Christ (see John 4:19-23).   2 Our feet are standing Within your gates, O Jerusalem,   They have arrived!  The psalmist is excited to be in Jerusalem, heading to the temple.  Jerusalem represents all believers (Galatians 4:26) and is a type of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:9-27).   3 Jerusalem, which is built As a city joined altogether; 4 To which the tribes, the tribes of Yah, go up— A testimony for Israel—   See Psalm 87 To give thanks to the name of Yahweh. The people go to Jerusalem not just because of obedience, but mostly out of gratitude.  They go to ce...

  Book Review - Strange New World by Carl Trueman This book has a lot of great information about how our culture got where it is and what we, as Christians, need to be looking out for.  Often, in our society, there is simple reaction and looking at the surface without really looking at the root causes.  Weeds have to be killed at the roots or they keep coming up.  This is true with plant weeds and idea weeds.  Carl Trueman helps us to see the roots of the ideas flourishing in our society today.  I would recommend this book for anyone concerned about the direction our culture is taking.  (I will also be assigning this book to my high school student.)

  I’m sure you’ve noticed the great divide in our country.   Culturally, and therefore politically, things seem to be spreading farther and farther apart.   I was thinking about this recently, especially while listening to The Briefing with Albert Mohler .   With a lot of political issues in the past, people have worked hard to come up with a bipartisan compromise.   Things like the budget and national debt, military presence and procedures, etc. have worked with compromises on both sides.   Why aren’t they doing that now?   Because there is no way to compromise on these issues.   Here are some examples: I believe that there are two genders, male and female, assigned at conception by the DNA God gives us.  If someone else wants to tell me that gender is something you can change or choose for yourself, I’m just going to tell them that they are wrong.  There is no room for compromise in either of our viewpoints.   Abortion is...

  121   (Biblical text in italics)   Compare this Psalm to Psalm 91 1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? 2 My help comes from Yahweh, Our help comes from the Lord through   His Word, His people (see Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, 2 Corinthians 1:10-11, and 1 Thessalonians 5:14), His Spirit, even His   arranging circumstances.  It does not always come in the form of a miraculous interventions.  Sometimes (often) we stay in the trial, but God gives   us what it takes to get to the other side of it.  God knows, better than we do, how these trials sanctify us and draw us closer to Him.  Who made heaven and earth.   The Lord is Creator and Sustainer (see Colossians 1:15-17) 3 He will not allow your foot to stumble; He who keeps you will not slumber.   This is unlike human guards who will fail because they must sleep. 4 Behold, He who keeps Israel Will not slumber and...

  Book Review - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury This is one of those books that you often read in high school English, but for some reason, I was never assigned this particular one.  I missed out.  This is a great novel with a lot of insight.  Written in the 1950’s, there are a lot of ways which it has proven to be prophetic.  So many times, I found myself saying something like, “Yep, that is what is happening.”  The adventure is there, the action, the character development, overall a great story.  This is another one my high schooler will be reading.  I hope you will read it, too, and really think about the implications of human nature and culture.

  In the interest of full disclosure, if you look at 1st-12th grade, we homeschooled 1st-half of 7th, 1st-4th and 11th-12th, 1st-2nd and 9th-12th, and 7th-12th (this one is still in school with me with a couple of years left).   You may notice that these years don’t include a huge amount of middle school experience.   I will say that I also taught a middle school math class when I was teaching at a private school.   Anyway, I’ll still offer you a few thoughts about middle school. Ages 11-13 are what I would consider the logic stage, or the middle stage of classical education.  This is where you help your child to organize all the information they have been collecting so far.  This is also where you will probably veer away from the way things are being done in public schools (and most private ones).  This is because the American system of education has become more of Elementary School, Elementary School 2.0, and finally Elementary School 3.0. ...

  Why did God give us an imagination?   What are acceptable uses for imagination?   The dictionary says that imagination is the ability to form new ideas, images, and concepts without immediate input from our senses.   This seems like a good thing, and it is.   But where is the line?   Our imagination gives us the ability to imagine.   Basically, this gives us the ability to make up fiction as well as solve problems in novel ways.   Is fiction okay?   I think so.   There are obvious lines fiction can cross that takes us into sinful thinking, but we should be able to recognize that, right?   Sometimes we imagine things that aren’t fiction.   Like, when you read imagery in Revelation and picture it in your mind.   Is that imagination?   Maybe not, because you are getting input to your senses from the Word.   I guess my point is, my imagination can run wild in lots of different directions, some good, some not so g...

  This summer, some friends and I are looking at the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134; our packet uses the Legacy Standard Bible ).   This is the packet of study we are using - here . First, a few notes I made about worship to get started with these Psalms.  Worship is an act of homage or reverence to God; it is sinful to render worship to any created being (I got this from the BLB app).  We worship God because of who He is and what He has done.  We worship God by our obedience and submission to Him.  Worship involves praise, thanksgiving, and a true heart.  We worship Him in spirit and in truth (see John 4:23-24). Today, I’m going to share some of my notes for Psalm 120: 120 (Biblical text in italics) In my distress I called to Yahweh, (This is the first place we need to go when we are distress, straight to God.  Jeremiah shows us a great example of this with the book of Lamentations.  You can find a free mini-study from BSF on Je...

  I have been thinking a lot about different manners of selfishness lately.   There are people that are very obviously selfish.   They are rude and obnoxious and everything has to be about them all the time.   But is there more subtle ways of being selfish that I need to root out of my own life? Being subtly selfish happens a lot.  I think it is a fine line at times.  Here are some examples I have thought of: Being willing to help someone out, but choosing to do what you want the way you want rather than listening to what they want help with and how they want it done Purchasing a gift for someone for a special occasion or even just because, but getting something you think is awesome rather than paying attention to the other person enough to know what he or she will enjoy the most Really, anything where you want to do something special for another person, but you are only thinking about what you would like other people to do for you rather than know...

  When People are Big and God is Small by Edward Welch I know I have mentioned this book in previous posts, but I wanted to make sure I had let you know a little more about it.  The subtitle is Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man and that sums it up well.  This book is well written and really makes you think about your own idols.  One of my favorite quotes from this book is “The person who fears God will fear nothing else.”  This is so true, but we don’t really think about it well.  Ed Welch helps us go through the root causes of our fear of man and how to overcome it, not by another gimmick, but by truly learning to fear the Lord as we should.  I would recommend this book to everyone (and I’m even assigning it to my high schooler).

  (I’ve covered some of this in previous posts, but thought I would expand on a few things here.)   Most people consider the elementary school years to be Kindergarten through fifth grade, about ages 5-11.  Personally, as I’ve state before, I don’t see any reason to start any kind of formal school until 8-10 years old, depending on your child.  For the kids in the “elementary years” who aren’t yet ready for formal education, you can continue as you were doing in the preschool years (see previous post).  Remember, though, that you want your children to be ready for learning.  This includes making sure they are learning to be obedient, learning to sit still, and learning to work hard even when something is a struggle for them.  In this phase of “school age but not yet school ready,” make sure they are learning these lessons well.  This is something I utterly failed at.  We were too busy playing and having fun, and I was too lazy as a mom, to...

  Today was our sharing day for BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) so I thought I would just post a plug for BSF.   I have also done CBS (Community Bible Study) in the past and they are very similar. Both of these Bible study groups are international organizations with many years of experience behind them.  They both use inductive methods and study Scripture “by the book” rather than topical studies.  The only real difference I have seen is that, in BSF, everyone in the world does the same study together while for CBS, each class picks the study they will do for the year from the selection of CBS studies. Both groups have amazing curriculum for people birth through adults.  Depending on the class you attend, there will be childcare, preschool classes, elementary and middle school classes, and even high school classes.  You can check out their websites to register for next year’s class.  Both groups begin in September and go through May and some fill u...

  I don’t know that I truly appreciated the sunshine until I   moved to the Black Hills of South Dakota.   I spent the first 37 years of my life in the southeastern United States where it is often cloudy and always humid.   Here in western South Dakota, not only is it drier, the sky just seems bigger and bluer and the sun brighter.   Some of that is because there are less trees and the trees we do have are shorter than the very tall pines of Georgia.   Some of my appreciation of sunshine is because it does get a little cold here in the winter and I am grateful for the warmth.   Today, we went on our second hike of the season.  My daughter and I try to hike most weeks May-September (although we haven’t been good about sticking with it in previous years).  The Black Hills have many great places to hike, although I am partial to Custer State Park.  I am amazed at the difference in how I feel when we are being consistent with hiking....

  When I was first married I taught at a public high school.   One of the teachers there had been teaching throughout her children’s lives and they were now in middle school.   At the end of the school year, she announced that her kids needed her home now more than ever and she wasn’t coming back.   I was shocked.   She hadn’t stayed home when they were preschoolers, but now?   How naive I was . . . . When my first child was born, the decision to quit work and stay home was easy.  No way was I handing my precious boy to someone else to take care of each day!  I continued to stay home through three more kids until my youngest was ready for 1st grade.  We had homeschooled to this point, but I was burned out so we decided that everyone would go to Christian school and I would teach part time at the school the older ones were at.  Part time turned into full time, and six years later I was stressed and finally understood what my fellow t...