Balanced Life Ministry

Home of the "Special Delivery" Book by James A. Harrison

You are here: Home / Archives for Raising Children

What Is The Apple Of Your Eye?

by 3 Comments

 God knows our strengths and weaknesses and His commands are always for our good. When we ignore God’s commands negative consequences are inevitable whether in our generation or in the next. It is not enough to know God’s Word or even believe it, for we must follow it and learn to apply His Word to our daily activities and decisions.

 Spiritually Satan works hard to attract our eye in order to cause us to lose our perspective but when we are anchored in the Lord then He will guide our coarse. Soloman tells us in Proverbs 7,”My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.”

 If we are not keeping God’s Word as the apple of our eye then we are setting ourselves up to act in our human emotions. As Cain, we must learn how to apply God’s instruction before our disobedience leads us into destruction….

James A. Harrison

http://balancedlifeministry.org

http://specialdeliverybook.com

Poor Leadership Curses The People

by Leave a Comment

 It is evident in today’s time of the curses that take place due to leadership that does not follow God’s instruction. One of the most vital parts of a true leader is one that seeks God’s instruction and learns to apply it while being alert to the gifts of the next generation. When we fail to recognize the talents of others and neglect our responsibility as a leader to help someone else develop the gifts that God has given is when we are destined for stagnant growth and deterioration.

 Throughout the Word of God He gives us the instruction of how to not only maintain our homes, our jobs, our churches, our communities, and our nation He also gives us the instruction to live with a purpose in life. We often lose sight of this purpose due to judgement, pressures or temptations from the world and this poor leadership leads to discipline back upon the people.

 Why should we expect our children to have security if we are not following God’s instruction and adhering to His Word? How can we honestly expect the next generation to find direction if we are not teaching them who shows us the Way? Another sad part is how stagnant we have become in creativity due to our drift away from the Creator. The further we drift away from God the further we will fall and the harder it will be on the next generation. 

 This has been proven throughout history and until we learn how to recognize this truth then we are only neglecting the evidence that is right before us. The question that we should be asking is this,”Are we listening for God or are we listening to man?” Too many times we allow positions of leadership to be filled with individuals that are out of position due to seeking the desires of man instead of the ones with the heart for the position in properly serving the people.

 Learning how to let go and simply trust in God can be an excruciating process but is very rewarding as we begin to see the hand of God at work. If we are not teaching our children how to trust in the Lord through our words and actions then how can we honestly expect them to do the same? In trusting the Lord it is vital that we teach our children how to recognize the God given gifts of others to help edify the Kingdom of God and maintain the liberty that we have been given. It is my prayer that we learn to put aside our differences and begin to recognize the gifts within God’s children to help carry us forward.

 For when something is of God there is no weight, no burden nor struggle. The work is not looked upon as work with dread but with a zeal in working unto the Lord instead of man. For their is a joy that only comes from God that uplifts our relationships as we begin to have unity within the body to serve His purpose instead of our own…

 Psalm 146:3 ‘Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help’.

James A. Harrison

http://balancedlifeministry.org

http://specialdeliverybook.com

The Heart Of A Child…

by Leave a Comment

 Have you ever considered why children can see things more clearly than adults? As adults we allow judgement and our hearts to harden due to sin in our lives or for wrongs that have been done to us. We allow our own human intellect to enter the picture and this restricts the vessels due to the effort of thought without learning how to follow God’s instruction in letting it go.

 See a child does not judge but they use their senses to discern between good and evil. Their hearts are open with their vessels full of life while simply recognizing the love that is being shown by the adults. As a child of God matures we are to keep our hearts open with understanding while learning to mature in the Word of God to discern between what is of God and what is not.

 Jesus tells us in Matthew 18:3,”And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The warning to us is this,”Always be open with understanding and without judgement. For if we allow our hearts to be hardened then we are restricting the life that is given through the true love of Jesus Christ.”

James A. Harrison

http://balancedlifeministry.org

http://specialdeliverybook.com   

A Father And A Son

by Leave a Comment

I once heard a story of a father who was trying to read the paper with his young son sitting on the floor beside him. The child kept disturbing his father and distracting him from the article that he was trying to read. After several attempts of the father telling the young son to not disturb him the father found a picture of the world in the paper. He then tore the picture into several different small parts and then handed all the pieces to his son.

His son asked,”Dad, what do you want me to do with these pieces of paper?” Cleverly thinking, the father then said,”I want you to take these pieces of paper and reconstruct the picture of the world.” The son went to work and the father finally thought he would have some peace but no sooner than he got relaxed he heard his son say,”I got it Dad!”

To his surprise he looked down to see the picture of the world back together and then he said to his young son,”How did you reconstruct the world back together so quickly?” The son then said,”Awe dad it was easy”. What do you mean it was easy, the father asked? “Well dad there was a picture of a man on the back of the world and when I put the man together the world came together.”

The father then picked up his son and said,”I am proud of you son because if we are not together then how can we expect something else to come together?”

James A. Harrison

http://balancedlifeministry.org

http://specialdeliverybook.com

Listen To Our Father’s Voice…

by Leave a Comment

 A few years ago I heard a true story from a friend who had a young son that would not listen. He shared with me about an experience and a lesson that took place with his son and how the grandfather got to witness the consequences of his grandsons wrong actions as well. They were all standing outside in the yard talking while the young son kept stomping on a shovel kicking the handle up in the air.

 The father kept telling his son to stop it because if he kept on he could get hurt. As the two elders continued their conversation the young child that would not listen continued to disobey and stomp on the shovel throwing the handle in the air. The father warned him once again but with a stronger voice in hoping his son would take heed but sure enough the son still chose to not listen. 

 With the fathers voice getting more sturn and the child becoming more defiant the father chose to sit back in order for a lesson to be learned. It wasn’t long after that when the child stomped on the shovel that it came up so quickly that it nailed him right between his eyes. The child then ran to his father with tears of pain and the father did not scold him but comforted him in love.

  See this lesson of a father allowing his son to get hurt due to his disobedience did not mean that he did not love the child. The father knew that if his son would not listen that the best lesson learned is a lesson from the consequences of his actions. Can you see how this lesson relates with us today through our Father in Heaven above? Why is it that we choose to not listen and that we have to be hit between the eyes to see?

 When we choose to not listen is when we simply have to learn things the hard way….

James A. Harrison

http://balancedlifeministry.org

http://specialdeliverybook.com

Spiritual Revelations

Don’t be like Eli in 1st Samuel and miss something that has been given by God. If you recall with Eli he did not listen because the Word of God was rare in those days and he did not recognize what was taking place until he saw the persistence of Samuel…

Read More ▸

Be Inspired!

Voice Your Opinion!

Connect with Us!

FacebookButton